the combined idiocy of the human race (yes, me included) could power a supernova. i am just saying

[edenfalling]

A PM I got on ff.net tonight:

Name: [redacted]
--------------------

Subject: Hi

Hi.

I don't suppose you would help me re-write, edit and polish my story Prom Date?

It's about a teenage boy looking for a date for the prom who has the
misfortune to encounter The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday and gets sold a magical item that turns _him_ into the one being taken to the Prom dance i.e. a girl.

I'm sorry if i upset you by asking this.

Some of the things in Prom Date may not come across right. For example I was trying to convey the horror that a teenage boy would feel at being magically forced to put on things like a bra and spray themselves with perfume.

I'm a boy so i don't know what a girl wears to Prom or does to prepare for it so I based that part on stereotypical stories I'd heard. I could use the help of anyone

--------------------

...Is there something on my ff.net profile that makes people think I am open to random strangers asking me for advice on a story that enforces offensive ideas about stereotypical gender roles, just because I happen to be female and from America? Because ewww.

No. No, I will NOT help you rewrite, edit, or polish (in any sense of the word!) your story. No, I do not believe you are sorry for upsetting me. And for your information, bras are not, in fact, magically required for performing femininity in public, and I have never worn perfume in my entire 30 years of life as a girl and woman.

Go away and never talk to me again.

x-x-x-x-x

ETA: I sent him a very angry response, which I am now feeling embarrassed about. (Hence the edited subject line.) I could easily have been less harsh, but I've had a long week and I've been overdosing on articles about sexist media coverage of female Olympians, so I am I really not in the mood to suffer this kind of fool tonight.

...

Which just means I should have waited until tomorrow. *headdesk*

Comments

[branchandroot]

*looks at it* Honestly, that looks like a troll to me. I've started getting anime-targeted troll spam at my archive. Some of it really does look a lot like what you see on every forum ever when The Stupid is running high, and the only real way to tell is to combine "how on-target is this for where it was left" with "does it have a suspicious email attached". FF.N doesn't show you the email, but that looks an awful lot like one of those troll-spams. Some asshole discovered the tinder that is fandom and is being, well, an asshole running around with matches. FF.N can't be any harder to find the access points on than Wordpress.

And if it was a real person? They kind of deserved to be flamed into next week, and hopefully will learn from it.

[cofax7]

Wow, that's pretty random. But I wonder if it wasn't also someone indulging in some fetishism, rather than an honest request…

[edenfalling]

He answered in a very kicked-puppy fashion, to which I responded somewhat more temperately but still pointing out that he was being a dumbass and that raising inflammatory topics like sexuality and gender presentation WITH COMPLETE STRANGERS was a bad idea. Then he answered AGAIN to inform me that he was interested in Princess Anastasia style floofy dresses or something, and I decided that even if he was really an idiot young teenage boy and just wanted a friend, no, I do not have the time and energy, let alone the patience, to adopt socially maladjusted puppies, and ignored him. He hasn't messaged me since.

[edenfalling]

I dunno, his response to my response came across fairly kicked-puppy young idiot teenage boy, but even so, I wash my hands of him. Fortunately he seems to have taken silence as a signal to back off.

[branchandroot]

Definitely a bullet dodged, there. *shakes head* Oi, internets.

[cherokee1.livejournal.com]

Wow. That sounds like no fun.
You seem to be an awesome person, and that does come through in your writing,
but nothing on your profile or stories tells of being willing to mentor or be insulted by
(I'm guessing) a tweenie boy.
I only just clued into the inappropriate coverage of the olympics this week.
With no tv, and being flooded with images via Yahoo, I have been avoiding
the whole thing.
Would it make me angry? Cause I have no interest in that.
Hope your weekend is marvelous!
C

[monkey5s.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I kind of find a faint stench of... troll, perhaps, from his or her e-mail. I mean, you write strong female characters who really don't fit into a stereotypical gender role, so why visit this absurd request on you?

And let's just ignore the total skeevishness of what s/he is allegedly trying to convey in the plot.

Personally, I think you were well within range of normal reactions to send an angry response. It might be feeding a troll, but if it's not, that person needs to know that it is inappropriate on their part. And I can't help wondering how many other writers this person has targeted with this crap.

Just... ugh.

[edenfalling]

I dunno, I didn't watch the Olympics myself, but while websurfing for other things I kept running across articles decrying the presenters' (or random Twitter users') focus on, say, a gymnast's hair instead of her amazing floor routine, and I read the articles out of morbid curiosity and then spent a while wondering how we have had a women's rights movement since at least Seneca Falls and the Declaration of Sentiments and yet we are still drowning in this bullshit. :-(

My last weekend was kind of blehh, but this one has been much better, both in terms of my mood and my productivity!

[edenfalling]

He replied to my rant with a pretty convincing air of kicked-puppy young idiot teenage boy, so I was more temperate when I responded again and pointed out that raising sensitive topics like sexuality and gender roles WITH COMPLETE STRANGERS is a seriously dumbass move. Then he messaged me AGAIN to say that he was interested in Princess Anatasia floofy dresses or some such nonsense, and I just threw up my hands and ignored him because I am not in the business of adopting and socializing puppies. Fortunately he seems to have taken my silence as the brush-off it was and has not messaged me since.