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

[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.)

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

To clarify, I used "better" as a value judgement of the overall writing quality question. Both stories pushed a lot of my personal buttons (and yes, I read all of Xanthe's epics), but in hypercritical reprobate curmudgeon mode, IMO, one is better writing.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Well, sure-- my only point is, in this case it's kind of like comparing apples and oranges, so I don't really think it's accurate to say that Helen took Xanthe's idea and "did it better," because she took Xanthe's idea and came up with her *own* idea, which is really completely different (like you said-- different rules, different society, different roles for the characters.)

Personally, I think it's an immense compliment, that someone read Xanthe's stories and didn't just forget about it after they clicked away. Instead, Helen took it *seriously*, asking the question, "What if this wasn't just a romantic, kinky fantasy, where true love can even beats death? What if this was a real society with problems of its own?"

Which, like you said, is exactly what we do with the source. "What if this wasn't just a silly sf tv show? What if these characters actually had to deal with the emotional fallout of their actions?" Etc.

If Helen had attempted to write a story set in Xanthe's exact universe, with the exact same characterization and rules, maybe then we could say one was better or not better, but as it is, both stories are meant to push entirely different buttons, so it's hard to judge them by the same standards.

*sigh* Personally, I think a lot of this kerfuffling could have been avoided if people had just not tried to compare apples and oranges directly. I mean, when someone comes out with a super gritty and realistic John/Rodney slavefic story, I don't run over and post in their comments, "OMG, this story is so much better than Resonant's emo romantic slavefic story! I can't even believe I read that dumb thing!" Even if it's my honest opinion, you know?

I have said this before, but sometimes I think it's unfortunate that people in fandom are so hesitant/uncomfortable with expressing any kind of critical opinion, even if it's just pointing out the flaws in something they like-- and then when an opportunity appears that makes people feel like they *can* express a negative opinion, everyone and their sister runs to do it, and then other people do it because suddenly there's a "safe space" for criticism, and it starts feeling like a big unfair dogpile where everyone in fandom is dissing one specific author or story.

I approve of communities like thecuttingboard, but I wish they were busier, and covered *lots* more stories, so that people wouldn't feel like they were being unfairly picked on, you know?

[copracat]

I'd like to see fandom at a point where we can compare two stories and not get anyone's knickers in too strangling a twist. A lot of interesting conversation has happened by considering different stories, two of which inspired , to whatever extent, a third, and thinking about the points of difference and how they emotionally or intellectually made us respond.

I'd really like fandom to not be at that place where some fans think that fan one, who is warmly received in fandom, gets plenty loving feedback and seems sane enough not to expect everyone in fandom to love her writing, is being treated badly because a whole bunch of people read her stories and are keen to continue to discuss what they meant and how they are valued.

I'm a little bit thrilled that this conversation across several LJs and communities seems to show that that place is somewhere we might realistically be at.

I think way Helen presented her story and the story itself made the conversation at thecuttingboard possible. The discussion was possible because the stories are so different and because it's not a diss of Xanthe but a response to what she wrote. Those barely veiled insult stories are obviously something that's come out of fans fighting (The Sentinel anyone?) and that is not the case here or we would have seen a profanity of sockpuppets and a rage of LJ posts.

But I reckon the nature of this kind of good discussion in fanfiction is that it needs a strong and divisive prompt - these conversations happened because we disagreed so variously and on so many different levels across and within the stories.

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

Whoa. Fic A. Fic B. On their own merits as examples of writing, not taking into account the shared basic premise, IMO, Fic A is better. I don't make that judgement on anything but the bare facts of the writing. They could be two fics without the shared premise, and given the writing styles, I would like Fic A better.

Xanthe's story is a fun fantasy. It stands on that merit. Helen's story takes the premise with a more serious/realistic approach. It stands on that merit. If Xanthe's were better (IMO) written (see above) than Helen's, I would say so. I don't agree that they are apples and oranges if one bases the opinion on sheer ability to string words together and avoid cliches and other writerly pitfalls. I've read a lot of crap with serious intention, and a lot of very well written crack.

But the comparison of them as writers I can make in my head, or here in a meta discussion. I would not have posted it on the story. Looking back at how I stated it I can see my phrasing being easy to parse as saying that Helen did a better job with the general idea. That, I do not think. She happens to be (IMnvHO) a better writer. It's a compliment to Xanthe as a storyteller/worldbuilder that I read the whole thing despite my judgements about her prose style.

As for offering critical opinion, I will do so, if I have time and if I care enough to bother/risk annoying someone. What makes me care is how good something is to begin with, and/or whether I honestly think that adding my critical comment might have any long-term positive benefit to the writer. I'm not so arrogant as to think my every opinion is gold, and that the recipient is going to say, "Oh, thank you, John, for those pearls of wisdom!" I'm far more of an asshole than I let show on LJ, but there's no hiding that I'm a jerk. I keep the crits to a minimum because I have no tact. There are a very few hardy enough to have me beta.

Lastly, I'm with you on believing it to be a compliment if someone sparks a story in someone else. Maybe half of my fanfic was sparked by another fanfic writer's story, including a full novel in Voyager set in BratKatze's Today series. If some one were to take off from one of mine, I would fucking preen.

Nice talking to you.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

See, although I am totally, totally pro-constructive criticism and even-handed discussion (that includes an assessment of both the positive and negative aspects of the work being discussed,) I'm uncomfortable with the viewpoint of this issue that sees Helen and Xanthe as being in direct competition. I think I unloaded that on you a little bit more than your comment warranted, but it's something that has really been bugging me about the *way* this issue seems to be framed.

To me, the way authors "respond" to each others' stories with more stories is more like a conversation, not a competition, so I'm just wary about framing it in terms of "who's better."

[filenotch.livejournal.com]

Ah. I wasn't coming from the perspective of them competing in the AU BDSM space. I was just comparing from my outside perspective (in a space outside the authors' postings). It would never occur to me to comment on Helen's story and say, "Wow, you totally kicked Xanthe's ass," or some such idiocy. Your wariness is understandable, though. Yet, I've had people comment on my takeoff of stories (not in my LJ but in recs and other spaces) and said they weren't as good as the originals, or whatever. No arguments from me, but my skin is thick.

But not to worry. You said cogent and interesting things.

I like the conversation aspect. One think I've liked about fanfic is that unlike the pro sources we poach, the writers can go back and forth with each other on ideas.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind that I friended you. Interesting mind you have there. (If you do mind, let me know.)

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I mean, when someone comes out with a super gritty and realistic John/Rodney slavefic story, I don't run over and post in their comments, "OMG, this story is so much better than Resonant's emo romantic slavefic story! I can't even believe I read that dumb thing!"

But if they put in their author's notes that it was inspired by/based on Resonant's emo romantic slavefic story, then I don't see anything wrong with saying that you're glad this gritty one was written, because the emo romance fantasy does nothing for you and you were disappointed that it wasn't more realistic, which is what most of the comparisons I saw in the comments to Helen's story were.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

No, neither do I, but I think there's a difference between saying "Oh, I like this one better, because my individual preference is for a gritty sense of realism," and "Oh, I like this one better, because the other one was bizarre and OOC and weird." And I felt like a few people-- not the majority, but a couple of people-- strayed over into the second type of comment and affected the conversation in a way they probably didn't mean to.