Category: rants

Categories
rants sfwa

Dear Barry Malzberg and Mike Resnick: Fuck you. Signed, Rachael Acks

I still haven’t gotten my SFWA Bulletin 201 and 202, I’m guessing because I moved recently. However, thanks to lovely people who have scanned the newest mailbox-delivered turd shat from the pale, sagging rumps of Malzberg and Resnick, I know about that at least, and have read it.

Gentlemen (and I use that in the same condescending asshole way with which you have again and again applied the word “lady”): fuck you.

The fact that you cheerfully used a right wing radio host epithet (“liberal fascists”) to describe those who disagreed with you on the simple fact that women deserve to be spoken of with the same respect shown to men speaks volumes about your character. We didn’t have to equate you with Rush Limbaugh. You just did it yourselves.

And a word about anonymous criticism. When we bitched about your condescending old white guy bullshit on the SFWA forums, that was not anonymous because each and every one of us was logged in. When we bitched about your condescending old white guy bullshit elsewhere on the internet, it was likewise not anonymous. It was on our blogs and our websites, each of which comes with a name or at least an internet handle attached, which you can figure out easily using a single click of your mouse. You know, if you can stir yourself from your fetid kettle of nostalgia (for the days when women weren’t so uppity, I guess) to put out such a Herculean effort.

We are not censoring you, you poor precious babies who have had your fee-fees hurt by the nasty feminists. We are calling you assholes. There is a subtle but important difference between the two, and one you really ought to figure out if you don’t want to come across sounding like grown men who should know better having a temper tantrum.

Whoops, too late.

No, I’m not going to threaten to resign my SFWA membership; I know the organization carries a hell of a lot of water for writers in my chosen genre. But it’s sure making me wonder at the wisdom of whoever the hell thought giving these two moldering assclowns a platform with the organization’s name on it was a good idea. If I hadn’t already had a lot of positive experiences with the older male membership of the organization, I would honestly be really wondering about that as well, since the attitude Malzberg and Resnick display with such pride belongs in an era that thankfully ended before I was born.

But for fuck’s sake, we’ve gone from fool me once to fool me three times territory in the Bulletin. Enough is enough.

Signed,

Rachael Acks <— which is not pronounced “anonymous”

PS: For the record, my original, non-anonymous complaint about Bulletin 200. Jim Hines has an excellent list of likewise non-anonymous complaints. Ball is in your court, gentlemen. Are you going to Rush Limbaugh it again, or are you going to put on your grown-up pants and stop embarrassing yourselves in public?

Categories
rants this shit is fucked up

Sandy Hook "Truthers"

So yeah. This is apparently an actual thing. (ETA: Oh here. Have some more WTF IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE.)

I need a kitty right fucking now okay.

I mean, I know I shouldn’t be surprised, considering the unceasing plague of 9/11 Truthers and Birthers. Though Birthers (you know, the utter crackpots that are convinced President Obama is secretly foreign) seem relatively less disgusting compared to this.

It’s all the usual question begging bullshit, pattern hunting and being bizarrely startled that coincidences and similarities are things that happen despite the fact that they happen constantly every day of our lives. This just makes me extra angry because it’s a bunch of paranoid nuts dancing on the graves of children, mocking the grief of their families because they’ve convinced themselves that it’s all fake and therefore it is all right to be utterly inhumane to other people.

I need a kitten or I’m going to have an aneurysm, I swear to fucking god.

I think what just pisses me off the most about this is that the entire justification for this conspiracy theory is that the government is going to take all our guns away! The way that straw man has been getting shoved down our throats, we’re all going to be shitting chaff for the next three years.

It’s like the making shit up Olympics – creating a sadistically unfeeling conspiracy out of whole cloth to justify something that no one is even proposing. Oh yeah, and being mean to the grieving father of a murdered little girl because that’s totally okay when you don’t live on the same plane of reality as the rest of us. Hey assholes. If you took off your tinfoil hat for five seconds, maybe you could read our brainwaves and get that we don’t want your fucking guns.

Lookit that adorable kitty, helping with the laundry, and his adorable face. Breathe. Breathe.

Perhaps I speak only for myself, but you know what I do want? I want you to grow the fuck up. I want you to develop some empathy. I want you to leave your basement and get some professional help. I want you to have a grownup conversation with the rest of us instead of making like a seagull and shitting everywhere while shrieking at the top of your lungs.

