Ravings of an emotionally unstable fan.
Jan. 2nd, 2010 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So, I heard it through the grapevine that all of the yuletide stories are being moved to A3O. I don't move in that circle, so everything I know comes secondhand. I've only ever written one story that's on the yuletide website, a NYR story. It was a whim, and I was still thinking that fandom might work for me.
This was several years ago. There was nothing bad about the experience.
Since then I've come to a few realizations about myself. One of them is, I was born, and will probably die, an outsider. I don't fit. Sometimes, for short periods, with certain groups, I can be part of the in-crowd. But I always ask the wrong questions, the ones nobody else thinks of. I always cause trouble, and I need way too much down time from people, and I'm way, way too needy.
The movers and shakers of fandom don't want to answer my questions, they don't want to be bothered with my moodiness, and they certainly don't want to cater to my needs, which are emotional in nature.
They do want my stories. I've had more than one offer to archive my stories, and I've said yes more than once because of my neediness. I thought the offer to "work with me" on putting my stories online meant they wanted to spend some time with me. What I found out was that except of approving a layout and emailing the stories, I was now extraneous to the whole process. So I've put my stories back in my pocket and am (slowly) posting them on my LJ.
Now the yuletide stories are being moved to what I, in my infinite ignorance, consider to be a potentially more public venue, which I'm not comfortable with. (Why do I see it as being more public? Because it's supposed to be easier to find things there, because it has been so publicized and so has yuletide. Am I wrong about this? Everyone says so.)
It's also being run by movers and shakers--things always are; they're the ones who run things, they have the temperament for it, it's nothing against them. But I'm not comfortable with them. And I'm in a position of either letting them take my story and be quiet while put it wherever they want it--without, so far, them saying a word to me about it; or taking my story back and have people call me names.
Or I can orphan my story by taking my name off of it.
I wish they weren't using the word orphan. It's too poetic, it puts to sharp a point on the abandonment, it makes me feel terrible. I have abandonment issues. Call me a thief for taking my story back and I can deal with it. Say I'm making my story an orphan, I'll cry.
And I wish they weren't telling me again that I can go--just leave the story. Because I already know I'm extraneous, except for the stories.
I'm perfectly aware that I'm completely wrong about all of this, but being told how wrong I am is only going to push me harder into putting this story in my pocket, too. I'm perfectly aware that my feelings--and all this is nothing but my feelings--are indefensible. But I don't like it when the powerful people come and tell me how unreasonable I am not to want to do things their way. Not ask, just tell.
I can live with being disliked, considered a screwball, or an angry, shitty, classless, selfish jerkass, and I can live with people believing the lie that I'm doing this because I hate OTW and/or A3O. I can live with the whole rest of the world considering me irrational.
This was several years ago. There was nothing bad about the experience.
Since then I've come to a few realizations about myself. One of them is, I was born, and will probably die, an outsider. I don't fit. Sometimes, for short periods, with certain groups, I can be part of the in-crowd. But I always ask the wrong questions, the ones nobody else thinks of. I always cause trouble, and I need way too much down time from people, and I'm way, way too needy.
The movers and shakers of fandom don't want to answer my questions, they don't want to be bothered with my moodiness, and they certainly don't want to cater to my needs, which are emotional in nature.
They do want my stories. I've had more than one offer to archive my stories, and I've said yes more than once because of my neediness. I thought the offer to "work with me" on putting my stories online meant they wanted to spend some time with me. What I found out was that except of approving a layout and emailing the stories, I was now extraneous to the whole process. So I've put my stories back in my pocket and am (slowly) posting them on my LJ.
Now the yuletide stories are being moved to what I, in my infinite ignorance, consider to be a potentially more public venue, which I'm not comfortable with. (Why do I see it as being more public? Because it's supposed to be easier to find things there, because it has been so publicized and so has yuletide. Am I wrong about this? Everyone says so.)
It's also being run by movers and shakers--things always are; they're the ones who run things, they have the temperament for it, it's nothing against them. But I'm not comfortable with them. And I'm in a position of either letting them take my story and be quiet while put it wherever they want it--without, so far, them saying a word to me about it; or taking my story back and have people call me names.
