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Some Introspecting: On Sincerity vs Irony
This is kind of early for a weekly update because I was like... Actually getting into a pretty nice routine with the Thursday-ish thing, huh? But I was doing some introspection and wanted to write out my thoughts.
As previously mentioned, I don't drive, but have recently decided to change that. I finished Maryland's requisite driving course on Friday, and on Monday I went to the MVA to take the test for Baby's First Learner's Permit.
Which as it turns out they don't even give you at the site, they give you a receipt which will FUNCTION as a learner's permit if you and your designated 21+ year old licensed companion happen to be pulled over by a cop. The actual card should be mailed to me in about a week, they said. But hey!! Still official.
I went with my mother because the MVA is horrible and if I'd had to sit there for what came out to a bit over two hours all told by myself, I would have wanted to die, but also: because she has a car and afterward was able and willing to drive me to a parking lot to putter around ineptly with an enormous dangerous machine.
(how I chose that parking lot is also hilarious: generally parents take their teens to school parking lots after hours, but I knew it would be the middle of the day on a school day for us so I had to figure out something else. My solution was to scan around google maps in satellite view looking for big enough parking lots, and then assess them for "probable emptiness." Which means I found us a church. I puttered about beneath the lord's watchful eye, lol.)
But anyway. The thing I wound up feeling introspective about is how it isn't always considered societally acceptable to be excited about certain things. Multiple factors played a part in why I've never learned to drive before now, but the one that was always a biggest deal to me was that I have sensory overload problems (yay, mental illness) and was genuinely very concerned about my ability to simply TAKE IN all the necessary information about what's happening around you on the road in order to drive safely. Sensory overload is still a problem for me, but now that I'm older I feel more capable of managing my brain's bullshit, so I'm finally in a position to FEEL kind of excited about learning to drive.
Like! I operated a vehicle! Not very WELL (I alarmed the shit out of my mom because I literally did not know how hard to press the pedals to accelerate or decelerate so while I totally did not FLOOR IT, our movements starting out were... a little jerky, and I'd laugh every time we jerked, and mom found that... unnerving) but I did it and it wasn't scary and it was honestly pretty fun! I'm excited that even if I'm bad at it NOW and only have theoretical knowledge of... Basically everything, I feel like with patience and practice I will learn this skill and might even ENJOY driving, which was something that would have been completely unbelievable for me just a few years ago. My brain wasn't built for it.
And I just feel very weird about my own enthusiasm for learning this thing because I am almost thirty years old and I have this paranoid sense that this is something I should be judged for. That it's immature, to be excited about driving, because this is something teenagers are doing. This is something kids are feeling. How dare you, an adult, enjoy this thing so childishly? Etc.
And that's. Fucking ridiculous.
It's just one example of a larger phenomenon which impacts my fandom life most of all, where adults are expected to be Serious and Responsible and that so many means of HAVING FUN become frowned upon once you're above a certain age because isn't that JUVENILE? You get this so, so much in fandom and, I hate it! I think it's absolutely asinine!
One of the most important experiences I've had in my life was meeting my friend Mary (who some folks will know better as Pav, or Pavaal) and repeatedly visiting with her in New York when she was going to school there. My favorite thing about Mary as a person is her sincere and unrestrained enthusiasm for the things that she loves. If she's into something, she is into it 100% and holds nothing back, and always seems (to me) to refuse to let other people deter her from loving the things that she invests in. In the grand scheme of things our friendship is pretty ordinary, but it means a lot to me because spending time with someone with an outlook like that at that particular time in my life made a definite impact on just... The kind of person I try to be.
I was at that college age where you're ~finding yourself~ and really figuring out what you care about and where your priorities are and it was so good for me to decide that I want to be happy. I don't want to spend a lot of time trying to play it cool and downplay my enthusiasm for things just to fortify myself against the possibility that someone else might shit on me for liking XYZ thing unironically. FUCK ironic consumption of media. There is not enough time in your LIFE to waste it on stuff you genuinely do not give a shit about. Spend your time! On things that you love!!
