You ever getting your fandom site back?
I doubt I will under that domain. The conditions they wanted me to agree to were insane— I wasn’t allowed to post anything that might “compete” with them for six months (so, you know, post anything fandom related), wasn’t allowed to talk about anything related to their new site (keep in mind that they lifted and reposted nearly all of the fandom following content to their new site).
Even more insulting, I wasn’t allowed to “contact” certain people (it was worded vaguely enough that for all I know, liking someone’s post on tumblr could be considered “contact”). Basically, the moment our owner (the one who helped Kylie, Julia and I set up the site and is now the owner of Fandomentals) informed me of what they were doing, I had the gall to ask, you know, why (I still don’t have an answer on that). She tried to tell me that Kylie and Julie were behind the decision, I mentioned that I’d ask them, then. She immediately accused me of “harassing” people for wanting to you know, call or text them asking why I was suddenly being thrown out on my ass. People I’ve been calling/texting, and allegedly someone they counted as a friend…. Up until the morning they decided to screw me over. Literally, all I had done was call Kori (after she texted me at work to “rip off the bandaid”, in her words) and ask what was going on and why. No harsh language. No yelling. Sad tears, but nothing that could even remotely be considered “harassment”. I mean, FFS, this woman and I had been friends for two years at this point, been having phone calls throughout this time, launched a business together. We were even writing a book together (which I had presented as what would be my graduate thesis for my Masters, which she knew. So, you know, I had a lot of reasons to want to know what x, y, and z was and why.) I messaged Kylie and Julia on gchat (our usual mode of communication). Kylie promised me an explanation after she got back from Thanksgiving in a week, and I accepted that. Then she claimed she couldn’t say anything for “legal reasons” and that the decision was Kori’s (who said the decision was Kylie and Julia’s). Also, when I learned what was happening, I sent a couple messages to some contributors asking if they’d like to be editors for the site that I would supposedly be granted “by January”. When they declined, I dropped that. I also found out they tried to block me from the staff facebook group AND the site main email account, and were misleading our writers to think I was just bowing out because I didn’t want to work on the site anymore (I found this out because a number of very confused contributors were forwarding me their emails and asking wtf was going on.) I didn’t get any word about the domain transfer in January (keep in mind that the hosting fees were paid up only until then). So basically, they went out of their way to gaslight the shit out of me on this and insist that if I so much as asked for a REASON why all this was happening, it was “harassment”. I sent messages and emails to Kori, who was supposed to be sending me the transfer paperwork. She told me there was a delay, and to ONLY contact her through email. So I did. Not until LATE FEBRUARY did I get anything… By that point, it was that contract that was basically a gag order and an implied accusation of harassment (and yes, I do have the receipts on this to prove that this was ANYTHING BUT true. I’m sure certain people will gladly claim that I probably TOTALLY DID [especially certain people with absurd fixations with me, who like to pretend they know ANYTHING about the goings-on of the website, and who have also been happily telling newcomers in the fandom that I’ve been “kicked off several sites for bullying”. Literally, they’ve been telling people this shit. I’ve never been so much as had a post flagged. So yeah, certain lovely “anti-bullies” have been telling newcomers to the fandom that literally one of the worst things that has ever happened to me, where I was treated like shit was me “getting kicked off several sites for bullying”. So that’s fun. I don’t think I need to specify who I’m talking about, but these are people who literally never had anything to do with the site, aside for one who inquired about possibly writing for us, and just generally attacking/sabotaging any project I’m involved with, including one lovely time they implied I was a rape apologist AND soft on Nazi sympathizing all in one post. I’m a Jewish Sexual Assault Survivor, btw. But remember, they’re just trying to prevent bullying. Which is why they’ve written thousands of words about what a terrible person I am and basically had little blog parties when I was weeping buckets over this shitty, shitty thing that happened to me. Because they’re such fine people. One of whom who gladly admitted that she basically made a hobby out of hating on me. And after stirring up a shitstorm, she said “I will not apologize for making an educated guess” about the last super-drama BS she and her friends were accusing me of.] Meanwhile, my ex-partners were trying to lock me out of email accounts that I’d paid for/set up, and posting advertisements for their new site on fandomfollowing’s social media despite their promises that the social media accounts, site, and domain would TOTALLY be transferred to me. “By January” “By mid January” “By late January” etc), basically putting me in a position where, if I signed it, I could end up tripping over into a lawsuit by so much as liking a post on tumblr. I sent the contract to some friends and relatives who are lawyers, and everyone said the same thing: DO NOT FUCKING SIGN THIS. DROP THIS NOW.
TBH, I really do intend to launch something new, akin to Fandom Following, but nothing that can be tied to them, and with people I can be a bit more sure of. Part of my issue is that after what happened is that since, my trust issues are… considerable. Not just in terms of trusting others, but also me trying to be better than the people I worked with before, and securing protections for other potential partners that I never got from my old “buddies” up front, so that I can show that they can trust me. The problem with THAT is that it costs time, money, and resources to secure those things which I’m having trouble acquiring in full (there’s only so much I can ask in terms of free legal help from those close to me. And I’m certainly not going to use up what I can ask of them if I need their help later on). But yeah, I do straight up have a bajillion issues trusting people enough to launch a whole new site with them right now (also, it’s just not a good time in terms of RL).
I’ll probably never get Fandom Following back, but I’m not exactly out of the picture, and I hope to get something significant going within the next year or so. I’ll also admit that my tumblr getting randomly deleted (along with quite a bit of other content, writing, etc courtesy of some hacking that happened that also involved all of the contents of my google account getting deleted and money being taken from my accounts) was a big setback. I’ve recovered about 15% of the followers I had before, and let’s face it, if you want to launch something significant (when most of your pro writing credits are now relegated to caches), you do need more than 420 followers coming with you. I had thousands of followers when FF launched, and had partners with thousands of their own, and those people did come with us (because most people are awesome). But I don’t have that same pull now. I have some awesome friends, none who I would want to drag into a business venture unless I can assure them of the proper security I think they deserve. And until I can, well….
