thefourthvine | Entries tagged with [rant]

So, today over lunch I decided to read some stuff that wasn't mathematical economics, just to sort of remember there are other words out there.

Annnnnd so I read this Ask Bear column, and then I stewed for a while, and then I wrote this rushed, angry rant before I went back to my mathematical economics.

The letter in that column comes from a questioning 22 year old who is potentially starting down that "hang on, am I -- queer?" path that a lot of us have walked. I've walked it myself! It is scenic and has many twists and turns. The letter writer is in a very traditional and appropriate place for starting on that path: he (I'm assuming) has many questions and is not sure what comes next or what he has to do to be a good possibly queer person.

Bear's response, summarized: you can absolutely be queer, sounds like you might be, and oh, by the way, before you explore that queer identity at all, you'd better come out. To everyone. You have to, to be a good human.

I really wanted to believe Bear didn't tell a questioning 22 year old that he had to come out of the closet before he is allowed to see if he might potentially be queer. But I tweeted my rage (as is the custom of my people), and several Twitter friends got the same read from it, so I just want to remind everyone of something important.

No one can tell you that you have to come out. Not if they're queer, not if they're out, not if they're an activist, not if they are the Fairy Queen of the Queer Isles (my dream job!), never. (The one exception to this: your partner(s) in queerness get a say. But even they don't get to issue a fiat like Bear did in this letter.)

There are three major reasons for this.

Coming out is a dangerous endeavor for many people in this world. And you are the best evaluator of your physical, emotional, and social safety. I think Bear may just have forgotten, since he apparently lives in a polytransqueer wonderland, that coming out can be risky. That his letter writer may have to face familial rejection, social rejection, harassment, homelessness, abuse -- that, in short, a lot of bad things might happen to the LW if he comes out. (Queer folks struggling with this issue, take heart: it is apparently entirely possible to get to a place in your life where you can forget this!) Bear may also have forgotten that those same things may also happen to the dude LW is into, and that they may together choose to be closeted for safety reasons, and that is absolutely fine. (It isn't fine that people have to make that choice, of course, but blaming people for picking the best of a number of bad options is classic oppressor bullshit, and I'm embarrassed to see any of my fellow queers doing it.)
Coming out is a process, and the LW is at the very beginning of it. (People can be at the very beginning at any point in their lives. They can go back to the beginning at any point in their lives. And they can spend as long as they need to there. This is not some sort of board game, folks, where you can just pass go and collect your Queer Person ID.) Bear ordered him to go straight from starting college to taking the Bar Exam, without going through any of the intervening bits. But those bits are important, and they make you ready for the later bits, and only you, the queer person, know how you're doing in the process, or what you're ready for right now.
You don't owe anyone your story. Let me repeat that, slightly louder: you don't owe anyone your story. Bear strongly implies that his questioning letter writer should come out because social justice. And, no, that is not a burden queer folks have to bear; we do not have to build a bridge to our own equality with our bare hands using bricks made out of our lives, our bodies, and our hearts. (Unless, of course, we choose to. Many of us make that choice, in big ways and small. But it's our choice to do that.)

Many, many of our straight allies say the same thing in other words. For example, they say that gay people who come out are heroes, and gay people who make choices other than absolute and total openness are weak, and that is bullshit, and it's extremely harmful bullshit. You are not required to come out to Make the World Safe for Queers, you are not required to come out to Be a Good Queer, you are not required to come out for any reason at all ever except that you want to and are ready to. Your story is yours. You tell it how you want to, when you want to, if you want to

So, Bear's Letter Writer, if you're out there, here is some alternate advice from a different middle-aged queer who has come out a whole, whole, whole bunch:

Letter Writer, you can do whatever you want to with your guy (provided he consents, of course), with whatever level of disclosure you both agree on. It's important to be honest with him about where you are with respect to coming out, whether that is "I will actually have a panic attack if you touch me in public" or "I am totally okay with our friends knowing, but I cannot face having some kind of formal announcement right now" or "let's tell everyone including our extremely homophobic extended family members and then POST LOTS OF TOPLESS MAKING OUT PHOTOS ON FACEBOOK HA HA HA." (You may be in a different place than any of these, or experiencing a combination of all three. That's normal.) Then it's important to listen to what he says about where he is. If there's a big difference -- if you're at panic attacks and he's at Facebook, say -- then be aware that that is going to be an issue in your relationship, and be prepared to work on it.

