All that being said, and true for the most part, I popped up in a fandom where I had no name recognition, no contacts under that pseud, and very little previous personal contact. [ And I did it right when the fandom ballooned, and okay, went bananas.] And I succeeded just fine.

Which is to say, known quantities are often preferred, and for good reasons, but as with show business it's not impossible to break into fanfic as a complete unknown. Which I find pretty comforting.

I personally can't imagine wanting to supress new writers.

Okay, maybe the one who wrote that prison sex story where Clark went to prison for having MP3s, gay porn, and alien invasion scenarios on his laptop.

But other than that, hello? One of the large reasons we're in this is to read good fic. So why would anyone prize stomping on new writers above the possibility of getting good new fic? I mean, it's not *that* much fun.

Besides which, the stuff by the established writers isn't always the best out there, and very often isn't all that good, period. I like Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and by and large, the story most likely to make me go, whoa, and grab a pen to write down his/her name in a booksearch, is a newbie or someone I've never read before. And the last story that made me shrug and skip to the next story because of poor execution was less a recognised name in mystery than a god who generally deserves that god status: Ruth Rendell.

And this is true in pretty much every art or discipline I can think of.

True in sports, too. Michael Jordan throws an elbow during a game, he's way less likely to get flagged than a rookie committing the same foul. Way of the world, alas.

the one who wrote that prison sex story where Clark went to prison for having MP3s, gay porn, and alien invasion scenarios on his laptop.

I'm evil. This sounds intriguing. But only if Lex is fighting valiantly to get him released. Hell, I've never seen the show, but I occasionally read the slash.

I'm evil. This sounds intriguing.

It's not. Trust me.

Sigh. But the idea of Superman getting busted for having informaton on alien invasions is amusing.

He isn't really busted for the alien invasion stuff though--it's for the mp3s, the alien invasion stuff is just thown in there as if it were the least of their worries. Plus Superman was in general population...I don't know if I'm defending this or trying to make it sound really bad so you'll go read it...

On the other hand, I read Gillian Silverlight's latest offering on BFA...I prefered the prison fic, where at least I was giggling at the premise through out.

One minor nitpick from someone who has seen Mighty Ducks 2 far too many times: it was the Junior Goodwill Games, not the Junior Olympics.

Thanks. I couldn't remember. And research seemed bad at three am.

There was a woman in XF who thought that Mulder was an Unappreciated Hero, and that the Scullyists Were In Power and Abused the Right-Thinking Writers of Mulder-As-Hero stories. She would post these appalling rants WITH CAPITALS, and very poorly characterized stories that had Mulder and Scully getting stoned with Mulder's gay friends from Oxford.

You know, every now and then I get this warm fuzzy feeling about the world I live in. Like during the Superbowl halftime show this year, which was so, so awful, and kitschy, and I just grinned all the way through it, because isn't it great to live in a world that can make such awful, kitschy things just for fun?

And I just had that feeling. Probably because I never had to deal with the woman in question myself, but. Hee! Bad fanfic about getting stoned with Mulder's gay Oxford friends! That just warms the cockles of my heart, somehow.

Oh! That kind of stoned! Here I was thinking Biblical stoning and going "That's damned odd."