Concordia discors

[Hi, all. I know it's been ages. To be truthful, I'm dragging my heels as the end of season three approaches, because after that I'll be taking a long, long--indefinitely long--break. In the beginning of July I'll be going offline altogether: hospital stay (brief, and no, nothing to worry about), followed by, unfortunately, six or eight weeks with no spare energy to log on.

But on a happier note: it's Purim! Send candy and lipgloss. If you can donate to your local food bank, that would be lovely.]



It was a nastyish shock to find out that, once again, I'd had some of my work removed from a fanfiction archive. Not, I hasten to assure you, an elite archive of any kind, but certainly a very large one, with a reliably huge supply of readers. This time it wasn't a matter of anyone erroneously supposing I'd been unduly influenced by other people's works. No, it was a simple ratings dispute, with my work proving just a tad too steamy for those charged with thinking of the children in an official ratings context.

The emails and comments expressing outrage on my behalf were just pouring in, and if only I'd been in a better state to focus on them I'd have replied personally to most if not all of them. As it was, it was all I could manage to make a few posts urging them not to panic, poor dears, and to please stop offering to avenge me.

Naturally I was a little miffed, but I think I concealed that entirely, and merely shot off a quick note explaining to the mods that it hadn't been my intention to breach their medieval rules, and I would do my utmost not to do so again, reserving my wildly popular explicit fics for some site where adult, mature readers were allowed to make their own choices, free from censorship and jealousy.

If they couldn't handle a springing rampant faun as a metaphor for a young man's coming of age, and a few scenes featuring some creative usage of a narwhal horn, well, that was their loss. I don't see how that violates their TOS, anyway, although I suppose it did violate one or two other things.

It wasn't their fault, of course. Rules are rules, however stupid, and a quick read-through of the fanfics in question more than confirmed that, yes, they were definitely over the top as regards explicit passionate encounters. My fault entirely, although really, if only they'd known the chaos and explicitness my own personal life had been thrown into, the mods might, I daresay, have had a little sympathy. It was a wonder I wasn't writing straight-out porn, given the stuff my subconscious mind was trying to process.

I couldn't help, however, spending a few days fuming over the injustice of it all. Other things, much worse than mine, were all over that archive. Clearly they were only singling me out because my fic was so well loved. However much I wore the mask in public, privately it stung that the mods had chosen to listen to the flamers and mentally unstable haters who'd reported me. The sheer unfairness made it hard to concentrate, and at night, the Dark Schoolmaster continued to haunt my dreams, although now he kept leering greasily and offering me a narwhal horn of my own. Which, of course, I no longer needed.

And then, after days of this--just as I was trying to find the energy to go upload my fic to some more tolerant archive, or possibly to start a dedicated community just for hosting it--there was a knock at the door, and I flung it open to find a delivery boy trembling under a huge gift basket. "Delivery for Mina?" he said, and I don't know why that was a question, since if he didn't know I certainly couldn't be expected to. I ask you, do I look like a delivery-person?

However hard it is to find good help to carry them, however, gifts are always welcome. They're especially welcome when you're, as a randomly chosen example, a humble BNF with a chaotic personal life, suddenly being persecuted by envious LNFs. And this one was sweetly cheering: it was a huge assortment of chocolate and candy and baked goods and two bottles of wine and various snacky things. It was from, as it turned out, Arc. How thoughtful of her, though a little odd--Easter wasn't for a month, and anyway, was she under the impression I was starving?

The note made no effort to explain, though it did display a rather remarkable lack of awareness as to what, precisely, had unfolded as a direct result of her suggestion I befriend Joshen. "For Mina," it read, "because variety is a blessing. Much love, Arc."

I did my very utmost not to take that personally. I mean, obviously she couldn't have known what had happened, and couldn't be condoning it, right?

You see, in an effort to comply with Arc's slightly unfathomable desire that I make Jen "feel more secure in our friendship," and thereby exert some sort of civilizing influence over her which would, Arc implausibly believed, reduce Jen's attention-hunger, I'd arranged to visit.