Your queer journey is belongs to you, Letter Writer. You and those you choose to share it with are the only people who get to say how it goes, and that includes coming out, if you decide to do that. Speaking as a supportive bystander, though, I hope your queer journey is awesome. Good luck!

Crossposts: http://thefourthvine.livejournal.com/179989.html

A long time ago, I had a lot to say in rants about how people were DOING IT WRONG and should NOT WRITE THIS WAY but rather THIS OTHER WAY. (And, if I'm gonna be honest, those rants are all still there, just waiting for me to type them. Let me tell you about the Should You Use the Pluperfect? flowchart I made the other day. Or not, because honestly, TFV, nobody wants to hear that.) I was all, "People! Write better!"

Sorry, past me -- you were wrong. What I should have been saying was, "People! Write more! (Even if it's really bad!)"

Because, yes, I still think the word sensitized needs to be left to lie fallow for a decade. Where it can maybe cavort with its friend, lave. I still sometimes want to ban thesauruses. I still feel like maybe those weeping cocks should see a doctor, or perhaps a therapist.

But these days, I also think we're lucky to have those stories. I probably won't be reading them, but I'm happy they exist, for three reasons.

Writing is good. People are writing! For fun! Good news! Seriously, if I had spent more time writing down the hideously painful Mary Sue fan fiction I dreamed up when I was a wee teen, I might have spent less time on, you know, drugs and sucking the cocks of random strangers without protection. I'm always happy to see someone making better choices than I made.

Maybe you're now saying, "Okay, fine, but do they have to post those Mary Sue stories where I can see them?" If so, you're being a dick. Cut it out. The Archive of Our Own is not the Archive of Just What You Want to Read. It's the Archive of Fanworks. Is it a fanwork? Then it belongs there! And if you're incapable of scrolling past something, it's not that the Mary Sue writers are in the wrong place, it's that you are. (Also, I'm sorry, but I don't know where would be the right place for you. Everywhere is going to have stuff you don't like, because tastes are individual and all that. Maybe the internet just isn't for you.)

Crap is important. Sturgeon's law is right, but it misses the point. Ninety percent of everything has to be shit. That's how you get the 10% that's good.

Your favorite writers, fan fiction, published fiction, published fan fiction, whatever -- they didn't start out writing that way. There was a time when they wrote unspeakably awful crap. Writing unspeakably awful crap is how you learn to write only moderately awful crap, and then eventually maybe decent stuff, and then, if you're lucky, actually good things. There are not two classes of people, those who are good writers and those who are bad writers, so that all you have to do to have only great stuff is scare away all the bad writers. There are people who used to write bad stuff, and there are people who are currently writing bad stuff, and there's a lot of crossover between the two. Some of the second category will one day be the first category. (Also, tomorrow some of the first category will move back to the second. No one hits it out of ballpark every time.) If you want to read new good stuff tomorrow, encourage the people writing bad stuff today. (And also maybe help them get betas. Betas are great.)

And, no, those people don't have to hide their work away until it gets better. They can share it with anyone who wants to read it. If they want to post it, they should. Wanting to is reason enough. (Although if you want another reason -- posting is how community happens. Which is how things like betas happen. People who share their work get better faster.)

Crap is a sign of life. New bad stories are a sign that this genre -- fan fiction, the genre I adore the most - is alive and well. Bad stories mean new people are trying to write in it, and people are trying to do new things with it, and maybe new people are joining the audience, too. When only the best and most popular are writing in a genre, it's on its deathbed. (See: Westerns and Louis L'Amour.) I want this genre to be here forever, because I want to read it forever. So I'm happy that teenagers are posting Mary Sue stories to the Archive of Our Own.

Does that mean you have to be happy? Nope. I can't make you do anything. (I can think you're wrong, but hey, being wrong on the internet is a time-honored tradition among our people.) But when you start making fun of a writer and bullying her in the comments of her story, simply because she's writing something you think is bad and embarrassing, well, that's when I say: shut the fuck up or get the fuck out. Because she's not a problem. She's just doing what we're all doing -- having fun, playing with words, throwing something out there on the internet to see if other people like it.

