Permalink
Reblogged from waldorph-deactivated20160526
waldorph:
So, I got to the bottom of why I was getting such weird comments on a relatively obscure fic of mine—it’s required reading in a class being taught, and one of the assignments is to leave a comment on the required reading which is more critical than constructive so that the professors know students are “engaging” with the texts in a way that isn’t just “YAY I LIKED IT.”
But waldorph, how do you know? Well, one of the teachers of said class commented on my fic, Delilah, which was this week’s required reading, and I was able to track down the syllabus and uncover the assignment which was prompting the flood in my inbox. The comments I received were bizarrely tone-deaf, condescending, rude, and more than that, completely out of step and touch with all fannish norms, and actually prompted me to write a post about concrit and feedback earlier this week. As soon as she explained that it was a class, and that these were fannish-outsiders, it made sense, as opposed to me assuming someone had recc’d it and I was getting way more backlash than usual on a pretty obscure fic. Unfortunately, I dealt with this all week before one of the teachers stepped in, and that was only when I started receiving flaming trolls.
For this reason, I’ve alerted all of the authors listed on the syllabus that they’re about to experience this because, frankly, I would have appreciated a heads up. I’ve also listed them all below, including the weeks that their works will be reviewed. I think that it might be nice if people could spread this around and leave some positive vibes on these works in particular—some of them are pretty well known and some of them aren’t but I think they all equally deserve support from within the community. Additionally, if you know these authors and can contact them directly, please point them in my direction or in the direction of this post and I can provide them with a little more information. I reached out to everyone, but obviously contact information can be out of date.
Ultimately, there’s nothing we can do about people examining works that we never meant to be examined in this way. I think we all have to accept that the way fandom gets interacted with is changing, not just the way that we interact with the rest of the world. I do think that as a community we can and should support each other.
Please signal boost this post so that we can get these authors some good vibes. Obviously we’re into the semester already, so I’ve also included works that have already been through this, please be sure to give them love as well. Links under the cut.
Read More
You are such a better person than I am. I would have actually had a rage stroke and then started kicking asses and taking names. It’s completely unconscionable that they never even notified you that they were using your work in their class, much less asked if they could. You’re completely right that you can’t control how people read and use your work, but you can probably file a complaint with the department for the poor manner in which this whole class was approached. I don’t care if English departments don’t consider fic “real” writing, they still need to be polite to writers, whoever they are.
Heaven, Hell, and Everything in Between. A fannish blog for Supernatural, Sherlock, Teen Wolf, nerdy stuff, and pretty much anything that catches my attention.