I want you to realize that the world is a scary place, but the way you can truly make it less scary is to grasp reality with one hand, the rest of humanity with the other, and refuse to let go.

Kitten. Kitten kitten kitten.
Categories
feminism rants things that are hard to write

Stop calling me a "real woman"

Because you know what that implies? Are there really femmebots out there, complete with boob guns that make up the category of “not real” women? Are there girls made out of plastic? Is there a test you have to take, or are there government regulations sort of like they have for beef that mean we get tagged as real women, right next to the stamp stating we’re organic, because hey we’re composed of carbon-containing molecules?

It’s a bullshit term. It always struck me wrong when I went to Lane Bryant and was rewarded with “real woman dollars” for shopping. But the wrongness burst into ugly life when I re-watched the episode of Project Runway where one of the designers is a giant toolbag to a plus-size lady. The utter patronizing tone in which its delivered and that it’s obvious he’s using it in place of “fat” because he’s trying to weasel out of being eviscerated for being an asshole is even more insulting.

You’re not fooling anyone. We shouldn’t need some kind of smirking consolation prize for wearing clothing that’s bigger than a 16. We already know we’re real. We exist. It’s a sad disguise for the fact that often plus-size clothing feels like cultural punishment by setting set us in an adversarial position to women who wear “normal” sizes. Perhaps if we’re too busy trying to look down our noses at each other, we’ll miss the evil truth that we’re being compelled to attack people who should be our allies in this struggle, divided falsely along superficial lines.

Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe it’s just a pathetic attempt to make us feel better about ourselves. Hey, you’re large and are apparently considered unworthy to wear anything other than black smocks (it’s slimming, you know) but you’re a real woman. As if realness is determined by mass rather than an authenticity of spirit. 

Being a woman isn’t a contest that some of us have to lose. There is a full spectrum of women to which we all belong, an infinite continuum of what it means to “look like a woman,” and no part of that spectrum should be defined as inherently superior. Doing that (and then gleefully jumping over a cliff with the invention of photoshop) is what got us into this mess in the first place.

I’m tired of the implication that my struggle to accept myself has to come at the detriment of other women.

Real women are fat. Real women are thin. Real women come in all colors and shapes and identities, and sometimes we have curves, and sometimes we don’t but damnit we’re all real women.

And we’re all really beautiful.

Categories
cycling rants

It’s my road too.

Dear person who honked at me:

Look, a car horn isn’t really the best communication medium there is. I guess we could try morse code, or set phrases like the general 10-codes, but outside of that I don’t really know what you’re trying to tell me. Of course, I have some guesses.

Maybe you’re trying to tell me that you think I should be on the sidewalk. Funny thing is, that’s actually illegal in a lot of places. Bicycles are considered vehicles and as such, we’re supposed to be in the street. And moreso, people like me who regularly commute via bicycle tend to cruise along at 20+ mph when we get going. I don’t want to collide with a child or a family pet when going that kind of speed. It wouldn’t end well for anyone.

So nothing personal, but I don’t know you well enough to be willing to break the law for you, grievously injure someone’s kid, or put myself in the hospital.

Maybe you’re trying to share with me that you’re really annoyed there’s a bottleneck where cars can’t go zooming around me, an I’m impeding your progress by up to thirty seconds. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t have much sympathy for that. You can make up time a lot better than I can with just my quads and a couple of wheels to power me along.

Maybe you’re trying to tell me that you saw another cyclist do Terribly Assholish Thing X, and you now hate all cyclists. Look, I’m sorry that someone was a jerk to you, but that doesn’t mean I’m a jerk or deserve to be punished for their mistakes. When I was little, a dog bit me on the face. I still have a scar. But you don’t see me going around and being mean to every dog I meet because I got the crap scared out of me once.

Maybe you’re trying to tell me that you don’t want to share the road with me. Tough shit, it’s my road too.

Maybe you’re trying to share the important information that your car is equipped with a horn. Well, that’s nice to know. Good for you. 

But this is the thing. When you honk at me, I can’t hear any of that nuance. All I get out of it is: Just wanted you to know, I’m an asshole.

