Gripe:

[guardians_song]

I'm getting mildly annoyed with people who get their jollies off of mocking one author, then turn right around and act scandalized at someone thinking anything but the world of an author they like.

I mock badfic. I also understand that things I like aren't exempt, and I have to either admit that the criticism is valid but I like the story anyway, or mentally deconstruct the mistaken aspects of the criticism. I cannot understand how anyone can tear a bad author down one moment and then act sanctimonious about how entitled fans are picking on some poor widdle author the next moment.

This isn't over Das Sporking, in case anyone's wondering (though this gripe somewhat applies to them as well, which is why I'm not crossposting) - it's about the Amazon snark-board for Laurell K. Hamilton's rubbish going full-blown HMS-STFU about the horrible awful terrible Sookie Stackhouse fandom, who have - *GASP* - dared to become very, very unhappy about the resolution for the final book.

Because it's not like the LKH anti-fandom is, being charitable, half trainwreck-watchers along for the ride and half disappointed ex-fans who have gone from rage to disgust to disappointment to pure trolly enjoyment over the last eight years.

Seriously. Of all the people to preach about backlash over an author's plotline choices...

(Clarification: I'm not angry - I'm just rolling my eyes. Talk about ignoring the multinational billion-dollar logging company in your own eye...)

Comments

[sarajayechan]

Fans always do that. Characters, fandoms, mediums, authors, anything. "Haha, the thing you like sucks because we say so, what, you're upset? Your fault for taking it too seriously!" "WHAT did you just say about my precious favorite thing?! YOU DIE NOW!"

[guardians_song]

Yeah, I know... It's just REALLY irritating to see it in the holier-than-thou* snark communities, who base their reputations around ~we're so much better than the common schlub~. :P

*Zacharias is not entirely an exaggeration...

[sarajayechan]

God, me too. I used to agree with crap like that when I was still a relative n00b, but eventually I realized that's what it was. CRAP. No, Marysues and Fanficrants, you are NOT better than everyone else just because you spork bad fanfics and whine about people getting eye colors wrong.

(I've seen people like him. Sadly. My friend Tabi also got into a giant debate once with someone who said "you can't argue with canon" because she questioned the quality of the writing that brought a main pair together.)

[guardians_song]

Yeah, same here. As I was saying to someone who was on the other side of the canon-fanon wars the other day, the same people who so vehemently insisted that the Harry Potter canon couldn't be criticized and that people who wrote snarkfic had no lives... are now criticizing the Twilight canon and writing snarkfic. And openly speculating about Stephenie Meyer's personal life, which is something they ALWAYS hit hard when it was ~other people~ speculating about J.K. Rowling's...
Boy, those principles about fan entitlement and respect for the author sure went away quickly.

To be fair, some of the snarkers snark *everything*, so there's no hypocrisy there, but the smugness about snarking one series and the self-righteousness about defending another from the majority... -_________-

(Ah. :D;; Yeah, Zach (or, at least, seeing Zach roundly mocked) is venting on that front. ~Canon is canon, and if anyone disagrees, they should write their own series!~)

[sarajayechan]

That is pretty hypocritical. Granted, HP is apparently of somewhat higher quality than Twilight, but other than that...they're books. They're fandoms. Fictional characters and pairings. The only time railing about the stupidity of canon makes any sense is "The Room" and that's because EVERYONE in that movie is stupid. :P

(I wonder how frustrated he is at the sane socks ignoring his "scolding". So far only Rod and Patrick have been stupid enough to engage him. Cassie MIGHT try to play the Slippery Slope fallacy by going "so if in the 10th game it's ~canon~ that mages were nerfed and the biorhythm determined how well a unit performed EVERY DAMN TURN I have to accept it?" Though she might also assume even Zach isn't stupid enough to realize that GAMEPLAY choices don't extend to "canon is always right".

I'm not even playing for parody with the gameplay shit, either. D: I am SO mad at FE10 for taking away my magic swords and nerfing mages and fucking with the biorhythm.)

[guardians_song]

It's of much higher quality, but the issue is that any criticism was FAHN ENTITULMENT on the one hand and TUTALLY AWESUM on the other. D| A bit like Cori rapidly pinging between 'I can't stand character torture! *swoons*' and 'HAHAHAHA BASH ASH WITH A SPIKED STICK', although a bit less extreme.

(Heh. We'll see. :B

I'll have to decide if he's just a story-canon fanatic, or if he's one of the 'You just can't stand innovation!' gameplay defenders. :\

I'd be mad, too, if I played FE10. D: Biorhythm sounds like hell...)

[sarajayechan]

Aah. Yeah, that sounds about right. "WAAAAAAAH LEAVE MY BISHIES ALONE! Haha, Miaka fell in the river and died" is another example.

(LOL, maybe Cassie WILL poke him. She is only half-sane anyway.

It SUCKS. Thankfully you do get a unit whose song can raise biorhythm to Best, and his availability's pretty good. I took advantage of that a few times.)