i have just re-read my entry

[lobelia321]

I have just re-read the entry where I talk about my inability to detect Sheppard/McKay in canon, and to me this post does not read like a straight down the line post. It reads like irony! It is full of exclamation marks! ALL CAPS! Absurd propositions! Self-contradictions!

To me, it falls clearly into the camp of jaunty jokey banter, not serious pronouncement.

I am annoyed and upset that people did not understand this. At the same time, I am suspicious that I did not make it clear enough and feel bad about offending people. At the same time, I also feel that people who know me would recognise my style of jaunty banter and feel annoyed that all sorts of people who don't know me weighed in with their opinion. At the same time, I realise I could flock my post but how can I know to flock if I was unaware that there was any content that was in need of flocking?!

*ties self in knots*

Comments

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Oh dear! This thing that we call fandom is a tricky beast indeed. *soothes you*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I'm chucking one of my useless fits again, aren't I? I deliberately didn't revisit these embarrassing posts until today so everything's kinda mellowed. Especially as the sun is out.

:-) Thanks for soothing! Forsooth.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Having ruminated, some points:

1. I am quite handy at not offending people - I consider this a useful, but not particularly good quality. Mind you, I managed to offend someone the first time I wandered into Tolkien territory, but then I don't think this is terribly difficult. :) You see how I automatically used a smiley there? Oh yeah, and there was the whole making-someone-cry episode on Tuesday. Perhaps I'm set to get all mean in LJ-land, too!

2. You do have a very distinctive style of interaction. You are very direct and you ask a lot of questions. Personally, I like this, because I feel most comfortable interacting with people who are direct and ask a lot of questions. I can't imagine ever being offended by something you said about fandom! I see nothing in your posts but curiosity and enthusiasm, but I gather that some people see confrontation. And this does seem to be a recent thing - I don't remember you getting that sort of reaction in our Lotrips days.

3. Lotrips was such a great thing for me - I genuinely loved it, and I loved being a part of it. But I catch myself thinking of it sometimes as 'not a real fandom', which is of course ridiculous. But there does seem to have been something different about it -- it seemed more accessible than some other fandoms. Oh, it had its fair share of kerfuffles, but even they seemed more accessible! I'm tempted to say that people were less easily bruised, not as quick to take offence, but perhaps that's rose-tinted glasses. Although, I never worried about offending people if I said, for instance, that I didn't like Viggorli. It just wouldn't have occurred to me. But I've been reading and watching a fair bit of Due South lately, and I've seen people talk about stuff that went down in that fandom like they'd been in a genuine war! I am honestly quite baffled by that sort of thing - I've only been really upset by stuff on LJ when it related to real people - ie my friends. Perhaps that makes me not a real fan, I don't know. I mainly come here to enjoy myself, or so I like to think.

4. People are obviously interested in what you have to say, or you wouldn't keep getting linked like this! I do think your intention is often misunderstood by people who don't know you. But hey - look at that post again - there are plenty of other people there being interested and engaged and not-offended! I don't like to see you get upset by it, and I know you are genuinely upset by it. My suggestion is to STEP AWAY FROM THE LJ for a little while, go and do something else fun for a bit. You know it's all quite silly really. ;)

5. I agree with you about the lack of canon McKay/Sheppard interaction (particularly, I think, for those of us who came to the canon via the fic), and I too am very fond of the pairing. But oh, I do wish more people would write McKay/Zelenka!! Also, I was thinking today, fanon is a funny thing. The number of fics I've read that have Zelenka making illicit alcohol, for instance - is there any canon justification for this at all? Perhaps I missed it. It seems a little odd, otherwise!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

You do have a very distinctive style of interaction.
I am sort of surprised by this and sort of not. :) (Note use of smiley, copied from you. Do you think that if I pepper my text with smileys I shall cease to offend? :-) It's worth a try. :-) I could possibly start to be Annoying Person Number One. :-)) (Also, posting a smiley at the end of a parenthesis makes it have a double-chin.)

I feel the distinctiveness comes from being German. I used to be told this kind of thing when I lived in Australia. Then I moved to Germany and wasn't told this any longer. Instead, I was told I interrupted too much. 'We are all individuals!'

'not a real fandom', which is of course ridiculous. But there does seem to have been something different about it -- it seemed more accessible than some other fandoms.
Not a real fandom? Interesting! Ponder-worthy! It was different from all these other fandoms, wasn't it? It were special liek! (And you could write things like 'liek'.)

