Subject: You are entitled to your opinion.
Author:
Posted on: 2019-08-01 21:41:00 UTC
Out of curiosity, is the fact that we critique fanfiction at all something that bothers you, or is it just that we do it with humor?
~Neshomeh
I heard about this place through word of mouth and I just gotta ask why. You're mocking authors for not being up to professional standards when the stories you write aren't as good as some fanfiction.
Marion has now demonstrated themselves to have allied with zdimensia and is making personal attacks on Neshomeh. We are no longer obligated to show them good faith.
I'll ask nobody else to respond to this thread further in the meantime.
The NA can't lock a thread. All it can do is block Marion, and that power is only wielded to enforce a ban voted for by the Board. Anything else would be abusive, and I'm personally very tired of being accused of abuse of power.
There's more than a few people on the Board who've engaged in personal attacks at one time or another. At a minimum, I think Marion - as a new, though presumably (from their opinions) temporary poster - needs the usual chance to change + apologise (or however it's phrased now).
(This is based on what's on the Board; I am unaware of anything off it, so can't comment on such.)
hS
The Nameless Admin, or the community as a whole, has one more option. As voted on in this thread, a meat puppet for zdimensia (which Marion is, if not just a sock puppet or zdimensia herself under yet another assumed name), will be treated just like a sock puppet, which is to say we should question them about their identity because "Zdimensia has not, previously, shown much propensity for lying when directly asked". Of course, immediately following that pronouncement, zdimensia started lying about her identity when directly asked, so there's that.
-Phobos
... that enforcing the ban on Zdimensia and her meat-socks is entirely within the Nameless Admin's remit.
I personally have not seen sufficient evidence to class Marion as anything more than an advocate for Zdimensia, which is not the same thing. Previous advocates for listening to her and discussing with her include the likes of Huinesoron, Phobos, and Neshomeh.
Marion has demonstrated an interest in another topic, and has continued to discuss that topic while also discussing Zdimensia. That does not fall under the classic definition of meat-puppetry.
If they can be established as Zdimensia herself, that is of course a different matter; she is banned, and doesn't get to discuss anything. But again, I haven't seen sufficient evidence to be convinced of that, and I don't want to be accused of abuse of power. Someone else with Nameless Admin powers may feel different, and I'm not saying they can't act.
hS
I have read the wiki, with a link provided by her, and I see how you have bullied her.
...how she's been harassing this community for years, repeatedly violating her ban and ignoring everyone's apologies and offers for a compromise, or how she's been trying to sic other people on us despite being told even by other communities to let this issue rest?
Has she also told you about that, or only about the narcissistic evil bullies harassing her poor defenseless person when she keeps coming back and violating the ban, Marion?
I have seen more of you throwing back apologies, claiming the opposite of what she's saying, and just treating her like a villain. She wouldn't have socked if it wasn't the only way to even get a chance of being heard. She isn't even racist by the standards of where she grew up. Has anyone emailed her yet?
I mean, purely theoretically. Really, what is there to discuss? At all?
There is not a single person in this entire community who feels remotely comfortable interacting with her. Absolutely not on the Board, and certainly not within personal emails.
Why is this still an issue? We banned her. It's done. Nobody here wants to deal with her anymore. Doesn't damn matter if she's the owner of a puppy orphanage and we're the bullies and True Racists who've kicked her fence down and painted mean graffiti on the walls--we have a right to police our internet spaces. Especially considering the entire community voted on it.
Nobody here is obliged to interact with anybody they don't want to interact with, and if you think that somebody is entitled to a discussion with somebody else just because they keep constantly requesting that discussion (which is, you know, harassment), you have a very terrible misunderstanding of the essentials of consent, which is another colossal issue entirely that you and your buddy really need to figure out.
This isn't a court of law and we're not discussing property rights or the United States constitution: we're an internet community who got sick of someone and doesn't want to deal with it. Call it unjust, oh, go ahead, but that's how it's shaken out, hasn't it?
Good grief, the only conclusion we're going to come to is we don't want her around. That's it. It's already been decided long ago, and multiple times. I am baffled as to what else there could possibly be for us to discuss.
Amongst others, Huinesoron and Phobos had tried to work out something with her, and she refused every single offer for compromise. People had tried over and over to talk this through with her, but she refuses to even consider another perspective than hers.
And she has been heard, and argued with, and asked so many times to just let this matter rest, because her constant harassment was actually starting to take a toll on people. Do you think she's the only one in this whose feelings were hurt?
And "not racist by the standards of where she grew up" - excuse you, but that is a load of bull. I grew up in Eastern Europe, and if I started complaining about those damn Arab migrants overrunning Europe or calling Chinese people slant-eyes, it would not be a single bit unusual because the majority of people in my country and neighboring countries still think that way - hell, just recently I saw a stand-up routine on a very popular TV channel about how the comedian couldn't differentiate Chinese people from each other. By the standards of where I grew up, this isn't racist either. Does that mean it's acceptable for anyone who knows anything about racial relations? Hell, no.
When emailing with Phobos, she was willing to compromise and he insisted that she wasn't. Huinesoron tried to make her promise to go away even if he didn't listen to her at all. I would say that you aren't compromising. I understand that your feelings were hurt, but it was the product of misunderstanding and not being willing to admit that you struck first.
