The fourth option
Jul. 3rd, 2012 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zhieIf the current lead team for the MEFAs is truly not doing it after this year, what's stopping someone from picking it up next year? I know, I know, it's all very raw right now, but y'know, if you're going to orphan something and walk away, I think that the whole 'and no one can adopt it' is... well, a little arrogant. That's like saying no one in the future could possibly organize it. I don't think that's true. I get that the lead team is upset right now. And I can understand that. But I also think if you really love something, but are really done with it, then you pass it along to someone else instead of burying it. Just like Ainaechoiriel did.
I don't think it's enough to tell people they should start something like it. Looking at the history of this group, it was Ainaechoiriel who first began them. And I'm going to repost something that she posted just before handing over the reins -- something to think about, for everyone involved to think about, since everyone is moving at a pace that I think is much too fast for Middle-earth: remember, we only have horses!
From post #6725 (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards/message/6725)
January 13, 2006
I know it can hurt sometimes to see something you like change. I pick my battles. See the non-negotiables list. RL has caused me to back off far sooner than I had ever planned. I
knew someday I'd get married and adopt children. I didn't think of that when I started the MEFA's though. I'd been single so long.... And voila, Mr. Time-stealer comes along....
No, really, it's a good thing for me that he's come along. As much as love fandom and fanfiction, sometimes RL comes first. Most times. I'm starting a marriage and a family. That will take priority over the MEFAs. I'll try to make time, at least here and their, and Marta has promised to keep me aprised of important events.
But now I'm rambling. Sometimes the proposed changes hurt. Sometimes they're a bit scary. I know I don't want to poke my nose back in here in 5 years and not recognize the place. But I also have some amount of faith that because this worked in 2004, the LOTR fandom found out that such an awards program based on feedback can work and be pleasant and produce positive feelings, there will be enough people who value it around to keep it from being destroyed.
--Ainaechoiriel
MEFA Admin and Founder
I don't think it's enough to tell people they should start something like it. Looking at the history of this group, it was Ainaechoiriel who first began them. And I'm going to repost something that she posted just before handing over the reins -- something to think about, for everyone involved to think about, since everyone is moving at a pace that I think is much too fast for Middle-earth: remember, we only have horses!
From post #6725 (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MEFAwards/message/6725)
January 13, 2006
I know it can hurt sometimes to see something you like change. I pick my battles. See the non-negotiables list. RL has caused me to back off far sooner than I had ever planned. I
knew someday I'd get married and adopt children. I didn't think of that when I started the MEFA's though. I'd been single so long.... And voila, Mr. Time-stealer comes along....
No, really, it's a good thing for me that he's come along. As much as love fandom and fanfiction, sometimes RL comes first. Most times. I'm starting a marriage and a family. That will take priority over the MEFAs. I'll try to make time, at least here and their, and Marta has promised to keep me aprised of important events.
But now I'm rambling. Sometimes the proposed changes hurt. Sometimes they're a bit scary. I know I don't want to poke my nose back in here in 5 years and not recognize the place. But I also have some amount of faith that because this worked in 2004, the LOTR fandom found out that such an awards program based on feedback can work and be pleasant and produce positive feelings, there will be enough people who value it around to keep it from being destroyed.
--Ainaechoiriel
MEFA Admin and Founder
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-07-03 09:52 pm (UTC)It's so very simple, isn't it?
I"m still smarting over their rather nasty and rude slight back in 2005
Wait, what was that? That was a couple of years before I found fanfic.
no subject
Date: 2012-07-03 11:05 pm (UTC)*cracks knuckles*
The FIRST year the MEFA's were up, I joined up. I was writing a longish piece of tripe - the Empty Vessel - and being new to writing, I really wanted soemthing that would help me, rather than the ZOMGILOVETHISSOMUCH that I was getting.
I was quickly informed that the group did not accept NC17. Romance was okay, but NO SEX.
I left, with my tail between my legs. My Bronny-poo is QUITE the horny bitch. I mean, can you blame her? She's married to Haldir.! GO HER!
So I didn't think to much about them for a few years.
Then in 2004, a beautiful piece of Fanfiction, named Elanor's Revenge by Julie and Fiana, took 1st place at the MEFAs. It was openly rated NC17 and rightly so. When one finishes with the sex scenes, you need a mop.
I had just started writing Rider of the Mark - a Rohirrim fic with the main character - of all people - Gamling. I rated it from the beginning as Mature for the simple reason as there was going to be sex. Thing is, the sex at the time wasn't as graphic (at the the one scene that was written at the time), was tastefully done, was NOT the sole purpose of the fic (the fic is 47 chapters completed this past December and the initial sex scene is not until chapter 13 - and the chapters are good sized. The sex again, is not gratutious. It takes place at Dunharrow, the night before the Rohirrim leave for Gondor. And Gamling didn't pick some random wench... this was someone he loved. (and married when he came back). Considering the scene and what was going on, it fit the fic in that place. It's up in original form at ffnet, so you know it's not that awful graphic. (it's also at OEAM and Fairie and somedays when Zhie gets the bugs out of Parasambe, I'll finish loading it there too!) The fic FOCUSES on the relationship itself and the forces surrounding the relationship... NOT the sex.