Hope that’s what you were trying to convey.

Categories
fitness for fat nerds rants things that are hard to write

Losing weight sucks

I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while, but I’ve been putting it off. It’s tough to write. Anything about weight and self-image and societal bullshit is kind of destined to be.

Over the last two years and three months, I’ve lost about 75 pounds, going from 270 to 195. I’m now back down to what I weighed as a sophomore in high school, before I started training as a powerlifter. The reason I decided to try to lose weight (and keep trying) is because there’s a lot of type II diabetes in my family, and I want to dodge that bullet.

I tell you this not as some kind of brag line, or because I’m looking for congratulations, but because I feel that it lends meaning to the point of this post. I lost 75 pounds. I generally feel healthier as a person. And I would never in a million years get on someone else’s back and tell them they are in some way obligated do what I’ve done.

Losing weight sucks. It sucks a lot. It can be utterly soul-destroying, and it’s self-inflicted.

There’s this narrative that all us fat nerds know. It says that we must be fat because we’re lazy. Because there is something fundamentally wrong with us. Because we’re greedy. Because we’re gross and lack the willpower to resist evil, sinful things like that piece of cake. It’s our fault, and we deserve to be summarily judged by perfect strangers simply because of how we look.

After 75 pounds, I hate that narrative more than ever. I hate that people assume I must be significantly more physically fit now than I was 40 pounds ago. I hate that outside of my immediate circle of friends and family, the news that I weigh less than I used to is greeted with far more enthusiastic congratulations than the fact that I’ve published stories in professional magazines. The latter normally gets a, “Hey, that’s cool.” The former receives the kind of approbation I’d expect if I’d just fucking cured cancer.

I hate that I can’t write about this without crying.

Losing weight sucks.

Anyone who tells you that losing weight is easy is lying to you. They’re trying to sell you something, or they’re trying to make you feel like shit because they’re an asshole.

Between cardio activity and weights, I’ve probably spent 15-20 hours per week on physical activities in the last two years. It’s like a part-time job. I write down everything I eat. Everything. And then I count the calories and wish I could have a beer, but not today.

I know I’m lucky. I have that kind of time I can invest into physical activity. I also know that my 15-20 hours a week is nothing compared to the time invested by people who are professionally good-looking. You know, the people we constantly get told we should look like, as if they are the true norm. There are a lot of people out there who literally do not have that kind of time; they have multiple jobs, they have kids, they have responsibilities that don’t let them go ride around on their bicycle for two hours a night. And there are also people who just would rather spend their time doing something else, and I sure can’t blame them for that. The only reason I’ve managed to keep doing it is because I like biking and kung fu.

I hate writing down everything I eat. I hate counting calories. I can’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to put themselves through that either. I don’t feel like I have a right to demand that my fellow human beings are miserable. I could probably lose weight faster, but I’m human, and there are days where I decide that if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, I don’t want to die regretting the fact that I didn’t try the red velvet cake. If anyone has a problem with that, they’re welcome to fuck themselves.

Losing weight sucks.

This is the part that sucks the most: it doesn’t magically make you love yourself. You still look in the mirror and hate the same things about yourself that you hated 20, 40, 70 pounds ago. Losing weight is a slow motion process of punctuated equilibrium. You don’t even realize anything has changed about your body until you look at old pictures. Maybe then you can feel like there’s been some kind of improvement (however you judge that) but then it’s back to the same you in the same mirror and the million things you wish were just different.

If I just lose some weight then I’ll… is one of the dumbest phrases ever spoken. It’s a lie, and an excuse. If you’re not brave enough to do something now, you won’t be when you weigh less.

Because there’s still all the shit in your head, years upon years of the world teaching you to hate yourself, and that’s harder to lose than every spare pound you have.

Categories
feminism rants writing

You know what else is part of the beautiful spectrum of human experience?

Not having kids.

Articles like this one seem designed to piss me off and make me pound out ranty things on my keyboard.

Yet putting yourself last is one of the best things that can happen to a writer. I make no moral claims for motherhood ­— which can bring out the worst in a person, in the form of vicarious rivalry, bitchiness, envy and even mental illness — but going through the ring of fire does change you and bring about a deeper understanding of human nature.

Well, Mrs. Craig, I’d argue it hasn’t given you a deeper understanding of the human nature of people who aren’t particularly interested in having kids.