But you. You're trying to stop someone from having fun. You're trying to shame people into not writing anymore. And that, folks -- that is the definition of shitty behavior. (Mary Sue fantasies, on the other hand, are just the definition of human behavior.) It's bad for people, it's bad for the future, and it's bad for the genre. So you're a problem.

Please go away, problems, and let all of us write out our ids out in peace.

(And, yes, this was triggered by one specific story and some of the responses it's getting on the AO3. But it applies to all of them, all the fan fiction we don't like out there. Okay, I'm done.)

Crossposts: http://thefourthvine.livejournal.com/175329.html

Under the cut is something I do not ever want you to say to me, please. Or to anyone else. I'm angry, so - warning for immoderate language and a total lack of humor.

( On feeding the earthling and other kids. Potentially triggery for people with eating issues. )

They're coming to take us away. Our internet, I mean, and also everything else in our house. The theory is that we will get our stuff back in our new house, and it will have internet on Monday, but not one other thing in this move has gone according to plan, so I'm not counting on that, either.

I am, however, hoping for a kind and naive neighbor with an unsecured wireless connection. If I don't get that, I will see you when I see you.

As I was shutting down my computer prepartory to moving, I found a number of half-finished posts and posts I never got around to, you know, actually posting. And I thought I would leave you with one of them. This I wrote after I wrote the fanfic warnings post, because, let's face it. Published writers need warnings at least as much as we do. So I thought I would come up with just a rough start - I mean, obviously there are many many many more warnings needed. Feel free to leave them in the comments. Maybe we can get together a definitive list.

(And, yes, I had at least one specific published writer in mind for each one of these. I offer bonus points, which can be redeemed for many imaginary prizes, to anyone who can guess which writers go with which warnings.)

Published Author Warnings

WARNING: I used to have a three-dimensional character, and then I fell in love with him, and now he is Prince Sparklepants Shinyhorse, the most perfect man/vampire/werewolf/demon/half-unicorn/whatever in all of creation. Also, if people criticize him, or my writing of him, I will go off the rails. On the internet. It will be funny in that way where you keep wondering why my family and friends aren't taking care of me.

WARNING: I write fiction, but I believe every word. If you don't, I will send my characters to kill you.

WARNING: If you read one chapter of any of my books, you will end up reading my entire body of work in a week and a half. After it's all over, you will find you are unshowered and vaguely sticky. You'll have blank spots in your memory and a pervading sense of shame you can only cure by fucking a stranger in the backseat of your grandfather's convertible. (If your grandfather doesn't have a convertible, you're out of luck.)

WARNING: If you read anything I write that isn't fiction, you'll never be able to read my stories again. (Special Certain Science Fiction Writers Corollary: If you encounter me on the internet, there's a 35% chance you'll give up on fiction entirely.)

WARNING: I am so done with this series, but, dude, I bought a house back on book 5 and I've got payments to make. Look forward to the next dozen installments, all of which will read like pastiche from increasingly unskilled hands.

WARNING: I'm not done with this series; I'm afraid of it. I spend all my time thinking of creative ways not to write another word of it. Please stop asking me about it; I'm already heavily medicated and hiding from my fans.

WARNING: I'm a big name. I don't have to listen to my editor anymore.

WARNING: I've decided I'm not writing the hard parts anymore. No more plot that makes sense! No more actual story! From now on, it's bad jokes and sex scenes all the way, baby.

WARNING: I don't think I'm my character. I just wish I was. She's shiny! And perfect! (Special Dorothy L. Sayers Only Exception: If you're Dorothy L. Sayers, you can get away with this. If you aren't, you can't. This means you. Yes, you too. Sorry! It was a one time deal, apparently.)

WARNING: I'm starting to hate my main character, but I'm not going to stop writing about him.

WARNING: I really love myself. A lot. Every word I write is spun gold in text form.

WARNING: I was really, really depressed when I wrote this. I'm hoping I can pass the trauma on to you.

