#fandom meta

[goodthingscomeinthrees]

i want to stress, so much, that there's a difference between good media, and media that's well-suited to transformative fandom.

sometimes, the canon is so good on its own that you don't feel the need to add anything to it. you could, and people do (and should!) but the writers/creators really knew what they were doing and the experience of consuming said piece of media is entirely satisfying on its own.

then, there's the objectively mediocre stuff that has just enough hints at depth/character backstory potential/little plot idiosyncrasies to make it a perfect sandbox. i'm talking big movie franchises and long-running, middling procedurals that won't win any awards. there's so much potential there, and the writers either lack the skill or time to explore it all fully, and that's where fandom jumps in.

sometimes, that's the best kind of show to be in fandom for, because what else are we all going to do but be creative and fix what canon can't get right?

[nothingenoughao3]

"I don’t know how people can find any fun in watching mindless films. If you want a peaceful rest, have a bath. Why go to the cinema?" -Park Chan-wook, director of "Oldboy"

Maybe the person who wrote that take should, instead of writing their opinions on media they do not read or engage with, take a fucking bath.

every morning i'm forced to read some of the worst takes known to man. what on earth is this. where do i even begin with all the problems with this take?

[nothingenoughao3]

One of the worst things to happen to fandom is the memetic phrase "consuming content" replacing all other terminology for engaging with stories.

[fandom-blahs]

Yes exactly!

I'll add an example to hopefully cement why you really need to check out the media yourself and come to your own conclusion, reading other people's thoughts is helpful but you need to decide for yourself at times.

I noticed that when the discussion revolves around Muslim (esp women) representation, "muslimtok" or any adjacent communities will call out or label a show as problematic is the character is a a less than a perfect conservative Muslim.

It's one of the things I find very novel about Western portrayals at times, there's no religious or moral authority browbeating creatives. Yes it's icky and messy because people are messy and complicated but a hijabi character drinking alcohol is not islamophobic nor is orientalist and def not an endorsement of that behaviour.

Ladybits, while it doesn't have female characters drinking alcohol, has a colourful cast of characters that heavily deviate from the norm. I haven't even seen a portrayal like this in my own Muslim-majority country (which usually has female character deviating from the norm at a rate that would send these conservatives in a frenzy). Online it was pretty much attacked and labelled as offensive because the characters played music and don't you know? That's Islamophobic! The West is trying to cause ruin in our own countries and diaspora communities because female characters playing music! Oh the shame!!! so haram!!

So yes you really do need to go out of your own way to interact with the thing and see if it's offensive lest you be swarmed with conservatives telling you how to think, even though you would never give the time of day to conservatives in your own country/community.

"can someone tell me if this show is offensive?" "do you guys think this ship is problematic-"

i am begging you to go and find the answers for these questions yourself. stop asking other people to do literary analysis for you. think critically. figure out yourself if you like that ship, or if you like that show. stop letting your joy be determined by majority vote.

yes, stay safe, look up trigger warnings, ask friends for help avoiding specific things you know will make you viscerally uncomfortable - but if you've already watched the show, you don't need to be asking people if it's ok for you to like it. make up your own damn mind!

[my-castles-crumbling]

2025:

2001:

[blogquantumreality]

As far as I can tell, AO3's TOS do permit the use of AI generated fanfic (TOS here) and while so far as I know they don't specifically ask, it's a generally accepted fandom courtesy to tag it as such.

you guys aren't gonna like this but if you want ao3 to be a neutral archive that will host anything that includes shit made with ai no matter how objectionable you find that

[canichangemyblogname]

Please, please, please reblog for sample size. Make this a very popular poll on this site.

[sweetmeatdale]

It’s sorta fandom meta but I love the tendency for non fans to just assume Chat Noir is a girl at first glance. Only part that makes it better is the long term fans who agree with them.

[osterby]

Here, have the top ten video game fandoms on The Archive of Our Own every year since the archive started

These tables show the current number of extant works (including archive locked works) on the AO3 created before Jan 1st of each year.

This is just the top fandom lists from a much larger project. For graphs, full details on methodology, a separate section on the Dragon Age tags, these lists in text rather than screenshot format, and more, see the full work here here

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62226781?view_full_work=true

EDIT: First error spotted! Legend of Zelda was missed in the 2024 list, I've updated the screenshot and it now correctly appears in ninth place

EDIT 2: Somehow the screenshots for 2019 and 2020 were missing? I'm blaming Tumblr, they're here now.

