silverthorne

Around 1987 or there-abouts, in a place called Tucson. In a little comic book shop, I met a lady known as Carol Hoeke. A lot of folks might know her as 'Reboeka' nowadays.

We met, talked about things like Robotech and Voltron and Battle of the Planets and how American cartoons just didn't cut it compared to the stuff that was brought over from Japan. We commisserated...and somewhere in that conversation, I was invited to the local anime club.

That was heaven. I finally got to see the original versions of cartoons I'd loved for years, I got to hang out with other fans, and I made a friend in Carol, got to rub shoulders with people like Pam and Bill Ferguson long before anyone knew them as the people responsible for things like the US Manga Corps, and just plain got to see a lot of real cool things and people.

Carol, in turn, was a friend to many, many other people in one particular fandom known as 'Gatchaman'. People like Alara Rogers, Wendy Dinsmore, and others. They had a fanzine known as BirdScramble!. They had video trades. Wendy would send all of us goodies from Japan. The friendships, though often not as tight knit as others can be, were still strong enough that people knew each other, shared, enjoyed, even worked together on things like fanfic...which would get put right back into BirdScramble!.

There was not a whole hell of a lot of ego. Just enjoyment.

I was not officially part of that particular APA...but I would read Carol's copies, got to watch a great many of her older works be drawn and shaded and colored. Watched as she and Catt Kingsgrave would work on art together. And had fun with them. Eventually, I was invited into Endless Warriors as a writer--people familiar with that APA would remember me as the one responsible for Ice Phoenix, as well as the first two installements of Saint Saywhat? with Catt.

As with the rest, it was fun, often on crack, and hell if a whole lot of art and fic didn't pass from peoples' fingers.

And it was good. And people were good, and cool, and willing to do a little give and take, as when the idea for Golden Age came up. I was neither the most stable participant, nor anywhere near the most prolific, but I had fun. I liked dealing with these people. They were cool.

Time passed. Things, due to real life, fell apart between Carol, Catt, Ken, Tim and myself. I was mostly a bystander in the whole thing--I watched as Carol parted ways with us and moved on to Atlanta, taking the fan and APA connections with her. I departed myself soon afterwards and fell out of the fandom for a long time.

Eventually, I discovered things like online RP and places like LJ and crack ideas like the Nexus. Eventually, I was really into them. Eventually, things came full circle, and I found myself playing a John Carpenter pup up against two wonderful writers in the Gatchaman fandom. It was awesome. I loved it, and I remembered just how much I missed the damn thing.

So, time passed again, and I met more Gatchafolk--these people had names I'd known from before no less. I was thrilled. Even more so when they decided to join us in play.

It didn't last long.

See, thing is...they're wonderful writers, great plot makers...they can write for miles and get a person interested.

They actually have fans for their fic.

And that's all cool...right up until the point where the mods in the game they've decided to join go 'uh, wait, you're breaking a common RP rule by deciding things for someone elses character. Can you please not do that? All you have to do is ask.'

You'd think, from the way these people re-acted, that I had just walked up, shot their dog, and raped their children in front of them.

It went downhill from there of course. Details aren't really important--suffice to say it became a pissing contest.
A passive aggressive one no less.

Me and one of the other Gatchafolks I'd met first were pretty much accused of being unreasonable bitches, not knowing what RP was, ganging up on this person and so forth. This same opinion was spread among that person's little group, and I'm sure that's what most of them believe now. After all, the ones with the most fans wins and is always right, right?

And yes, me and the other accused made our own mistakes...but did out best to learn from them. Even included a rule in the commm to address it. We did try, both to talk reasonably with this person and her friends, and then to try to just let it be.

They of course, won't agree.

But you know...none of that really bothers me. My actions in the whole thing (other than my one bitchfest about it at BPRS--and YES that was a mistake on my part) were taken strictly from the view point of a mod trying to do her job impartially and with an eye to enforcing the rules. That's it. No more, no less. But it got blown way out of what happened into some sort of dark, awful conspiracy to shut these people down.

And even that? Doesn't bother me. People get over-dramatic about their creations all the time. They get self righteously pissed when their RP style is attacked. I do too. We all do...we're all human.

What bothered me was that these two people, when told 'no', threw a temper tantrum.

Two grown women, who are at least as old as I am--at 36 and with grey hair starting to show.

And they threw a temper tantrum because they were told 'what you did was against the rules, please don't do it anymore'.

I wonder sometimes. Was it because they're so much a fan household name that they thought they were always right? That because they didnt know the names of either myself or of my co-mod that somehow that made them the 'wise' ones in all this? That they were entitled to go 'fuck you, I don't care about your rules Because I Am Well Known In This Fandom'.?

Because really? That's how it came across. It wasn't about breaking rules or the right way to RP...it came down to two 'peons' daring to tell Two Of The Biggest Names In The Fandom How To RP--HOW DARE THEY?!

...Considering who I've met in the past...and the shoulders I was priviledged to rub with, even if only by proxy...

It's the most conceited attitude I ever saw out of any fan in that fandom.

And it makes me weep, especially after dealing with folks who were a lot less worried about their egos and just wanted to have fun...even if it meant learning new sandbox rules every once in a while.

I can't say they're bad writers or bad RPer's--that would be untrue.

But they are bad sports.

And it makes me wonder where the people I knew went, and why they left the fandom to people like this.

So, disappointed, sad, nostalgic.

And I hope someday? You get over yourselves.

--Anne Campbell

Writer of Ice Phoenix in Endless Warriors

Former friend of Carol Hoeke, Catt Kingsgrave, Tim Collier (AKA Talon).

ETA
(Okay 18 hours later. Yes, I am also a SLOW panda.)

Just to clarify, in case people think differently; anyone I'm mentioning by name in this post has nothing to do with the situation that I know of. I was naming names to illustrate just how small the world of fandom really is, not to knock these individuals. I refrained from actually naming the 'problem children' to be polite and not start a flame war (hopefully). Anyone who already knows, knows. And it shouldn't matter to the rest of you. *g*

Okay, carry on. ^^;.