Hello there!!

[tencrush]

I'm back! More or less, still a bit busy and out and about with kiddie holidays. I HAVE SO MUCH TO POST ABOUT OMG IT'S NOT NORMAL.

I shall break it up into various and assorted posts which I shall be posting throughout the weekend.

Firstly: WHO_ANON, what else?



I had a bit of a think about it, and since I've been away for a bit, and feeling a lot happier for avoiding the net, fandom, and who_anon specifically for just a little while, I've realised I really, truly don't give a flying toss about the anonmeme and I no longer have any desire to read it. Having said that, I do still have the desire to explain myself somewhat, so here goes. (This is loosely based on some things that were said to me by various anons on the meme about two weeks ago, that I pasted into Notepad so I could think about them laters, which I did.)

The reason I posted my opinions about who_anon being a bitchfest at the time that I posted them, is not because I was personally feeling particularly "butthurt" or attacked, though I had felt that way in the past. Funnily enough, it was because I felt the meme (is "the meme" some sort of Borg-like enitity now? Is that how it works, yeah?) was being unnecessarily mean, unnecessarily often, about karaokegal, of all people. Now, Karaokegal certainly isn't anywhere near my personal BFF, or even on my LJ friendslist, but at the time it just seemed to me like every single little thing she posted anywhere ever was being dissected and mocked. And sure, Karaokegal has some hilariously batshit opinions and she spouts them in a lot of places (certainly in far more places than I spout mine), but I've talked to her a few times here and in her LJ and she's a reasonably sane person who happens to have an Unpopular Opinion she feels obliged to defend vehemently, and she doesn't deserve to be mocked every two seconds for every letter she types on her keyboard. And it bugged me, not because I really wanted to leap to her defence or anything, but because I'd felt like that singling out had been the case with me a few weeks before that, and I knew how it felt, and I hadn't been sure at the time if I was paranoid, and it just felt that way because I was hormonal or fragile or something, or if I really was being specifically picked on for no real reason. I decided I was being paranoid, but then suddenly there was the meme being constantly snipy about somebody else, and I realised that even without personal things like hormones or fragility, I still had that perception, the perception that the meme was just getting nasty towards people.

I wanted to stop reading it, but I couldn't, because it's actually really quite a lot like heroin, that sort of atmosphere where people feel free to say whatever they want about whomever they want, it's quite refreshing. In the end what did it for me was the realisation that the meme, and fandom in general, was getting nastier and nastier. The more I read, the more people, everywhere, just seemed to be slagging each other off. And maybe that's my fandom virginity showing through, like I've said before, I'm new to all this shit, but I don't understand why a group of people with such a fervent love of a show in common need to find so many grounds to hate on each other. But hey, maybe the meme's not like that anymore, maybe it's all picspams and Mickey love again, I don't know. At the time, I thought the meme was a place where people (and, like I've said before, I don't know how many people, it could be one or two people or hundreds of people, I don't really know who I'm talking to here) were starting to show really rather unpleasant sides of themselves and I desperately wanted that out of my life because it was bringing me down. And it almost felt like if they stopped mentioning me, then I could stop reading it, you know? Which is obviously a stupid and silly way to think, but that's the point it reached in my brain. And then I got a nasty anon comment in my journal telling me to go over there and I totally snapped and felt persecuted and paranoid and quite literally cried about how much people hate me and all that sort of thing. Sadly, I did that over there. Ah well, you live and learn.

So anyway, I have indeed stopped reading the meme (I've been lurking around the internet in my absence but I haven't really had much of an opportunity to get behind a machine and type), but I am going to respond to one or two things that I pasteded in my Notepad from when I went there and acted like an arse.

The first being this:

Why is it OK for you to randomly pick on total strangers in your own journal and slag off their icon-making, for example, but not OK for random strangers to pick you up when you're being an ass? The people whose artwork you ripped to bits the other week hadn't done anything to you, but you were happy to hold them up for you and your cackling flist to mock publicly and meanly. When you dish it out but run flouncing and squealing if it's given back to you, you just prove that you're a total hypocrite as well as a bully.

Would this fandom be worse off if you flounced off for good? I don't think so.

On the contrary, anon, those people had done something to me, they had offended my eyes and my delicate sensibilities with their "artwork". They put it on the internet, I have a right to critique it. It was bad. The fact that I'm critiquing it in my own journal, under my own name, I personally think is more honest than the anonymous dogpile of "OHHHHMYEYES!!" that goes on at the meme about exactly the same things. But if it makes you happier to do it in a big anon gang, go for it.

Of course this fandom would be worse off if I flounced off for good. I bring luls and cock and pie. Yes! PIE!!!!

