[LJ Idol] The Sincerest Form Of Flattery
The old saying goes that the sincerest form of flattery is imitation. I've been known to do some of that in a couple forms.
Firstly, fanfic: I've done some fanfic for various things, and then I write for a fanfic group.
Then I do filk. Filk, for those that don't know, is taking a song, and then doing a modification of it, usually with a SF or fantasy or techie flair to it. One I did thirteen years ago, based on the White Wolf World of Darkness universe, is located here, where I pulled it off of Usenet so I wouldn't lose it. It is notable in that it got me one of my first really angry emails. (Someone found the idea of conflating the Brujah clan from the old World of Darkness with the Village People to be personally insulting, to which, if I remember correctly, my reply was "perhaps you should lie down for a while.")
Another one, which I kind of wish I had and kind of wish I did, was done to Billy Joel's "The Entertainer", and was about tech support, which I was doing at the time.
A third, which was based on a particular page of the webcomic Looking For Group is here, if you want to see it. It uses "Never Gonna Give You Up". You have been warned.
Earlier this week I wrote another one, to XTC's "Dear God", addressed to Speaker of the House John Boehner, about HR.3, and I kept it private because honestly, I wasn't sure whether or not it actually trivialized something that actually enraged me, and a lot of people who would be directly affected by it were expressing the righteous anger it deserved in ways that did not involve monkeying around with song lyrics.
So I guess that sometimes the sincerest form of support is to just quietly agree with the people who are doing it better than you, and knowing when you might fail to do good by mocking the bad.
Firstly, fanfic: I've done some fanfic for various things, and then I write for a fanfic group.
Then I do filk. Filk, for those that don't know, is taking a song, and then doing a modification of it, usually with a SF or fantasy or techie flair to it. One I did thirteen years ago, based on the White Wolf World of Darkness universe, is located here, where I pulled it off of Usenet so I wouldn't lose it. It is notable in that it got me one of my first really angry emails. (Someone found the idea of conflating the Brujah clan from the old World of Darkness with the Village People to be personally insulting, to which, if I remember correctly, my reply was "perhaps you should lie down for a while.")
Another one, which I kind of wish I had and kind of wish I did, was done to Billy Joel's "The Entertainer", and was about tech support, which I was doing at the time.
A third, which was based on a particular page of the webcomic Looking For Group is here, if you want to see it. It uses "Never Gonna Give You Up". You have been warned.
Earlier this week I wrote another one, to XTC's "Dear God", addressed to Speaker of the House John Boehner, about HR.3, and I kept it private because honestly, I wasn't sure whether or not it actually trivialized something that actually enraged me, and a lot of people who would be directly affected by it were expressing the righteous anger it deserved in ways that did not involve monkeying around with song lyrics.
So I guess that sometimes the sincerest form of support is to just quietly agree with the people who are doing it better than you, and knowing when you might fail to do good by mocking the bad.