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Challenge #7 asks us to speak of ourselves in the ways that others speak of us. Which seems like a contrary phrasing to the way this challenge is introduced:
And thus, having burnt through a thousand (or two) words explaining myself, we get back to the reason that I phrased the challenge the way I did. Because if you ask me to say good things, nice things, things I'm proud of, that are an intrinsic part of me, or that are things that I have done, I am going to fail so hard at it. Yay, I have a fic with more than 300 kudos. (Yay, one of my friends in the same fandom gathered way more than 300 kudos within the first day of posting a fic and routinely has more than 300 kudos on their works.) Yay, I have people telling me my Story Times do actually work well for neuroatypical children. (Yay, there are people doing so much cooler things in the library world and being recognized as Movers and Shakers for this.) Yay, my recipients enjoy the world I make for them for exchanges and other prompts. (Yay, other creators have their recipients and a lot of other users and guests saying they enjoyed their works created for prompts and exchanges.) Yay, I contributed a chapter to a book about making change happen in the library profession. (Who the fuck is going to spend $60 on the book that chapter comes in?) This can go on for just about anything that I can think of that might go in the column of things worth promoting. If there's nothing that can be said that's unqualified, then the exercise backfires, because it's supposed to be about defiance of excess humility and taking pride in yourself and your work.
If you asked me, though, and we know each other well enough, I could come up with five-ten things about you that are excellent and should be promoted. And might very well brush aside the qualification, temporization, or other things that would try to diminish the awesome. It's far easier to say good things about others, even if I have a certain amount of understanding of those people's inner lives and environments.
Physician, heal thyself, and all that.
So, to achieve something like what the challenge wants, I have to treat myself like an outside observer would. Theory of mind is an awesome skill. So, let's start with when I tried to imagine what hook a profile writer might use to describe my fic output positively, settling on how doing so many exchanges every year is akin to being a short-order cook serving up beloved favorites in short amounts of words. It's a way of making being multifannish into a benefit, and being multifannish and willing to write for things that look interesting has produced some works that I really liked, in addition to the recipients.
I've been told repeatedly that I do exchange prompts well. Apparently, the ability to summarize and explain what you are looking for in a way that gives a creator an idea and enough flexibility to do it is a skill. (I don't usually have a Dear Creator letter. Partially because I don't know myself well enough to know what things are bulletproof and what are absolute DNWs, but also because I feel like I can summarize the idea or key concept(s) for what I would like in the space provided, and let the creator fill in the details of how that gets done.) It seems to work out reasonably well so far.
I had a work performance evaluation today, and the running theme through that seemed to be "consistently helpful," so that's a thing. It can be backed up by having helped people move when it was just myself and them (outside of a work context), and many of the comments in the work context said specifically about being helpful to others and being willing to volunteer to fill shortages in staffing at my location and elsewhere. This is apparently not the norm, which I did not know. I think "consistently helpful/supportive" is what I aim for when it comes to online and fannish interactions as well as more embodied ones, so when that happens, it makes me happy. (The replies to the various "love meme" style comment threads I've participated in bear out that "consistently helpful/supportive" is achieved.)
And then there are the comments themselves on fic I've written, y'know, literally using other people's words to talk about the good things I've done:
I suspect, for many of us, if we could see ourselves as others saw us, without the brainweasels invading to try and tell us not to believe those perceptions, it would do us all some good. Because whomever that person is that gets those kinds of comments, I want to write like them! (Oh, wait, I am them.) So it can't be all bad. Some of it, even, has to be good.
The world tells us we must be humble, we must take a compliment, but never to compliment ourselves. Never toot our own horn and many other cliches about how to be proper and not overbearingly egotistical. We at FSC say, f&#k that! Tell us of all the ways you are the BEST! All the things you’ve done, want to do or will one day do. All the ways you are marvelously you.( I think there's more nuance to it than solely self-promotion )
And thus, having burnt through a thousand (or two) words explaining myself, we get back to the reason that I phrased the challenge the way I did. Because if you ask me to say good things, nice things, things I'm proud of, that are an intrinsic part of me, or that are things that I have done, I am going to fail so hard at it. Yay, I have a fic with more than 300 kudos. (Yay, one of my friends in the same fandom gathered way more than 300 kudos within the first day of posting a fic and routinely has more than 300 kudos on their works.) Yay, I have people telling me my Story Times do actually work well for neuroatypical children. (Yay, there are people doing so much cooler things in the library world and being recognized as Movers and Shakers for this.) Yay, my recipients enjoy the world I make for them for exchanges and other prompts. (Yay, other creators have their recipients and a lot of other users and guests saying they enjoyed their works created for prompts and exchanges.) Yay, I contributed a chapter to a book about making change happen in the library profession. (Who the fuck is going to spend $60 on the book that chapter comes in?) This can go on for just about anything that I can think of that might go in the column of things worth promoting. If there's nothing that can be said that's unqualified, then the exercise backfires, because it's supposed to be about defiance of excess humility and taking pride in yourself and your work.