[wowilikeyour-blog]

WAIT THIS IS SUCH A GOOD IDEA!!! I think I might participate!

DAILY THEMES DETAILS

IT'S DAY ONE OF OUR WORLD TRIP COMMENTFEST AND WE ARE TEMPORARILY STUCK AT THE AIRPORT FOR A WHILE!! LUCKILY THERE ARE ALL THESE LONG FORM FICS TO KEEP US COMPANY! SPEND THE 4TH READING AND COMMENTING ON THOSE FICS OVER 20K! BONUSES IF YOU COMMENT ON EVERY CHAPTER IF ITS A MULTICHAP!!!

WE HAVE ARRIVED AT OUR DESTINATION!!! ITS TIME TO SAMPLE THE LOCAL FARE! GO EXPLORE THAT NEW FANDOM YOU'VE BEEN INTERESTED IN, FIND SOME FICS, AND JUST LEAVE A COMMENT!!!

ITS TIME FOR YOUR PHRASEBOOK AND/OR TRANSLATION APP TO COME IN HANDY!! FIND FICS IN YOUR FANDOM NOT WRITTEN IN YOUR FIRST LANGUAGE AND GIVE THEM SOME LOVE BY JUST LEAVING A COMMENT!!

WE ARE WEAVING IN AND OUT OF TINY ROADS WE ARE DODGING FRUIT STANDS WE ARE SPEEDING ON OUR VESPAS IN THE COUNTRYSIDE!!! TAKE IN AS MANY SIGHTS AS YOU CAN BY COMMENTING ON AS MANY FICS UNDER 2K AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN

MAMA WE'RE COMING HOME!!! ITS TIME TO GO BACK THROUGH MEMORY LANE, DIG UP YOUR FAVORITE FICS, SETTLE DOWN WITH YOUR FAVORITE COZY DRINK AND LEAVE THOSE COMMENTS!!

[mushroomheadgirl]

meta thoughts on the misinterpretation of steve harrington's self-sacrifice

what frustrates me about steve's fandom characterization, specifically in steddie, is not that he's self-sacrificial, because he is. its that so many people root steve's self-sacrifice in self-loathing. there's this overarching idea that steve feels so worthless that he throws himself in front of others because he believes they deserve to live more than him.

and that characterization does a severe disservice to him and blatantly ignores the best part about him - how deeply he loves his friends.

yes, he throws himself into danger, but it's not because he hates himself.

steve is an incredibly confident character. the reason he lets the others' snarky comments roll off his back isn't because he believes he deserves them, it's because he doesn't give a shit. because he knows who he is. honestly, out of every character in that show, he's the only one who really knows what he's about.

when steve throws himself between his friends and danger, it's simply because he loves them so much that he'll do anything to protect them. it's nothing more than that.

his humbleness when eddie waxes on about his heroics in season four stems from steve's protectiveness being so intrinsic to who he is that he just sees it as a fact of life, not as a big sparkly thing deserving of special recognition.

also as a side note, a lot of people make this self-hatred come from how he acted when he was younger. either he acted that way as a mask for his low confidence, or he can't forgive himself now for who he used to be. and i'll be honest, i don't think he ruminates on his past self at all by season 4. one of steve's core traits is that he's incredibly pragmatic. by the end of season 1, he realized he didn't like the person he was becoming, he spent season 2 changing that, and then he moved on. i don't think he spared much thought to it since.

that pragmatism also extends towards his protectiveness. he sees a threat coming for him and his friends, and he steps in front to protect them, typically because he's the oldest and/or physically strongest in the group (season 2 in the tunnels, the fight with billy, the strongest swimmer in the lake, etc). he's the best for the job so he'll step up and do it, no second thoughts or second guessing. that's what makes him so interesting and i hate to see it diminished.

no more self-loathing steve, please. i promise he's a much more fun character if you go deeper into the well.

[arkadijxpancakes]

Yes. The Weasleys had too many kids. An analysis. (Part 1 of 2)

Everyone who read Harry Potter read about the prejudices regarding the Weasleys: They all have red hair, are poor and have more kids than they can afford. Insert a sneering Malfoy here.

