The Curtain Falls on MsScribe (and other randomosities)

[mudblood428]

Firstly, I just found out that my big fic, After the Die is Cast is now a featured story at Mugglenet Fanfiction! *squee* It definitely brightened my day to see that - check it out on the left task bar if you're curious and don't mind that the first two chapters are *cough*rubbish*cough*. Yay

Comments

[peachespig]

None of us can run from the karmic boomerang; it's only a matter of when it'll strike.

I guess I have less faith in karma - I think sometimes people do things that are wrong and still really, genuinely get away with it, without consequences. Sad as it may seem. Which makes it all the more gratifying to me when they don't. Like this time.

At the risk of sounding arrogant, I think the fandom can learn a bit from the fanart community.

You know, I've noticed this. I've noticed it and I've thought about it - how people will comment to you "Oh, I usually hate H/G but this is so beautiful" or something like that. How people are willing to see something in someone else's ship when it's represented in art, when the same people won't do it in other situations.

I can come up with two reasons for it. First of all, what you and other artists do is beautiful - so people can look at it and say "Wow" even if they didn't feel anything for the pairing before. Whereas I can type "Isn't it great how Harry and Ginny do this and this and this" and people who already agree will agree, but people who don't won't feel anything, because they don't have the compelling power of the pretty pulling at them.

But secondly, I think art is much less threatening somehow. If I say to someone "H/G is the way it's supposed to be" then maybe I'm challenging their beliefs, I'm telling them they're wrong, and they don't like it, and we argue. But a picture doesn't make those demands - it's not threatening in the same way. It doesn't say you're wrong. A work of art engages a different part of the brain and a different part of the ego somehow, and it's much easier to appreciate that even if it goes against your preferences. In that way, you guys are quite lucky.

Sorry for the tl;dr, just some random thoughts. :)

Here's hoping that, even if delawarean hasn't learned anything, The MsScribe Story can teach us all a little bit about what's worth fighting over and the value of being the most genuine version of ourselves as possible.

Hear hear!

[mudblood428]

I can come up with two reasons for it. First of all, what you and other artists do is beautiful - so people can look at it and say "Wow" even if they didn't feel anything for the pairing before. Whereas I can type "Isn't it great how Harry and Ginny do this and this and this" and people who already agree will agree, but people who don't won't feel anything, because they don't have the compelling power of the pretty pulling at them.

But secondly, I think art is much less threatening somehow. If I say to someone "H/G is the way it's supposed to be" then maybe I'm challenging their beliefs, I'm telling them they're wrong, and they don't like it, and we argue. But a picture doesn't make those demands - it's not threatening in the same way. It doesn't say you're wrong. A work of art engages a different part of the brain and a different part of the ego somehow, and it's much easier to appreciate that even if it goes against your preferences. In that way, you guys are quite lucky.

Those are very astute observations, Oliver. Picture and words really are two different animals, aren't they? With anything written or spoken, it seems things are instantly thrown into the arena, and it's a shame. Debates are to be expected, and that's fine because theorizing is what we literary types do. :) But there is something seriously troubling to me when healthy debate turns to vicious mudslinging. It's a shame that certain people/topics in this fandom instigate reckless combative behavior. Having been on the receiving end of it (Halloween and the "equals" picture), I wonder where all the paranoia began, and whether MsScribe was indeed the start of it all....

[peachespig]

I wonder where all the paranoia began, and whether MsScribe was indeed the start of it all....

I think she preyed on it and made it worse but didn't start it. It really goes all the way back to the Harry Potter for Grown-Ups mailing list in 2000-2001, when the founders of SQ and FA met and started arguing over ships and grew to dislike each other before creating their separate web sites. And of course Cassie Claire's stalker. Msscribe was opportunistic - she could see, I suppose, that the siutation was ripe for becoming even worse.

I'm sorry that you had to go through the Halloween thing as your baptism into fandom. In a way that was a collision between a more old-fashioned attitude - Fiction Alley's "every ship is equally special" maxim that made a lot more sense in 2001 - and the straightforward "modern" expectations of people who wanted to just acknowledge the canon of all six books.

[mudblood428]

Goodness gracious. I'd've jumped ship altogether, no pun intended, if I was on that mailing list. But it makes sense. It probably would have been only a matter of time before someone else did/said something awful to start an all-out shipping brawl. *headdesk*

As to the Halloween thing, I actually look back on it as a positive thing. You guys came to my defense before I even knew what Star22 had said and through it I had the wonderful fortune of meeting the people on FAP_orangetrees. :) Plus, it sort of woke me up to the craziness - I hadn't experienced the ship divide before then and I think it prompted me to be a lot more careful about who got access to my artwork. (In case you hadn't heard, I'm auctioning off the original Halloween artwork to raise money for cancer. Here's hoping a little bit of the wank attached to it can benefit a good cause!)

[psychic_serpent]

I guess I have less faith in karma - I think sometimes people do things that are wrong and still really, genuinely get away with it, without consequences.

I know what you mean. In my own situation, despite all of the niggling feelings, the hard evidence I finally found was utterly by accident and because of something someone else did, not the guilty party. If I'd never found that I'd probably still be in the situation I was. In the case of MS it's more like the brand of criminal (even though what she did wasn't illegal) that sort of WANTS to be caught so there's sloppiness, cryptic clues laid out for those investigating, and even outright proclamations of guilt done in such a way that people assume that she's JOKING! (On a survey about "who is fandom_scruples" MS voted for HERSELF!) That sort of hubris is really the reason for her being brought down, plus the urge to escalate the activities and scatter more and more clues before people, while she laughs privately at the fact that the clues are flying over most people's heads (or the ones who could really bring her down).

I think the split between the way people react to art and words is very real, because in the end everyone can interpret images the way they want to if there are no accompanying words but words are usually unequivocal ("all interpretations are valid" notwithstanding :D). Take the H/G banner with the word "Equals" accompanying it; without the word it's likely that no flaming would have occurred. With the word (a SINGLE word!)--flames. But not for the art, technically.

[mudblood428]

I think the split between the way people react to art and words is very real, because in the end everyone can interpret images the way they want to if there are no accompanying words but words are usually unequivocal ("all interpretations are valid" notwithstanding :D).

You're quite right - words and pictures do operate on totally different sets of signifiers. However, I'm inclined to think that words are more abstract than pictures. It's easier to accept a pairing when they're drawn together right before your eyes looking every bit as content together as their shippers imagine them to be - I've even had funny comments on artwork from anti-H/G shippers the likes of "seeing Harry and Ginny like this might convert me!". Words, on the other hand, carry the extra burden of creating reality from abstraction, conveying exactly what we mean when the truth is that words can be interpreted a myriad of ways. For instance, I used the word "Equals" on the banner because it's a word that JKR used to describe Harry and Ginny and it happened to be Ginny Appreciation Week - simple as that. However, the person who flamed me thought I had ulterior motives, perhaps took it as an attack on their OTP, and instead of merely expressing a disagreement with JKR's words, they decided to be nasty about it. That kind of reaction involves a brand of paranoia that I didn't create, but more importantly, it plays into the illusion that words are unequivocal when the meaning of words is relatively unstable.

lol - English major shutting up now! :) I guess what I was trying to say overall is that there's never ever an excuse to be cruel and combative - regardless of ship preference. Hurting others over fictional characters will never make sense to me.

And as to karmic justice... I think I just outed myself as a believer in the afterlife. ;)

[peachespig]

Take the H/G banner with the word "Equals" accompanying it; without the word it's likely that no flaming would have occurred. With the word (a SINGLE word!)--flames. But not for the art, technically.

Amazing point, and very true.