WARNING: I did my research, and by god, you will know it if I have to hit you over the head with fifty pages of utterly extraneous exposition.

WARNING: I didn't do my research. If you notice, obviously you don't care about my art.

WARNING: I am completely fucking crazy. Seriously. All my sentences end with special crazy-flavored periods, and all my articles are special crazy-thes and crazy-ands. And that's just my fiction. In real life, I am even worse. I don't know why they're still letting me attend cons, or indeed leave my house.

WARNING: I...don't really get why we have to have women. I mean, in the species. They just bother me. I can think of only two uses for a woman:

To give birth to everyone in the story.
To act as anti-gay buffering devices. (Stories written since 1970 only.)

Fortunately, it turns out they can mostly fulfill these functions and still be a) dead b) entirely off the page or c) non-sentient.

WARNING: Turns out writing novels really doesn't work instead of therapy, but that hasn't stopped me from trying. For the last 35 years.

WARNING: I wrote this thinking of the movie rights. It's not really a novel, per se - it's more of a pre-novelization.

WARNING: I hate you.

To give birth to everyone in the story.
To act as anti-gay buffering devices. (Stories written since 1970 only.)

Sometimes you may say to yourself: all these people have me friended. And yet I posted a story (or a link, or four extremely compelling pictures of my cat, including one where she almost had a ribbon on her head) and many of them have not commented! You may wonder why. You may even be downcast in your wonderment and confusion.

Well, wonder no longer! I have been doing some careful research on this very topic, and I have all the answers.

15% of the people who have you friended have since left for greener fannish pastures, or perhaps for somewhere outside of fandom altogether (it's sad, but it happens; fannish scientists are working round the clock to discover a cure, except for the four hours they spent reading that Jack Harkness/Brian O'Conner epic last night). They no longer read your fandom-related posts. (Or, alternately, it's cats they don't like. My point is: whatever you posted doesn't interest them.)
15% were planning to get back to that post later. It's open! It's in a tab! Or it's in Read Later! Just...wow, busy, you know how it is. (Of course, if you're counting every comment and comparing it to a master list, maybe you don't know how it is. In that case you'll just have to trust me.)
10% of the people who have you friended think you're boring. (Sorry! Sometimes science means having to say the hard truths.) They scroll past you, or they filter you. Or maybe they think everyone they have friended is boring, and they don't read their friends list at all; their friending is just a social nicety. It would probably be better if you believed that last one. Yeah, this segment is the one we'll call "social niceties."
10% of the people who have you friended weren't reading the day you posted. Someone had horrible news and came home and went straight to bed with a dog and a hot water bottle. Someone has food poisoning and is puking too much to go near her computer. Someone is addicted to a flash game and can't click away until she beats level 77. Someone is in the South Pacific having a lot more fantastic sex than you ever have or ever will; she isn't thinking about you or fandom right now. (Okay, she's thinking, "I have to use that the next time I write Merlin/Arthur, or John/Rodney, or Bertie/Jeeves - ooo, yeah, Jeeves is probably mega-kinky." But she's not missing her friends list, is my point.)
10% only read you on a phone, or a netbook or internet tablet that's impossible to type on, or a Kindle, or in five minute snatches at work or between dragging kids to soccer or whatever. They love you, but they never do manage to get back to comment.
10% of the people who read you only lurk. They lurk everywhere. Maybe they can't type. Maybe they have tentacles and can't find a tentacle-ready keyboard. You don't know. And do you really want to risk displaying your prejudice against the betentacled?
5% of the people who read you are still pissed off about the comment you didn't reply to. You know the one. (You reply to every single comment you get, you say? Even the ones obviously from bots? Even the ones LJ forgets to notify you about? In that case, these people are sulking about an inadequate response you left them, where you missed the point or missed the question or failed to thank them or sounded snarky. You can't please everyone. Not even with an incredible facility at hitting "Reply.")
5% of the people who read you are still pissed off about that post you made. You know the one.
5% of the people who read you are pissed off that you didn't comment on one of their important posts. They're withholding sex - sorry, I meant comments - until you understand how important they are, and maybe send some flowers or something.
5% of the people who read you have broken internet connections right now. Fucking Comcast.
1% of the people who read you hurt their hands this morning.
1% of the people who read you currently have a broken spacebar.
1% of the people who read you are heavily medicated. Their loved ones have taken away their keyboards for everyone's safety.
1% of the people who read you are seriously undermedicated. Their loved ones have taken away their keyboards so they still have friends when the meds kick back in.
1% of the people who read you read you in bed, and a loved one has threatened to take away the keyboard if they type at night anymore.
1% of the people who read you are sockpuppets. They're only going to comment if they want sparkle pens.
1% of the people who read you are, in fact, commenting, but they're doing so by telepathy. If you're not getting the comments, well, obviously something is wrong with you. They can't be held responsible for that.
1% of the people who read you are aliens. They can't ever pass the prove-you're-human test, and for some reason they get the CAPTCHA every time. They are thinking of filing a lawsuit against LJ.
1% of the people who read you cannot comment for religious reasons.
1% of the people who read you haven't figured out that you have to hit the "Post comment" button in order to get the comment posted. They keep typing like it's an IM box, and nothing ever shows up, and they just do not know why. They've submitted several complaints to Support about this. (It's possible you didn't want to read their comments anyway.)