By not racist by the standards where she grew up. Not many of her kind would notice getting the stink-eye and think that she must have been doing something other than just walking through a parking lot. I get the stink-eye too, and I blame the people doing it.
Marion: by posting on the PPC Board, you have agreed to abide by the PPC Constitution, linked at the top of the Board.
Personal attacks and harassment are in violation of the Constitution, per articles 6 and 4 respectively. Repeating Zdimensia's bad-faith characterisations of my interactions with her, and carrying on her campaign of haranguing the Board and demanding that people email her, constitute violations of those articles just as much as her doing them.
Additionally, by taking Zdimensia's words as unvarnished truth, and using them against people who have not said a word about the situation to you - including myself - you are in massive violation of Article 9's injunction to find out all the facts before making a judgement.
Per Article 10, I am asking you to stop this behaviour. Article 11 lays out what's expected of you in this situation, and since you're a newcomer, I will quote it here for you:
"11. If someone or multiple someones have asked you to stop what you're doing, especially on the basis of the Constitution, take a step back. Stop and look at what you are doing or saying. Take the time to think about it - the PPC isn't going anywhere. Remember the foundation of respect that the PPC community is built on (see Article 1). If they've misunderstood you, explain that - per Article 9, nine out of ten disputes are honest misunderstandings. But if there is a foundation to their request, stop and apologise. If you've made an honest mistake, or weren't aware that what you said is offensive, it's always acceptable to explain after your apology. Nobody's perfect, and nobody's born knowing everything. Just make sure that explaining why it happened once or twice doesn't turn into making excuses for why it keeps happening."
Please note that this has nothing whatsoever to do with your views on Suvians, badfics, or PPC fiction. No apologies are required for those unless you have turned them into personal attacks.
Thank you.
hS
I've only responded to messages, and I am more than willing to take it up in email.
But if your going to wave around the constitution only when it suits you, I'll tell Bramandintook that you are bullies. She did want to discuss the mistrial of her original ban.
As the person who first cited the PPC Constitution in this thread to argue that you shouldn't be summarily blocked, I find this post extremely ironic.
As the Constitution itself makes clear, its enforcement falls to everyone, not one specific person. To avoid my thoughts colouring things too much, I won't be saying anything else for or against you.
Given that I think I'm the only person who's supported you at all since you began discussing Zdimensia, you may want to consider what that means.
And just to make it crystal clear: this is not an apology, and your subsequent posts have continued to include multiple constitutional violations.
hS
Okay, so you're going to tell her that we're bullies... what, exactly, is that going to change? She already thinks so, and apparently so do you.
Also, you accuse hS of waving the Constitution around only when it suits him, after all he's done to somehow help resolve this conflict - but as far as I can see, you came here already biased against us, and now that you've started another round of the Bram Dance, refuse to even consider our position on the subject. Who, exactly, is making statements here that only support their point of view?
Also, you and Bram get along so well on this particular topic, one might even wonder if you're the same person. Food for thought.
I have been bullied. Frankly I wish her all the luck because you would be done with her if you just listened.
You already know your own point of view, that you did nothing wrong and she's just a bad person.
A gross mischaracterization of our position.
Allow me to enlighten you.
Firstly, I don't think the majority of people here would just outright call Bram a "bad person". Some may—a good number of us have suffered a great deal at their hands—but we do understand that it's more complicated than that because this is not a storybook and we aren't children.
Well, some of us actually are children, or teenagers at least, but the point stands.
No. Our issue with Bramadin is not that they're a bad person. Our issues are as follows:
-Bram has continually proven themselves either unwilling or unable to uphold the standards of this community. These standards are not arbitrary, nor this this bullying: these are standards that every community member is held to. Including me. Including hS. Including Ix, including Neshomeh, including everyone else you have spoken to today.
-Bram has proven themselves willing to lie to get what they want. They have repeatedly circumvented bans, created fake identities, and otherwise behaved in a way that is not only unacceptable within the PPC, but unacceptable within any online community.
-Bram has proven that they are unwilling to accept the community's decisions and to stand by them—see above.
-Bram had repeatedly harassed and insulted PPC members.
-Despite many attempts, quite a few of which have had verbatim logs publically posted, logs that I have read, to listen to them, and to negotiate, Bram is unwilling to accept any sort of compromise that isn't "I get everything I want." Hence, your claim that "you would be done with her if you just listened" is blatantly, laughably wrong.
As to your claim that, according to Bram those efforts were misrepresented or that Phobos lied, or whatever else, the people who have tried to work something out with Bram are longstanding PPC members. They aren't beyond reproach, but they have time and again proven themselves to be honest, upstanding, and willing to act within the rules and standards of this community. Bram has not proven to be any of the above. In fact, through their actions, Bram has proven themselves to be deceitful, dishonest, and only willing to follow the rules when it suits them. As such, I do not trust Bram's word on this matter.
-The original incident that lead to Bram's initial banning is also irrelevant. Several PPC members have apologized for things that happened at that times (despite your assertion that we think we did nothing wrong). However, this incident is not why Bramadin was permanently banned. Bram was permanently banned because of the things that occurred after that incident, events that proved definitively that Bram was both unwilling and uninterested in following the rules and expectations of our community.
