"And fate carries an executioner's axe."

[melancthe]

I've been wanting to lay out my thoughts about how I like my journal to function, and the way I would like to deal with problems (should they ever arise), just so that all my LJ friends have an idea of how they can expect me to behave. I'd normally find it awfully pompous and overly self-important to have a "friending policy" - it's really not my

Comments

[swashbuckler332]

There was a period not so long ago when I was being friended by people with serial friending software. At that time I got really paranoid about who was approaching me and started demanding on my user info page that people friending me identify themselves. I just wanted to make sure they were human, and not just a program. Since LJ now has notifications sent when people friend or defriend you, as well as ways to keep serial friender software from being able to re-friend you, I have removed the stipulation.

I think that responding to posts means that you're speaking up about something. I do think that it is annoying if I make a tl;dr post about something I feel passionate about and the responder is trivializing it. I don't mind the "nice icon" or "what's up with the underwear?" or whatever, what bothers me is the long and taxing essay I wrote that the person responding to is addressing, but clearly didn't read closely. I'm not saying that people reading my journal should give it the same scrutiny they give The Iliad,* but that

[melancthe]

I very occasionally find myself posting a response to people and then facepalming afterwards because I realised that I missed the entire point of the post, which is why I don't get upset with people who do it to any of my posts. I don't feel that people should be, in essence, penalised with my wrath because they took the time to respond to an entry of mine, even if they did misinterpret the contents slightly, or even if it's a trivial response to a serious post. So I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on this particular subject, as I've noticed that we have radically different views on this.

And, hehe, you should be exceedingly glad that people don't give your journal the same attention that they do The Iliad - at least one of my friends writes awesomely hot Iliad slash. ;)

[swashbuckler332]

I very occasionally find myself posting a response to people and then facepalming afterwards because I realised that I missed the entire point of the post, which is why I don't get upset with people who do it to any of my posts.

I should clarify: I don't mind it if people miss the point of a post every once and a while. Everybody does (including me). It is impossible to stay on exactly the same wavelength as somebody else all the time. It's when it is always happening that it really starts to bother me. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but there are times when the cumulative effect of somebody who keeps missing what you're putting down can be very frustrating.

Iliad slash!?! I have to say I find that idea most amusing. Does she write it in rhyme?

[melancthe]

I know people like that in RL and on LJ: people who consistently miss the point of whatever it is I'm trying to say and latch onto something entirely trivial to make into the focus of their comment. For instance, picking a random and frivolous example: I'll make an angsty "WOE IS ME" post about how horrid my new haircut looks, and they'll reply saying "Glad to hear you got a new haircut!", missing the point that that's why I'm upset in the first place

[swashbuckler332]

I just want to make special notice here that I find it difficult to believe that your cleavage would ever engender any sort of wrath. Obsession, perhaps. Hypnosis, almost certainly. But wrath?

However, you do have a point when you say that the best way of dealing with such the above situation is to be polite and drama-free, an approach I certainly regret not having taken recently. I'm not particularly proud of how I acted at the time, and I have apologized to the party in question.

Has anybody ever attempted to gauge the erotic possibilities of dactylic hexameter? I mean, 'heroic' and 'erotic' are both three syllable adjectives...

[melancthe]

Well, I'm sure your apology was accepted and appreciated; after all, we all have bad days, and your general stress was understandable. The party in question certainly seems like a decent and tolerant sort: he'd have to be to put up with the flat-out rudeness I've seen towards him over the last few months. I'm entirely certain that I'd be much less pleasant about it; just one of the sort of comments I've seen made to him on previous occasions would have had me hitting "defriend" rather quickly. Heh. :)

(Of course, because I was impressed by the party in question's calm response to the drama, I friended him: his maturity with regard to that is the sort of thing I'd like to see on my f-list.)

And I'm positive no one has ever attempted an analysis of dactylic hexameter's erotic potential: I'm sure you could investigate and write a thesis on it. Or something.

[suitboyskin]

As one of the more vocal assailants of the gentleman in question I feel compelled to weigh in here. If I offended you by my lashing out at him then I am sorry for that as I don't like sowing discourse among my friends online or RL

[swashbuckler332]

In general I try to be the better me, but there are sometimes when under a lot of stress, when I'm not the person I prefer to be, and last week was, unfortunately one of those times. I'm not happy about it, and I'm doing my best to make amends.

The dactylic hexameter is a rhythmic device of the oral tradition, so I don't see why one couldn't implement erotic heroica.

[suitboyskin]

As one of the more frequent male commentors on Swashy's LJ I, for one, am delighted about the apparent lack of Swashiad slash. ;)