#clockrant

I feel like the shift of fanfiction is for shipping has actually stifled creativity and diversity of work in the fandom a lot. And it might be true that it's always been shipping, but non-shipping works weren't even at the periphery, esp for works with younger audience. And like, at least for me, who do enjoy gen work a lot, I always found the idea of "transformative fandom is for women and queers and women like shipping and men are interested in curative fandom" to be really stifling.

But with the move to ao3, which did start with slash focused audience from LJ, the segregation between the shipping part of the fandom and the non-shipping part kinda happened naturally. And I don't begrudge that at all. But really quickly the non-shipping transformative work kinda faded from our view and our community. And if you're women or queer and belongs in one half of the community you kinda just accept that fanfiction is about shipping, always have been.

A lot of times when I say gen fics people think fics focused on platonic relationships when fanfiction doesn't have to be character focused at all. There are fics that are just there to push the limit of the setting in ways canon never did. Fics can also be power fantasies. They can be thought experiments. They can be ways to air out certain philosophies/world views.

I want(ed) a "romantic relationship".

The way I talk about friendship has been described as super romantic by close friends

One friend even describe me as hyper-romantic

And then once when I was describing my dating difficulties with a friend and was talking about how I wouldn't really develop feelings for a person until I know them pretty well and there's just no way of knowing within 20 dates which makes it into a high pressure situation if the other person already feels attracted towards me and wanna know if I reciprocate.

And she was like "that's cause you're demiromantic". And I didn't immediately say "that's not a thing" cause I thought I was demisexual. I didn't think anyone had romantic attraction to people they didn't know well cause, like, no one wanna marry a stranger even if they find them hot.

But then I start thinking and I think kids do experience crushes on each other without even considering naughty things. Also people describe the butterfly in stomach and that seems a bit different from horny but also different from how I experience yearning. Maybe there's something to it. Maybe romantic attraction is real??

And like. For 6+ years (back then) I knew about the existence of Aro people and every one of them I knew prior were like "I don't want a romantic relationship!!" And "no romance!!" which were not really statements I can relate to.

Cause I think a lot of times people approach dressing themselves with a image of how they want themselves to look, and that's often like the people in ads, or on TV, or just better looking than ourselves, and then we get disappointed when we don't look like that.

There's a lot of helpful tips on dressing right that's like "what to wear if you're a pear body shape/apple body shape/dark/pale/tall/short", but that kind of advice still focus on the body and it feels bad to be told you shouldn't wear what you wanna wear cause it'd be unflattering.

But like, when you're painting an abstract, a lot of times you have a vague idea of form/concept, but you gotta kinda adjust it along the way. And a lot of times you just put a few colors down and let your palette guide you. And the final product is a little surprise. And the result doesn't have to be super original sometimes it's just mid but you've tried something and that's neat.

So for clothes, right? I could just pick out the most interesting looking article of clothing from a clothing exchange that fits me and think "okay how do I make this work in an office setting?" Or grab two random articles from your closet like "can I make this bowtie work with a sundress?" And pretty soon I'm tying my scarf into a huge bow and trying to alter my silhouette based on shape of my cloth. And while you're doing that you're paying attention to forms and color and how they interact with your body. And you'll slowly get to know the form of your body and what you're comfortable seeing on it.

There are better and worse decisions, and sometimes we regret our decisions when it doesn't turn out the way we expect, or when the sunk cost fallacy hits. But there is no definitive value to your time, a year at age 15 has 365 days just as a year will have in age 50. Your 15th year will be more formative than your 50th, but it's not made of gold.

Your youth are the years you learn how to be a person as well as what kind of person you wanna be. And sometimes that involves changing perspective. Sometimes that invalidates your previous way of life. But you lived those year, you had to live them to find out.

Like... if you ever talk about the importance of bike lanes for safety of bikers some drivers act like you're taking away their car. When a burger place offers new vegan option some people will make exaggerated motions to stop eating there even tho the meat option still exist.

The other day i saw someone react to uniqlo announcing their new reusable period pads with "menstrating is already a painful experience stop asking women to save the world during our most vulnerable time". But like, uniqlo isn't asking you to do anything. Uniqlo is just offering a new commercial product because there's an existing demand. It's just like a new jacket. You don't gotta buy it. But because they framed it as environmentally friendly now some people feel like they're being shamed for using single used pads.

The AI generated songs sounds good if you simply think of music as pleasant noise to fill the silence and you prefer certain quality/style of noise over others. AI video/images can be art as long as they look good enough if you simply think of art as things beautiful/engaging to look at.

It's all porn. It's all stimulation. There's so much entertainment we forgot about connection and meaning-making. It didn't start with genAI.

There was this play called Rogers v. Rogers in Toronto, about the Rogers-Shaw merger and subsequent family implosion. None of my friends wanted to watch it with me 😂. I have bank coworkers but none of them are theatre ppl as far as i know. (I saw it and it was really good. They're doing a rerun this year, trying to pitch it to friends who nodded along with good humor.)