Well, I'm an atheist, and I still think you're an asshole.

[apocalypsos]

Via a number of people on ye olde friends list:

Are you Jewish? That may be why you're angry.

... so that happened.

(What IS it with Big Bangs this year? Is every one going to feature somebody posting a tone-deaf wank-heavy story? 'Cause, yeah, maybe we could pass on that from now on.)

*

-- Are they going to give Alex a verbal tongue bath every week? Because that'll get really tired really fast.

-- I like Robert, but he really needs to rein in the OMG SHOCKED faces.

-- Have I mentioned lately how much I love Kent? Big dorky flaily love. LOOK AT THAT IDIOT SWINGING HER AROUND THE STAGE. I DIG HIM. You know what he reminds me of? Remember when Dermot O'Leary was on NMTB, and he and Noel were talking about Jedward, and he said he'd say to them after being harshly judged, "Are you guys okay?" and they'd be all, "WE JUST MET THE SUGABABES!!! :D :D :D" and Dermot was like, "... yeah, they're fine." That is Kent in a nutshell.

-- I'm unsurprised Melinda has to dance, but I'll be sad if she has to go if only because I think she's the hottest girl. Yes, that is me being shallow.

-- I think Billy's personality is starting to bug me.

-- Ashley over Alexie? Really?

-- As someone said on the TWoP forums, it takes a lot to dance with Kathryn and have absolutely no chemistry whatsoever. Kathryn could have chemistry with a mailbox.

-- I am completely unsurprised that the bottom three are all girls. The girls this season kinda blow in comparison to the boys. They seem nondescript when you put them up against a group where the one with the least personality (Adechike, as far as I'm concerned) still has more personality than most of them.

-- Alexie? ALEXIE?! *headdesk*

*

This is the trailer for the CGI Smurfs movie.

NO. STOP THAT. BAD HOLLYWOOD.

*hits everyone involved on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper*

Comments

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

Holy cats, that wank just gave me a headache. They actually did the "you must be Jewish or have some other personal problem that's making you upset" thing. Unbelievable.

[spyderqueen.livejournal.com]

having just read this, I hate both people involved in this. Someone wrote an AU. Having a gigantic fucking fit over "OMG you made him catholic", in the POINT OF THE FUCKING AU, is remarkably stupid and overreacting.

However, the response is also reprehensible. Fuck both of them.


EDIT Corrected my quote marks because I'm an idiot.

[marag.livejournal.com]

::blinks:: You truly see absolutely nothing wrong in taking a real Jewish person and making them Catholic in a story?

I...I don't know quite how to respond to that. There's this whole minor matter of real Catholics through history persecuting Jews and stealing Jewish children and baptizing them and, y'know, stuff like that.

[spyderqueen.livejournal.com]

For fuck's sake, it's FICTION.

[newredshoes]

...no.

That is so not the reason the OP or anyone else is upset.

The author wanted a priest kink fic. The person she used is, in real life, pretty super Jewish, as I understand it. His Jewishness was an inconvenience to her story, despite the fact that it's a huge part of his identity. That's called erasing. People have a long history of doing it, especially to Jews.

In short: not stupid or overreacting in the slightest.

[spyderqueen.livejournal.com]

It's not "erasing" it's a fucking ALTERNATE UNIVERSE. Is it my kink? No. Do I think there's better ways of handling it for a kink fic? Sure (see the above commenter about the history of raising jewish children catholic). But it's WHAT THE PERSON WANTED TO WRITE. BFD. There are still enough REAL problems in this world without focusing on this little shit.

[ethrosdemon.livejournal.com]

Uh, no. You are really expressing some ignorant beliefs here. Not all AU concepts are equal, and claiming so is an argument fallacy. Erasing someone's minority status to facilitate your pornography is not acceptable.

Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrano

[onelittlesleep.livejournal.com]

WOW, you ARE an idiot.

[oaktree89.livejournal.com]

No. It is actually a big deal.

[amaresu]

Wow, just wow.

My LJ Note for you officially states: antisemitism doesn't matter if it's just FICTION OMG

You know, just for the record.

[writerrising.livejournal.com]

The authors replies do leave something(possibly a lot) to be desired, but at the same time, i feel like the wank that's going on lately is starting to fall into a territory that says, you're not allowed to write what you want if someone else doesn't like it.

All this "intent doesn't matter" stuff bugs me too. Intent does matter. It may not change the fact of what you did, or excuse it, but I think intent does matter. Those who don't have ill intent can learn and are often willing to.

[spyderqueen.livejournal.com]

Yes, THIS. This is why my roommate is cutting ties with all her fanfiction communities.

[newredshoes]

I don't think anyone is saying "you can't write this because somewhere out there someone might get offended."

I think what's going on is a push for people to be attentive and conscientious when they write, and to consider the implications of their content. I promise you, writing that takes the extra time to reflect real people is way more enjoyable. Life is too short for lazy writing -- and it is lazy, when someone decides that it's not worth their time to take facts into account.

[wrenlet.livejournal.com]

This isn't about stories that people "don't like," it's about stories that are actively hurtful to people.

