Cimorene

It's kind of sad that Fandom Wank is gone because now when a kerfluffle happens about something like linking to Fanlore you can start innocently reading the follow-up discussion posts without ever even knowing where they came from until you run across terms like "some people" and nameless entities "seeming to think" and the only reason I actually found out what happened this time was that the original person who objected to the old link appeared elsewhere in the comments and said 'Hi, it's me, the one who made all the fuss'.

I do find it quite amusing that the thisweekmeta post that currently has a placeholder where a link (links?) used to be also has a first comment reading "DW: where it is not only safe to read the comments, it is generally delightful!" and the top comment of the next thread down is currently screened.

HO SHIT

THE RETURN OF VICTORIA BITTER

Where's the goddamn popcorn?! :O

1. Rating:PG..PG-13? For a "Bad" word.



2. [Summary] Jensen had run, with a broken heart, leaving Jared and his world behind, to work with orphaned AIDs children in Malawi. With a new name and a new identity he means to hide, to get back to finding himself. Jared is determined to track him down. Will a shared past be enough to fix them?



3. Summary: I can’t tell if I’m burning of freezing. I can’t tell if I’m awake or dreaming, breathing or dead. Wherever I am, whatever I am, it’s what you’re not.



4. Summary: Ryan comes back from collage and buys Brendon's dream house.



5. Summary: There's poker in the Garden of Eden...[This could make a pretty great Crowley/Aziraphale AU! Go on. I dare you. ETA: Were the angels in the GoE clothed? If so, they could play strip poker. Crowley would have to shed his skin, though.]

I found the link to #2 on fandom_wank! The Anonymous Writing Criticism Meme made it there last night with some people who were unclear on the concept of "If you ask people for anonymous constructive criticism, they might give you constructive criticism", and this summary came from the writer in question. Good times.

penknife explains fic headers with praiseworthy, exhaustive thoroughness (you could give an exam on headers with this post as the text) and a dash of wit in Headers, or the only way we have to judge a book by its cover, making it a worthwhile read for all from the utter newbie to the bitter old fandom queen who never neglects her headers at all and just wants to enjoy the snark.

For some reason, people often seem inspired to write things in the Author's Note field like "I decided to write Bob/Ted even though I think Bob/Ted shippers are dumb and all the other Bob/Ted stories I've ever read suck" when posting to a Bob/Ted community. Don't be that person.

You know, I've often wanted to say something like that, but I've never managed it so concisely. Don't be that person, guys. Even though the urge is often strong, no good can come of it!

That quote reminds me of the Insulting A/N's close cousin, the Backhanded Feedback. Which brings to mind that somewhere I was reading lately, someone was talking about Don't Be That Guy in the context of how "I enjoyed your Bob/Ted story even though I think Bob/Ted shippers are dumb and Bob/Ted is inherently inclined to be sucky" is not the great complimentary fb you might have thought it was. I'm pretty sure it was in the context of the Due South wank (aka Ray Wars iteration #1,600,042: Yes We're Still At It, What Is This Fandom History of Which You Speak?¹) accompanied with flounce that was at Fandom Wank last week or so. Can't remember the precise context or the exchange, though, just that it's the first time I've seen anyone respond to it with "Hey, I totally leave feedback like that all the time and it's really a compliment".


1. No, I'm not making this up. Yes, they really are still at it. See?

One thing I didn't see anyone call out except on fandom wank in the recent spate of concrit debate (kyuuketsukirui and reportedly lavvyan vs lamardeuse and friends) was the wholly inappropriate simile which was the backbone of lamardeuse's post. The essence of it was that it's very simple to see what is unacceptable behaviour in fandom because said behaviour would be unacceptable in a cubicle farm, in relation to an unfamiliar co-worker.

This argument was that the social rules of fandom are obviously congruent with the (postulated, but, as many people did point out, hardly unanimously agreed-upon) social rules of some particular situation in real life. No one actually pointed out, however, that life contains all kinds of social environments, and they all require different social rules.

"How hard is it to simply operate in fandom by the social rules you would use in the office?" might as well for all logical purposes be, "I don't understand why it's so hard for people to use the same rules in fandom as in a drunken sauna party of their five closest friends (it's such a drag to put your pants back on on the way to the toilet)!" or "Obviously we should just use the same social rules in fandom as at a funeral (laughter is universally rude and inappropriate)!"

The manners required by a real life social situation depend on the people there, how well they know each other, how public the place is, why they are there, and any pre-existing formal relationships between them. By this token, the workplace metaphor is actually less appropriate than many others might be:

• Fandom is a large, loosely-connected voluntary free-time group of people who share a hobby, where most connections are friendships and friendly acquaintanceships.


• A workplace is a formalised structure where outside their interpersonal relationships the participants are subject to the imposed formal relationships of their positions in the company; where they are paid to be there and as such don't have much choice about it; where the friendships and friendly acquaintanceships that spring up are generally to pass the time, to make the task pleasanter, or at least sprung from sheer proximity.

