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Charlie (![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} wacky_crack) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/community.gif){kind=small} fandom_wank,@ 2004-09-26 22:09:00 |
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In a rather fanatical subsection of the LotR fandom are the Elf bodice rippers. For whatever reason several of the writers insist upon using whole phrases of Elvish in their stories. This creates a problem because
a) the languages are incomplete and
b) because they are imaginary.
Enter orchydconstantyn formally of the cut throat Sailor Moon fandom and prolific writer of almost unreadable sop. Some of you may remember her from when she was booted off an archive after her husband made threats to people who hurt her feelings:
I thought I left behind this schoolyard shit in the fucking schoolyard.
If I ever find out which one of you motherfuckers has reduced my wife to tears, you will wish that I killed you. And don't you fucking think for an instant that I am not deadly serious. As you may suspect, Orchyd is very important to me, and anyone who hurts her in even the slightest way is therefore my enemy.
Italics mine, bold Erik's - lest there be confusion about the intent of the innocuous "anti-death threat" he made. Wank on.
EDITED TO ADD
Of course we wouldn’t be here at all is either side knew how to just. Let. It. Go.
There’s a new RPG/”humor”? community being desperately advertised as “We don’t care about this!” “Still don’t care!” Though at least one character that seems to be a slap in the general direction ofcrazyca. But all this "join my new community! proove we don't care!" stuff - orchyd might as well have posted a big sign demanding people pick sides.
Then there are those who rush to aid poororchyd - Though a dictionary might be useful here. First word to look up: Bully. Second? Ascend.
Those veterans of the first Eriklebleu death threat will be happy to know the husband has weighed in. He's helpfully defined spite vs. hate, quoting Machiavelli, comparing Orchyd to Galileo, Joan of Arc and Iraq and or Saddam Hussein (note to Orchyd: You might suggest to hubby that he stop “helping” you. He’s making your side look even more insane. Unless of course you agree wholeheartedly with everything he wrote – in which case, wank on!), proving once again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
orchyd, in her apparent bid to take over the Universe has applied herself to the study of Sindarin (one of the imaginary languages) and well, if there’s a conversation about it, you can bet she has an opinion – and that it’ll be really really long winded.
So over on a fairly small yahoo list dedicated to fanfiction about an elf that had of five sentences written about him in the books there’s a sweet little story by a new author called: “Pen-dhinen" bysian265.
crazyca, a.k.a Inja a.k.a Andrannath sends her some constructive criticism suggesting that the Elvish might be incorrect in the title and that the slang “OK” might not be the best choice for a Tolkienest story. The author writes back thanking her and mentions she got the translations from Orchyd. So far, all is well.
Thencrazyca gets this email from orchyd:
Andrannath,
I was steered to a LJ community I am not a part of by a friend of mine and I dropped by to see what was said. I feel I need to say a couple things to
you about some things you said to Sian about her fic.
The 'vuil' was my fault. It was a typo on my phrasebook I never noticed. It was only when Fim brought it up that I checked and realized I miskeyed it
in -- and you took her to task for my mistake. I have informed her -- privately -- that 'dear one' can be either 'pen vell' or 'pen vuin' -- both are attested and correct, not *just* 'pen vuin'.
We have never met, and I doubt we will have many dealings outside of this email, since I am certain you will not like what I have to say. But, coming
from someone who has been in fanfiction for several years, I wanted to say a few things about this little... discussion you two had on the LJ. It's bad
etiquette to do what you did, and it does not endear one to others in this community. When you see something you think is incorrect, the polite thing
to do is *email* the person, not jump on them in a public forum where they are made look and feel like morons.
As for your statement about the word 'okay' -- there is no sure evidence of where that word originated. There are *theories* about it.
In 1815, during the Battle of New Orleans, Americans came into contact with Choctaw indians. In the their language, there is a word 'okeh', which means
"it is so". Theory one.
Theory two, like Choctaw Indian, the Wolof language (spoken in Senegal and The Gambia, formerly The Gold Coast) has something like okeh to mean an emphatic "yes" (it's more like waa-key in reality). It is likely that okeh appeared in early black American spoken slang.
Another theory is that Martin van Buren was standing as the Democratic presidential candidate in 1840. He had acquired the nickname of Old
Kinderhook and on March 24, 1840 the Democrats opened the OK Club New York City -- basing the club's names on the initials of van Buren's nickname.
