This is a day for bitter irony

[fpb]

Remember my old fic "Gay Bar"? The one that was lied about by some swine and brought upon me the associated wrath of every self-proclaimed champion of gay rights in fandom? The one I got sick of defending and pulled from FictionAlley, because I did not want to have to cope with hate-filled would-be reviews from people who, as often as not, had never read it?

WEll, I'd left it up on ffnet. And now someone has made it a favourite. Someone, mind you, who closes her ffnet entry with: GAY PRIDE!! Laugh? I nearly choked.

Comments

[shezan.livejournal.com]

This was before I showed up here - PLZ 2 BE POINTIN ME?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

http://login.fanfiction.net/story/story_preview.php?storyid=2026608&chapter=1
If you have the nerve to read the reviews, they are quite an instructive experience.
As for the unexpected fan, http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2208930/

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2026608/1/Gay_bar <- try this link

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Sigh. Okay, dude, can you handle some honest criticism? Yes, I read "Gay Bar." I've been biting my tongue ever since you first mentioned that story and how the "homosexualists" "persecuted" you for it.

I offer this in the spirit of the same brutally honest critique I give all stories when I am betaing them. (Yes, I do betaing and editing elsewhere -- not fan fiction, and not as "Inverarity." And I don't pull any punches with people I don't know.)

The tone of the reviews you got was mostly reflexive indignation from a bunch of slashers, but I think the substance of their criticism was largely correct. To wit:

(1) You depict Harry as the very worst sort of gay stereotype, the dissolute, drunken man-whore cruising for tail. Yes, there do exist people who are actually like that -- every stereotype has some real-world incarnations -- but your choice to depict gay!Harry as the most negative possible stereotype does legitimately make one wonder what point you're trying to make.

(2) I don't understand the logic of Draco and Pansy thinking they could have saved Voldemort if they'd known Harry was gay. I guess the assumption is that if they had outed him, the wizarding world would have turned against him, which means you're assuming the wizarding world is staunchly anti-gay. Which could be true, since Rowling never mentions homosexuality in her books, but if your conclusion is going to hinge on that premise, you have to spell it out rather than assume that all readers share your assumptions. (And frankly, even if the wizarding world were anti-gay, I question whether they'd really say, "Better Voldemort than an arse-bandit.")

(3) It's not well written. It's not horribly written, but there's really not much point to it. What's the story? It seems to be written for the sole purpose of expressing your pet theory about homosexuality. Of course most people interpreted it as an anti-gay polemic.

I have no idea why your "GAY PRIDE" fan favorited it. Maybe she was being ironic. Maybe she thought it was funny. Maybe she barely read it and just thought, "Gay!Harry! Squeee!" Who knows? I don't think I'd take that as an endorsement from the gay community, though.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Have you read what I wrote? Harry was drunk and looking for trouble because he had just been dumped. Being drunk, he was just as hostile as he could. Either you haven't met many angry drunks, or you don't reckon a gay man can be one.

Harry was hurting, and this was his way of dealing with it. Think of his outburst in Dumbledore's office, plus a good deal of what the psychologists call identification with the enemy. He is acting out the most odious role he knows how, because he is out to spread the grief. The rest was a construction by the bien-pensant bourgeois Draco and Pansy - who were the worst kind of rich swine, still hankering for the Dark Lord and massacres. There are people like that in many upper classes, not just in Italy where I met them. As for "my theory" about homosexuality - is it possible that I should be forced to teach you of all people the difference between author's voice and character's voice? This is PANSY PARKINSON who speaks. Remember? The character who never has a single sympathetic scene in canon? The character you yourself skewered? The character who closes here, with an absurd dream of the Dark Lord winning? And how can you of all people be stupid enough to take their empty dreams of glory seriously?

What your criticism says to me is that I should sign-post every passage and underline every BLOODY item lest some idiot reader should happen to think that what I place in the beak of the foulest of villains or of the most wild-eyed of drunks or addicts should be taken to be mine. You have already made the same mistake when ascribing the views of the mayor of Capo Pancrazio - the views of a politician making a speech for effect in the presence of his constituents and his enemies - to me. Sorry, I am an adult and I thought I was writing for such.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Well, there are two possibilities here:

(a) I am indeed an idiot, unable to read subtext or draw inferences, and so is every other person who's criticized your story, or...

(b) Whatever it was you meant to say with that story was poorly conveyed and came off as crude soapboxing.

Look, I've had a few people rip into me for specific bits in my stories that didn't come across to them the way I intended. Sometimes I can see their point, and sometimes I think they're completely off-base, but even if you're inclined to disagree with what they're saying, the correct response to constructive criticism offered in good faith is never "You bloody idiot, obviously you just can't understand adult writing!"

