This is genuinely well-meant advice to all the poor fools who waste their time lurking on this LJ

[fpb]

I gave it to one particular person, and now I repeat it to everyone of the dozens of sad, vindictive, time-wasting twerps who cannot seem to live without finding something to blame me for.

Of us two, which one values the other the more? Which one goes looking for the other's writing, seeking for reasons to be indignant and sarcastic, hanging on to whatever reference may be twisted into a reason, an excuse, a springboard of any sort, merely to attach your name to mine? To me, you mean very little, except perhaps an occasional opportunity to be sarcastic at your expense. What is it that makes me so important in your eyes, that you just insist on commenting on me, as if I mattered? And, please, don't give me the usual nonsense about me being a pseud. The world is full of pseuds, but other pseuds like you do not generally get obsessed with them.

And now I have a suggestion for you. Forget I exist and do something constructive. Leave f_w and other similar gathering-points for inadequates and - write a song; write a story; draw something; start an OU degree - Hell, get a a CIMA qualification, become an accountant, draw up the accounts for a company. Do something saner with your time than persecute someone you do not know for reasons that do not exist.

Comments

[pandoraculpa.livejournal.com]

It constantly amazes me that there are so many, many people out there willing to devote so much time and energy into something they profess to hate. But then again, I have to remind myself that I've been lucky to surround myself on LJ with reasonably mature, intelligent people, and that the vast majority of folk here are actually adolescents full of hormones and self-righteousness, and very little else.

Poor saps. Even with you telling it to them plain, it's obviously going to take them many more years to gain the wisdom to understand that the more you feed something, the more it grows. And normally I'd sail right past a post of this nature with only a mental nod of acknowledgement, but I'm more than slightly sick of suffering fools lately, and just wanted to let you know that I can commiserate. Wait until they grow enough brains to actually debate you; until they do, it's a waste of your time to even engage them.

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

Are you serious or just pushing CIMA for the iPOD? Of course you're not - no one mocks people in finance. We're the only ones on the planet who can be bald and wear bow ties and still look sexy.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

But persecution is fun!

No, seriously, did they wank you again? I must have missed that.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I was trying to look for the constructive activity that would attract me least. In short, do anything rather than waste your time attacking someone wholly unimportant for saying things you profess to hate. Who the Hell do they think I am, after all? George W.Bush?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It is more a by-product of events on incitata's LJ, plus other stuff I have not even been able to follow. Apparently my name got coupled with PirateJenny's, which is doubly incomprehensible for me since I delivered some very public and quite bloody insults against the lady. Go figure.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Ah, I remember that now. I just skipped over it, because I didn't want to create my own little wankfest.

Did F_W propose hot!hate!sex between you and pyratejenni? (BTW, you're spelling it incorrectly.) Sounds like something they'd do. I had nothing against her until she started acting like an idiot over on bad_penny, but I guess she was just stressed out at the moment.

Your response was pretty restrained, at least for you. Good going!

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Surprise is a favourite tactic of mine.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

That and the sneak attack.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I would never have figured you of all people for a victim of this sort of thing. You have my sympathy.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait. They're the same thing.

Never mind!

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Hmm, not that so much...

I don't do subtle.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

I've noticed.

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

Surprise. And fear. Fear and surprise!

Our two main weapons...

[pandoraculpa.livejournal.com]

It's not so much here (which is why I have to remind myself of those things aforementioned) as in real life, where no one has immunity from imbeciles. There's too many of 'em out there; why should we have to deal with them while we're (hopefully) relaxing online too? Truth to tell, what you're going through is precisely why I held off from fandom as long as I did, and why I've always been so aloof once I got there. Wank just pisses me off, as it's most often uninformed, venal and petty. And it's just so not worth it all.

(besides, I'm opinionated as all hell and would be a lightning rod too, if I cared to involve myself in the drama that passes for fandom. And who has time for that?)

Be well, sir, and don't let the bastards get to you.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Life's too short to bother being subtle. I'll leave that to the English.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

You have such a dramatic-seeming and very full online life. I don't do any fandom stuff (though I've enjoyed the few items of *yours* that I've read), so I'm not really a party to it, but the parts of it that spill over into your LJ are very intense. I'd wither in the heat if it were me involved--but at one remove it's highly charged without being deadly.

Don't mock my comrades - I'll do it for you...

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

"Attract you the least"? You are not dating enough accountants. Start small by warming up to an alcoholic auditor or three - they're the dream team, the fun bunch - and then get down for some seriously sexy stochastic modeling banter with the actuaries and fund managers drinking gingerale.
You'll forget there is an internet after a night of CUSIPs - they'll rock your world.

Re: Don't mock my comrades - I'll do it for you...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I'll bear that in mind. Alas, any person of charm and interest will always know better than to date me.

Re: Don't mock my comrades - I'll do it for you...

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

Bah, Charm and Beauty are for quantum physicists. Real accountants project interest between their ears, and auditors prove it on the balance sheets. *Where did I put that leather pocket-protector?*

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Surprise, Fear, and the comfy chair! Our three weapons ...

