#fandom is supposed to be fun

[prying-pandora666]

Newer fandoms are so embarrassing in what bizarre, argumentative, pearl-clutching, inflexible black-and-white thinkers they can be. And it can be easy to slip into this culture and normalize it, until you go to older fandoms and realize just how much more CHILL fandom can be!

Like you go over to ATLA and people are like “Ew, you ship a traumatized and exploited teen soldier with the teen combatant from the opposite side!? What are you, a psychopath!?”

Meanwhile you go over to the LOTR/Silmarillion/Etc fandom and people are like “I ship literal Satan of this universe with his second in command lieutenant who has a history of being a shape shifting furry, and I hope they live a happy domestic life in hell where they torment the world together 💖” and everyone’s just like “yo drop a fic link!” or otherwise ignores it if it isn’t for them.

Then you go back to ATLA and it’s like “ACKSHULLY you shouldn’t feel bad for villain characters regardless of their circumstances otherwise you are an abuse apologist!”

Meanwhile LOTR is like “ACKSHULLY this accursed wretch of a creature corrupted beyond salvation is my baby and I cry for him nightly” and everyone’s like “love that horrible little bastard!”

Then you go back to ATLA and now the fandom is arguing over whether the genocide surviving 12 year old pacifist monk is the REAL villain here!?? For the crime of… having a crush? I guess? On a girl in his peer group who is shown to return his feelings???

Meanwhile LOTR fandom is like “Okay sure, he’s an incel who wanted to force his cousin into his bed and we all condemn that. But can we discuss the diaspora and alienation he must’ve felt as a half dark elf, different from others on sight, fed from an early age by his father that the Noldor were hypocrites and kinslayers, only for your father to come after you and your mother when you try to escape him, and he tries to KILL you, only for your mother to jump in the way and die, therefore proving your father right that the Noldor city is corrupting as he himself has now become a kinslayer! And now they’re both dead and you wonder every day if beneath his love for you, your uncle secretly resents what you are. How can he not? You are your mother’s son, but you are cursed to look like your father.”

ATLA fandom can’t even admit Iroh was once a war-mongering imperialist who believed in the war just as much as his forefathers.

Meanwhile LOTR fandom is out here writing essays about how the very same fluidity of our hearts that makes us easily corruptible also makes us capable of redemption, no matter how far gone.

[mickeys-been-staying-at-ians]

im buddie>bucktommy but i do still love bucktommy and let me tell you. it is An Experience. anytime anything happens my dash is just "ugh tommy was so out of line eddie would never" post after "tommy understands what buck needs he's such an amazing partner" post and it's WILD im having the time of my life here

[arcane-vagabond]

Some people need to understand that headcanons and personal opinions are not the same thing as canon information and materials.

[walterthemelon]

So like I (walter) started rewatching Voltron (2017) with my friends (who haven't seen the show before)

and like we haven't gotten past the first season but I first watched Voltron pre egg-cracking and watching in now with my (queer) friends I realized just how relatable Pidge is to me? like even if we keep everything cannon Pidge still reads trans masc to me they just haven't realized it yet.

They didn't have to crossdress to go to the garison they did that willingly. There are also many other ways that they could have disguised themself (hair dye for example) without trying to appear as a guy.

And yes, they assert that they are a girl to the team! But this could be for a variety of reasons! I thought that my desire to transition was something perfectly normal for most cis girls. I thought that wanting a binder and wanting to take testosterone was a perfectly cis feeling (I was delusional). So one could argue that Pidge just hasn't bothered to explore their gender yet? I was a child who would in fact assert that I was a girl. The fact that Pidge does that doesn't mean that they can't be trans masc.

and this isn't to say that pidge is 100% trans masc! they aren't but i think that trans masc pidge is just as valid as a reading as trans fem reading.

Also if you are going to say that this is taking away rep from young girls kindly fuck off. I was pressured to not transition because I would be taking away a good role model for young girls wanting to get into STEM. Young trans boys also deserve to see themselves in media.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

Should I write bad quality, probably very ooc killercolor fanfiction to level up my writing skills yes or no

Yes

[thatoneguy56fanfic]

Just a quick mini rant:

Before you leave a rude comment on a fic, try remembering that the author you’re speaking to is a whole ass human being. You just see a fic, attached to an account on a website. You’re not seeing the whole person. You have no idea what’s going on in their life, or what they’re going through right now. You just see their online persona which is only a fraction of who they are as a person.

