lately, I took a second look, I could write a book about love

[sab]

Hope posted, a week or so ago, her take on ficathon etiquette. Some valid points were made, both agreeing and disagreeing, and while I tend to agree that it's good fangirl behaviour to toss a tacit thanks to the person who wrote your ficathon assignment -- and even better behaviour to find some good things to say about it -- I can get behind the idea of, "oh, it's like an improv, you just get the elements to work with, the person who gave you the improv elements doesn't owe you anything." Still, in the interest of back-slapping, and the supportive environment of fandom, I feel like some feedback isn't out of line.

With Pun's recent feedback challenge shining some light on that brighter side of fannish community, I'm feeling all-around pleased as punch by the way folks are willing to support one another here in our crazy business. We're in it for the love, people.

So, see Sab play petty.

First off, I've done a bunch of ficathons this year, and am enlisted for a bunch more, and I've always gotten great responses from the people I've written for, and have tried to offer friendly/supportive/squeeing feedback for everyone who's written a challenge of mine.

I wrote two stories for the Remix/Redux, and got really rocking feedback on 'em both from the fannish populace at large. My two assignees were molly36 and allcanadiangirl, and I haven't heard back from either of them. Through the grapevine I hear Molly's crazy busy, so I'm not worried or upset or anything, and -- being often slow on the draw for feedback myself -- I'm certainly not expecting immediate gratification.

But then, you see. (And man, this is catty of me.) I wandered over to allcanadiangirl's LJ today, just to peek. And I saw this post.

[edited to provide proper URL]

So, eh. I'm annoyed. It just strikes me as so passive-aggressive and lame and bitchy, or maybe I'm overreacting. But anyway, it's not an example of what I love about fandom and the fannish community. It's just tacky, I think. And it's her own LJ, she can say what she pleases, but I feel like a rattled-off e-mail to me saying "thanks!" would not have been out of line.

I think it's simply because I've been trained to see this community of ours as such an overwhelmingly friendly place, and because part of the fannish experience is to share the love with fellow fans, to give 'em props for their contributions and to enjoy the fact that we're all in this together. I am *so* not in it with that girl.

Comments

[nestra.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm really relieved to see that someone else in fandom feels this way, because I've been harboring a secret alienation to all things 'remix' through the last few challenges of this sort.

Oh, people totally feel this way. I wouldn't even know where to begin with someone else's story, and my stories are mine, and they may not be brilliant, but I suspect I'd snarl if someone else touched them, even with the best of intentions.

The Remix thing is great, and musesfool does a kickass job of running it, and it's great that people have fun with it, but shrift and I mostly sit back and say, "Huh."

[iamsab.livejournal.com]

See, and I find it so fascinating and fun. This was the first year I've done it, but I'm a big fan and plan to throw myself on the pile next year too.

I mean, my story doesn't go anywhere just because someone remixes it, and when I set out to remix the other authors I made it a challenge to see how I could reinterpret them, maintain the spirit but give it an altogether new spin.

Selfishly, I like to believe that people read both the remix and the original, so, you know, if someone remixes a story of mine and steals a brilliant idea, all a body's gotta do is go back to the source material to see that that brilliance was mine first. *g* By the same token, I try to add new brilliant ideas to the remixed storis I write, so's a reader who goes back and reads the original will say, "wow, Sab did great stuff with this!"

That being said, I don't feel all that proprietary about any of my work -- even the story I indicated as my "safe" story, I mean, go ahead, remix the hell out of it, just gimme credit on your story an indicate it's a remix and my original fics aren't going anywhere and still live on my site and stand alone.

And, yeah, more props to musesfool for doing a great job.