-Whatever mental health problems Bram may have, that does not excuse her behavior. Many PPCers also have mental health issues, and they are perfectly able to function within this community. And if it is true that Bram's condition makes functioning within this community impossible, then, quite simply, Bram cannot be a part of this community. The rules and standards that Bram repeatedly violated are what allow this community to function, and their violation is inexcusable: it literally cannot be excused. We wish Bram the best and hope they find the help they need to deal with the issues they have, but we are not psychiatrists, or any other sort of therapists. We are not the ones to give that help.
-Quite frankly, Bram has outworn any good will that they may have had, and given their continual flaunting of our rules, good will was all they were riding on. In my personal opinion, Bram has been given more chances than any who has so throughly violated the rules and expectations given to them deserve. It is a testament to the forgiving nature of the PPC that Bram was given so many chances. And the fact that Bram has very definitely run out of chances is proof that even the PPC's forgiveness has limits.
Once again, I must urge you to read the logs of the discussions with Bram that are https://ppc.fandom.com/wiki/User:Toopurple>on the wiki. Speaking as someone who was present for all of it, I can vouch for the fact that they are unaltered, unadulterated, and entirely accurate. You claim to have read them. Perhaps you have. However, if you have not, you should. Because it really does seem like you are not only unaware of our position, but also unaware of what Bram actually did and how bad it got.
Would anyone have reached out to Bram or known that you hurt her if she didn't break the rules? Two of my heroes are Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin, so I don't consider breaking rules to be automatically bad. Bram even mentioned the rule that you should ask before taking offense, and no one did that for her. One of the first things she said to me was that she had a condition where she might sound insulting when she doesn't mean to.
Bram said that a boarder told her that she should have lied during the first encounter and it would have saved her from banning, and that she has only ever been punished when being truthful.
I did read where Phobos was unwilling to give her anything of substance.
If you don't want to hang out with a person because of their disability, I don't think you have a right to judge her.
You say, "If you don't want to hang out with a person because of their disability . . ."
What we are trying to communicate to Bramandin is not that we don't want to hang out with her because of her disability. We are trying to say that, because of Bram's disability, we are not capable of interacting with her in any positive or supportive capacity. This situation has developed into the conflict it is due to miscommunications run rampant; the more we interact with Bram, the more miscommunications will crop up, which will lead to further strife and stress for both Bram and this community.
And that sucks, to use very blunt language. It sucks that we aren't able to interact successfully with Bramandin. This is not Bramandin's fault, and neither is it our own. The two parties simply do not have the collective skill to get along. It sucks, but it is fact.
And if continued interaction will continue to end in failure, and cause heartache on both sides, how can we justify wanting that to continue? It will be more healthy for both Bramandin and this community when the two parties stop interacting. Therefore, severing ties is the best course of action, and the only solution that prevents endless hurt feelings going forward.
—doctorlit
She wanted to have a back-and-forth on a document to make sure that you weren't twisting her words. What became of that?
So I'll state it even more basically:
It would be wrong of this community to continue interacting with Bramandin, knowing that such interaction will cause Bramandin more hurt in the future. We do not want to hurt her.
Can you at least acknowledge this? That we have a logical, human reason for shutting her out beyond rule-breaking?
—doctorlit
It seems that not having the hurt acknowledged is still bothering her.
You missed the part where he explicitly acknowledged the hurt by saying "knowing that such interaction will cause Bramandin more hurt in the future" (emphasis added) and also "We do not want to hurt her."
Failing to acknowledge that sort of thing looks a lot like willful ignorance, and is exactly why we get so frustrated dealing with zBram. She may have mental health issues that make reading comprehension difficult for her, but what's your excuse? Assuming, of course, that you are not her, lying to us and pretending to be someone else in order to harass us yet again. You sure do sound exactly like her, you know.
~Neshomeh
What you want doesn't always happen. She said that not listening to her is what's hurting her. There has been acknowledgment of hurt, but I don't see trying to make reparations.
A lot of you people sound the same, too.
We put her words on the Wiki for people to judge themselves. Are you trying to say that her words, by being displayed in their full original context on the TooPurple page, are being twisted?
Also, the people who have had a back-and-forth with her have all been villainized by her. She dices their words, removes all context, and uses what's left to slander their character and mental health on Reddit No one else wants to take the chance that she'll do the same to them.
-Phobos
I saw where she said that she had a wishlist where she understood she wasn't going to get everything, and you decided to give her nothing and say that she wasn't going to compromise.
Thoth is right - Marion has clearly decided to blindly follow Bram's perspective on everything without even considering anything and everything we've been trying to say on the subject. This argument is going nowhere - everything we try to tell her will be countered with "but Bram is still right because...". We might as well stop wasting our energy on someone who refuses to listen.
...that we choose not to associate with Bram. I myself have a disability as do numerous other Boarders who I will not name out of respect for their privacy. A disability is no excuse for malice and repeated harassment in a case like this.
Also, those heroes you named broke rules for an actually important reason, not because of a hobby, which for many of us is all that writing is. Bram won't quantifiably live a worse life for not being a member of this obscure corner of the Internet, and on the contrary I believe their life would improve if they let go of this chapter and moved on. Frankly, you seem to be heavily biased against us from the get-go. You're not giving us the chance that we supposedly denied Bram yet you claim we can't judge her. So why should you judge us?
