![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hells_half_acreI'm not doing a ficlet today, because
A)I can't think of anything to go with today's prompt. (Which seem to be a song about being on a city bus.)
B)I'm behind on work and I'm thinking I'll probably have to work until 11pm or something ridiculous to make up for it.
On the one hand, I could just churn out anything so that I successfully post a ficlet on every single day in April... but I find that I actually do care a little bit about the quality of the fics, so I don't want to do that.
So, instead, how about we discuss something...
My younger sister thinks that I should share my fanfiction writing (not this blog, but my AO3 account) with my friends/family on facebook. I'm against this for various reasons, but she thinks they're all stupid reasons and I should do it anyway. Now, my mum already knows about and reads this blog, and I've already shared my AO3 account with my eldest sister. My other older sister knows that I write fanfiction (she's seen the bound books that a fan made of my demented'verse), but she's never asked to read it (or maybe she has, and I sent her the link and I've just forgotten.)
Now, my reasoning is that if people that already know that I write fanfiction were interested, they would ask for links (as my eldest/youngest sister have done.) My younger sister argument to that was that she assumed because I didn't OFFER the links, that I didn't want her to read it, and it made her sad. But, in my mind, if you want a book, you go buy it from the author - you don't wait for authors to show up at your door and offer you their books. Anyway... that's a whole separate argument and really reflects more the differences in our styles of interactions with the world around us.
What I DID want to ask though was how you all felt about the whole Fandom/IRL divide?
Do you keep your fandom life and your "real" life completely separate? (As I try to.) Why, why not? Do you think they SHOULD be separate?
Personally, I like to keep them separate. I (rarely) friend fandom friends on facebook, since I see FB as mainly a place to keep in touch with old-school mates and family. Twitter is a bit more of a hodge podge though, but because of that I'm never exactly sure what to say on it.
I used to have a non-fandom LJ, but it's been inactive for years, because there's more engagement over here - and I think I also just grew out of the narcissistic stage in life where I thought people might care about my inner thoughts. (Blogging is so '00s).
Now, the reasons I like to keep everything separate is because...
A) I've always liked to keep things separated from each other. I even have different groups of RL friends, and I get really uncomfortable when they come into contact with each other.
B) Since I first found online fandom back in the 90s, it just seemed like something that was supposed to be a secret.... like fight club. :P I don't know if that's a product of the whole "fan shame" thing or if it's a product of the fact that people who aren't in fandom just honestly don't understand and/or care about anything fandom related. (My younger sister argues that they would care about my fanfiction because it's my WRITING and that's interesting - but I think she just says that because she's very sweet and she cares about my writing despite not watching the shows that I write about... other people wouldn't, I don't think.)
C) When I HAVE told other people about my fanfiction/fandom activities, they've sometimes started trying to figure out how I can monetize it.... which, you know, it's nice that they're trying to figure out how to get me a career that I actually enjoy, but that goes against like ALL THE CODES OF CONDUCT OF FANDOM, and sometimes I've had quite a hard time getting that message across. You can monetize fanart, not fanfiction, and unless I start putting in years of study, I'm not going to suddenly become a monetized fanartist. (And seriously, "just change the names of the characters in the fanfiction, it worked for Fifty Shades of Grey" - and then I've gotta explain the difference between AU-writers and canon-writers.... and it just goes on and on. So, maybe this reason is: TOO MUCH EXPLAINING IS ANNOYING!
D) I'm a very weirdly selectively private person. I mean, I'll happily answer basically any question honestly, but I don't like offering information about myself... especially when it comes to my family for some odd reason. Like, I just don't want them to know things about me. It's really really weird. Basically, I probably have psychological problems when it comes to issues of vulnerability or some such psychobabble. I like to live secret lives... I think it's part of the reason I don't date - I honestly DON'T want to share my life with anyone. :P
Anyway, I'd be interested to here how you feel about the issue. Should we be coming out of the fandom closet, or is that door there for a reason?
A)I can't think of anything to go with today's prompt. (Which seem to be a song about being on a city bus.)
B)I'm behind on work and I'm thinking I'll probably have to work until 11pm or something ridiculous to make up for it.
On the one hand, I could just churn out anything so that I successfully post a ficlet on every single day in April... but I find that I actually do care a little bit about the quality of the fics, so I don't want to do that.
So, instead, how about we discuss something...
My younger sister thinks that I should share my fanfiction writing (not this blog, but my AO3 account) with my friends/family on facebook. I'm against this for various reasons, but she thinks they're all stupid reasons and I should do it anyway. Now, my mum already knows about and reads this blog, and I've already shared my AO3 account with my eldest sister. My other older sister knows that I write fanfiction (she's seen the bound books that a fan made of my demented'verse), but she's never asked to read it (or maybe she has, and I sent her the link and I've just forgotten.)
Now, my reasoning is that if people that already know that I write fanfiction were interested, they would ask for links (as my eldest/youngest sister have done.) My younger sister argument to that was that she assumed because I didn't OFFER the links, that I didn't want her to read it, and it made her sad. But, in my mind, if you want a book, you go buy it from the author - you don't wait for authors to show up at your door and offer you their books. Anyway... that's a whole separate argument and really reflects more the differences in our styles of interactions with the world around us.
What I DID want to ask though was how you all felt about the whole Fandom/IRL divide?
Do you keep your fandom life and your "real" life completely separate? (As I try to.) Why, why not? Do you think they SHOULD be separate?
Personally, I like to keep them separate. I (rarely) friend fandom friends on facebook, since I see FB as mainly a place to keep in touch with old-school mates and family. Twitter is a bit more of a hodge podge though, but because of that I'm never exactly sure what to say on it.
