I can’t stop thinking about what Caitlin Moran did to humiliate a fanfic writer. I reblogged a post about it and walked away to clean the kitchen. As I inhaled the nontoxic fumes of Mrs. Meyers countertop spray, I got madder and madder.
The fic’s writer has addressed the situation, and her responses are classy as hell. I hope she sticks with her writing, because she is really good. I don’t normally seek out slash fic, but I began reading hers. She’s got the characters, the emotions, the situations nailed. Four for her.
But, then there’s the wider chilling effect of what Moran has done. Somewhere out there, there is a young adult who is reading about what happened that panel, watching the YouTube video. That person is probably looking at his or her writing and is suddenly terrified this will happen to them. After all, this interviewer had no qualms about doing it to someone else. That person might go to his or her Tumblr, Ao3 or wherever they have their stories posted and delete all their work, afraid they will be ridiculed. They will stop writing. They will stop creating.
This is what Caitlin Moran caused. It’s not just humiliating an author, making the actors and creators of “Sherlock” uncomfortable or going against her own words about feminism. It’s because what she did could influence someone to stop writing. What if we have lost out on some amazing work because a budding, insecure writer was scared off by Moran’s actions?
As a fanfic writer, this just makes me upset. But as a comic book writer, an author, a creator who came to my field because fanfic enabled me to hone my craft, this royally pisses me off.
To anyone reading this, who feels insecure after what happened at the Sherlock event, please don’t stop creating. Please don’t stop writing or drawing or creating beautiful cosplay or crafts. To quote Neil Gaiman, “Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art.”
#fandom #I’ve been reading around #And this post is one of the few that’s taken a slightly larger view of the situation #We all have opinions on what happened #We can all rally in support #But we also shouldn’t stop doing what we do #savvyliterate is right: #This is the kind of thing that makes people stop creating #And there are already too many doubts and naysayers and fears standing in people’s way #I hope we see less (and eventually none) of this kind of thing in the future #But in the mean time #Everybody #Please keep doing what you do #Because we get better #And we make each other better #And that’s one of the greatest things about fandomTags via fractionallyfoxtrot and I SO agree with them!