Have you asked her why she cares so much?
I do admit that she got to say her piece first, but I don't think you're really respecting her side. I read where someone said to treat her like a tantruming child. Why do you care so much about what she does?
...within this community and causes harm to other members. I have given respect wherever due on past occasions by agreeing to think about this at all. I have decided to stop doing so. These are the words of a Boarder who has run out of patience for such things.
Okay, you... haven't listened to or read anything I said. Certainly seems that way.
>Two of my heroes are Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin, so I don't consider breaking rules to be automatically bad.
That is the kind of blatant false equivalence that makes me just... almost angry. Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin knew what they were doing. They broke the rules they broke for the specific purpose of making an important, meaningful point, and leading an oppressed group of people to hopefully free themselves of oppression. (That is not a perfect summation, but I think I got the main points down. Civil rights scholars, feel free to inform me outside this thread because this is not the point).
Bramadin broke the rules they broke out of a pure self-serving desire to have what they wanted. And the rules in question were by no means oppressive. They were rules about being polite. And honest. And the likes.
>Bram said that a boarder told her that she should have lied during the first encounter and it would have saved her from banning, and that she has only ever been punished when being truthful.
If someone said that they were full of it.
>If you don't want to hang out with a person because of their disability, I don't think you have a right to judge her.
Read my post again. Or, if it wasn't clear enough, let me clarify: My point was not that Bram has a disability and is therefore bad. It's that Bram's disability is not and cannot be taken as an excuse for their behavior. It doesn't make that behavior okay. Not at all. They have stalked, abused, and hurt people in this community because they are bitter and upset that they didn't get their way. That is unacceptable.
>Would anyone have reached out to Bram or known that you hurt her if she didn't break the rules?
I'm not dealing in hypotheticals right now. The question, as I said, is not whether or not Bram deserved the initial ban. The time for that debate has long since passed.
The question is whether Bram's current ban is warranted by her behavior. And the answer is (spoiler alert) YES. YES, it absolutely is. There is no community under the SUN that wouldn't ban for this.
I'm done here. It's clear that either your perspective is so bent towards Bram that you can't see where we're coming from, you've already made up your mind, or you're absolutely not interested in hearing anything from us and just want a punching bag. Whatever the reason, I see absolutely no point in discussing this with you further.
Have a good life.
> They were rules about being polite. And honest. And the likes.
Bram told me that she gets punished for honesty. As for polite, she did mention that she can't get anyone to help her with her social problems. Perhaps you're reading innocent gaffs as malicious?
I do think "what else could she have done" should be discussed with her.
Bram constantly and consistently lies about her experiences on the Board. She has done so to people such as yourself to garner sympathy. She has done so to random Reddit groups in the hopes of stirring up a bit of brigading. She's even tried to do it to us here in the PPC community, an attempt at gaslighting which would have been unsettling were it not so comically inept.
If she can't get anyone to help her with her social issues, well, that's very sad. It's also neither the PPC's fault, the PPC's business, nor the PPC's problem. We are not Bram's therapists, nor are we obliged to be, especially not to someone who routinely broke and continues to break community rules and then expects nothing short of grovelling for us abiding by our own rules and administering punishments to which she herself agreed.
As for the matter of discussing with her what else she could have done: we did. Over, and over, and over again. We have the receipts. They are publicly available. This is no longer a discussion the community is interested in having. I'm not trying to speak for all of us here; instead, I'm relaying to you the opinions of literally everyone in this thread who isn't you.
I don't think this matters to you, though. I have not the slightest reason or inclination to believe that you are acting in good faith. I really hope you find something better to do with your life than defend creepy stalkers obsessed over a fanfiction community, and until then, go somewhere else to look for it.
I do agree that oppressive rules must be broken to change the world for the better.
I don’t agree that our constitution is oppressive or that breaking the rules is necessary just to get our attention. We are quite willing to discuss problems when they come up. We are less willing to rehash the same discussion again and again.
I’ve been around to watch it all, and as far as I can tell, everybody who attempted to reach out to Bram was hurt in the process, sooner or later. There’s nobody left who would try it again.
At this point, we aren’t judging Bram, we’re judging our own ability to get along with her, and we came to the conclusion that we just can’t.
HG
I've been bullied too, but I wouldn't dream of going on a crusade like this, especially not for YEARS. Even if she was completely innocent in the original conflict, there is absolutely no excuse for how she's been handling the situation since. This level of refusing to let go is unhealthy - I pass no judgment on her personality, because I don't know her and so have no right to, but I can form an opinion about her behavior, and I don't much like what I see, my dear friend Marion.
And I think this needs to be reiterated - the PPC doesn't owe her any further interaction, and have expressed many, many, many, so many times that they're uncomfortable with her constant attempts at forcing herself back into this space. What she's doing now is harassment, plain and simple. And that is never acceptable. I'd tell Mother Theresa herself to knock it off if she was acting like this.
I didn't plan on get back into the ring with you, because you've dug your heels in already, but I couldn't just watch you flinging accusations and making personal attacks at a community I care about and not say anything. But now that we know each other's opinions, do kindly shut it because we're not getting anywhere - and I don't feel like playing chess with pigeons.