And intent doesn't erase the hurt. "I didn't mean to," is a dodge and a cop-out, the thing to say is, "I'm sorry." Period.

[handyhunter.livejournal.com]

Anyone can write anything they want. But, by the same token, I can dislike and criticize what they write because I find it problematic.

As for intent, it's great that someone has the best of intentions and doesn't mean to be anti-Semitic or racist or harmful in other ways, but not intending harm is not the same as not actually causing harm. I recommend reading Intent! It's fucking magic!

Those who don't have ill intent can learn and are often willing to.

Then I wish they would, instead of being defensive (or more offensive) and faux!apologizing. Or bringing out the tone argument. Or other derailing tactics ("It's only fiction!", etc).

[xianghua.livejournal.com]

I guess the thing that I see is, why is it okay to change someone's sexual orientation- which bandom and RPS fics do ALL THE FREAKINg TIME- but not their religion. People erase inconvienent evidence of heterosexuality in the form of wives, children, girlfriends, etc- ALL THE FREAKING TIME. And I'd argue that who a person loves defines them almost as certainly as what they believe.

Personally, I'm really meh about RPS fic, period- and this appears to be linked back into that, to me. Would people have been equally offended if it'd been about a fictional Jewish character turned Catholic?

I'm not, at this point, really in fandom at all, other than reading fic. This type of thing is one of the reasons why.

[amaresu]

Intent matters to the writer. It doesn't matter to the people hurt by the writing. They are hurt either way. And saying "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you" doesn't fix that. I would argue it's not even a valid apology until action has been taken to prove that the person is working to better themselves and understand why and how people were hurt by their writing.

Not having bad intentions doesn't mean that what they did was okay. It should be a signal that they can learn and grow from the experience in which case it's a damn good thing it was pointed out to them that they were hurting people.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Yeah, fandom is thick with the fail this month.

As for that trailer....ow, my childhood! I collected those stupid plastic smurfs, and the puffy stickers...

[vampychick.livejournal.com]

I'm giving Robert a huge pass on the faces, because he's so much younger than he looks. I'm not sure if he's even twenty yet, and he looks like a hot twenty-five. Great when he's trying to get into bars and/or pick up girls/boys, problematic on reality television, because the sort of big expression that from, say, Kent, is considered kind of adorable comes off as young and annoying from Robert, and that's not fair. He's still a kid, too.

Plus, when he pulls the shocked face, his eyebrows get really pointy and it amuses me.

[brihana25.livejournal.com]

God damn! It's almost starting to look like people went out of their way to offend people this BB season, isn't it?

I hope what's going on is that people were wanting to tackle big subjects, maybe in the hopes of writing the next fandom "classic," and just failed abysmally. That is sincerely what I hope is happening.

But then again, I don't really understand what could be so "lofty" and "deep" about changing a Jewish man into a Catholic priest, so... maybe I'm giving too much credit. Maybe it is just random, institutionalized thoughtlessness.

*sigh*

It makes me rather happy to know that there's nothing at all ambitious about mine. I just wrote a story.

[beanarie.livejournal.com]

I feel that Alexie's solo was the least engaging of the three girls, so on that basis alone, she was justifiably cut. Plus being the first to go when there are only ten others is nothing to sneeze at. All the same, it's awful that she tried out four times and only got to dance in two episodes. And it's unfair that she didn't get half the season to show her stuff like every other dancer who was eliminated as #11. C'est la vie, but still. She gets my sympathy.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

True. I don't know ... part of me just feels like they cut her because as per usual they've crammed the cast with contemporary dancers this year and they don't want to get rid of their only tapper or their only ballroom dancer, you know what I mean?

That said, yeah, I think I'm sorta dwelling on the four-tryouts-two-performances thing, which just sucks. I'm still not surprised the bottom three were all girls, though. The boys just seem to be shining brighter from every angle, except for maybe Adechike.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Re: Smurfs.

Going straight to Manhattan?

Really? REALLY?

For crying out loud, producers, you KNOW stories of big blue idiots in the woods SELL.

[silveraspen]

For crying out loud, producers, you KNOW stories of big blue idiots in the woods SELL.

Okay, this made me spittake coffee and start laughing. Thanks for a really funny start to the day.

Uhhhh...?

[jazzminarino.livejournal.com]

So, number one, what the Jew? I don't even know how I feel about that link. There is definitely a lot of wanking going on in that page.

Ya know, I only started watching SYTYCD because SPN isn't on, and it's strangely addicting. Like, I want to watch all of it and don't know what to do. Alexie hurt my heart, though. I agree that the girls do appear to be somewhat lackluster compared to the boys.

I totally sent that trailer to my best friend, Smurf. I feel I will possibly have to fly to Connecticut to see it with her because I'm that kid.

In other news, you know how fandoms cross over? This is random, but I had to share. First, I thought my brain was going to explode due to the new Katy Perry song ft. Snoop Dogg. Then my friend sent me this link, and the fact that Snoop is doing a fandom video for Sookie Stackhouse makes me think fandom is taking on a whole new level. I don't even care if you watch True Blood; it's friggin SNOOP DOGG and SOOKIE STACKHOUSE and it's LEGIT from HBO...

... just thought you'd like to know.