Subject: On the one hand...
Author:
Posted on: 2010-06-10 20:50:00 UTC
Definitely, I think she gets a break if she's learned from her mistakes. On the other hand, it occurred to me that if she knew it was bad, she might enjoy seeing it mocked. On the third hand, you can't assume she would; on the fourth hand, if you can find a tactful way of asking, it might be worth it. On the fifth hand, I seem to have turned myself into an octopus, so I'll shut up now.
I was going through my stash of downloaded 'fics recently, and I came across the first ever H/D slashfic I ever read. For nostalgia's sake, I started skimming it, and realized very quickly that these days it was something I would much rather PPC than read. However, when I went looking for it online, all I found was a note from the author saying that she had taken it down and moved on. I know deleted 'fics have been PPCed before, but I also seem to recall an ethical note stating that it's in bad taste to PPC stories whose authors understood how bad they were.
I had a couple thoughts about how to deal with it, the main one being the author-wraith exorcising herself and knocking sense into the canons on her own. It's been done with assassinations, and I think I could make it work for an exorcism. Alternatively, I could just do a deleted-story drama, much like the one found in the JAAKSONS, among others, and ignore the exorcism altogether. My first inclination is for the first, but I could manage either.
What do the rest of you think about the ethics of this situation? Should I go for it at all, or should I just look around for another H/D badfic? (It's not like there's any lack of them. Heck, I've written several myself...)
(For the record, the mission coming from this probably won't be out for a while. I'm planning a story-arc for Sarah and Elaina at the moment, so we have a couple to go before getting here, but oh well. It's nice to plan ahead.)
--anamia
Definitely, I think she gets a break if she's learned from her mistakes. On the other hand, it occurred to me that if she knew it was bad, she might enjoy seeing it mocked. On the third hand, you can't assume she would; on the fourth hand, if you can find a tactful way of asking, it might be worth it. On the fifth hand, I seem to have turned myself into an octopus, so I'll shut up now.
True, we try to focus on the 'fic, not the author, but if an author has taken their work down - particularly if they did so because they know it's bad - it's best to respect that. Besides, from an in-world point-of-view, the fanfic is no longer around to wreck havoc on canon, so there's no need to PPC it anyway ;)
If there are aspects of it so dreadful that you feel you can't let it go, what about having your agents grumble about it in the past tense, as though it were a mission they once did in the non-narrative time before you started writing them? Or have them moan about it being the first such badfic they read and how it traumatised them? In that case they could outright state that the author later took it down, and even complain that they'd have liked to PPC it themselves - remember, the 'lives' of our avatar agents tend to follow 'real life', if in a bizzare, twisted fashion.
But even if not, I wouldn't PPC it. There's nothing stopping you, if you're determined, but since you asked...
The missions that were written for deleted stories were being written when it was deleted.
Also, if the author has learned the error of their ways then it is our job to acknowledge that and not drag up their past mistakes. If the author removed it because they realize it was bad, then I think it would be best to let it be.
Those are my thoughts on the matter.
-Barid
My understanding about the PPC is that it is less author specific (since we don't link the original author the story, and don't ever particularly plan for the original author to find missions) and more about generally sporking particularly bad works. From that position, the only criteria for fics would be ones that would be /fun/ to do missions for.
That said, if the author disliked the work enough to delete it (I actually would have left a bad fic up to just to show how far I've come) they would probably be upset that someone else put it back up, in whatever form.