clockways:

copperbadge:

waldorph:

So, I got to the bottom of why I was getting such weird comments on a relatively obscure fic of mine—it’s required reading in a class being taught, and one of the assignments is to leave a comment on the required reading which is more critical than constructive so that the professors know students are “engaging” with the texts in a way that isn’t just “YAY I LIKED IT.” 

But waldorph, how do you know? Well, one of the teachers of said class commented on my fic, Delilah, which was this week’s required reading, and I was able to track down the syllabus and uncover the assignment which was prompting the flood in my inbox. The comments I received were bizarrely tone-deaf, condescending, rude, and more than that, completely out of step and touch with all fannish norms, and actually prompted me to write a post about concrit and feedback earlier this week.  As soon as she explained that it was a class, and that these were fannish-outsiders, it made sense, as opposed to me assuming someone had recc’d it and I was getting way more backlash than usual on a pretty obscure fic. Unfortunately, I dealt with this all week before one of the teachers stepped in, and that was only when I started receiving flaming trolls.

For this reason, I’ve alerted all of the authors listed on the syllabus that they’re about to experience this because, frankly, I would have appreciated a heads up. I’ve also listed them all below, including the weeks that their works will be reviewed. I think that it might be nice if people could spread this around and leave some positive vibes on these works in particular—some of them are pretty well known and some of them aren’t but I think they all equally deserve support from within the community. Additionally, if you know these authors and can contact them directly, please point them in my direction or in the direction of this post and I can provide them with a little more information. I reached out to everyone, but obviously contact information can be out of date. 

Ultimately, there’s nothing we can do about people examining works that we never meant to be examined in this way. I think we all have to accept that the way fandom gets interacted with is changing, not just the way that we interact with the rest of the world. I do think that as a community we can and should support each other.

Please signal boost this post so that we can get these authors some good vibes. Obviously we’re into the semester already, so I’ve also included works that have already been through this, please be sure to give them love as well. Links under the cut.

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Holy fuck you guys. 

Outside of the whole “A Billion Wicked Thoughts” mess a few years ago, I think this is probably the most inappropriate behavior of academia towards fandom that I’ve seen, especially since I don’t see how this professor could not be in fandom and therefore they should know better. 

I’m not in a good (geographical) location to go to town on this right now, but I can spread awareness. Waldorph, I am so sorry this happened to you, and I know everyone appreciates you letting fandom know it’s going on. (Also, Anon who tipped me off, thank you very much!) 

I do have connection to some of these authors and I’ve been in touch with one of them, who plans to simply delete the comments as soon as they appear, which I recommend to the other authors on the list — that or locking the fic down for the week in question, I suppose. In theory this will mean there is no viable record of who did and did not submit criticism to the story, and may be the best way to send a very simple “NO. BAD ACA” message to the professor in question.

Jesus bananas, I’m so appalled. 

So bloody hell let me say as a professor myself BLOODY HELL what is this person thinking? Let’s put aside the violation of the author’s fan space for a moment because Sci, Sam, and the OP has covered this well. Let’s take a moment to look at REQUIRED READING for a class that contains: Explicit Sex, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Incest, and Rape/Non-Con. 

This means some student who signed up for a class on ‘critical engagement with contemporary writing’ or something by that title likely is being told that they have to read Explicit Sex, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Incest, and Rape/Non-Con and comment on it. While I firmly believe that college is a time to push people out of comfort zones and that trigger warnings can be taken to extremes (because usually you can just turn around and avoid it if you need to) those are some potentially heavy things to make a person read. For me I would of gotten to the Rape/Non-Con and noped all the way to the dean’s office and reported the professor. Because BLOODY HELL.

Beyond that how is this even useful to the students without engaging in the material? Do they watch the films/shows first? Do they get a crash course in the history of the fandom before engaging? Because I bet not.

And also if the comments these authors are getting are rude/trolls/flames than that prof IS NOT doing their damn job of teaching students how to crit and shame on them as an instructor. And for gods sakes- move it off of Ao3 and to Blackboard or whatever their school uses. There is a whole built in discussion feature in all of those the students could use. 

Honestly from prof to prof I want to shake this person and ask what they don’t understand about how this is wrong. And if that doesn’t work I want to go shake the dean.