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tetradecimal (tetradecimal) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/community.gif){kind=small} fandom_wank,@ 2010-06-07 07:51:00 |
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♫ My my my my Mitchell ♫
Brought to you by wank_report!
Clan Mitchell is a Dreamwidth community revolving around the fictional Mitchell family, which appears to be a huge group of people who live in the Carolinas under the administration of a matriarch named Momma, generally serve in some branch of the U.S. military, and/or operate under a general curtain of good ol' American values, get-well-pies, and care packages.
Motto: "The Mitchells will inherit the earth: the meek don't move fast enough."
From the profile:
"So ivorygates and synecdochic made up a bunch of crazy Southern relatives, and the "Fuck Canon, Fanon Makes More Sense, Dammit" club (meetings on alternate Tuesdays, free t-shirts at the recruiting tables, bring your own beer but the cookies are free) firmly believes that "Kansas, my ass" is the best way to approach Cameron Mitchell's home life, and, well, there should be more fic about these people!
Not necessarily a shared-continuity set of stories -- use as much or as little as you'd like -- but a shared-character-list and a place for people to build a shared-world. Grab a Mitchell and start writing. Resistance is futile! You will be assimilated. And probably baked for."
quinfirefrorefiddle: "Someone brings a (decent person and) SO to the Clanstead who isn't scared of the Clan, he/she just... doesn't like them. For any of a number of reasons. (I've asked for this elsewhere, but I don't think I've ever gotten a response.)"
slybrarian steps in with a fill with an alternate interpretation of the Mitchell Clan: a highly pressurized, homogenous environment in which everyone is expected and raised to be part of the elite, where no one is normal and boring, and where there are no secrets and thus also no privacy.
They receive some positive comments:
ladyyueh:
"Because we love the Mitchell Clan, but if we sit down and think about it, most of us would go batshit if we were born into it or introduced as an SO. Crazy standards of excellence in everything. Yikes."
quinfirefrorefiddle:
"Oh, YES. And especially the bit about the pressure on the kids. Were I a mom, and someone was trying to pull that on one of mine, they would get a very firm talking to- in front of the kid- and the kid would get the "once you're 18 your life is strictly up to you and NO ONE else" speech, in front of them. Gah."
But ivorygates, one of the creators of Clan Mitchell, is incensed: (emphasis mine)
"You know, I get the whole thing about how fandom is about not just expanding the source text along the lines implicit in the source text but remixing it in every possible way. I do. But you know, taking something that is positive and beautiful, like the Clan and its ethos, and making it something ugly just sucks. It's hateful. After reading everything everywhere in "Clan Mitchell", both here and on LJ, presenting something like this requires a willful misinterpretation of what has been written, and a willful ignoring of what has been written.
Just what the FUCK is wrong with a family that nurtures every member to be the best they can be, no matter what that best is, no matter where it takes them?
You don't like the fact that this is a proud military family that has been proud to serve its country for two hundred years? Your privilege. But if you're going to write fic implying that the Mitchells are a mind-controlling cult forcing their members into the service no matter how unsuited they are for it, you are not writing about the family I helped to create. You are creating a perversion of it as a venue for your own issues. And you are, in my oh so fucking humble opinion, also slurring every serving member of the military anywhere.
This is fandom. The home of the remix for the hell of it. But I don't have to like this particular manifestation of it and I don't have to sit here quietly and keep my mouth shut about it either. And I am not."
synecdochic, the other creator, steps in with her own comments:
"But this was supposed to be a post where we opened the doors of a universe I love for people to come and create things in celebration of something I thought we were all fans of."
quinfirefrorefiddl, originator of the prompt, apologizes if she's offended any of the original authors...
And to end the whole messy business, ivorygates returns for another kick in the teeth:
"It should have been clear -- god knows *I* made it clear -- over and over, in everything I wrote about the Clan Mitchell, which was consistent with that which my co-creator wrote about the Clan Mitchell, and here I include synecdochic's work not in any sense to speak for her vision of the Clan, but because you know, you could just READ WHAT SHE WROTE to find out what the Mitchells are like -- that everything you're saying here [what was implicit in your prompt, what you endorsed in your comments which were an answer to the prompt's response] ISN'T TRUE AND NEVER HAPPENS. I don't give a flying fuck about your perception of reality or your family issues or your theories about what would be REALISTIC. This is a kinship web of over a thousand people just in North Carolina alone, with hundreds and hundreds more scattered across the States and the world. synecdochic and I have written about farmers, lawyers, crafters, police, and -- yes -- people in most branches of the military. The Clan embraces them all, and happily.