They could’ve had a terrible day and then have to deal with your rude comment on top of that. For a lot of us, writing is an escape from reality, and we put a lot of ourselves into our fics. So seeing them judged harshly can be pretty painful sometimes.

You just see the fic. You don’t see the hours/days/weeks and sometimes even months/years that it took us to write that fic. You don’t see how we agonize over certain parts, rewriting, deleting, and otherwise editing until we finally decide it’s good enough to post. You also don’t see how we’re sometimes too nervous to even post it at all.

At the end of the day, we fanfic writers are doing this for free. Sacrificing our own free time to provide the fandoms we love with new content, usually with no compensation in return. Only to have to occasionally deal with rude and obnoxious comments. And just to be clear, I’m not talking about genuine criticism. You can give criticism without being rude or disrespectful about it. I mean the trolls who have nothing better to do than trying to ruin someone else’s day for no reason.

So please, just be kind to each other. We’re all human after all. And this argument also applies to fan-artists too. Just be kind to the people who are putting in the effort to create content for the fandoms you love. Because if you’re not, then you’re just going to discourage them from making content.

[roosterbox]

Saw something in one of my followed tags that made me hmmmm so I feel like this bears repeating, for anyone who might need to hear it:

You can ship whatever you want.

You can write whatever you want.

You can draw whatever you want.

You can read whatever you want.

And most importantly

No one is forcing you to read ANYTHING.

If you see a kink or plot device or characterization that you don't like? Fucking hit the back button. Close the tab. Don't make your issue everyone else's problem. Fandom is big enough for all of us, and it's supposed to be fun; getting shamed for something that brings you joy is most decidedly unfun.

[livin-like-larry413]

I am also a former supporter but I took time off this weekend to speak to a therapist cos it also fucked me up and to actual friends who work in the field of both healthcare and law enforcement. They IMMEDIATELY mentioned HIPAA laws that would result in both jailtime and hefty fines for any health care or crisis worker "breaking laws" to access this "military database" which doesn't exist - and also pointed out after I showed them sheheal's blog that no crisis worker worth their salt would insert + elevate themselves in this process the way sheheal claimed to be - and the final straw which enraged my actual licensed therapist friend is even making the initial offer to "DM people the family's contact to verify" this - offering strangers on the internet a supposedly grieving veteran's family's contact so people could believe SHEHEAL was legit? prioritizing her reputation over care?

I was chagrined and since then shutting up and clowning myself really for jumping to put my heart over my brain.

next time I'll use both and I hope you do too.

Taking time away and seeking therapeutic help is honestly the best step that anyone can take in situations like this, no matter what end of the road that you come from or are even just a bystander. This is an emotion driven situation no matter what, so I’m happy you’re in a better place, relatively, and I hope you continue to find your peace. That’s all that matters in the end. And for reference, I do use the “general, you” when speaking, so I’m not singling you out, anon, I’m just speaking to an invisible audience. I hope you’re feeling better.

And on the whole “how” they got all this information and their “crisis work”—If you know what to look for, and honestly, a lot of people don’t cause they just don’t know the information and that’s okay, it’s very obvious to see where they lie and where they pull lies from to be more likely to be taken seriously. I’m also old enough and have been in my own set of career fields to be able to spot a HIPPA violation from the start, which was also an obvious thing to see if you know where to look, but here’s the thing—I don’t care if she lied about how she got the information. Who they are will always be a mystery because no matter what they says and who they says they are, no one will ever be fully convinced because it started from a lie.

The lie could be the crisis work in itself, and wanting to be taken seriously in their investigation—it could be a relative that Myka reached out to after going offline, a hurt relative at that if she has indeed taken her life—we don’t know. It’s in a Schrödinger’s box right now, because of the nature that being online creates. You don’t truly know who someone is until you’re given vital information on them and their life, and this situation? We don’t know who sheheals is. Is them being hurt and lashing out appropriate right now? Maybe not if they’re not close to Myka. But if they are, then absolutely they’re allowed to be upset.

