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So. Um. Apparently there are crazy people in this world (big surprise there) and various groups of crazy people are doing things like trying to market other people's fanfiction without being willing to defend that practice in court (FanLib), or pressuring lj into deleting people's journals for 'pedophilia' even when the people are completely innocent (Warriors of Innocence).
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I did get one of FanLib's 'come sell your soul to us!' emails a few weeks ago. They seem to have found me via FictionAlley, which is just weird since I've hardly posted anything there for at least a year, and I was never 'known,' (for whatever value of 'known' they're using -- if they snagged me, I think their standards are damn low) until I started writing Naruto fanfic rather than HP fanfic, but let that go.
I thought it seemed vaguely fishy and also totally irrelevant. What the hell would I want 'recognition' for? I write this stuff because I can't not write (well, okay, I can't stop writing for long) and these are the ideas that hit me hardest at the moment I sit down at my computer. Having the story reach other people is the second most important point, yes, but it still falls behind the need to tell the story in the first place.
(Remind me sometime to write about the difference between the audience in the head and the audience in the world. Yes, all storytelling is an act of communication -- it requires an audience -- but that doesn't necessarily mean a writer will stop telling stories just because people stop listening. The beauty of the written word is that you're sending your story into the future and believing, sometimes in the face of overwhelming evidence, that there is, or will be, an audience. It's an act of faith.)
Anyway, if FanLib contacted me because I'm well-known, or well-respected, or whatever, then don't I already have 'recognition' and therefore have no need of them? But apparently logic is beyond their grasp. So I deleted the message and promptly forgot about it.
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As for the other wank... from what I've seen, these people may well have begun with reasonable intentions, but their methods are extremely questionable at best, and reminiscent of the Inquisition at worst. Also, they have no aim; if their quest were a gun, they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn point blank. They have let their goal blind them to subtleties and common sense, and have accepted the doctrine that the ends justify the means, that any losses along the way are not worth worrying about.
...
I don't like absolutists. You cannot talk to them, and more and more, I feel the world is dominated by mutually exclusive gangs of absolutists.
I'm a moderate living in America. I'm used to holding my head and wishing people on both sides of various debates would just shut up and learn to compromise, because absolutism almost never gets you anywhere, and if it does get you somewhere, it's a Pyrrhic victory. You cannot legislate people's minds and hearts. You have to convince people, and that takes time and patience and, above all, the ability to listen and genuinely accept that people who don't share your point of view are not automatically evil just because they disagree with you. They are not doing things because they are trying to be evil; they are doing things because they think they're doing right. Just like you are.
Absolutism -- black or white, good or evil, us or them -- shuts down discussion. And once you shut down discussion, you have lost your hope of ever getting anywhere. So I don't care what point of view you're supporting. If you're going to use the rhetoric of hatred -- the rhetoric of Revelations, of the elect and the damned -- then get off my side, because you are not helping.
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Um.
That was not directed at anyone in particular. I just needed to vent.
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I did get one of FanLib's 'come sell your soul to us!' emails a few weeks ago. They seem to have found me via FictionAlley, which is just weird since I've hardly posted anything there for at least a year, and I was never 'known,' (for whatever value of 'known' they're using -- if they snagged me, I think their standards are damn low) until I started writing Naruto fanfic rather than HP fanfic, but let that go.
I thought it seemed vaguely fishy and also totally irrelevant. What the hell would I want 'recognition' for? I write this stuff because I can't not write (well, okay, I can't stop writing for long) and these are the ideas that hit me hardest at the moment I sit down at my computer. Having the story reach other people is the second most important point, yes, but it still falls behind the need to tell the story in the first place.
(Remind me sometime to write about the difference between the audience in the head and the audience in the world. Yes, all storytelling is an act of communication -- it requires an audience -- but that doesn't necessarily mean a writer will stop telling stories just because people stop listening. The beauty of the written word is that you're sending your story into the future and believing, sometimes in the face of overwhelming evidence, that there is, or will be, an audience. It's an act of faith.)
Anyway, if FanLib contacted me because I'm well-known, or well-respected, or whatever, then don't I already have 'recognition' and therefore have no need of them? But apparently logic is beyond their grasp. So I deleted the message and promptly forgot about it.
---------------
As for the other wank... from what I've seen, these people may well have begun with reasonable intentions, but their methods are extremely questionable at best, and reminiscent of the Inquisition at worst. Also, they have no aim; if their quest were a gun, they couldn't hit the broad side of a barn point blank. They have let their goal blind them to subtleties and common sense, and have accepted the doctrine that the ends justify the means, that any losses along the way are not worth worrying about.
...
I don't like absolutists. You cannot talk to them, and more and more, I feel the world is dominated by mutually exclusive gangs of absolutists.
I'm a moderate living in America. I'm used to holding my head and wishing people on both sides of various debates would just shut up and learn to compromise, because absolutism almost never gets you anywhere, and if it does get you somewhere, it's a Pyrrhic victory. You cannot legislate people's minds and hearts. You have to convince people, and that takes time and patience and, above all, the ability to listen and genuinely accept that people who don't share your point of view are not automatically evil just because they disagree with you. They are not doing things because they are trying to be evil; they are doing things because they think they're doing right. Just like you are.
Absolutism -- black or white, good or evil, us or them -- shuts down discussion. And once you shut down discussion, you have lost your hope of ever getting anywhere. So I don't care what point of view you're supporting. If you're going to use the rhetoric of hatred -- the rhetoric of Revelations, of the elect and the damned -- then get off my side, because you are not helping.
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Um.
That was not directed at anyone in particular. I just needed to vent.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-05-31 12:11 am (UTC)