As some of you are aware I've not actually been active in the Highlander fandom for that long. I think its about a year a bit now. I'm still very much a newbie really. As such I'd like to relate one of my 'newbie' experiences to you all.
When I took that first swandive into the Highlander fandom I did the usual thing of going to Y!Groups and joining as many HL slash lists as possible. Obviously one of these lists was ODM (OnlyDuncanMethos), which is run by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lastrega and the other was SDM (StrictlyDuncanMethos) which is, or was, run by mslasha.
Upon receiving the FAQ for SDM I was somewhat startled by the fact that one of the rules was that there was to be no mention of the writing of or discussion of the person known astritorella on list. There was also a selection of her other aliases given just to avoid any confusion. At this point, I hasten to add, I didn't *know* Trit. I had seen some of her posts on other lists and read some of her fic but I'd no actual personal experience with her.
This seemed a little *odd* as a rule for a lists so I actually took the step of emailing the mods/owner and asking what on earth this was all about. One of the mods replied as didmslasha personally with a lengthy explanation of their grievances and also a link to webpage (now removed) which had excerpts of emails from Trit amongst other people and purported to be examples of trollish behaviour. Now this disturbed me.
Firstly, I was very uncomfortable with the fact that someone was posting emails on a webpage like this. Secondly, I admit quite freely that I assumed that there is no smoke without fire and that Trit must be a fairly difficult person and done something fairly bad to warrant this sort of treatment. So, I made some comment about how shocked I was, I even offered my services in a legal capacity should the owner or mods of SDM suffer any similar problems in the future and then I went my own sweet way and forgot all about it.
Okay, lets fast forward a month or so. I'm now easing my way into the fandom and big tart that I am, I manage to attract the attention of various lovely people who invite me to join some private HL related lists. One of these people is my darlinglastrega who invited me to join a private list she modded. It turns out this list was actually owned by Trit. I thought nothing of it really as I had no actual beef with Trit and liked her stories.
Move forward another month or so. I get involved in writing a Round Robin with various members of Trit's list includinglastrega, tritorella herself , litalex, dkwilliams and darthhellokitty. This eventually evolves into Comes A Scotsman and is posted on various lists.
Imagine my surprise to then receive an email from one of the mods of SDM which asked me if I was indeed a member of Trit's private list. I replied saying "Yes" and asking, "why she wanted to know this?" I then got back a decidedly snippy email accusing me, amongst other things, of being a spy for Trit on SDM and associating with people known to be sympathisers with her. As you can probably imagine my response to that was somewhat less then civil. It's also worth mentioning at this point that at no time on Trit's list hadmslasha or any of her friends been mentioned nor the disagreement that existed between them been alluded to. Anyway, I exchanged various mildly irritated emails with the mods and the owner of SDM and I did think that the situation had been resolved as I heard nothing further from any of them.
At the same time I was less then polite on Trit's list. I basically posted something along the lines of, "what the flying fuck is all this crap and why am I getting dragged into it?" *That* was the first time I actually heard the 'other' side of the story from both Trit, herself and fromlastrega. Taking all this on board, I'm afraid my response was pretty much still, "all well and good but frankly I don't *care* what happened or about what someone has or hasn't done and bollocks to the lot of you, leave me out of it!"
Shortly after this, I attempted to access the SDM archive and found I was no longer a member of the list. When I tried to emailmslasha to ask why I had been removed from the list, my email was returned because my email address had apparently been blocked.
So I washed my hands of the whole affair and moved on.
Over time I have got to knowtritorella better. She is without a shadow of a doubt, an acquired taste. She's opinionated, she's blunt and sometimes she is rude. I have on occasion disagreed vehemently with things she has said on lists. This does not however stop me regarding her as an excellent writer, a great contributor to fandom and someone I have the utmost respect, admiration and friendship for. Of late she has kindly volunteered to host my Kink!Fic Challenge on her webpage and also to update it for me, even though she now has left the Highlander fandom.
I can't comment on what has caused all the animosity between Trit andmslasha and her friends. I wasn't around when it happened. I can however make the following observations:
1. Disagreeing with someone, even hating them is understandable. We are not all going to like each other in fandom and sometimes this will involve frayed tempers all round. I am as guilty as anyone of this. Look at the whole J-Blo mess! That said, posting lists of email addresses, IP addresses and various aliases publically on the web, of people you don't like, is *not* acceptable for *any* reason. It's an infringement of personal privacy and doubly so if you cannot even get these correct and implicate people who have nothing to with your little fight.
