Monday, January 18th, 2010

Reasoned and reasonable literary criticism, Kradam-style

[info]urpletastic
First attempt at posting, although I've been barracking from the sidelines for about a millennium now ...

[info]astolat posts A Matter Of Inconvenience, which is American Idol slashfic (Kris/Adam) with a 'Regency' setting. At least, that's the general idea, and harmless enough you would have thought - assuming that AI AU RPS is your thing. (Alphabet soup!)

[info]zvi, however, takes exception. Amongst other objections, A Matter of Inconvenience is not about race, thoughtlessly invokes colonial issues, and just doesn't put up any warning flags for those who are about to read it. Also, apparently, this is a thing Astolat fucked up. Everybody, please to endeavor not to fuck up like that with your next happy fun sexytimes historical.

What starts off as moderately polite discussion about historicity in slash fanfiction is, however, quickly derailed by [info]willow who offers the following reasoned evaluation: In the middle of the cuppa tea, the empire waist dresses and the ass-sex of your AU Regency - please to be remembering the hydra heads of colonialism and imperialism and what that means for and about your whitey white penis salt lick fan thought of the moment.

[info]liviapenn tries to calm things down a bit with some entertaining stuff about plumbers and blow jobs but this only serves to upset [info]willow further. Why is it that everytime I see you lately, you're happily shoving your foot into your mouth via your hindquarters? ... You keep claiming to understand your privilege and say you're reflecting on it and then you start chomping that feces encrusted shoe leather again. [info]willow's User Info states "'M brown and I have an attitude." No kidding.

[info]astolat's attempt to explain herself gets stomped on, and the desirability of historical accuracy in a Kris/Adam Regency alternate universe is lathered, rinsed and repeated for those who missed it the first time.

Small, but strangely vitriolic given the subject matter. It's difficult to imagine why people are getting quite so over-excited about one piece of costumed fluff in a universe of lesbian cars and tentacle porn, but it may keep us entertained while we're waiting for next incarnation of VB.

ETA: Okay, I get the message, I got it wrong - or maybe I just don't have a sense of humour? Either way, it was obviously a bad call. Lesson learned.
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Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

Your Special Snowflake Isn't Personalized Enough

[info]tehrin
Wank found via [info]wank_report.

[info]lavendergaia, a.k.a. Kelly, doesn’t like the snowflake cookie V-gifts she’s been sent over on lj and expresses her displeasure on her journal:

Please do not read if you are easily offended


People, these are getting ridiculous. In the past two days, I have gotten almost 30 snowflake cookie gifts. You know how many of those were personalized or written in a way that I could tell that they were for me? About 5, probably less. I know that everyone is saying that they're free and it's the thought that counts, but I don't see any thoughtfulness in sending a free gift with a generic message that you've copied and pasted to every other person on your flist. My bank does that, but they at least take the time to put my name on it.

If I don't mean anything to you other than a name on a list who you occasionally talk to, that's fine. I am okay with that. But getting a copy/paste message on a free gift that takes a minute to send just shows that I am not important. There's really no need for you to take the small amount of time and send it. And for those of you who commented yesterday that you did do it because you cared, I appreciate that, but the fact that you have to say it means that your gift didn't and isn't that the point of gifts? To show how much you care?

Frankly, the majority of these snowflakes just say that you like having someone on your flist, but not enough to take the time to personally wish me a happy holidays or to do anything special. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I'd much rather get a nice comment or PM speaking to me as a person then the same gift you give to everyone else. That's not caring; that's obligation.

So thank you to everyone who acknowledged that I exist. And a large, genuine thank you who took the time to use the gifts to show that they care.


Her friends then start apologizing about sending her snowflake cookies. Eventually, people show up who don’t hold the same opinion.

[info]bookshop was linked by a “few people who were pretty much speechless with disbelief” and thinks this to be “completely classless.”

[info]ladyvyola translates Kelly’s post as “A big "fuck you" to anyone who took a moment to do something thoughtful for me.” Down-thread, Kelly says its been two weeks since the post was made and everyone is already over it, forgetting that the internet never really gets over anything.

[info]jane_doe_ tells Kelly "you are a bad person and whoever raised you did a really bad job. Sorry."

So why are these snowflakes so damn special? [info]bridget_x_alena explains to an anon:

Not really, because when people are buying gifts, they're picking something that they know a) the person will like, b) the person wants, or c) will mean something to the giftee. Key word here being 'buying'. As in, 'spending money on' because that person clearly means enough to have something bought for them. If I were to get the same free present for all of my friends, the ones that I only talk to once in a while are going to be like, "huh?" and the ones I talk to all the time are going to wonder why more thought wasn't put into it.

If anything, the fact that they were free made them less special because it was like most people were just saying, "HERE, I don't care about you enough to spend .99 on other vgifts during the rest of the year so here's this thing!"

Oh, and way to not have the balls to own up to your opinion.


ETA: [info]lavendergaia has discovered she has been wanked. She's also shown up on [info]sf_drama and [info]sf_anon

Despite seeming so happy about being wanked in the above link to her journal, Kelly added this ETA to her original post:

2 Weeks Later ETA: Hello to everyone who is going to troll this and people here from Fandom Wanks. Hi! If you're going to comment, please at least make it fun. Thanks in advance! (Look, see, I can be thankful!)

ETA2: Okay, I'm bored with this now. And I plan to take another muscle relaxer and sleep for at least 12 hours and don't want to come up with an inbox full of trolls. Leaving the post open so people can mock or do whatever they want, but posting is disabled for now. I might reopen it again later if I get bored.


Nothing is better than a "I am so happy, but not really" flounce. Comments are locked. I hope everyone here has known better than troll the wank. Instead of snowflakes, she has recieved 12 cakes for Grinchmas from mice who respected her wishes and left personalized messages.

[info]ladyvyola has popped over here in the report to say hello.

ETA 2: And now there's a community.
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