(no subject)
I don't know if it shows that I am finally starting to "get into" LJ (God help me), but I have found a new game for navigating through its swampy and treacherous waters.
I pick a random number between 50 and 100, and then random-search an LJ. Read a bit, find out if it interests me, then go to their friends list. Count off the number I picked - if they have less than that, halve the number, rounding up if necessary, then follow that friend link.
Repeat until either:
a) you go round in a circle
b) you find someone with no friends (I mean no LJ friends, of course - judging by some of thwe shit I've come across, I'd say real-life friends would really be asking a lot for some of these dudes)
c) you get thoroughly bored.
Actually, although (c) is the most likely ending, it's a strangely moreish pastime - a magical mystery tour round the globe's most neurotic psyches. When it works, you get a path which has recognisable cross-linkage, but changes a bit and throws up some surprises. When it doesn't, you just get to deal with a lot of emotional fuck-ups. Guess which happens more often...
This evening's trawl found me paddling in ever-decreasing circles round a community of fanfic and slashfic aficionados - mainly Buffy, with sprinklings of Harry Potter (HP slashfic is a seriously screwed-up concept however you look at it), and some other stuff.
The key point about fanfic is that it is not fiction writing in its full sense, nomatter ho fucking precious its proponents get about it. Fanfic is a writer saying "I want to be a writer, but I can't do difficult things like characters, so I'm going to swipe yours because they're readymade and I like them. Oh, and I'll have some of your plots while I'm at it". This is not to say that fanfic can't be a) enjoyable to read if done well, and b) reasonable writing practice, but it isn't real fiction writing, where you create a situation, the charatcers to inhabit it, their motives, and the ties that bind them.
Slashfic, meanwhile, is just the product of an imagination that really needs to get out and smell the roses, climb a few hills, and if all else fails get rat-arsed on good wine with people who have no interest in slashfic.
You may well ask why I'm in such a bloody-minded mood at the moment.
Well, specifically it's because I'm ill - head-cold, with burst water-main in left nostril, and ears currently operating at about 15% capacity (with attendant balance wobbles). I wanted to go out today, but have instead stayed in, read a bit, watched the England match which proved excruciatingly dull), and been latterly unable even to watch films, due to hearing (or lack thereof).
More generally, my boredom with sniping, griping and bottom-wiping that seems to infest Mono at the moment. I'm not sure "The Thrill Is Gone" would be an appropriate soundtrack to this, since there was never an abundance of thrill to start with, but something is missing, and the waves of emigrees to here and (more importantly) to real-life pursuits bears witness to that.
In excahnge for which, Mono got kroz back. Lucky old Mono.
Bored, lonely and irritable - not an ideal combination. Well, never mind...
I pick a random number between 50 and 100, and then random-search an LJ. Read a bit, find out if it interests me, then go to their friends list. Count off the number I picked - if they have less than that, halve the number, rounding up if necessary, then follow that friend link.
Repeat until either:
a) you go round in a circle
b) you find someone with no friends (I mean no LJ friends, of course - judging by some of thwe shit I've come across, I'd say real-life friends would really be asking a lot for some of these dudes)
c) you get thoroughly bored.
Actually, although (c) is the most likely ending, it's a strangely moreish pastime - a magical mystery tour round the globe's most neurotic psyches. When it works, you get a path which has recognisable cross-linkage, but changes a bit and throws up some surprises. When it doesn't, you just get to deal with a lot of emotional fuck-ups. Guess which happens more often...
This evening's trawl found me paddling in ever-decreasing circles round a community of fanfic and slashfic aficionados - mainly Buffy, with sprinklings of Harry Potter (HP slashfic is a seriously screwed-up concept however you look at it), and some other stuff.
The key point about fanfic is that it is not fiction writing in its full sense, nomatter ho fucking precious its proponents get about it. Fanfic is a writer saying "I want to be a writer, but I can't do difficult things like characters, so I'm going to swipe yours because they're readymade and I like them. Oh, and I'll have some of your plots while I'm at it". This is not to say that fanfic can't be a) enjoyable to read if done well, and b) reasonable writing practice, but it isn't real fiction writing, where you create a situation, the charatcers to inhabit it, their motives, and the ties that bind them.
Slashfic, meanwhile, is just the product of an imagination that really needs to get out and smell the roses, climb a few hills, and if all else fails get rat-arsed on good wine with people who have no interest in slashfic.
You may well ask why I'm in such a bloody-minded mood at the moment.
Well, specifically it's because I'm ill - head-cold, with burst water-main in left nostril, and ears currently operating at about 15% capacity (with attendant balance wobbles). I wanted to go out today, but have instead stayed in, read a bit, watched the England match which proved excruciatingly dull), and been latterly unable even to watch films, due to hearing (or lack thereof).
More generally, my boredom with sniping, griping and bottom-wiping that seems to infest Mono at the moment. I'm not sure "The Thrill Is Gone" would be an appropriate soundtrack to this, since there was never an abundance of thrill to start with, but something is missing, and the waves of emigrees to here and (more importantly) to real-life pursuits bears witness to that.
In excahnge for which, Mono got kroz back. Lucky old Mono.
Bored, lonely and irritable - not an ideal combination. Well, never mind...