Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Grief

I don't know why you think people don't understand what you're saying. The level of intelligence found on these boards is high enough for me to confidently say, at least the majority gets you perfectly.

What you fail to come to terms with is that they understand, and still disagree. That happens sometimes in life.

In real life, when your friends disagree with you on a certain topic, do you bring it up again and again to try to convince them, numerous times? I bet you don't. We all like to keep our friends. I fail to see how this is different.

There's nothing left of this horse but bloody pulp.

Carol: You say we can't be sure of your or Ann's motivations, and that's fair enough to say. We're not mind readers. But consider that anti-deathfic threads are just that, anti-deathfic, and by definition, are opposed to this genre, thus the goal must be to discourage further posts of fic that falls into this genre. I would have thought this was obvious.

Julie

I'm sorry, maybe I'm missing something but I fail to see how this is an "anti-deathfic" thread.

I thought all Ann was trying to do was explain why she thought TOGOMS and Lois deathfics were different from each other. That is to say, her argument as to why TOGOMS aren't *really* deathfics....

Am I wrong?

What demonic power possesses me to post in this thread?

Ann isn't attacking deathfic, as I see it. (Although it can certainly look otherwise) She's just challenging the assumption brought in a previous thread that TOGOM fics have as much emotional impact on the characters as actual deathfics do. Ann's stance back then was that Clark deathfics and TOGOM fics couldn't be classed together because Clark doesn't really die in TOGOM. We then went on to have a very interesting discussion about our different perceptions of death and grieving, with the majority of posters agreeing that they grieved not for the bereaved but those who were left behind.

But seriously, Ann, this example seems rather confusing and convoluted to me. I wouldn't have known what you were trying to get at if I hadn't been following the other thread.

You weren't just saying TOGOMs and deathfics were different because of the reaction engendered in the reader. It goes without saying that while we'll feel incredibly sorry for Lois as she is left to grieve the partner she thinks is dead, we ourselves don't feel the finality and emotional wallop of death itself, because we KNOW Clark is going to come back to her eventually. However, what you were saying was that it should be different for LOIS, which to my mind, makes no sense at all. Grieving for someone who one believes is dead is the same as grieving for someone who really is dead.

It should be clear to you by now, Ann, that this depends entirely on a person's perception of death. Some of us believe that the dead have gone to a better place free of the fetters of human pain, there to await us upon our own demise. Therefore, we accept it as fate and we grieve only for those who grieve in turn. Some like you, believe that death means a cessation of all things, without continuance of any sort. Those people will pity the dead and find so called 'untimely' deaths akin to robbery and a cheating of life.

However, these perceptions of death and the ways in which we endure them are shaped by our cultures, our times, our preconceptions, upbringing and a myriad of other factors that run far deeper in our consciousness than simple intellect or reason. Therefore, the art through which we express our ideas are accordingly subjective. There is no one standard through which death and its impact may be judged.

You say TOGOMs and deathfics are different for you, Ann, and that's all right. That's what you conceive in your own unique view of death. However, it does not give you the right to try and impose this view on others, nor to judge others' writing as being lacking if they do not share your views on how death should be dealt with.

And you should have figured by now that people have become sensitized to this topic and such a post can only be seen as inflammatory, no matter what your intentions are. In such a case, at the very least you could have started by clarifying your intent - exploring the difference between TOGOM and deathfic, before hurling this parable into out midst like the proverbial gauntlet. In nay other message board but this, you would by now have been inundated by flames, and you would have brought it upon yourself.

And all for what? Because you persist in delving into an inflammatory topic and because you do not take pains to word it diplomatically enough. Is it really worth it to get so many people's backs up for so little reason?

And Carol, I think you're being over-sensitive. When you purposely chuff up the embers of a fire, you must expect to get singed a little. Nobody here has said anything untoward to Ann, except the fact that we don't think she's playing very nice. I think Julie Stars said it best.

Freedom of speech works both ways. Ann can bring up this topic as many times as she likes, never mind that half the members feel attacked every time she does so. However, it also entitles us to say so when we're tired of seeing what we perceive as the same debate again and again.

In closing however, I just want to re-emphasize the fact that, despite appearances, Ann isn't attacking anybody.

Chill out, guys.

For the record, I wasn't trying to attack anybody when I started this thread. I wasn't attacking any particular person or story, and I wasn't attacking the genre of TOGOMs. (I love TOGOMs, as a matter of fact.) I wasn't, per se, attacking deathfics. I wasn't trying to prevent anyone from posting stories.

