[ SECRET POST #329 ]

[degrees.livejournal.com]

⌈ Secret Post #329 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Reminder: We're going to close the secret submission post at 350, and we're nearly there, so don't forget to submit!

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #047.
Secrets Not Posted: 0 broken links, 0 not!secrets, 0 repeats.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Saturday, December 1st, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Neither speaks particularly well for the participants. Can't say it to their face, so let's talk behind their back? Classic.

[(Anonymous)]

start a hate meme and slag off on her anonymously

[(Anonymous)]

Telling someone to their face that their fic is irredeemably sucky is supposed to be somehow better?

Let me put it another way. I have very strong negative feelings about the Star Wars prequel trilogy. I have aired these feelings frequently while in the company of friends. However, were I to have occasion to spend time with George Lucas, I would not say "Mr Lucas, I think your movies sucked balls" despite the fact that that's what I think. Why? Because that would be an impressively rude thing to do.

I also don't tell my mother-in-law that her cooking is only barely edible, but I do on occasion mention it to my spouse after we're home.

[(Anonymous)]

How should I answer this? Well, okay, YES.

Granted, if you went up to someone and told them their work "sucked balls", that would be impressively rude. However, if you told them that you find their writing OOC and that certain aspects of it can stand for improvement, that doesn't sound too bad, does it? Why does everything have to be about hate. Oh, and I'm sure this point has been brought up before, but fanwriters are not your in-laws. Giving them concrit will not result in them making your life a living hell - unless they happen to be vindictive bitches, in which case, they deserve every ounce of vitriol they get.

But why am I even bothering? It's not like anyone in fandom has a backbone or gives honest feedback. Obviously facetious sycophancy and behind-doors trash talk are the only ways to go.

[(Anonymous)]

Where did you get the idea that I'm advocating facetious sycophancy? It is, actually, possible not to provide any feedback to the author on a fic one has read. In cases where an author has shown him or herself to be less than receptive to criticism, constructive or otherwise (and if your fandoms are free of such people, count yourself very lucky), leaving negative feedback is at best ill-advised and at worst downright mean, but that doesn't mean you should praise a fic you dislike.

There's also a difference between trash talking and venting. The former is about putting someone down. The latter is about expressing your frustration to a party who will not be injured and/or cause drama over your expression of that frustration with the intent to release that frustration.

[(Anonymous)]

You have to realize, once I've veered off onto that tangent, it's not actually about you anymore.

I'm sorry, is venting what we call it now? Because I came into this thinking it was actually "mocking the author's work behind her back" for cathartic reasons. I guess I just haven't taken into considering all this frustration, which clearly validates vilifying another individual without their knowledge. Toss in cathartic reasons, and suddenly it's not putting someone down anymore when you mock them? Mocking in secret is not mocking?

Amd even if that worked out, it still doesn't really solve any of your initial problems - your hatred of the stories, your annoyance at the person's BNF status letting them get away with crap writing - now does it? You call it letting out frustration, I call passive-aggressiveness, which never solves anything and just make people bitter and hateful.

[(Anonymous)]

My initial comment was rather tongue-in-cheek, which I suppose I should have made clearer. I thought my second comment clarified that, but I guess not.

While you've specified that general "you" is in effect, neither I nor the OP said anything about hating stories. I interpreted the OP as expressing frustration with perceived OOC issues in the mentioned fics. In my book, that's not hatred. It's not even close. I can't speak to the BNF issue because I don't even know who the BNFs in my fandoms are, nor if we even have any, so you may well be right on that point.

How is venting passive-aggressive if you're neither trying to convert someone to your way of thinking nor hinting at your displeasure to the author? For some people, venting may lead to bitterness. Certainly, if you continue to dwell on it, then it does, but for some of us, just telling someone how annoyed we are about something makes that thing substantially less annoying.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, the OP certainly doesn't hate "stories". They really hate the "stotys" though. I'm not sure what "stotys" are, but I think, I think, it might be the same thing.

Rationalize it how you want, I still don't think getting together to bitch about someone behind their back really gets anything done. You are right about it making you feel better, but that's just a nicer way of saying you want to feel good about yourself by having a laugh at someone else's expense without the fear of incurring repercussions. No, I disagree, it is passive-aggressive, and it's that thing a lot of women do that I personally cannot stand.

When I talked about the specific problems with the BNF, I might have been directing my point more at the OP than at you. Your advice really doesn't help with any of the problems listed at all - least of all the one where they feel bad about not having the courage to stand up to the other person. If anything, venting will just make it worse, since once you've taken away the frustration without actually addressing the issue, there will never be any incentive to fix the problem.

[(Anonymous)]

Somehow, having read the secret several times, I missed that line until you pointed it out. I retract my comment about hate, then.

Laughing behind someone's back could arguably be called passive-aggressive (although in the case of someone you only know through their fanworks and otherwise have no contact with, I think it would be a weak argument), but ranting about someone not to their face is not the same thing. Letting off steam, at least for me, is very different than the smugly superior sort of back-biting you seem to be talking about. It's the difference between "oh my god, I cannot believe Author X wrote Character A doing Y; what's wrong with her?" and "argh; I'm so annoyed that Author X keeps writing Character A doing Y when that behavior is contraindicated by canon." The first is nasty and arguably passive-aggressive. The second is just an expression of frustration.

Whether or not this is an effective solution to the problem the OP described depends on what sort of resolution the OP is looking for. If it's important to the OP that s/he stand up to this BNF, then no, it's not a good solution. But if the OP is simply looking to be less irked by this person's writing and has reason to believe saying something might cause unwanted drama, it might be a solution, if not an ideal one.

As a slight digression, I happen to find venting to be a very effective way of getting my thoughts together before approaching someone with rational and constructive criticism. If I'm irritated enough to feel the need to rant, I generally want to get the bitchy out before I try to engage in constructive dialog. Venting also helps me pinpoint exactly what has pushed my buttons, which both helps me give more precise criticism and keeps me from being unfairly critical when I'm really just having a bad day.

This is a very interesting conversation, by the way. Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

Fanfic writers are not George Lucas. Fandom writers are also (unlikely to be) your mother in law. People who use failed analogies should shampoo my crotch.

[(Anonymous)]

If fanfic writers were George Lucas or my mother-in-law, then it wouldn't have been an analogy at all, actually. But don't you feel much better now that you've vented your frustrations about my analogy's lack of quality?

[(Anonymous)]

You're right, let me rephrase that. Fanfic writers are not likely to slap you with massive libel suits for openly criticizing their work. Fanfic writers are also not likely to badmouth you at family reunions and make sarcastic remarks about your homemaking skills for dissing their cooking. And I do feel much better, because I've made you that my opinion reaches you and that I'm not engaging in some kind of futile backdoor bitchfest instead.

[(Anonymous)]

I hadn't considered the libel issue at all. I just grabbed the first well-known person who created something that annoyed the hell out of me who came to mind. As for the other, if said fanfic writer is a friend or a member of a social group (fandom-based or no) that you belong to, that sort of thing can come up, along with serious guilt-tripping for having said something so "mean." YMMV, of course.

I'm glad you feel better.