Me Me Me!

[meganbmoore]

Mostly a quick post about what I read/watch/like/post on/tend to think/views on canon and fandom and the like for newer friends.

What I post on:

Usually I try to keep this LJ fannish/entertainment.  I don't write fic(though there has been a Saiyuki crackfic bouncing around in my head, so one MIGHT show up here one day...don't count on it, though) or do fanart, but I do make icons.  I make icons largely because I find it relaxing, not because I think I'm an artist or entitled or anything like that.  Because of that, they're usually very simple icons, and certainly not the best ones out there.  Though as some can attest, I do do requests.  Mostly though, I post about things I read or watch.  

What I read/watch the most:

*Doramas(live action asian TV shows)
*Anime
*Manga
*Movies
*Fantasy novels
*Comic books

I am an action/history/epic/fantasy/mythology-in-fiction/storytelling meta FIEND who also like mysteries and SciFi, but is rather choosy about both.  Among the properties most often on my brain, whether or not I post on them the most, in no order, are:

*Blade of the immortal(manga)
*Remington Steele(80s TV)
*Saiyuki(anime and manga)
*Samurai Deeper Kyo(manga)
*Stargate SG-1(US TV)
*Dresden Files and Codex Alera by Jim Butcher(novels)
*Bleach(manga, though soon to start watching the anime)
*Basara(manga)
*xXxHoLic(manga)
*Any Chika Shiomi manga
*Wallflower(manga)
*Fruits Basket(manga)
*Avatar(US TV)
*Togari(manga)
*Jason Bourne(movies)
*How much I hate Marvel and am coming to hate DC(comic book publishers) but still give them money, and ranting about what they're doing to my loves/thier properties.
*Princess Tutu(anime-recent development that may or may not last)
*Urban fantasy/paranormal romance(and my frustration with speshul heroines surrounded by hot vampires in particular) in general
*Doramas in general, though I gravitate to wuxia, period Korean and Japanese dramas, and general Japanese dramas.

As you can see, I'm rather anime/manga centric.  It is also possible that I'll start posting on Bollywood soon, but I don't know yet.  I have seen one Bollywood movie, Asoka, and liked it with reservations.  I plan to check out a couple more soon, but don't know yet if it'll take off for me.

Spam:

I spam LJ.  I apologize.  It is often due to my dealing with boredom or annoyance, but also often happens because I see something I want to comment/post on, even if it's only a line or two, and think I'll forget it if I save it for a post with more substance.

Typos:

I make a lot of typos, I apologize for that, too.  I try to catch them, but often don't.  However, while I do make many genuine typos, most "typos" that change one word to another are deliberate(for example, I sometime refers to the Spider-man character Norman Osborn as Normal Osborn, because he's batty as a fruitcake.)  The only unintentional instance of changing one word to another that I know of was when I referred to a hero as being a "bedass" hero when I meant to say "badass."

Memes:

I do memes I think are fun or interesting.  Sometimes I go weeks without seeing an interesting one, sometimes I'm tripping over them.

Friends Only Posts: 

I make very few friends only posts, usually relating to real life(which I don't want RL people to see) or a reaction to a fandom thing or review or whatever that...I don't want anyone else to see.  I expect info in friends only posts to stay that way and not be brought up in comments in other posts.

Canon/Fandom/Slash/etc:

Canon:

I am a canon nazi.  I am drawn to things because of canon, I stay with them because of canon, when I talk aboutthem, I want to talk about canon, or possibilities within canon.    I have no interest in being persuaded to change my views based on anything that isn't  canon(stated or implied within canon) or to bend over sideways and twist canon to make something possible.  I see no point in debating canon.  That said, I don't look down on or disregard people for liking non-canon things...I just don't agree and assume there are plenty of other things we can talk about that we do agree on.  I am also always good for a nice bit of crack, as long as there's no attempting to use it to skew canon.

Slash:

I have no problems with canon slash.  I also have no interest in it.  It bores me.  When I first got into anime and manga, most other female fans I knew then told me it was more interesting.  I tried out a few yaoi they recommended and the furthest I got into one was about a volume and a half.  As near as I can tell, it only works if you find m/m(or f/f, the rare occassions it pops up) inherently interesting.  I don't.  There are a fair number of things I have enjoyed(such as xXxHoLic, one of my current favorite manga-AND I AM ONLY ON VOLUME SEVEN, SO SPOIL ME-beyond non-specific crack/angst teases-AND DIE!!!, or, if you want Saiyuki, though what is and isn't canon there could be debated for months) that have slash subtext, but the more a focus it is, the less interest I have.  That said, I also have little tolerance for m/f where there's no point but the romance, so really, I just like more to my stories than romance...I am a plot/action/character development girl.  But my general lack of interest in slash makes my tolerance level for slash-specific stuff fairly low.