Thank you for your comments; you are so sweet and generous. And no, I used to be heaps more pseudo-offensive in lotrips but nobody got offended. There used to be a lot of smiting. I used to send Demelza pics of Viggo to annoy her, and Lady Moonray (remember her?), viva Gloria and I used to smite each other in chat, she trying to convince me of the merits of Viggo and I debunking them all. And nobody went, 'oh, how can you offend my one and only OTP?' Yes, and re the getting offended about Viggorli and so forth. I also don't remember people getting in a huff about pairings. Except the tinhats but we all made fun of them, that was part of the party. But goodness, imagine getting serious about the extent of interaction between Sheppard and McKay on the TV show...???!! Heh, you're making me feel quite superior and retrospectively proud of our silly entrance fandom. (Well, my entrance fandom, anyway.) ;-)

My suggestion is to STEP AWAY FROM THE LJ
Yes, I did this! I realised that it was silly and that I am a 'full-grown' (yes, I saw that episode today!!!!) and that I needed to write my book. So there. Also, I also conceded that only one or two people upset me, and they were not people whom I value particularly, so...!! I could not value them because I do not know them!!

I agree with you about the lack of canon McKay/Sheppard interaction (particularly, I think, for those of us who came to the canon via the fic), and I too am very fond of the pairing. But oh, I do wish more people would write McKay/Zelenka!! Also, I was thinking today, fanon is a funny thing. The number of fics I've read that have Zelenka making illicit alcohol, for instance - is there any canon justification for this at all? Perhaps I missed it. It seems a little odd, otherwise!
*cackles at all of this* Maybe we need a sort of ex-lotripper sub-fandom for those exiled into new realms. I have since seen some McKay/Sheppard interaction but I have also seen lots of McKay/Zelenka interaction and Sheppard/Ford interaction. There is, indeed, all sorts of interaction! But fanon chooseth only a tiny percentage.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, and guess what I've written? McKay/Cadman.

And I'm totally enamoured of McKay/April Bingham-who-looks-like-Dom.

screen if you want

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

hmmm...i feel like this is all my fault...i think you have interesting ideas and questions and it's always great to move a little outside our comfort zone. which is why i linked...

but...the reason i said something is that this wasn't the first time that i got my feelings hurt by something you said...probably not meaning it at all offensive but it still smarted. and today i realized that it probably was tone as well...

no, i did not read your post as jaunty banter...possibly because there are enough people who seriously write exactly the same stuff; posssibly because some capitalizations and exclamation marks are way too subtle an iront marker for me :D; possibly, because it really is a sense of needing to know you; ...but i feel that i do and yet...i always get the feeling that while you're in fandom you're also distancing yourself by mildly mocking those that take it seriously (maybe even mocking yourself in the process?)

and i don't really need to invoke freud to address the fact that jokes are usually containing an element of truthful opinion, right?

i don't know lotrips..i really can't compare. but it might be true tht interactions were different? mybe a differnt sense of self-identification???

Re: screen if you want

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

it's always great to move a little outside our comfort zone.
One thing I have discovered about myself that I seem to want to stay within my comfort zone!! :-)

Ack, you evol linktrice, you! Ah, you are forgiven, how can I continue annoyed with you? (Also, I just wanted to slip in that Austenian use of 'continue' which I do so love.) :-)

What was the previous time you got your feelings hurt by something I said? Did I do it on purpose, or unintentionally? Maybe you should defriend me, I don't seem to be good for you... :-) Also, tone is tricky in text-only-online-mode. sheldrake suggested the use of smileys so I'm trying that out. :-) I fear, though, that excessive smileys may just annoy!!

hile you're in fandom you're also distancing yourself by mildly mocking those that take it seriously (maybe even mocking yourself in the process?)
Yes, I do mildly mock fandom. My relationship to fandom is a mildly mocking one, it has always been so. I think Sheldrake is right, that lotrips was a bit different from other fandoms in this respect and I'm (we are) only finding this out now. The bottom line mode of lotrips was a mildly mocking one, we mocked each other, we mocked the boys, we mocked our obsession with the boys, we mocked each other's OTPs, the one thing we didn't mock was the fic (unless it be bad!fic of which there was A LOT in lotrips) but anything else was fair game really, fanon, canon, fandom. Except rps has a weird kind of canon, anyway, so one couldn't possibly take it seriously. The only people taking anything seriously were the tinhats and they were ruthlessly mocked by the rest!! Ah, those were the days. *is nostalgic* I'm not sure I can quite survive these new, harsh, non-mocking fandom days. I feel I need a protective shield!

Re: screen if you want

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

ah...I'd not unfriend you!!! If I'd been upset enough, I'd have mentioned it at the time...it just came back to me, b/c I started thinking sbout you and me and discourse and style and tone and all...plus, it takes two, doesn't it? :-)

and i guess my tinhatty part of my personality islarger than i thought :-) but yeah, i do take it seriously and feel personally offended when my show gets insulted...silly, but there's this slippery slope between they're stupid/the show's stupid/you're stupid...and it slides on both sides...