If you're saying that you personally have been bullied by the PPC since you've appeared on the Board, you're willfully mischaracterizing our interactions with you. If that is what you're saying, I ask you to point out one single instance of us bullying you.
I was talking about being bullied at school. Believe me, if I could have punched them in their miserable faces without getting expelled, I would have. I had to play sick to get a break.
Oh, I've been there too, darling friend Marion, I've played sick myself, and I still one hundred percent think Bram's behavior is unacceptable. Especially because she claims to be acting in good faith.
I won't reiterate what Phobos, Thoth and the others have said about this conflict, but this isn't a middle-school revenge fantasy, darling friend Marion. If you think harassing people, insulting them, trying to get other people to attack them and repeatedly violating their community space is acceptable on any level because Evil Bullies Deserve Punishment, I dare say Bram isn't the only one who should move on here from past hurts. Darling friend Marion.
Drop the "Darling Friend Marion" bit? Comes across as a bit condescending.
I know you're all-but certainly upset, but it's a good idea to at least try and keep a level head. Don't let them drag you down to their level.
I was upset, but I'll try my best to not let it get to me next time.
Just be sure to also tell her that she is still not welcome in this community. Even if we were to overturn her original ban, like she wants, it wouldn't erase the fact that she has harassed us for the last half-decade and that, by her own admission on Reddit, she does it now to inflict suffering upon us.
She is never going to be allowed back in the community. We do not want to deal with her anymore, and we are not happy that she continues trying to force herself on us.
-Phobos
And I apologize for letting my mouth run away with me. I shouldn't have stepped in at all.
As someone who got here recently and actually took the time to go back and study the history with fresh eyes, your perspective is extremely valuable. I personally appreciate it.
Additionally, as Marion continues to respond on this subject, her position becomes more clear. That information is also extremely valuable.
If we're going to allow new screennames the benefit of the doubt when it comes to insisting on repeating the exact same crud from zBram we've heard a dozen times before despite being asked not to, I'm afraid the occasional merry-go-round about her is something we'll have to tolerate, too. Maybe that's something we'll have to reevaluate as a community when we see how this shakes out, maybe not.
For now, I've got one more post to make in my discussion, for posterity, and then I'm out unless a vote is called for.
~Neshomeh
If seeing the archives and all the repeated ban violations and harassment hasn't convinced you that maybe, just maybe we were right about some things too in this matter, I suspect I won't be the one to change your mind - and I've got better things to do than join a fight I can tell is hopeless.
...not to Marion, but to the other Boarders. If the Nameless Admin deletes my reply, I'll understand. I'm afraid I haven't quite reached the point of being able to ignore this kind of twisting around of what actually happened over the years - it still makes me angry.
Didn't mean so much locking as doing the point-and-click deletion thing, but you're right. I didn't think about the ramifications of that, and I apologize.
I've called for bans impulsively before (no, I am not referring to Zdimensia here, despite what she thinks). It's fine. :)
hS
It might sound like we're splitting hairs, but what mockery there is - and there isn't much these days - is directed at the work itself, not the authors. It is explicit in the Constitution that we do not mock or target the authors of a fic, because that (as you rightly assert) is just plain mean-spirited.
I'm confused as to where you got the idea that we mock things for "not being up to professional standards", because we don't do that either. Take one of our most recent entries into PPC canon: Tomash's sporking of a fic in which Hermione's parents are revealed to be "royal phoenixes". The story requires that Hermione acts grossly out of character and makes Fawkes (who is renamed to Itzal Ombra for reasons that even Fawkes himself is confused by in the fic) her father. Does talking about how this story's plot constitute "mocking authors for not being up to professional standards"? I certainly don't think so, but then, I would say that, wouldn't I. =]
As for the stories we write not being "as good as some fanfiction", er, well spotted? There are some excellent fics out there. Some of them are definitely better than the average PPC mission. However, the fact that we don't have David Foster Wallace writing missions does not render any criticisms we make null and void. I can say that a one-legged donkey that's spent the past three decades wheezing its way up and down Blackpool Pleasure Beach underneath a succession of ever-more corpulent tourists isn't going to win the Grand National, and my saying so isn't invalidated by the fact that I'm not friggin' Seabiscuit. We're not the greatest writers who've ever existed, and nobody's claiming that we are, but since we're generally talking about things that are outright terrible (because those make for the most interesting missions) it's kind of beside the point.
Let me answer your question, though. Why do we do this? I can't speak for everyone, but I do it for a couple of reasons. The first is that it's a really enjoyable exercise in writing character interactions and dialogue. The second is that I like the challenge of responding to something bad or morally reprehensible or just plain weird and making something better come out of it. The main one, though? It's fun. I find it fun to read through awful fanfiction and take the mickey out of it. Again, I do not and will not take the mickey out of the author of a badfic, because everyone starts somewhere and I don't know their circumstances, but responding to silly plots or badly-written sex scenes or inept dialogue is just fun to me.
I really do think there's been a miscommunication here. Sorry to sound like a stuck record, but the PPC does not mock authors. We ain't about that. It is my position that saying a piece of work is bad for whatever reason is not the same as saying the person who created it is a bad person, and it's a position that the PPC as a community is built around.