There are dozens of them... no one knows for sure. That's the problem with slang words, no one knows for sure. So, please, do not try and pass off
circumstantial evidence as fact -- that is how misinformation gets around. If you don't like reading fics containing that word, you don't have to read
it. It is an author's perogative if they want to use 'okay' or 'all right', and no one has the right to tell them they are wrong for chosing so.
It is true that 'dínen' was incorrectly lenited in her story title, but you did not have to spell it out to her like you did as if she was an idiot.
And, yes, in 'pen dhínen' the 'i' should be 'í'. But, I must correct you about the hyphen (as I was corrected). It is incorrect to hyphenate the
words. The only words in Sindarin that are attested to hyphenate are genitival phrases, and 'pen dhínen' is not a genitival phrase.
I hope you understand why I am saying this. Denise is an author I beta read for, and she is terribly new to the fandom. To be humiliated in a public
forum can leave a bitter taste in one's mouth (I should know) and can make people not want to post in such a public area again. Seriously -- would you
like it if someone flaunted your errors to the forum instead of just emailing you privately? I know I much prefer private emails and react much better to them than when I am jumped on in front of a crowd.
We do this for fun, nothing more, and to chew someone out in public (whether you meant for it to be a 'chew out' or not, it was) and making them feel
small removes the fun from it.
Orchyd Constyne
And all hell breaks loose. Again.
crazyca posts a flocked complaint (now unlocked) that orchyd finds out about.
orchyd posts a rant, demanding that crazyca explain herself – which she leaves open for 2 – 3 hours, then locks, declaring she gave crazyca a chance to respond.
Whenever someone has offended me (like now), I make the post clearly public so that the person can defend themselves with impugnity. I have nothing to hide...
But wait! Regular readers might remember that this isn't exactly true - in fact They may recall several locked rants about people in the fandom!
Yes, this is a little reminiscent of when Claudio found a locked entry of mine and went off on me about it. Or that locked / unlocked rant againstmirafin circ eresse canonOFfanon andrea
sorry, back to the story...
There's also a difference between constructive criticism and public humiliation. Pointing out typos is not constructive. Trying to give unasked-for Sindarin lessons to someone is not constructive... is followed by a rather long Sindarin lesson AND a suggested correction for Sindarin typos.
She leaves the post open for a few hours ostensibly to allowcrazyca to respond, forgetting perhaps that
a) as crazyca is in Croatia she’s on a different timeline
b) not everyone updates their journals 5 times a day
c) LJ is not the center of the universe. No, really.
Peace Keepers chime in, basically pointing out that all of this is really unnecessary and besides Orchyd is a hypocrite for locking the post after complaining she can’t respond to a locked post. Someone else who isn’t involved chimes in to let anyone reading that they’re not involved, while another mysteriously apologizes. Orchyd unlocks her post (for now) and posts another *uh* piece on the non-subject. Lest you all forget, this sound and fury originated over a disagreement on the grammatically correctness of a preposition in an imaginary language.
crazyca wakes up and hears about it second hand, posts another locked rant. And then a third, with the "whole story".
A few days pass, and back on the Yahoo list a beta reader for another story is posted with a few apparent errors in the imaginary languagecrazyca (Andrannath) sends FB (C&P’d because the links a pain)
miss eawen,
i would like to state how this chapter is so dark and moving and wonderful, and, once again, you made me crave for more and more and more!
and once again, that captain made me snicker although it was sad! (no shooting! no killing! I want to live! at least to see the "adult" twinsies
:P)
but, sadly, i did notice few language mistakes. nothing big, but i remember you saying your beta wants to learn, so i thought some of these might be useful to her at least...
Noldor - it's a plural of a word Noldo (Quenya actually, but it stayed that way)
o - without an accent, it's just a simple little o!
:)
Maiar Ólorin - the Maiar part - again, in Quenya we form plurals by either adding -r if the word ends with a vowel, or -i if not.
oh, and... the end? *sigh sigh* :P
And gets a nice thank you from the author. She writes back a longer and more detailed explaination of why she thought there were errors:
aw, thank you!
you know, i was really scared doing this cause i was actually attacked for helping once, so i don't now know how people would react abou it. so, this is a *sigh sigh* relief!
about that pen-neth. it confuses me sometimes also. i can give you my oppinioin on it, although i have been told it is wrong. but then again, i have also been told (by someone who knows far better than probably any of us put together :P) that none of this was proven and that we can't be sure... Followed by a REALLY LONG Elvish explaination.
orchyd corrects her reply.
