Seeing is believing

[prillalar]

I've been thinking a lot lately about the way my brain treats visual media as opposed to literature. There are a lot of things that I can accept when I see them that I just can't buy when they're written down.

Example 1: Snape/Harry
This is the pairing I simply cannot buy. No way, no how. It makes no sense to me at all and the times I've tried to read fic about it, I can't even make it through a paragraph without my brain screaming "No fucking way!" at me.

But I can and have enjoyed Snape/Harry fanart. I don't seek it out, but when I do see some, it doesn't trigger the brain-screaming at all. In fact, my brain often says, "Mmm, nice."

I wonder how a Snape/Harry fan comic would affect me. Hmm.


Example 2: Anime Hair and Eyes
When I'm watching anime, I can totally buy stuff like Sakura's pink hair or Momoshiro's purple eyes. It seems perfectly normal and I don't bat an eyelid.

But I can't bring myself to actually write something like that down. I couldn't write a Naruto fanfic and talk about Sakura's pink hair. When it's written down like that, I get the brain scream again. No fucking way!


Believing what you see is a good survival trait, speaking in the long-term evolutionary sense, so I can understand why my brain reacts that way. But I wonder why the strong rebellion when it comes to written things. I guess that my brain prioritises "accumulated knowledge about the world" above "something written down" but below "something right in front of my eyes".

It makes writing fanfic difficult sometimes.


Somewhat relatedly, I'm trying to write a scene for an anime fanfic where one character is sketching another. I wanted to write how it wasn't a realistic sketch, but more cartoony and caricature-like. And then I realised that, basically, that was how the character actually looks in the anime. So now it seems hopelessly self-referential and I think my brain is going to explode, just like it does whenever I have to code a recursive function.


And now I'm just procrastinating.

Comments

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Snape/Harry fanart does nothing at all for me: usually, because I frequently don't even recognise the people depicted as either Snape or Harry.

Snape/Harry fanfic can convince me depending how in character it stays.

[prillalar]

Fanart for a book fandom is pretty subjective, true. :)

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Well, go read the Snape/Harry fancomic brevisse and I did: Memories, Fears, Desires (http://isis.arithmancy.net/mfd.htm). Rated R.

[prillalar]

Ah! I shall check it out and report back.

[ina]

I have the same proplem with anime hair and eyes, I can't even read about it.

[prillalar]

It's funny how that works. I can't write about it at all. I think that in general, I have higher "reality expectations" from my fic that I do from the original source.

2 c

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

it seems to me that you are talking about a problem of transition here. canon hp is text, canon anime is pictures. i know i should expand, but i am tired.

it's not just pairings, some things you simply cannot or should not describe with words. i just shuddered when a fic was recced in crack_van that used words like "the younger brunette looked at the older teenager". simply, basic, but it sounds off and wrong. some things have to be sacrificed in transition and supplemented by whatever is possible in the medium.

Re: 2 c

[prillalar]

If you do have time to expand, I'd be interested. I'm not quite sure what you mean at the moment.

And, yes, to "the younger brunette" etc. But that just seems like bad writing.

what did i mean ...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

you seem to feel disbelief when snarry is written, while fanart is fine. otoh, you are fine with wings and strange hair in anime, but feel unable to write down said strange details. to me, this looks like what you are used to simply influences how you receive fan fic/art - hp is written words, and if you read fic you don't believe in, the words clash all the more for you than if you see a picture, because even though there are films, the word was first (i assume for you as well).
while anime is not meant to be described, it always feels weird and can easily be made fun off. the heightened reality only works in pictures. to put what happens into words, or rather what the creatures look like, makes you aware once again of the absurdity.

you don't do fanart, right? your field is the word. and i have no clue if above made any more sense now :S

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed by those authors who can make me believe consensual Snape/Harry. (And there are a lot of them, yes!) It's a pairing that usually only occurs to me in a "Detention, Potter" context--or one where Has-His-Own-Agenda!Snape has come over to the Dark Side. My brain is stuck in one of those two modes.

[prillalar]

I can't even believe that much. I think the only way I could convince myself of the viability of that pairing is to write it. That way I'd have to actually look at what might make it work.

But with so many other things to write, it doesn't seem like the best use of my time. *g*

[lasultrix.livejournal.com]

I saw a Snape/Harry (well, basically just a gay Harryslut) doujinshi once. It was very explicit and the first piece of manga I'd ever seen. It was possibly not a very good introduction, and I hid screaming after a few frames.

I'm not even sure if I used the word 'manga' correctly there. Am so ignorant of all things Nipponese.