But it's hard. I actively, consciously chose to make this a priority in my life, to love things that are dear to me with abandon and to make no apologies, but it's hard. No one wants to be ostracized or criticized for their interests! No one wants to fight against the tide of our modern fandom purity culture when the discourse of the week paints them in a bad light! I won't apologize for any of the things that I like in fiction, but I am selective in where and how I talk about them, because I know these sorts of boundaries are important. Not just for protecting your reputation, but for safeguarding other people's comfort. I'm not an asshole, so I care about giving people all chances to avoid content that will upset and distress them.
So. Yeah.
I want to be excited about driving and it does mean fighting against that internal voice that says your excitement is childish, the only correct way to be is jaded and unaffected but... I'm gonna do my best.
In other, possibly-journal-worthy news, I accidentally finally got into Prince of Tennis in a fandom way, I guess?? My party line always is "I first watched this in 2006 or 2007 and liked it a lot but didn't ship stuff or do fandom, then I rewatched some of it in 2015 and now I have some ships but I'm a casual." Which really is the best summary of my tenipuri trajectory, but it doesn't touch on that sense I have of... Being a little bit of an outsider.
It's like a fandom version of impostor syndrome. I don't care about things AS MUCH AS my friends who write fic or do art or who have been actively involved in consuming tenipuri fandom content for years now, so do I really care? Or am I just a fake? It's not entirely a paranoid question; I feel like with a lot of aspects of this fandom I just can't meet people on even ground, because my opinion on those things is "I don't know, I don't especially care about that."
I feel a little bit different after playing tenirabi for like... Almost eight weeks now. Mobile games always do this to me; I pull good cards of characters being cute and even if I was never especially invested in them before, just the act of raising up that card and making it viable and then using it in the game endears me to the character. I was always very seigaku-focused (and I always imprint on the protag team with sports series, which is... convenient as a consumer, usually, lol) but suddenly I? Care about a lot of teams besides seigaku? And not just my singular faves from a couple other teams??
I still feel vaguely disingenuous because of how I don't want to say I got into Prince of Tennis two years ago, or two months ago, depending on whether you want to use my rewatch or my starting tenirabi as a milestone. I really have been fond of Prince of Tennis for over a decade and I like having that history with the series. It was something I watched with my younger brother who played tennis and was something we bonded over so Prince of Tennis is really important to me in a separate, entirely non-fandom way.
And now it's a bit more important to me in a fandom way, too.
Anyway! Bring me takafuji content, even if I'm learning to care about other stuff this is my ride or die, BOY DO I LOVE TAKAFUJI.
As previously mentioned, I don't drive, but have recently decided to change that. I finished Maryland's requisite driving course on Friday, and on Monday I went to the MVA to take the test for Baby's First Learner's Permit.
Which as it turns out they don't even give you at the site, they give you a receipt which will FUNCTION as a learner's permit if you and your designated 21+ year old licensed companion happen to be pulled over by a cop. The actual card should be mailed to me in about a week, they said. But hey!! Still official.
I went with my mother because the MVA is horrible and if I'd had to sit there for what came out to a bit over two hours all told by myself, I would have wanted to die, but also: because she has a car and afterward was able and willing to drive me to a parking lot to putter around ineptly with an enormous dangerous machine.
(how I chose that parking lot is also hilarious: generally parents take their teens to school parking lots after hours, but I knew it would be the middle of the day on a school day for us so I had to figure out something else. My solution was to scan around google maps in satellite view looking for big enough parking lots, and then assess them for "probable emptiness." Which means I found us a church. I puttered about beneath the lord's watchful eye, lol.)