Since you feel that you can post this kind of thing publicly, then I feel I can offer different evidence. While I don't believe this is the forum for such a discussion, I don't care for incomplete information being spread around.
You may feel that this is an "attack", and you are free to do that. But if you truly care as much as you say you do about learning, and are open minded enough to listen to people who *don't* go around claiming to be "masters" (a term that makes me cringe -- there is only one Sindarin "master", and he's dead), then you will be able to accept this in the spirit with which it is meant. I do not want to hear that you are going around screaming that I'm belittling, humiliating, condescending, or otherwise biting your head off.
All I care about is getting the right information out. And as I have documentation for what I'm saying, and you haven't posted any, I feel that my information is more correct at this point. If you want to dispute what I have here, and then feel free to do so, but treat me with the same respect that I am treating you in this.... ANOTHER REALLY LONG Elvish explanation.
There’s sniping back and forth, with emails being sent and animosity builds.
The long suffering Orchyd posts that she’s leaving the list and anyone who wants to read her stories will have to join *her* lists. Ostensibly the reason is because she doesn’t like the new header rules, though she complains that the list has too many ‘shit-posts’, the fic’s are unbeta’d and the list owners were treating her poorly and blaming her for ‘attacking’ members.
It probably could have ended there.
But of course it didn’t.
Because smarting from the battle withorchyd, crazyca X posts this wanktastic masterpiece to at least eight communities.
In this INCREDABLY LONG "defence" post crazyca breaks down Orchyd's posts LINE BY LINE, arguing her take on the make believe languages and of course calling Orchyd a hypocrit and a liar...
But, I would also like to state that in fact I DID answer the e-mail from Orchyd Constyne...This concludes my thoughts and I have every right to share them with my friends. If one disagrees, I believe one might need some teaching in diplomacy to recall the convenient blanket offered by ‘freedom of speech’ that she so likes to invoke when it’s her turn to speak her mind.
that somehow evolves into an analogy about child porn...
I would not call any of my actions immature. In fact, I would call them fiery, as Mediterraneans are rather fiery in some aspects. But, alas, it was misunderstood. Maybe it was simply a difference in our two cultures. Maybe it was not. These things DO happen when a person sticks to one specific word or a phrase instead of trying to read the whole story. If we were being like that, then “Lolita” would not be a masterpiece of the new age, but indeed an illegal work of child porn.
Once again people who have no apparent connection to the wank post their displeasure.
Thesian265 posts her response. It's chaos in the streets! Oh Noes! Who can we believe?!
a) the languages are incomplete and
b) because they are imaginary.
Enter orchydconstantyn formally of the cut throat Sailor Moon fandom and prolific writer of almost unreadable sop. Some of you may remember her from when she was booted off an archive after her husband made threats to people who hurt her feelings:
I thought I left behind this schoolyard shit in the fucking schoolyard.
If I ever find out which one of you motherfuckers has reduced my wife to tears, you will wish that I killed you. And don't you fucking think for an instant that I am not deadly serious. As you may suspect, Orchyd is very important to me, and anyone who hurts her in even the slightest way is therefore my enemy.
Italics mine, bold Erik's - lest there be confusion about the intent of the innocuous "anti-death threat" he made. Wank on.
EDITED TO ADD
Of course we wouldn’t be here at all is either side knew how to just. Let. It. Go.
There’s a new RPG/”humor”? community being desperately advertised as “We don’t care about this!” “Still don’t care!” Though at least one character that seems to be a slap in the general direction of
crazyca. But all this "join my new community! proove we don't care!" stuff - orchyd might as well have posted a big sign demanding people pick sides. Then there are those who rush to aid poor
orchyd - Though a dictionary might be useful here. First word to look up: Bully. Second? Ascend.Those veterans of the first Eriklebleu death threat will be happy to know the husband has weighed in. He's helpfully defined spite vs. hate, quoting Machiavelli, comparing Orchyd to Galileo, Joan of Arc and Iraq and or Saddam Hussein (note to Orchyd: You might suggest to hubby that he stop “helping” you. He’s making your side look even more insane. Unless of course you agree wholeheartedly with everything he wrote – in which case, wank on!), proving once again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
orchyd, in her apparent bid to take over the Universe has applied herself to the study of Sindarin (one of the imaginary languages) and well, if there’s a conversation about it, you can bet she has an opinion – and that it’ll be really really long winded. So over on a fairly small yahoo list dedicated to fanfiction about an elf that had of five sentences written about him in the books there’s a sweet little story by a new author called: “Pen-dhinen" by
sian265.crazyca, a.k.a Inja a.k.a Andrannath sends her some constructive criticism suggesting that the Elvish might be incorrect in the title and that the slang “OK” might not be the best choice for a Tolkienest story. The author writes back thanking her and mentions she got the translations from Orchyd. So far, all is well.Then
crazyca gets this email from orchyd:Andrannath,
I was steered to a LJ community I am not a part of by a friend of mine and I dropped by to see what was said. I feel I need to say a couple things to
you about some things you said to Sian about her fic.
