Yeah sure we’ve all binged a long fic, but have you ever read a WIP and followed someone’s life?
Tidbits of information – (“I graduated today!”) – and small joys (“It’s my birthday!”) and you get to be there to say “This chapter made me cry, happy birthday, thank you for gifting us this”.
I remember reading this fic of someone at the end of high school, older than me then. They seemed infinitely wise, spoke of their future career and getting into the college they wanted. I remember them posting on days they felt like nothing could bring them down – and on days the whole world did and it’s the aftermath of a hospital visit. Cancer, I think it was, their father. I got to the end of the story, I know their father was fine, but also they got to finish their WIP. I graduated three years later than them, still dutifully wrote thank you notes in every comment. I wonder if they remember me, or just the collective of people reading the story as it updates.
Four years ago I was into my first year of university, my first year of figuring out being out in public spaces. I made excuses as to why my name didn’t match my paperwork and read a fic on the train, the same five chapters over and over again for the next years as I thought the story abandoned. It updated this week after such a long hiatus, I left another thank you comment.
There’s an author I love, they update their stories like a clockwork. When they don’t, I check their blog, just to see if their doing alright, not because I feel like they owe me, just to ensure whether I better get out my laptop to write that really detailed university level essay chapter analysis to get them smiling when their day sucked.
And then, once, when I was 17, I read a fic that hadn’t updated in over a decade. I wasn’t even in primary school when it started posting. On the last chapter, I left a comment that, in retrospect, was horribly rambly and most likely full of grammar mistakes. The author replied and though I couldn’t see their face, I thought of them crying. They were married now, had children, and hadn’t thought about this fic in years. They went through their files again, found another half written chapter and an outline. I got two new chapters to read that year.
And then, recently, someone told me they got back into writing original fiction because of my comments. I get to read nearly weekly chapters.
I love binge reading a finished fic, but nothing is ever going to top the feeling of anticipation of waiting for a chapter, the pure joy when someone tells you I was done with this, but you made me think of it again, so this is for you.
Anyway, I think we should romanticize reading WIPs more, growing up alongside the authors writing the stories we love.
Ideally I would embed the article, but WordPress lacks that very basic functionality. Here’s a snippet:
My trouble in those days started when I fell utterly and totally in love with Amy Pond. She was the first of Moffat’s Who companions and she was everything I wanted in a female character. She was smart, she was witty, she was beautiful, she was… oh wait, this girl is messed up.
Still obsessed with Arthur Conan Doyle’s letter to Bram Stoker gushing about how wonderful a book Dracula is, but particularly how it makes such a good template for leaving fic comments, so I’m gonna to a BREAKDOWN:
Just say you loved reading it – “I am sure that you will not think it an impertinence if I write to tell you how very much I have enjoyed reading Dracula.”
Comment on a detail of the craft or structure that impressed you – “It is really wonderful how with so much exciting interest over so long a book there is never an anticlimax.“
Comment on how it emotionally affected you – “It holds you from the very start and grows more and more engrossing until it is quite painfully vivid.”
SHARE YOUR BLORBO FEELINGS – “The old Professor is most excellent and so are the two girls.”
Show appreciation for them as an author – “I congratulate you with all my heart for having written so fine a book.”
Next time you don’t know what to say on a fic you enjoyed, just use the ACD method~
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t give two shits about the English Royal Family, but this PR crisis they’re in right now is just wild. Every time you think they’re done digging themselves deeper, they haul another bucket of shit up from the bottom of the well they’re in.
Is Kate dead? Of course not. Is the PR team still, for some inexplicable reason, acting like they’re covering up her murder? Yes! And I for one find that fucking hilarious.
What’s distressing, but also important to understand, about JK Rowling hitting the “Denying trans people were targeted in the Holocaust” point is that it’s kind of the last stop before she just goes full alt-right weirdo.
Joanne is denying the Holocaust (if a group was targeted, denying they were targeted is Holocaust denial) and that’s going to lead to pushback from historians and experts. But Joanne is too deep in to believe what anyone who disagrees with her says, so she’s just going to dismiss what those historians and experts tell her. And once she’s disbelieving them about that one thing, well it’s just a tiny step to start disbelieving them about other things.
This isn’t by accident either, transphobic circles are swarming with far right agitators, ready to use hatred of trans people as an in to recruit people into their causes. They have handbooks for this sort of thing and they are, unfortunately, good at it. I suspect Joanne will be spouting coded versions of Great Replacement stuff by the end of the summer.
This is not a plea to try and pull Joanne out. She’s too deep in, and even if she wasn’t, she’s already demonstrated an inability to examine her own prejudices, an unwillingness to hear criticism and a weakness to flattery. She is perfect recruitment bait for people who know what they’re doing, and my impression is she’s surrounded herself with people like that.
No, this is to understand two things: First is to use her as an example, to understand how a well meaning liberal can chase their own prejudices down a very dark rabbit hole. We are none of us immune to propaganda and even if we can’t change what’s happened to her, we can at least use it to protect ourselves.
And second is to understand that one of the main reasons you can’t pull Joanne out of the transphobic pipeline is cause she is the pipeline now. She is the transphobic banner bearer now, she is funneling money and attention to these groups, she is their most famous celebrity and she is helping recruit people. Being able to show people how far she’s gone, how deep into the right wing rabbit hole she’s going, is important to help other people who still think she just “Had some concerns” know where her path leads.
