Hello hello!

[swingandswirl]

 

Name: Tamanna, but most people call me Tam or Tammy

Age: almost 29, ack!

Location: Asia, shortly to be moving to Europe, if things work out

Gender: cis femme, she/her 

Languages: English, French, and a teeny bit of Spanish

Describe yourself in five sentences or less: Your friendly neighbour cis femme ace queer geek. I am a bit of a Cranky Fandom Old (relatively, anyway) having been here since the 90s, and have increasingly less patience for drama and purity nonsense. I write a lot of fix-it fanfic/headcanons. I'm a translator by trade and a language geek by dint of interest, and I love words in general. 

Interests: Books/TV shows that aren't by/about straight cis white dudes, planning / bullet journaling, exploring new places, fashion, history, cooking, queer issues, disability/access issues, romance novels, podcasts, and more that I can't remember right now.

Top 5 fandoms: Harry Potter (with the caveat that I only acknowledge the existence of the first four books and NONE of the movies), Numb3rs, Check Please!, Superman/Batman, and Star Trek AOS.

I mostly post about: I’ve fallen out of the habit of posting after years away, but I’m trying to post about a combination of daily life (and my - fingers crossed - future move), fannish stuff, including fic, headcanons, and meta, and book/movie reviews. Linkspams, sometimes.

I rarely post about: Politics. If I think too much about the current state of the world I’ll start screaming and never stop.

My last three posts were about: Star Wars fandom meta, squeeing about the Pens winning Game 7 of the series against the Caps, a general State of the Tam post.

How often do you post?: Like I said, I’m out of the habit of posting, especially after years on Tumblr, but I’m trying for about a post a week, minimum.

How about commenting?: I like to comment a lot! I’m trying to be more active, especially since I’ve fallen out of the habit - if you post something interesting, I’m going to at least try and respond, assuming I have something relevant/intelligent to say. 

Describe your day with a gif:

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Comments

[swiftsnowmane]

Ha! yes, you are absolutely right -- the SW side of tumblr fandom drives me nuts at the best of times. I keep a very active Star Wars sideblog, but I mostly just post and share things rather than attempt much outright interaction at this point. There are some lovely people I chat with via PM there, but I rarely attempt much public 'discourse' these days. :P

And omg....TFA is just.... SO. MUCH. NOPE. UUUUUUGHHHH. I pretty much feel about it in similar terms to how you explained your feels on the latter half of HP. I saw it in cinemas when it came out and have been trying to erase it from the data files of my memory ever since. I am a HUGE fan of Anakin Skywalker/Vader, and his redemption via the father-son connection in RotJ has meant EVERYTHING to me ever since I was a little kid. And well...for me, TFA and the entire premise of the sequels is anathema to this. I just can't even handle it. I have completely and utterly ignored every single thing to do with them for over a year now -- I blacklist everything, and pay zero attention to trailers, promos, spec, etc, etc. I just...don't wanna know. :p I hide out happily in my own lil corner of the SW universe where the story ends at RotJ, as it has always done. :D

(Here's a post that I wrote last year on the subject. It's not a perfect essay by any means, but it's basically just me pouring my heart out over all this: The Chosen One, the Hero's Journey, and breaking the cycle of enslavement in Star Wars.)

And ahhh, yes, again, you are spot-on with that assessment of the Sirius storyline. Of course, even while I was reading it that first, horrible time, I knew it was all in service of the Hero's Journey, blah, blah. But I guess it just stung so much because, as you say, he still had SO much to offer Harry?? It wasn't like, an old, aged mentor dying...this was someone who'd had the best years of his life stolen from him, and who finally had a chance to make good use of his freedom. UGh. It still kills me! ;_;

So omg, wow, yes...if you happen to know of any 'Sirius lives!' AU fics that do him at least a bit more justice, that would be brilliant! They don't even have to feature him as the main character necessarily, just having him around still, or even just for a while longer, would be so lovely. :)

** As you can probably tell, I'm pretty obsessed with stories about characters who are either imprisoned, enslaved, or in a state of mental/ideological enslavement, and then must try to find freedom and/or some kind of redemption/salvation, either for themselves or others. What can I say, it's a topic that resonates with me deeply. I guess I *really* take that quote to heart, about how "the best stories are stories of escape". :)

[swingandswirl]

Oh god the Discourse. That is 99% of why I ran screaming from Tumblr in general and SW in particular. I really wish Tumblr had some kind of friendslock. The problem, I think, is that when you try to shoehorn community/social interaction into a platform that is (in my not-so-humble-opinion, anyway) meant for zombie-like viewing/consumption, it just never ends well, even without fanbrats of any stripe entering the picture.

I... gah. TFA. So I've never actually watched any of the SW movies, TFA was my first. And the thing is. As a movie, on its own and independent of the larger canon, I really liked it - it's a nice reversal of a lot of tropes. As #VII, though... oh my god, get it AWAY from me. Like, seriously, can we NOT fight the same battles over and over again? (This is another 30% of my problem with HP) WHAT IS THE POINT IF NOTHING EVERY GETS BETTER? And OMG, can we STOP dumping even more shit on Leia?

Also, if you haven't got ilyena_sylph and bow_weaver friended, you should! They are SW fans who feel much the same about Ani and TFA as you do, and lovely people besides. :D

(There's actually some very good meta on Ben Solo / Kylo Ren and his coding as a mentally ill character who's been groomed from childhood, but it tends to get lost in the cesspit that is fandom. And forget any chance of an intelligent discussion comparing Kylo and Finn - apparently fanbrats do not grasp the concept that people react to situations differently.)

Someone actually made a very good point about JKR, re: characterisation. She doesn't see her characters as people, she sees them as plot devices - hence Remus fucking off and not keeping contact with the child of his closest friends, Sirius dying, Percy turning against the kid who saved his little sister, among other things.

It's been a very long while since I've read HP fic, but I'll definitely go poke in my bookmarks! Off the top of my head, though, I can recommend Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past, a fic where a thirty-year-old Harry goes back in time to refight the war in a way that doesn't lead to everyone he loves being dead. Since it starts in first year, Sirius doesn't appear for a while, but I really loved his characterisation here, especially as a mentor to Harry. If you read WIPs (and can put up with an extremely slow update schedule) it's amazing.

[swiftsnowmane]

Yes, you are absolutely right -- the blend of the sjw mentality and fandom just does. not. work. *especially* on such an asinine platfom. It prohibits so much free speech on so many subjects, because you have people either constantly shaming and/or self-censoring left and right. -_-

And on an objective level, I can see how TFA can be an enjoyable film on its own terms. And in fact, if it *had* been a film that had nothing to with the Skywalker saga in any shape or form, then I might have even been able to enjoy it. But as a supposed 'continuation' of it? Oh...oh god. Just...no. D: (And yes, I did not even bring up the Leia side of things simply because it upsets me too much to even discuss, really.... especially after losing Carrie. ;_;)

Thank you so much for directing me to others who feel the same way! It's always great to find people one can speak freely around... :)

And thank you also for the fic rec -- I will definitely be checking it out! ^.^