The 'vuil' was my fault. It was a typo on my phrasebook I never noticed. It was only when Fim brought it up that I checked and realized I miskeyed it
in -- and you took her to task for my mistake. I have informed her -- privately -- that 'dear one' can be either 'pen vell' or 'pen vuin' -- both are attested and correct, not *just* 'pen vuin'.
We have never met, and I doubt we will have many dealings outside of this email, since I am certain you will not like what I have to say. But, coming
from someone who has been in fanfiction for several years, I wanted to say a few things about this little... discussion you two had on the LJ. It's bad
etiquette to do what you did, and it does not endear one to others in this community. When you see something you think is incorrect, the polite thing
to do is *email* the person, not jump on them in a public forum where they are made look and feel like morons.
As for your statement about the word 'okay' -- there is no sure evidence of where that word originated. There are *theories* about it.
In 1815, during the Battle of New Orleans, Americans came into contact with Choctaw indians. In the their language, there is a word 'okeh', which means
"it is so". Theory one.
Theory two, like Choctaw Indian, the Wolof language (spoken in Senegal and The Gambia, formerly The Gold Coast) has something like okeh to mean an emphatic "yes" (it's more like waa-key in reality). It is likely that okeh appeared in early black American spoken slang.
Another theory is that Martin van Buren was standing as the Democratic presidential candidate in 1840. He had acquired the nickname of Old
Kinderhook and on March 24, 1840 the Democrats opened the OK Club New York City -- basing the club's names on the initials of van Buren's nickname.
There are dozens of them... no one knows for sure. That's the problem with slang words, no one knows for sure. So, please, do not try and pass off
circumstantial evidence as fact -- that is how misinformation gets around. If you don't like reading fics containing that word, you don't have to read
it. It is an author's perogative if they want to use 'okay' or 'all right', and no one has the right to tell them they are wrong for chosing so.
It is true that 'dínen' was incorrectly lenited in her story title, but you did not have to spell it out to her like you did as if she was an idiot.
And, yes, in 'pen dhínen' the 'i' should be 'í'. But, I must correct you about the hyphen (as I was corrected). It is incorrect to hyphenate the
words. The only words in Sindarin that are attested to hyphenate are genitival phrases, and 'pen dhínen' is not a genitival phrase.
I hope you understand why I am saying this. Denise is an author I beta read for, and she is terribly new to the fandom. To be humiliated in a public
forum can leave a bitter taste in one's mouth (I should know) and can make people not want to post in such a public area again. Seriously -- would you
like it if someone flaunted your errors to the forum instead of just emailing you privately? I know I much prefer private emails and react much better to them than when I am jumped on in front of a crowd.
We do this for fun, nothing more, and to chew someone out in public (whether you meant for it to be a 'chew out' or not, it was) and making them feel
small removes the fun from it.
Orchyd Constyne
And all hell breaks loose. Again.
crazyca posts a flocked complaint (now unlocked) that orchyd finds out about. orchyd posts a rant, demanding that crazyca explain herself – which she leaves open for 2 – 3 hours, then locks, declaring she gave crazyca a chance to respond.Whenever someone has offended me (like now), I make the post clearly public so that the person can defend themselves with impugnity. I have nothing to hide...
But wait! Regular readers might remember that this isn't exactly true - in fact They may recall several locked rants about people in the fandom!
Yes, this is a little reminiscent of when Claudio found a locked entry of mine and went off on me about it. Or that locked / unlocked rant against
sorry, back to the story...
There's also a difference between constructive criticism and public humiliation. Pointing out typos is not constructive. Trying to give unasked-for Sindarin lessons to someone is not constructive... is followed by a rather long Sindarin lesson AND a suggested correction for Sindarin typos.
She leaves the post open for a few hours ostensibly to allow
crazyca to respond, forgetting perhaps that a) as crazyca is in Croatia she’s on a different timeline
b) not everyone updates their journals 5 times a day
c) LJ is not the center of the universe. No, really.
