Snark levels need calibrating.
One problem with my extended vacation from LJ: it appears that in the crucible of a certain kinky social networking site that's been taking up me posting time, I've gotten more vicious. While the Rants group I've been frequenting there is not quite the seething cesspool that 4chan is, the expectations of civility are very low, and pulling punches largely unheard of. Being rhetorically uncompromising with people one is friends with, at least in the circles I hang out in, is a badge of trust there. The marks we leave on each other with our lashing tongues are consensual, and everybody's safeword is the power button on their computer.
I suppose that's partly the appeal; I've always liked a good verbal brawl. But... must remember to temper remarks, to blunt teeth when outside of that collaborative piranha tank.
In the meantime, I remind my long-suffering remaining friends and acquaintances here -- to tap out of a discussion, you too have the self-same safeword -- and possibly let me know you're leaving the fray so I don't blithely assume it had nothing to do with me and continue with some callous, alienating bullshit. I'll be horrified to know I've really really hurt your feelings in a lasting and irreparable fashion with something I've said, and will understand if you take me off your flist if that happens, but assure you all my aims are always playful and temporary. Blake's "opposition is true friendship" is the motto.
The funny thing is, on FL I am seen as the namby-pamby group-hugging hippie, the school-marmish voice of reason telling people to behave and not go to far with their sardonic shenenigans! Context is queen.
I suppose that's partly the appeal; I've always liked a good verbal brawl. But... must remember to temper remarks, to blunt teeth when outside of that collaborative piranha tank.
In the meantime, I remind my long-suffering remaining friends and acquaintances here -- to tap out of a discussion, you too have the self-same safeword -- and possibly let me know you're leaving the fray so I don't blithely assume it had nothing to do with me and continue with some callous, alienating bullshit. I'll be horrified to know I've really really hurt your feelings in a lasting and irreparable fashion with something I've said, and will understand if you take me off your flist if that happens, but assure you all my aims are always playful and temporary. Blake's "opposition is true friendship" is the motto.
The funny thing is, on FL I am seen as the namby-pamby group-hugging hippie, the school-marmish voice of reason telling people to behave and not go to far with their sardonic shenenigans! Context is queen.