2. Squealing constantly on lists and in LJ about how badly the person you disagree with has treated you and how they are 'stalking' you, starts to wear slightly thin after the first year or so. Particularly when the person you disagree with hasn't mentioned your argument at all, anywhere.
3. It's a good idea to have clear proof that someone has done you wrong before you start waging a campaign of hate against them across several fandoms. Funnily enough uninvolved third parties might actually consider behaviour like that as stalking and troll-like.
4. Accusing people you don't know of spying for your enemies is pathetic. It may come as a shock to you but many people could not care less about your dispute, nor do they want to hear about it.
mslasha, wickdzoot, houseofsnark, and xander_spike you have brought all this on yourselves by your ridiculous behaviour. I have no sympathy and I certainly shall be regarding any of your future whines about being stalked and harassed with a very large pinch of salt. I see that now, you have deleted most of the controversial comments from your LJ's. I think that says it all.
Everyone involved in this hideous mess should take a deep breath, get some perspective and back away from the argument before things get seriously nasty. I know it's a hard thing to ask for mature behaviour in fandom but you know, I live in hope! I'll leave it up to whoever reads this to make their own minds up about who is telling the truth. If you want to abuse, shout, comment or talk to me about what I said please do. I have simply stated the facts as I see them. Undoubtably I'm going to be accused of bias in favour of Trit because of my interaction with her. I think however the majority of people who read this will realise I have no axe to grind.
There is one thing I would like to add to this. The comment here made bygabixenafen about Trit is a complete and utter lie. I don't care how 'reliable' the so-called source was. I was at HLDU5 with Trit and present for all her interactions (which were few) with the various guests of honour. I can state categorically that this *never* happened! Spreading lies like this is malicious and nasty and says more about the people who make them then anything about Trit. The organisers of HLDU5 would be equally horrified to see that false accusations such as these are being made. I strongly suggest to the owner of this LJ that this comment is removed.
Now, lets *never* speak of this again.
When I took that first swandive into the Highlander fandom I did the usual thing of going to Y!Groups and joining as many HL slash lists as possible. Obviously one of these lists was ODM (OnlyDuncanMethos), which is run by
lastrega and the other was SDM (StrictlyDuncanMethos) which is, or was, run by mslasha.Upon receiving the FAQ for SDM I was somewhat startled by the fact that one of the rules was that there was to be no mention of the writing of or discussion of the person known as
tritorella on list. There was also a selection of her other aliases given just to avoid any confusion. At this point, I hasten to add, I didn't *know* Trit. I had seen some of her posts on other lists and read some of her fic but I'd no actual personal experience with her. This seemed a little *odd* as a rule for a lists so I actually took the step of emailing the mods/owner and asking what on earth this was all about. One of the mods replied as did
mslasha personally with a lengthy explanation of their grievances and also a link to webpage (now removed) which had excerpts of emails from Trit amongst other people and purported to be examples of trollish behaviour. Now this disturbed me.Firstly, I was very uncomfortable with the fact that someone was posting emails on a webpage like this. Secondly, I admit quite freely that I assumed that there is no smoke without fire and that Trit must be a fairly difficult person and done something fairly bad to warrant this sort of treatment. So, I made some comment about how shocked I was, I even offered my services in a legal capacity should the owner or mods of SDM suffer any similar problems in the future and then I went my own sweet way and forgot all about it.