That said...that is CANON SLASH.  I have no interest in or tolerance for fanon slash, esp. since the principles involved are almost always straight, either one or both, and one almost ALWAYS has a canon pairing, meaning that you have to butcher, ignore, or twist the canon relationship and/or female character to make it work.  No thank you.

Fandom:

To be honest, fandoms in general scare me.  The first fandom I ever got into was the Magnificent Seven TV show.  Of the 8 main characters, one was female.  As I'm sure you can imagine, most of the fandom was all about the slash and how dare this woman be around all our hot guys and bending over backwards to find faults with her.  Future forays haven't fared any better.  In addition, most of my fandom experience involves seeing people bend over backwards and look sideways to explain how something is or isn't canon, and then just this...mass agreement if it fits what people want, as opposed to what it actually is.  I skirt the edges of various fandoms, looking for people to friend or info, but that's it.

Besides...ever try being a het and gen fan who sticks to canon in most online fandoms?   I have yet to find an online fandom I'd like to be a part of where I wouldn't be in the vast minority.  From an outsider's view, most fandoms are slash and non-canon shipping centric, and gen seems to be largely ignored.

Fanfic:

Here's the thing...I actually like canon based het and gen fic...but have you ever tried finding canon based het and gen fanfic?  Ever try finding het or gen fanfic for Samurai Deeper Kyo that isn't alternashipping or some AU high school thing?  Most people think I deliberately look for bad fic, which isn't true(ok, occassionally I do if I want laughs or the chance to mock...but on those occassions I go into things that I know only attract badfic...like Eragon)  Most badfic I just stumble across, looking for something good.  The thing is that it's very, very hard to find good het and gen fic(without canon being ignored or AUs.)  Everytime I think I find a good one...I haven't.  Every once in a while I'll find a nice, short crack fic or a gen drabble, but that's it.  As a result, I rarely ever bother anymore.

All that said:  I don't care if people like slash, are all about the crack, etc.  I also don't care(or generally mind) if they want to talk to be about it, and I read such posts and often find them interesting(well, not the fic, but...)  Just don't try to sway me to wishfulling viewpoints that aren't based on canon, convince me that I'm wrong to like canon, that I should like slash, etc.  Basically, respect me and I'll respect you(which does not remotely translate as "you must always agree with me and like/hate the characters I like/hate), and accept that canon is canon(in my LJ...do whatever you want in yours and I'll still read it.)

Also, you will find that I have many easily catered to kinks and weaknesses, wear them on my sleeves, and they're easy to exploit.  People do so regularly.  "Swords" and "crack" often being the easiest to exploit.  Also "badass characters" and certain canon pairing types.

Comments

[telophase.livejournal.com]

OMG U CANNON HOR!

What I don't get about fandom is the mad, almost singleminded focus on pairings, of whatever composition. I mean ... dude, if I wanted to focus on the romantic relationships to the exclusion of everything else, I'd be reading romance novels.

[maxineofarc.livejournal.com]

And you're not even in Harry Potter fandom. Pity us. Please.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I do. Oh, how I do.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

HP fandom scares me like nothing in existance.

[maxineofarc.livejournal.com]

I kind of do one of those LA LA LA things and pretend I can't hear most of it, because it scares the bejeezus out of me and I'm at least nominally IN it.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I don't get it either, canon or otherwise(otherwise especially...if you don't like canon, I don't see why you bother with it.) I mean, sure, I tend to get caught up in canon pairings, but they're almost never the main draw, and extremely rarely are they what keeps me coming back. What about non-romantic relationships? Character growth? plot? Crack? You know, good stuff...why must fandom so exclusively focus on pairings?

I do read romance novels...when I don't want to think or care.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

WHY DO YOU INSIST PLOT GET IN THE WAY OF SHIPS, HUH?

Someone on my f-list actually asked me why I read fic, if I wasn't interested in the pairings. Er ... radical idea, for the entire rest of the story?

[bzoppa.livejournal.com]

hahahaha...

that's.. just awesome.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I'm just as happy to read gen as pairing-focused stuff, although good gen is typically in shorter supply. But when I am in the mood for romance, or flat-out-smut, I'd generally rather read fic for a pairing I really like than most mainstream romances or erotica -- it's harder to find characters there that resonate with me as deeply, the plots are too often focused exclusively on the getting-the-characters-together, or (especially in the case of shorter erotic fiction) the characterization isn't as in-depth as I'd like. But a good romantic/porny fic can piggyback on all the backstory and characterization and plot of the source canon, so even if that particular fic is only focused on the relationship issues, in my head it's still inextricably linked to all the canon material, and that makes it much more satisfying than a standalone romance novel with a similar focus.

