Announcement of return.

[mechtild]

~*~





I’m back.

Greetings! I have just returned from my two-week-long visit to my computer-deprived family, and want to note that after the next screencap entry (“Wood Elves”, with caps from the EE scene plus two poems), the screencap project will be going on sabbatical. It isn't over, but it will be taking a break. This is just an update for fans of the series.


Before I go on, I want to try and work on some other things that have been put aside. Since July I've been trying to write an extended feedback to the author of a well-loved, well-known Frodo fanfic. I think it's about time I finished it. But you know me, I always have a lot to say and take a long time to say it (call me Treebeard). I also have found some paintings that might make good Frodo manips. I haven't done an "Art Travesty" in a very long while. I might forget how to do it! Even more, I want to write. I want to pick up where I left off in my never-finished Frodo saga. I haven't updated it in over a year, having got carried away making the screencap posts (which are so much easier to tackle). If I take advantage of my renewed free time (my full-time job ended just before my trip), maybe I can recover my momentum. Even if it is only for myself (by the time I ever finish it!), I'd love to bring it to its conclusion. I've got my fingers crossed, and have asked Muse-Frodo to put in a fresh appearance, preferably stripped for action.


~ Mechtild

Comments

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

I shouldn't sound so surprised: I've known this for years, that a lot of people prefer F/S to het.

All because of the dearth of suitable (suitable for Frodo, I mean) female characters in canon, of course. :)

'Too Many Tooks'!! - that was hilarious. Terribly naughty, but hilarious. Frodo was so unfailingly gentlemanly throughout - and so bested by those wicked Took sisters!

[mechtild.livejournal.com]

Yes, the genius of TMT was the way she retained his character as an essentially kindly, well-bred gentlehobbit, while reducing him to a quivering mass (shaft?) of exposed genital nerve endings.

As for the predilection for S/F to F/OFC, after a few years of browsing my f-lists journals, I'd say that in many cases it has nothing to do with inadequate female partners for Frodo in fiction (canon or fanon). A lot of the slash fans on my f-list simply prefer to read about male-male romances and sexual scenarios no matter who the characters are and no matter the source story. When they've moved on from S/F, they have only moved on to other slash pairings, regardless of the fact that the fandoms to which they have moved spring from books or films that actually are provided with female romantic interests right in the source material. Even if the character is portrayed in a meaningful marriage or romance in the canon text, they still will only read about that character paired with another man.

So the reasons why people prefer to read fic in which Frodo is only paired with male characters are far more diverse than I would have thought a couple of years ago. Some seem to be drawn to the sex itself: the particular thrill or energy or sense of taboo conveyed in depictions of male-male couplings.

Others seem drawn to the enduring, companionable love that seems more possible between male friends than between men and women. A sexual dimension is added to that love, stepping up the level of intimacy, and adding the appeal of erotica, producing some very good bases for male/male relationships whose models go back to well-known "manly" lovers of Greek antiquity. This is the sort of slash that appeals more to me, since I have feel no special excitement over men having sex with each other, in particular. I think this sort of relationship is the basis for the best, most faithful-to-LotR slash, too. Its appeal goes beyond that of [well-written or mediocre] soft or hardcore male/male porn stories.