old man yaoi

‘The more it hurts, the less it shows’

if you've ever watched a movie with your film buff friend and chatted about it afterwards, that friend might have pulled hours more of conversation out of the same 90 minutes of screentime, and wondered how the fuck they did that - it's not raw intelligence, it's a skill that's been honed. And I learned a lot about film from talking to friends who knew about film, and reading critique by film scholars

literature works exactly the same. so if you want to get more out of your reading, there are things you can do to train that. Find a book or short story you think you've got a pretty good grasp on, preferably from a widely read & respected author like Ursula K Le Guin or Ray Bradbury (if you're new at this don't swing for the Toni Morrison or the Samuel Beckett yet unless you feel very comfortable with the complexity of the text - the point is to develop a complicated new skill on good foundations). Then go to JSTOR, create a free account, and look up criticism on the story you've chosen. Find something that looks readable to you and at least somewhat interesting. Read that article, and look at what that writer got out of the same story you've read that you didn't get. Do you see the critic's points? Did they teach you something about the text? Go reread that story and see if the criticism has changed how you read it. Are you seeing more? Are you thinking about the implications of a line that you hadn't noticed before? Does the story feel richer now?

you don't have to read more deeply if you don't want to (but i'd recommend it, i genuinely think it makes you a better person)

if you want to learn to read more deeply, the resources are out there. try to find critical literature (that is, academic writing that analyzes the text) on works your familiar with so you can get a sense for how to do that analysis too

learning to deep read literature can help you deep read many areas of your life

So fandom is often a very strange space to be in.

People trying so desperately to prove that a character is good and justified and “the victim” and another character is bad and wrong and “the perpetrator.” Rather than asking what the character’s role is in the story, what lies they may be telling themselves and others, what are their flaws, what might their arc be?

Instead, they’re focused on other people’s perception of the character. And you can feel their sincere dismay that people don’t see things their way through the text of their posts, this visceral sense that other people’s disagreement and dislike is hurting them.

I can’t imagine that engaging with fandom that way is anything but miserable.

Eventually, you’re going to need to expand your taste, and realize that characters who murder or are bigoted or cruel can be great characters regardless of their goodness, and enjoy them for who they are.

You’re going to have to allow other people to disagree with your opinions and dislike your favorite things without being hurt by it.