What a difference a day makes!

[gwyn]

I wish I'd never gotten involved with the ship manifesto thing. I wish I could take the whole thing down. The bitchery of people who don't know the difference between "I find everything painfully bad" & "I'm insanely nitpicky", and "everything is bad!" & "I'm smarter than you!" just astounds me, and the way people twist your words to suit their argument just so they can win a last word contest (go ahead! if it's that important to you, have the last freaking word, my god) just... gah. Really regretting having done this. I do find the fic painfully bad. I tried to explain why -- I make my living fixing bad writing. I don't find it fun to come home and read more bad writing for "fun" or easy to forgive bad mechanics when I have to spend my whole day looking for those things and fixing them. But apparently if you try to explain that you're an editor, so bad writing is a tougher sell for you, you're undignified and arrogant. Go, me.

I went to so much trouble to find some links to help people get started, but I wanted to warn them that they shouldn't necessarily start out with high hopes. Now I'm a screaming bitch who's managed to slam and diss all of Nikita fandom. I guess that's a pretty good indicator that by staying away from the fandom all this time, I was doing the right thing. And I thought X-Files fans were lunatics. This has just been so discouraging. I hate that you can't be honest in this world. I hate that people who have a personal agenda look for ways to attack you or to take offense, especially if you're not worshipping the correct people they think you should. I just hate the whole fannish political world. I'm no good at it, and I despise the hidden agendas.

Thank god for the Fast and the Furious, where I have a nice little cadre of cool people to depend on, and Buffy, where even though there are lunatics, I keep my pillow fort up, and everything's just fine with me and the people inside the pillow fort. Now I'm going to go watch Angelus laugh sinisterly and Wes cut off Lilah's head. Always cheering.

ETA: I also want to say that this is in no way mod_journal's fault and that I don't blame the site at all. I'm just having a snit. If I did learn anything today, it's that my old ultra-opinionated and grating self still has the capacity to overtake the kinder, gentler opinionated self, and that has nothing to do with the site. Spren is lovely, and this snit is totally focused on my little corner.

Comments

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

The funny thing? In the olden days, I used to be much worse! I would have just said, this is a crap fandom for fic and vids, and moved on. This time I tried to explain where I was coming from. Same result, different effort. Guess you can't win.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

i really wonder whether people do not read other fandoms...i mean, we obviously all have limited insight, but there *are* better and worse fandoms. period. yes, sturgeon's law always applies, but the remaining 10% still can be decent, good, or great :-)

then again, folks read for 2 different reasons that often but not always overlap...the love for the source text and the love for the fic...you cannot argue with those of the former ilk :-)

[gwyn-r.livejournal.com]

You are a wise and gracious woman. And totally correct, and I should really remember that in future when I'm ready to rant again. I wish I'd sent my essay by you for a vet! I tip my cartoon iced tea to you (yeah, it's a pop bottle, but if I could have, I'd have chosen a glass of iced tea).

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

toasts back with my glass of water :-)

i've had several arguments lately with monofannish folks who could not conceive that i would rather read a really excellent fic from a writer i knew than a mediocre one in my current fandom...

FWIW, i still think it was a beautiful essay cherishing the love and affection and tension of this show!

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

there *are* better and worse fandoms. period.

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. *G* I was looking at the posting schedule for ship_manifesto and amazed at all the retarded pairings. Dude, I adore Law & Order: SVU, but shipping Olivia/Casey is STUPID.

It reminds me of people on my friends list who seem to make a game out of writing drabbles for as many pairing combinations as they can think of. I excuse it 'cause they're drabbles, but I don't read them. I think that fad has died, thank god.