Lemming, that's me

[katallison]

There's something rather paradoxical about following the crowd under the banner of posting unpopular opinions, isn't there? In any event --

1. musesfool said this first, but I'll endorse it: humor is much harder to write well than tragedy, angst, etc. (You will notice that I do not write humor. My mama may have raised a lazy child, but she raised no fool.)

2. Just because fan A, whom you don't know from Adam, posted criticism of a story by your good buddy fan B, or publicly disagreed with her, does not mean you are obligated by the laws of friendship to rain down anathema upon fan A's head, post nasty comments in her LJ, or bad-mouth her throughout fandom. You are not doing your friend a favor by acting this way; you're making her look bad.

3. It is entirely possible to have no opinion or strong feelings whatsoever about RPS one way or the other.

4. While having a story beta-read is in general a good idea, it is not always necessary. Some of the finest stories I've read in fanfiction have been entirely unbeta'd.

5. Slash stories do not need to have any sexual content whatsoever. Nor is explicit sex necessary to create an atmosphere of skin-shivering bone-melting erotic tension; in fact, the former can often work against the latter.

6. There are people whose idea of fun is having analytical, theoretical, meta-type discussion. The fact that they enjoy this in no way whatsoever affects your ability to have fun in other ways. They are not engaging in these discussions merely to make you feel bad. They are just having fun, and it is truly no skin off your nose.

7. The fact that someone has a big name in fandom does not mean that she is ipso facto an egomaniacal diva.

8. The people who write the episodes can make mistakes in characterization (to say nothing of continuity), just as fan writers can. Just because something happened on the show does not obligate you to treat it as holy-writ immutable canon.

9. Bad fiction may be displeasing to me, may make me unhappy, but it is not morally wrong or evil. I have yet to be convinced that bad writing actually *hurts* anyone. There is no moral onus upon me to condemn it, mock it, or do anything whatsoever about it.

10. In general, fandom tends to overvalue clever snark and to undervalue compassion.

Comments

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

I'm very bad with meta, which is something I have just decided I should admit to myself, and I have been feeling rather down that I can't even contribute to fandom in that way anymore. But this post made me feel better, as I was awake for an hour last night, wondering why it was so much easier for me to write fic when I didn't ever read anyone's blog or meta, not even on mailing lists. I always somehow feel inept or stupid now if I can't manage to communicate what I want to say (case in point: this post).

So perhaps I'll just go back to writing fic, because that always was the best medium for me, and leave the fandom meta to absolutely wonderful people like you. Or I'll just start talking in metaphors, like that race of aliens in Star Trek.

Love ya.

[katallison.livejournal.com]

Love ya right back, you glorious nut, and I'm so delighted to see you here! I figure meta is something people should do *only* if it revs their engines (just like, well, any other kind of writing, really). It's a parlor game, and being facile at it doesn't mean "I am smrt!" any more than being good at any other kinds of wordplay. (I actually feel quite lame at meta, since I lost all my deeper academic brainpower about fifteen years ago, but I can blather plausibly, that being a skill one picks up in grad school.)

And more fiction from you would be a great goodness and blessing. I still have "Heat Goes to Cold" enshrined in my all-time pantheon of Stories That Make Me Gnash My Teeth With Envy. Which I do, every time I reread it, which is often.