Sometimes you're quite entertaining, but most of the time you're intent on proving just how bitchy and snide and condescending you can be, as if you think that makes you look smart and sassy. But it doesn't: most people remember the nasty taste you leave in the mouth, long after the occasionally amusing bits, and maybe that's why the meme seeks you out more often than some of the sillier but less malevolent fangirls. If you really are going to take a break from the internet, maybe you could take some time to have a think about that.

No, anon, being smart and sassy makes me look smart and sassy, I'm well aware of that. I've had this thrown at me before by one or two people, the fact that I come across, textually, as rather condescending and rude. Most people don't have a problem with it, and either forgive me or like it or read right over it, but yes, I agree, I "read" a bit wordy and self important and downright Dutch sometimes, I admit it. I try not to, but I always end up waffling in far too long a sentence that makes me look like I love nothing more than the sound of my own keyboard, it's how I put my thoughts down. I manage to fool most people most of the time that English is my first language, but when it comes to sentence structure and tone, I fail badly. But then, if you don't like my written tone, why don't you stop reading? I don't force myself upon anyone and what I say and how I choose to say it in my own journal is my business. Leave if you don't like it. Oh, and taking that patronising a tone with me while at the same time hiding behind anonymity is a juxtaposition that gives me immense luls. So thank you.

There do seem to be one or two people on here with some sort of grudge against tencrush posting links to her when there's nothing in her posts that's particularly worthy of mocking or discussion that couldn't happen there. Personally, I think tencrush has her head screwed on at least to the extent of knowing when she's being wanky (and she always admits it up front), and to be honest she's how I get 95% of my exposure to Torchwood fandom, because unlike many she seems sane about it.

Oh wait, I've answered my own question there, haven't I? There are Torchwood mousies with grudges against her because she has the wrong opinions about Importantz Shipping Things.

Sorry for the grudgey mice, tencrush, but they're not the whole meme, honest.

Thank you, anon. that's probably the nicest thing anyone has ever anonymously said to me on the internet ever.

You wouldn't have gotten so much crap about the GDL "pie watch" thing if you had owned up that it was stupid and unfunny and quit with it. It's obnoxious, and you seemed determined to keep your "I am controversial and proud of it" attitude anyway.

*blinks* What? This seems to be coming up again and again, the fact that I've apparently pissed off some big Head Honchoes of the Torchwood Fandom Elite with my GDL pie thing. Why, though, would I want to own up to any such thing? I find it funny, or I wouldn't post it. Other people find it funny. Some people don't. Some people who don't are decent enough to tell me so to my face and I applaud them for that. I don't listen to them, but I appreciate their opinion nonetheless. Apart from that, I haven't really had much shit about it, and Jesus Christ, it's not like it's a weekly installment on my journal or anything, and even if it was, it's my journal and I'll say whatever the fuck I want about whomever the fuck I want. Seriously. So go fuck yourself. YES!!! This. Phew, I feel much better now.

Oh, and you:

I'm on your friends list and I sure as hell don't believe you.

*waves at you* Hi!


Sorry about that, I had to get it out of my system even though it's OLD and irrelevant and of no interest to anyone. But I stand by my general gist; this fandom seems to have become nastier and bitchier recently and I find it unpleasant. From now on I shall be dealing with this perceived development by pretending it doesn't exist and bringing luls and cock and pie to the party instead. I shall be returning you to your regularly scheduled programming forthwith. Next up: TOYS! (Seriously, it is a post about toys. Whovian toys and WHY NO IANTOE???? And such. Stay tuned!)

Comments

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

The entire fucking fandom is currently behaving like a bunch of kids who've stayed up wayyyyy past their bed time.

[tencrush]

Truth. I don't really know why that is, but I shall be ignoring it from now on and posting lulzy pictures. Cheer up, everyone, it might never happen!

[ionlylurkhere.livejournal.com]

Seems fairly obvious to me: we're eating ourselves alive 'cos there's a canon drought and TV has failed to produce sufficient shiny other fandoms to plug the gap. Normally I know where everyone's jumped ship to in the off-season, but it feels like they're all still here. In the US, BSG's winding down, everyone's given up on Lost ever making sense, and Sarah Connor's apparently at risk of being cancelled despite being awesome. I haven't heard of a single show that started last fall that OMGyoumustwatch. And British TV's continued attempts to produce things that are a bit like Who only not are all too faily to be properly funny.

[tencrush]

Oh, come on Demons was Teh Aces!!!!

[jo02]

Welcome back, you were missed.

*blinks a little dazedly after reading all of the above without the aid of alcohol*

About that GDL Pie Thingy. WHY aren't you posting updates weekly? This would be A Good Thing. And with pictures. And diagrams with pointy things.

The reason this fandom has gotten nastier lately is because it has reached the end of its patience. It should have had its season 3 by now. It is tired, irritated at being fucked around by the BBC, and has no recourse except to start chewing its own legs off.