The books were adamant that that was not the case. The Weasleys are depicted as the best family in the books. (Just look at the others. The Dursleys were narrow-minded, bigoted and abusive. The Malfoys were bigoted terrorists. The Lovegoods were weird. Let’s not even start about Merope and Riddle.)

However, if you look closer, the prejudices have some truth to them: They had more kids than they could afford. However, money isn’t the issue here, not really.

Yes, the Weasleys are clearly depicted as members of the working class. They don’t have much money and fall back on second-hand stuff a lot of the time. Ron in particular is shown to be using hand-me-downs in book one.

However, they don’t live in abject poverty. The family owns their own home on their own land. They have a garden to grow their own vegetables and they have chickens. This means that food scarcity shouldn’t be a big issue for them, because they can produce a lot of it on their own. (Magic should make this even easier, because they can use it for the gardening stuff. And if we assume that you can duplicate food, this should keep everyone well-fed.)

The main issue when it comes to money isn’t that they don’t have anything. They have clearly enough money to stay comfortably over water. They just don’t have enough money to buy all the fancy shit the wizarding world uses as status symbols. (Like racing brooms and dress robes.)

Could things be better, money-wise? Sure. But one can have a loving, comfortable childhood, even with second-hand clothes and working class food. So no. It’s not about the money.

It’s about time. 

And it's also about how the parents divide that time (and the work that comes along with it.)

The Weasleys follow a family structure one would expect from a muggle family of their time (the second half of the 20th century): Arthur is the one who goes out to work and earns money, while his wife Molly is a stay-at-home-mother who takes care of their home and kids. It’s also just their nuclear family that lives in the burrow. There are no other relatives (no grandparents and no aunts or uncles, either) living there.

I find this a little bit weird, tbh. The nuclear family (parents and kids) living alone, without any other relatives and with the father as the sole breadwinner, is a pretty new development. The practice only really established itself after the Statute of Secrecy went into effect. It developed first in the upper classes (who used this to flaunt their wealth) and in urban centers (where there was no space to live together with your extended family.) Before this, living with one's extended family was very common, especially in rural areas, where it was beneficial to stick together. The Weasley’s don’t really have a reason to live as a nuclear family. There is no need for wizards to follow the Muggle trend, and things were different before the statute. Living with other, adult family members would also be beneficial, especially for Molly. And the books do suggest that the extended family is quite large, so “They don’t live with other relatives, because they don’t have any” doesn’t fit their situation either.

This is a common theme for Rowling, by the way. She tends to ignore the extended families of her characters, whenever it is possible. The numbers of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins that get mentioned in the book is incredibly low. (The only character who seems to have close connections to his extended family is Neville – and that’s because the other members of his nuclear family are completely absent because of health reasons.)

Anyway. When we look back at the Weasleys, this leaves Molly basically as a tradwife. (Minus the religious baggage.) But let's start at the beginning. 

(Note: I will focus on the books in this. I don’t consider the games canon and will not use them as a source.) Arthur and Molly were born around 1950. We know that he went to Hogwarts from 1961 to 1968. They were close enough in age to start a relationship while still at Hogwarts, and they married shortly after graduating. For this to work, she must have been in his year or maybe the year below or above.

Bill was born in 1970 and was followed by six siblings, the last who was born in 1981. So from the age of ca. 20 to the age of ca. 33 Molly was either pregnant or nursing at least one baby at any given time. (There might have been a short break in that pattern between Charlie and Percy, but it only got worse after that.)

As I said before, Molly and Arthur seem to have a very traditional division of labor between them: He works at the ministry and earns money, she takes care of their home and kids. This means that Molly has drawn the short end of the stick.

While Arthur is working one job 9-5, Molly has to work three jobs and at least one of them is 24/7. Let’s pick them apart:

Her first job is to take care of the home. Molly cleans the house and does the laundry. It is also very likely that she is not only responsible for cooking, but for food production in general. This means that she takes care of the garden and chickens. This would be pretty exhausting, if not for her magic. She can likely cut down on time and effort by using magic for most of those tasks.

On top of this, she is also producing at least some of the clothing her family wears. We don't see her sewing, but she knits a lot. She is using magic for that, too.

