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

[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.