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

[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.)