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"Experts"
Don't you like "expert" readers who just love to correct "mistakes" in your stories - mistakes that aren't there in the first place?
I know it's stupid to get so upset about it. It only causes me splitting headaches every time. Still, I get annoyed when it happens. Why? Because I do my goddamn homework, and the canon facts I present in my stories - completely regardless of what particualar fandom we are speaking about - are solid canon facts. I point it out in my goddamn Author's Notes whenever I change or bend something.
After a long time, I finally got some reviews on TFF-net - God knows it happens rarely enough. They were positive reviews generally. But the helpful and eager reader found it necessary to point out that only Ilúvatar could create living beings, therefore my presentation of the Dwarven creation myth in "A Dwarven Yuletide" must be mistaken. Although she dutifully added that she needed to re-read the Silmarillion to be sure. Then why the Hell mention it?
She also pointed out that Christmas didn't exist at the time when LOTR takes place. Now, aside from the fact that for me LOTR doesn't take place in any particular historical age (Tolkien rejected the idea early on, sometime around the first version of "The Book of the Lost Tales", I don't remember that I'd ever used the word "Christmas". And Yule was a feast mentioned in the Mannish calendars in the Appendices.
She also reminded me that certain spices weren't known in England at that time. In her review to "Winter Solstice". Well, excuse me, I thought frigging LOTR took place in Middle-Earth, not in England, right? And so the entire argument is moot. Not to mention that - according to "Life in a Medieval City" by Joseph and Frances Gies - most exotic spices were already known in 13th-century Europe, so I wasn't soo far from historic facts, either.
Finally, she mentioned considering ˇAstonishment in Mirkwood" that she doesn't believe Elven hair would change colour the way I invented it for my Silvan Elves, and that she preferred Legolas blond. Well, I'm so fucking sorry! It's not as if Elves would be real creatures with real genetics involved or whatnot. So what if I made their hair change with the changes of the seasons. I still find it a clever idea, and I still hate blonde bimbo!Legolas. So there!
Yes, I know it all was well-meant and she tried to be helpful. I'd still wish people could get their frigging facts straight before they start criticizing others who do a great deal of research to make a story work. That's why I like SoA - there an author can answer the reviewers on the review board and set such things straight instead of having to let other readers think that s/he's an idiot who didn't know his/her stuff.
In lesser extents, such things have happened to me in the Trek fandom, too, and in Andromeda. But sometimes I think the Tolkien fandom is the worst of all that I know.
Okay, I'm feeling better now.
I know it's stupid to get so upset about it. It only causes me splitting headaches every time. Still, I get annoyed when it happens. Why? Because I do my goddamn homework, and the canon facts I present in my stories - completely regardless of what particualar fandom we are speaking about - are solid canon facts. I point it out in my goddamn Author's Notes whenever I change or bend something.
After a long time, I finally got some reviews on TFF-net - God knows it happens rarely enough. They were positive reviews generally. But the helpful and eager reader found it necessary to point out that only Ilúvatar could create living beings, therefore my presentation of the Dwarven creation myth in "A Dwarven Yuletide" must be mistaken. Although she dutifully added that she needed to re-read the Silmarillion to be sure. Then why the Hell mention it?
She also pointed out that Christmas didn't exist at the time when LOTR takes place. Now, aside from the fact that for me LOTR doesn't take place in any particular historical age (Tolkien rejected the idea early on, sometime around the first version of "The Book of the Lost Tales", I don't remember that I'd ever used the word "Christmas". And Yule was a feast mentioned in the Mannish calendars in the Appendices.
She also reminded me that certain spices weren't known in England at that time. In her review to "Winter Solstice". Well, excuse me, I thought frigging LOTR took place in Middle-Earth, not in England, right? And so the entire argument is moot. Not to mention that - according to "Life in a Medieval City" by Joseph and Frances Gies - most exotic spices were already known in 13th-century Europe, so I wasn't soo far from historic facts, either.
Finally, she mentioned considering ˇAstonishment in Mirkwood" that she doesn't believe Elven hair would change colour the way I invented it for my Silvan Elves, and that she preferred Legolas blond. Well, I'm so fucking sorry! It's not as if Elves would be real creatures with real genetics involved or whatnot. So what if I made their hair change with the changes of the seasons. I still find it a clever idea, and I still hate blonde bimbo!Legolas. So there!
Yes, I know it all was well-meant and she tried to be helpful. I'd still wish people could get their frigging facts straight before they start criticizing others who do a great deal of research to make a story work. That's why I like SoA - there an author can answer the reviewers on the review board and set such things straight instead of having to let other readers think that s/he's an idiot who didn't know his/her stuff.
In lesser extents, such things have happened to me in the Trek fandom, too, and in Andromeda. But sometimes I think the Tolkien fandom is the worst of all that I know.
Okay, I'm feeling better now.