[tencrush]

WHY aren't you posting updates weekly?
Well because, in fairness, it's not THAT funny, and certainly wouldn't be if I focussed on it religiously like some people seem to think I do. I'd rather focus on the cock and maybe post pictures every time he wears a dopey hat or something.

I agree that it's the hiatus that's making people edgy. It seems to me to have been brought on by the trailer being just A Little Bit Shit, and not containing enough info to dissect and speculate about. The squee about that one died down in about 48 hours and seems to have left people feeling violated and empty, rather like a casual sexual encounter at a drunken student party.

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

I must be doing things wrong because I do not find you at all evil and frightening and believe you express things in a perfectly reasonable fashion. I find overt passive-aggressive faux-niceness a bit traumatic, though, so maybe I am not interrogating your LJ from the right perspective. I like not having to read between your words in search of hidden bile. If people can't get past their initial Oh No She So Mean! and read your actual content it's a bit dismal for them.

I always assumed you were brought-up-bilingual in some way, maybe because I like your writing style and am too limited by the half-arsedness of UK languages teaching to have got the hang of the fact that people can write a second language fluently and stylishly. I mean, I suspect I know UK people who can, it's just not something I expect. But then I was bilingual until I was five so it's a thing that occurs to me.

[tencrush]

I often claim and feel like English is my first language, because it's the language that is In My Head and it's the language I count things in and do arithmetic in and such, but the fact that I AM Dutch and went to a Dutch school from the age of 11 onwards has influenced my writing style greatly. I learned the basics of life in English, but when it comes to ordering one's thoughts, writing essays and that sort of thing, I default to the style I learned to do those things in when I was at secondary school in Holland. It reads a bit funny sometimes, but them's the breaks.

[edithmatilda.livejournal.com]

I think that the sort of variety English gets from people who don't speak and write in first-language-in-primarily-English-speaking-countries style is quite exciting really. And given the way that, say, huge swathes of eighteenth-century Englishmen wrote stuff that read as if they really really wanted English to be Latin, it's not exactly new either.

And given the huge variety of styles that there is even on my flist, a slightly more Dutch-structured style fits pretty much seamlessly into the continuum anyway.

What I find bizarre is reading, say, nostalgia_lj's LJ which is both very different from mine and, like mine, has definite signs that we've spent a lot of time together and have overlapping turns of phrase and so forth. It is almost as though we are a social species.

[off_coloratura]

The only thing I can see that could be Dutch about your writing style is that it's somewhat goofy and blunt, but that is by no means exclusively Dutch. Your writing has never struck me as anything else than perfectly good English.

[tencrush]

goofy and blunt
Oh, thanks. But actually, that's probably not a Dutch thing and just my brain.

[off_coloratura]

I figured that. And no worries, it was a compliment. I do like goofy and blunt.

[tencrush]

Well, actually, no, the blunt thing is peculiarly Dutch. We're well known for it.

[quinn222.livejournal.com]

My God am I glad I've never gone over there. I think it all boils down to the point (as you stated) that what you are saying you are saying in your own LJ under your own name. No one is forcing anyone to read it or agree with it. Once you resort to the anon tag pretty much anything said loses credibility.

[off_coloratura]

Bingo. I'm of the opinion that if you have to be anonymous to say it, it probably shouldn't be said.

[taversham]

this fandom seems to have become nastier and bitchier recently

Exhibit A, perhaps:

I'll say whatever the fuck I want about whomever the fuck I want. Seriously. So go fuck yourself.

...Sorry, it's just I'm tired, and I had a little "Oooh, she's back" moment when I saw your post on my f-list. But I am tiring of all the anonymeme wank everywhere (I mean, not just you)...maybe if they were ignored they would go away? Or perhaps I have just been watching too much Supernanny.

it's not like it's a weekly installment on my journal

Could it be? I would enjoy that a lot. More importantly, it would clearly rile your detractors.

But welcome back!! Have a completely inappropriate image Google Images gave me when I was looking for pictures of balloons.

[tencrush]

I'll say whatever the fuck I want about whomever the fuck I want. Seriously. So go fuck yourself.
Yeah, I know, I know. The point I'm trying rather unsucessfully to make there is that this is my LJ and nobody has to read it if it irks them or pisses them off, and if it does and my wording or my sense of humour rubs people the wrong way, I'd like them to come over here and tell me, or quite simply go away. Bitching about it behind my back isn't going to make me rethink anything or reread anything and change my ways. Not that I'm planning on doing that anyway, but seriously. My journal. I'm not in the business of riling up my detractors, I'm in the business of amusing myself on my personal journal. That's it. Read it, don't read it, do whatever you will with it, but this bitchery is just pointless.

What's "a fun"? I'd like to have one on my birthday.

[taversham]

But nor do you have to read whoanon...and isn't this post going to rile your detractors anyway, what with the "go fuck yourself" and all...I don't see that pie pictures as well would hurt.

