#Fandom problems

[anneapocalypse]

So, just curious how many writers and creators will have to be forcibly outed by relentless harassment before we acknowledge that "This queer characters was written by a cishet person and that's why they're bad" is not good criticism.

[gastonlagaffefaitdesgifs]

In the past, I wrote fanfics about stuff I liked, back then people gave you, the unpopular writer, a chance.

Nowadays, everything you write online HAS to be perfect, and that's completely demotivated me.

The unpopular writer you are is treated as someone that isn’t professional, a person that isn’t worth to see their fics read.

This bullshit makes me doubt myself, and it's not normal to see that.

Writing fanfics is a hobby, not a job.

It’s so weird to see job-like mentality in fandom spaces.

Not only weird but un-needed also.

At some point "fanfic can be as good as professional writing" became "fanfic should be as good as professional writing" and that's caused major damage to fandom spaces.

[nightlongnight]

It's so fucking funny whenever annoying "fandom people" talk about "the pandemic changed everything!! people just care for the aesthetics!" "tourists!!!" 😭 "people are so toxic now!!!" as if old fandom wasn't the same thing... Heck, even on 2017 y'all were whining about "normies" and "posers" that enganged with a work of fiction without engaging on it's theme or it's fandom. Y'all were mocking girls who cosplayed Harley Quinn on the Suicide Squad (2016) movie for "only caring about the cosplay and not the story of the character". Characters who are complex were reduced to mere stereotypes, female characters were only reduced to a sexual object or were merely hated and discarded, and don't even get me started on characters of color/black characters being ignored and reduced to mere racial archetypes. People just caring about ships and aesthetics, barely engagic with the message of the source material. All of this before the pandemic.

What alternate reality are you living? I'm sorry but to me this just feels like people having a very strong selective memory and trying to bash on the new generations.

[my-castles-crumbling]

Me at age 13, exhausted at school after staying up all night to read fanfic: I can’t wait until I’m an adult and I can stay up reading without any consequences!

Me, an adult, exhausted at work after staying up all night reading fanfic: Fuck.

[adrianfridge]

It’s often easier to think about it more as accountability arcs, since that’s really what people want. A character making a single grand selfless sacrifice is not accountability. A character shown to be sad now is also not accountability

i feel like so many people misunderstand redemption arcs. they’re not about forgiving past actions. they’re not about softening previous behavior. redemption arcs are about realizing past behavior was heinous and resolving to be better, do better. that’s why so many redemption arcs fall apart upon close scrutiny.

[moon-meteor-star-sun]

“Sirius Black wouldn’t wear skirts!” Jkr has no canonical queer characters. She said Dumbledore was gay after The Deathly Hallows was published and it’s not mentioned in any of the Harry Potter movies. If someone headcanons any marauders character as queer, they don’t care that much about canon, so why do they get so upset over other people’s ideas about fictional wizards? I could say Lily Evans was a trans woman who magically got pregnant and it wouldn’t matter because she’s fictional!

If you don’t like a headcanon, scroll past it. Stop saying “Canon Marauders would beat up Fanon Marauders”. These types of comments make you look homophobic or transphobic and like an asshole.

Anyway, I love Sirius in skirts and think we need more transgender/gender queer/gender non-conforming characters.

[nessahero]

[madame-helen]

[anneapocalypse]

Like I totally get the argument that corporate media has tanked expectations and destroyed audiences' trust with regard to storytelling in popular media. That is true and a fair complaint. But at a certain point I also think that if you choose to only engage with stories made by Warner and Disney, that is on you. Libraries still exist. Books and independent films are within your reach. There has never been greater access to a diverse breadth of stories and art. The idea of engaging with nothing but the most mainstream and corporate media and then letting that completely shape your idea of what is possible in art so that when you do encounter a creator who actually has the skill, vision, and creative freedom to tell a cohesive and layered story, you are incapable of engaging with it on that level... that is deeply incurious and miserable. In my opinion.

[kiwisandpearls]

me when I find a cool x reader fic that’s tagged as gn reader but halfway through the fic the reader is referred to with she/her pronouns and is called terms such as “sister”

[my-castles-crumbling]

Me: I fucking hate editing. Wife: Oh, so you like the actual writing part of writing better, then? Me: Marginally. Sometimes that's awful, too. Wife: .....then why do you write? Me: Because if I don't, the voices in my head never leave me alone. Wife: ....so when's your next therapy appointment?

[dcoraclestan]

Need someone to hold my hand and tell me that these characters aren’t real because I’m crying in the club over ink blots in the shape of humans dressing up as bats at night.

[cornerstars]

Have you ever gotten so completely obsessed with a fictional character/show/ship that you just cannot stop thinking about it and you don't know what to do with yourself? Or are you normal

[writerbuddha]

Some people just cannot think outside of the oppressed-oppressor binary: you’re either “the Man” the obvious villain or you’re “kept down by the Man” who is “sticking it to the Man,” the obvious hero. As a writer/illustrator put it, criticizing George Lucas’ work: “the OT films were the little guys fighting an oppressor… but in the PT, the Jedi had all the power. They were the oppressors. That “fight the power” spirit was gone.” The Jedi Knights are cool as long as they’re hunted by the Empire of the Sith, because they’re “sticking it to the Man.” But if they’re respected by people, if they’re working with the Senate of the Galactic Republic, they’re “the Man” and the Sith and Anakin Skywalker (or somebody else, this Underdog or Little Guy who is supposedly oppressed by guardians of peace and justice is never properly identified, in order to avoid the easily disprovable specifics) are the one who’re “kept down by the Man,” and by default, they’re the ones who’re “sticking it to the Man,” because in their heads, empowered and respected are the characteristics of Evil. And this reveals a deeply troubling mindset: “fight the power” and being victimized by “the power” is what makes you a moral, ethical, good person, even if that power is held by democratically elected officials with checks and balances or fairy tale monks who dedicate their lives to psychological and spiritual progress and to make sure that everyone is protected and there’s peace and justice in the world.

And herein lies the problem: people who only feel secure in their identity as "Good People" if they're fighting against an oppressive power cannot function without it and sooner or later, their desperate yearning for it will create it - and then, they will never be motivated enough to demolish it.

[adrianfridge]

The irony of “Dead Dove: Don’t Eat” becoming a widely known tag is that people have started using it without also tagging what specifically to expect. It’s become shorthand for “dark shit” but the vagueness is the opposite of what the tag is meant for. You have put an unmarked brown bag in front of me with a wink and a nudge, and you’re about to get real defensive when I open it and start complaining about contents that were not written out in plain text

[thevioletcaptain]

this is what both sides of every ship war sounds like btw