Dear Doctor Who fandom

[nonelvis]

The reccing comm concept is simple.

Step 1. People sign up to recommend stories they like. Because people have different tastes in fanfic, sometimes you'll like what they rec, and sometimes you won't.

Step 2. If you don't like what people recommend, you can sign up to recommend something yourself.

Please note that Step 2 is not "I'm going to whine about three_settings or calufrax oppressing me" on an anonymous meme.

Now, stop failing at step 2.

Thanks.

Comments

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that and your clarifications. I was responding to one element of what someone said, but I didn't want it to be taken as referring to all slash fic, and especially to not also apply to het fic. My standards for both genres are the same, but I was just talking about slash (and one tiny element of one subset of slash) at the time so I didn't clarify when I should have.

IDK... I sort of feel like fandom wants everyone to process and work through their privilege in public for everyone else to commentate on in real time, but I'm not sure how appropriate that is, or whether it should be a requirement in order to participate in fandom. It can sort of feel like a self-criticism meeting at times, with people who don't even e-know me let alone real-life know me.

Edited because: Oh god I'm wording things just terribly today. This is what happens when I get all flustered. That second paragraph has nothing to do with you, or what you said, just a general observation. Sigh. I am just going to get off the internets... like... forever.

[livii.livejournal.com]

I didn't comment on the thread, but while I think the person who took you to task for what you recced was an idiot (if the mods said it was cool, then it was cool, jeez louise! Someone had a stick up their ass), I admit to being rubbed really the wrong way by what you said about the femslash story you recced. And while I understand that you weren't being as clear as you like, I still think that when you say something like that, it becomes open comment for others to think about and question your privilege. Because my first reaction was "oh, god, she's a woman and she thinks all femslash is squicky but het is okay, I am so disgusted by that" and while that's unfair, I think part of what we *do* in fandom is have discussions about these things if it's brought into our fandom space, which is what you did in your comment. I do, I do understand that you probably didn't mean any of that, but it's very difficult for others to not want to engage with that.

The whofandom, by the way, has a nice amount of femslash that covers lots of genres and pairings, and I'd encourage you to give it a chance; I think what might have also rubbed people wrong was the way you seemed to normatize one (het) pairing and classify others as non-canon, when to multi-shippers and many fans, the one (het) pairing you normatize isn't actually canon, so many of these other pairings are just as potentially canonical as the one you favour (I thought Rose had amazing chemistry with a lot of the girls she met on her travels, for instance!) And when your comment seemed to marginalize all slash and femslash in favour of the het pairing, and only describe squicky language as belonging to those two genres (since there's much less explicit femslash than explicit het out there, I actually find the ratio of "oh god, no" way better in favour of femslash, especially since it rarely contains throbbing manhoods and the like), it starts to feel really problematic, and I don't blame people for wanting to express that (as I am here, obviously). I don't know if working through your privilege in public is a fandom requirement, but I do think that it's easier to avoid having to do that if some potentially ugly opinions aren't held out on display. I know I sympathize with ionlylurkhere, as you didn't exactly sell me on why her story was good, only why it was less-worse.

Sorry to intrude like this, but I spent a lot of time thinking about this and decided I'd feel better if I just said it, rather than meanly thinking it behind your back, or something. I don't know.

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, none of that was at all in any way my intention, but I know it's totally my fault that it came out that way and at this point I have no idea how I could make it better that would in fact not just make it worse.

It's not really even a matter of me giving femslash "a chance" because I've never *not* given it a chance. To me it's another genre and my same standards of well-written, nicely characterised, emotionally real and resonate apply to it as well. And to m/m slash as well.

I screwed up, big time. I imagine I'm going to be feeling the depth of my screw-up for some time to come.

[livii.livejournal.com]

No, I hope you don't get too much blowback on it. I'm sorry to contribute but I decided, I dunno, to just sort of say it and hope in some way it might be useful to you to know what sorts of things people might be thinking.

Your comments since that one comment have been thoughtful and responsive, and I hope people will take the time to see that and react appropriately (though I think if they still want to discuss some of the broader issues brought up, they probably will). Best of luck. I know it sucks when you feel like you're in too deep/in the shit; for what it's worth, which I know isn't much, but I think you've done a good job since.

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

One disadvantage of my decision to post as obvious!anon was I couldn't go back and edit once I gave that one a re-read and went "!!!"

Ironically enough, my comment above was posted prematurely by me hitting return in some weird way that told LJ to post, and I was mid-edit when I saw your reply. I didn't intend to use my Sooper Shippy Icon either. *sigh* Just one of those days. But thank you for expressing your feelings, and doing so unanon and personally with me. I certainly appreciate everyone who legitimately wanted to have a discussion rather than shouting match.

Sometimes fandom feels like a minefield. Sometimes it feels like a drug. And pretty much all the time I'm certain that I don't know what I'm doing either which way.

*jumping in*

[magicallaw.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I'm not going to get into the other stuff, but please don't let a few anons get you down. As others have said, you made it fairly clear what your tastes were at the beginning of your week. You were also paired with someone we knew would rec a much wider range of stories. I'm sure there were a number of people who appreciated your recs, so just focus on them.

Re: *jumping in*

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that, o my mod. :) I could have brushed it off a lot easier if people just stuck to "you recced a pairing I don't like HDU" but it kind of got a bit out of hand subsequently. Still, I hope this means a flood of new and interesting reccers for the comm, so there's that!