I wanted to make the point, to the best of my ability, that TOGOMs are not deathfics and should not be compared with deathfics. Because when these two genres are described as fairly equal, then, in my opinion, the idea of the real, actual death of a character, even a fictional character, is belittled.

Oh, and by the way, Paul...

My little fic came to me and demanded to be told. That's what happened. Of course the sudden popping up of it in my head has a lot to do with the fact that I have spent a good deal of time thinking about deathfics and how deathfics are received, but for all of that, the story just came to me.

Ann

And my point, Ann, is that that is just your opinion. Your perception of death cites that death itself is a far weightier matter than the appearnce of death. However, whether thinking otherwise 'belittles' the deathfic genre as a whole, is purely dependent on the perception of the individual.

In other words, you can't impose your belief on others in this way. You can state it, but you can't impose it, and you surely can't demean the views of others.

Julie, I'm not certain the one logically follows the other. All such a post does is say what a person thinks about deathfic - who knows what that person's motivation is in posting? Just as we can't assume what a writer's motivation is when s/he writes a fic about a particular subject. So, no I don't see that the connection is obvious.

Hassini rightly reminds us that Ann was writing about TOGOM fics, rather than deathfic.

Bt the time I read this thread this morning it had veered away from the TOGOM topic. Because I read it all at once, I was struck by the amount of negativity that ran through. (not all from all posters, I should make clear.) That's why I posted my plea for tolerance.

By 'chuffing the embers' I take it you mean I've posted too much.
My goal was not to chuff embers. So no, it wasn't done "purposely" at all but instead to make a point about the acceptance of the right for people to express a range of ideas without having them written off as 'rants' and even worse.

In that I've failed.

Over-sensitive? I don't know. Who ever does know that sort of thing? Was Sara over-sensitive when she posted? I can't know that for certain, either - but I was dismayed by how upset she was.

Ann, included "In my opinion" in her statement, so beats me how that is 'imposing her belief on others or that she was demeaning the beliefs of others'.

Anyway, I take your hint, Hassini - I'd better stop posting.

c.

Come on, people now. Smile on your brother.

I wasn't intending to enter into this discussion, because I've long since become bored with the endless repetition of it and, to be blunt, I have far more entertaining ways to spend my free time.

But, after reading the entire thread, I did want to just post briefly to say how proud I am of this community and the people who have posted here. Your intelligence, your tolerance, your ability to debate a subject that is contentious and frustrating to so many of you without resorting to flames and, on occasion, with enormous good humour is a huge part of why this forum has the atmosphere it does and why it is such a wonderful place to hang out in.

Hasini - the demons may have prodded you to post, but I applaud you for doing it. Your post is a perfect example of what I'm talking about here - balanced, fair, and able to intelligently make your point without resorting to insults.

You know, I've been asked more than once why I continue to hang out here when I have less interest in LNC than I once did. This is why. Because the people here have more intelligence and respect for each other than on any forum I've ever known. And I'm proud to spend time with you.

Which reminds me, I have fanfic to catch up with...

LabRat

I know I said I had taken Hasini's hint, but Labrat, your post hurts. I felt that Hasini had insulted me by saying that I was "purposely chuffing the embers".

But I do think that elsewhere Hasini has often pointed out things that help in these discusions, and that here she was right to remind us of what Ann had originally posted to start this thread.

Will try harder to take Hasini's hint.

c.

Can't resist posting this.

This boy is called Darin:



A few years ago, he came second in the first season of Swedish Idol. (No one can remember who won.) Since his breakthrough, Darin has been the biggest idol among Swedish teenaged girls.

As a teacher, I just received a number of texts that my students have to read, and then they have to write an essay about one or two of these texts. One of the texts was about the fact that thousands of Swedish girls write Darinfics. In most of these fics, the young girls themselves meet and fall in love with Darin, and he falls in love with them, of course.

A popular subgenre is the Darin deathfics. The most common theme in these fics is that Darin and the girl who wrote the story are prevented from being together, so they commit suicide together. In other stories, the girl dies for one reason or another, and Darin grieves terribly for her. Often he commits suicide so that he can be reunited in death with his loved one.

My point? Uh... I don't know if I have one. But judging from the Darinfics, it is popular among young Swedish girls to fantasize about their own death and what their death would do to Darin if he loved them. And they seem to love to imagine that Darin would kill himself for their sake.