Excessive smiley use is annoying...i commit it all to often myself. But it is a good indicator to show that yo're tongue in cheek... Maybe you should defriend me without the smiley could be taken as aggressive whereas the smiley puts it into the mildly teasing...

harsh nonmocking fandoms? welcome, hon!!!! seriously, fandom like all hobbiesgets taken seriously quite a bit. and the repetitive, get a life or it's just a show comments may be warranted but, of course, are insulting as well. Yes, it's not life and death, but why can I not feel passionate aout something?

*hands you rodney's shield*

Re: screen if you want

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I have thought about this quite a lot actually, since we first started textversing about it, and it possibly warrants an entire post about 'my relationship to fandom' or somesuch. Because I did not come into fandom from fandom, as it were, but from the slashy side.

I have never got offended by anyone 'insulting' any canon I have liked. I found myself having to put that into quotation marks because canon-insultation is such a foreign concept to me. Hm, that is interesting, isn't it? People have insulted particular men I have liked but this was all in fun, as in 'o my god, but just look at his ridiculous chin!'

Also, I still can't understand why you thought I was insulting SGA canon? I love SGA canon! I am totally addicted to it and go through waves of lust for different members of the ensemble! It was HP canon that I had problems with; I will happily run down HP books for you, especially Books 4 onwards. This is perhaps why I found it difficult to write my novel-length HP fic, because I loved the fanon far more than the canon. Otoh, I also found it difficult to write my novel-length lotrips fic so it's hard to tell whether the difficulty lies with the canon or with the novel-lengthness.

Why am I writing about HP in the past? Ack, SGA has eaten my brain! And I am posting fic for the first time since November 2004, omg, I am abject with gratitude to SGA!

Also, hah, how can I not love a canon that has April Bingham in it? The name alone, that combination of Gidget and Jane Austen, ach, delicious.

Re: screen if you want

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

argh...i have the feeling we really should take this to email (or employ my newly discovered chatting ability :-) but here's the thing: it's a total ego thing and then a bit more with the statement there's no mcshep in canon; it's all fanon. if this is my pairing (or rather,since this is my pairing), what i'm hearing is, there is texct and your interpretation of the text is all in your mind, made up, a rather wide collective delusion we call derogatorily fanon...that's why i'm so eager to use terms like interpreted text, interpretive communities etc.

there are two things i seem to be overly sensitive and you've hit both of them on some occasions (and i'd never have thought i'd be that sensitive and know i've made those same statements and blunders before, but there you have it): one's the this story/source text is bad (not i don't like it, which announces its personal bias clearly), which leaves me adoring this story/soiurce text in the position of feeling like i like something that's qualitatively inferior, that my taste or, worse, my qualitative aesthetic judgment is faulty.

The other is the it's not canon thing. And this is a matter of interpretive ability. By not saying I don't see this pairing but I see a lot of slashy subtext between these other guys but instead saying there is no subtext, it suggests to me that my reading is objectively sa wrong and bad one, that I interpret badly.

And again, I'm pretty sure that you mean to the latter in both cases, but when i perceive the former, my defensiveness comes out. B/c if I think a text is great, I don't want to be told my taste sucks and if I find a pairing have great chemistry on screen, Idon't want to be told I made it all up...

so, we're back to both differnt needs we both have/bring to fandom and just plain how we express ourselves... [and the latter is the much moreeasily fixable :-)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

What happens if it's not a fandom text we're talking about? What, say, if we are talking about a novel, e.g. Dickens, Oliver Twist, or Jane Austen, Emma? If someone, e.g. I, came along and said, 'Emma is a terrible novel', would this upset you and leave you feeling that your aesthetic judgement is wanting?

I think I can sympathise with what I think you are saying (if it is what you're saying) because I come from a family where something was either fantastic or deplorable, there was no middle ground and no ground for disagreement (with my parents). But in long years of living with t'h and perhaps of teaching and of talking to others outside my family, I have got a bit better at dealing with the fact that not everybody's going to like what I like, and people don't always couch their tastes in the form of 'I like' but do make judgements like 'This is awful' or 'This is great.' Heh, especially academics.

I mean, I live in a household that mocks Bollywood mercilessly. I love Bollywood. I tend to think it's their aesthetic sense that is remiss. *g* (To be fair, I have also won them round on occasion...)

But you know, I have to be able to say 'I adore Jane Austen and 'Northanger Abbey' is a fantastic novel', and also 'Clarissa has dated, and Richardson is crap.'

Then we can move onto fandom stuff. I have to be able to say 'JKR from book 4 onwards is rubbish'. You have to be able to say 'No, it's fab', and then give me reasons or not, as you choose. But me saying 'x is great' with you thinking 'x is crap' (especially if I don't know your views in advance!) cannot result in you questioning your own judgement. You've got to stand up for yourself here!!

I mean, SGA: even my son looks at me pityingly and says, 'Why are you watching this?' He has to be allowed to find it crap, and this has to leave my own investment in it intact as well.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

But I really don't want and need this from within the community, if that makes sense.

