Comments on LJ events you're already bored with

[resonant]

1. Love memes (like the one going on at queenofthorns right now) are much easier these days now that LJ introduced its little thumbtack icon! You can track the entire discussion (to see if anyone you know comments asking for love), or you can track your anonymous comment (so you can see if the person replies to it). It's very cool.

2. Some of the discussion on helenish's Take Clothes Off As Directed seems to be implying that it's a brand-new (and unfair) thing to comment on/criticize a piece of literature by writing another piece of literature in response to it.

But this sort of conversation between two literary works is at least as old as when Christopher Marlowe wrote The Passionate Shepherd to His Love ("Come live with me and be my love/And we will all the pleasures prove") and Sir Walter Raleigh replied with The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd ("If all the world and love were young/And truth on every shepherd's tongue ...").

Comments

[jelazakazone.livejournal.com]

You can track your own anonymous comment? Cool. I didn't know that:)

RE: #2. Seems like there are some people who have no idea about any literary history, given this comment and what someone else on my flist posted. *sighs heavily* Hopefully they will be educated and not just feel abused and turned off.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that there are two ways that people feel about the things they produce in fandom (stories, lj posts, etc.)

1. They're analogous to personal notes -- maybe like a note you'd write in someone's yearbook: Yes, they're public, but they're still personal, and it's very rude and hurtful to share them outside the original context, or to critique them in public.

2. They're analogous to articles published in a newsletter -- they're out there for discussion.

I'm in the second camp, of course, and I find the first camp kind of baffling -- but clearly there are people who sincerely feel that the public critique/dissemination/discussion of the things they write is some sort of violation.

[jelazakazone.livejournal.com]

*boggles* People post stuff on the internet and think it's private? This is a rhetorical question, obviously, but you would think that young people should know better. How strange. (The assumption here is that older users might not know how public the internet is, but younger users certainly should.)

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

re: #2 -- you haven't noticed the lack of knowledge before? It's not just literary history -- it's literature at all. Some people, as near as I can tell, only read fanfiction. Others read mostly fanfiction and a very narrow selection of other things. I tend to put allusions to various work into my fanfic, and I've gotten feedback about how interesting and original some of those ideas are, and I'm going...but...that's a common literary trope! Or I nicked it from Shakespeare! Or whatever!

And I'm not even particularly well-read.

Ah well.

[jelazakazone.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't read very widely. I basically only read two people these days and they are both very well educated. The few other people I read on occasion are also pretty well educated. I live in a cave:)

[domtheknight.livejournal.com]

Agree about the literary thing... glad you said this, too. I read both, I liked both, it's all good.

There's also Shakespeare, of course, who rampantly stole the vast majority of his plots from other sources. There are no new ideas, after all, only recycled ones, hopefully with a new spin.

[amireal.livejournal.com]

1. I had that very thought! Because before replying to the anon comment seemed almost an unsure thing, now I'm still waffling between replying and doing a mass thank you, because surely other people have figured out the whole tracking an anon comment thing?


2. Hmm. I think we're backing into a lot of the "It's okay out there but that was one of our own." Which to me, I never really bought into the whole thing.

From where I've stood, there is a perceived level of emotion that is BAD coming from the author. That is, she meant to hurt/maim/eviscerate. And while that may or may not be the case, I sort of wonder if everyone really thinks the world of literature is fully of fuzzy bunnies and puppies.

I'm fairly sure this perceptionis tied up in how she presented some things versus other, etc. But I won't get into that here.

But it does feel like a revisit of the permissions argument once more, just from a different angle.

[fullygoldy.livejournal.com]

do some people need to look up the word homage?

Sometimes I feel terribly outside the fandom loop, but I think I'm glad I'm missing this discussion.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

Well, there is some discussion about whether or not the 'homage' label was disingenuous, so I don't think the definition of the word is the issue.

[misspamela.livejournal.com]

Some of the discussion on helenish's Take Clothes Off As Directed seems to be implying that it's a brand-new (and unfair) thing to comment on/criticize a piece of literature by writing another piece of literature in response to it.


La la la...you know what I like? John Sheppard with his clothes off. Oh, and Ray Kowalski and Fraser and oooh, Heroes makes me happy, and Rome and...I'm sorry? Are there other things happening in fandom?

*skips off to the happy place*

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Yes! Let us cavort in the happy place!

La la la la...

[wicked-socks.livejournal.com]

2. Some of the discussion on helenish's Take Clothes Off As Directed seems to be implying that it's a brand-new (and unfair) thing to comment on/criticize a piece of literature by writing another piece of literature in response to it.

I actually just went over and read the comments on that fic, haven't gotten around to reading the fic itself. But such back and forth responses between authors, the response solicited or not, is age old as you say. It is integral to literature, to art, to culture and media of any form. If it's publically posted, it's fair game (But be polite about pursuing the fair game).

I'm just so boggled by their mindset. So what, we're aloud to remix and nitpick canon, but lord forbid we touch sacred fanon? Writing of any form is a conversation, nor just from writer to reader, but writer to other writers.

