Maygra's Musings

So, I got a flood of messages when I finally checked email on this and buying accounts and invite codes and cool features and amazing things and notices from friends and uhm....

Hi.

...is sheepish

You know, every time I come back here and think that maybe, maybe I'm ready to come back into the fannish fold, something happens to make me think twice.

If you have access, you can read back a post or ten and find out how I feel about the outing of Fen to the rest of the world, their families, whoever-the-fuck-ever, without their explicit permission. If you are lazy, let me sum up:

It sucks. It's the worst kind penny-ante, petty, self-serving, pitiful behavior I can think of. There's no excuse for it, no justification of it, and no forgiveness for it.

And you know what else it does? it makes the person who pulled such twat-brained move fair game and a tasty target for those of us who either don't care if we're outed as porn-loving, incest-writing fen, or who it will not impact if we are. It gives us license, as few things do, to treat you badly when we find you, to make your life hell, to mock and malign you, and post and repost your badly thought out attempts at some kind of personal justice or vicious lolz, and warn everyone near and far about what a wasted piece of pixel-dust you are.

And then we get to sit back and watch you squirm and whine and complain about how fandom is so mean to you, and watch you try to lie your way out of the quagmire you've driven yourself into as you work your way deeper in with your pathetic struggles.

I don't care why. I don't care if your target made you feel bad, if you didn't like her hair, her friends, her politics, or you were just having a bad day. It's gonna surface -- your name, your journal, your website, your email. At some point either the authorities will trace your IP, Facebook will roll-over and show its belly, or you will brag quietly to a friend and they'll let something slip and we'll know who you are. And you know how I know that will happen?

Because you were stupid enough to do something that has actual criminal implications by involving a minor in your idiotic vendetta or joke or whatever.

Nobody is that stupid just once.

Best run, little fangirl. Best run now.

ETA: Not trimming my flist. If you are on my flist...oh, please, please stay while I catalogue IP addresses and then get notified every-time you post or if you try to get off my flist. Please don't leave my flist just yet, because that would be too, too, easy.

But feel free to post anonymously...just this once, I insist. Please let me invoke my state's internet harassment and stalker law.

Two hours, a gorgeous morning, no need of a jacket, interesting, if conservative, line mates. Poll was excellently and efficiently run.


This is my prayer too


This one was tough for me because I've admired John McCain for a long time. I'd have voted for Obama anyway and I voted for Hillary in the primaries. But his choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate pretty much made me just shake my head and go, "Oh, John McCain, no." My state is going to be close, and I think likely to be a little more purple than red, but not entirely blue. Our state legislature will remain firmly red for a couple more years, I'm afraid.

God lay his hand on your shoulders, Barack Obama. I hope you actually bring us all to the promised land MLK saw.

In case anyone had any question (or even knew) I've resigned as a sys op from FanHistory.com. Yes I was, and while I haven't done anything in awhile, and found out about the whole kerfluffle just yesterday, I cranked up my cranky laptop and removed myself as an administrator and asked Laura to remove me as a sysop.

I'm sure no one cares about the details of why I joined in the first place (although it was early on when it started) but feel free to ask if you are curious.

Otherwise, please check this post

http://liviapenn.livejournal.com/521028.html

for the reasons why I've disassociated myself from a project and person who I once tried to work with to actually provide a resource. I've got a long-standing issue about fans making large amounts of money of other fans for personal use.

Now, I'm off before I get fired.


ETA: I want to be clear, I've personally had generally good interactions with Laura. We have disagreed about things, but I felt we were able to discuss them and usually with a resolution I could live with. That said, I'm not here to make judgments or assumptions based on Laura's motives or character, only on her actions, which I find unacceptable, specifically:

1) I disagree vehemently with fans outing other fans. I can't tell you how much this pisses me off.
2) I disagree with Fans making money off other fans for personal gain. (There are exceptions to this (like art) and a certain amount of flexibilty regarding costs of goods and expenses in producing those goods, but no, I'm not willing to underwrite your car payment or so you can drive to more cons (that's an example -- not something I know or suspect her to have done.)
3) I get that everyone's got their opinion on OTW. Mine is generally favorable and I have donated (mostly because I really want that archive.) You can check back posts for what else I have to say. I do not think the OTW is all things to all fans, and I see no problem with their being multiple fan wikis or even archives. And I can promise you, if I ever suspect the OTW is somehow providing individual profit outside of reasonable operating costs for the people running it, I'll be the first one to call the IRS to get their 501(c) status revoked.

