Half-woman, half-ocean
Jun. 13th, 2021 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12This weekend, I have swum a total of 3.5km in two days. I made the decision to book swimming sessions at the outdoor pool in Cambridge on both days — knowing that the weather would be really hot — and I am very pleased that I did so.
I had been planning to swim my normal 1km on Saturday and then stop, but I got to that point and felt I might as well swim another 500m, so I did. And then today my feeling was that if I'd managed 1.5km I may as well just push through to 2km, especially since it was so hot and I was in no hurry to get out of the water. I've never swum 2km in one go in my entire life, and I'm kind of shocked at how easy it was, especially since I haven't really done any swimming since August last year.
(For those to whom such things are meaningful and relevant, I swim freestyle, and the pool is 90m in length.)
Onwards to the fandom meme.
Day 11: What would make you leave a fandom, or prevent you from getting into it in the first place?
The big thing would be the platform on which the bulk of fannish activity was taking place. If the fandom is congregating largely on Twitter, Tumblr, Discord, or some combination thereof (or, worse, on TikTok), I'd be unlikely to participate, and if it moved solely to those platforms, I wouldn't follow.
From around 2007-2012, I spent a huge amount of time hanging out with fellow His Dark Materials in our IRC chatroom, but I feel like after that, my patience and energy for real-time fandom platforms waned completely. I enjoyed it at the time, but those years coincided with a) me having a minimal in-person social life and b) my move to the UK and the first years of my postgraduate studies. That sort of thing is much more conducive to a daily routine of returning to the house, preparing dinner, and settling in for an evening hanging out in a chatroom.
I'm also disinclined to get involved in fandoms that are big, fandoms that skew young, and/or fandoms that view shipping as activism.
Day 12: Who is someone that you share the most fandoms with?
Most of my fandoms are pretty tiny, as you're all well aware. When it comes to taste in books, I think mine aligns pretty closely withmerit's: if one of us likes a book, the other seems to take that as a recommendation, and there is a lot of overlap in our Goodreads yearly reading logs.
Day 13: Squicks - What are some things that squick you in fandom - not necessarily "icky", though it can be. From anything involving blood, to bad grammar.
I want to preface this by saying that I think of 'squicks' as morally neutral preferences — when I dislike something (whether it's a trope, a common fanfic scenario, a character dynamic or whatever), I'm not suggesting that such things shouldn't exist, or assuming anything about the character of people who do like them. And my squicks apply to fanworks and original fiction alike.
The squicks that immediately spring to mind are:
-bodily fluids other than tears or blood (I like vampires, so it would be a big problem if I were squicked by blood!)
-'shovel talks' (and secondary characters being overly invested in other people's relationships in general)
-romantic/sexual relationships between characters, one of whom was an adult and originally knew the other character as a child. (Age gaps are fine, even huge age gaps, it's the idea that one character knew the other as a child at some point that I dislike.)
-a character is estranged from their parent(s), or no longer on speaking terms with a past romantic partner. At some point, the parent(s) or partner makes an effort to get back into the character's life, and for some reason, all the character's friends start pushing them to forgive the estranged person, or act like they're being totally unreasonable and heartless by wanting to maintain boundaries or continuing to feel upset about the behaviour that caused them to cut contact with the person in the first place.
-narratives that imply it's terribly damaging for children (especially boys) to be raised by a single mother.
Looking at the above, that's a really weird set of squicks...
Day 14: What fandom broke your heart?
Day 15: What fandom pairing took you over like Venom took over Eddie?
Day 16: Do you have a fandom that you follow - either regularly or casually - with little to no knowledge of canon?
Day 17: Do you prefer art, fic, or vids? Why? Bonus: If someone was to give you a fandom gift, what format would it be?
Day 18: Recall a time when two of your fandoms collided, at least in some way. For example, a song that you fell in love with from one fandom showed up in a second fandom.
Day 19: What is something that you associate with a character in fandom, but aren't sure if it's canon or fandom?