Okay, lets fast forward a month or so. I'm now easing my way into the fandom and big tart that I am, I manage to attract the attention of various lovely people who invite me to join some private HL related lists. One of these people is my darling
lastrega who invited me to join a private list she modded. It turns out this list was actually owned by Trit. I thought nothing of it really as I had no actual beef with Trit and liked her stories. Move forward another month or so. I get involved in writing a Round Robin with various members of Trit's list including
lastrega, tritorella herself , litalex, dkwilliams and darthhellokitty. This eventually evolves into Comes A Scotsman and is posted on various lists.Imagine my surprise to then receive an email from one of the mods of SDM which asked me if I was indeed a member of Trit's private list. I replied saying "Yes" and asking, "why she wanted to know this?" I then got back a decidedly snippy email accusing me, amongst other things, of being a spy for Trit on SDM and associating with people known to be sympathisers with her. As you can probably imagine my response to that was somewhat less then civil. It's also worth mentioning at this point that at no time on Trit's list had
mslasha or any of her friends been mentioned nor the disagreement that existed between them been alluded to. Anyway, I exchanged various mildly irritated emails with the mods and the owner of SDM and I did think that the situation had been resolved as I heard nothing further from any of them.At the same time I was less then polite on Trit's list. I basically posted something along the lines of, "what the flying fuck is all this crap and why am I getting dragged into it?" *That* was the first time I actually heard the 'other' side of the story from both Trit, herself and from
lastrega. Taking all this on board, I'm afraid my response was pretty much still, "all well and good but frankly I don't *care* what happened or about what someone has or hasn't done and bollocks to the lot of you, leave me out of it!"Shortly after this, I attempted to access the SDM archive and found I was no longer a member of the list. When I tried to email
mslasha to ask why I had been removed from the list, my email was returned because my email address had apparently been blocked. So I washed my hands of the whole affair and moved on.
Over time I have got to know
tritorella better. She is without a shadow of a doubt, an acquired taste. She's opinionated, she's blunt and sometimes she is rude. I have on occasion disagreed vehemently with things she has said on lists. This does not however stop me regarding her as an excellent writer, a great contributor to fandom and someone I have the utmost respect, admiration and friendship for. Of late she has kindly volunteered to host my Kink!Fic Challenge on her webpage and also to update it for me, even though she now has left the Highlander fandom.I can't comment on what has caused all the animosity between Trit and
mslasha and her friends. I wasn't around when it happened. I can however make the following observations:1. Disagreeing with someone, even hating them is understandable. We are not all going to like each other in fandom and sometimes this will involve frayed tempers all round. I am as guilty as anyone of this. Look at the whole J-Blo mess! That said, posting lists of email addresses, IP addresses and various aliases publically on the web, of people you don't like, is *not* acceptable for *any* reason. It's an infringement of personal privacy and doubly so if you cannot even get these correct and implicate people who have nothing to with your little fight.
2. Squealing constantly on lists and in LJ about how badly the person you disagree with has treated you and how they are 'stalking' you, starts to wear slightly thin after the first year or so. Particularly when the person you disagree with hasn't mentioned your argument at all, anywhere.
3. It's a good idea to have clear proof that someone has done you wrong before you start waging a campaign of hate against them across several fandoms. Funnily enough uninvolved third parties might actually consider behaviour like that as stalking and troll-like.
4. Accusing people you don't know of spying for your enemies is pathetic. It may come as a shock to you but many people could not care less about your dispute, nor do they want to hear about it.
mslasha, wickdzoot, houseofsnark, and xander_spike you have brought all this on yourselves by your ridiculous behaviour. I have no sympathy and I certainly shall be regarding any of your future whines about being stalked and harassed with a very large pinch of salt. I see that now, you have deleted most of the controversial comments from your LJ's. I think that says it all.Everyone involved in this hideous mess should take a deep breath, get some perspective and back away from the argument before things get seriously nasty. I know it's a hard thing to ask for mature behaviour in fandom but you know, I live in hope! I'll leave it up to whoever reads this to make their own minds up about who is telling the truth. If you want to abuse, shout, comment or talk to me about what I said please do. I have simply stated the facts as I see them. Undoubtably I'm going to be accused of bias in favour of Trit because of my interaction with her. I think however the majority of people who read this will realise I have no axe to grind.
There is one thing I would like to add to this. The comment here made by
gabixenafen about Trit is a complete and utter lie. I don't care how 'reliable' the so-called source was. I was at HLDU5 with Trit and present for all her interactions (which were few) with the various guests of honour. I can state categorically that this *never* happened! Spreading lies like this is malicious and nasty and says more about the people who make them then anything about Trit. The organisers of HLDU5 would be equally horrified to see that false accusations such as these are being made. I strongly suggest to the owner of this LJ that this comment is removed.Now, lets *never* speak of this again.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
Re: Here's the text from SDM FAQ#11...and my comments
Then, it is not for posting on this list. Post a URL if you like (with warnings) for your story on SDM, but do not post it to SDM list.
13. What about a story that features Duncan/Methos together and a flash back to Tessa and their life together?
That is fine. As stated in the description on Yahoo!Groups when you joined this list, the fiction here has to consist mainly of a Duncan/Methos pairing in it. If you have a question about this rule, please ask a moderator to read your story first prior to posting it to avoid a problem.