[fpb.livejournal.com]

When, on top of making the SAME mistake TWICE - AND I EXPLAINED IT TO YOU THE FIRST TIME - you ascribe the worst possible motives to me - and that is something else I pointed out before - kindly don't act surprised when I reply less than mildly. I am not a patient person and you know it. And to be covered with insults because someone else has misunderstood or wilfully misrepresented my story is not going to make me any more patient. And if you make aggressive remarks, don't act all hurt when you get it right back. Seek the battle, don't complain of the wounds.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

As for every other person who criticized the story, you are talking nonsense. Many of the people who expressed kind thoughts such as wishing rape or murder on me had not read the story at all. The great Hijja, on the other hand - who, as a homosexual herself, has more right than most to take offence - mildly said that the story left the impression that no homosexual could ever be happy. Which is not really right - although the story does suggest that few heroes can ever be happy - but at least it makes a Hell of a lot more sense than to ascribe to me the views of Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson, or the REPORTED (by Pansy) views of Millicent Bulstrode, for crying out loud!

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Want to know something else? I totally disapprove of the underlying political views in AQ, beginning with what you clearly imply about anti-terrorist legislation. However, when I deal with your writing I do my best to abandon my own political position and try and understand yours. Remember my description of government in the Cervantes and Rashes fic? That was your view, not mine. You evidently are either unwilling or unable to return the favour. And in doing so, you line up, willing or not, with those who threatened me with male rape and various similar things.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Time and again, it strikes me that my critics have all lived very sheltered lives. They have never heard charming, sympathetic middle-aged persons sing the praises of Hitler and Mussolini and Lenin and Che Guevara in attractive, tasteful, expensive living rooms. That's where I got the Malfoys. They have never been friends and house-shared for years with a pleasant gay man who got drunk every Friday evening and turned into a monster. That's where I got Harry. They never paid attention to how politicians and columnists use language as a weapon, not to make points, but to place others in the wrong. That's where I got the Mayor of Capo Pancrazio. So maybe you are unable to see these things for what they are. At least, I hope so.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

At least I didn't make the mistake of ascribing Pansy's views to you, but the story didn't really work for me either. I think there is a real defect in the story, rather than only in the readership.

I mean, I recognized the types you were invoking, but the overall effect to me when I first read it was one of broad and biting parody. If I hadn't already known you somewhat well at that point and hadn't determined to reserve judgement until I had a chance to hear from you about your actual intent, I would have been inclined to read the story as an attempt to troll.

Has anyone, after reading it, ever articulated recognition of what you were trying to achieve in this one story?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

It might be more useful if you saw fit to point out what those flaws were. As a matter of fact, I have been thinking of rewriting some passages, but I WILL NOT accept the criticism of someone who (for instance) seems to have missed the somewhat central point that Harry was drunk because he had just been dumped. First prove that you haev actually seen the words on the page. And bear in mind that any kowtowing to the idol of public opinion - as manipulated by liars who deliberately misrepresented everything I did - will cause immediate and total rejection. If you want to offer an argument, to refer for support to a lynch mob that had not even read the bloody thing is NOT the way to make me pay attention.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

All right. I meant to write a review when I first read the story, before I saw what was going on in the review box and decided to stay out of it. I can try and recall some of that here:

Broadly speaking, the issue is that significant personal/emotional dynamics in the story are alluded to but never developed. For example, we're informed that Harry's on a bender and seeking to humiliate his old boyfriend after having been dumped, or that the bar patrons are not really tolerant of his acting out. Told, not shown -- which is especially deadly when the story is strongly from the POV of particular characters (the Malfoys) who were not actually party to the information. "Little did they know..." is an extraordinarily weak storytelling device, and I would never suggest hanging an entire story on it like this.

There's also the difficulty that what we are (or aren't) shown serves to undermine what we're merely told. For example, if Harry's behavior is unusual or unacceptable in this context, why is the lanky fellow the only one to actually be shown reacting negatively? Nobody else is shown reacting -- the other people in the bar may as well be cardboard cutouts. (For that matter, wouldn't the bar employ a bouncer?) Yes, we're told that the other patrons are disapproving, but in fiction as in life, actions speak louder than words. Most normal readers, when faced with an apparent conflict between actions and narration, put more weight on (their reading of) actions. If you want to make a point, you have to sell it in the character's actions, and you failed to accomplish that.