But anyway. The thing I wound up feeling introspective about is how it isn't always considered societally acceptable to be excited about certain things. Multiple factors played a part in why I've never learned to drive before now, but the one that was always a biggest deal to me was that I have sensory overload problems (yay, mental illness) and was genuinely very concerned about my ability to simply TAKE IN all the necessary information about what's happening around you on the road in order to drive safely. Sensory overload is still a problem for me, but now that I'm older I feel more capable of managing my brain's bullshit, so I'm finally in a position to FEEL kind of excited about learning to drive.
Like! I operated a vehicle! Not very WELL (I alarmed the shit out of my mom because I literally did not know how hard to press the pedals to accelerate or decelerate so while I totally did not FLOOR IT, our movements starting out were... a little jerky, and I'd laugh every time we jerked, and mom found that... unnerving) but I did it and it wasn't scary and it was honestly pretty fun! I'm excited that even if I'm bad at it NOW and only have theoretical knowledge of... Basically everything, I feel like with patience and practice I will learn this skill and might even ENJOY driving, which was something that would have been completely unbelievable for me just a few years ago. My brain wasn't built for it.
And I just feel very weird about my own enthusiasm for learning this thing because I am almost thirty years old and I have this paranoid sense that this is something I should be judged for. That it's immature, to be excited about driving, because this is something teenagers are doing. This is something kids are feeling. How dare you, an adult, enjoy this thing so childishly? Etc.
And that's. Fucking ridiculous.
It's just one example of a larger phenomenon which impacts my fandom life most of all, where adults are expected to be Serious and Responsible and that so many means of HAVING FUN become frowned upon once you're above a certain age because isn't that JUVENILE? You get this so, so much in fandom and, I hate it! I think it's absolutely asinine!
One of the most important experiences I've had in my life was meeting my friend Mary (who some folks will know better as Pav, or Pavaal) and repeatedly visiting with her in New York when she was going to school there. My favorite thing about Mary as a person is her sincere and unrestrained enthusiasm for the things that she loves. If she's into something, she is into it 100% and holds nothing back, and always seems (to me) to refuse to let other people deter her from loving the things that she invests in. In the grand scheme of things our friendship is pretty ordinary, but it means a lot to me because spending time with someone with an outlook like that at that particular time in my life made a definite impact on just... The kind of person I try to be.
I was at that college age where you're ~finding yourself~ and really figuring out what you care about and where your priorities are and it was so good for me to decide that I want to be happy. I don't want to spend a lot of time trying to play it cool and downplay my enthusiasm for things just to fortify myself against the possibility that someone else might shit on me for liking XYZ thing unironically. FUCK ironic consumption of media. There is not enough time in your LIFE to waste it on stuff you genuinely do not give a shit about. Spend your time! On things that you love!!
But it's hard. I actively, consciously chose to make this a priority in my life, to love things that are dear to me with abandon and to make no apologies, but it's hard. No one wants to be ostracized or criticized for their interests! No one wants to fight against the tide of our modern fandom purity culture when the discourse of the week paints them in a bad light! I won't apologize for any of the things that I like in fiction, but I am selective in where and how I talk about them, because I know these sorts of boundaries are important. Not just for protecting your reputation, but for safeguarding other people's comfort. I'm not an asshole, so I care about giving people all chances to avoid content that will upset and distress them.
So. Yeah.
I want to be excited about driving and it does mean fighting against that internal voice that says your excitement is childish, the only correct way to be is jaded and unaffected but... I'm gonna do my best.
In other, possibly-journal-worthy news, I accidentally finally got into Prince of Tennis in a fandom way, I guess?? My party line always is "I first watched this in 2006 or 2007 and liked it a lot but didn't ship stuff or do fandom, then I rewatched some of it in 2015 and now I have some ships but I'm a casual." Which really is the best summary of my tenipuri trajectory, but it doesn't touch on that sense I have of... Being a little bit of an outsider.
