Yeah, I can tell it's May ...

[veronica_rich]

This makes the second troll my Will community has attracted from sparrabeth in the past month. (You've gotta scroll to the bottom of those pages for it.) Why do I think that? Oh, I don't know - just a hunch.

This wasn't a criticism of my writing style (which would be fair). It was simply an excuse to anonymously bitch in a minority forum and denounce anything that takes fan focus off Jack and/or Elizabeth.

And no, neither of these comments are particularly horrifying, but as it gets closer to May 23 and some J/E fans get meaner about not getting their way ... well, I haven't lived this long not to spot a problem a mile away. I don't want to have to resort to disabling anonymous commenting in a fan forum. Are there any community mods on my f-list who have dealt with this, with advice? I already made a short post asking "visitors" to the comm to be respectful of the members there, but I wonder if it'll work.

Geez o pete. I didn't realizing having a Will community would be like disagreeing with the Mafia! LOL


Seriously, I keep reading how J/E fans are so much older and more mature than us "13-year-old hormonal" Will/Orlando fans. Me no think so.

Comments

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Going to go back to writing my Mary Sue fics now...

Hey, I've made no secret of my opinion on this over the past several months. It comes from female Elizabeth fans identifying so closely with her, making her their champion, wanting to be just exactly like her. I see a lot of middle-aged women who wish they were 20 again, and a lot of teenagers who wish they could get it on with Johnny.

And you know what? That's OK. I don't harsh anyone's squee until they start foot-stomping all over mine. Then I turn into a bitch. Is that okay only for Elizabeth?

Of course, I also make no secret of the fact that I prefer gay male porn. I'd far rather watch and direct, than participate. *G*

[philosophercat.livejournal.com]

Yeah- I thought that was a little too general to say they were all Mary-Sues, but from my experience in the OTHER JE fandom (Jane Eyre) I can see what you're getting at. Sexing up Jane Eyre is wrong on so many levels, but the vast majority of the vocal fans are eating it up with very obvious comments about only appreciating it for the 'hotness' etc. Those girls will probably be writing such Mary Sue J/E fic. There are others who do like the idea, and want to explore it. I did read some of the Erinya fic you pointed out as being really good. While I didn't take to it, I would say it falls into the exploration category. I didn't get any vibe that it was an 'I want to be Elizabeth' fantasy.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Yeah- I thought that was a little too general to say they were all Mary-Sues

It probably was; I make mistakes. Normally, I try to be careful about identifying who I am specifically talking to, but when it's six a.m. and the neighbors have awakened me with loud noise on my day off, I'm not inclined to give benefit of the doubt to a mealymouthed anonymous commenter, who couldn't be arsed to use even their psuedo online identity (really - do you think Veronica is my real name?) to whine at me about the clearly-stated pairing in the story. It'd be like me commenting on a J/E story to simply say "haha dumb pairing."

[philosophercat.livejournal.com]

I know how it is. Last time I bothered to see what JE (no /) fandom was up to, I saw the pathetic sight of a 50 year old woman chasing a professor from thread to thread, bashing absolutely everthing she said because said professor had once said- in an original post to a thread warning that she did not have a positive view of a particularly well-loved scene- that 'all' fans of the show were silly teenagers. I'm sure the prof was indulging in a little harmless exaggeration, at the tail of her post, but I'll bet she wishes she had just stayed out of the frey. I wasn't inclined to point out that, if 50-year-old fan doesn't want to be lumped in with teenagers, maybe she should not indulge in a one-person flame war crusade against someone else.

[erinya.livejournal.com]

And you know, I was having a moment of "OMG DUN GENERALIZE!" but I do think you have a valid and interesting point. The heavy identification and the wankiness/fanaticism is related to the Mary Sue phenomenon. I think that a major lure of the Mary Sue is that a certain proportion of female readership really do yearn for female characters to identify with, who get to be in the thick of the story and who are as cool and kick-ass as the male characters (who usually get to have all the fun and the swordfighting and the pirating and adventure--probably why LotR has such a rash of M-S's, although I glommed onto Eowyn in my day.) And yes, dally with the Preferred Sex Object, just like the classic male adventure hero--Indy, Bond, Conan--gets to do with the Hot Chick.

I think that Elizabeth IS that kind of character, which is at least one of the reasons why she's so compelling to so many fans, and why we (Elizabeth-fen) cling to her and defend her. (I certainly have a strong emotional/irrational reaction to Elizabeth-bashing, and have to breathe first, then respond.) But she's not a cardboard stand-in, although she has been used thus.

Meta aside, I'm really sorry that your comm has been receiving these rude comments. (It does happen on both sides, though I mostly get it at ff.net--not the same magnitude as someone coming into my personal comm or journal and leaving comments that "J/E sucks lol," or whatever.) As AWE draws closer, I'm really considering putting up a post in the Sparrabeth comm about courtesy. It's not like I have a huge amount of influence, and as someone else pointed out the ones who are disrespectful won't listen anyway, but I've been around long enough that most of the members know me and read my posts, and I feel like someone should say something. And as amusing as it might be, I really don't want to see my fellow fen on Fandom Wank...

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

As AWE draws closer, I'm really considering putting up a post in the Sparrabeth comm about courtesy.

I think that'd be a good idea. People who might be averse to cooperation, if they see maintainers of two communities doing it, might change their minds. (And really, why should a Will-only community be anathema to J/E? I can sort of understand the reverse if enough Will-comm fans are W/E ... but being a slash writer, I've tried to keep things more on-track focused on Will himself rather than lapsing entirely into J/W as I'd probably enjoy, or entirely into W/E, which would just invite wank. Plus, I like Will himself just fine.) It won't stop the occasional bitching about "that other place" or "that character," but I don't expect miracles - just a lessening of the overall tension.

[erinya.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not a maintainer there, just a Senior Loudmouth. *g* But the moderator has a lot of RL stuff going on, so active members have to step in to self-police.

What I've found generally is that the good writers, regardless of pairing, put thought into all the characters and so are less prone to hate any of them unreasonably.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Oh well. If only two people whine at you, you'll have a better track record than me. It was a good post, but you're likely right that the people it really *bothers* probably don't need to read it anyway.

[erinya.livejournal.com]

I got one "But it's all for teh lolz!", one passive-aggressive "Do you have a JOB?", one "OMG SENSORSHIP!" (no idea what that is, sounds technical) and one "I guess I do that sometimes, but I'm trying to be better."

Everyone else has one version or another of "Thank God someone said it."

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

And those very people who are all "It's about the LULZ!" are the very first ones who'd either burst into tears or show their claws the very first time you picked on what THEY liked the same way they pick at you.