It has come to my intention that I recently came under a bit of fire for “attacking” poor Mr. Scylla in this thread. There was quite a bit of righteous anger directed my way, and that thread is closed now, so I can’t respond over there. In the interest of fighting some ignorance, let’s look at what actually happened, shall we?
Scylla posted one of his patented “I’m writing for an audience” essays. In the interest of honesty I’ll say that I personally find that some of his stuff is quite amusing and well written, sometimes what he writes is overblown, and sits there looking like it should have a tag on it that reads “Freshman Composition 101”, and sometimes his writing dances across my monitor, yelling and waving a sign saying “Look at me! I’m writing! Hey, look over here! Author at work!”.
Now a new poster, one BobNewby, came in and made a bon mot about the OP. Several people commented, and he came back by quoting some of the more lurid passages from the OP and several of the replies in the thread, and then asked “What is this? A purple prose contest?” Which prompted my infamous reply:
Well apparently I put a coyote in the hen house with that one! The responses came thick and fast:
There were other replies, and a good time was had by all and sundry roasting me until the thread was closed. What all of you seem to miss, completely, is that my statement in that thread wasn’t about Scylla at all. Go back and read it again, this time for comprehension. I was talking about the “Cult of Scylla”, or those posters who automatically fawn over and defend anything posted by Scylla regardless of it’s content. As I’ve already said, personally, I find Scylla’s writing up and down, sometimes good, sometimes not so good, overall I’m neutral on Scylla as a poster. As for the rest of y’all who were so quick to leap on me…
Thank you for proving my point in a most eloquent fashion.
Dave, yer high. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if you wish to bash Scylla. But to claim that you weren’t talking about him is disingenous to the extreme. Your first thought was in response to a question posed about his writing, to wit: Is this a purple prose contest? You replied: Pretty much, yeah. Your second sentence began like this: Scylla posts these little essays. The subject of the sentence is Scylla, and the “little” (a dismissive and demeaning word choice) essays he posts. So you are sorely mistaken in your claim that you were talking about the Cult of Scylla. You were, of course, but you were also talking about and deriding the Blimp Man himself, and all the backpedaling in the world won’t change that. Get over yourself and go melt some butter in your mouth.
Thank you for clarifying for me what I actually think, as I frequently have no idea . My suggestions to you would be two in nature. As number one is anatomically impossible, let’s move on to number 2: Get over yourself, you don’t know everything.
Emphasizing your take on the fawners does not change the fact that you also made dismissive comments about the OP as well. Good luck with revisionist thread interpretation when it’s all captured in black and white. It’s kind of like doing interpretive dance to Korn. There’s a lot of awkward twitching, but no one finds it all that amusing or entertaining.
Dave, babes, we’re not psychic around here. Perhaps you did not mean to pass commentary on Scylla, the “little” adjective aside, but all we have to go on is what you wrote, not what you actually think.
You see, when one writes, one’s readers take it on faith that the writer is expressing his “thoughts” and “feelings” on the subject chosen. You either did a piss-poor job of this, or you are indeed backpedaling. Or both.
Your position is indefensible. Trying to defend it just makes you seem more of a boob than you already seem. Step away from the computer and do some gardening or something. That’s what I am going to do; I have some loverly petunias to put in. I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend, and I hope that the weather over there is as nice as it is here. Regards to your lovely wife.
My take on Scylla is consistent. He posts his little essays ( and if you can’t tell when he making one of his “look I’m writing” posts as opposed to a “normal” post, you’re…I dunno. I’m not a gifted writer, I can’t think of the, what do you call it,… word), some are good, some are bad. When they are bad they are very purple indeed. As BobNewby noted, some people don’t make a distinction between purple prose and quality writing.
That thread was wierd. I don’t often run across someone telling me about their personal problems, who feels the need to write it in the form of a melodramatic, maudlin glurge.
Oh, if only the message could get through. It’s like a lost love, when you go to the places you once frequented in better days. You swear you catch her scent in the air, and if you listen closely, you hear her voice on the wind. But in the end, it’s all gossamer, an ethereal, hollow sound that can only painfully remind you that whatever the fuck the wind is babbling about, it would be a hell of a lot clearer if it would just get to the fucking point and stop trying to dazzle you with its burbling brilliance.
