Something serious, for a change...
Oct. 14th, 2002 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maristu"If only it were all so simple. If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Alexander Solshenitsyn
"Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions." -Carl Jung
There's been a lot of talk on LJ lately about violence, in many respects. I've been meaning to comment on this topic, but haven't had the time or the spirit to sit down and write my thoughts. But now I'm rested and happy, and have nothing to do for a few hours, so I've decided to give this a go.
First off, there was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nute's comment about sympathizing with evil characters. I won't go into that aspect of it this time, but rather comment on this:
If you fantasize about something, logically it's because you enjoy thinking about it. If you enjoy thinking about a bad thing, if it gives you a big ol' chubby - then something's WRONG with you, and you ought to look into fixing it.
Now, I have no idea if Matt still stands behind this idea, but I don't agree with him. Everyone has a Shadow, a Dark Side. It's a part of us, a part that we usually try to hide from the world, but which is still there, no matter how much we push it down and reject it.
The more you reject your shadow, the less control you have over it. It's like knowing there's a wasp in the room, but being too scared to actually find it. Hiding under the covers won't make the wasp go away, it will only enable it to come up at you in a sneak attack and catch you off guard. The best thing is to find out where it is, so that you can keep an eye on it.
Everyone has to deal with their shadow, embrace it, get to know it. Understand it so that you can control it, and learn to love it. Whether you do this with a shrink, or with your best friend, or in your own head through fantasies, there's no difference. These are all ways of getting to know yourself better.
So, if you enjoy reading/writing smutty/violent fanfic, if you dream and fantasize about being raped by that evil character in your favorite show, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with it.
Now, on to another comment, this time bynerodi, about the dearth of violence in Smallville fanfic (and I had to look up the word 'dearth' in the dictionary. Hey, english is my second language, ok??)
I haven't really read that much fanfic, which is something that will probably change now that I don't have my trusty computer with me and can't spend all my free time making vids and bad manips :) Furthermore, I've read precious few (one or two, really) fanfics from fandoms other than Smallville. So I have no idea if the number of fanfics portraying violence is less than in other fandoms, or if the violence itself is lighter than in other fandoms. But assuming that both these statements are true, some possible reasons come to mind:
a) Smallville is a light show, IMO. There isn't much violence actually portrayed in it. Really! It has a big dark shadow looming over it, but all in all, the characters are good and decent, with precious few exceptions. It got better in the last few eps of the first season, and I'm expecting it to continue in that vein, so this might change the amount of violent fanfic out there.
b) The characters are young. Clark and the superfriends are supposed to be around 16. I find it hard to visualize a large amount of violence and hatred in kids this young. Lex is older, so it's more believable there. Which is why I'm a sucker for futurefic, especially the ones that actually portray them as *older*, and not just say that they're 40 and make them act like their 13 :P
c) I think that a lot of people are probably afraid of posting violent fanfic, and people not liking it or thinking that the writer is a bad person because of what s/he writes. The reason people share fics and vids and manips is because they want to be acknowledged and seen (at least that's why *I* share my vids). Being badmouthed is about the worst thing that could happen, and people avoid it like the plague.
So, those are my idea, using the totally un-scientific method of "guessing" :)
And last but definitely not least,rhiannonhero's comment on the lack of Dom!Lex and Cruel!Lex in fanfic, which is what prompted me to write this in the first place. At first, when I read what Rhiannon had written, I totally agreed with her. And I still do, in many respects. But after thinking a *lot* about this (seriously, I did way too much thinking about this, considering that this is a WB Show, for crying out loud!), I feel a few things should be taken into consideration:
a) IMO, Lex isn't truly a leader, he was pushed into this role all his life. He was a puny little kid who was scared of just about everything. Because of his father, and his physical appearance, and his financial situation, he was forced into a position of control and leadership that I truly believe he doesn't enjoy. But he's damn proud. I've hardly ever seen a character as proud as Lex. He doesn't want to do good things, he wants to do great things. He wants to win, over his father, his enemies, the world. And he'll do anything he needs to do in order to achieve his goal. But I don't think he enjoys what he's doing. Different from his father, I think.
b) Clark is Lex's anti-drug. Lex is less proud around Clark. He feels uncomfortable lying to Clark. He feels hurt when he knows Clark is lying to him. So, his relationship with Clark is invariably different from every other relationship in his life. He trusts Clark, and opens up to him.
Now, taking into consideration these two aspects, I don't find it hard to see Lex in a submissive position in relation to Clark. For a person who is in constant need of keeping walls and defenses up throughout his life, the opportunity of letting them down and losing a bit of his control with someone he trusts is not only a relief, but might be truly exhilarating. A nice example of this is in Koi's Mercy, where she makes it clear that the amount of control that Lex has to put up with is way too much for him to handle, and relinquishing it is a pleasure all in itself.
My only problem with a submissive!Lex is that it has to accompany a dominant!Clark, and to me Clark is just too innocent to be truly dominant. Of course, he can learn :)
So, this is basically it. Whew. Hopefully, I didn't sound too patronizing, because the truth is I have absolutely *no* idea of what I'm talking about... But that's never stopped me before ;)
"Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions." -Carl Jung
There's been a lot of talk on LJ lately about violence, in many respects. I've been meaning to comment on this topic, but haven't had the time or the spirit to sit down and write my thoughts. But now I'm rested and happy, and have nothing to do for a few hours, so I've decided to give this a go.