And somehow I can handle literary dismissal much more easily, b/c when you say Joyce sucks, I have decades of literary criticism behind me backing me up.

And yet it's not even that I doubty my own traste but that I find it needless to insult anyone else's. i find the hobbitses utterly unattractive yet I'd never make a post denouncing them...b/c I know I have fannisdh friends invested in them. Likewise, Beckett makes my absolute no read list (sorry :-), but I'll try to always couch that in personal things, b/c clearly erotic appreciation *is* deeply personal.

I try to say, I didn't like this story rather than it's crap...b/c there may be people who really, really think it's good.

[and as i'm saying this, i'm having a post where people whom many consider great without objection will be recced as guilty pleasures...so maybe i should shut up right now!!! *g*)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Beckett makes my absolute no read list
My first reaction to this: 'Who's Beckett?'
My second reaction: 'Oh, Samuel Beckett!'
My third reaction: 'Duh!!!! It's Carson Beckett!'
*cackles*

Insult away! No need to say sorry! Go on, the three things you dislike most about Carson Beckett, and give it your worst! (Unless you meant Samuel, of course. In which case, just list those!)

But I really don't want and need this from within the community,
I think your community is slightly different from my community although they overlap. My community is basically, I guess, my Default Friends List. Also, I don't consider things I post in my personal LJ as 'community' posts; I am more cautious in other people's journals and in community journals but at home I try to say what I think. And because it is my personal journal, I will assume that the default position for anything I say is 'Lobelia thinks' so I don't always say 'I do not like x' or 'I like x'; I just say 'x is good'.

Also, I have to say, most of the views I hold tend to be more of the 'well, this aspect was really compelling but this other aspect is flawed' variety, rather than the 'holy crap' variety. Although it's fun to go the whole hog every now and again. I mean, I could provide a balanced disquisition on the merits and flaws of SGA but where would be the fun in that?

Much better to drool over April Bingham! :-)

[birdgerhl.livejournal.com]

well, i don't know anything about the fandom that you're talking about, so i skipped over your original post - but if what you're saying is that people have been offended by something you wrote about a fandom, then those people need to get a life. endy story.

b.x :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*cackles*

It is true. They were. They do.

I shall try to cease being upset by these Seriosity Mongers. Mockdom rules!

Mock!Dom rules! And for me, mock!Dom is April Bingham.

This will be totally opaque to you. *cackles hermetically*

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I skipped the original post too since I don't know that fandom (though I have some friends who are into SGA so I'll probably end up watching some episodes anyway) and after reading the whole thing I'm feeling sort of "eh"?

You didn't come across as looking down on your nose at someone's choice of pairing but as someone who is honestly confused what the fuss is about. Then again, I like when people ask straight questions and don't just hint and be cryptic. Also, I know you and your style so it just looked... normal to me to see you voice your opinion.

I just thought of something: maybe because I'm not much of an OTP-person, I just don't get why people get so riled up about the pairings?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I stayed away from LJ for a few days and from my posts in particular to cool down and yes, I have cooled down a bit now! :-) I agree with sheldrake, lotrips was a different sort of fandom. There just seemed to be a lot more mockery around, and a lot less Seriosity about pairings, canon, OTPs and whatnot. Is that what you remember?

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

I think Lotrips was a big free-for-all fest: everything was fair game, everything was accepted (though there were always those people who felt RPS is from Satan and we'd all go to Hell). People were eager to experiment with style and pairings and whatnot... it was more about creativity, "hmm, give me a word and two characters and I'll see what I can cook up".

Of course people tended hang out with other people who liked the same characters as them but apart from tinhats, people were quite tolerant about other people's obsessions. So-called "shipping wars" were pretty much non-existent or at least I don't remember any. So yes, I think Lotrips was kinda unique.

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

For chrissakes people, this is a TV show! This is fiction! Not everyone has the same OTP and manage it without killing each other.

Maybe it's because I know you well, even though we've never met in person, but I never saw your post as anything but a genuine and valid question phrased in ironic sort of way. If someone takes offense, that's really not your problem, and you really shouldn't feel the least bit bad.

As to f-locking? Why? If perfect strangers comment in your journal, it's my personal opinion that the burden is on them to be polite and not so quick to take offense, because after all, it's YOUR house they're visiting.

*unties your knots*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I keep forgetting the people who don't care about OTPs and fanon and suchlike in my hurry to get upset by the two or three strangers in my LJ who do! But I stayed away from these posts for some days to cool off, and this strategy worked! :-) I also think that it's up to the strangers to be polite but you know, I suddenly felt too timid to say this! And I resist f-locking because yes, these strangers only visit once and never come again so they should wipe their boots before entering and ring the doorbell!!

*bows to you, using elaborate politeness ritual, scraping heel and kowtowing mightily*