Her second job is to raise their kids. Molly is their primary caregiver and does most of the parenting. This is a difficult job to begin with, but there are seven of them. This is where her workload starts to stretch her thin. It can’t be easy to do the laundry, while Ginny needs to be fed, Bill and Charlie are arguing in the backyard, and the twins have just vanished. Magic is less helpful here, because a lot of the work requires her to interact with her kids. She can’t really flick her wand to speed that up.

On top of that - and this is where things get even worse - there doesn't seem to be any kind of elementary school in Wizarding Great Britain. At the very least, the books do not mention any form of primary education and Hogwarts seems to be Ron’s first school. But Hogwarts still requires its students to be able to read, write and do math. Having some education about the Wizarding World couldn’t hurt, either.

However, someone has to teach the kids. And this someone is probably Molly, because Arthur is at work, and they don’t have the money for a private tutor. They cant sent their kids to an elementary school, because there is none. (And they obviously did not send them to a muggle school.) 

So this is her third job. This is another job she can’t really speed up with magic, because she can’t hex the knowledge into her kids’ brains. (Or at least I hope she can’t, because everything else would be disturbing.)

This means Molly has to take care of their home, produce their food, take care of their kids and teach them elementary school-stuff. All while being pregnant and/or nursing for circa 13 years straight.

Her workload just isn’t doable for a single person. It might have started off okay, when she only had Bill and Charlie, and it probably got better once most kids had left the house to study at Hogwarts. But the years in between must have been hell. And she did not really have any help to do it.

Arthur was off to work most days and seems to spend quite a lot of time on his hobby. Additionally, he just doesn’t seem to be all that involved as a father and seems to take care mostly of the fun stuff. 

His parenting style is much more relaxed than Molly’s, too. He’s probably the parent the kids go to when they want to do something their mother would say no to. This, of course, makes parenting even harder for her, because she doesn’t just have to deal with the kids, but also with Arthur’s parenting decisions. There are no other adult family members around to help her, either. They also don’t have the money to hire help. (No wonder Molly dreamed of having her own slave house elf. It would have allowed her to drastically reduce her workload. It’s a really disgusting wish, but I understand where it comes from.)

This is where the family dynamics probably took their first severe hit: It’s very likely that Molly’s workload left her with more work than she was able to do consistently. Whether Arthur pulled his weight in that regard is questionable (and he was at work for most of the day anyway.) She also had no other adults to help her, so she probably offloaded her workload elsewhere: her kids.

Yes. I think it is very likely that the Weasleys parentified their kids, especially Bill, Charlie and Percy. We don’t see it with Bill and Charlie, probably because they had already left the house when Harry meets the family. Still, it’s a little weird that both of them went to live so far away from home. Yes, sure, exploring tombs in Egypt and taming dragons in Romania is fun and exciting in and off itself – but being so far away from home that mom can’t rope you into household chores and babysitting duty is probably a really nice bonus. It would also relax their familial relationships quite a bit, because moving away gives them control over when and how they want to engage. (And it’s probably easier to be the fun big brother to your younger siblings when you aren’t required to watch and control them every day.)

We do see it with Percy, however. He looks after and take responsibility for his younger siblings a lot, especially at Hogwarts. You can see it in the way he looks after Ginny and how he’s constantly at odds with Fred and George because they refuse to follow any rules.

Fuck, he still does this after the big row with his father. Yes, the letter he sends to Ron is pretty obnoxious, but he still wrote it. He did not need to. At that point he had cut all contact, after all. He clearly cared for his younger brother and wanted to look out for him, even if he did it in the most annoying way possible. It would be interesting to know whether he also wrote to Ginny or the twins or not.

Also, did I mention that the Weasleys have too many kids?

They have too many kids.

It’s a numbers game, really. The more kids you have, the more time you have to use for household chores (you need to clean more, wash more, cook more, etc.) You also have less time to spend time with each kid individually. This is especially true for quality time – so time that isn’t spent on chores or education. Time that is spent playing and talking with each other, just to enjoy each other's company.

Molly is already working three jobs. She doesn’t really have any opportunity to spend time with her kids equally. She’s too busy looking after the home and teaching the older ones, while watching the younger ones and making sure the twins don’t burn the house down. 