In a perfect world, I'd still love to see more genfic, and I'd love to see more shippy/smutty fic with actual plots to go along with all the sex and/or emotion!porn. But if the right characters are involved, and I'm in the right mood, I'd still rather take even just a gratuitous bit of schmoop or PWP instead of some random Harlequin.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Oh, how much do I love this post.

And ditto on how hard it is to be a canon nazi in most fandoms :)

(Except for Farscape, oddly enough)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Heh...the funny thing is...I know there are a few fandoms I could get into that would be canon centric...but I have no interest in the fandom. Most of the ones I'm interested in...are the scary ones.

Then there are fandoms like Farscape and Stargate SG-1, where I'm interested in the fandom(and I need to get your Farscape DVDs back to you soon) but everyone else is years ahead of me, so I'm not about to touch it until I'm caught up(I love spoilers before I'm into something to get me interested...then scourge them from the mind once I'm caught up in it.) I understand that Farscape has the only edding ever to match or top(which seems debatable) the Will/Elizabeth wedding in PotC.

[chomiji]

I think I figured out why I care to be a canon martinet in most fiction but tend to go into fanon easily in manga.

In most manga, especially the shounen types, there is not nearly so much character internal processing on display. So when I was writing my Yuletide piece, I knew for a fact who actually fancied whom, and why. In manga, you know what the characters do, but frequently, not what they think.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I think the difference is that in manga, you have to pay attention to how they act to catch onto their feelings, as, outside of romantic shojo, people rarely ever directly address feelings, romantic or otherwise. You have to watch what they say and don't say and what they do to and don't do to catch on.

[chomiji]

Hmmm ... that only serves to increase my respect for Minekura-sensei's subtlety, then, because ... well, you know what I'm gonna say - generally, at least.

Seriously, I don't think that even in manga, every mental process of the characters is on display. For example, canonically, can you answer "What does Yukimura actually think of Benitora?" Kamijyo probably would know, if you asked her (authors know far more about their major characters than they even put down on paper), but it's not that easy to figure out from the manga.

(meganb, I missed your b-day last month ... if I wrote a Kyo/Yuya fic, at which point in the story would you most like to see it occur?)

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

OMG, reading your post, it suddenly occurred to me why I am doomed to loving things with teeny tiny fandoms. Because you can't create massive shipping wars! There might be a canon couple and then... nope, just the one canon couple.

Other than that, yes, I agree.

Though I do read yaoi. Well, specific ones anyway. I don't like most of it. (Gee, what else is new?)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I like teeny fandoms for that reason myself...but can rarely find them.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Your ideas about slash are almost exactly the same as mine. *sigh* You have no idea how happy that makes me feel. (Sometimes I would swear I'm one of the three people in fandom who DON'T want more than one penii in a sex scene.)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

heh...well, there are more than three...but we are vastly outnumbered.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Heh, see, now I keep running across so many people who are so strongly focused on ONLY slash or ONLY het that I feel like the odd one out at times for being willing to read either, with no strong preferences either way! (Sure, at the individual character/pairing level there are some fandoms where I end up reading more slash or more het, but just in the abstract I honestly don't have a preference.)

And I do love good genfic, when I can find it...but Fandom Wank put it so well:

GEN: An oasis in the desert of shipping wars. No pairings, not even the smallest bit of subtext. Just good old-fashioned plot.

Therefore, nobody writes it.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yes we are.

[wistfulmemory.livejournal.com]

Let's see. I believe I found you through dangermousie's LJ. I love your commentary on manga, anime, and dramas. They entertain me and cause me to check out some things that I wouldn't have considered if you hadn't recommended them.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Heh...I often tend to go for the obscure things no one has heard of, don't i?

[droiche.livejournal.com]

Wow. I agree with everything you said. O_O

Aye. I'd give a lot to see more gen fics too. *nods*

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah. As much as I like my shipping, shipping canon usually removes my needs for shippy fic(plus, with my big ships...well, they rarely fit then conventional romantic stuff, and people try to shoehorn them into that and it doesn't work) but it's so hard to find good gen fic in most fandoms, esp. since people tend to insert their ships into the fics.

[droiche.livejournal.com]

Quite. My favorite pairing ships are canon for the most part. I like the fics for them that are logical and reasonably realistic, but I can't stand the "let's turn this into a Cinemax pr0n movie" plots. I never was one for smut simply for the sake of smut nor am I big on sappy romances.