Cats and other things
Cashmere has turned out to be very, very sweet, loving, and friendly -- she was a little antsy in the house for the first week or so, but she's completely acclimated now. She's not combative, but she takes no guff from the boys. They can't chase her the way they do poor Little Bit, as instead of fleeing when they try to pounce her, she turns on them and growls a truly horrendous growl, and they back away in alarm.
I'm very cranky at the moment, as I recently caught up on a locked discussion elsewhere -- one of the members wanted to do something cool for fandom in their own space, away from the community or the website it's associated with. And the mods of the community jumped on them because they thought it would 'discourage other authors.' So now we don't get the Cool Thing. I get wanting to encourage new/insecure authors. But when you're shutting people down simply for saying "I liked this and this is why" because someone who isn't the author of 'this' might see it and it might hurt their feelings, we're heading into Harrison Bergeron territory here. If someone is so fragile and delicate that they will wither way like the Communist State, merely from the knowledge that some people like stories besides the one they wrote, I am sorry for them, but I don't think that everyone in the world has to tiptoe around them lest the time bomb of their insecurity explode.
This has always been my beef with the "protect the feeling of the authors at all costs!" mentality in fandom. It ends up stifling more discussion than it generates. And the fact is, it's impossible anyway. Authors are ALWAYS going to get grumpy when their story isn't mentioned/recced/lavished with unending praise. We have egos and insecurities the size of Jupiter. And you're not really doing us any favors when you cater to those egos and enable that insecurity. We don't need to be protected. We need to learn how to deal with the fact that no matter who we are or what we write, someone is not going to like it. Or will like it, but like something else more. AND THAT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD.
Rants Talk to me
I'm very cranky at the moment, as I recently caught up on a locked discussion elsewhere -- one of the members wanted to do something cool for fandom in their own space, away from the community or the website it's associated with. And the mods of the community jumped on them because they thought it would 'discourage other authors.' So now we don't get the Cool Thing. I get wanting to encourage new/insecure authors. But when you're shutting people down simply for saying "I liked this and this is why" because someone who isn't the author of 'this' might see it and it might hurt their feelings, we're heading into Harrison Bergeron territory here. If someone is so fragile and delicate that they will wither way like the Communist State, merely from the knowledge that some people like stories besides the one they wrote, I am sorry for them, but I don't think that everyone in the world has to tiptoe around them lest the time bomb of their insecurity explode.
This has always been my beef with the "protect the feeling of the authors at all costs!" mentality in fandom. It ends up stifling more discussion than it generates. And the fact is, it's impossible anyway. Authors are ALWAYS going to get grumpy when their story isn't mentioned/recced/lavished with unending praise. We have egos and insecurities the size of Jupiter. And you're not really doing us any favors when you cater to those egos and enable that insecurity. We don't need to be protected. We need to learn how to deal with the fact that no matter who we are or what we write, someone is not going to like it. Or will like it, but like something else more. AND THAT'S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD.
Rants Talk to me