And honestly—I just don’t care for the reason, because that’s not the issue at hand that people are losing site of. The issue is people misusing their internet privileges to act immature online and spout whatever first comes to their mind without thinking of the consequences of saying these things. No matter what happened, or what is going to happen, people need to STOP for a minute and just think. Word have always had the power to influence, it’s why they’re more effective than actions most of the time, because they have an impact. People die from these impacts, no matter what, and no matter who you say it to.

People will lie about anything and everything, but it’s always for a reason. We don’t know it, and can only speculate the reason, because something else: no matter what’s said now, everyone that was involved can be thrown the “Well, why should I believe you?” line for various reasons. And that sucks. It’s become such a needlessly convoluted situation that it’s past the point of “Person A said something that incited [this] reaction, Person B said something vilifying and wrong to Person A for it—this had an unfortunate butterfly affect that unknowingly formed a witch hunt on Person A that no one was really predicting to happen”

Except, I will say—they should have predicted it. This has happened enough in this singular fandom in the last barely 3 years of it being heavily active, that they should have seen something like this happening when they chose to be cruel. If I, someone who has never interacted with this fandom, was able to see the state of it from afar and hear about everything that happens here from the grapevine, and then be able to see the extent of it myself in my own research, that is a dastardly huge issue of massive proportions.

People are refusing to accept that fact, because they either don’t see it as that big a deal, or they feel horrible for taking part in it, but don’t want to face the consequences of what has happened. You can feel bad about causing a butterfly effect that ends horrible, you are allowed to be sorry, and feel responsible if that’s how you chose to see it, but to ignore it and then turn around and continue to attack an account that you “suspect” to be an alt isn’t the appropriate response. Unless you start pulling illegal spyware out from your pocket and reverse search every single blog that you suspect to be Myka in disguise’s IP, that is, but I doubt people will go that far just to be proven right. (I will eat my entire house if that ends up happening, and then refer back to everything I’ve just said here, because honestly what the fuck)

There is unfortunately racism in every community you find, no matter what, there’s always going to be someone creating an echo chamber of their own racist values who draw other racists in with them, but my god—the entire point of this whole string of threads is people not including POC characters into every interaction and every text meme is not the end of the world and it’s not racist. Calling someone racist as just a tag line and being a nasty individual to someone for not including POC to every single post they make is unrealistic and a form of harassment, because guess what? It’s never racist to have a headcanon that excludes POC, until the headcanon is a fundamentally racist one. That’s the only time it should be called out for what it is, but any other time, when it’s inconsequential like a stupid NSFW shitpost, is not.

This fandom has seen it happen time and time again, and that’s the point that people are still seeming to miss whenever I look up what other people are saying: Calling someone “racist”, or “a pedo” (If you remember Inquisitor) or any other type of label that has no basis of being truthful (remember, like Inquisitor), simply for the reason that they made something you didn’t like, that you could very much make yourself in response—you know what you’re doing. You know, in some way, you’re painting a target on someone’s back that doesn’t deserve it, simple because you’re mad. And that is such a shitty and irresponsible thing to do.

I know the people who unintentionally started this mess by doing so in the first place have apologized, however weakly or heartfelt they were, because there was two different ways they all apologized or haven’t apologized—I’ve seen both, and I’m gonna say it again for them specifically—because the last thing I want is to be misconstrued and have my words be overlooked when I say it: they should not have been sent death threats or harassed for what has happened either. No matter what issue arises, or what event takes place, death threats, harassment and other forms of torment are never appropriate.

Should they have known better? Sure, but they don’t control other peoples actions. They can’t control the people that make their own witch hunts and drive away the creators that these bloggers have beef with, just like they don’t control what people do or how people chose to respond to their cruel words. They’re not blameless, but they also aren’t in control of anyone but themselves. Because guess what death threats and harassment can lead to?

I’m so inclined to believe Myka’s passing because I’ve seen it in my real life, not just online. Situations just like this, over fandom drama that gets over inflated and taken way out of proportion until someone ends up passing away. It’s a very real and raw thing, and being on any end of this situation is gut wrenching. Guilt and shame are on both sides; guilt for starting it up, guilt for not being there to stop Myka and help her, shame for being so loose with cruel words, shame for not being so free with comfort. It’s complex, and some people are frustratingly content to keep it from being as complex as it is.

There are no sides to this, no matter what people will try to lead you to believe. At the end of the day, a life has been lost, and people still want a drama show from it.