Or I can orphan my story by taking my name off of it.
I wish they weren't using the word orphan. It's too poetic, it puts to sharp a point on the abandonment, it makes me feel terrible. I have abandonment issues. Call me a thief for taking my story back and I can deal with it. Say I'm making my story an orphan, I'll cry.
And I wish they weren't telling me again that I can go--just leave the story. Because I already know I'm extraneous, except for the stories.
I'm perfectly aware that I'm completely wrong about all of this, but being told how wrong I am is only going to push me harder into putting this story in my pocket, too. I'm perfectly aware that my feelings--and all this is nothing but my feelings--are indefensible. But I don't like it when the powerful people come and tell me how unreasonable I am not to want to do things their way. Not ask, just tell.
I can live with being disliked, considered a screwball, or an angry, shitty, classless, selfish jerkass, and I can live with people believing the lie that I'm doing this because I hate OTW and/or A3O. I can live with the whole rest of the world considering me irrational.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 02:37 am (UTC)My story is this: back several years ago I was active in fandom. I got the attention of a certain person who was writing (and publishing) an academic paper fanfiction and wanted to use my work in the process.
That freaked me out. I didn't want to be the subject of someone's study. I work in a very competitive field where everyone is always investigating everyone else, and the last thing I needed was my quirky side coming to light. I didn't want an essay published about my pron in an academic journal that would be around forever and ever. Even if it wasn't really about "me," I was paranoid that my fannish identity would be linked to my real identity. (Hey, that happens all the time.)
So I took my stuff off the internet. I figured that if the person wanted to use it, he or she could use it (it was posted publicly, after all), but that I wasn't going to just relinquish everything, and I certainly wasn't going to leave it up there for future seekers to sift through.
I got so much crap. People in the fandom said it was "unfair" of me not to finish WiPs and to deprive them of my work. And I felt bad until a fandom friend took me aside and said that under no uncertain terms did I owe anybody anything. That's the point of fanfiction: it's a no-strings-attached venture, it's free, nobody paid for it, and therefore you are not owned by anybody. Such are the pleasures of working in a medium that is free of market constraints. We never really get "credit" for our work (payment or real-world recognition), but we have a great deal of control over our stuff. Or, at least in theory.
I think AO3 defenders are bizarre. They are basically getting behind a group of people who want to academicize and homogenize fanfic. To put it plainly: OTW is a bunch of people who couldn't cut it as 18th century literature junior faculty, so they're basically trying to invent this new "transformative works" field on which to hang their academic ambitions. I firmly believe that these people are trying to use fans to get ahead (a la their rival Laura Hale). They might put a nicer spin on it--protecting fandom, preserving works, creating some big monumental archive that will legitimize fanfiction--but what they're doing is just another example of career-jockeying. Sure, they're not profiting off of AO3--not monetarily. But there are other ways of profiting. So I sort of can't believe that anyone would voluntarily hand over their stuff to AO3. I mean, you're basically saying, "Yes, make me your dissertation project."
So my bottom line is: You do what you want with your stuff. Don't let anyone bully you or pressure you into doing whatever with your stuff. It's yours, nobody else can lay claim to it, and it does not matter if you write something as a gift to someone else. You fulfilled your obligation, the gift was given back when it was given, and that doesn't mean that it has to remain on the internet forever.
(frozen) What.
Date: 2010-01-03 04:53 am (UTC)I could understand if you didn't like, or want to participate in OTW, if your own personal philosophy conflicts with the OTW's philosophy, but you are astoundingly uninformed--and willfully ignorant.
Have you bothered read the Who We Are (http://transformativeworks.org/about/people) section of the OTW site? That's a rhetorical question, since the answer is clear. The board is made up of WILDLY successful people--a Professor of Law at Georgetown who clerked for the Supreme Court; a Director of Film Studies and Professor of English at Muhlenberg; an MBA and CPA who worked for the U.S. Senate; and the woman who wrote the open-source code that has been the base for nearly every fannish archive that was created after she wrote it--oh, and a little something called the New York Times best-selling Temeraire series.