So yeah, we're for real. I hope this wall of text from a slightly drunk British woman has helped you to understand where we're coming from, regardless of whether or not it affects your opinion. =]
That aside, we don't mock based on professional standards, we mock things that are a far cry from even passable, things that are so bad it's hilarious. And even if the stories we write aren't as good as some fanfic, so what? It's not an 'us' and 'them' situation, we write fic too. It's a learning process. We're all learning, it's just some people's steps towards learning produce more cringeworthy initial results than others'. It's not like we can't abide the idea of fanfiction at all, which you seem to be implying. We *are* fanfic authors, at least a good percentage of us. Also, if we're not allowed to criticize fanfic, then why are you allowed to say that stories we write aren't as good as some fanfic? It cuts both ways. Who's to say that *anyone* is above critique and not others? It's all a matter of opinion, isn't it?
And we have a strict policy of leaving the author out of critique. Have you read the "Other People" FAQ on our own Wiki? This might clear up some confusion. I'll link it here.
https://ppc.fandom.com/wiki/FAQ:ForOther_People
Might I ask which wiki sent you here?
What you're doing isn't simple criticism, and I would think that you could take a bit of judging. It's okay to say something is not good and leave it be, but your style is to say that the mistakes were bad enough to hurt the source material. The people who have the cringeworthy stories are probably the ones that could use a gentle nudge.
One of our biggest rules is that we leave the author out of it. Sometimes we and our agents will wonder, "What was the author thinking?", but we leave it at that.
We aren't the Writing Police, and we aren't judges in the Court of Writing. Who 'can' or 'cannot' write isn't up to us. Especially since fanfiction is such an important part of learning to write sometimes - both because you can make your mistakes without too much consequence and because there's a world with rules and people right there, meaning that you don't have to invent everything from scratch and can focus on the elements of story. Most of the PPC started in fanfiction, actually - I know that I still think a lot about the Hetalia stories I tried to write in middle school, all of which I consider bad now, but at the time, I thought I was doing great, and I was having fun.
But while we leave the authors out of it, we do mock their stories, and some of us are still discussing whether or not even that is okay. Not because we aren't as good as some fanfiction - and some fanfiction could seriously work as published books if you just changed a few names - but because fanfiction is a fun thing to do and a safe place to practice writing, and someone whose work gets missioned can absolutely feel personally targeted and attacked.
So yes, we are for real, and I won't deny that we do have some problems with our group. But we try not to be quite that bad.
Should all spaces be safe?
The go-to answer to this has been no as long as I can remember. The understanding is that if you post your work on a public archive with a community review function, you are consenting to criticism, both positive and negative.
However, we've never (AFAIK) sporked stories posted in smaller or more restricted communities. LiveJournal, for instance—I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable sporking something from somebody's journal. Maybe if they were vocally demanding critique, but then, I don't go looking there in the first place.
So, if someone doesn't want strong critical feedback, there are places to share that are safe. I believe we respect that.
The big, popular forums like ff.net and AO3, though? I don't personally feel they can or should be considered safe spaces. For myself, I'm not interested in sharing my work somewhere I'm only going to get coddled with bland praise and never challenged. I hate bland praise. I feel that the greatest compliment someone can give me is to respect the work I put into my writing by putting some work into engaging with it and leaving feedback that tells me what I did right or wrong.
That's not to say I don't get annoyed when I get feedback I don't like, incidentally. We're all only human. {= ) But learning to get over that knee-jerk reaction and use the experience as an opportunity for growth is important, especially if, like me, you're one of the many fanfic writers who hope to eventually publish some original work. IMO, if I can't handle being told I suck by some anonymous Internet people, god help me if real readers and critics have anything bad to say.
Tangentially related, I HAVE been considering, at least for myself, something like a statute of limitations on fics I spork. Nothing less than a year old, or something like that. (Unless it's a troll or something, then I don't care.) I figure the chance of seriously damaging somebody's ego goes down exponentially the more time between the original publication date and the sporking.
I also have zero sympathy for something like "Subjugation," a truly objectionable piece of work that was clearly written by an adult who knew exactly what they were doing—or at least, I sure hope so. >.<
~Neshomeh
I would say having your mistakes made fun of to be a serious consequence, especially when you're having fun and think you're doing great.
And Some authors might find out about what you're doing and would feel personally attacked because their Sues are based on themselves.
What you're doing is not right.
Out of curiosity, is the fact that we critique fanfiction at all something that bothers you, or is it just that we do it with humor?
~Neshomeh
Some critique is fine. You have to look at how much someone might be able to handle. Doing it with humor is not the way to be helpful unless you know the person can laugh with you instead of feeling laughed at.
I don't know how much or what flavor of critique any given Internet writer can handle. Sometimes, if they actually say they're interested in improving and welcome feedback, I'll leave a review. More often, though, it's just the usual "plz R&R!!1! I must have 5 reviews before I post the next chapter!" Given the choice between spending my energy on A) a long, long list of corrections that may or may not be welcome, or B) on writing my own characters, in their own story, viscerally experiencing the problems so they're shown rather than told? I choose the latter. It's more interesting for me and my intended readers, and, I believe, less likely to hurt someone than you think.
