Spontaneous Musings

Roche and his posts were ones that annoyed the living hell out of me. His posts were presumably vaguely funny but -- to me -- only in the crudest possible way. I did call him on it, sorta, by replying with a counterpoint to his rather imagistically disgusting "preview" of the new AtS season that struck me as being beyond deliberately provocative to the point of schoolboy insults. And in a rare case of retreat for me, I chose not to stand up and ask people "Why is this acceptable? And how would the reaction play out if Angel and Spike had their roles reversed in that piece? Why do people who would see flaming red over Spike being cast as a dirty, stupid jerk laughing at and praising this?" Unfortunately, I didn't want to flame-war, nor did I care to engage in an endless and irresolvable debate over how people would react in a hypothetical. I did reply with my own scenario -- much less crude, much funnier (IMHO), and snarking at both Angel and Spike -- but didn't take the step of calling people on the original issue. Maybe I should have stood up, but it was just not worth the fight, as far as I'm concerned. Everybody would lose. As people probably know, I tend not to be intimidated easily, so it was an unusual thing for me. The upshot is that whatever intelligent thoughts I might be able to offer usually go through a mental filter that screens out anything that will get me into a protracted debate on certain characters and issues. I'd just as soon not bother with that. Though sometimes the snark does show through, heh. The persecution complex that all sides apparently feel just wears me out. I'm a Clemdrew/the original Scoobies/Fred kinda person. Those are the characters I feel free to talk about. Okay, to be honest, for whatever reason, few people take me to the task on the board or flame me. For which I am profoundly grateful. I'd just as soon stick to the rational debates and well-considered counterpoints. However, many other posters have to suffer from endless arguments fueled primarily by the trolls and borderline trolls -- Q (I just wanted to strangle him after he began his massively insulting attacks on Spike, I swear to God), Claudia, SpikeLover -- and, like Earl Alison, decide it's not worth the headache to present their perspective.