the duality of ideas that sometimes shows up among those who enjoy fanworks– the juxtaposition of “every creator owes me exactly what I want with nothing required on my part, not even kudos or comments” with “I should get to charge money for every fanwork that I create; my labor deserves payment even though it’s from someone else’s intellectual property, and ao3 is oppressive for not supporting that”
it feels to me like a symptom of a much wider tendency
which also comes up in regard to original creative works like small-time published novels, with some people both unashamedly pirating others’ work and aggressively marketing their own
but it also comes up pretty much every time policies and laws are discussed
the tendency of people to think about any policy, any law– any generalization about what people should do– from only one side
either “what it would be like if I had to follow this,” or “what it would be like if other people had to follow this.”
and often the same person even seems to hold two contradictory opinions on the same rule– one from each viewpoint, but reasoned completely separately
it’s morbidly fascinating and I wonder how such a thought process works
i mean. I guess I had an experience that was maybe sorta like it.
I used to get really angry in crowds. When I was in a hurry to get somewhere and wanted to walk fast, I used to HATE people who wanted to walk slow in front of me. and when I was tired and wanted to walk slow, I used to HATE people who wanted to walk fast behind me.
but the moment I actually thought about both these experiences, I realized that the fact that I hated both those kinds of people meant I WAS both those kinds of people… and I got a hold of myself and managed to subdue the hatred down to just mild irritation.
and I sure as hell never let it get far enough to start saying out loud that laws should be made about it, one way or the other.