I arrived at the essay by way of one of Amanda Marcotte‘s tweets. She made the very excellent point that you don’t see concern trolling of this sort going on about Gore Vidal or any other male author that dies. I would hope that children are a similarly transformational experience for the men who are invested in them, and that does seem to be the case from my own personal observations. A little unfair to the men, hey?

Really, it’s unfair to everyone. From start to finish, once I got past the sound of blood rushing in my ears, the essay reads like a personal justification. Sure, Mrs. Craig has less time to write, but she’s traded it for a deeper understanding of human nature and therefore that choice is superior! Or something! Everyone should do it! Have babies, it makes you more awesome and a better writer!

I am not here to make fun of the choice to have children. It’s obviously been very meaningful for Mrs. Craig, as it is for many people who go that route in their lives. But I am going to challenge this implication of inherent superiority. Having children is one branch in the path a human life can take, a major direction. It leads to one set of unique experiences and feelings.

Not having children is just as major of a path, and diverges from itself even when you consider the question of if it was by choice or not. That leads to a whole different sort of life, a different array of feelings and experiences.

Neither is superior.

The whole point of art, whether it’s painting or writing or interpretive dance or covering yourself with pudding and being an installment piece on the sidewalk for an afternoon is that you are trying to communicate and imagine through the lens of human experience. Frankly, if we all had the same experiences, I think it’d be pretty goddamn dull. It’s about getting out there and living your life to the fullest extent you can and then sharing what you’ve learned and felt and loved and lost and hated with everyone else.

Because none of us are immortal. We can’t feel every feeling and experience everything that there is in this constantly expanding world of ours. It’s not possible. That’s why there’s art, because it’s one way to share, to help people taste a life they will never otherwise know.

For some of us, living life to the fullest is having children and watching them grow, feeling all that love and pain. For some of us, it’s using the extra time and money to ride a bike along the Great Wall of China and dance until three in the morning and kiss a stranger and then have the worst hangover ever. What matters is that we’re living and creating. Unless the person you’re squaring off with does nothing but pick their belly button and watch Real Housewives, your life path isn’t inherently superior. It’s just different.

And different is good, right? Because I don’t want to live your life, as fulfilling as you find it. I want to live mine.

Categories
freedom of speech rants someone is wrong on the internet

You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

So there was the thing over at Jim C Hines’ blog, where I made the mistake of reading comments and once again it made me wonder if we could claim that part of humanity is just something we found on the curb, like an unwanted couch. Jim canceled his Reddit Q&A because there was a really gross thread on Reddit where rapists were talking about the hows and whys of the awful things they’ve done; he gave an ultimatum that either that thread needed to go, or no Q&A from him.

Immediately, whining about freedom of speech ensued. This is not an uncommon reaction, I’ve noticed.  Christian apologists for Chick-fil-a have been applying this juvenile argument as well, to tell us we’re all being mean for not buying their delicious hate chicken and thus tacitly endorsing their anti-gay agenda. Apparently, freedom of speech has been redefined on the internet as, “I have a right to say anything horrible I want and you’re not allowed to protest or try to stop me.”

No. That’s not how it works. And there’s no cognitive dissonance necessary to believe in free speech as a right (via the Constitution) and not wanting to let trolls shit all over your comments section.

This would be because while we all like to say we’re part of the government of the United States, this being a representative democracy and all, none of us are actually the government, and none of us are making laws. The power of the state (and now of large corporations) can be a horrible, chilling thing, and it should be kept well away from speech, even really reprehensible speech. (Because of nothing else, one man’s reprehensible speech is another man’s important point.)

But as I said, I’m not the state, Jim C. Hines isn’t the state, and any website with a commenting policy that keeps a terminal asshole buildup from occurring is also not the state. We’re administrators of our own blogs/websites, and whining at us about freedom of speech is equivalent to whining at your mom because she won’t let you say fuck in the house, and about as effective.

Is it hypocritical, though, to say you believe in free speech and at the same time police jerks on your own space? (Or refuse to share space with shameful people?) No, I don’t think so. I have just as much a right to express my opinion as the next person – and actually more, when it’s my personal space. I’m not obligated to let my obnoxious Ron-Paul-loving neighbor put a campaign sign on my lawn. Likewise, I’m not obligated to let words that are abhorrent or abusive stand on a space that is mine to control. Want to say awful things? Get your own space.