Rider was nominated for the MEFA's by Ghettoelleth in 2005 - I believe I had about 20 chapters completed. We linked it to openscrolls and I rerated it to R so anyone could read it without having to sign up... not to mention I didn't think that initial scene warrented the Mature rating I knew it would earn on the wedding night.
IT was excepted, I was given the links to give out and a banner to post at my LJ and my blog. I was looking forward to some true CC - as I do like to improve my craft - and perhaps gain some new readers and find stuff to read I normally don't find.
A few weeks later, a yahoo group member contacted me and told me the link was bad. I went to the site to find my fic gone. I emailed the powers that be to see where it had been moved to.
I received a VERY TERSE and ugly email from someone informing me they 'were not amused' and 'I needed to learn how to properly rate my fic as someone 'brought it to their attention.'
Fine. Fuck you.
About a year later, I'm whining on GhettoElleths journal about it and someone responds (and I can't go back to see who because GhettoElleth has deleted her blog and I didn't save copies of it) who was a moderator - I don't remember that. Removing a fic takes a committee and I don't remember seeing Rider come through the comittee. let me go look.
She comes back a few days later and says... this is weird. There is NO chatter, no discusion, no record, no nothing. One day your fic is there and the next it was removed from the website. ONE person made the decision without discussing it. There isn't even a papertrail as to who possibly complained and the STRANGER thing is normally we don't check ratings. If a writer says it's R - as far as we are concerned where it's linked, it's R. It might have a harder rating ELSEWHERE because of what a website will allow. (Ffnet at the time didn't allow NC17, so you HAD to water or reword.)
so this leaves me with the quandry...
continued
Date: 2012-07-03 11:05 pm (UTC)1) The decision to remove my fic was made by ONE person. There was no comittee, no one asked me if this was a watered version, or what. I was not asked for an explanation. That's too much powah for ONE person to have.
2) There is no record of a complaint - meaning someone 'complained' privately to a friend or someone who knew she would scratch her back. And I have a suspicious feeling WHO that was. this also reeks of favoritism. Just what you want in an awards group, eh? Afraid of the competition? NO problem. Ring up your buddy the moderator, whine and joila! Competition gone!
This information set me off MORE than the fact that I was booted.
Thing is, I know people who KNEW what happened - one entered HER ROhirrim fics who were very similar to what I wrote and hers were accepted, honorable mentions, etc. We were all perplexed.
Elitist. Favortism. Who WANTS to be associated with that?
I am VERY proud of the work and the writing quality of Rider of the Mark. I think my writing skills have grown a lot since I started writing in 2002. I would have LIKED very much to have had some honest, good, CC on Rider before I finished it. I don't feel that it should have been ostrasized like it has. I have refused to allow anything I've written since then to be nominated for anything - and as Zhie will tell you up until that time, I entered a LOT of fanfiction competitions and did rather well. I'm not ashamed of anything I've written.
Well.... Empty Vessel makes me cringe a little but... that's neither here or there.
But yeah.... THAT"S my backstory with the MEFA's. I won't even go to the site to read what's up anymore. I did read this years winner and while the story was 'cute', I wasn't impressed. I wasn't impressed with the quality of the writing, I found the writer TRYING to sound Tolkien-like - and people fall on their faces when they do that. I found the main female canon character to be so OOC and obnoxious and whiney - and - quite frankly - Bitchy that I hated her through out the entire fic and I secretly wished her husband would knock her overboard on the boat and let her drown. And tha'ts sad because I happen to LIKE this particular female. I've attempted to read two other fics of hers to attempt to get a wider vision and couldn't finish either. I know she has a following, but I find writing like that to be rather milk toast and I find that boring. There is no joy of life, no passion, no love. There is no up and down in moods. It's all one level, one tone. I'm a musician. If her writing was music, it would be the same chord over and over and over and over and over and over and over. no dissonance, no climax (pun NOT intended) no cadence.... no resolution.
Bleh.
But that's me and I admit to bitterness. *shrugs*
(PS = a friend of mine made me the icon when it happened. I'm happy to bring it out of mothballs for a time.)
Re: continued
Date: 2012-07-04 07:29 am (UTC)This information set me off MORE than the fact that I was booted.
Thing is, I know people who KNEW what happened - one entered HER ROhirrim fics who were very similar to what I wrote and hers were accepted, honorable mentions, etc. We were all perplexed.
Elitist. Favortism. Who WANTS to be associated with that?
Wow, what a perfect example of whited sepulchers; all white and clean on the surface and a mass of seething corruption underneath.
I know she has a following, but I find writing like that to be rather milk toast and I find that boring. There is no joy of life, no passion, no love. There is no up and down in moods. It's all one level, one tone.
I don't know what placed this year save for a few stories I nominated and voted, but I know exactly what you mean by milk toast.