Mumble.

On cedar85 vs. epicyclical: Well, besides a very long groan over the politics and the flamewar.

I read both of their reviews of each other's fics. Not over and over again, but once through carefully and I remember my first impressions very well. Cedar wrote a very long review explaining that while she tried so very hard to find what people saw in it and why they like it, she didn't; and this is what she did enjoy, and this is what she didn't. Critical, yes; she made it very clear that she was coming from her viewpoint, that obviously 90 percent of the fandom would disagree with her, and that this was her opinion. Cassie wrote a rather long review as well, finding many, many parts of LtFG to thwap--most notable to me was her nigh immediate dismissal of the second person, and a lot of situation-related wibbling. (And I have some review-like responses to that which I'll save for AIM.) Now the content of both reviews was nearly the same--I tried to llike this fic, I didn't, this is why--and is the basic content of any constructive, somewhat negative review. What rubbed me wrong about Cassie's review was not the content, and not what she was saying, but the style--and it may well have been utterly unintentional. She stated, after all, that she rarely if ever does write reviews of fics she didn't really like--and it was obvious she rather disliked LtFG and felt like saying it. But there's a fine, fine art of making constructive criticism which is not only criticism, but which makes it clear what the reviewer did like, and contains the allmighty "this is only my opinion." Cassie missed that; she went straight into thwapping second-person, and several other criticisms, some of which I think were somewhat valid, some of which I didn't. The way I see it, she tried to poke Cedar's writing and see what she got out of it, to write a negative and critical review--to give as good as she got--but she just hadn't had enough experience in the latter to do it without rubbing people's hackles.

This is only my opinion. And based, at that, on my memories of two reviews which I will be unable to find to review. I merely wish to look at this situation without saying that Cedar is a whining hypocrite or Cassie is a vindictive bitch, because I don't believe either of those things. And I'm probably after the fact anyway. This tends to happen when you ignore politics until the last moment and spend most of your waking hours away from home. So bite me.

Frankly, when it comes to fandom, I'm a self-centered, oblivious bitch. I only care about my writing, the few good fics that I've bothered to read, and my few friends. The only reason I even know of this is that it concerns one of the latter.

Cassie-fans (not that I think there are any who read little-old-me's journal), please don't flame me for suggesting she is anything less than perfect. Constructive crit is *hard.* Cassie-haters (of which I know there are several on my Fiends list), please don't flame me for suggesting she's not entirely a vindictive bitch. Maybe she was a little biased. It happens. I am too tired and sick to deal with all of this right now, I barely want to anyway, and I probably wouldn't even have posted this if I hadn't been to fucking exhausted to care.

Off to work. Hope I don't miss my train because of this. May edit there, if only because I did not in fact post this yesterday night. o.O

*looks back on post and sighs*

Tell me why I said this again?