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10/18/2003: feel free to mock anything I create...
...in any venue and way you like. I didn't get all the details of the latest SV kerfuffle, but wrt the more general discussion threads: personally I think it's stifling to be always just fluffy, nice and harmonious. I think it's totally normal, okay, and not particularly hurtful to express opinions about other people's creations that are sarcastic, scathing, mocking, whatever, and I think it's possible to do this without turning mean against the other person as a person. Obviously language and tone are important as are the forum and context where the opinions are expressed, and there are lines which I think shouldn't be crossed, but that doesn't limit the exchange of opinions, whether public or private, to just positive and nice things.
The one thing I'd resent is if someone said one thing about stuff I made to me personally and then something totally different to other people. I mean, I don't create a lot things in fandom, but every other ice age or so I post a drawing, recently I started to make icons, obviously I ramble in great length in my blog and elsewhere, so there is stuff that people might mock, even though I don't write fanfic (okay there was this one TS AU WIP that I posted a few parts of way at the beginning of FCA-L, but I don't think one failed attempt at fanwriting really counts).
I mean, I'm not against people mocking my creations where I don't see it as such -- especially if I don't know whoever does the mocking, they wouldn't really have a reason to share it with me. I get that it's not about me when a bunch of people who surfed to my webpage show my drawings to each other and amuse themselves with how bad they are. What I mean is that if I knew someone more closely, I'd expect them not to belittle me through coddling, as if I couldn't take their real opinion. That is, I wouldn't want anyone to say nice things about my drawings for example if they thought they sucked. Or just keep their mouth shut and nod politely if the topic came up.
It's not that I don't value respect and politeness. However when it's about any of my stuff, if you're ever in doubt how to weigh those against your gleeful desire to snark or your honest expression of my suckiness, go for the full range of expression instead of cautious pussyfooting. Other people feel differently about this, and obviously as my fannish output isn't particularly voluminous nor high profile probably nobody cares about my blanket permission for mockery of my stuff, and this is just new heights of self-involvement or something. *grin* However, for the record: I can take mocking by strangers, I can take mocking by friends. It's not that I don't feel attached to my creations, but I'll get over it. At least this way I won't have to wonder whether the positive opinions I hear aren't like the elementary school honorable sports "medals" I got for "trying."
You want to mock how fans indulge in pointless fanfic classifications and my AU essay would make the perfect example? Go for it. You're planning that witty post to explain what exactly can go wrong with LJ icons, and some of the ones I created would illustrate your points perfectly? Go ahead.
I totally think that someone could be friendly, polite and respectful to me as a person, and still write pages laughing at how badly I frelled up a character-likeness and mocking my feeble attempts at crosshatching or inking in general. I'd just expect that they don't pretend anything different towards me.
Unrelated to any of this selenak's Fangirl's Guide To The Spike Wars is really funny, and rosenho's SV speculation is brilliant.