I do not know what "a fun" is. But one seems unlikely unless he's very careful about where the wax from the most prominent candle lands.

[tencrush]

But nor do you have to read whoanon...
No, I know. Which is why I'm done doing so, it doesn't give me any joy to see myself being slagged off, and it doesn't give me any joy to see others slagged off either. I've never joined in, and the only reason I really read it was that that a few months ago it seemed to be the only place where there were interesting discussions to be found and links to things that made me laugh. But it doesn't do that anymore and just depresses me, so I'm letting it go. Fandom's a fun thing for me, and not really SRS BSNS, and I'd like it to stay that way.

[jo02]

Oh bugger, they removed the image!

[taversham]

http://picbanker.com/cooler_pics/birthday/happy-birthday-g.gif

;)

[jo02]

Ooh yeah, that made up for it!

[clarrisani.livejournal.com]

I think everyone is getting a bit edgy and gittery about the whole "no air date or S3" yet thing, and to make up for it the fandom is becoming bitchy. To be honest I'm starting to prefer that quiet time two months after it has all stopped airing. I myself am seriously considering no longer going to DWF and TWU, and not returning to the former til post-S3, and the latter never. I guess we all have our places that drive our love of fandom down.

As for people commenting on what you say in your own LJ... well, I think you can guess my opinion of that given what happened to me not long ago. I hat goes off to you for openly expressing your opinion and not being afraid to show it.

[off_coloratura]

I bring luls and cock and pie. Yes! PIE!!!!

LULCOCKPIE! HOORAY!

[tencrush]

You know "lul" is Dutch for "cock", right? BilingualDPpie! I'm getting me some of that.

[off_coloratura]

I did not! Holy cow. That's hysterical.

And it also reminds me of all the times you've said "for the luls" in the past. Hm...

[off_coloratura]

Also, DP?

[tencrush]

In the pron sense. Two cocks and all that. Or something.

[off_coloratura]

Mmmm...

...pie.

[tencrush]

Yeah, that too.

[tigercheetah.livejournal.com]

I don't think the long wait for series 3 is helping fandom at all. Unlike Doctor Who, which does at least have a regular slot each year, Torchwood's airdates are all over the place. If series 3 gets pushed back to the autumn, I wouldn't be surprised.

Once we get series 3, we can go back to bitching about Jack, Gwen and Ianto instead of each other, especially Gwen.

A bit of pie talk is fine :) but not vast amounts, otherwise it distracts from the prettiness that is Ianto.

[jo02]

" ... especially Gwen."

And especially if she ends up saving the world in season 3!

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

'I find it funny, or I wouldn't post it. Other people find it funny. Some people don't.'
I thought it was funny. It's your own journal you can post whatever you want.

'I've said before, I'm new to all this shit, but I don't understand why a group of people with such a fervent love of a show in common need to find so many grounds to hate on each other.'
Because people love to rip each other apart (it reminds me of high-school) and internet anonymity lets them do that; I doubt that if some of them had to talk to people face-to-face they would say such horrible things. Some still would, because some people are just bastards.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

but I don't understand why a group of people with such a fervent love of a show in common need to find so many grounds to hate on each other

b/c it is human nature to form groups and ostracize others - i learned this from dr. seuss

But hey, maybe the meme's not like that anymore, maybe it's all picspams and Mickey love again,

nope, but lucky for you they've moved on to another target(or targets as the case may be)

[takenatwork.livejournal.com]

I've mentioned before I'm a newbie to fandom and I also don't swear (odd, I know), but there's no way I'm going to call you for swearing on your own journal, if I was really bothered I would stop reading it. But I like reading your posts, they're varied, funny and interesting.

[tildathebuilder.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, what a bunch of twunts!

"Personally, I think tencrush has her head screwed on at least to the extent of knowing when she's being wanky (and she always admits it up front), and to be honest she's how I get 95% of my exposure to Torchwood fandom, because unlike many she seems sane about it."

Except for that bit!

[cirrocumulus.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the fandom is just frustrated and will mellow out when we get laid with some new episodes? :\

[blue-fjords.livejournal.com]

Lovely imagery, that. :)

[blue-fjords.livejournal.com]

Hey, total stranger to you here. I found your journal from the rather ubiquitous Ianto-cock picspam. I say keep bringing the cock and the luls. I don't find the pie shit funny, but I am a total hypocrite b/c I make fun of GDL's appalling propensity to wear plaid all the time.

I'm also new to fandom and have never seen who_anon, but it sounds like they're a bunch of wankers. Or, if not wankers usually, hiding behind the screen of anonymity to wank off in public. I hate that. That's what flocked posts are for. No need to drag everyone else down. Ignore them.

So carry on bravely, not that you needed validation from me. But in case you wanted it, woo hoo you got it.