I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled

[flemmings]

I see memes going around- the Fandom Sins meme, the shipping meme, and I... um, am at a loss. 'My concept of shipping'? 'Cosplay and mimicking characters?'

Have you ever
Stalked some one online/at a con/at school, because of who they cosplayed/RP/remind you of?
Claimed a character as your muse/soulbond/head mate?
Claimed you ARE a given character?

To paraphrase the Brit sitcom that ran before, well, most of you guys were born, "they didn't do things like that when we were alive."

Trundles off with her walker and her fleecy booties...

...still muttering 'Concept of *shipping*???'

Comments

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

FLEECY BOOTIES!
I sometimes want to steal my granny's fleecy booties. XD

Yes, I agree with you about the memes.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I want to transport to Japan and ransack one of the little old lady stores for fleecy booties, woolly socks, support knee-highs (which are thigh-high on them), wadded vests and quilted underwear. OTOH the Japanese, last I noticed, still hadn't twigged to the fact that covering the head and neck is what keeps you warm, hence hoodies and balaclavas are what one needs in unheated houses in the wintertime.

(I found fleecy ankle-high booties at the Chinese dollar store but the soles eventually cracked and they never got that kind again.)

[nekonexus.livejournal.com]

Nothing substantive to add, except: huh, I can *read* that French in the second link/journal. ^_^ Not as rusty as I thought.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Gives the ego a boost, I always find. And then I try to read a magazine article in French and it's all oh forgeddid...

[doire]

It's so galling that the 5 years of French at school, which I disliked and failed, have stuck so much better than the German from living there in my 30s and the Japanese in my 50s.

That said no matter which language I need to speak in the brain goes "Oh, forign" and produces the wrong one.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Oh I hear you. Disliked French and dropped it as soon as I could. But of course I picked it up again in *my* 30s, and I see it (or a gross caricature of it- am not good enough to tell) on the other side of any label I happen to look at every day.

*And* about the other thing. 'There can only be one!' second language in my brain and it's the one I've heard most recently. I have a sad story about going to the French Consulate here while on vacation from my Tokyo job and thinking I could still speak French ha-ha.

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

Heee! *grinshudder* - Oh the things (fic) I've subjected myself to when I was an unknowing newbie ... *shudders some more* - nobody knows the the troubles I've seen nobody knows my sorrow' - young and foolish I was. ^_~

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Saved from making idiots of ourselves by the fact there was no net, I suppose. Or cosplay. Even so, are these things as common as all that? Even five years ago they'd have been called pure batshittery.

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

sadly ... ALL of those listed on the list STILL exist ... *sigh* At least this time I know to avoid them.

Although I do attend cosplay events I think I am safe in that I don't know enough to wonder about the true batshittery that goes on there ... ^_~

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I have heard the fangirls squeeing, each to each...

(in other words: you rotten kids! get offa my lawn!!)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I do not think they will squee to me.

Fortunately.

[flo-nelja.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you did'n like it. ^^

If I can explain myself, most of the "fandom sins" are things I'm quite ashamed of.

And for the "concept of shipping", it's something I often clash with some of the fandom... when I say "I love A/B", it doesn't mean "I want them to be together forever", it can mean "I feel that the one-sided feelings from A to B in this part of canon are well-written".

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

It's not that I didn't like it, really, but that the people who made those memes thought that *this* is how fandom is conducted. From the fanficrants and fandom_wank material of the Fandom Sins list, to the metafandom smell of 'shipping and its practice', those memes managed to hit all the lowest points and most deplorable practices of fandom.

when I say "I love A/B", it doesn't mean "I want them to be together forever", it can mean "I feel that the one-sided feelings from A to B in this part of canon are well-written".

See, that's the rational approach to shipping (or pairing or whatever.) It says something that shipping now has automatic connotations of batshit fervour and fandom holy war in people's minds. Mind, the religious fundamentalists are always there in RL giving lessons on how it's done; the fans just took lessons from their environment.

[incandescens]

... and even if I had done some of the things on that list, I wouldn't admit to them in public.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

This, as the young'uns also say. Shame is dead; and since I've been campaigning for the death of shame for a while now, why am I not happier?

[incandescens]

Because there's a difference between being (a) ashamed of one's tastes, which is not necessarily a good idea, and (b) being ashamed of one's stupidity, which is a good wholesome force that helps us not to be idiots in future?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Difference between thought and deed? Yes, I think that's it.

Just, writing Mary Sues and writing self-inserts are stages a fanwriter goes through; for some people, possibly necessary stages in learning to interact with somebody else's world. Once you've been you in the Death Note world and seen that world through your own eyes (and found the most basic satisfaction there is in fantasy-- Everything is perfect now!) you can go on to being Light in the DN world and seeing through his eyes and going for something beyond straight wish-fulfillment. I don't think someone in that stage should feel ashamed, or be made to feel ashamed, of doing it.

[incandescens]

Agreed. As long as they understand that not everyone else will be as interested in reading it as they are, then it's ... a very useful thing, as you say, and maybe even necessary. And one that can be dissassembled later for good bits.

(And besides, we all have our own private Mary Sue daydreams at the back of our heads. I do, at least. The wish-fulfilment dream is still a valid dream.)

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

*nod* Mary Sue fic (and fantasizing or whatever you want to call it) has a definite purpose in the world. It's just not necessary (or wise) to plaster it all over the web and insist that it's genius of the highest caliber.

[kickinpants.livejournal.com]

Mmmmmm...I got me some of them thar' fleecy booties. They're real comfy. ^_^

I'm just glad the Internets wasn't as common/prevalent/every home in the early 90's/late 80's or else I might have filled the world-wide-web with my Dragonlance Mary Sues.............

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Dragonlance Mary Sues sound rather fun, actually. Better than Potter Sues, because hey, how many people actually wrote Dragonlance?