fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2960 ]

[ SECRET POST #2960 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2960 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Better early than late!

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 034 secrets from Secret Submission Post #423.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I will never understand why fanfic writers taking their fics down is apparently somewhere on the same moral level as drowning kittens.

If I want to take a fic down, I'll take it down.

+1

Once I get past the "Darn, I liked that fic." it's pretty easy to move on from there. (And anything I feel I can't live without, that's what right-click is for.)

Edited 2015-02-11 00:17 (UTC)

This whole secret is just whiny. Either take it down or don't. It's not going to end anybody's world either way.

I find that a little harsh. I have sympathy for the OP. They're trying to do the right thing even though they find it unpleasant.

I get genuinely upset when fics vanish from the net. Some people do care and the OP is trying to do this for them.

NAYRT

If something as disposable and transient as fanfics disappearing makes you "genuinely upset" then either you a) take responsibility for yourself and save things you like, or b) get some help because that does not sound healthy in the least.

That depends what they mean by upset, doesn't it? And also, who are you to tell someone they need help for something trivial?

"Genuinely upset" is not something you'd say if you were just mildly annoyed, would it? It would be reasonable to interpret "genuinely upset" as "this causes me actual emotional distress."

Feeling that way over someone deleting a fanfic isn't trivial. That's deeply, deeply unhealthy, no matter which way you look at it. That does not portray anyone with halfway functional coping skills.

And I suppose I could also ask who are you to tell me not to tell anyone anything, but that would be a silly a circular argument that goes precisely nowhere, wouldn't it?

You don't get to tell someone that they're deeply unhealthy or that they don't have functional coping skills. You don't know that person. You know only one thing that they've said on the internet, which for all you know could have been hyperbole, or could have been meant in a completely different way from how you've interpreted it.

You're armchair diagnosing, and that's not cool, no matter how you try to justify to yourself that you're right and that you know an anonymous commenter well enough to tell them to get help.

And you're waaaay too over invested in a stranger's opinion.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2015-02-11 06:27 (UTC) - Expand

DA

(Anonymous) - 2015-02-11 06:57 (UTC) - Expand

Well, uh, I would be pretty upset - not inconsolable, but a lot more than "mildly annoyed" - if every copy of a particular book or movie or short story I really loved evaporated from the world. So why wouldn't I feel just as upset about a really excellent fanfic getting erased?

They're stories. Some fanfics are among the best stories I've ever read in my life, some have meant as much to me as published stories -- some even more, when they addressed subjects or played out in ways that would never make it into publishing. I don't know what kind of dreck you read, but my favorite fanfics are not "disposable." Nor are they "transient." Not in the least. Not any more so than a so-called "real" story. (Now, fanfics this valuable are pretty damn rare, but they exist.)

I guess I don't really understand how being sad at the idea of never being able to re-read, talk about, or share a story - any story - you loved, and which changed the way you look at things, and to know no one else will ever experience what you experienced, show you have no functional coping skills? There's a huge distance between feeling sad and having a huge emotional meltdown.

Now, if you're upset that random 3K word "how they met" story got deleted because omg that was slightly better than the 10 other 3K word "how they met" stories in the fandom, or random kinkmeme fill #5 that was a single scene of gimmicky porn of a type that gets written several times in every fandom ever got deleted because damn, you fapped to that every night, that's unhealthy. But that's not the sum total of fanfic.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2015-02-11 06:55 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

intrigueing - 2015-02-11 14:28 (UTC) - Expand

It might not end their world but there is little more horrible to the reader than to go back to a fic they adored and find it gone without trace.

Fics I like have disappeared. It bites, but I can think of plenty things worse. If the worst thing you ever have to experience is a fix you like being taken down, then I truely envy you. You must live a very sheltered life.

Disagreeing with something doesn't mean you see it s the same as drowning kittens. Some people just care about readers when out comes to fic as much as they care about themselves.

I'm guessing you haven't seen the entitled vitriol that's regularly tossed at writers who take fic down, then.

Taking fic down =/= don't care about readers. It just means they're taking fic down. They are not obligated to leave it up on the off chance that someone might want to look at it some day.

Ayrt

No one's obligated to do anything, but I don't think it's crazy to say someone who doesn't believe in taking fic down cares more about what readers think than someone who will take their fic down.

Why?

How do you know the first reason a person takes a fic down? Maybe they feel the quality isn't something their readers deserve. Maybe they don't want to leave an unfinished WIP up and upset someone when they realize the fic will never be finished.

I think you're jumping to an awful lot of conclusions here.

Ayrt

That's a fair point. But just to clarify where I'm coming from, from what I've seen people who take down fics tend to do what they feel is best for them regardless what people think, whereas people who don't believe in taking them down are a lot more concerned with what people think. And both can be taken too far, but neither is wrong.

Well of course some people are going to criticize and say "No!" when an author suggests taking work down. If they do that regardless, then yes they're ignoring those people but that does not instantly equate with them doing it out of disregard for their readers, which is what you seem to be implying.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2015-02-11 02:17 (UTC) - Expand

DA

You know what, no, I haven't seen such vitriol. Please name an example.

So authors who delete their fics are selfish people who only care about themselves and don't care at all about their readers.

Yeah, no, that sounds like you're passing a huge (and thoroughly illogical) moral judgment there.

Ayrt

No, if someone's more concerned with their own feelings on it, that's fine. People should do what they feel it's best for them. I was just trying to explain what people who don't believe in taking their fics down feel. I would never take my fics down because I'd feel terrible about it. That's not necessarily the better option. It's possible to care too much about other people and nor enough about yourself, after all.

Same here. All the old comms I used to belong to, that were once all moderated and flocked, are now ghost towns open to whomever wants to scope them out. Since I didn't want things I'd written searched out/found by just anyone, I deleted. I figured anybody who wanted a copy of anything I wrote already had it, or would ask me for it. I have no regrets about deleting anything: I wrote it and chose to share it, now I'm taking it down for the sake of peace of mind.

I figured anybody who wanted a copy of anything I wrote already had it, or would ask me for it.

I would never ask an author for a copy of fic they'd taken down (unless they put up a post saying that was ok). In my experience, the overwhelming majority of authors who've taken fic down either 1) don't want the fic spread around any more than it already has been, or 2) really don't care about the fic any longer, to the point that they find it a hassle to share it with interested readers.

Virtually all the fics I read when I first got into fandom have now disappeared. Sometimes they were lost when archives folded and the author didn't want to reupload them anywhere else, sometimes authors moved on, either to other fandoms or quit with fanwork altogether. It's completely their prerogative to do so, and I certainly wouldn't judge them for it. They wrote it, they can decide what to do with it, and if it was THAT important to me in the first place I'd have saved it for offline reading anyway.

Maybe it's hard for you to understand because you're equating it to drowning kittens? Come on, that's insane. What's the issue here? Of course people have the rights to do as they choose with their fics. When authors I know have announced their intention to delete, nobody tried to talk them out of it, though some might ask to be allowed to make copies. That said, almost nobody likes it when something they want to reread disappears without warning, and a lot of people in fandom have that experience, hence all the cries of, "Hell yeah, that sucks!"

It's a simple situation, and both sides are understandable. A lot of people have probably been on both.

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