But wait, you say! That's everyone!

You're right. It is. So, hey, if you get any comments at all, you have beaten the odds. You must be really awesome and special. Can I friend you?

(P.S. I don't comment a lot, but I'm probably reading. And I'll repeat what I said in my info: I love all the comments I get, except the ones from the spambots who are cordially invited to DIE DIE DIE, but no one ever should feel obligated to comment here. I get the lurking, I really do.)

I haven't been sleeping much lately. This means I've reading a lot of FF. (Yes, even more than usual. But, on the bright side, not quite enough to qualify me for an intervention at the Fan Mental Health Clinic.) Which means that it's time for another damn rant. (If you're new here: in rants, the cut tag indicates mean-spiritedness and general pedantry. Click at your own risk.)

I swear that I will get back to recommending actual FF very, very soon. And it will be even sooner if we could all attend to a few small matters before I lose my mind.

( And notice how I didn't say I'd loose my mind. )

Really. No doubt about it. Shit in the process of being lost as we speak.

( I have a new credo. It is crass and mean and wrong and offensive as hell. Wanna see? )

It's time to discuss a very sensitive topic that I know you will all handle with maturity and respect for your classmates. Yes, it's time to discuss...orgasm.

I heard that,

makesmewannadie. One more remark out of you and you will be staying after class, young lady. Also,

fanofall? Don't think I don't see you rolling your eyes.

Yes, orgasm can be a beautiful thing. When a person (or assistive device) gives pleasure to another person, that's a lovely, selfless act, and one we - last warning, people - as mature adults can appreciate. Or mature teenagers. Whatever. 'People old enough for porn' is the concept I'm trying to get across here.

Of course, orgasm can also be, well, a little less than beautiful. Particularly in certain kinds of fictional endeavors. Because, see, sometimes a person can be reading along, and then there's a sudden incursion of screaming and fainting and smelling salts and Mr. Darcy with a riding crop, and that person might think, "Did I just take a detour from Smut Boulevard onto Victorian Novel Lane? I...wow. I didn't know you could do that in spats." Or that person might think, "Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me? I've never done that."

And yet I know some of you out there in readerland have done that, and now is the time to tell me about it.

I'm trying to assuage my own fears of serious abnormality, here. (Yes, really. Well, mostly. Well, partly, anyway. But I also tend to assume anyone I can hear laughing is laughing at me. I never said I wasn't paranoid, if you think back.) I'm also trying to figure out how often these things honestly happen, and under what circumstances. (Because I am nosy. No, there is no better reason. What reason could be better than that?) So let's remember the honor system, OK?

And, truly, no shame attached, no matter what you answer. For one thing, I included in the list items I could answer 'yes' to, and I'm not going to tell you what they were. (Well, OK. Possibly with begging. The right kind of begging. But then, the right kind of begging can get pretty much anything from me.) This should encourage those of you who can answer 'yes' to any of these to believe I'm right there with you, just in case you forgot to bring your sex-positive confidence with you today. And since I can't answer 'yes' to all or even most of them, people who can't check anything should also believe they're in good company. (You can decide for yourself if I count as good company or not.) Furthermore, no one can see your answers, and you should feel free to comment anonymously. Internet + sex + anonymity is pretty much the recipe for sharing, isn't it? So share.

