[ SECRET POST #2162 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2162 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 081 secrets from Secret Submission Post #309.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[nyxelestia]

I'd tell you to forgive yourself...but as someone who regrets a lot of her fandom past (most of it, actually), I know that kind of advice is going to mean jack-shit.

So all I can say is suck it up and move on. Try to forgive yourself, but if you can't, then just don't let the guilt eat you up and learn from it. If you know someone else is headed down that path, try to stop them. And maybe open up about your experiences so other baby fans can learn What Not To Do. I'd say at least a third of the shit I've done, I wouldn't have gone near if I had heard even a peep about that kind of nonsense instead of being left to flounder by myself.

You've grown up, OP. Remember that. Let that guilt remind you not just where you once were, but how car you've come now, and how much farther you can go. :)

[(Anonymous)]

This comment and an anon comment down the thread got me thinking:

OP, if you ever get to a place where you are okay with your past mistakes and no longer fear speaking about them/outing yourself, you could write a blog post of some sorts of your experiences; some sort of manual of fandom etiquette of common pitfalls for newbies.

Imagine if upon finding fandom people learned about how actual copyright works -- so many people make stupid stuff like that out of ignorance rather than malice. In fact, the idealist in me is willing to wager that at least half of the people out there do it out of not knowing any better.

[nyxelestia]

I know the only plagiarism I did was out of sheer ignorance. Once someone pointed that out to me, I took the fic down immediately (though unfortunately in this case, that just led to other problems). So yes, history and sharing experiences is definitely important.

Not to mention context.

I was around 13/14 when I jumped from a very large fandom (Harry Potter) to a much smaller one (Psych, especially back then, and especially just the gen/het portions of it). What was considered just doing your own take on someone else's concept in the Harry Potter fandom, and thus acceptable, was called outright plagiarism in the much smaller Psych fandom.

That period in my fandom life is full of a lot of shit - shit I've done and shit other people have done to me. But I'd much rather talk about it than ignore it, because then maybe other fans can learn from my experiences.

I was saved from a few worse scraps thanks to older fans nudging me away from them, and I only wish I'd bothered to talk to older fans more about their experiences or had access to such things as guides and non-fic posts (most of the places I frequented were mostly archives with the occasional forum), as that would have saved me a lot of grief and trouble over the years.

[(Anonymous)]

I hadn't taken into account size of fandom.

Fandom politics and unspoken dos and don'ts can be scary and confusing enough when you're an adult, never mind a young teenager!

[nyxelestia]

Especially when you're a young teenager in a fandom of adults - the het/gen Psych fandom of that time was mostly much older women in their late 20s to learly 50s, with my and one other person late-high-school age person being the only "regulars" in that group.

That said, there were a lot of other problems in that fandom (it was a very BNF-y fandom), so my age vs theirs was really only a small bump in the road compared to everything else. And fairly play to them, up until the beginning of the bitter end they were very inclusive and many were even helpful/mindful of my age.

In some ways it was worse than entering the dark and porny sections of Harry Potter fandom at age 12 like I did. o.O

[(Anonymous)]

wow, I never thought of fandom like that

thank you for sharing your experiences