First off, there was
nute's comment about sympathizing with evil characters. I won't go into that aspect of it this time, but rather comment on this:If you fantasize about something, logically it's because you enjoy thinking about it. If you enjoy thinking about a bad thing, if it gives you a big ol' chubby - then something's WRONG with you, and you ought to look into fixing it.
Now, I have no idea if Matt still stands behind this idea, but I don't agree with him. Everyone has a Shadow, a Dark Side. It's a part of us, a part that we usually try to hide from the world, but which is still there, no matter how much we push it down and reject it.
The more you reject your shadow, the less control you have over it. It's like knowing there's a wasp in the room, but being too scared to actually find it. Hiding under the covers won't make the wasp go away, it will only enable it to come up at you in a sneak attack and catch you off guard. The best thing is to find out where it is, so that you can keep an eye on it.
Everyone has to deal with their shadow, embrace it, get to know it. Understand it so that you can control it, and learn to love it. Whether you do this with a shrink, or with your best friend, or in your own head through fantasies, there's no difference. These are all ways of getting to know yourself better.
So, if you enjoy reading/writing smutty/violent fanfic, if you dream and fantasize about being raped by that evil character in your favorite show, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with it.
Now, on to another comment, this time by
nerodi, about the dearth of violence in Smallville fanfic (and I had to look up the word 'dearth' in the dictionary. Hey, english is my second language, ok??)I haven't really read that much fanfic, which is something that will probably change now that I don't have my trusty computer with me and can't spend all my free time making vids and bad manips :) Furthermore, I've read precious few (one or two, really) fanfics from fandoms other than Smallville. So I have no idea if the number of fanfics portraying violence is less than in other fandoms, or if the violence itself is lighter than in other fandoms. But assuming that both these statements are true, some possible reasons come to mind:
a) Smallville is a light show, IMO. There isn't much violence actually portrayed in it. Really! It has a big dark shadow looming over it, but all in all, the characters are good and decent, with precious few exceptions. It got better in the last few eps of the first season, and I'm expecting it to continue in that vein, so this might change the amount of violent fanfic out there.
b) The characters are young. Clark and the superfriends are supposed to be around 16. I find it hard to visualize a large amount of violence and hatred in kids this young. Lex is older, so it's more believable there. Which is why I'm a sucker for futurefic, especially the ones that actually portray them as *older*, and not just say that they're 40 and make them act like their 13 :P
c) I think that a lot of people are probably afraid of posting violent fanfic, and people not liking it or thinking that the writer is a bad person because of what s/he writes. The reason people share fics and vids and manips is because they want to be acknowledged and seen (at least that's why *I* share my vids). Being badmouthed is about the worst thing that could happen, and people avoid it like the plague.
So, those are my idea, using the totally un-scientific method of "guessing" :)
And last but definitely not least,
rhiannonhero's comment on the lack of Dom!Lex and Cruel!Lex in fanfic, which is what prompted me to write this in the first place. At first, when I read what Rhiannon had written, I totally agreed with her. And I still do, in many respects. But after thinking a *lot* about this (seriously, I did way too much thinking about this, considering that this is a WB Show, for crying out loud!), I feel a few things should be taken into consideration:a) IMO, Lex isn't truly a leader, he was pushed into this role all his life. He was a puny little kid who was scared of just about everything. Because of his father, and his physical appearance, and his financial situation, he was forced into a position of control and leadership that I truly believe he doesn't enjoy. But he's damn proud. I've hardly ever seen a character as proud as Lex. He doesn't want to do good things, he wants to do great things. He wants to win, over his father, his enemies, the world. And he'll do anything he needs to do in order to achieve his goal. But I don't think he enjoys what he's doing. Different from his father, I think.
b) Clark is Lex's anti-drug. Lex is less proud around Clark. He feels uncomfortable lying to Clark. He feels hurt when he knows Clark is lying to him. So, his relationship with Clark is invariably different from every other relationship in his life. He trusts Clark, and opens up to him.
Now, taking into consideration these two aspects, I don't find it hard to see Lex in a submissive position in relation to Clark. For a person who is in constant need of keeping walls and defenses up throughout his life, the opportunity of letting them down and losing a bit of his control with someone he trusts is not only a relief, but might be truly exhilarating. A nice example of this is in Koi's Mercy, where she makes it clear that the amount of control that Lex has to put up with is way too much for him to handle, and relinquishing it is a pleasure all in itself.
My only problem with a submissive!Lex is that it has to accompany a dominant!Clark, and to me Clark is just too innocent to be truly dominant. Of course, he can learn :)
So, this is basically it. Whew. Hopefully, I didn't sound too patronizing, because the truth is I have absolutely *no* idea of what I'm talking about... But that's never stopped me before ;)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2002-10-14 07:35 pm (UTC)I have a thing for Woobie!Lex. It's the nurturing side in me, I guess. Or maybe it's the psychologist in me, which I think is why I enjoyed Mercy so much. But yeah, I'd love to see cruel!Lex. I haven't seen anything in that vein yet... Truly cruel, that is.
Read Amplified Heart. I'm in it!! Really! Lex is supposed to have dinner with Duchess Mariana! Hee :) Of course, he ditches me to stay with Clark... Bummer.
Seriously, I liked it. I hadn't read any sub!Lex other than Mercy. Very nicely done. But I agree with you that it wouldn't be Lex's *preferred* situation. I can't see them as a constant BDSM couple, actually. That involves an entire culture and life pattern that I just don't find believable for them. But I can totally see them experimenting.
Glad you didn't mind me jumping in the sandbox :) And I promise I won't tell Lex. Besides, he's not talking to me. He's mad that I outed his criminal mastermind outfit. Now he has to make up another one...