Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself.
[ETA: I should probably mention that reading the entire main narrative by the Duchess is a serious time commitment...]
Perhaps some of you who are members of HP fandom are already familiar with this, but I just found it and have been utterly transfixed.
(I am large, and contain multitudes.)
(For those of you not up on your 19th Century American poetry, that's Whitman - Song of Myself. Leaves of Grass got me through my junior year of college.)
Now, when I set up this LJ, I didn't really anticipate using it for Deep Thoughts. Mostly because I tend not to have any on fandom and fen -- I'm a historical sociologist and all this Internet stuff is about 70 years after my area of academic interest (pre-WWII US agriculture, if you really want to know.) I leave that to my buddy Quidam, who's writing his dissertation on such issues. But, having spent really far too much time reading this story, I'm just fascinated. What would be the impetus for an obviously educated, witty, and if half what she says can be believed apparently quite successful woman to engage in the kind of complete artifice this person has engaged in? Is her real life so empty she has to resort to such tactics to gain attention and approval from others she is unlikely to ever meet in RL? (Nimbus aside...) What could possibly be her reasons?
So, while I was considering all this questions (and sending Quidam the link, since it's *perfect* material for his diss) I suddenly had to stop and sit down, my head a little bit reeling. (Okay, a lot reeling.) I had suddenly realized: I've done this. Not to the degree MsScribe apparently did, and not certainly not for the same reasons, but I have posted as a sockpuppet. So, in interest of full disclosure, here it is. I'd written a fic. The challenge for someone who doesn't believe in WIPs and therefore doesn't post/update the same story repeatedly over months (in my case, probably years...sorry about that, BTW) is your story is only at the top of the list on whatever hosting site you're using once. It has the fannish perishability of unrefrigerated raw milk. It gets lost almost immediately, and with it your chance of any kind of feedback. What to do, what to do.... I know! Post a list of fic recs to a completely different site using a different username and just *happen* to include your story in the list. (To be fair, this was a site I already visited and a username I already had.) So I did. For which I completely and abjectly apologize. I was desperate -- I'd posted the story several days earlier and had no idea if anyone had even read the thing, much less if it was any good. It was only once, and after reading the bad_penny site, I'll never do it again. It's obviously a slippery slope.
None of this really helps me understand MsScribe better. My sins, while real, are piddling compared to hers. To be honest, as much as I don't understand her, I pity her. I suffer from an assortment of psychological disorders for which I take a pharmacopeia of medications. I desperately crave the approval of others, and frequently worry that people are saying Bad Things about me behind my back, and and yet I could never imagine feeling as hollow as she must feel. It would be more than I could endure.
Now, if you'll excuse me, for reasons I have no interest in going into, I am drunk and smell like sauerkraut. I can't do anything about the first one except get more drunk (there's a thought!) but a shower should deal with the second. So, like any good educator, I leave you with:
Discuss amongst yourselves.
Perhaps some of you who are members of HP fandom are already familiar with this, but I just found it and have been utterly transfixed.
(I am large, and contain multitudes.)
(For those of you not up on your 19th Century American poetry, that's Whitman - Song of Myself. Leaves of Grass got me through my junior year of college.)
Now, when I set up this LJ, I didn't really anticipate using it for Deep Thoughts. Mostly because I tend not to have any on fandom and fen -- I'm a historical sociologist and all this Internet stuff is about 70 years after my area of academic interest (pre-WWII US agriculture, if you really want to know.) I leave that to my buddy Quidam, who's writing his dissertation on such issues. But, having spent really far too much time reading this story, I'm just fascinated. What would be the impetus for an obviously educated, witty, and if half what she says can be believed apparently quite successful woman to engage in the kind of complete artifice this person has engaged in? Is her real life so empty she has to resort to such tactics to gain attention and approval from others she is unlikely to ever meet in RL? (Nimbus aside...) What could possibly be her reasons?
So, while I was considering all this questions (and sending Quidam the link, since it's *perfect* material for his diss) I suddenly had to stop and sit down, my head a little bit reeling. (Okay, a lot reeling.) I had suddenly realized: I've done this. Not to the degree MsScribe apparently did, and not certainly not for the same reasons, but I have posted as a sockpuppet. So, in interest of full disclosure, here it is. I'd written a fic. The challenge for someone who doesn't believe in WIPs and therefore doesn't post/update the same story repeatedly over months (in my case, probably years...sorry about that, BTW) is your story is only at the top of the list on whatever hosting site you're using once. It has the fannish perishability of unrefrigerated raw milk. It gets lost almost immediately, and with it your chance of any kind of feedback. What to do, what to do.... I know! Post a list of fic recs to a completely different site using a different username and just *happen* to include your story in the list. (To be fair, this was a site I already visited and a username I already had.) So I did. For which I completely and abjectly apologize. I was desperate -- I'd posted the story several days earlier and had no idea if anyone had even read the thing, much less if it was any good. It was only once, and after reading the bad_penny site, I'll never do it again. It's obviously a slippery slope.
None of this really helps me understand MsScribe better. My sins, while real, are piddling compared to hers. To be honest, as much as I don't understand her, I pity her. I suffer from an assortment of psychological disorders for which I take a pharmacopeia of medications. I desperately crave the approval of others, and frequently worry that people are saying Bad Things about me behind my back, and and yet I could never imagine feeling as hollow as she must feel. It would be more than I could endure.
Now, if you'll excuse me, for reasons I have no interest in going into, I am drunk and smell like sauerkraut. I can't do anything about the first one except get more drunk (there's a thought!) but a shower should deal with the second. So, like any good educator, I leave you with:
Discuss amongst yourselves.