Nuisances

[fpb]

A couple of days ago I read an outrageously bad and insulting fanfic passage. I left a brief though angry review, noted here that I was worried this might get me in trouble with FA again (which was the only thing that really mattered to me) and left it at that.

Someone else, however, was not willing to. The news must have gone like wildfire among the author and her friends, since my LJ was soon under siege by a company of irate people who wanted... well, what DID they want? Their polemic did not seem to want to deny that the author had written wha she had written, but that she might possibly not have meant it, because it was spoken by one of her characters, and because that character later went on to do some rather nasty things to someone or other. On further debating, it turns out that the character is the survivor of a whole family slaughtered by Voldemort, a situation that compares with Harry Potter's and hardly suggests that she is not to be trusted; and that it is as a result of this trauma that she eventually viciously abuses someone. Not that I could be bothered to read the story, but none of this suggests that her account is unreliable.

The strangest feature of this sequence of events is that the author was actually one of the people who had attacked me, but, until unveiled by someone else, she kept her identity hidden from me. Once unmasked, however, she showed not the least embarrassment. That she had plainly started her game with the hope of remaining unrecognized and perhaps manipulating me did not seem to faze her.

What annoys me the most is that the bunch then reformed and migrated to someone else's blog, where they proceeded to pat each other on the back about their inept performance. Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire, although in this case the feminine gender would be more indicated. I have had to resist my impulse to go after them and the further bunch of twits who gathered to offer them support; life is too short, and after all I have had more damaging enemies. But it does leave a sour after-taste in the mouth - even after the author, in the safety of someone else's blog, all but admitted that the passage in question was insulting. Which did not prevent one late-comer from trying to start the polemic all over again, repeating like an echo-chamber the exact same arguments that I had already answered to more than satiety.

Comments

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I'm not surprised. As I grow as a writer, I've come to see the sort of passage that you objected to reads more like kids calling one another names on the playground. And the behavior of the writer and her friends seems to belong on that same venue, and at that same level of maturity.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You know, I did not enjoy writing this entry. It was mainly a matter of setting down my view of the event, seeing as how these kind of people have a habit of settling their own official version via fandom_wank, wiki and backstabber conversations in threads I do not see.

Please indulge my soapbox

[norwyn.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I grew tired of reading the back-and-forth over the first entry. I felt that there was nothing new being said after a point, and stopped reading, but did have a few comments. As a writer, you open your work for criticism, and must be willing to endure same, hopefully growing and maturing in your efforts. When you create characters, you are creating their speech, habits, mannerisms, etc., in short, you are responsible for their actions. I do realize that there are times when the characters must be called upon to be inflammatory...but it must be relevant to the text and needs to contribute to the storyline. I'm thinking more along the lines of the villans in the old war epics and other such movies my dad used to watch. For example, a Nazi soldier would contribute hate speech, and commit unholy acts against various people groups...an overseer would be equally demonic to an African slave, etc. etc.

Sadly, writers who have nothing relevant to say...those whose prose would better serve a subway terminal restroom wall...feel free to insert all sorts of ill-mannered commentary against Our Lord, and/or Christianity in general. As you well know, Christians are the group least protected under civil rights legislation and the glut of political correctness doctrinal statements. We must be tolerant of the behaviors of others, and may not ever dare call a sin a sin; by so living we go against the discipline by which we are called to serve. Of course these are the same who throw out the tired commentary of the cross, slamming us for wearing the symbol of a death chamber around our necks, or worse still, some dead guy...how would we feel if they wore an electric chair, etc? Too blind to see the point--we do not celebrate the death, but the life. That is why I do not wear a crucifix...I recall the barren cross, the empty tomb. Yet others choose commemorate the Passion by the crucifix (a Baptist friend of mine prefers a crucifix to remind her of what was done for her), either way, the Life, not the means of death is remembered.

I hate that your stand on the faith has caused an uproar, but I suppose that is to be expected (we were warned in the Book, were we not?). Meanwhile, I hope you will forgive my soapbox ramblings, and know that they were meant as support from a fellow believer.

Re: Please indulge my soapbox

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I do not think that the author is actually talentless - at least, she seems to have a large following, including a few members of my own f-list. I think rather that she is scarily provincial, ignorant and prejudiced about the world's largest religion, and, what is worse, unwilling, even after years, to admit that there was anything seriously wrong with what she wrote. I think it is really a matter of self-regard. It is a principle with me to admit when I am wrong, but I admit that when my temper is up and I am face to face with an opponent, that does not come so easy. However, even after disengaging from me and taking her grievances to another blog, she still would do nothing more than to ascribe the passage to a "youthful folly", as it had apparently been written five years ago - which still left the issue open as to what exactly the folly was - to write hate speech and ignorant unhistorical nonsense, or to express herself in such a way (while reneging nothing of the content) as to make retaliation inevitable? And she only said that where she thought I would not be reading.