quantumreality

An Offshoot of A HMS STFU Post

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:07:02 GMT

This exchange, which was an outgrowth of a meta regarding Sirius Black and Dumbledore, was a segue into gift exchanges in the HP books; the original HMS STFU entry regarding the entry by terri_testing is here.

As spake by terri_testing:

I think I was warped by growing up on Frances Hodgeson Burnett; "The Little Princess" was my favorite book for years. In it, a little heiress is suddenly orphaned and left destitute, and her school keeps her on as a starving drudge... until her kindness under adversity catches the eye of the neighbor's servant, and... it ends with her restored to fortune and a foster-family.

The point being that,yes, Sara Crewe delighted in being indulged again after years of deprivation. But one of her chief pleasures (especially after the first shock wore off) was being able to be generous in turn.

So I guess I expected that in Harry. A deprived little boy is suddenly made heir to a large fortune. Sure, at first we see him delighting that people (almost all of whom have less money than he) like him enough to give him gifts. But at some point we should see him waking up to the pleasures of generosity (and to the fact that having wealth, like having magical talent, is both asset and responsibility).

This passage, and some others further down, really do reveal, for me, the wish-fulfillment fantasy these fen have. They don't care that JK Rowling is just a human being and is not a robot who makes literature to exact specifications. They don't care that some stuff is implied (by reasonable extrapolation) while other stuff is stated. It's all about them and what they want(ed) to see.

It is a fascinating insight, and it is the most conclusive proof yet (to me, anyway) that the thesis the STFU has operated on regarding delusional fen is correct. This thesis is: the delusional fen want the books re-written THEIR way and nothing else will remotely suffice.

In the absence of getting their very own special JK Rowling to do this, they instead do the following:

Butcher the moral fiber and decency of any person not named Snape, Malfoy or Voldemort. Examples, if I may get away from the Snapefen for a second, include making Harry and Ron the most venal, idiotic, bumbling, imbecilic people to walk the face of the Earth, or making Ginny a shallow, vicious woman with Galleons in her eyes.

Hold up their chosen character on a pedestal so high all shortcomings and faults are dismissed, and anything their character has screwed up or gotten wrong is blamed on anybody else but that character. Hermione can't be someone who's brilliant in the academic realm but fails to be able to effectively translate that into the ability to act quickly in a fight. Snape can't be a very obviously biased jackass of a man who's still twelve years old inside. Luna can't be someone who just genuinely believes some rather odd things.

When they are confronted with basic, straightforward canonical evidence that JK Rowling has constructed the character(s) a certain way, they employ every trick in the book to avoid the simple reading, even to the point of justifying appallingly atrocious behavior shown in canon. Or, such as in that ridiculous prophecy discussion the Snapefen have had before, they insist that the simple reading and JK Rowling's exposition via Dumbledore are wrong, thereby transforming their character into the "Real Hero". Pstibbons's frontkick batshittery also qualifies.

I never cease to be astonished at the tortuous tl;dr crap that can get spewed all over by people who appear to just not be able to accept a simple, salient fact:

Had JK Rowling never written these books the characters would be no more real or physical than they are now.

Literature is not intended as a therapy tool or as a validation for a person's life experiences. It may accidentally do so, but personal experience is subjective and can't be used to create authoritative claims that extremely non-canonical interpretations of the literature are the only valid ones.

Credit for any concepts or ideas put forth by other STFU-ians is hereby acknowledged. If anyone wants specific credit given I shall edit this post forthwith.

LiveJournal Layoffs

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:35:21 GMT

Just found out LiveJournal laid off 20 of 28 people on staff. Ouch!

The most visible sign yet that the crappy economy is biting harder on people now. :(

Minor Wank About Fic, Again

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 04:14:03 GMT

Reviewed a fic a while ago in which the author showed an astonishing lack of understanding of basic concepts such as the proper name for an omniscient POV.

Makes me wonder what they're paying attention to in class these days.

More on Reviewing...

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:55:45 GMT

This time, it's about fanbrats.

WHY do they review fics as though they were hyped up monkeys on crack? "OMG LIKE YOU KILLED HIM!!!!! UPDATE SOON OR I'LL BEAT YOU WITH A SPATULA!!11oneoneone"

Like, WTF? Spastic flailing like that is not 'cute' nor is it 'cool'. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I like to think even at that age I didn't feel the need to blast away at my keyboard as though I were trying to imitate a machine gun.

Reviewing Bad Fanfic

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:01:25 GMT

Sometimes it really does feel like bailing out the ocean.

Especially when authors commit such elementary mistakes as to say that an airplane flight from, say, Seattle, Washington to Albany, New York would take ten hours nonstop.

Or when a perfectly good slash fic gets ruined by using stupid anime names for the original character dating Harry Potter, as well as for the OC's sisters.

As noted on GAFF, *headdesk*.

Communities, etc...

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:41:35 GMT

So I recently joined HMS_STFU. I ran across it by accident, don't remember how now, but anyway... it was very amusing seeing the kinds of examples of serious-minded batshittery among the more rabid Severus Snape fans.

The snark was also very amusing. I'm glad I joined JournalFen now. :)

Minor Fanfiction Wank

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 06:07:21 GMT

I think I'm getting into a bit of a pissy mood lately. I'm in a fandom which is rife with Mary Sues, self-inserts and so on and so forth ("aren't they all?" the peanut gallery helpfully exclaims). Unfortunately I seem to be getting a tad snippy in my reviews, and while I enjoy the thought of crushing some suethor's ego with a well-aimed barb, it kind of makes me feel bad later on that I didn't just restrain myself and do my usual Mr. Spock like impression in the kinds of reviews I usually leave (So instead of writing "Your fic is a fucking trainwreck of a Mary Sue littered upon the wastes of your fertile lack of creativity", I write "You have a Mary Sue character which makes your fic poorly set up and not well-executed, etc and so on.").

So, is this a sign of burnout or just displacement of moodiness? Heh.

End minor wank.

Whee

Fri, 30 May 2008 06:52:44 GMT

So here I am at JournalFen, after having read the fandom_wank section numerous times and having a good laugh at the acerbic wit people employ in the comments section. :)

I decided to register because I wanted to start commenting on JF's Fandom_Wank entries, too, since I just can't fathom the degree to which some humans prove the aphorism that runs roughly like, "there are no fights so vicious as when the stakes are exceedingly small". (Incidentally if anyone has the 'real' version of that quote, let me know. :) )

The userpic I have, as befits my JF handle, is a schematic representation of one of the f orbitals in an atom, the f_z³, to be exact. :) Yay quantum mechanics. (Yes, I see you all running in fear now. Sorry about that.)