If you asked me, though, and we know each other well enough, I could come up with five-ten things about you that are excellent and should be promoted. And might very well brush aside the qualification, temporization, or other things that would try to diminish the awesome. It's far easier to say good things about others, even if I have a certain amount of understanding of those people's inner lives and environments.
Physician, heal thyself, and all that.
So, to achieve something like what the challenge wants, I have to treat myself like an outside observer would. Theory of mind is an awesome skill. So, let's start with when I tried to imagine what hook a profile writer might use to describe my fic output positively, settling on how doing so many exchanges every year is akin to being a short-order cook serving up beloved favorites in short amounts of words. It's a way of making being multifannish into a benefit, and being multifannish and willing to write for things that look interesting has produced some works that I really liked, in addition to the recipients.
I've been told repeatedly that I do exchange prompts well. Apparently, the ability to summarize and explain what you are looking for in a way that gives a creator an idea and enough flexibility to do it is a skill. (I don't usually have a Dear Creator letter. Partially because I don't know myself well enough to know what things are bulletproof and what are absolute DNWs, but also because I feel like I can summarize the idea or key concept(s) for what I would like in the space provided, and let the creator fill in the details of how that gets done.) It seems to work out reasonably well so far.
I had a work performance evaluation today, and the running theme through that seemed to be "consistently helpful," so that's a thing. It can be backed up by having helped people move when it was just myself and them (outside of a work context), and many of the comments in the work context said specifically about being helpful to others and being willing to volunteer to fill shortages in staffing at my location and elsewhere. This is apparently not the norm, which I did not know. I think "consistently helpful/supportive" is what I aim for when it comes to online and fannish interactions as well as more embodied ones, so when that happens, it makes me happy. (The replies to the various "love meme" style comment threads I've participated in bear out that "consistently helpful/supportive" is achieved.)
And then there are the comments themselves on fic I've written, y'know, literally using other people's words to talk about the good things I've done:
I admire so much how you wrote about the aerial silks themselves. It's Adrien's POV and it looks like MAGIC, and from me as a reader who knows nothing either, you really paint a vivid picture how elegant, graceful and baffling it was to look at. I am amazed how you can write about such a complicated technical thing in a way that it paints the perfect mental image: gorgeous and fluid and impossible.
I was full on cackling like 2/3rds to the end of the Pardoner's tale the first and second time I read it and by the third was like....[skeletons "oooh"ing.gif] (and the cackling again over the quatrain at the end). I mean he was so creepy but he was so honest about being creepy and idk, maybe this is just my shitty religious upbringing but I know the kind of douchebags he describes when he talks about the church so it was SO easy to believe everything he said was real. It probably is. Also I loved how you described him?? Like it was visually so coherent + the detail of his Southern Accent slipping away liiiiike. I was yelling! What an image! What a tiny, necessary, amazing little detail! That just defined the character for me. And how you told his story!!! So good!!!
[...]
I had seriously, zero expectations going into this fic and I am delighted to tell you that anything I could have dreamed up would not have been NEARLY as good as this fic.
Seriously, this was so brilliant and so clever. It forced me to think and to engage in the text in a way i normally wouldn't. If I hadn't left such a long comment and also wouldn't be breaking a thousand rules of fanfic, I would send this to the Medieval Lit professor who taught me to love Canterbury Tales because I think he'd get such a kick out of it. I certainly did!
Thank you so much for every word of it, for the dancing and the metalbending and how vivid and real it was. I felt like I was watching her do it and working through her emotions in a way that's more real to her than the way others among us brood and then Korra being naughty and Kuvira taken off guard at the end, then deciding to use and leverage it.
that marichat bit, tho
*snickers*
also aww
I'm delighted! This is adorable and hilarious -- I was snickering through pretty much the entire thing, and would quote like half of it back at you if I started quoting good lines -- and Elliot's horror at being a trigon coach was fantastic. All three of them felt so delightfully in-character, especially Elliot "I hate doing anything but hey would you like another five brilliant ideas right now?" Schafer and his ability to find loopholes and form community bonds without quite realising that's what he's doing until he's already done it.
I suspect, for many of us, if we could see ourselves as others saw us, without the brainweasels invading to try and tell us not to believe those perceptions, it would do us all some good. Because whomever that person is that gets those kinds of comments, I want to write like them! (Oh, wait, I am them.) So it can't be all bad. Some of it, even, has to be good.