I don't know the numbers, but I'm pretty sure there are a lot more authors who don't have a story sporked than those that do, so statistically, the chance that YOUR story will be sporked is low. And, again, we don't broadcast what we do for good reason. Nobody here intends for any particular author to see a mission about their particular story.
Given that, supposing someone does come across a mission to their work anyway, I think self-determination on the author's part comes into play.
First, they have to make the choice to read the mission. We don't want them to, and no one's forcing them to. To quote many a fanfic: don't like, don't read!
Second, once they've decided to read it (I'm guessing most people would, honestly; ALL writers have egos), they have to decide how to deal with it beyond the knee-jerk reaction of taking it personally. Sure, it sucks to hear that somebody thinks your work is no good. That's completely normal. But what do you do next?
You've basically got three choices: 1) take it super-seriously and wallow in misery and/or rage ad infinitum; 2) completely dismiss it as the idiotic babble of a basement-dwelling loser, forget it, and move on; or 3) really think about it, take what value you can from it, and leave the rest.
It's not easy to do the third thing, and nobody is born able to do it, but it is incredibly worthwhile to learn how on something relatively trivial like fanfic. That makes it easier when you have to face criticism of much more important parts of your identity, like your performance in school, or in a job, or as a human being. I speak from experience here, and I think most of us could.
To be clear, I'm not saying I think I'm doing anyone a favor by sporking their story—again, my intention is not for them to see it at all. I'm just saying that my personal outlook is that challenges are opportunities for growth, and I highly recommend that outlook to anyone who stumbles across a mission to their fanfic.
~Neshomeh
I think that when reviewing a work, you could point out one problems and offer to point out anything else that could be corrected. It's better than going straight to mocking someone's Sue.
I think that there would be an overlap between people who take it personally and think that you're losers. Do you want people to see you as losers in the first place?
There is a difference between criticism and mocking.
I could start by pointing out just one problem. In a fic bad enough to support a mission, though, the question becomes: which one? The biggest problem, which is often "please actually read/watch/play the work you're writing about" or "please learn what the words you're using mean and also how to use your keyboard"? The most unintentionally hilarious? The most unintentionally godawful? The most insulting to my intelligence as a reader? The most disrespectful to the work the author claims to be a fan of?
One time I DID leave a review was on a sequel to another fic. The first fic was flawed, but not terrible. The second one was mostly a plagiarized transcription of The Lord of the Rings with lines inserted here and there for the OC. I now find it's finally been deleted, so I can't just copy & paste what I said, but it basically boiled down to "This is plagiarism, plagiarism is bad. I'm here because I want to read fanfiction. Why not actually write some?" I never got a response. I did spork both stories, and here's my author's note:
"Despite its flaws, 'The Adventure Begins' had some promise: the romance stuff was handled pretty well, Vanya was at least smart enough not to go around telling people she was a werewolf at first, and I really sympathize with wanting to hang out with Aragorn and be a Ranger. However, everything good about the first story—heck, even most of what was bad about it—was abandoned in "With one Step." At that point, there was no hope of salvaging Vanya. She all but wrote herself out of existence. The agents just finished the job."
Had some nice things to say about it in the mission itself, too. I still like the romance scene with the fireflies, for one.
There is indeed a difference between criticism and mocking, and I agree that PPC missions skirt the line and sometimes cross it. As to how bad that is, though, let me suggest a case study.
One of my earliest missions, "What Friends Will Do," contains what I think is one of the meanest things I've written, off the top of my head, and it wasn't even about the main character (a very OOC canon in this case), but a side character, Dr. Jenkins. Ctrl+f that and you'll find the relevant passages. My character insults the hell out of this character, because he's supposed to be a doctor and yet, in his first scene, he does absolutely nothing to help the main character, who is lying in a bed screaming in pain. That is a bad doctor, and there's no sugarcoating it. That's why I don't think it's going too far to have a laugh at his expense.
Also, worth noting, the fic in question was last updated in February 2005, and my mission wasn't published until January 2008. I reckon three years ought to put plenty of emotional distance between an author and a work. In that amount of time, most people would even agree their older stuff is flawed.
I'm genuinely curious, though—if you actually read one of my missions (one of the above or any other), where do you think I went too far, and why? You seem like a reasonable person, and I would take the information on board even if I disagree.
~Neshomeh
P.S. About zdimensia/Bramandin/whatever she's calling herself now? I am very sincerely cautioning you, please don't go down that rabbit hole. We've tried everything, we really have, and it never ends with anyone any happier.
I read one story, and you did take a potshot at the author because you didn't like shipping. I would say that you could have addressed the medical problems and the behavior of the doctor.
I've been thinking a bit more about how you want harsh criticism. Just because it's what you want doesn't mean that's what everyone on fanfiction sites want. Sometimes they just want to share a story and lack of feedback is better if it's bad. Plus, some people may still care about something that's more than a decade old.
As far as Bramandin, we've chatted and you have bullied her. You also haven't tried actually showing that you understand what she was trying to tell you.
What potshot is that? Which story? Vague, unsubstantiated statements do not a good argument make.