What’s so wrong with putting a little quality-control into your writing? The only way to become a good writer (and escape this “purple prose”) is through practice.
So you felt the ‘little essay’ was a bit ‘purple’ and you said as much. Fine. Are the people mentioned in your OP not allowed their own opinion? Seems like they might have understood you just fine, they just don’t agree with you.
My own opinion on the writing has zero to do with it, and I’ll thank you not to assign me an opinion, and then insinuate that I lack intelligence for the opinion which you have pinned on me.
I couldn’t give a pike if people pratice their prose in the pit.
On a message board, we don’t really need to. This isn’t an English class. We aren’t here to review the style of other people’s posts. Of course, you can but then don’t be shocked when you’re called a jerk.
All I noticed from Scylla’s OP was that the dude is in serious pain. It would be one thing if he had posted a thread asking us to critique his writing. But no. He just needed someone to hear him out, and maybe provide an encouraging word.
It was the wrong place and time for you to talk about his “purple prose”, IMHO. You do that for light-hearted stuff. Not when someone is obviously suffering.
BobNewby was a jerk not for the “purple prose” crack, but for dimissing Scylla for likening his pain to that suffered by “adolescent girls”. First off, the pain of adolescent girls isn’t a laughing matter. And attempting to diminish another poster’s pain is just jerk-off behavior, period.
Although I disagree with Scylla’s politics and I’m fairly neutral to most of his theatrical postings, I do enjoy that HE enjoys writing for us. We have a number of posters who take their postings up a “notch” regularly–and they have fan clubs too. They attract fans because there is something special about them. Maybe folks like their posting styles. Maybe they just enjoy the content.
If you don’t want to hear the (likely unsympathetic) reponses of total strangers to your personal problems, DON’T FUCKING POST ABOUT THEM IN A PUBLIC INTERNET FORUM.
If you are free to bleat about your personal misery, people are just as free to yawn, take the piss, or tell you to fuck off.
There is something called a “blog” or “LiveJournal” where you can create a web-diary viewable only to your sympathetic band of friends and spill your guts to your heart’s content.
I hardly think it fits the remit of “fighting ignorance” to post endless private woes.
If you don’t want to hear the (likely unsympathetic) reponses of total strangers to your personal problems, DON’T FUCKING POST ABOUT THEM IN A PUBLIC INTERNET FORUM.
If you are free to bleat about your personal misery, people are just as free to yawn, take the piss, or tell you to fuck off.
There is something called a “blog” or “LiveJournal” where you can create a web-diary viewable only to your sympathetic band of friends and spill your guts to your heart’s content.
I hardly think it fits the remit of “fighting ignorance” to post endless private woes.
I have no issue if someone wants to spill their guts here. I simply distrust it when it looks less like a gutspilling and more like an attempt to impress me with florid prose. Then I get pissed off, because I get the feeling that I’ve been suckered in by a story of need and pain, when what the author really wants is to show off.
You know, if you’d posted this in LiveJournal, you could edit out the double post.
And if you’re all for fighting ignorance, the BBQ Pit and MPSIMS (for starters) should probably be deleted from the board entirely, wouldn’t you agree? Hell, go for IMHO too since that’s only opinions, right?
As mentioned in another thread, some people seem to be all too eager to be an asshole just because a thread is in the Pit. I sincerely hope there are very, very few (if any) people here whose thread talking about their pain over honestly serious life troubles would motivate me to respond by saying their writing style sucks or they’re being an attention whore.
I know! I was going to post an oops! but figured that would be a second unecessary post. (It was some odd glitch btw - the board returned me an error message that the post hadn’t worked because of the 60second rule, so I waited a couple of minutes, posted, but it was already there. I’ll double check next time!)
I see a role for The Pit in that GDs that become heated often spill over/get moved here. I I suppose it’s a useful way for people who want to participate in debates, but not those that get overheated/abusive, have what they read filtered, whereas the rest of us that don’t mind a bit of all-out war can head off to The Pit for the finale.
As for MPSIMS - well yes, as you point out, it probably should be deleted. “Mundane” “pointless” hardly fits with fighting ignorance IMO. I’d be happy for the forum to vanish tomorrow, or become premium-subscription only, if it helped lower bandwidth costs for the CR and reduce strain on the hamsters. As far as I’m concerned it is exactly what it says it is: mundane, and pointless.