Yeah, they're all clearly people who couldn't cut it as 18th-century literature junior faculty.
(frozen) Re: What.
Date: 2010-01-03 05:02 am (UTC)(frozen) Re: What.
Date: 2010-01-03 05:16 am (UTC)I've also read the academic journal.
It's obvious you've never read any of Rebecca Tushnet or Francesca Coppa's work outside "the" journal.
As well as being a member of the equivalent of the Teabagging movement against OTW, you've created
(frozen) Re: What.
Date: 2010-01-03 05:39 am (UTC)What's clear to me--and what's becoming increasingly clear to me--is that you AO3 people are absolutely insane. Everyone is apparently required to get on board the OTW train, and anyone who questions the academic merit of such a project (and yes, there are questions of merit--large ones) is a teabagger or a bully or a sockpuppet. Good job furthering the negative perceptions of the OTW fear-mongering machine. You're making Laura Hale look sane and lucid, and I didn't think that was possible.
I could write a lengthy response as to why OTW's academic journal is, well, kind of a joke (and OTW is regarded as a joke in most academic circles--you probably don't need me to tell you that ... or maybe you do), but I don't think that merritcatk actually intended this post for such purposes. If you want to defend OTW's academic purpose (ha), you have your choice of wank threads already in full swing.
Obviously, if OTW's reputation as a serious academic venture were truly unassailable, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because you wouldn't have to defend the organization against an insignificant, anonymous teabagger like me with my big lies and misinformation. But what I said must have hit a note. Oh my.
(frozen) Re: What.
Date: 2010-01-03 05:55 am (UTC)No you don't, but it's clear you don't want the people who know you on your "real" lj to know what your point of view is. Since this account you've created has nothing at all on its profile page has no entries, no friends except itself, and was created fourteen days ago, I have no problem calling it a sockpuppet account.
I don't think that one post in a person's personal journal qualifies as a "teabagging" movement
The "teabagging" movement is full of angry people who don't actually know what they're angry about. I think that sums your up pretty well.
What's clear to me--and what's becoming increasingly clear to me--is that you AO3 people are absolutely insane.
Where on earth did you get the impression that I'm an AO3 (or OTW) person, for that matter? I have no part in OTW or AO3. I'm not on the board, I'm not a tester or coder, I'm not part of the PR department, I'm not anything at all when it comes to the project.
But what I said must have hit a note. Oh my.
Yeah, it hit a note because your ignorance and small-minded, petty vindictiveness is abhorrent to me. Could have been on any topic--happens to be on this one.
What would happen in your circle of fannish friends if you made these comments using your known lj-name? Why are you hiding? Because, you're clearly hiding. You don't have to reveal yourself, or give a Social Security number, or a CV. But not using your known identity makes you a coward. You want to dish it out while not having to take it--and you know it, or you wouldn't have created this account in the first place.
I have no interest in continuing this conversation--so lucky you. I'm handing you a guaranteed "go ahead and dish it out without any fear you'll have to take it" scenario. Enjoy.
(frozen) Re: What.
Date: 2010-01-03 06:01 am (UTC)(frozen) Re: What.
Date: 2010-01-03 07:04 pm (UTC)(frozen) Re: What.
Date: 2010-01-03 07:12 pm (UTC)No, you're really not, but I'll answer anyway.
Because this conversation hasn't been about the behavior of the people on the other side of the discussion. That's why I've had nothing to say about it.
As I said at my lj, if fandom does nothing but make you miserable, get out of it.
(frozen) Re: What.
Date: 2010-01-03 07:26 pm (UTC)And this is exactly what I was talking about in my post. I'm not being passive-aggressive, I'm being *careful,* because as I've told you before, you scare the fucking crap out of me!
And my post *was* about those on the other side. Thanks for coming over and saying nothing to me at all.
