fighting the same old battles over and over

I was perusing a space outside LJ involving ... let's just say a popular fandom, and ran up against (not for the first time) The Fangirls Who Love The/A Main Female Character In A 'Ship vs. The Slashers Who Love The Idea Of Two Of The Male Characters Together (or vice versa, if you prefer that order). And I was reading the bickering and thinking how very familiar and stupid it all sounded, and how we in the POTC fandom had this same war lots of years ago (and we likely weren't the first) - and how the only real takeaway from all that pointless arguing was that the majority of fans have no ill will toward what other people like, and how it's loudmouths without content who seem to poison the well for everybody.

It's all well and good for individual fans to be able to criticize bad behavior of other fans. It's a thing that should exist in a fandom. But it's sort of incumbent (a) on the criticizer to make sure what they're criticizing is something genuinely to be called out, not some crudely pedantic slice-and-dice of a word or two they know damn well doesn't mean what they blow it up to mean, and (b) on the criticized to know when to stop arguing on a point in a specific discussion and say "You know what? Maybe you saw something I didn't intend, but said anyway, and I don't see it - but I don't know everything and I don't understand your specific complaint well enough to refute even after a few back-and-forths. And, I might be wrong on what I said. You have your say, and it's all right. You should."

Luckily, I'm not President of the World. We'd have worse problems than fandom bickering.

New Red Dwarf ficlet - "Hideouts," R

Rating - R for sexual content
Chars - L/R
Disclaimer: No ownership assumed for characters or fictional universe of "Red Dwarf."
Summary: Alcoves, alleys, and an odd lead-up to that first highly-rewarding kiss. (Thanks to metalkatt for some help on Rimmer dialogue.)


( How does someone look when they look like they need to be kissed? )