Warnings Wank 2: Electric Clusterfuck
This shit be ugly y'all.

Following the previous 1000 comment unfunnybusiness post there have been some further entries to the fail-lympics, and to make things slightly easier and spare

doriangray's inbox I'm making a new post.

First, an update that didn't make it into the original post:

wistfuljane posts an open letter to zvi, thanks to

ingrid for linking it. There is, naturally, more wank in the comments.

Now for some new stuff. From

wank_report, the mousies found a couple of new posts on the issue, each one with its own wank. The first definitely has more than the second, starting with a lovely quote in the post:

"2. If you're that mentally and emotionally fragile, you probably shouldn't be reading fic at all. Or watching television. Or reading regular novels. And for god's sake, you'd better get off the internet right now."

That turns into a nice little teal deer wankfest in the comments.

There is some voice of reason in both posts. It is far too dilute to be of any good.

Finally, we have an added enormous clusterfuck inside the house.

esorlehcar and

oulangi get into a monstrously ugly fight in the comments of the first post. I don't even know, kids, I really don't.

And that's the ugliness. Anyone else has major developments they want to link put 'em in the comments, I'll try to keep up but I make no guarantees.

ETA 1:

agent_hyatt reports further wank inside the house. On a completely ADD note, I really need to figure out if I can do that Il Pallazzo cosplay.....

ETA 2:

caoilainn drops us a couple more links with plenty of wank to go around. Enormous clusterfuck is ENORMOUS.

ETA 3: More from inside the house, courtesy of

miss_padfoot. Here it's

misswindy talking about potential connections with racefail and setting off another hoard of teal deer.

ETA 4: A couple fresh links for you courtesy of

kelmendi and

esclaramonde! Aukestrel puts up an apology/flounce and zvi puts up what I might even call a genuine apology.

ETA 5:

sparklepuss brings us one more passenger on the failboat. ETA 5.5: And another.

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kijikun
2009-06-30 06:53 am UTC (link)

Trust me when I say I'm on the pro-warning side.

As I said to sunhawk I'm more emotional about this issue than I thought I was. I read back over my post and its no where as calm and balanced as I thought it was and I don't make much sense in it. I should have kept to my post in my journal and my statement that it would be my only post on the subject.

Sorry for going off on you.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

frequentmouse
2009-06-30 07:27 am UTC (link)

I think that one of the big complicating factors about this conflict is that it's being fought on shaky emotional ground. Things that trigger some people are things that other people write as a way of coping with their own trauma. People who cope through denial and misdirection (raises hand) go all sideways as the disagreement gets more heated. Some people are over-identified with their own survivor/victim status, and want validation for their coping style.

And people, being people, want to win, most of all, and forget what the point was to begin with in their drive to vanquish their foes.

Humans. What are we to do about them?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	dana 2009-06-30 07:30 am UTC (link)
	People who cope through denial and misdirection (raises hand) go all sideways as the disagreement gets more heated. Some people are over-identified with their own survivor/victim status, and want validation for their coping style. I agree with this. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	esorlehcar 2009-06-30 07:34 am UTC (link)
	Some people are over-identified with their own survivor/victim status, and want validation for their coping style. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this--can you provide examples where you felt this happened? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	frequentmouse 2009-06-30 07:58 am UTC (link)
	I'm especially thinking of people who hint at a history of abuse and then follow it up with "but I don't expect other people to take care of me" or equivalent statements. I may not be putting this absolutely clearly, but that's at the heart of it: the idea that "I can do it, anyone should be able to." (Reply to this)(Parent)

	lady_ganesh 2009-06-30 01:40 pm UTC (link)
	And things get much more emotional as people's emotional minefields get trod on. People who were controlled by their abuser may well read the demands for warnings as an attempt to control, and so...yeah. (Reply to this)(Parent)

witty
2009-06-30 02:46 pm UTC (link)

Yeah, the #1 thing I've noticed about this is people being surprised at each other: correspondents who are otherwise cordial or even close being like, "You just said WHAT?"

Which indicates to me that quite a lot of discussion is coming from knee-jerk places rather than considered places, and while the knee-jerk reaction isn't invalid, it's often a lot less... diplomatic, social, empathetic than one might hope for.

So, on the whole, I guess we were due for this discussion, and it's necessary to have. I wish there were some way to make it happen more slowly, with longer lag-times and narrower venues, though, so we can't all go from zero to AHWOOGAH so directly.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

rodo
2009-06-30 04:24 pm UTC (link)

Things that trigger some people are things that other people write as a way of coping with their own trauma.

And some people do both. They write about it, but they can't read it.

I agree about emotions being a complicating factor, especially since there are people with mental problems involved. This debate is one of the reasons why I've been crying on and off the last few days. It makes me feel horrible. So I'm afraid I've been wanky and completely unreasonable at times.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

frequentmouse
2009-06-30 05:51 pm UTC (link)

They write about it, but they can't read it.

*raises hand again*

I have two long stories, one of which is three chapters from being finished at about 22 chapters, the other of which was finished three years ago at 75 chapters, neither of which I can bear to read. I got triggered by the whole environment of the WIP and the second one includes some abuse which I know is coming and can't bear to think about.

Don Juan talks about being "defeated by clarity" and I always rejected the idea, but understanding clearly where some of my ideas come from and where they're going has pretty much stopped me writing fic. It took me several years after reading The Artist's Way to be able to write a fucking grocery list, so I shouldn't be surprised that online discussions about writing should shut me down.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

rodo
2009-06-30 06:00 pm UTC (link)

I'm one of the few persons who rarely write what they would read. And I'm struggling with one of my fics because I put a character in a similar situation to where I am now (it wasn't like that when I planned the fic and I only noticed a month ago). It's a bit too close to home at the moment. On the one hand, I can totally feel what he would be feeling, they only question is whether I can communicate that and distance myself enough. Hopefully my betas will notice. If I ever manage to continue writing.

Writing and reading are also totally different processes for me. As a writer, I am entirely in control of the situation and know everything. I am God, in relation to my characters. As a reader, I don't have that control at all. I'm with the characters, maybe I am the characters. Whatever happens to them feels much closer to me.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	frequentmouse 2009-06-30 06:44 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, yeah. When I write, the story is in charge, and thngs happen because they have to, to keep the story moving. When I read, I'm paying a lot more attention to how the characters feel and react. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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