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Date: 2010-01-03 07:36 pm (UTC)I'm a shameless OTW fangirl (with no official connection, who has deliberately kept mostly quiet about it so's not to overly-infect OTW with my wank-cooties), but that doesn't mean I think all OTW-related squee has been polite and sensible.
While the official OTW comments (as much as there are any; that's kind of a blurry point) have been polite, although sometimes a bit sharp, some of the fangirl reactions have seemed to say "if you don't like the new archive/ wiki/ journal/ etc., you're doing fandom wrong!"
And no. The OTW may be the greatest thing that ever happened to ficfandom online... but that doesn't mean everyone needs to be happy about it. Doesn't mean it'll actually suit everyone's purposes; some people were/are very very happy with the way their fandom niches work(ed), and those are going to *change* with OTW and AO3, and they don't need to be happy about the changes.
Yuletide will be more public. It's not right now, 'cos AO3 is basically unknown. But AO3's plans include long-term archiving--the whole idea was "here's an archive that won't vanish in a wankfest between the mods, that won't change its policies every year to cater to the advertiser's new squicks, that won't remove stories for being, well, fanfic." And those are terrific goals. (I think we can all agree those are terrific goals, right?)
But those things come with costs. Publicity. Tagging that puts your stories next to ones you might not like. An interface that might not suit your preferences. Learning a new label/coding system. A support staff you might have bad personal history with.
Those are all good, valid reasons to say "I don't like this move. I don't want to put my stories there."
And there isn't any "opt out; keep doing fandom as I have been." AO3 *is* the new home for Yuletide; the choice is "participate in AO3" or "don't participate in YT."
I think the number of people who are truly bothered by that is very small. I think the old YT database was on its last legs; the servers had problems, and the search functions were getting unmanageable. I think the move is necessary and good.
I don't think that means it doesn't suck to be one of the people bothered by it. "Necessary" doesn't mean "everyone else should suck it up and be quiet."
If nothing else, maybe by making noise about it, the objectors will find some aspects of AO3 that *can* be fixed to their preferences, that weren't considered because they didn't bother anyone already there.
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Date: 2010-01-03 06:10 am (UTC)True.
but I suspect they're less than benevolent.
Who cares? You just said you don't understand what's going on.
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Date: 2010-01-03 08:45 pm (UTC)(frozen) no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 09:08 pm (UTC)But I was still interested in her opinion. And from the things that have been said in the last 24 hours, there seem to be a lot of people who can't tell the difference between what I've said and she's said.
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Date: 2010-01-03 06:46 pm (UTC)As far as I know, I have nothing against the people behind OTW or AOOO--I don't know who they are.
I just know that I need to limit who reads what I write.
I do find it fascinating that the defenders OTW/AOOO seem to demonize anyone who just doesn't want to play in their sandbox right along with people who dislike or detest what they're doing. And then they call us teabaggers.
*sigh.* It's a brave new world.
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 07:31 pm (UTC)FYI, the AO3 actually gives you *more* ability to do this than the old Yuletide archive does. It's not very fine-grained -- you can limit to logged-in archive users -- but it's about as much control as can reasonably be expected for such a huge challenge.
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 08:48 pm (UTC)On my LJ, I know the screen names of everyone who might be reading my posts. Because it's such a small number, and because I read these people's posts and follow what they say about their lives, I'm comfortable not getting comments on stories. And I'm comfortable saying more than I would to a larger group with lots of strangers in it.
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Date: 2010-01-03 08:50 pm (UTC)(frozen) no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 09:04 pm (UTC)I'm not asking anyone to change anything. I just want my story.
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Date: 2010-01-03 09:49 pm (UTC)And yeah, the reason I use my own name is basically because I'm an obstinate bitch and that's well known anyway. lol Why hide?
Why would anyone have a problem with someone disliking a format of an archive? We're supposed to never question archives? Is this an infallibility clause, like the Pope? God, I'd have been a crappy Catholic.
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2010-01-03 09:58 pm (UTC)And why do you think I'm such a crappy Catholic?
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Date: 2010-01-03 10:15 pm (UTC)