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catscradle Sep. 10th, 2002 02:41 pm)
catscradle Sep. 10th, 2002 02:41 pm)The other day I was given the links to these two sites Brutal Honesty and The Shredder - both claiming to critique Gundam Wing archives, fics and the fandom at large. What sounds like a good idea turns out to actually be two forums for bashing and spreading misinformation.
The sad thing is, some of the points they bring up are actually valid - however, instead of taking an objective look at the fandom, they offer a schrapnel approach to getting even.
Brutal Honesty's attempt to crit fics is a sad attempt. They crit the obviously bad and praise what they like. On their 5 point scale, fics reviewed fall from 0-1 to 4-5, with no in between. Hardly helpful. The rant essays complain about the "established" authors getting praised for whatever crap they dish out - that much is true - but they fail to crit those fics in question, making their complaints rather moot.
The Shredder reads like nothing more than the personal rampage of someone that got their hand slapped. While making the claim to "try to be objective", on one archive review, it only proceeds to direct personal attacks on the archive owner.
I won't deny that the GW fandom can be highschoolish in the extreme - and that the fandom creates a lot of it's own backlash. But the webmasters of these two sites do not transcend the highschool atmosphere of the fandom - they instead have become yet another sub-culture in the fandom that perpetuates the stereotype.
If you see them on the attack, I recommend ignoring them.
The sad thing is, some of the points they bring up are actually valid - however, instead of taking an objective look at the fandom, they offer a schrapnel approach to getting even.
Brutal Honesty's attempt to crit fics is a sad attempt. They crit the obviously bad and praise what they like. On their 5 point scale, fics reviewed fall from 0-1 to 4-5, with no in between. Hardly helpful. The rant essays complain about the "established" authors getting praised for whatever crap they dish out - that much is true - but they fail to crit those fics in question, making their complaints rather moot.
The Shredder reads like nothing more than the personal rampage of someone that got their hand slapped. While making the claim to "try to be objective", on one archive review, it only proceeds to direct personal attacks on the archive owner.
I won't deny that the GW fandom can be highschoolish in the extreme - and that the fandom creates a lot of it's own backlash. But the webmasters of these two sites do not transcend the highschool atmosphere of the fandom - they instead have become yet another sub-culture in the fandom that perpetuates the stereotype.
If you see them on the attack, I recommend ignoring them.
