Update

[janedavitt]

My Moonridge fic is now done and with its awesome beta, wesleysgirl. It's 30,000 words, well over the 20,000 words I promised, so I feel happy about that. Today, I started work on my next novel, which has to be handed in on Sept 1. I love the plot and I'd already drafted an outline and done 5000 words so I'm excited but I'm feeling very fannish about Numb3rs right now (just about to start the season 2 finale) and I'm torn wanting to write fic for it.

When they give me Don telling Charlie that he supposes he'll have to go on his knees for him and doing it, so they can play fight, it's hard to resist ;-) And I'm such a baa lamb; the Colby love kicked in just like you all told me it would with the episode where a shooter comes into the FBI offices. Loved that final scene with him and David drinking beer and going on to have comfort sex and the way he's so fascinated by Charlie.


I've been following the SG-1 comm kerfuffle over at Fandom Wank. Just utterly incredulous and so very disappointed in how it all went down. I felt my embarrassment squick kick in full force just reading that totally uncalled for reaction to a fic and I'm equally bemused by the fact that the only ones apologizing are the people I see as the victims.

This wank is profoundly depressing.

Fandom's lost some of its shiny.

ETA Recent posts by some of the people involved (links in the comments) have improved the situation some. Still a mess, though. It just goes to show how easy it is for things to go boom :-(

ETA2 Just been pointed out that the links in comments are on the DW post so adding them to the main post:

http://clan-mitchell.dreamwidth.org/13097.html

http://goldjadeocean.dreamwidth.org/71130.html

http://slybrarian.dreamwidth.org/67283.html

http://quinfirefrorefiddle.dreamwidth.org/34029.html

Thanks, green_grrl for pointing them out.

Comments

[carolyn_claire]

DW has lost just a little of its shiny for me, too.

[janedavitt]

I'm trying really hard to keep the two things separate and Synecdochic's post has helped. I love the idea of DW and I hope that this doesn't affect how it's perceived.

[carolyn_claire]

I don't think it can help affecting it, to some degree. What she's said lately feels like too little, too late, to me, for all kinds of reasons. I'm not going to give up on DW, but I understand better why some have had reservations about Denise all along; I can't fault anyone for not wanting to join on that account, if they have history.

[green_grrl]

Thanks for the pointer. I'm just that much more glad I backed away from IG a long time ago, for this very reason. In better news, recent f_w comments show that three of the people involved have made wonderfully balanced posts, and it seems they are walking away from it not victimized (here, here, and here). So that's a good thing.

[janedavitt]

Thanks for the links! Yes, and Synecdochic has made a good post here

http://clan-mitchell.dreamwidth.org/13097.html

which makes me feel better. Not that me feeling better matters to anyone but me, but you know what I mean :-)

[green_grrl]

Ooo, thanks for that! No, I get it--I feel better, too. I know she's in a bad space, and I'm glad she could gather enough wherewithall to get that up.

[ninetydegrees]

To me, a good part of what makes a fandom thrives is how varied fics are and how often challenging fics are published. My most-loved fandoms don't seem to have limits, for better or worse. I feel that some fandoms never "take off" because everybody writes the characters more or less the same way and congratulate each other on a job well done. That's always made me leave the fandom.

I'm not an author but I can imagine how upsetting it can be to see what people do with your universe (I don't like what some people have done with my designs) but I don't really understand explicitly inviting people to play in your universe and expecting people to play by some rules (either you share or you don't; it doesn't seem to me there's a middle road).

[janedavitt]

::nods:: That's pretty much it. Me, I wouldn't like it, so I'd never join a remix ficathon say. I wouldn't ever stop people, but I like my fics the way I wrote them :-)

[tesserae]

Thanks for the update. I've added the link to Syne's post to my lj entry. It's a good letter, and I hope that she... develops a more functional set of personal boundaries, I guess is as good a way of putting it as anything. I suspect that, at some point, she's going to need to rethink how she interacts with DW if 6 people weighing in with a very mild criticism can upset her this badly. And I hope that, as a company, they've got a plan for sustaining operations if one of them can't any longer, for whatever reason. It's always an issue with charismatic firms...

[janedavitt]

Yes, in some ways there something to be said for the people owning something being faceless suits; you don't get to know them and feel upset when they prove they're human.

And really, it's unfair to expect them to be anything else. I can't throw stones. I know I've been as spectacularly stupid in the past (and ended up on F-W myself now and then, way back when) but no one cared much because well, I'm not a BNF so I guess I can slip under the radar. The people involved here...not so much.

[tesserae]

It's not even the whole failing-publicly-because-you're-a-bnf - my issue (and this is the teacher in me) was that that they both let loose on those people *in their capacity as community mods* and then deleted the evidence. Syne's position as head of DW puts her in the added position of being queen of (this) world, at which point everybody just has to rely on her coming to the realization that lines have been crossed, yadda yadda, and doing the right thing - what if she hadn't?

This online world is *way* more than a hobby for a lot of people, and it's disingenous to say, oh, it's just the internet. You remember how damaged people were by some of those kerfuffles in Buffy fandom - DW is a second home, by design, for its devotees, and that's why I think it's really troubling.

I think she's said the right things, and I hope DW as an organization learns a whacking great lesson from this. Of course people are going to get their feelings hurt; it's how they react that's important and, as business owners, they have an obligation to put things in place to ensure long-term stability so that the emotional/financial investment everyone's made in this is respected.

(Says the person who doesn't have a paid account - or much of an emotional investment - here...)

[janedavitt]

I hate that portions of the post and fic were deleted -- so stupid, too, when someone ALWAYS makes screencaps. And yes, I'd never say it doesn't count because it happens in here. I've lain awake nights, extremely upset and worked up over kerfuffles -- and gained comfort and a sense of identity here, too.

It's real.

And it's hard to be the director and an actor on stage at the same time.

I like DW and the idea behind it and I'm a paid user -- but mostly that's because I wanted to support what I saw as a fannish endeavour. Truthfully, I'm more attached to LJ for all its flaws and issues because I've been there so long. If DW disappeared, I'd be sorry; if LJ went, I'd be devastated.

[mab_browne]

I'm glad to see a more explicit expression from many of the parties, especially Synecdochic, of the fact that Ivorygates was way, way out of line. This eases my mind a bit.

[janedavitt]

Mine, too.