I disagree with a lot of fans over a lot of issues who I otherwise enjoy being friends with or in contact with. I don't actually know, yet (because I haven't had time to think about it) how this affects how I think of Laura as a person whom I've, in general, enjoyed talking to. I am unhappy that it has gotten to this point, and am dismayed by what I'm seeing. I am disappointed that once more, it appears that ego rather than empathy has managed to cause a shitstorm in fandom.

I'm kind of glad my computer has been dead for a week or more. I don't need this. I'm seriously at the point where I want to finish my two auction stories and then fuck off to Second Life. Because really? I have enough drama in my real life at the moment, and fandom has become less of an escape and more of a brick wall closing in on the other side.

ETA2: Two points:
1.) The only discussion I was aware of (not involved in) was the possibility of moving the wiki to a site that generated ad traffic to defer the costs. By and large I don't object to that -- archives that run adds or take donations to cover costs. Generating actual profit from the site wasn't something I knew about and I didn't discuss it beyond the idea that covering costs wasn't an issue. Then again, I wasn't a major sys op. Mostly I cleaned up page messes.
2.) In regards to fan privacy: I was involved in one issue and my stance then was pretty much as written above. That's the only major clash I had with any of the other administrators of the site, and even it was handled (from my POV) amicably if a bit tensely, but I got into it rather late in that instance. I don't even know if I actually influenced the decision to reverse the page content, but I was pretty clear on my stance on the whole thing.

Final ETA: Everyone has been really wonderful in the comments and I thank you. But I don't want to come off as being entirely in the dark about Laura's rep, even when I started. I'm not exactly new to fandom, to ego politics, or to the idea that fans can be as incredibly selfish and self-serving as they are generous and creative. So, to be really clear: I don't take the opinions of one fan or even groups of fans opinions on another fan entirely on faith. I've spent way to many hours with friends who have been hurt or attacked or misunderstood, sometimes people I really and truly love and like being at total odds with other other people I like and admire. I think I'm a good friend most of the time, but I'm not a blind one.

I've rarely felt like the decision not to take stand on someone based solely on the fact that people I respect don't like them or disagree with them or whatever. There are people in fandom who think I'm a condescending bitch or a liar or both. Trying to change their minds isn't something I waste a lot of time on any longer, but I do get that what people see and hear and what was done and said can sometimes not be entirely in synch. Not knowing about Laura's plans is not the same thing as having been deceived by her. Being complicitly involved in decisions in absentia, is as much my own fault as anything, because I didn't care to get involved in the development of the site beyond being a client provided. I disliked the bias and told her so, and disagreed rather more loudly with the idea that linking online personas with real time people was a bad idea and came off as vindictive whether it was meant to be so or not.

That's been awhile ago. As far as I know, my name or rep was never used to further the aims of some personal or business goals. I consider astolat to be a friend and someone I respect. Had I known about this before it was all pretty much said and done, I might have said something. I'd like to think I would have.

I prefer to give people the benefit of a doubt. This became too much doubt and not enough benefit -- for anyone. Myself included. I'm not a victim of anything here. At best, I'm someone who knowingly didn't look too closely at some things. There's enough being laid at Laura's feet that are legitimate gripes and real concerns. I'm not one of them. But I'd rather be the one to say, here, this is what I did and why, rather than someone tripping over my name on a discussion page. Not so much, CYA, as head's up.

desktop crashed hard. I can't even get it to come up in recovery mode. I'm open to ideas for bringing it up in safe but I can't get it past the intel launch screen.

And it's been stupidly long since I did a back up.

*snarl*

I'm not even among those that think fan fiction is outright copyright violation, and I still think [[this]] is a bad idea. People are doing a good job of saying why no, as well as no, (save for a few that are being uneccessarily rude IMNSHO), but to be clear, if you don't want your work to be considered, you can opt out [[here]].

So, there's this meme. And there's a bunch of new people on my flist, and if you are new, in addition to this, I'd suggest that you check out the 100 and 10 things you should know about me. They haven't been updated recently, some of them are repetivie, but most of them still hold true. You will notice, with them and this, that there's really not a whole lot about myself I'm not willing to talk about. In truth, I'm sure some of my nearest and dearest would occasionally wish I would shut the hell up and talk about the weather or my cats. *g*

( 10 things plus 1 )

Women I respected, admired, was impressed or influenced by, ( in somewhat chronological order in my life: )

To: The Supernatural fandom at large
From: The Staff of No Stairway




( Dear Readers, )

And There Shall Be None to Save
Fifteenth in the Second Sight Universe
By Maygra

Supernatural, all audiences, future-fic.

(4,267 words)

The characters and situations portrayed here are not mine, they belong to the CW and Kripke. This is a fan authored work and no profit is being made. Please do not link to this story without appropriate warnings. Please do not archive this story without my permission.

And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness