#i'm NOT trying to spawn discourse here just offering my view

[samuelroukin]

ah okay. I don't want to gatekeep but imo if you've never interacted with a piece of media you claim to be a fan of, are you even truly a fan? like "I appreciate the aesthetics/what it features but I haven't actually interacted with it" is very different from "I have read, listened to, watched, played, etc. something and like it"

as I said in my author's note for soap hole, I'm not a fan of cod. however I'm enjoying my time observing y'all. I am having so much fun watching what y'all say and do

no yeah exactly, anyone can obviously do what they want, but (to me!!) actually being IN a fandom means you have interacted with the source material. i don't claim, or expect anyone else, to have played/watched every single cod game (or if you want to use a different example you can look at star trek or supernaturel or idk comic books) but None of it is just wild to me.

like ofc i'm not against engaging with the resulting fanworks, i enjoy stuff from fandoms i'm not in all the time, but like you said, to me that's different from being part of it if you don't know anything abt what actually spawned those works