Yesterday there was a campfire on warnings and disclaimers that ended up on ratings and the merits, or demerits, of Twilighted net. This compels me to write something about fanfiction net, which is, according to the links the majority of you people posts here, the most read of all fanfic sites. Well, not all is nice there. I am referring to the fact that yet another story “Could be worse, right?” by Savage, has been pulled out.. By the site managers, abruptly and with no explanations (which is ridiculous – if one has erred, one should be told the reason, so the error is not repeated).This has happened before to other authors, on obscenity grounds – theoretically - but only to stories that were very successful. I think this is fishy, that it is done not to protect the audiences’ innocence, but out of envy.
There are “Hate Brigades” operating on ff net, harassing some authors all the time, and the site managers give them free rein, allowing them to continue the witch hunt. What side are them on, the one of bona fide readers or that of a few despicable, hidden creeps?
Savage’s story was not particularly full of lemons, quite the contrary (Surely M and not MA). The issue of buying a sex slave is a terrible issue, but the hero of the story is repenting, in fact he is having an ethical revolution. He is a gangster, so there are violent scenes in the story (but nobody is killed who did not deserve punishment.). There is a problem of morality, if you will, but nothing that has not been addressed by many other stories, starting with Edward Cullen’s vigilante years.
I would like to discuss those mysterious “powers that be” on ff net, passing out life and death sentences over stories, and ask them if they realize how wrongly they behave, not accepting dialogue and discussion, just deciding like they are self appointed gods.
In any case “Could be worse, right?” can still be read on Savage’s blog. It was written in an experimental way, very short chapters with more than one update per day, so it is not suitable, say, for Twilighted net. She uses a lot of interesting techniques in her stories, miniteasers on top of chapters, very carefully crafted chapter titles. All in all, an author that deserves a large audience.
http://shaysavage-cbwr.blogspot.com/