I used to have a non-fandom LJ, but it's been inactive for years, because there's more engagement over here - and I think I also just grew out of the narcissistic stage in life where I thought people might care about my inner thoughts. (Blogging is so '00s).
Now, the reasons I like to keep everything separate is because...
A) I've always liked to keep things separated from each other. I even have different groups of RL friends, and I get really uncomfortable when they come into contact with each other.
B) Since I first found online fandom back in the 90s, it just seemed like something that was supposed to be a secret.... like fight club. :P I don't know if that's a product of the whole "fan shame" thing or if it's a product of the fact that people who aren't in fandom just honestly don't understand and/or care about anything fandom related. (My younger sister argues that they would care about my fanfiction because it's my WRITING and that's interesting - but I think she just says that because she's very sweet and she cares about my writing despite not watching the shows that I write about... other people wouldn't, I don't think.)
C) When I HAVE told other people about my fanfiction/fandom activities, they've sometimes started trying to figure out how I can monetize it.... which, you know, it's nice that they're trying to figure out how to get me a career that I actually enjoy, but that goes against like ALL THE CODES OF CONDUCT OF FANDOM, and sometimes I've had quite a hard time getting that message across. You can monetize fanart, not fanfiction, and unless I start putting in years of study, I'm not going to suddenly become a monetized fanartist. (And seriously, "just change the names of the characters in the fanfiction, it worked for Fifty Shades of Grey" - and then I've gotta explain the difference between AU-writers and canon-writers.... and it just goes on and on. So, maybe this reason is: TOO MUCH EXPLAINING IS ANNOYING!
D) I'm a very weirdly selectively private person. I mean, I'll happily answer basically any question honestly, but I don't like offering information about myself... especially when it comes to my family for some odd reason. Like, I just don't want them to know things about me. It's really really weird. Basically, I probably have psychological problems when it comes to issues of vulnerability or some such psychobabble. I like to live secret lives... I think it's part of the reason I don't date - I honestly DON'T want to share my life with anyone. :P
Anyway, I'd be interested to here how you feel about the issue. Should we be coming out of the fandom closet, or is that door there for a reason?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-04-18 12:34 pm (UTC)I've always been deeply, deeply fannish. I sent coins through the mail when I was like a baby to try and get Lee Majors's autograph. (It didn't work!) (He played the Six Million Dollar Man you know.)
I think Facebook has privacy problems on many different levels -- so I don't do it. I see the advantages to it for sure, but for me they just don't outweigh the disadvantages. I don't want people friending me. Let my real life friends be my actual real life friends, right? Not just friends on Facebook. I have to build a Facebook page for my work and I honestly hate the idea, but it can't be avoided. I'm just hoping to keep it as far removed from "me" as I possibly possibly can. D:
So therefore my fannish friends on LJ can be internet friends, and I refer to LJ friends as internet friends to my friends in real life. My husband is my closest friend and he knows all about the goings on on LJ. He is not as fannish as I am but he understands me so that is Okay. :) I share my gen writing with my son as well (he is 12).
I also really hope that no one under age (like my son) will rush past my warnings and get traumatized. That would be a sad day for me! o_O Most of my work is sweet and happy but I have written a wincest or two... :)
I am not secretive about my fannishness, but I also don't invite RL folks to read my work, because, well, PORN. :D RL folks know that my husband and I are crazy about each other (we're about to celebrate our 20th anniversary) and of course my husband reads pretty much everything I write, but some folks can be very touchy about porn you know. :D
I used to long for the day when slashgirls could come out of the closet. I honestly think that day is here. I'm not pleased with Shades of Grey representing us, but at least it's out there and millions of readers have voted with their money.
I do also think that our writing is political. First of all, slash helps people understand gay love as just another option along the spectrum. Second, writing women characters well is important and I think that's making real headway and coming to be valorized in the fannish community. (When I first started reading slash in the 90s, there were very few women characters of any sort, and good het was extremely thin on the ground.) I still think of course that there is a lot of internalized misogyny amongst fen, that comes to light as overt hostility to women characters that just can't seem to measure up -- but I think there are also fen who take it upon themselves to write those characters into deeper and more compelling stories than are made time for on TV. And like someone above said, even our porn is political, because we have become easier with ourselves and our hidden desires - we've created a community where it's okay to share those secrets, and that imho is a real good.
Sooo -- every so often my writing of fanfic comes up in every day life and I'm open about that -- but people don't really want to know more and that's fine too!!
I'd rather they'd read my children's novel anyway, because fanfic is best when you are in fandom as part of the conversation.
Rushing off now to write some heartbreaking cas/meg! Not really, I don't have time-- but soon maybe. :)
Putting Felicia Day in my icon really makes me so happy. If I had only had a role model like the Fabulous Felicia in my day.... that would have been amazing! Andre Norton, you know, went by a man's name her entire career, and that's what it used to be like for a fangirl -- the only girl in the comic book store. :)
no subject
Date: 2013-04-18 11:13 pm (UTC)I think the debate about the political/cultural aspects of fanfic is a whole other kettle of fish... but these things do come up when you're trying to explain it to non-fannish people. It's weird.
I guess I'm loathe to share because it kind of feels like a rabbit hole to wonderland - you think at first that you just have to explain the potions that make you shrink and grow, and the next thing you know you're also trying to explain a tea party, walrus' eating oysters, the queen of hearts, high caterpillars... and none of it makes sense anymore.
And yeah, depending on the eyes that see it, there might be too much to explain... like trying to explain the complicated nature of female erotic fantasies to a 12 year-old boy. I mean, arguably (if he's straight) it might make him a better lover later on... but yeah, it's not something I would necessarily want to explain. :P