You're Spencer, or Spencer's kid, and you want to be a rodeo clown? Hey, that's gotta be better than you chasing Aunt Aggie's cat through her garden all the time and while there are damned few rodeos in Buncombe County, the Clan's got a cousin in Texas with house room and Momma will send care packages...
Or you're Megan Lee in Atlanta, a lawyer with a hot decorating business on the side, and your kid is sixteen and saying she doesn't want to go to Harvard Law, she wants to go into the Army? Ship her off back home to Momma for the summer so she can talk it over with some of the cousins who've served, so she can be as close to sure about her decision as any sixteen year old can get...
Or you're a fiercely-independent poet who wants to move to New York and live a bohemian intellectual life and have nothing to do with your family? Well, just be sure to call your momma every now and then so she knows you're okay, and any time you need help the Family's got your back, and your life is your life.
The Clan is about getting it right. The Clan is about being smart loving thinky people. The Clan is about being so big, and so interconnected, with so many people doing so many things that any member of it looking for an apprenticship or to talk to someone who's Been There can find that person. And Momma, Clan Matriarch, will by God get it done.
It is not about being a cult. It is not about your "darker edge". It is not about forcing any of its members to follow a course of action that is not their choice. That isn't the Mitchells. That's YOU, and the kind of sick broken jealous spitefulness that can't bear to see something good and whole without trying to turn it into what you are and what you live and what you understand.
So, you know, fuck you, and fuck your "it just means that they're a family, made up of people, who are imperfect. Who we love" whining weaselly self-serving SHIT.
Fuck all of you. Fuck you, slybrarian because you wrote it. And you, quinfirefrorefiddle for prompting it. And goldjadeocean and ladyyueh and aella_irene and amaliedageek and cesy and myystic for cooing over it.
This isn't "love". What you did isn't "love". This is sniggering smirking filthy-handed gleeful sabotage of an idea and of an ideal by somebody -- several somebodies, prompter, writer, commenters -- who are obviously dismally lacking in reading comprehension, because I will not speak for synecdochic in any way on this topic, but I believe I myself have been entirely clear in what I have written and in the meta which I have done about what the Mitchells are and how the Clan operates.
And if you want to twist that and make them into something that HURTS people, that SHAMES and FORCES its children into courses that will make them unhappy just because you want the Mitchells to behave like your twisted, self-serving, and stupid conception of a "real' family", then fuck you.
FUCK YOU.
Go find somebody else's work in some other fandom to vomit your poison over.
I don't care about your aunt, your life experiences, your ideas, or your worldview. If you can't see how incredibly WRONG you are to impose your issues on the Clan Mitchell, there's really nothing I can do about the fact that you are indeed a special snowflake of disastrously impaired cognitive and reality-testing abilities. However, I can do my level best to express to you my intense disapprobation of this entire concept and OH BY THE WAY my equally-intense disapprobation of everyone here who endorsed it.
And if somehow you or any of the rest of the dear young persons who wrote to or commented on this prompt continue to reside in confusion and doubt, I can always come back here and restate the matter using really short sentences and very small words.
Edited (special snowflake reading comprehension fail) 2010-06-07 06:37 (UTC)"
Compare with original flavor!
And some background info, dug up by industrious mice:
Moscow wank!
Privilege wank! (relevant section here and all capped because FanHistory)
ETA: (from Fanlore) "Clan Mitchell is a shared Stargate SG-1 AU created by Synecdochic and Ivorygates. They have encouraged spinoff fan works, which are commonly posted to related Livejournal and Dreamwidth communities."
ETA 2: Looks like things are getting frozen and/or deleted. CAPS! :D And a more up-to-date version from
![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
glossing2: "Your weasel-worded, conditional, situational, self-exculpating apologies upset me. 
The fact that you are engaging in elaborate passive-aggressive tactics to manipulate others to ask you to write a particular piece of fic and (further) ask you to post it here upsets me.
The fact you are still posting in this comm upsets me.
There is nothing further I can say and remain remotely civil. "
ETA 3:
ingrid has noticed critical flounce.ETA: Revenge of the Sith: cap including the offending fic.
Holy ETA, Batman: (thanks, mousie)
"When someone has put in a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to create an absolutely beautiful sandbox to play in (a sandbox that they love very very much), and then not only allows you to come in and play in their sandbox, but graciously opens the door and INVITES you in, you don't shit in the sandbox. You don't. M'kay? Good."
We can't stop here, this is ETA country: It's time for the public address roll, looks like. From
eilan:* slybrarian calls for fair and balanced.
* quinfirefrorefiddle & co. are appalled at F_W's lack of journalistic integrity.
* Synecdochic's state of the union, and also ivorygates is banned. Or left. Either way, she's not a mod any more.
