fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2608 ]

[ SECRET POST #2608 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2608 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 090 secrets from Secret Submission Post #373.
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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08. http://i61.tinypic.com/a2gknr.jpg

I'm really sorry that happened to you.

They definitely should have tried harder, being in fandom and all. But if you were proud of it, and your story had readers, you should continue it! It means your story had a niche, maybe it was small, but people still wanted to read it.

Do it and forget about the haters!

Yes, this. If the story has readers, then someone out there is enjoying it, and it's absolutely worth continuing.

Also, OP, just because some people think it's weird doesn't mean that it's not something you should be proud of. If you've put a lot of work into it and produced a product that you're happy with, then that's enough.

this makes me really curious. i want to know what you talked about, how it could have gotten that kind of reaction.

but if you have readers, then post. there will always be people who aren't interested in what you do.

The way you framed it makes me feel like an asshole for not taking your side, but when I see people get weird looks and not know why, it's usually because they said something incredibly creepy. (It most commonly has to do with sex, gender, or both, though I've seen people accidentally be total creeps about race.) What on Earth was this fic about?

This. I'm sorry, OP. I do sympathize with people who have difficulty in crowds, but in general I find that when something like this happens it's very likely that there's something people are reacting to that you might not be aware of. And that's okay. It's still a bummer to have people reacting in ways you didn't anticipate or want, but it's a fixable issue.

This is assuming that you're not going through one of those "let's dissect everything I said and beat my head against a wall for how stupid I sounded" moments. I do that all the time, but realistically, this may well be you looking at the experience through a more harshly critical filter than everyone else. It could be that nobody else was thinking of you or your fic in those terms, but being so self-conscious makes you feel like they are. does that make any sense?

This. Nine times out of ten, the people I see complaining about how no one seems to want to include them in things are the ones who don't have any sense of proper boundaries or social etiquette in general.

Can't tell you what it's about because it would be easy to find. But it was a fusion fic. You know those stories where people take other characters that an actor has played and drags them in to be brothers/sisters/family/past life/etc. It was sort of like that, but it just pulled on a few elements of another character and pasted it onto fandom darling to fix a rather tragic bit of canon that everyone cried about. It wasn't a crazy piece about chopping people up or a/b/o genderswap eggpreg velociraptors riding sharknadosquids with obligatory tentacle rape.

Re: OP

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-23 15:05 (UTC) - Expand

Re: OP

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-23 20:26 (UTC) - Expand

I'm sure they didn't think you were weird, OP. Maybe you're just shy and took their reactions to be your "worst fear" when, really, they were surprised to hear you pipe up. Don't worry about it in any case. Just write and be yourself. It'll work out fine.

Well, I don't want to dismiss your feelings/insecurities, but maybe it's just that group wasn't your audience? You seem aware that you DO have an audience... could you just push the meetup group out of your mind for a bit and just think of those other fans? They're the ones who give a damn about your project. So what if they weren't in that sample of fandom folks that day.

And you're still tons braver than me. Even if I went to a fandom meetup locally, I would never dare bring up my fics. (But then, I've written some horrible, awful, garbage things... and half the time on purpose.)

Hence why I wouldn't go to a fandom meetup if you paid me in thousands of gold-wrapped chocolate coins.

Could you elaborate? I'm thinking of going to one.

(no subject)

darkmanifest - 2014-02-22 22:52 (UTC) - Expand

Same. I met up with a local fanfic writer once for lunch at a local diner. Beforehand I had visions of chatting about writing and fandom in general with a kindred spirit, but all she wanted to talk about was her OTP Picard/Riddick. That, and the food supplements she'd have to take after the meal we were eating.

(no subject)

darkmanifest - 2014-02-22 23:18 (UTC) - Expand

Either
A. Your story is creepy in some way that you are oblivious to, or
B. Where they are just snobs who don't like anything that breaks the mold.
Wondering what the story was about so I knew which.

or
C: OP is misreading the entire situation in a fit of anxiety/nerves fueled paranoia. I know I've done that a time or two before I figured it out.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-22 23:01 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-22 23:04 (UTC) - Expand

I'm surprised nobody has suggested this, but have you considered that you're a bit paranoid and people weren't really giving you any looks or 'indulging' you? It sounds like you're a person that battles with insecurities and possibly anxiety. I've had friends like that before and they get upset at the barest hint of a slight, but when they talk to me about it it turns out they were COMPLETELY misreading the situation.

But even ignoring all that you should try and not let some randoms opinion of your work stop you from your hobby.

Alternatively, I would really love to hear what exactly you said or what your fanworks are about.

All of this.

You are extremely innocent and it is cute. Unfortunately, I've found fandom meet-ups are the kind of place where unless you're shipping-centric with the main fandom sweethearts, you're considered weird and unwelcome.

Re: DA

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-23 01:00 (UTC) - Expand

Re: DA

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-23 01:57 (UTC) - Expand

Re: DA

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-23 03:45 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-23 10:30 (UTC) - Expand

Was it a circle of fandomers? In the ones I used to be in, there was definitely a hierarchy in the circles - like, if I wrote a fic, some of my friends might read it, but one of the other people would write one and everyone would go out of their way. It wasn't that my ideas were bad, it was that they wanted to read fics written by this individual. Seems you got the real life version of that. :/ Don't let them get you down. They're idiots.

Don't hide your weirdness, embrace it! <3

once I was in a creative writing class where all the students would go up to the front of the class and give a brief summary of what they were working on that week, and the other students would interact/ask questions and etc...

so this one guy goes up to the front and starts describing in lurid detail this short story he'd been working on where dead women's body parts were assembled together/mixed and matched and sold off as sex dolls for wealthy men, and by the end of his summary absolutely no one wanted to ask questions or discuss his story at all, and he didn't understand why.

maybe your interests are creepy, OP. or too niche. or not interesting to that group of people. maybe you're just not good at selling your ideas, who knows.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-23 15:06 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-23 15:08 (UTC) - Expand

Write what you want to read. I judge how well a story is by my want to go back and read it. If I worried about what other people thought I'd have never wrote a Teen Wolf/SGU xover. Or one of the other random crossovers I love.

Make yourself happy. It's your writing.

Love all the blame OP's getting. "Well you must be creepy or have creepy interests or are projecting things that aren't there!"

sorry, but a lot of fandom is about shipping the current hot OTP, and if you don't want to talk about that, then you tend to be indulged, in my experience (and even from my observations). You even see a lot of complaints about it on here. It really sucks, and I'm honestly not surprised if that happened.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-02-23 13:56 (UTC) - Expand

If the others already knew each other well through meetups or the internet, you may have just wound up as the new person and they didn't know how to react. Some peope aren't very good at making folks feel welcome, even if they aren't trying to be clique-y. They may have been too excited to hang out with their friends to remember to try to be more inclusive, or maybe they were trying so hard to be polite to you - the unknown quantity whose reactions they cannot predict - that they wound up acting very awkwardly.

Is it possible that this could be a result of anxiety and not the reality? I'm not trying to belittle your feelings, it's just sometimes I feel like people are judging me when they're not. And if you had regular readers clearly not everyone feels that way!

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