I just don’t see her spending quality time with her kids regularly, because of this. It’s just difficult to talk with Charlie about his favorite dragons or read something to Percy or to play with Ron, when there is always someone else who needs her more. Full diapers. Empty stomachs. Unyielding stains of unknown origin on Arthur's work robes. A sudden explosion on the second floor. And probably everything at the same time and all the time.

So yeah. Chances are that her attention and her affection can be pretty hard to come by at times. (To a certain degree, this also applies to Arthur, because he is away from home so much.)

Let’s look at the timeline.

It probably starts pretty harmless:

1970 - Bill is born, and he’s the only kid for two years. Yeah, it’s Molly’s first child, and she is a really young mother, but she is a stay-at-home-mum, and it’s just one kid. It’s mostly her and Bill who are at home, and her workload isn’t all that big, because she can use magic for most stuff. The war has started, but it probably hasn’t kicked into overdrive just yet, so this shouldn’t affect her too much either.

1972 – Charlie is born. Molly’s workload is expanding, but things should still be pretty manageable. Also, they don’t have another kid for almost four years. This allows Molly to adjust to caring for two kids. She can also relax from both pregnancies and births. If it wasn’t for the war, this might be her favorite years as a mother.

When Arthur is involved in parenting Bill and Charlie, it’s probably on the weekends. I can imagine him taking them out to do fun stuff, so their mother can get some rest. It’s probably a great time for him, because he can bond with his boys. I can’t see him do much more than that, though. Molly has a handle on things, and interfering could be seen as overstepping.

1976 – Percy is born. This is probably the moment, where the attention-distribution in the family gets a little bit wonky. Molly has three kids now, and it’s the middle of the war. Bill is almost six, which means that she has to start teaching him, while simultaneously nursing Percy and keeping Charlie entertained/away from trouble. This is probably still manageable. She can wait a little longer with teaching Bill, so she can teach him and Charlie together. She can also hand him (and maybe Charlie) over to Arthur, so he can teach him/them on weekends.

Additionally, Arthur is probably still taking Bill and Charlie out for some bonding-fun-time. However, the war is in full swing now, so leaving the house gets increasingly dangerous. Their trips will get shorter and stay closer to home. They will happen less frequently, too. He will also end up working more because of the war, doing overtime much more frequently. When he is home, he is going to be exhausted, as a result.

1978 – Fred and George are born. The attention-distribution in the family falls off a cliff.

This is when Molly's workload starts to become overwhelming. Charlie will be 6 at the end of the year, Bill will be 8. She has to start teaching them, if she hasn’t already. Otherwise, Bill will not be ready when he starts Hogwarts.

And on top of everything, Molly has to take care of the twins. She has to do everything that needs to be done for a newborn – times two.

So her workload explodes. Molly is raising five kids, now. She needs to educate Bill and Charlie, nurse Fred and George, and has to make sure Percy doesn’t fall to the wayside completely. She also has her household chores that aren’t related to her kids. The war is still raging on. Arthur is probably tied up at work most of the time, and when he is home, he’s exhausted. And Molly will be pregnant again in a year. (Really, why do they have so many kids during a war? One or two, I would understand, but this is getting irresponsible.)

This is probably the time when Bill has to take over at least some chores, not just to learn how to do them, but to take some pressure off of his mother. This might not be parentification yet, but it will get worse over time. I assume he has to look after his younger brothers a lot.

On top of all that, it is increasingly hard to shield the kids from the war. At least Bill and Charlie are old enough to understand that things are really, really wrong and scary. And there is not much Molly can do about it.

1980 - Ron is born. The twins are already old enough to open cupboards. Molly is not having a great time. She probably hands over Percy to Bill and Charlie (“Go, play with your little brother!”), so she can take care of baby Ron while keeping an eye on the twin shaped chaos that is growing by the day. She will be pregnant again in a couple of months.

Bill (who will be 10 at the end of the year) and Charlie (8) still require teaching. Percy (4) isn’t old enough just yet, but he will be, soon. (And, let’s face it: It’s Percy. Chances are that he wants to learn, even now.)

The war is still in full swing. Arthur is still overworked and underpaid. Everyone is tired and scared. This also affects the kids. There is probably a lot of pressure on Bill as the oldest brother to watch over his younger siblings, to make sure all of them stay safe. They don’t spend much time outside their home, because it’s just too dangerous to do so.

