It's all gone a bit quiet round here...

[dolorous_ett]

This is mostly because large parts of my life as it now stands involve sitting around and waiting for things to get started. Nothing worth angsting about, but it's playing hell with my concentration. My story is stymied too - Hagrid's got into a long conversation with the Weasley twins and I'm having problems bringing the conversation to an end and getting them out of the house.

So - to keep things ticking over on my poor journal until something happens - a couple of fairly random questions.

1. Is it cruel to shave a dog in hot weather? (This is a long-running RL argument which I would really like to be able to put to bed once and for all).

2. Do a lot of RL people know about your fanfic habit? (If you're reading this journal at all, I assume you have one - or once did). I'm very much in the closet - my parents have read "Furious Wielder of Storms" and my partner knows because I don't want him thinking I'm conducting a furtive Internet affair - but apart from that, that's it and I have no urge to widen the circle of those in the know. In fact I'd go to some lengths to avoid it. Is this normal?

Comments

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

We shave our dog. Often it's a necessity: removes ticks, makes it cooler for the dog, and makes it easier to find ticks, which is absolutely important if you live near scrub at all. Also, makes it easier for taking them on walks.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Ha! I knew it! I knew it!

Cheers, Gun!

(why does it make it easier to take them on walks, by the way?)

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Well, because then burrs and farmer's friends don't get caught in their fur.

Also, that first bit was 'removes fleas' as well: it makes it easier to powder and brush the flea eggs out. In general, it's cruel not to shave your long-haired dogs in summer, especially if they're little woolly black dogs and you live in Australia.



(= grass seeds that are notoriously hard to pick out)

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Valuable ammunition, all. Cheers!

(the reason for this question is that I was in a very hot city over the summer. Most Chinese pet dogs are pekes or similar little fluffy jobs, and my line was that if they were mine I would definitely shave them. But my interlocuter thought this was against nature and cruel.)

[gunderpants.livejournal.com]

Our dog has so much energy when she gets shaved: the heat gets really prohibitive, especially for older dogs, but it's so much easier and cleaner in the end.

To answer your other question: I did come out of the closet about a month ago to Mr Gun, and he's read "Vengeful Morass of Blood" and another genfic I did. He actually thought it was good, which was kinda flattering.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

2. Something similar with my parents - tends to be more to do with the creative writing angle. Not that I make a big thing about writing stories in any case - not everyone around me would be sympathetic even to that.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I saw you'd told Mr Gun - and I'm glad it all went OK - but I can't say I'm surprised (from what I know of him, he's easily cool enough to take something like that in his stride).

All the same, it must have taken some guts to go through with it. Well done you! *puts up zombie icon in your honour*

[lazy-neutrino.livejournal.com]

1. Can't see any problem, except that they may feel the cold a bit at first.
2. Himself knows, can't remember if my dad does, no one else!

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

2. I'm starting to see a pattern here...

Which is odd, because I'd assumed I was the only one being so paranoid about it.

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

1. It's cruel NOT to shave some dogs in the hot weather. If you want the look of a dog with, say, lots of feathering, you can just shave the center of his/her belly to get him/her some air.

2. Well. You know all about that. :(

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

definitely not the only one and definitely with good reason. Although part of me would like to know, if every "came out" what would happen. I think there are more of us than we think.

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

1) I have no idea, but I guess it would depend on how much the individual dog hated being shaved.

2) No. I've mentioned it once or twice, and I suspect my office-mates may know if they've looked at the browser history or accidentally opened the wrong file on our (shared) computer, but it's certainly not something I advertise. I suspect the general attitude among most people I know would be "why are you wasting your time writing stuff you can't publish or lay claim to in public?"

Fanfiction - the Last Great Taboo?

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

It would be interesting indeed to see everybody "come out" - I'm sure you're right that there are a lot more of us about than we realised.

I'm very open about liking sci-fi, Tolkien and Harry Potter - which a lot of people I know or work with are extremely snotty about - but fanfiction is where I draw the line.

That said, one person on my f-list is probably known to people I know in real life - and is also one of the first people I met through fanfiction. Sometimes the world is smaller than we think...

A Vet Writes...

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

1. Well, you ought to know - thanks for lending your authority to the pro-shaving lobby!

2. I do. And I still think they were way out of line. Sneaks.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I suspect the general attitude among most people I know would be "why are you wasting your time writing stuff you can't publish or lay claim to in public?"

Mine too. And on one level they have a point.

However, on another level they are totally missing the point. What's wrong with writing what you enjoy?

[dreamer-marie.livejournal.com]

1. No. My parents have it done every summer, and it makes the dog much happier.
2. Yes. My parents have read most of my fics, they have shared them with their HP reading friends. With my very first fic, I printed it out and sent it to all the friends I have who read Harry Potter. I was so proud of myself for writing a story!

Re: Fanfiction - the Last Great Taboo?

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

It absolutely is. Hell, I've met people on here who I later learned I knew in real life or knew with a degree of separation.

The thing is, while it is taboo, I don't really understand why: because it's not cool? I do lots of uncool things that I have no problem talking about. It certainly hurts no one (although you could debate that for some of the RPS stuff). It's just... not talked about. And very looked down upon. Nice girls don't *do* that.

*shrugs*

Re: A Vet Writes...

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

They were trying to be nice. Although now I've got about eight new levels of password protection on my computer. I'll be lucky if *I* ever see those files again...

[krisomniac.livejournal.com]

why are you wasting your time writing stuff you can't publish or lay claim to in public?"

I wish that was all they'd think/say. Do you know how many conversations I've had with people about "those crazy harry potter fans on the internet"? I feel a little like a traitor sometimes.

[lazy-neutrino.livejournal.com]

I think fanfiction is one of those things that you assume RL people are reasonable about. Until you tell them. And they're not.

Re: A Vet Writes...

[lazy-neutrino.livejournal.com]

May I ask what happened? (Or you could f-lock it and filter it if you don't want to reply here.)

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

oh m ygod. no-one knews about my lj and fanfic and so forth. (nothtat I have a lto of rl friends butthe one i see most doesnt' seem itnerested i nfanfi and my parents..well I don't know..they'd wnt me to bundle it ia nbook :P
Plus once i changedm ystupid msn profiel naem fro mm yrealname to Selune jsutto let lie kto itnernet friends recognize me m ybrother came up and asked' who the hack is this' and m yparents thoguth someoen had pushedi ntotheir contact listand deleted me. *snerk*
notthat I" Mwriting fic or busy wit hany kidn of meta these days...

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

I think I've been lucky so far, in that the only RL people I've met who were aware of the existence of Internet fandom were already hip-deep in it. (I know of one grad student in my department and another at the Rich Private University Down the Road who went to The Witching Hour, and the latter was presenting research that involved an exhaustive study of a Snape / Hermione fan community, which probably makes my own stuff look pretty tame by comparison :))

Re: Fanfiction - the Last Great Taboo?

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

Among academics, I suspect there's a certain amount of uneasiness about the intellectual property side of things -- a lot of my RL friends do some creative writing themselves, and I have a feeling they'd be uneasy about it if they thought about it from the "Well, how would I feel if somebody did that to characters I'd created?" angle.

[ignipes.livejournal.com]

1. This seems to have been answered already. Besides, I'm a cat person. :)

2. No. My family has some vague idea that I play around online with other HP and SPN fans, but they don't know I write fanfic. I'm not even sure they know I write original fic, or at least that I still do, because I've always been weird about not letting anybody reading it. And I don't really want them know.