lobelia321 | Mar. 4th, 2003

After over a year of slash, here I offer some random thoughts, some of which have already been previously aired in various LJs and emails:

1. I am more interested in the slashy fictional characters than in their real-life counterparts. My imagination is populated with Jenn's Orli and with Brenda's Dom and with Belinda's Harry and with Demelza's everybody , not with the real life actors. And foremost, of course, it's populated with my own creations.

2. The real life actors when they pop up on my TV screen are illustrations to fic come alive. This sends a strange RPS shiver up my spine: what other authors have this experience (unless they have movies made based on their books?). But it is also disconcerting because, inevitably, the actors will be out of sync with my characterisations. They haven't read the script, after all.

3. Fuck research. I like it (it's my vocation, after all; it's what I do all day and love doing) and I have done loads of it in the past but, in the final analysis, to me, true-to-lifeness in fic doesn't matter. A) because we know practically nothing about these actors' real lives. And, more importantly, B) because the characters need to be true to the fic more than they need to be true to some spurious so-called 'real life'. So if the research enhanced the fic value: great. But I don't need it.

4. It's only been a year and already I feel bored with the fandom. Most of the fics seem to be merging into one. The pairings are getting more, not less, mainstream. The situations, dialogues and sexual escapades are tediously repetitive. The people I love to read seem not to be writing very much. And even if they are, they often write more mainstream pairings. Hell, *I* don't seem to be writing very much. I trawl other fandoms for relief but that doesn't seem to help, or only sometimes. Luckily I've got some unread fics of yesteryear stored up on my computer.

5. Karl's hand, however, is still sexy as fuck.

6. So is the string holding up Richard's glasses.