I doubted the efficacy of the whole endeavour, personally. Nothing less than a series of billboards devoted to her were likely, in my opinion, to rid the fanworld of Joshen-induced drama. But I'd promised Arc, so I was determined to give it the old college try. Or, rather, the old uni try, which is decidedly superior.

It was raining that Saturday--the one, I mean, right before the deletion and then the gift basket. I'd much rather have stayed in with my copy of The Italian Curmudgeon's Grateful Bride, but I couldn't manage to forget Arc was expecting me to make some effort toward socializing Jen. So I shrugged on my raincoat, and headed over to Earnshaw House.

"Come in," he called, his voice not just a study in melancholy but practically a major in it. I entered to find Josh sitting dejectedly on her bed, shoulders slumped in what I was soon to recognize as phannish despair.

"What's wrong?" I asked. His whole appearance was so alarming that I'd shucked my coat and was seated next to him on the bed before I'd had time to properly consider that course of action.

"Remember the Phantom of the Opera fandom?" he asked. Well, it's not something I much like to go around admitting in public, but back in the day I'd briefly been an avid phan. I nodded.

"Think of the worst piece of phanfiction you've ever read."

I tried to cheer him up with a lame joke. Really, it was hard to be madly humourous with Joshen leaning this close to me. "Everyone knows the worst piece of phanfiction was a published novel."

He nodded glumly. "Now imagine it being brought to the stage as the official sequel."

I gasped. "They can't be," I said. He turned to face me, placing one hand on my knee in, I supposed, a comforting gesture.

"They can and are," he said. For a moment we stared at each other, eyes ablaze with indignation. Then I began to notice his were smouldering with traces of something else. I gulped. My frenemy was eyeing me with intent.

I attempted, desperately, to change the subject. "So have you heard the latest from Occult fandom? Apparently the money for the bus ad hasn't resulted in any, well, bus ads." I shifted nervously away. "So there're beginning to be suggestions that the money's been stolen. Only of course a lot of people are defending the person responsible."

You know, for someone who'd been all morose about phandom just seconds before, Josh looked entirely unperturbed about the possible theft. I've seen less-wide grins on anthropomorphic wolves. And less pronounced bulges. Oh god.

Afterwards, I half-danced, half-slunk back to my room, caught between elation and revulsion. It was an exhilarating, though confusing, mix. I tried telling myself that everyone needs one longstanding enemy, and one pleasant but completely unreliable lover, so really I'd been quite efficient here. Plus, you know: no more narwhal horns required. So that was one thing on life's checklist nicely tickied off.

But I can't say I felt entirely sure I'd done the right thing. In fact, I almost certainly hadn't. All I could state with confidence was that it probably hadn't been illegal, that it didn't seem to have done any harm, and that I felt queerly content.

If nothing else, it had pushed the trials of BNFdom, if not entirely out of my mind for now, at least to a backburner. So when I received notice that my fic had been removed, well, it wasn't as upsetting as it might have been.

A couple of minor points, though. The first was that Joshen, dropping by my room unexpectedly a few days later, was weirdly fascinated by the gift basket. Naturally I attributed that to the inability of the MNF to appreciate the depths of affection and the generosity of the outpourings we BNFs inspire. I mean, lesser-known fans probably never realize, but to us few chosen who occupy the dizzy heights, gift deliveries are a regular occurrence. I didn't say anything, though. I rather enjoyed the sense that my fame and adoring hordes were dazzling him.

And secondly, and more pleasantly, the Occult bruhaha over the bus ads exploded right around this time. I hate to be unfeeling, but there is nothing quite so entertaining as watching a fandom one doesn't participate in go off with a bang. This one blew up in a particularly satisfactory way. Whoever the nutter was behind the bus campaign, she claimed to have donated the entire proceeds to a food bank, thereby providing all the essential elements: an unprovable assertion, friends and supporters convinced she was noble and giving and entirely beyond reproach, haters demanding some sort of proof, like receipts or something. It was a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

Speaking of Occult, Warr1or's archive still wasn't back up. I wondered, briefly, what the hold-up was.