14. What happens if I post a Duncan/Other story that turns into a Duncan/Methos story and the members feel after reading it the majority of the story was the D/O aspect and not a DM/M story?
Well, if you've read the FAQ, hopefully, you won't do that. But if you do, you will be sent an e-mail off list and asked to reread the FAQ so it won't happen again. Do it again and the moderators will not consider it an accident and you will be asked to either submit your stories prior to them being posted or to leave SDM. We are not trying to limit any writers' creativity here, we just have a very specific goal in mind with this list and that's to promote exceptional
Duncan/Methos fiction!
We have offered other options if you feel your story doesn't fit the parameters of this list (see above), in order to try and make a lot of people on SDM happy. Most people who joined SDM are on other Highlander mailing lists, but joined SDM to get their DM/M fix and just that pairing, so we are trying to honor that by creating these rules.
15. How should I label my fiction posts?
All fiction should be labeled in the subject line of your e-mail. It should look something like this:
FIC: "Duncan and Methos Go Camping" 1/2 NC-17 DM/M & DM/Tessa
The subject should say FIC (as some people only read the fiction on this list) and have the title of the story, plus a rating (G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17) and the pairing. Most of the time, it will be DM/M; but if you have a flashback Tessa scene, please add that pairing to the subject line in case people who choose not to read other pairing stories and just want to delete it.
16. Are 0 posts required? Meaning an e-mail that has a subject line like this:
FIC: "Duncan and Methos Get Wild on Brazil" R DM/M 0/22
No, but they are recommended. A 0 post would look like this in the body of your e-mail and introduces your story to the list:
Title: Duncan and Methos Go Camping
Author: Writer X
Pairing: Duncan/Methos, Duncan/Tessa (flashback)
Rating: NC-17
Archive: Yes, but only at SDM. (Or no if you don't want it archived).
URL: Place to put your web page, if you like.
Notes/Summary: Describe the story here if you like, this is optional.
Warnings: I only ask for warnings if the story has rape or death (of Duncan/Methos) in it. Some people don't read this type of story and get very upset if they are "surprised" by one. So, for the sake of these people, put a warning in it. Thank you.
17. What if I don't want to put a warning on it, as I like my reader not to know what is going to happen in my story?
If it has a rape or death of Methos or Duncan in it, it must have a warning on it for the SDM list. There are no exceptions to this rule. Sorry. Any other type of warnings are not necessary unless the author feels like they should add something. If you do not like warnings or zero posts on your fiction, again, you might want to consider just posting a URL to this story on SDM.
I hope that this FAQ has answered your questions. If not, contact Sue or Jennie This list was created as a safe, warm environment for Highlander fans to come and discuss, post or read about Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod with Methos, I hope after joining us you agree. So, come on in, put your feet up, sit back and relax, but most of all -- enjoy!
With kindest regards -- your SDM-L Moderators
~~~~~~~
Once again, thanks for this timely reminder that we should clean house.
From:
Re: Here's the text from SDM FAQ#11...and my comments
I've reported your SDM group on Yahoo for harassment because of the contents of your original FAQ which is a clear violation of my privacy. I suggest you reword or delete that pile of shit that your 'former' owner wrote, if you don't want to have action taken against you by Yahoo Groups. How any civilised person can stomach seeing that kind of thing done by a fan against another fan, and not protest, I don't know, and I never will understand. Let's hope that there is no repetition of this crap.
From:
Re: Here's the text from SDM FAQ#11...and my comments
I hope that this will reassure you.
S
From:
Re: Here's the text from SDM FAQ#11...and my comments
From:
Re: Here's the text from SDM FAQ#11...and my comments
There is only the yahoo list as far as I know, and the /City list closed some time ago,as did the archive, when Holly relinquished ownership.
I am a new member/moderator, and I have changed the FAQ in response to comments. With respect, I would like to have the list leave behind any concerns that it may once have had, and begin to concentrate on its purpose, which is to get Duncan/Methos discussion/fiction etc. underway.
From:
Thank You
...For taking the time to come here and explain this and also indicate that you have changed the FAQ. Obviously I cannot actually verify this as a non member but I shall take your word for it.
I hope this subject never rears its ugly head again. I'm sure that would make a lot of people in fandom as well as Trit very happy.