The final portion, the conversation between the Malfoys, is especially deadly. The conversation is presented entirely uncritically (well, the story is from their POV, after all), but that is always dangerous with unsympathetic characters. Good writing and sufficient space can serve to separate authorial and character voices, but bad or undeveloped writing (as in this case) can obscure any separation. Then there is Draco's final "realization" that if only Harry's homosexuality had been exposed earlier, the war could have been won -- wait, what? It doesn't make any sense, or at least the connection is inadequately explained, but it's related to the reader as though it were self-evident. Draco's reasoning on that point especially, whether it is ultimately faulty or not, needs further explanation for anyone who doesn't live in the same sort of mental universe as him. That the reasoning is assumed rather than being shown, unfortunately, conveys the impression that the author does. (I am not saying you actually do, I am just pointing out what the story, taken by itself, appears to communicate.)

Because of radical omissions and undercharacterization, "Gay Bar" is effectively a very unfortunately-shaped Rorschach blot. The story, as written, is extremely ambiguous and I would even say unintentionally misleading. As the author, you can look at it and your brain will unconsciously supply the missing details, but your readers do not have this benefit.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Oh, and if you want to know what the point of the story is, it's simple. That's what we do to heroes. That's gratitude for you. Society is a place where the Malfoys and the Bulstrodes can live at ease and indulge their foul dreams, while someone who gave everything so that even his enemies might live is reduced to getting drunk alone.
"Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink Martinis and watch the sunrise,
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten foot cell,
An innocent man in a living Hell."

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

Okay, I am telling you this in all honesty: that is not what I got from the story. It does not appear that anyone read it the way you wanted it to be read. If everyone misses your point, then your story failed to say what you wanted it to say.

This is why I'm unwilling to give you a really thorough critique even of your Anastasio stories -- you react with rage to any criticism beyond word choices.

I would not be bothered at all if you wrote a long critique of my political views (whatever you imagine them to be) as expressed in AQ. I probably wouldn't agree with much of it, but as long as you don't call me a rapist or something, I'd enjoy reading it. I would not call you an idiot, sheltered, unable to read, out to get me, in league with people wishing me violence, claiming that everything my characters say is what I actually believe, etc.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

If you align yourself with rapists, don't be surprised if the prospective victim reminds you of it. I did not, in fact, say or even suggest anything of the kind. In this issue, you are more like the kind of person who finds, to his embarrassment, that he has been unconsciously repeating the arguments of Jew-bashers or of enemies of freedom. At which point I would suggest that there is something wrong with your arguments and that you ought to have a second look at them.

And your bizarre notion that EVERYONE agreed on the meaning of the story is just plain wrong. That's what happens when you pay attention to noisy minorities. It took a month before the hate campaign (originated not by the story but by an unwise remark in the reviews page, "anyone here offended?" - I tended to say that kind of thing at the time; another reviews page started with "anyone here think that I bumped my own head before writing this?") even got started, and even then, a number of people were openly bewildered at what its point was supposed to be. Your problem is that you seem to think that anyone who makes a showy production of being indignant about something must have something to complain about. Except, of course, when it is me.

And that is something that I really continue to fail to understand. How can you possibly not be aware that you are constantly ascribing motive, and motive of the worst kind - hostile prejudice and a desire to keep people down? Why are you surprised when I react with rage to what are in effect insults? I can, in fact, take criticism. I have also been known to reject it peacefully - "I disagree with you because so and so" (read Tetleybag's response here, http://forums.fictionalley.org/reviews/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41524 - and my response to her; particularly interesting because, as the Elfried Jelinek reference shows, we have practically nothing in common).. I am not so happy when said criticism implies presumptions of, say, racism (or - to mention a fault you do not have but which drives me up the wall in others - when it seems to be done for its own sake, for the sake of saying something destructive). Yes, I do have a temper, but I deny your implicit contention that my temper is arbitrary and the shelter of an egotistical and fragile personality who regards any criticism as an insult. And I suggest you should ask yourself why so many of your criticisms, yours in particular, have been received as insults.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

For crying out loud, step back and listen to yourself. For that matter, read more carefully what inverarity is saying: apparently everyone (that I'm aware of at least) has misunderstood the story, not necessarily all in the same way.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

If I refer to issues I have already had with inverarity (here, for instance: http://fpb.livejournal.com/415390.html ), you can't say that I should read him more carefully. Perhaps you should. I had already, not once but twice, pointed out that he had a tendency to ascribe the worst reasons to me. AND HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY THAT IT IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE THAT EVERYONE MISREAD THE FUCKING STORY IN THE SAME WAY? Many of the haters had never read it at all, which did not encourage me to take their pathologies seriously. A few reviewers - the number a fic would normally get without a campaign from some filth - were simply bewildered by all the anger. The truth is that this was happening when a bunch of scum were trying to make me an object of fandom hatred. The same people who tried to make me out to be a racist over the Blaize Zabini issue. If you take that kind of filth seriousoly - except of course in the way that filth should be taken seriously - that is, by totally refusing to touch it - I have to say that I think the less of you.