Peace Keepers chime in, basically pointing out that all of this is really unnecessary and besides Orchyd is a hypocrite for locking the post after complaining she can’t respond to a locked post. Someone else who isn’t involved chimes in to let anyone reading that they’re not involved, while another mysteriously apologizes. Orchyd unlocks her post (for now) and posts another *uh* piece on the non-subject. Lest you all forget, this sound and fury originated over a disagreement on the grammatically correctness of a preposition in an imaginary language.
crazyca wakes up and hears about it second hand, posts another locked rant. And then a third, with the "whole story".A few days pass, and back on the Yahoo list a beta reader for another story is posted with a few apparent errors in the imaginary language
crazyca (Andrannath) sends FB (C&P’d because the links a pain)miss eawen,
i would like to state how this chapter is so dark and moving and wonderful, and, once again, you made me crave for more and more and more!
and once again, that captain made me snicker although it was sad! (no shooting! no killing! I want to live! at least to see the "adult" twinsies
:P)
but, sadly, i did notice few language mistakes. nothing big, but i remember you saying your beta wants to learn, so i thought some of these might be useful to her at least...
Noldor - it's a plural of a word Noldo (Quenya actually, but it stayed that way)
o - without an accent, it's just a simple little o!
:)
Maiar Ólorin - the Maiar part - again, in Quenya we form plurals by either adding -r if the word ends with a vowel, or -i if not.
oh, and... the end? *sigh sigh* :P
And gets a nice thank you from the author. She writes back a longer and more detailed explaination of why she thought there were errors:
aw, thank you!
you know, i was really scared doing this cause i was actually attacked for helping once, so i don't now know how people would react abou it. so, this is a *sigh sigh* relief!
about that pen-neth. it confuses me sometimes also. i can give you my oppinioin on it, although i have been told it is wrong. but then again, i have also been told (by someone who knows far better than probably any of us put together :P) that none of this was proven and that we can't be sure... Followed by a REALLY LONG Elvish explaination.
orchyd corrects her reply. Since you feel that you can post this kind of thing publicly, then I feel I can offer different evidence. While I don't believe this is the forum for such a discussion, I don't care for incomplete information being spread around.
You may feel that this is an "attack", and you are free to do that. But if you truly care as much as you say you do about learning, and are open minded enough to listen to people who *don't* go around claiming to be "masters" (a term that makes me cringe -- there is only one Sindarin "master", and he's dead), then you will be able to accept this in the spirit with which it is meant. I do not want to hear that you are going around screaming that I'm belittling, humiliating, condescending, or otherwise biting your head off.
All I care about is getting the right information out. And as I have documentation for what I'm saying, and you haven't posted any, I feel that my information is more correct at this point. If you want to dispute what I have here, and then feel free to do so, but treat me with the same respect that I am treating you in this.... ANOTHER REALLY LONG Elvish explanation.
There’s sniping back and forth, with emails being sent and animosity builds.
The long suffering Orchyd posts that she’s leaving the list and anyone who wants to read her stories will have to join *her* lists. Ostensibly the reason is because she doesn’t like the new header rules, though she complains that the list has too many ‘shit-posts’, the fic’s are unbeta’d and the list owners were treating her poorly and blaming her for ‘attacking’ members.
It probably could have ended there.
But of course it didn’t.
Because smarting from the battle with
orchyd, crazyca X posts this wanktastic masterpiece to at least eight communities. In this INCREDABLY LONG "defence" post crazyca breaks down Orchyd's posts LINE BY LINE, arguing her take on the make believe languages and of course calling Orchyd a hypocrit and a liar...
But, I would also like to state that in fact I DID answer the e-mail from Orchyd Constyne...This concludes my thoughts and I have every right to share them with my friends. If one disagrees, I believe one might need some teaching in diplomacy to recall the convenient blanket offered by ‘freedom of speech’ that she so likes to invoke when it’s her turn to speak her mind.
that somehow evolves into an analogy about child porn...
I would not call any of my actions immature. In fact, I would call them fiery, as Mediterraneans are rather fiery in some aspects. But, alas, it was misunderstood. Maybe it was simply a difference in our two cultures. Maybe it was not. These things DO happen when a person sticks to one specific word or a phrase instead of trying to read the whole story. If we were being like that, then “Lolita” would not be a masterpiece of the new age, but indeed an illegal work of child porn.
Once again people who have no apparent connection to the wank post their displeasure.
The
sian265 posts her response. It's chaos in the streets! Oh Noes! Who can we believe?!