But what about Jim demanding Reddit take the thread down as a condition for him doing the Q&A?

In the world of emergency medicine, unconsciousness implies consent. In the world of speech, silence likewise implies consent, and agreement. Appearing quietly in the same space as something you find abhorrent implies that you are all right with the existence of that abhorrent thing.

And I think that’s an important part that often gets left off on these rants about free speech.

Outside of the realm of law (which obvious does not apply here because hey – not the government!) words have meaning, and consequence. When you run across something despicable, you have a very limited set of choices – you can ignore it, say nothing, move on, or you can protest. If you say nothing, if you do nothing, your silence provides your tacit agreement.

That’s why it’s important, for example, that Anonymous showed up to stand between the Westboro Baptist Church and the attendees of the memorial in Aurora, CO, even if WBC didn’t show up. Why it’s important that Chick-fil-a is facing a boycott for their anti-gay policies. Why when you hear someone say something racist, or sexist, or homophobic it’s important that you argue, even if it means making Christmas dinner kind of uncomfortable.

Some of the most important speech you will ever make is to stand up and say “No, this is wrong, and I refuse to be part of it.”

Related: Civility and free speech at Talking Philosophy. This also addresses why it’s not contrary to believe in free speech and simultaneously demand a minimum level of civility in your blog. And unlike my opinion, contains no swear words.

Categories
rants

United would like to know how I enjoyed my flights to State College

Well, United, let me tell you.

My amazing, superfun and exciting travel experience started out with a most enjoyable wait in IAH at the gate where our party plane was supposed to meet my group. Only there was no plane! It was off playing hide and seek with the other airplanes. Those scamps! While the airplanes finished their hijinks and goings-on (I hear the control tower might have gotten TPed by some naughty 737) we sat in the overcrowded space awash in the BO of our fellow travelers, and wondered how in the living hell we were going to make our connection to State College.

Here, let me save you the suspense because someone reading this might have a heart condition: we didn’t. In fact, our airplane to State College took off in almost the same exact moment that our flight from IAH was landing. What a coincidence!

But come on, frowny-facers, what could be more fun than a night of bouncing around in scenic, beautiful Dulles Airport? Nothing, I’m sure! And United so kindly gave us vouchers to the cheapest available hotel, as well as enough meal vouchers for like four whole extra value meals from McDonald’s. Apiece!

Even better, the nice man at the gate volunteered to help us get our luggage back from the bowels of Dulles, so we could have toothbrushes and deodorant and therefore our stink hopefully would not fill the airplane we were being put on the next day with toxic gases. We could pick up our bags in a couple of hours and then there would be clean underwear for everyone!

Just kidding!

Our clean underwear got to take a magical evening journey to State College on the next flight without us, even though there was no room on the plane for us. Maybe we should have just pretended to be luggage, right? Silly us.

Then the next morning, we got up bright and early and scrubbed the yuck off our tongues with toothbrushes thoughtfully provided by the hotel. (I guess the hotel didn’t want to get their clerk’s face melted off with morning breath.) We fought a gladitorial battle with super slo-mo explosions to get through security and then were at the gate in time to have airport breakfast! What could be better?

A flight that left on time, right?

No, so sad. Our flight was delayed by an hour. Then another hour. And another. (In fact, every time my coworker Joe got up and checked the monitor, the flight got delayed by another hour – you playful people at the gate, we’re on to you! – so Joe got stapled to his chair soon after we noticed that pattern.)

A cheerful man in a safety vest entertained us by standing outside the gate window and pulling the cover off the engine to our plane, then banged on the mechanical guts within using a dizzying array of tools. Thankfully, we were informed during hour three of the delay that United had found another plane for us, and we could all finally go to State College! Yay!

By found, I’m assuming that they meant literally found by the curb, as if it was an abandoned couch. You know, that perfectly good couch why is someone throwing it away get the pickup couch. In fact, just like that couch, it had broken seats (where people still had tickets that stated they had to sit there) and smelled a little weird. It felt like being an undergrad again! Such a invigorating experience.

