Anyway, just followed links over to [info]prettyarbitrary's post on the subject of the steampunk ethos, and that was exceptionally enlightening, I thought.
Yeah, I am completely sold on her argument.
Is there, perhaps, a sense in which pushing one's emotional/psychological boundaries through what one reads or writes functions not so much as a titillation but a catharsis?
Makes total sense! It's true that fully realized characters make better experiential avatars, because the fic situations only seem real in their ramifications if the person affected by them is full enough to feel and think her way through everything. I dunno about the word catharsis though, b/c catharsis indicates that at some point you'd be Healed of your interest in reading that kind of thing, or that it's a deviant interest to have, which isn't necessarily so? Though I'd totally buy boundary-pushing as developmental. It sort of ties into how you can grow up in fandom at this point. I've been reading and very occasionally writing since, god, I dunno when, maybe 12? So in the ten years since, fandom's obviously been a medium through which I negotiated those boundaries of what I was interested in reading/thinking about vs. what I wasn't.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
carisma_sensei
Oh man, I wanna steal that icon, b/c it's always so appropriate.
Date: 2008-05-09 09:14 pm (UTC)Yeah, I am completely sold on her argument.
Is there, perhaps, a sense in which pushing one's emotional/psychological boundaries through what one reads or writes functions not so much as a titillation but a catharsis?
Makes total sense! It's true that fully realized characters make better experiential avatars, because the fic situations only seem real in their ramifications if the person affected by them is full enough to feel and think her way through everything. I dunno about the word catharsis though, b/c catharsis indicates that at some point you'd be Healed of your interest in reading that kind of thing, or that it's a deviant interest to have, which isn't necessarily so? Though I'd totally buy boundary-pushing as developmental. It sort of ties into how you can grow up in fandom at this point. I've been reading and very occasionally writing since, god, I dunno when, maybe 12? So in the ten years since, fandom's obviously been a medium through which I negotiated those boundaries of what I was interested in reading/thinking about vs. what I wasn't.