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

[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!)