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

He definitely gets more heat than the average fan. Partially it's because he's a part of the HP fandom - far more batshit than most fandoms.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yeah... because a fun, detail-filled story is a natural catalyst for scary online arguments...?

Or, as the person reading under my shoulder says (see, she's got the chair and I'm standing typing...), "the more characters, the more random pairings that you can tick people off with!!"

But that's not what ticks people off about FPB's posts, I'm gathering...

[patchworkmind.livejournal.com]

Oh, damn! We'll come in again.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Actually, one theory I've heard, that makes a lot of since, called HP a "feral fandom." They pointed out that a lot of fans were very young, and had Harry Potter as their first fandom - with no experience to fall back on, they were more likely to make a lot of common mistakes, like idolizing fanfic writers, believing bullshit, getting too passionately involved ... and they tended to look up to anyone older than them, so the adult and college-aged fans got a lot more power than they could handle.

Thus was born the shipping wars, the Inner Circle, Msscribe, most of F_W fodder for the next how many years ...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

interesting! sort of a Lord of the Flies fandom thing :-D

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Very apt comparison.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, you have no idea what used to happen in superhero fandom, and that was before the Net came in...

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Nope; not something I'm familiar with.

I do know some things about Star Trek fandom pre-web, and that was really something. They invented slash.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Now don't get this wrong, and I hope you're not offended, but I had no idea libertarians did sociology. And clever sociology too!

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

I, too, am full of surprises! :)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Superhero fandom was 95% male - for all I know, it still is - so I think it was not very interested in slash. Femmeslash, now... but I quit seven years ago, and heaven only knows how things have changed since. But as for fighting and ferocity, you should read some of the old COMICS JOURNALs - "anyone who disagrees with MY stance is a sold-out, lowbrow, anti-intellectual, mercenary enemy of the noble artform of comics!"

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Er... does that include spelling "sense" as "since"?

Urk... two wisecracks in a row, which might suggest sarcasm, perhaps even hostility - and I really do not want that. But you did misspell it - check out six entries upthread.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Oh, crap. That's the sort of typo I make all the time.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

OMG, that's hilarious!

You know, after I got used to fandom, I started seeing everything in fandom terms. Some of those old academic wars about the interpretation of Shakespeare? Totally wanky.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

In this case, it is mostly a matter of a person who was a friend of mine and decided, for mysterious reasons, that all the things she had been saying about me for months on end (including a Niffle on FA) were wrong, and all the people we had been laughting at together were right... I have issues with her stability and her politics, but mostly what I find is funny.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

True. My master, and the greatest historian, perhaps, in the twentieth century, was a man called Georges Dumezil. He was outspoken and inventive, and trod on dozens if not hundreds of professorial corns. So one day, another historian - and a respected one, too, would you believe it = organized a symposium in London "about" Dumezil's work, without letting either Dumezil or any of his friends or supporters know it!! Now that's one thing that Heidi and co. haven't thought of yet...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Everyone does. In wank threads, however, they like to pretend that it is a profound error in English caused by the fact that you (I) are (am) a sad little unenlightened Italian ignoramus. True!

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Well, it would be hard to keep something like that a secret, what with the Internet and all.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, they weren't able to, anyway. But can you beat it, an international scholarly symposium, with all the usual trappings of university hospitality and so on, all in order to trash the work of one man?

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

w00t - "I'm Italian, btw." is on FPB Bingo! (http://users.rcn.com/mindset/wank/fpbbingo.png) It's out of date, though, and they should repalce NarcissaM with Pyratejenni already.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Nope, nope. I can't beat that.

Unless you want to take Encyclopedia Dramaticae's (http://encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Fandom) view of Western religion.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I think I'll skip. Besides, I have a few hundred music files to convert to MP3 format, apart from all the usual fuss, so this is apt to be a busy busy busy little morning. I wonder how people ever have the time to go on F_w?

[mosellegreen.livejournal.com]

Heheh. A few years ago, before I started F-locking almost all my posts, I had the same problem: silly people (one in particular) who would lurk on my LJ every day and post snippy messages, if not outright flames, if I said anything they disagreed with. I couldn't and still don't comprehend their motive: "I know! I'll go look at the LJ of that person I hate, and see if she said anything that'll piss me off today!" Yeah, that sounds like fun.

The most annoying of these offenders kept flaming me every time I foolishly took her off email block, so I finally just left the block up. For all I know she's still sending me flames every week.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind that I just Friended you; your LJ looks interesting and we clearly have multiple interests in common - fanfiction, Western civilization, that kind of thing. And a couple of mutual Friends. You don't have to Friend me back. Also, I've added you to my political filter (I love filters), but if you find it tedious and would rather be off it, just say so. Just from the couple of pages of your posts I've read, we are at least partially in agreement, but I do tend to rant heatedly in the privacy of my political filter, since I know everyone who reads it will for the most part agree with me, and it relieves tension from having to disagree cordially in RL.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, I friended you back anyway. You sound like an interesting person, although I wonder whether you will agree with some of my views.

[mosellegreen.livejournal.com]

Cool! As for agreeing, we'll find out.