This and that and the other thing..

[shadowkat]

1. Amazed I made it to work today without a)getting killed by a bus, or reaming said bus with my cane, b)getting knocked over by several pedestrains, not giving in to the temptation to trip said pedestrains with cane, c) injuring hip attempting to sit on train next to annoying woman who felt the need to take up six seats...and not clobbering said woman with cane. And who says life is not an obstacle course?

2. Ah, the bowling match above my head has stopped finally. They must be taking a lunch break.

3. Lost rocked last night. (Well it did if you ignore the whole island storyline which has become incredibly convoluted.) The Lock story though - highly satisfying. Particularly the small bits with Ben in them. The Sawyer story thread...was okay. May or may not write a review. selenak
already has in case you are interested. The other thing that rocked was Big Bang Theory - which made me giggle throughout, I think it was re-run.

4. Was reading that fic Imitation of A Man last night - yeah, I know, still.
Don't ask me why, but there's something about it I must find compelling. It is well written in places. And the feminization of Spike and masculation of Buffy that I find fascinating, particularly since I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the writer appears to be unaware of it. Spike's clearly in the traditional female role here (not traditional in the sense of cooking, etc - but in how relationships are traditionally presented in literature and media) while Buffy's in the traditional male. (Generally speaking in most novels and media - men usually aren't in talking about their feelings, while women are. Men more action oriented, women more into talking/communicating. As evidenced by 85% of the tv shows currently on the air.) Anyhow when my Kindle couldn't access basic web last night to get the next chapter, I found myself scrolling through the comments to amuse myself. And one of the author (darkapple)'s comments truly befuddled me. A true WTF moment. The author stated and I'm doing this from memory, so wording may be slightly off - "what I love most about Spike is he brings no baggage to his love, his love is so pure, so absolute, there's no baggage, just pure love". Uhm okay. What??? Seriously - WTF??? There are days in which I feel as if we are on separate planets or dimensions in our interpretations/communications. Can writers be this unaware of what they are doing? I'm guessing so. Or maybe I'm just misreading the thing? Both are equally possible.

5. Definitely have a stress fracture. Doc seems to think it was caused by my massive hike home from church - which was you know, 40 blocks. 40 blocks is the equivalent of a half a mile maybe a mile. Hardly massive. The man clearly drives everywhere. With any luck will get a boot by the end of the week or weekend at the latest.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

It is a dicey topic to talk about and I can see why there was huge kerfuffle.

And I should state right off the bat that I personally have 0 problems with slash, writing it, or enjoying it, heck have read it myself. And I'm heterosexual. It would annoy me greatly if someone judged my tastes based on sexuality or vice versa. Also, it does not help that there is a RL stigma attached to slash, which I've discovered every time I've somewhat unwisely attempted to broach the topic in certain settings. A lot of people make the mistake of generalizing it - based on how f/f slash has been used historically in certain mediums solely for the entertainment of and by heterosexual men, and in a context that has been demeaning/demoralizing and/or objectifying of women - ie - we are no more than sex objects and so are our relationships with other women. (Which was the objection a lot of fans had with the Buffy/Satsu depiction in the comics - they felt it was used solely for fanboy titillation purposes like in the past. I don't believe it was - having read all the issues to date. But at the time, I admittedly felt much the same thing myself.)

But - while it is certainly true that there are heterosexual women who use m/m slash forthe same reasons heterosexual men traditionally have used f/f slash - the difference is women aren't in power. So their use does not necessarily overshadow real male/male relationships in the eye of the media, while the male f/f slash has in the past done exactly that. At least that's my impression of the negative reaction we get when slash is brought up in some settings. And why some feminists get very upset.

That said? In regards to "fanfic" - I agree it is impossible to know who the majority of writers are or who the fans are reading it. On the net, part of the fun, is the anynomity.
If you make any generalizations - you get in trouble. Because there's no way of knowing.

Just because I think most of the people on my flist who write slash are most likely het, and most who don't aren't - doesn't mean it is true. In fact, thinking about it right now - I'd say it most likely isn't. One simply cannot know.