(Which also means, for the record, that if you folks want to pimp this I'd be grateful. I definitely want to hear from all of you, but it'd also be very cool to get answers from people other than the Egregiously Tasteful and Talented Cohort.)

( Get busy, people. )

So. Work.

Also, fandom. Because when work goes sour on me (and lady, make up your fucking mind; sorry, but you have no idea how that needed to be said, and the people who know about the violent offenders will understand this comment), I reel into the welcoming, porny arms of fandom (it's my metaphor and I can damn well fracture it if I wish, unlike certain violent-offender-obsessed people, who are not allowed to touch my metaphors, thanks), only to get. Well. Ranty.

What can I say? I give to fandom what I can't use in my everyday life. Which means I give: 1) sarcasm, 2) enthusiasm, and 3) my rapidly-decreasing tolerance of humanity. (Go away, violent offender lady. And while we're at it: go away, violent offenders. Go - offend yourselves.)

( And if you thought that was nasty and mean-spirited, you should see what's behind the cut. )

Life has been unkind to me and mine lately, which has driven me straight into the logophagic part of acquiring a very large new fandom. As always, it's making me testy. During these periods, I read an enormous number of stories, and I'm usually trying to back-engineer the canon, and, well, I'm not at my all-time most tolerant. Which, let's face it, is not really all that tolerant anyway. In short, it's time for another mean-spirited FF rant.

( Don't say I didn't warn you. )

[Note: this is a fannish LJ, not a political one, so no election comments will be found herein. If you're curious about how I'm feeling, email me and I'll tell you.]

First, I have to say how disappointed I am that I even need to write this, but it is entirely clear that I do. I have in my possession a small collection of flames regarding the content of this LJ. They all have one thing in common: they are pathetic. I mean, there was a time in this world when a flame meant something. I grew up grinding my teeth as I chanted, "Do not feed the trolls" like a mantra. It used to be difficult to move on without responding. And do you know why? Because those trolls were actually good at what they did. They wanted to piss me off, and they succeeded.

From this LJ, though? The very best flames have made me laugh. Most have just left me worried about the future of bitter rhetoric. So it's apparent to me that if I want flaming as an art form to be preserved for future generations, I need to act now. Thus, I'm offering the short course on "Flaming for Dummies." Because evidently some people out there really need it.

( Habits of Highly Effective Flamers (and When I Say Flamers, for Once I'm Not Talking About Gay Men). )

I've been many things in my time: a fan fic bitch, a word bitch, an obsessive bitch. And now, having been converted to the wonderful world of fan vids, I'm preparing to be a vid bitch. (No, actually, I don't think I ever am something other than a bitch of some sort. It's a gift. Of a kind.)

( Why, yes, one more fannish activity is just what I needed to make my life complete. Or, well, completely insane, at any rate. )

In other words: I've lost it, and it's time for another bitter, mean-spirited, entirely unnecessary rant. If you're still in the dewy-eyed phase of FF love - in other words, if you see nothing wrong with "Harry eagerly mouthed Snape's huge, aching, weeping cock, laving it with his tongue and nibbling it until Snape screamed with his gushing release" - don't look behind the cut.

( Some Words, Phrases, and Concepts That I Never Want to Read Again )

Fan fiction is a genre of memes, and not just idea-memes and plot-memes and pairing-memes. Words and phrases also spread through the fan fiction community. (For that matter, so do unrealistic ideas about sex in general and gay sex in particular, but that's a rant for another day.)

Warning: my rants are mean, petty, and bitter. If you can't get into that, don't look behind the cut.

( Fan Fiction Words and Phrases That Should Lie Fallow for a Decade )

This is the Fametracker Forums post that started this livejournal, slightly modified to fit your screen. A statement of Slashy standards! A declaration of war on bad fan fiction! A piece of living history!

( The Fan Fiction Manifesto )