They paved paradise

[wesleysgirl]

This isn't the first time this has happened, so I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm still stunned and horrified. Fic that I loved, that I re-read multiple times when I was feeling low and really needed it, has been removed from the web because of interpersonal problems between fandom people.

I know the fic belongs to the writer. I do.

But that doesn't make me feel any less horrible when I discover something that I love is gone and I can never get it back. That doesn't happen with published fic, after all. There might be limited editions, you might have to pay a lot of money for a battered copy, but you can almost always GET a copy.

When the fic gets taken down, it's gone forever.

I'm sure some people will roll their eyes reading this, thinking that I'm being overly dramatic, that it's "just" fic.

But those stories were more than that to me. I'm genuinely devastated.

Eta - Yes, it's my own fault for not saving them. That just makes it suck more.

Comments

[djinanna.livejournal.com]

This first happened to me a couple years ago. The author was multi-fandom and I had read/loved her fic in 3-4 fandoms. I had never even thought to save anything before that point. I was able to get some things before they were deleted from archives, but in one fandom (a fandom where there were really only two writers, her and one other, who wrote the kind of stuff I wanted to read) I missed it all. She didn't leave LJ, though, and I kinda tried to get her to send me copies, but no go.

Really, on the one hand, I agree that the fic belongs to the writer. But on the other hand, I don't. Once it's been put out there, it should stay out there. Knowledge and art shouldn't be allowed to be lost, dammit!

I'm not sure if I have an archivists soul, or if it's an OCD hoarders soul. I suspect that if online fanfic were bits of string, rubber bands, and newspapers, there would only be small isles where I'd be able to move through my house. (Well, not really, because I still haven't saved off most of the fic I read/love. Which I'll probably regret many times in the future.)

Mostly, though, I have two different reactions. For those authors who, for RL reasons (like a pro writer whose publisher says "take it down"), I feel a lot of sympathy with them and rage at the system for being buttheads. For those authors who, because of kerfuffles and ego and other such childishness, take their stories down in a huff? It just seems so childish, so "cut your nose off to spite your face" and "I'm gonna take my toys and Go Home".

I've been innocently reading and squeeing in SGA fandom for a while now and *just* found out that there's been kerfuffling going on all year. I don't know any details of the who/what/why -- I take that back, I know of one or two who's, I think -- and I admit to a bit of curiousity about what all the fuss is about. If it's anything like every other kerfuffle I've encountered since I got on line, it's a combination of personality politics and sheer stupidity, along with innocent victims with hurt feelings. And I just want to squeeze all their heads and scream "what, are you twelve?!?"

I think the writer from my annecdote above *might* be involved. She's been involved in so many kerfuffles over the years, from what I understand. It's hard to say "oh, they're being mean to you" when it happens over and over like that. When, in my RL, I kept having the same bad things occur in relationship after relationship, eventually I stopped and said "hey, obviously *I* am contributing to this, too. I'm not *just* a total victim of the mean kids here. I need to get me hence to a therapist and figure out what *I* am doing wrong". But people who refuse to acknowledge their part in a kerfuffle -- even if their part is only "feeding the troll" by reacting to other peoples' idiocy by, say, tearing down their own websites....

::kicks fandom::

::hard::

And, sorry about ranting in your journal. This has been building up for me for several days now....

*hugs you* for losing some of the stories that delighted you. That totally sucks.

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

*Hugs* I still haven't read enough to figure out what the kerfuffling is about, and I intend to keep it that way. I don't want to know. I'll just keep reading fic and watching the show and stay away the kerfuffles.

[djinanna.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I kinda wish I'd done the same. Unfortunately, after I commented here, I couldn't resist digging a little, just to try to keep from stepping on any toes. And discovered that the fanfic writer you're missing because she took her site down is, uh, the same one I mentioned in my annecdote above. She uses different pseudonyms in each of her fandoms, I guess. But I won't tell you any of the other details I discovered as I've already managed to forget some of them and intend to forget the rest asap. On the amount of pain and psychoactive medications my docs have me on, that won't be difficult at all. Which is a blessing *or* a curse, depending on the circumstances....