Day 20: A random character shows up at your doorstep at dinnertime saying a friend sent them. Why did your friend send that person, how does it go, and what do you talk about?
I had been planning to swim my normal 1km on Saturday and then stop, but I got to that point and felt I might as well swim another 500m, so I did. And then today my feeling was that if I'd managed 1.5km I may as well just push through to 2km, especially since it was so hot and I was in no hurry to get out of the water. I've never swum 2km in one go in my entire life, and I'm kind of shocked at how easy it was, especially since I haven't really done any swimming since August last year.
(For those to whom such things are meaningful and relevant, I swim freestyle, and the pool is 90m in length.)
Onwards to the fandom meme.
Day 11: What would make you leave a fandom, or prevent you from getting into it in the first place?
The big thing would be the platform on which the bulk of fannish activity was taking place. If the fandom is congregating largely on Twitter, Tumblr, Discord, or some combination thereof (or, worse, on TikTok), I'd be unlikely to participate, and if it moved solely to those platforms, I wouldn't follow.
From around 2007-2012, I spent a huge amount of time hanging out with fellow His Dark Materials in our IRC chatroom, but I feel like after that, my patience and energy for real-time fandom platforms waned completely. I enjoyed it at the time, but those years coincided with a) me having a minimal in-person social life and b) my move to the UK and the first years of my postgraduate studies. That sort of thing is much more conducive to a daily routine of returning to the house, preparing dinner, and settling in for an evening hanging out in a chatroom.
I'm also disinclined to get involved in fandoms that are big, fandoms that skew young, and/or fandoms that view shipping as activism.
Day 12: Who is someone that you share the most fandoms with?
Most of my fandoms are pretty tiny, as you're all well aware. When it comes to taste in books, I think mine aligns pretty closely with
merit's: if one of us likes a book, the other seems to take that as a recommendation, and there is a lot of overlap in our Goodreads yearly reading logs.Day 13: Squicks - What are some things that squick you in fandom - not necessarily "icky", though it can be. From anything involving blood, to bad grammar.
I want to preface this by saying that I think of 'squicks' as morally neutral preferences — when I dislike something (whether it's a trope, a common fanfic scenario, a character dynamic or whatever), I'm not suggesting that such things shouldn't exist, or assuming anything about the character of people who do like them. And my squicks apply to fanworks and original fiction alike.
The squicks that immediately spring to mind are:
-bodily fluids other than tears or blood (I like vampires, so it would be a big problem if I were squicked by blood!)
-'shovel talks' (and secondary characters being overly invested in other people's relationships in general)
-romantic/sexual relationships between characters, one of whom was an adult and originally knew the other character as a child. (Age gaps are fine, even huge age gaps, it's the idea that one character knew the other as a child at some point that I dislike.)
-a character is estranged from their parent(s), or no longer on speaking terms with a past romantic partner. At some point, the parent(s) or partner makes an effort to get back into the character's life, and for some reason, all the character's friends start pushing them to forgive the estranged person, or act like they're being totally unreasonable and heartless by wanting to maintain boundaries or continuing to feel upset about the behaviour that caused them to cut contact with the person in the first place.
-narratives that imply it's terribly damaging for children (especially boys) to be raised by a single mother.
Looking at the above, that's a really weird set of squicks...
Day 14: What fandom broke your heart?
Day 15: What fandom pairing took you over like Venom took over Eddie?
Day 16: Do you have a fandom that you follow - either regularly or casually - with little to no knowledge of canon?
Day 17: Do you prefer art, fic, or vids? Why? Bonus: If someone was to give you a fandom gift, what format would it be?
Day 18: Recall a time when two of your fandoms collided, at least in some way. For example, a song that you fell in love with from one fandom showed up in a second fandom.
Day 19: What is something that you associate with a character in fandom, but aren't sure if it's canon or fandom?
Day 20: A random character shows up at your doorstep at dinnertime saying a friend sent them. Why did your friend send that person, how does it go, and what do you talk about?