#longest rebuttal to a negative fanfic review EVAH!

[frazzledsoul]

So many, many, many years ago (remember, I’m old) I was heavily involved in following a television love triangle where the female lead was trying to decide between her shoehorned-in would-be boyfriend and the offscreen father of her infant children and longtime love interest, who was no longer on the show because the actor playing him had become very, very famous and left the show.

I was not in favor of the woman in the middle of this triangle becoming errrr . . . physically involved with the would-be boyfriend while still debating whether to get back together with the father of her children, especially as the would-be boyfriend seemed completely unaware of the other person in this triangle.

I was told over and over again (on Usenet: remember, old) by people supposedly much wiser and more mature than myself that this behavior was perfectly normal and healthy and not at all abusive or inconsiderate to the parties involved and when I grew up I would learn to appreciate how infidelity and dishonesty were just part of how adult relationships worked.

In retrospect, this seems a little silly, as the person at the center of this triangle was not having sex with her would-be boyfriend or her long-time love interest, but none of us knew that at the time I was being lectured.

In the next couple of years, I became very well aware how cheating and deceit are a large part of how so-called adults choose to deal with each other.

In fact, I have spent the majority of my life cleaning up the damage that’s left behind in the wake of these adult activities. I’ve heard all of the excuses and rationalizations when people decide that feeling good and getting revenge takes precedence over any sense of loyalty or commitment or human decency.

I’m the person that cleans up the emotional carnage when you see what Lorelai did to Luke in Partings happens in real life.

It’s horrible and messy and utterly disastrous to the people on the other side of it and those that have to take care of them or their children.

And it hurts.

I have not changed my mind about these kinds of activities being a normal, accepted part of adult life. In fact, now that I’ve seen the consequences in live, bloody detail, I am more convinced than ever how wrong they are.

Growing up doesn’t always mean abandoning your conscience. Sometimes it means remembering why you have to hold onto it.

And I have zero tolerance for any bullshit justifications, either in life or in fiction.

So in my many instances of cleaning up the detritus that gets left behind when these incidents occur, there are a few things I can tell you for sure.

Talking isn’t the same as fucking.

“I was emotional” is not an adequate excuse for one’s behavior.

If someone is granted forgiveness immediately for either of the aforementioned reasons, there is a 100% change they will do it again when the next crisis hits. People do what they get away with. Period.

Is there a way to forgiveness and repentance in all of this? Sure. But it can’t be immediate. And it can’t be easy. I’ve found that if it is, the offending party will end up doing the same thing. Over and over.

So why am I bringing this up?

Okay, so I’m getting to the really difficult parts of my post OS series Boundaries.

Obviously, there are real life reasons why I feel so strongly about what happened in the show. And I’m going to be pretty harsh on Lorelai in the next few chapters. There are a lot of things I needed to say about the situation, and I think that there are some things that Luke needed to say to Lorelai that he didn’t get to say in the show.

It’s okay for him to feel hurt and angry and betrayed about what happened to him just as much as it’s okay for the real-life Lukes to feel that way. And it’s okay for me to say that here, because it was okay for me to feel that way, even if these people are not real.

I have been there when they have been real.

The last review on this story was pretty rough. It’s from someone who is fairly influential in the L/L fanfic world, who is involved behind the scenes in a lot of different stories. This person was not fond of the fact that I did not make Lorelai a martyr who is blameless for her actions and a helpless pawn of the men around her. I understand that some fans really seem to recoil at the idea that she bore any responsibility for her own behavior, and this particular person seems pretty hostile to the fact that it was wrong in any way.

But the fact is that she did something pretty terrible, that was considered a betrayal by both people involved, and she did not shy away from the consequences. I didn’t write that. The show did. And as awful as season 7 was in some ways, I’m glad that they didn’t back away from it.

It was Lorelai who only told Luke about his indiscretion because she knew it was the one thing that would drive him away for good. It was Lorelai who told Sookie that telling him was one of the worst moments of her life. It was Lorelai who insisted to Rory that it was a mistake when Rory yelled at her for placing her in the middle of her accursed late thirtysomething love triangle. It was Lorelai who eventually apologized and said she should have done it a lot sooner.

I’m not putting anything out there that Lorelai didn’t admit to a long, long time ago.

Of course, Luke was not a martyr in this mess, either, and I’m not going to make him one. He did a lot of really fucked up things for a long time, and I plan to call him on them. It’s not a one-sided situation for either of the people here.

I’m not going to block or name the person that left me that review.  I’m not really sure why she was upset that I’m letting Lorelai take responsibility for her actions in the story I’m writing, since I already mentioned half a dozen times that she feels fairly guilty about her part in what went wrong. But that’s her opinion, and she’s entitled to it, and I actually welcome bad (and good!) reviews. I just wanted to explain for my part how I view the situation.

So now I will shut up about this topic and get back to writing.