Lilacs, flowers of wank

Today is the 25th of May. As some of you know, towel day. As some others of you may know, lilac day.

In Terry Pratchett's book "Nightwatch", Samuel Vimes travels back in time to re-experience his participation in the revolution of the 25th of May. Think "Les Miserables" on crack. The book is hilariously funny, but also quite touching and so Pratchett fans "celebrate" the 25th of May by wearing lilacs, thinking of  the people who died and posting the Morporkian hymn, "How do the little angels rise up high?" songs and lilac icons. Compared to the raging ship wars we know from the HP fandom and other fandom related madness, quite harmless.


The LJ-community discworld is therefore today full of 25th May posts. Some of those icons and posts  ask "Were you there?". Of course nobody has been there, because the event is purely fictional. Everyone is pretty much aware of that - it's seen as a "being there" moment by reading the book or showing the love for  the book, a lot of explanations are out there. There are discussions, but all short and civilized, generally people share their LJ-icons and talk about the  book.

Not stealthmunchkin. It starts in an icon post with the "Were you there?" subject in LJ's discworld.. stealthmunchkin replies:

No. I wasn't. I'm pretty sure you weren't either...

A few other community members reply, but not really many (I'm in there, too but only with one comment and as it's not the wank-post, it doesn't really qualify for i_wank). The comments stay civilized, the discussion dies down soon. Only  20 comments, by far not all related to stealthmunchkin.

That's  obviously not what stealthmunchkin had in mind.

A post follows soon.


I've been getting annoyed at all the 25th May/lilac posts and, I thought, with good reason.



You see, I thought that since Night Watch was fictional, commemorating its events in such a mawkish way is slightly disturbing, and that conversely, if one is to work purely from the internal validity of the book, since none of the people posting are mentioned, THEY WEREN'T THERE, and therefore they'd be showing disrespect to those who were. If it's important, then it's disrespectful and if (as I argued) it's unimportant then these histrionics were unsavoury.

I admit it. I was wrong. Mea culpa.

You see, I had skipped over a paragraph in my previous readings of the book, and this clearly vindicates you all:

Vimes looked over the barricade. Any minute now, he thought. Any minute now and it starts. Just like last time.
He heard a noise coming from his left. He looked around. It was coming from the Gleam Street Livejournallers, one of many small militia groups that had sprung up in a matter of hours. He listened to their conversation.
"Did you see how Vimes looked at young Sam just now?"
"Totally gay!"
"Totally! OMG!"
"That means my Vimes/young Vimes slash fic has a canon basis!"
"Totally! Pterry obviously intended it that way!"
"Squee!"
"Would anyone like to hear my poem? It's all about how depressing the world is."
Vimes sighed, and wondered if it was too late to put Operation Human Shield into practice after all...

Now, that of course finally gets the comments flying!

Category "I loled":

I did find your post remarkably funny though, as one who simply doesn't get slash fiction nor really half the posts today :) I'm not going to get after you, mostly because you remind me of one of the kids from my student teaching, Max. I always found it hard to even chide him when he made fun of the other kids cause it was too funny and cute.

Category: "Don't be a jerk"

I beg your pardon, what was your point? Cos all I'm seeing is "I'm a better fan than you because I mock people who participate in said fandom, bitches." You may get annoyed at people who celebrate fictional events, but hey I get annoyed at elitist assholes, which is precisely what the tone of the post seems like.

If you're doing this for anyone reason than just to be a jerk, then I'm sorry, but I fail to see why "celebrating" the 25th of May makes any difference: I don't think Terry Pratchett is going throw down his pen in disgust because his fans act like fans.

Category: "Now who takes fandom too seriously?"

what i think from all this debate is that the people who complain the others weren't there seem to be upset that they were taking the book too seriously, for celebrating an event that is just fictional. and, from my point of view, being upset because of that or argumenting that the characters would be upset because the lj'ers weren't there is just another way of taking it too seriously. and, if this is not the point, and they just think it silly to wear lilacs because it's fictional and not because "vimes wouldn't like it", then it's the same as complaining to people who dress as jedi masters and so on - i mean, just spoiling other people's fun.



Category: "Lilac icons = cosplay"

I agree with you. I don't quite understand why people feel the need to commemorate a fictional massacre. I half understand why people celebrate the birthdays of fictional characters, or run around dressed as jedis - it's fun, an excuse to party - rather than excuse to express faux pity.

Category: Voice of reason.

you know what, people celebrate fandoms in different ways. i'm not into wearing lilacs today, but that's me. others are, and that's fine.

i am, however, i HUGE baseball fan. i'm not on the team, but i talk about them as "we." my mood one day can be affected by the outcome of the game the previous night. again, that's just me. other people can watch a game and brush off whatever happens.

my point? if you're not into a certain way to participate in a fandom, just ignore it. don't make an obnoxious post, designed to piss of a lot of the members of this group, for your personal amusement or vindication. just shut up and sit down.

Of course stealthmunchkin neither shuts up nor gets the point but wanks all over the place showing how immature everyone in the fandom is but  her/himself. Because they didn't realise what it's all about!

It's probably just me, but I find it far more understandable to celebrate a good event from a book than to commemorate a bad one with platitudinous sentimentality. An excuse for a party is always a good thing. An excuse for self-pity never is.

Also, political wank bonus. "Were you there" = as ridiculous as "We are all New Yorkers" and "We are all Londoners."

Oddly enough I did find "Today, we are all Londoners" a tad annoying. You do, actually, need to be a Londoner to be a Londoner (or a New Yorker). That crossed a line from sympathy to overbearing, IMNSHO.


I bury the hope of being in at least ONE wankfree fandom now.

Edited for a stray italics tag and another LJ-cut.

EDIT: And still people pipe up to tell the comm how annoyed they are. Obviously it has to be said as often as the lilacs have been mentioned, for great justice or something. Thanks to pyratejenni for pointing it out.

Yeah, I saw one and posted this separately because I felt the first was a bit mean, and I thought that maybe other people felt the same way, though not as hostile. Besides, there were 222 comments already when I saw the post.

Won't somebody think of the not-hostile wankers?

EDIT the second: Won't they ever stop? copperdraft is RLY RLY ANGRY (thanks, onaga!). Also, from the same user: "What, there is a site that mocks fandom wankers?!"  on the community. I love the comments on this one.

Fandom_Wank is like a small piece of fairy-cake: It helps to give a sense of proportion. And calling attention to it is just going to ensure you get mocked more.

Fairy cake for everyone while we sit on our pretentious and elitist asses (come on, "elitist"? What about abortions in China and babyseals? We know you can do better)and wait until the afterwank dies down. Discworld wankers are like Reg Shoe, they just won't let go.