Around 1980/81 is also the time when Molly’s brothers Fabian and Gideon die. (Gideon can be seen in the photograph that was taken of the Order before James and Lily went into hiding, so he was still alive back then. But we know that he dies soon after the photograph was taken.) Molly never talks about her brothers in canon, but this must have been horrible for her.

1981 – Ginny is born. They are seven kids now. Fabian and Gideon will be dead by the end of the year (if they aren’t already.) Molly’s workload is at its peak, while her ability to pay equal amounts of attention to her kids is at an all-time low. She’s grieving, the rest of her family is in danger, and Arthur is stuck at the ministry. This means that she will likely lean on Bill’s support even more. As Charlie is 8 now (and will be 9 at the end of the year), Molly might consider him old enough to help, so he might see an increase in responsibility, too. At this point, we are in parentification-territory.

With each day, the twins grow more into the troublemakers we see in canon. This sucks away attention and affection from their siblings (simply because they need to be watched and disciplined).

I think the following years are very formative for the family dynamics between the kids. It’s probably less pronounced for Bill and Charlie (who are stuck with chores and babysitting-duty and will leave for Hogwarts soon-ish) and Ginny (who gets more attention because she is the youngest child and only girl). It’s worse for the others. Percy, Fred, George and Ron are basically in direct competition for their mother's attention. I think the dynamic develops as follows:

Fred and George are active and pretty extroverted. They explore a lot and start to play pranks on their family members. This is overall harmless, but Molly has to pay attention to them, to make sure that no one accidentally gets hurt. From this, the twins learn that they can get Molly’s attention by causing trouble, so they will lean into it even more.

This sucks away attention from Percy and Ron. It causes Percy to veer hard into the opposite direction: He tries to gain Molly’s attention by following all her rules and fulfilling her wishes. This earns him her affection and will turn him into her golden child in the long run. It will also put a strain on his relationship with the twins, because Molly compares them a lot, especially when angry. This will cause Percy to perform the “Good boy”-role even harder (because he doesn’t want to be treated like the twins), while they start to resent him on some level.

Ron on the other hand is still too young to affect the family dynamic on his own. He internalizes that his mother cares more about his siblings and that there is nothing he can do about it.

The only good news: At the end of the year, the war ends. This will bring a lot of relief. (It’s short term relief for now, things will need some time to go back to normal.)

However, the end of the war also means, that Percy gets a pet. Either late in 1981 or early in 1982 he (or another member of the family) finds a rat that is missing a finger on its front paw. Percy keeps him and calls him Scabbers.

We all know who Scabbers is, of course. I just want to highlight how fucked up this situation is. Percy is 5, when he adopts him. Because he was a little kid, he probably took him everywhere without a second thought – into the bathroom, into his bed, you know, everywhere. There is probably no part of Percy’s body Scabbers hasn’t seen. Percy probably told him everything, too, all his worries, all of his fears. It’s just creepy.

And keep in mind, Scabbers – Peter – is not just a random wizard. He is a Death Eater and mass murderer. We don’t know if he ever hurt Percy (there are fanfics that do explore that possibility). He probably didn’t, but the idea alone is nightmare fuel.

To get this back on track: This could have impacted the sibling-relationship, too. It depends on whether the other kids were allowed to keep pets.

With that, we are done with the war and with Molly’s time being pregnant. The family dynamic is already fucked up – and it will get worse, as the kids get older. However, this post is long enough, already. So we’ll take a break here. Next time, we will look at how the dynamics shift, once the kids start to go to Hogwarts. See ya!

[seamstraw]

on my hands and knees. please stop infantilizing bob. not denying he has that sad wet cat energy because I see it too, but he’s also a grown-ass man.

there is a massive gap between “adult with mental health issues” and “child.” that gap is larger than the number of laws val broke. that gap is larger than john’s ego. that gap is smaller than the the amount of vodka alexei drinks on a daily basis, but only very slightly.

yes, bob has a wide assortment of mental health problems. yes, these were probably exacerbated by his newfound superpowers. yes, he’s still responsible for his own decision-making.