Oh, and I could tell you such fun stories about the scavenger hunt for our luggage in the tiny airport at State College. Gosh, it was just the perfect way to end eighteen hours of travel hell.

In closing, I would like to meet your CEO in person so I can tell him what a superfun and exciting experience this was. By which I mean I’d love to meet Jeff Smisek and give him such a firm handshake that he won’t be able to escape when I proceed to knee him right in the sack. Twice. That merger with Continental sure has upped the company’s game, I can tell.

This is, by the way, why I’d rather jam finishing nails into my sinuses and then snort powdered lemons than fly United when I’m allowed to buy my own tickets.

Categories
rants reference post someone is wrong on the internet

I Give a Homeopathic Fuck About Your Entitled Whining

Dear Sir and/or Madam:

Thank you very much for bringing to my attention the important issue of (circle one):
a) white people losing their privileged position/racial majority in this country
b) your deep feelings that gay people getting married somehow renders your marriage less special
c) your barely concealed rage that we no longer live in a fictionalized version of the 1950s
d) your horror that Christianity is no longer the accepted default religious position and those damn Muslims/Humanists/Atheists/Sikhs/etc insist on existing
e) the basic unfairness of a universe that refuses to allow you to scientifically support your religious/crackpot ideas
f) your deep philosophical point that I am fat/a chick/a chick that doesn’t wear make-up/obviously some kind of lesbo/a hippy pinko feminazi/etc therefore am incapable of being right
g) [write-in space here for issues not covered]

Your opinion is not actually important to me at all. In light of that, please allow me a moment to explain just how little I actually care.

Imagine, if you would, that in the deep recesses of the past my blackened, shriveled excuse for a heart was capable of giving a fuck about you. Not because I thought that you might actually have had a point, but rather because I could recognize your basic humanity and thus stir myself to the level of empathy necessary to give a single, lonely fuck about what you had to say.

This single, sad little fuck ran up against the crushing behemoth of your entitlement. I attempted to engage in reasonable conversation on the misapprehension that such a thing is actually possible in the comments sections of most websites. But then the jaw-dropping assertion that, say, pointing out that straight white men have it kind of easy is somehow racist hit my poor little fuck like a rocket sled crashing into a block of ice. That fuck I gave was easily shattered into at least one hundred pieces, one or two of which I was able to recover for later use.

I would have tried to recover more of my poor, pulverized fuck but you burnt my fingers with your incoherent inability to spell or use even the sophisticated grammar of a second grader and I retreated rather than suffer further.

And then that just kept happening. 

Over and over again, I attempted to give you what remained of that original fuck, and you continued to crush it under the weight of your certitude that life is spectacularly unfair to you because there are people who, shockingly, want the same opportunities you were born with.

Thanks to the internet and the free range of jaw-droppingly stupid opinion available for instant consumption, the fuck I once gave has now been divided and diluted to the point that you could search through every molecule that has ever existed in the universe and find no trace of it.

So at this point, the best I can manage for you is a homeopathic fuck at a dilution somewhere past 400C. Which, if you believed in magic, might actually have some kind of meaning. But given that I’m a woman of reason, it means I literally have no fucks to give you at all. In the entire universe, not one single fuck exists of mine that can be yours in regards to your entitled whining. Ever.

Have a nice day.

Categories
rants writing

Fifty Shades of Pissed Off

I’m probably not going to rant about what you expect. It’s pretty standard these days for struggling writers who haven’t scored their first novel publication yet to go off on bitter, venomous screeds about, for example, Stephanie Meyer or E.L. James and how damn unfair it is that obviously I can string words together in a superior way so where are my millions and by the way I’ve figured out that stalking isn’t love and ARGH.

Whatever. Whether it’s true or not when someone complains about quality of writing and cringe-worthy plot elements, it all comes out sounding like sour grapes anyway, just waiting to be crafted into the finest whine. (See what I did there?)

Actually, I’ve got a much more specific problem with Fifty Shades of Grey that has nothing to do with writing quality. In all honesty I don’t know what the writing is like in that book and I have no intention of ever finding out, because dental surgery sounds more appetizing to me than vampire BDSM erotica. But you know. Whatever floats your boat.

My problem begins and ends with the fact that Fifty Shades of Grey started as fanfiction.

