Grey Sunday morning reading

[flemmings]

If I embroidered, I'd make framed samplers of certain of petronia's observations, like this one

anti-warnings people don't actually know why warnings rub them the wrong way, to the extent that they're willing to be assholes about it.

Adorned with sweet fat roses and pixel-square puppies and kittens. People are certainly being assholes today over at metafandom, is why I should be reading post secret instead.

(Warnings rub me the wrong way. They also make me not want to read any story they're attached to for the same reason kink fic challenges make me not want to read-- 'Yeah, that sounds like a surefire invitation to same old same old'.)

It's not confined to kink challenges, it's just that the last time I saw this was in a kink challenge, but-- a long-standing peeve of mine is the one where the strait-laced character with principles and ethics and a distinct code of conduct becomes a helpless and unthinking slave of passion because, er, well, usually because someone kisses him. Does Klaus have any objection to gay men and gay sex? No of course not. It's all a sham and pretence, as such objections must be; or if not hypocrisy, then an honestly mistaken impression ('Say, I like green eggs and ham!') that he will abandon joyfully when Dorian kisses him, and proceed at once to hot monkey sex.

My curmudgeonly belief that People Nowadays Have No Moral Standards is reinforced by seeing writers who have no clue how people with moral standards think and work. It's not like trying on a new shade of lipstick, truly. Just once I'd like to see a story where someone puts the moves on a puritanical character and that character does *not* at once lose his self-discipline and his rational faculties because his cock is talking too loud. What? Did it never talk to him before? I'm sure it did and I'm sure he's learned how to deal with it. So why is he so witless all of a sudden?

Even less do people here have any notion how a self-respecting character is going to approach an undignified activity. (Am hampered by lack of English vocabulary. Undignified = unsuited to one of your station in a society that dictates that your station imposes certain behaviours on you, which behaviours effectively are what make you, you. These behaviours may be relaxed in the society of bar hostesses or if drunk-- *maybe*-- but not in your own office in sight of your own underlings.) Yaoistically it's perfectly permissable for the tight-assed Major to become a randy lech, but once again that really only works with pictures. Write him that way and I'm going to wonder why Klaus has suddenly become an American gay man, without shame or constraint or the slightest hint of a superego.

And otherwise: to view certain stuff at deviantart I must have a deviantart account. Do I want one?

And otherwise: if I'm travelling in October, and it looks like I am, because paleaswater won't be free till then, do I want to go to yaoicon, since I've crossed the Deplorable Border already? I know the answer to that is no, because I hate flying and I hate cons and I don't necessarily hate hilly cities but lord do they hate me. But people will be there, only people will be busy, only there'll be many other people there and all of them will be screeching. Mh. To be considered further.

Comments

[incandescens]

Well, if you are there, do let me know, so I can meet you face to face and we can astonish one another. :)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Your presence is one of the main draws of Yaoicon, but the atmosphere might be a touch frenetic for calm conversation.

[incandescens]

That is very flattering, and if you do turn up, I hope I'm not too much of a disappointment. :)

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

I agree with pretty much everything you said about lack o' moral standards and the like. It's why I need to be really careful about reading fanfic--99% of it seems to be written by 14-year-olds whose bloodstreams are bursting with hormones so they're suffering from Random Unfocused Horniness, so naturally EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER EVERYWHERE IN ANYTHING is the EXACT SAME WAY. (You rotten kids! Get offa my lawn!!)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

The thing being that I *know* these guys aren't fourteen. It's just that 14 is the default ethos of sexuality in fandom.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

Warnings rub me the wrong way when it comes down to do I spoil the story for the sake of maybe having a reader who is triggered by ___? Published writers don't warn for triggers in their fiction, after all. I do indicate spoiler warnings, usually the issue/episode the story takes place up to, and I would probably warn for death or cannibalism or something, depending on the story and fandom. Mostly I get around this by only posting genfic and keeping my darker stories in the realm of original fiction; which never gets posted anywhere. XD (Oh, wait, I did write a drabble for 'Let the Right One In' that I believe I added a warning for. But, seriously, if I'm writing fanfiction for THAT story you'd think readers would clue in it will involve some messed up stuff.)

a long-standing peeve of mine is the one where the strait-laced character with principles and ethics and a distinct code of conduct becomes a helpless and unthinking slave of passion because, er, well, usually because someone kisses him.
This sounds like 90% of all Star Trek fics involving Spock; especially in light of the new movie as Spock is shown to be somewhat sexually active outside of his Pon Farr cycle.

Just once I'd like to see a story where someone puts the moves on a puritanical character and that character does *not* at once lose his self-discipline and his rational faculties because his cock is talking too loud.
Yes! Or that their puritanical views are a choice and not the result of past trauma that only sex can heal. <--pet peeve Yes, it is rather exciting to see a character of firm moral resolve melt but it should be more a war of attrition than a single protest followed by immediate surrender.

Often the puritanical character's self-control is translated into BDSM or D/s which is quite the leap to make. Not that I mind either but chances are someone who doesn't act on sexual impulses due to morals will also be someone who isn't inclined to dress up in funny outfits in front of a partner or engage in role-playing activities.

But I suppose the kink is the dissolution of their resolve or the sexual perversions they hide.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I'm all for dissolution of resolve but you have it exactly-- war of attrition is what's needed. Capitulating after a single shot across the bows is a letdown.

I've never come across the 'straitlaced because traumatized' thing to explain why straitlaced characters are that way, but I can only too easily believe it. Popular level psychology, what thou hast wrought.

chances are someone who doesn't act on sexual impulses due to morals will also be someone who isn't inclined to dress up in funny outfits in front of a partner or engage in role-playing activities

*Please* tell that to the fangirls. This is largely why I don't read kinkfic. Its main purpose is the kink, and the characters are then shoe-horned into it regardless of probability. Sure, you can draw Spock in a maid's outfit and present it as a fait accompli, but you can't write Spock suddenly donning a maid's outfit and hope to get away with it, not if you're using stock limited third narration.