It's like a fandom version of impostor syndrome. I don't care about things AS MUCH AS my friends who write fic or do art or who have been actively involved in consuming tenipuri fandom content for years now, so do I really care? Or am I just a fake? It's not entirely a paranoid question; I feel like with a lot of aspects of this fandom I just can't meet people on even ground, because my opinion on those things is "I don't know, I don't especially care about that."
I feel a little bit different after playing tenirabi for like... Almost eight weeks now. Mobile games always do this to me; I pull good cards of characters being cute and even if I was never especially invested in them before, just the act of raising up that card and making it viable and then using it in the game endears me to the character. I was always very seigaku-focused (and I always imprint on the protag team with sports series, which is... convenient as a consumer, usually, lol) but suddenly I? Care about a lot of teams besides seigaku? And not just my singular faves from a couple other teams??
I still feel vaguely disingenuous because of how I don't want to say I got into Prince of Tennis two years ago, or two months ago, depending on whether you want to use my rewatch or my starting tenirabi as a milestone. I really have been fond of Prince of Tennis for over a decade and I like having that history with the series. It was something I watched with my younger brother who played tennis and was something we bonded over so Prince of Tennis is really important to me in a separate, entirely non-fandom way.
And now it's a bit more important to me in a fandom way, too.
Anyway! Bring me takafuji content, even if I'm learning to care about other stuff this is my ride or die, BOY DO I LOVE TAKAFUJI.
no subject
Amen to this. (But also, on it being difficult to actually practice! That self-conscious internal voice takes so long to die, it's really frustrating. But I know that I for one feel really heartened and a lot more comfortable in general around people who are unafraid to like what they like, so I feel it's a worthy thing to strive for.)
Re: The Prince of Tennis, I think that if you care enough about the characters to ship them or brainstorm AU scenarios then you are definitely One Of Us. I actually suspect a lot of us must have fannish imposter syndrome, since we all engage with the canon and fandom in such different ways and the canon itself is such a sprawling, multimedia thing. Just to take myself as an example, I've been hanging out in fandom since 2003 but I still feel kind of like a fake fan because I ... still haven't watched the anime or read the manga past the very beginning of the St Rudolph matches. >> ::I know what happens! I've watched the musicals and listened to all the character songs! but I haven't actually seen the episodes and at this rate may never do so, I'm sorry Yamabuki and Hyoutei and all those other schools::
Re: driving -- as someone who still doesn't know how to drive, I think it's an awesome accomplishment and a worthwhile thing to feel proud of no matter how old you are. \o/
no subject
It's just a relief to be able to believe that people REALLY LIKE anything they like, rather than parsing their interest through a convoluted veil of irony.
That's so funny, I actually didn't realize you were this much of a musicals fan? I'm fairly sure we talked about Our Tennis Origins ages and ages ago when I started rewatching PoT but I did not retain the information that you watched/read this little of the anime/manga. On the other hand... You're not the only one who lives in that corner of tenipuri and I think you're right, that prince of tennis is so big and sprawling and weird that there are five million different ways to get into it, and that really, they're all valid. If you're enjoying the thing, you've already won.
It's just hard not to metaphorically dick-measure against people sometimes.
But also, thank about the driving! I hope it! Goes well for me!!
no subject
Yes! Not to mention it probably makes people more hesitant to bring up other media they like around you -- because if you're mocking these shows, who's to say you won't mock those ones as well?
And ha, I'm definitely not as much of a musical expert as some (I still don't remember most of the actors' names >>), but for me they have the crucial advantage where the boring parts of matches get condensed into catchy five-minute musical numbers, so it was a lot easier to speed through those than to power through the whole anime. I guess music in general is one of my main gateways into fannishness -- that's why I'm so into the character songs, because for me they provide an immediate portal to who this character (or their pop idol persona ...) is and what makes them interesting. For example, I think one of the reasons I like Ryoma so much is all the great songs MinaJun has done for him -- they're actually the thing that first got me to check out Tenipuri back in 2002-2003.
no subject