I wrote fanfiction for years before I ever started writing my own original work in any kind of serious way. Hell, I still write fanfiction today in the rare moments I have spare time. (This is me, side-eyeing that unfinished Avengers fanfic that’s staring at me accusingly from the internet.) I still meet people online who remember me from my days of writing Gundam Wing fanfic where Duo murders the shit out of vampires with a narrative flair lovingly borrowed from Laurel K. Hamilton.

This is the thing about fanfiction. You do it because you love someone else’s story. It’s a way for fans to have a conversation with someone else’s art, and for that art to answer back. Fanfiction did amazing things for me. It taught me how to write dialog and how to put together a plot that could span 80K words and still keep people interested.  It’s awesome and fun and a magical way to waste time that you really ought to be using to, say, study for your oceanic geochemistry final because your brain has just melted.

But always, always, always you are in communication with someone else’s art.

Someone else already did the hard work for you. They created the story, the world, and characters that, rightly or wrongly, people like and give a shit about. They worked their ass off to create a base of fans who are now predisposed to seek out and like what you write because they loved the original. Even if you’re writing a complete alternate universe, you are still dipping your toe in a pool that some other person built for you.

At its most basic, it isn’t yours.

And that right there is the thing that just pisses me off about Fifty Shades of Grey. Changing the character names and doctoring the details so that they’re no longer a match doesn’t do anything to alter the fact that the story involved borrowing someone else’s ideas and playing ‘what if?’ with them. And at the point you’re making money off of those ideas, you’re no longer borrowing them – you’re stealing them.

Back in my Gundam Wing days, I actually had a couple of people who really liked my stories suggest that I either just throw them on Lulu (uh, no, I don’t want to get sued if someone notices) or alter them a bit for plausible deniability and self-publish. I never took those suggestions seriously, even though I probably could have done it fairly easily. Hey, that’s what a global find and replace is for, isn’t it? But it wasn’t right. The characters weren’t mine. The concepts weren’t mine. And I knew that tarting them up a bit wouldn’t change anything because what was in my head when I wrote the stories wasn’t from me.

But Rachael, you ask, what about things like Laurie R King’s Mary Russell novels? Or you would if you were some kind of creepy stalker who had broken into my house and observed my bookshelves for a few minutes. Obviously, I’m okay with what is basically fanfiction of Sherlock Holmes being published for profit. I’m okay with things like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

This is the difference, and I think it’s an important one. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is dead. Jane Austen is dead. They’ve both been gone for a long time, and are obviously no longer capable of creating their own stories with their own characters, let alone be financially hurt by someone grabbing their coattails and going for a ride. Frankly, it’s been long enough since those works were created that there’s even an interesting question if modern writers can even add to work because perspectives have changed significantly. And of course, those issues are entirely separate from works that are still under copyright, but are used with permission of the author or estate.

As someone who hopes to have novel credits to her name some day in the near future, the commercial success of Fifty Shades of Grey both infuriates and scares the shit out of me. The success of someone else wouldn’t necessarily diminish my own (in this case purely hypothetical) success, but it’s still, to put it bluntly, unfair.

But really, that pales in comparison to my utter fury as someone who writes fanfiction. As fans, the contract we make with creators is that if they’re nice and let us play with their toys, we’ll give them back in good condition. We admit and revel in the fact that we are playing in someone else’s sandbox. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, Fifty Shades of Grey is a betrayal of what writing fanfic is supposed to be about.

Legal technicalities aside, arguments about just how much resemblance to Twilight is too much aside, that is the issue. There’s plenty of fanfiction out there that bears only a passing resemblance to the work upon which it is based. But normally, the writers have the integrity to admit that their jumping off point wasn’t something that came from within them, and thus it’s not right to try to capitalize on it. It’s cheating.

With how successful Fifty Shades of Grey has been, I won’t be surprised if we see more people taking fanfiction and trying to rewrite it into something with at least a veneer of originality. I’ve never been good at guessing the future, so I’m not going to make any sweeping predictions about how this could change things for fanfiction in general. The communities of fans who share their enthusiasm and stories are so enormous that global or fast change seems highly unlikely. But it does make me sad regardless, because the entire endeavor feels so much less innocent now.

…which I suppose is only fitting since we’re talking something that was originally BDSM porn fanfiction.