Ten Unpopular Opinions

[valarltd]

1) Profic is not canon.

2) I reserve the right to not write minority characters. I would far rather write a 6-legged hermaphrodite from Regula, because there I won't get jumped on as a racist for "failing to properly portray the ethnic experience." Falls under the "making stuff up" research method.

3) Contrary to postmodern thought, words do have meanings. They have denotative and connotative meanings. I cannot, for example, call my evening meal "anthracite" and be taken seriously. The word is "dinner" and while it may mean spaghetti for one, prime rib for another and celery juice with melba toast for a third, it is still the evening meal.

Any time I hear the "words don't really mean anything," I am overcome with a desire to announce: "Master of All Masters, get out of your barnacle and put on your squibs and crackers! White-faced Siminy has got a spark of hot corkalorum on her tail and if not doused with podalorum, soon all High-topper-Mountain will be on hot corkalorum!"

4) Kink is just that: kink. My kink is OK. Your kink is OK. Yours may not push my buttons and vice versa, and that's OK too. It's a big sandbox and surely we can all play nice.

5) You do not hold the patent on the characters. If my interpretation does not jibe with yours, that's because it is mine. I don't hold the patent either.

6) At base, Star Trek is a morality play. At base, Star Wars is mythology. Comparing the two is a disservice to both forms. Both do what they were constructed to do, and that's very different things on each part.

7) Never apologize. You meant it when you said it.

8) If you're going to writre a sex act, try it. Even if it's outside your orientation.

9) Original characters have a place. But it should be for the canon characters to play off of, not one that upstages or deforms the canon characters.

10) Actors are not characters. Slashing a character says nothing about an actor's sexuality, only that the performance has an ambiguous sexual preference. Many fine actors have played gay characters and are straight in real life.

If I write Luke as gay it no more makes the good Mr. Hamill gay than his current Broadway show (in which his character, Michael Minetti, is gay) does. He still goes home with his lovely wife every night. If I decide to write a horrendous crossover in which Rooster Cogburn, Dirty Harry and Robert Thorn (from Soylent Green have nasty tough guy sex, it doesn't make John Wayne, Clint Eastwood or Charlton Heston gay.

Comments

[jkb.livejournal.com]

*These* are unpopular opinions? Oh, yeah, I guess with some people they are. Especially the ones about how everyone can have their own interpretation of the characters, and how each person can have her own kink and people who aren't into it can just chill out and find something else to read. Those are definitely opinions that don't fly with everyone.

The thing about minority characters -- I get driven nuts by the idea that only people of a certain type can write that type of person. Whatever happened to imagination? And then if you do write aliens or whatever, you still get people complaining about "crypto-racism." Like if Lucas decides he wants goofy aliens like Ewoks and Gungans, he gets accused of using them to "represent" stereotyped minorities, so he's still racist. Say what?

[morgan-d.livejournal.com]

1) You want to take profic in consideration when you write fics, fine. You don't want to, fine too. (By the way, if you replace the word "profic" with "canon", the sentence will still reflect my feelings on the matter.)

2) *puzzled* Has there been any issues regarding the the duty to write minority characters?

3) *more puzzled* Who says "words don't really mean anything"? (By the way, words have meanings in different languages too. Someone please hand George Lucas a Portuguese dictionary before he names the characters for movie #3.)

4) Agreed.

5) If my interpretation does not jibe with that of the holder of the patent, that's because it is mine. And that's okay too.

6) I think we can compare ST and SW, just as we can compare, say, "Citizen Kane" and "Amadeus". I don't see any problem with analysing the little things they have in common, as long as we don't forget they're not meant to be the same thing.

7) Well, when I called one of my dearest friends "condescending", I didn't mean it at all. I had no idea that "condescending" (English) and "condescendente" (Portuguese) meant ENTIRELY different things.

8) Hmmm... nope, don't agree here. Should I kill someone if I decide to write about murder? Besides, some of the hottest, most realistic sex scenes I've ever read were written by authors that later revealed to me to be virgins. Imagination is powerful. Self-experience doesn't guarantee interesting writing.

9) That's what I create original characters for. And I tend not to like stories where the OC takes over. However, those stories have their public. *shrugs*

10) That's something the HP fandom should be reminded of from time to time. *growls* And don't mention Charlton Heston around me. Watched "Bowling for Columbine" two days ago, and I'm still seething.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

There is a long-standing argument that words have no meaning except what the reader or hearer gives them.

I think this is wrong. I believe the author and the speaker mean something when they put the words out. I believe that while the sounds may or may not have intrinsic meaning, they do have denotative meaning through centuries and millennia of use.

I really think if one is writing slash one should know the basic mechanics of anal sex. I think the best way to learn is to do it. Because websites aside, spit DOES work as lube, hands-and-knees hurts like hell and most of the time I find it too intense to formulate thoughts let words during.

[morgan-d.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I'll pass the discussion about meaning of the words. It's been too long since I've studied Semiology -- object, symbol, significant, signified... I still remember the basic notions, but not enough for a serious conversation about it.

As for the anal sex... People who did have it have different opinions, it doesn't really work the same way for everyone. One will say that saliva is the best lube ever, another will say it's not enough, needs to be something more oily. One will say it's impossible not to hurt at least a little, another will say it never hurts at all. Never heard any debate about hands-and-knees hurting or not, but from my self-experience I'd say it depends on what kind of surface you have under you.

The thing is... I did have anal sex a few times, and it doesn't help me at all with my smut-writing! ^___^

[storyteller2.livejournal.com]

Because websites aside, spit DOES work as lube, hands-and-knees hurts like hell and most of the time I find it too intense to formulate thoughts let words during.

word.