You know what the Bible says? The Lord disciplines those whom he loves (Hebrews 12:6). Maybe in fanfics we should talk about the "Lords" (or Ladies) of their own fanfic worlds, the writers, who sometimes kill those whom they love. And sometimes they drive those whom they love almost crazy with grief by killing the woman their loved one loves. (I'm talking about the Darinfic writers, of course. )

Ann

I hope this will be my last post in this thread. I'm very sorry that I caused some of you grief by talking about dead children, seeing that at least one person here has indeed lost a child.

Finally, I didn't want to make the woman in my story "justified" in any way. I thoroughly agree with you that she is crazy. Really off her rocker.

And a part of her craziness is that she would indeed agree that TOGOMs and deathfics are the same thing.

(However... yes, Hasini, we all view death differently, and I accept that some views will make death an ephemeral thing, a simple passing through of something, and if you hold that view you may indeed think that TOGOMs and deathfics are pretty much the same thing. But you still wouldn't grieve for a living child as if he or she was dead, I'm sure. And it wouldn't be the same thing for Clark to lose Lois for the rest of his life as it would be for Lois get Clark back safe and sound after she had believed that he was dead. And this is true no matter what your views on death are.)

Ann

<sigh>

Hasini can correct me if I've misunderstood her point, but to me that comment wasn't even aimed at you, Carol. I interpreted it as being Ann who 'chuffed the embers'. Which is, imo, an entirely fair comment considering that Ann began her post with 'I probably shouldn't post this, but...' Which seems to me a clear indication that she knew when she started the thread that she was embarking on yet another contentious discussion about a subject that she knows is going to provoke people.

That's her right, but - as Hasini points out - neither she nor you can then expect to not provoke a predictable response or complain when it occurs. There have been enough threads on this one over the years for it to be no surprise whatsoever as to what that response will be.

Secondly, that you have been hurt by a post of mine which had no other intention than to praise this community for its tolerance and positive spirit, simply makes me agree with Hasini that you seem to be somewhat over-sensitive on this subject. So perhaps it is a good time for you to call a halt and you're correct about that decision. For your own wellbeing, if nothing else. If it's reached the stage where you're finding insult in such a general post, then something's gone wrong somewhere, I think, and you have to ask yourself if it's worth staying in the discussion and getting yourself upset to this extent.

Anyway, this is my last post on this one.

LabRat

Well, if you consider crazy someone who thinks TOGOMs and deathfics are the same thing, I wonder what you'd think if I told you I dislike deathfics that have a happy end. I just feel cheated. You killed them? Leave them dead, for heaven's sake!

Okay this is OT, I'm sorry. I'm always fascinated by fic discussions--this has nothing to do with deathfic, TOGOM

I'm with Elena...

I know!!! Oftentimes, I feel like a happy ending cheapens what happened before it because suddenly all the bad stuff vanishes just like that. I think it's really hard to end fics that have a lot of trauma in them, it's really easy for them to seem contrived. So actually it isn't that I'm sadistic and want the charas to suffer, but that in terms of narrative an easy fix sometimes doesn't satisfy. My own opinion, in any case.

alcyone

So it wasn't my last post. Sorry.

LabRat, you said this to Carol:

Since Carol often agrees with me, it's easy for me to take her side, of course. But since I tend to pay attention to what Carol posts and what kind of responses she gets, I know that some pretty hurtful things have been said to her.

Carol is a very talented writer and member of these boards, with some pretty terrific stories under her belt. She cares deeply about the "soulmate-ship" of Lois and Clark. She insists that the show told us that Lois and Clark were indeed soulmates. She likes to make the point that since these boards are dedicated to the show, the best stories posted here reflect the "unique soulmate-ship" between Lois and Clark that was established on the show.

Not everyone agrees with Carol. And it is, of course, everyone's right to disagree with her.

But I know that Carol is deeply hurt when she is attacked personally. I know that she takes it particularly hard when people tell her that she is just plain wrong or that she might as well stop posting. She has already stopped posting on fanfics, which to me is a deep loss. So please don't tell her to stop posting in other threads as well!!! Please?

Ann

I am posting for Hasini who has been locked out by the DNS error thingie

Let me say that again.

Hasini wrote this.
(I would never want to take credit for her very valid and well reasoned arguments. I'll be rendering it in italics to make sure that it's even more set apart--it might be annoying, but bear with us)

Now on to the post...

--start Hasini's post--


I'm sorry, WHAT? That just came out of left field.