A hobby-based club would be a far more appropriate simile for fandom - a sewing or knitting group, a book club, a historical re-enacters group, a folk dance club. Most appropriately of all, it could be compared to a media-based group such as a science fiction club or a creative writing group. Between these latter two examples, I think you'd find that almost all virtual fandom social situations are covered - and the conflict at hand could perhaps fruitfully be defined as a conflict between those who regard it as a club a la an SF Club and those who regard it as a writing group.

♠ I wish LJ had a format=light option for the outside of journals too (you can view, for example, http://cimness.livejournal.com/?style=mine or http://cimness.livejournal.com/tag/alabama/&format=light - but cimness.livejournal.com/?format=light doesn't work). And to make that easier to use, the navigation strip should have format=light and style=mine built into it in a little drop-down or buttons. If I never click on a journal and find myself trying to read a 300-px wide off-center text area on a wrong-sized ugly repeating background with, for example, bright fuschia on neon aqua - well, it will still be too soon. Two members of my OWN immediate family have tragically put their blogs in medium brown on a dark tan. If you just squint slightly it looks like the icons are floating in a sea of inferior fake leather texture.

♠ My dad doesn't have strong preferences about clothes, and also no taste, so for decades he just let my mom know his sizes and simple preferences (like only dark coloured pants and socks, and checked or plaid shirts) and let her be completely in charge of buying him new ones whenever she thought the old ones needed retired, because you could count on him to keep wearing them after they'd fallen apart. The only things she wasn't in charge of throwing out were the many t-shirts and jeans that dated from when they were in college. And my feeling is, my dad looked like a huge dork but he WAS a huge dork, and at least he was a presentable dork, you know? At least he had the grace to give in to my mom's more skillfull management. (She's perfectly competent to manage the simpler vagaries of a non-trendy male wardrobe - when it came to dressing herself so as not to look totally out of place in dressiness, matronliness and colour choice as a middle school teacher, she needed a lot of help. I think she gave over approval of her own outfits to my little sister after I moved out. I have no difficulty in concluding sight unseen that I was better at it, though. You should see some of the stuff my sister picks for herself.) I have much more difficulty managing Wax, who's stubborner than your average goat, I feel sure, but I think she's made some progress. Her habit of stealing excess pairs of my shoes and never buying any of her own has worked out exceptionally well because I buy shoes very carefully, ( I feel there are some great running jokes about shoes in this situation but I can't quite grasp them )

♠Writer Diane Duane on the WB/JKR vs RDR Books-SVA-HP Lexicon trial. A small-time US publisher that's made of dumbass and fail is trying to publish a print version of a Harry Potter encyclopedia that is already available online, and which is 92% made of direct quotes from the HP novels, despite the compiler's having been firmly denied permission in advance. Needless to say, J.K. Rowling is suing. It's a bench trial, and the judge has finished hearing all the testimony, but no ruling is out yet. An excellent and comprehensive series of links and information going back several months can be found posted in fandom_wank by cleolinda.

♠ Did I ever mention how much I love Blik wall decals? They have a whole Threadless design shop now.

Cassie Edwards apparently also plagiarized her author's note and stole from Longfellow, a Pulitzer-winning novel, and the Encyclopedia Britannica.

The author's note, guys. WHAT.

Msscribe returns. Basically it was all the nanny's fault. Two f_w artistes provide helpful filks to the tune of the themesong from The Nanny. What a way to start the day!

In other news, brunch is off, but I'm feeling blah about that anyway. Last night I spent way too many hours trying to make the sewing machine work and finally had a fit of panic at supper time until Mom, of course, fixed it inside five minutes. Meanwhile I took half a mg of xanax, and then forgot about it and drank a margarita. Then I woke Mom at midnight to ask how much alcohol was in it and spent a while googling (and trying to stay awake). It seems that 1mg with alcohol can certainly kill you and one anecdote concerned 1mg + 3 whiskey shots = coma. Mom said it was more like the quantity of one shot, but I was still a little nervous about possible comas (even through the sleepy haze of multiplied tranquiliser) and dragged a mattress into my sister's room to sleep in the vague hope that she would notice if I happened to fall into a coma after all. Nothing happened, though.

I ate about half a jar of spicy salsa and a half a bag of Tostito's yesterday, and cupsful of goldfish crackers. I think that snackfood might actually be what I miss most about this place when I'm gone.

In the beautiful Wincest Wank from earlier this week, which was still pretty tame when I first checked, there was a mini wanksplosion and the wank is now coming from inside the house, including the first time I have ever seen anyone take "But what are your thoughts on yaoi?" seriously.

Wow, I love the internets.

cim: did you know the berlin wall is a 'he'?
wax: it is?
cim: yeah, it is. that woman who is married to it -
wax: she's straight?

badum-ching!

this link - which is totally not made up nor in any way misrepresented - found in the links of the otf_wank post about the guy who is married to a horse (again: no, really).