Eh, it's so early in the morning on a saturday to do anything else than raise an eyebrow, wonder at people, and express my wonderment with cliched phrases.

[dmarley.livejournal.com]

While I can sympathize with the "oh, crap" feeling that one might experience on seeing one's work riffed on, parodied, pastiched, or otherwise homaged, there's also the fact that a writer can't expect, once she's posted something, to control how her readers choose to respond to it.

And, too, if one does choose to riff, parody, pastiche, or homage, then that person in turn can't control how her own efforts are received. I tend to think that it all will come out in the wash, one way or another, and that the free and vigorous exchange of opinions, whether in the form of fiction or otherwise, are a Good Thing.

On a completely different topic, I can't help but wonder if, today, Marlowe might not have had a half-ass chance to sue Raleigh for copyright infringement. Well, except that Marlowe probably wasn't interested in owning the nymph anyway...:)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Or Marlowe might have replied to the reply.

Eight years later: 'The Shepherd's Final Answer To The Nymph's Reply To The Shepherd's Reply To The Nymph's Reply To The Shepherd's Rather Snippy Retort to ...'

[september1967.livejournal.com]

Hm, I was the one who said it was wrong to criticize another story in someone else's story's comments. I don't know if Helen was expressing problems with Xanthe and her problems with Xanthe's stories. I have a severe problem with people who think its OK to dis another author in someone else's story's comments. That just seems spiteful to me- "well, I can't say this in Xanthe's LJ because she will just delete it, so I will say in another person's lj who won't delete my problems with Xanthe's stories."

[cjk1701.livejournal.com]

But Xanthe and any other writers post fiction and thus let it out in the big scary world on its own. Doesn't it mean that it's free game to discuss it anywhere it finds its way to? I can rec a story in my own LJ, I can bitch and rant about a story in my LJ, so why can't I do it in a reply to a discussion someplace else? Do I have to make sure the writer will see my opinion on her writing? It's not like she needs to be able to show up to defend herself - she said everything with her writing already. I don't mean bashing an author "behind her back", but making my own opinion of her work known.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Essentially it sounds like you're saying: It's impossible to criticize a story in the author's own LJ, because the author will just delete the comment; and it's rude/tactless to criticize a story in the comments to another person's story.

I'd have to disagree with that two ways: First, I don't know what Xanthe would do, but I've certainly never deleted a critical comment. (I've never deleted anything but spams demanding that I go see "The Passion of the Christ.")

Second, I don't see anything wrong with criticizing a story in the comments on someone else's LJ. (Or anywhere else, for that matter.)

[cjk1701.livejournal.com]

Here's a very shallow comment for you: I dislike Xanthe's writing in general (or rather, her writing is okay-ish, but her idea of BDSM and what she does with it are downright painful) and those stories specifically, so I not only loved Helen's story for its own considerable merits but also for how she's mirrored Xanthe's universe and showed its weak points. Also, pr0n.

Oh, and, are we back to "if you can't say anything nice about her story, don't say anything at all, and you're just jealous anyway" school of literary criticsm? In my word, outright parodies, well- and ill-meant homages and in-jokes are all valid forms of comment and response. Apparently Xanthe's fic moved her enough to write this (very good) story, so there.

[september1967.livejournal.com]

No sorry, this is about what is tactful and when it is appropriate to express issues with someone's story or stories.

[wicked-socks.livejournal.com]

Oh, and, are we back to "if you can't say anything nice about her story, don't say anything at all, and you're just jealous anyway" school of literary criticsm?

hahahahahaha
oh man, I'm wheezing here

[vass]

Oh for goodness sake. Fanfic *is* criticism/commentary in the form of another piece of literature. Are they upset that she played with Xanthe's universe on her own terms, or that what she wrote was so much better than the original?

[cjk1701.livejournal.com]

Fanfic *is* criticism/commentary in the form of another piece of literature.

Yes, exactly! Also a different interpretation. And posibly an allegory, with story stories. And often ironic, and homages by defintion, being fanfic.

Sorry, rant overflow from threads above. ;)

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

Quoting myself from a reply to someone else, but it belongs here since it was sparked by this discussion.

I didn't see helenish as being nasty to Xanthe. She took an idea, flipped it, and wrote it better. The flip was multifold: flip the sub/dom assignments, flip the "good at being a top" premise, and flip the "perfectly balanced society" presentation of the original. That's not necessarily criticism. That's acknowledging that someone else sparked an idea, and then running with it. ALL fanfic consists of running with someone else's idea. Maybe helenish AU'ed Xanthe, and maybe she did it better. So what? Many of the St:Voy writers produced better stories than the source.

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

make that St:Voy fanfic writers.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

See, I don't even think it's a matter of doing it *better* as doing it differently. Xanthe's story is a romantic porn fantasy, where the point is the romance and the kink; Helen's story isn't a better porn epic than Xanthe's, because it's not a porn epic at all, it's something completely different. (Just as Xanthe's story is completely different from the source *it* was inspired by, and it would be equally as pointless to compare a gan, PG-13 sci-fi tv show with a BDSM au.)