Firstly, I didn't mean you at all, Carol. I merely meant that Ann knew this topic wouldn't be received too kindly especially as the furor created by the previous deathfic thread has barely died down. Yet, she posted it, anyway.



(I think I understand how that misunderstanding came about. I used 'you' in the second sentence not in reference to you, but as a general pronoun. Like, 'one', you know. Of course, there was no way you could have known that. My apologies. )



Secondly, give me a little credit. I hope I've never come across as being so boorish as to stop anybody from posting anything they wanted to say. Quite the contrary. In fact, the saying you cited, "I disagree with what you've said, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," is one of my own life's credos.



But I don't think you need to defend Ann's right to post, Carol. Everyone here knows and loves Ann, and we listen to her and give anything she says due consideration. Saying that we find something that she insinuates as offensive, is not an attack on her; it's a defense of ourselves. Give us a little credit, on that count.



And just now, you basically said, Ann, that if we equate Lois's grief over Clark's supposed death with Clark's grief over Lois's actual death, it is degrading an entire genre. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like my view point was pretty demeaned. Just saying "in my opinion" does not make it inoffensive. If you apply that logic, some of the members of these boards could well say, "In my opinion, anybody who posts soft core pornography about a family-oriented TV show is perverted. I'm not saying that everybody should think so, but I just think it's perverted." Somehow, I don't see us nfic writers and readers feeling placated by that, can you?



As for over-sensitivity, I simply meant that you shouldn't be so quick to take offense when somebody takes a defensive tone about such an inflammatory subject. Sara felt like her story was being attacked. Nobody has ever attacked anything I've written, but I imagine I would feel quite as threatened if I thought somebody was trying to do so. It's a bit like a mother defending her child. I just think that instead of automatically perceiving that defensiveness as intolerance, you should understand why people feel defensive about this subject, and then lay their fears to rest.



And if even that fails, I'll just say "that's just my opinion" and abandon that line of discussion.



I agree with you whole heartedly, Labbie. That's the main reason I came up with the idea for a "hug" thread in the OT folder, just so we could all give this place the open appreciation it deserves.



Thanks a lot, Labbie! We're really all just following your lead.

--end Hasini's post--

Ann said:

This is a chronic misreading of Labrat's post that attributes a harshness I did not see present. Labrat simply paraphrased something right out of "The Peacekeeping Mission of Debate,
Discussion & Critique in a Public Forum"...

and I quote:

Found in Critiquing L&C Fanfic

To go back to Ann's post:

The implication in the statement above is that Labrat has personally attacked Carol, given the ordering of the sentences (thesis followed by support) and the final plea.

Ann's insinuation is extremely (and dare I add, outrageously) inconsistent with what we know of Labrat as an active participant of this forum.

alcyone

Hasini had written:

I assumed that the pronoun in the second sentence referred to me since my name was mentioned in the preceding sentence. As well, those two sentences were isolated in a separate paragraph from what followed. I don't think I was being either illogical or over-sensitive to assume that "you" referred back to "Carol".. Rules of grammar and all that. I also assumed that Labrat (and others for that matter ) would take that sentence's meaning from its grammatical structure.
I had no idea that Labrat would not, so when she congratulated people on not insulting anyone, I wondered why she had ignored what Hasini had written about me and frankly felt "hurt" that she'd overlooked that.

I certainly can't feel hurt when someone lauds tolerance, however:) I would have thought that, given that tolerance was what I had been stressing throughout my posts, that Labrat would have not thought that I *would* be hurt by her reference to it. As well, I cited in that post the part that had bothered me, and so I assumed that Labrat would understand that that particular quote was what I was addressing. But she didn't, and that's my fault perhaps for not beginning with a repeat of my plea for tolerance.

Yes, indeed. I guess that's what we were all doing, a bit of self-defense It's a two-way street. Although, it's beginning to seem like a round-about.

But, Hasini, I appreciate your clarification of what you really intended.: ) Not many people here have done that.

Alcyone wrote:

Perhaps it's for me to say whether I felt personally attacked by Labrat's saying I should stop posting, and also for Labrat to say whether she intended to attack me or not, and for Ann to say what she was "implying"

But thanks, Ann.

c.

I have no interest in figuring out what this statement is really saying, because I have a feeling that it will only trigger more unpleasantness.

I will, however, add (as I have changed my original post) that I am providing an interpretation on what is written and nothing else.

alcyone

Amen! Not just this thread, but every thread I've seen in the past year and half that refers to deathfic.