[ SECRET POST #2559 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2559 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 062 secrets from Secret Submission Post #366.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

05. http://i1229.photobucket.com/albums/ee473/Libbastarz/cliquesecret_zps87c287ae.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

Diagnosis: You worry too much. Solution: Should focus on your fic.

Or ....

[(Anonymous)]

# 1. You were matched to them because what you offered was what they asked for?

#2. You now "proved" yourself capable of putting out good writing, and so you get matched with the other good writers?

Re: Or ....

[(Anonymous)]

BNF most emphatically does not equal "good writer"

[forgottenjester]

Deny. Deny. Deny.

Seriously, ignore it. As long as you keep in contact with the people outside the top writers, who cares? It's not your problem.

[blueonblue]

You might be putting a little too much thought into this. BNFs liking your fics doesn't make you a BNF, that has more to do with influence. People like your writing, that's what is important.

[(Anonymous)]

Either you're a BNF and you don't even know it, or they realized they were being cliquish and decided to fix that. If you're the only person who's been accepted into their circle-of-exchange it's the former. If you're not, it's the latter. If it's the former, then use your powers for good and not for evil. :-)

Once upon a time I was allegedly a BNF. I never felt like one. The BNFs were always THOSE PEOPLE OVER THERE. But I was assured by several people that I was a BNF and "important." I don't think it feels like whatever it is one might expect it to feel like.

[logicbutton]

This anon knows what's up.

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed.

(Says someone who's been labeled a BNF in most fandoms I've participated in, and it always shocked me when I became aware of the label.)

[nyxelestia]

I've had some people retroactively tell me I was a bit of a BNF in the Merlin fandom, which still confuses me. I know a lot of people recognized me as 'that Merthur BDSM writer' but BNF?! o.O

Secret 5 - Fandom writing exchange

[transcriptanon]

[Picture is an illustration of a woman holding an ink quill to write something. She is holding the feathery side to her mouth as she looks to the side and thinks.]

So there's this writing exchange in my fandom. It's very popular, and lots of people you could probably call Big Name Fans sign up. The participants are matched to who they're writing for by a small group of one or two moderators. Every past exchange I've felt like a small clique of writers - basically the Big Name Fans - are matched up to one another, with those outside that clique being matched to others outside the clique. I wasn't sure how to feel about this, because on the one hand, my recipients were really nice and people from in and outside the clique would comment on my work. On the other, though, it sort of smacked of elitism and some people being excluded from the 'top-tier' of writers.

However, the last two exchanges, I've been matched with people who are very definitely inside the clique. I don't know what changed. Have I been accepted into the group? Am I somehow a Big Name Fan? (I don't feel like one). Have I been reading too much into the matching all this time? I've loved my recipients and I love the exchange, but I don't know how to feel about this.

Too Long; Didn't Read: There's a fandom writing exchange, possibly with a clique, which I may have been accepted into. I don't know how to feel.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe it truly was random and you're being paranoid.

[(Anonymous)]

was it supposed to be random? but yeah they're probably paranoid, because even if you're trying to match people according to requests what group of mods wants to do all that work AND double check to make sure all the "cool kids" end up together.

[(Anonymous)]

this is very possible

probabilities do not work like we expect them to work on a "common sense" level

[(Anonymous)]

Feel super sneaky, like a serpent in the shadows.

[(Anonymous)]

Which fandom are we talking about?

[(Anonymous)]

Are you sure it's a clique thing? Because as someone who runs a fanfic exchange, I often end up grouping the same people together again and again simply because they like the same characters, pairings, tropes etc. I group them together because I think they enjoy writing for each other, and I group other people together who like other things. It doesn't have anything to do with who's "popular" or well known.

[(Anonymous)]

This. I ran a fic and art exchange this year, and a lot of people I knew were friends ended up together, because I was more concerned with matching tastes than with not matching people who knew each other.

Things that look like "cliques" often happen for reasons that aren't "we're better than them".

[(Anonymous)]

I run a fic exchange in which participants are paired.

Some of the participants are well known in the fandom (though not exactly BNFs) and some are not. When I'm pairing them up, I never look at the participants' names because I have enough to worry about, trying to match their kinks, their squicks, and making sure that their partners' prompts offer them something they've said they're willing to write.

This year, a couple of the regulars asked me to avoid pairing them with people they'd been paired with more than once before. I hadn't actually realised that that was happening but, once they'd pointed it out to me, I could see it was because I'd been carefully matching prompts to preferred ratings, kinks and squicks, and that that hadn't left me with many pairing options.

Next year, I will have to ask participants to think about stepping outside their comfort zones...

But I think there's a very good chance that you were matched with a BNF simply because of your prompts/what you were willing to write.

Sounds like a little bit of both

[nyxelestia]

By virtue of being a clique, probably their tastes and/or their writing styles ran in a very similar direction, and so they got paired up a lot. Now, for whatever reason, your tastes and/or writing styles are converging with theirs, so now you get matched up to them.

[(Anonymous)]

It might not be entirely random. I've run an exchange before and while it's cool to have BNFs in it, there's extra pressure to see that they don't get stuck with a mediocre (or worse) fic. I tend to match proven writers (in terms of quality and reliability) with other proven writers. I pair newbies or less well known writers with each other, giving newbies a chance to show they can do a good job.

I can see where this would sound cliqueish to you, but the main reason is that it makes MY job easier as a mod. Newbies are more likely to flake, IME. I can lessen the risk if I do it my way.

[(Anonymous)]

This is kind of horrible. If the BNFs keep taking part in the exchanges, they should and must be aware of the risks. I don't think that's your job, really.

Note: I kind of agree with the 'newbies' part. But what about all those old participants who are definitely not a 'well-known' or BNF? You still don't match them with the cool kids?

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for all your work then, I know how frustrating it can be to run those and get everyone sorted.

/A BNF who used to take part in an exchange every half year right up until a midyear exchange where the newbie flaked on me, after the hand out date and no pitch hitters with free time. They submitted the barest sketch and said it's the plan for the final picture...but here we are a year later. :/

It was disheartening, I don't participate anymore. I wasn't expecting them to be a great artist (or fic writer), but to at least give me something. It's more the idea behind it than anything.

I'm still bitter, obviously.

[(Anonymous)]

I have felt very awkward while reading your secret every time the word "accepted" popped up. I actually worry about you feeling they 'accepted' you, or you feeling they are entitled to do such thing. I mean, you could just have said something like "I might be writing better" or more precisely "More people like what I write now". It sounds like you were really worried about not being in the clique and don't know what to do now that you 'got' it.

To clarify, I trust in what you said about enjoying the exchange for itself. But I find it weird that you were so aware of the mods matching all the 'popular' people with each other and so.

[dazzledfirestar]

Well there are a few issues here. First, groups of friends (or cliques, since that's the term you used) tend to have similar interests/ships/favorite characters/etc. As someone who's had to do all the pairing up in an exchange, that's the first thing we look at. Not "Oh this person is popular, let's put them with other popular people!" Frankly, I have enough to do as a mod without that crap falling in. Second, maybe you signed up earlier? Maybe your name was higher on the list that time? Mods have ways of organizing these things that make it easier to go "Here are people who want X, here are people who will create X" and none of that is about popularity. It could have been the luck of the draw.

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill here in a huge way. As long as you're enjoying what you got and the person you wrote for enjoyed their gift, it's all golden.