[fogsrollingin]

feel like reblogging this bc I found a new word that's bopping around everywhere called emotional regulation and it's like yes THIS this 1000% and applied to fandom

curating your online fandom experience is a lot of work. there’s the traumatized back button, the sad unfollow button, the angry block button, the meaningful time spent researching apps, userscripts, and extensions that’ll both enhance the experience of finding + enjoying content you want and help you avoid content you can’t handle. it’s about going into unsafe places, the dark waters of nearly every social media platform, and getting exposed to Stuff That Freaks You Out and metaphorically (or literally!) rolling yourself into a blanket until you’re good enough to actually write that Freaky Stuff out in a blacklisted tag field for those aforementioned filter userscripts or extensions you researched for just these occasions. and all of it to find your kind of safe people and safe communities. it’s a quest

curating your online fandom experience is getting furious or icked or hurt over someone’s else’s content and then relaxing yourself back to good. it’s knowing that to engage with animosity would be a drain. curating your online fandom experience is reminding yourself that your time is valuable, and consciously re-directing yourself into worthier pursuits: mining your fandom for the things that bring you joy. simply put, it’s self care. it takes a lot of maturity and discipline to both start and maintain this kind of responsibility over what you see and do online (and everybody makes mistakes including myself so remember be kind to yourself when that happens : breathe, let things go, move on)

mindful curation of your fandom experience is gardening. what beautiful flowers and herbs to plant? what kind of fandom content do you love? what blisses you out? plant those things in your space, whether it’s a blog or community or some social media mash-up of the two. Then with great care work to nurture it all. in this way you sculpt your experience in fandom to be a garden paradise of your own creation

and yknow a big perk of this approach is that as you do this, you’ll find many others with similar fandom paradises. random interactions get better and more positive. you make friends. everyone flourishes

cultivating a contented soul in fandom is challenging but rewarding. 

thanks for coming to my ted talk

[fanlore-wiki]

Meta Monday: Your favorite fic author is probably over 30.

In 2017, Tumblr user Xochiquetzl posted an essay in response to discourse about adults in fandom, discussing ageism in fandom and explaining why “your favourite fic author is probably over 30”.

The essay seemed to strike a chord with fans and inspired many to share their own positive stories about their experiences with older fans and the fanworks they created.

Are you curious about this essay? Read more on Fanlore!

-----

We value every contribution to our shared fandom history. If you’re new to editing Fanlore or wikis in general, visit our New Visitor Portal to get started or ask us questions here!

[lugarn]

When I was a child, I was hurt: on terminology creep and the use of the terms pedo/pedophilia in fandom

When I was a child, pedophile used to mean someone who was sexually attracted to specifically pre-pubescent children. My uncle is and was a pedophile who hurt a lot of kids, not just me. 

I didn't remember my abuse because I was too young, but a lot of my cousins remember theirs. Talking about that abuse with people has always been hard for us, because it often triggers other people just to hear about the experiences that we went through. People, from doctors to anyone who has known a child, understand that surviving that sort of thing at ten or younger is very different than surviving that sort of thing at sixteen, which is why the term pedophilia is important. It's an ugly thing, yes, but it's necessary for survivors to be able to talk about what happened to us. 

"Pedophilia" describes a very specific type of abuse.

Or it used to. 

At some point it started to slowly mean "anyone who has sex with someone under 18"--that was the first change. It was so slow and gradual even I could not even tell you when it happened.

But now? The last ten years or so? Oh, buddy. Forget pedophilia having a certain meaning, it can now be levied even at two adults in a relationship with as little as a five-year age gap. Or, worse (for me), the idea of minor-coding. 

Y'all do realize that adult-coding is the transverse of that, right? Minor-coding cannot be allowed to exist for this reason; men already talk about adult-coding with even 11 year olds girls looking 'old enough' once their body develops and children of color are already being treated older just because of the color of their skin.

There are real consequences to the idea of someone being minor-coded, so far beyond the harm being done to them by being infantilized. "Minor-coding" exists by propping up ideas that are exclusively and explicitly harmful.

So maybe... maybe we need to let pedophilia actually be about kids again?

That is, if kids are people you care about and want to be safe. Because right now? It's not about survivors. Right now the omnipresence and watering down of pedophile is making it harder for survivors because the thing in the spotlight is the fears of people who've haven't suffered this particular harm.

The spotlight needs to be on survivors, not spectators. Please, I am begging y'all. Survivors need this.