[patheticjayce]

I enjoy reading the discourse from all sides but I hope people know that when it starts to really affect your mental health it's good to take a step back

At the end of the day they're *fictional * characters, it's a tv show, it's only as deep as you make it.

[dapandapod]

Why is the Roche/Ciri ship always only crap for you all?

Hello love, I see you found me too, eh? Not sure why you decided to go anon when the first ask you sent me (and many of my friends) weren’t.

Here is the thing. There is nothing wrong with the ship, but the spamming, and the narrow minded mindset, and editing people’s post and reposting them, and frankly just harassing people with what you consider to be the only true ship, the not accepting and the shaming anything else, that is what is putting people off.

Want more of some content? Make it. Enjoy it. Post it , sure, share it with like minded people, but to send the exact same message to people who even left the fandom, that is how to push people away from you. This is not making friends or sharing joy over a ship, are you even actually enjoying yourself? What is the point of all of this? (This is a rhetorical question btw, I just want you, and people doing the same thing to give it a thought).

I have friends within the fandom that have other ships than me, and that’s ok! We can enjoy our things separately, and be happy for each other.

Being kind is a choice. Try starting there.

[the-crimson]

Me ignoring the Twitter discourse while writing the script for my 4halo comic in peace knowing full well romantic 4halo is never going to be cannon (nor do I want it to) hence why fan-fiction exists 😁

[a-court-of-lust-and-stardust]

Why do so many motherfuckers in this fandom have a superiority complex

[prismatica-the-strange]

I'm sorry for yelling about the gay vampire show like that but sometimes this fandom gets on my nerves with how rude some of them are

[jonathanbyersphd]

There's something very interesting/odd/idk about this "need to be right/as close to canonically correct as possible" in fandom spaces to me. Like your headcanon can be different from your moots and both are valid. Your interpretation can be different that's ok. You're not going to win some award for having the most correct canon accurate take on blorbo. You're supposed to be having fun.

[rizzulusarcturizz]

yo i can't reply to your comment OP blocked me lol, but i just wanted to say sorry if my comment was too aggressive but i'm just really annoyed at anyone who acts like family Must Mean Everything - especially since i've gotten shit so many times for not loving my own. if someone wants to hc sirius as not caring for regulus it doesn't mean that they're an only child - or that it's a bad hc, cause OP made it sound like it was (maybe they didn't mean it like this though). and tbh i don't feel like anyone is trying to be the authority about them, people just read this characters differently, we don't even have a clear canon of them so ofc that happens

anyways sorry again if it was badly said in my comment

I’m not offended, everyone is entitled to their own opinions! I was speaking to my personal experience and am the first to admit I can’t fathom the idea of not caring about my siblings. I’m not saying people are wrong if they have a different experience, I absolutely recognize the importance of setting healthy boundaries with family. There isn’t one universal relationship that all siblings experience; lots of people go no contact with family members because it’s the best thing they can do to protect themselves! That being said, what concerns me about some of the headcanons about the Black brothers having a bad relationship is that it can start to get in to the realm of victim blaming.

When we’re writing from the character’s POV Sirius/Regulus resenting the other brother for staying/leaving is completely understandable. That being said, when readers start to say one of them is terrible for trying to survive what is often interpreted as an abusive household you get in to a more grey zone. No one should ever be encouraging children to do something that they personally don’t feel safe doing in an abusive situation. This isn’t directed at you, I’m not suggesting that’s what you were saying, but my day job is a social worker so I feel entitled to say this.

I can’t speak for OP, obviously, but I think they were just speaking to a particular headcanon they dislike. I definitely have seen people wielding the idea of “canon” to justify only one idea of a character which I think is silly because we know very little canonically about these characters. I don’t think it was an aggressive comment but it is typically considered rude in fandom to comment on someone’s post calling them out for a personal fandom rant. Tumblr is a space to cultivate your own experience; if you feel like people are making you feel shitty for your personal family experience you should absolutely block away. This particular fandom is exhausting at the best of times given how much conflict there is; don’t feel like you have to consume content that makes you feel bad. Sibling relationships are not a one size fit all kind of thing and don’t let fandom make you think otherwise!

[daringdraconicdeity]

Honestly do yall ever see fandom drama and think to yourself wow! Happy that you don’t have to worry about actually important things but not so happy that you have to make it everyone else’s problem!