On a similar note, if you're not going to read the archive and get the full context of what happened with zBram, I'm not going to discuss it. The only way you're going to get an unbiased account is to go back and read the actual posts. If you do that and still want to tell me what I have and haven't done, I'll reconsider it, and then only by email. I'm not inviting yet another round of her harassing this community, directly or indirectly. I'll respond on this subject no further.
~Neshomeh
"What Friends Will Do," is the story I read. I'm sorry, I should have said which one because there were more than one.
I have read enough of the archive to see that you have twisted what she said and you should actually discuss things properly by listening to bramandintook once she gets internet access again.
I just checked, and the only time I refer to the author/writer in that story is when Nume says "This lawsuit-waiting-to-happen [Dr. Jenkins] is the tool of the writer. I can't allow it to live." That has nothing to do with shipping and isn't even directed at the writer. They're only mentioned in passing.
I can't read your mind. Please explain what you mean, or this isn't going to be a very useful conversation.
~Neshomeh
From memory, "We're dealing with a shipper" but I think the wording was harsher.
I think I can guess what you're talking about now, but I'm not going to do all the work of making your arguments for you. If you don't want to engage in a serious debate, that's fine. I have other things to do.
~Neshomeh
"She hasn't bothered creating a full-fledged body because she isn't interested in that kind of story. She's just a damn 'shipper."
But I do apologize. I did not believe her when she said you don't take criticism well.
Thanks for clearing that up.
For the benefit of anyone following along, here's the passage with some relevant context included:
"This is a problem," Nume said. "How do we kill a Sue that has no body?" He paced the hall, one hand at the back of his neck and the other on his hip, oblivious to the worried expression on his partner's face. "Unless it isn't a Sue." He stopped. "What if it's a Sue-wraith? She hasn't bothered creating a full-fledged body because she isn't interested in that kind of story. She's just a damn 'shipper." (WFWD)You claim that this passage demonstrates that I took a pot-shot at an author because I don't like shipping.
Very well, but I do suggest taking things up with her via email.
As for your explanation, my only further argument is that it's difficult to separate authors from their characters, and I can only give you the benefit of the doubt that you weren't intending to come off as attacking the author.
The distinction between author and character... Therein, I think, lies a key philosophical difference between us and other people.
I do not believe my characters are me. I give them some views that are similar to mine, but I also give them some views that differ from mine. Without knowing me, you can't know which is which. Maybe, if you studied my body of work in depth, you could make an educated guess about what I really think about some topics based on my stories alone, but maybe not.
I also do not believe a fanfic writer's Mary Sue is them. A Sue may have many things in common with their author, since some Sues are intended as idealized versions of their author, but without knowing the author, I can't know what is a true reflection of them and what isn't. That's a good thing for the author, because most Mary Sues are awful people when judged by their shown (not told) behavior, and I don't think that's the case of most fanfic writers. Not without some direct evidence from their own words.
That's why PPC missions don't direct their commentary at the author, but restrict it to the character(s): explicitly to avoid attacking a real person.
That's why we don't tell authors we're sporking their stories: explicitly to avoid attacking a real person.
And that brings us back to the point we've been trying to make from the start. If it is not yet clear that we don't ever intend to attack a real person, despite several people, our wiki, and our Constitution telling you as much, there's really nothing else to say.
~Neshomeh
Does anyone have a short version of what happened from your perspective?
They were temporarily banned for their behavior. They broke the ban. They were permanently banned. They broke the ban again under a new username. They were kicked out again. They continued using new usernames and IP addresses to try to get around the ban. As soon as we catch them, we kick them again. They've tried to drum up mobs from Reddit to attack us on several occasions, though you'll have to take my word on that because they've sanitized their Reddit history to hide all of that.
This has been going on for several years.
That's the short story, and it barely scratches the surface.
-Phobos
As is standard practice for users violating a ban implemented by majority vote, her post has been deleted.
Hey! We (the community) make a distinction between good and bad fanfiction, and we have heaps of praise for the good fanfics. In addition, we've taken measures to ensure the authors of the fics we "spork" (critique in a humourous manner) don't find our missions, because publicly mocking someone's creation is rude. I'd also like to ask where you heard of the PPC from, if you don't mind.
So you think it's rude, but do it anyway behind people's backs? I don't think praising what you do like makes up for making fun of what you don't.
There is a link on the Wiki.
The community, or rather, most members, have had a discussion on this. As previously mentioned, we're implementing measures to make it less rude. I really think some missions are just to plain awful stories, ones that make you shiver at the thought of the people who wrote them. Also, the commmunity's name's abbreviation (PPC) is not one easily connected to this site. You'd have to enter in the full name, which would lead you to the wiki, which means you're actively looking for it, or TV Tropes. I'd like you to know that there's a reason we don't go around flaunting our TV tropes definition around: It's a gross perversion of what we are. We aren't internet cops. We don't try to police others, and we don't try to be rude. Rude, in my opinion is going around saying "LOOK AT THIS PERSON, THEIR WRITING SUCKS, GO HATE ON THEM". We don't do that, and we make a point not to do so. We try to offer concrit, and do missions only if it's really bad. Anyway, I might have gotten some things wrong, but I do hope you have a nice day.
If you're posting while "logged in", it's making you show up as "Annonymous". This has been a bug for a few months. Could you please log out and post, manually filling in the author field, so we know who you are?
- Tomash