X Never Marks the Spot

I was writing this whole long rambling post about responsibility, and apologizing for and trying to minimize accidental harm, but then it changed tangents and I think what I most want to say is this:

In fandom, please be careful about how negative you are, and how you are negative.

This relates to anything from offering unsolicited crit on a fic (or heck, solicited crit) to hating on a part of canon, or to being an anti, or to discussing your dislike of a popular fic trope.

I'm not saying this for reasons of courtesy and manners, though I think that counts for something. But it's really for a much more selfish reason: Negativity can make people disengage, and that's overall detrimental to fandom. Which I selfishly care about, as a fan.

Spoilers: fandom is a really fucking emotional thing for most people. Our interests and obsessions are a pretty core part of our identities, and we wouldn't be devoting time and energy to them if we weren't mentally and emotionally engaged. Hearing that someone hates something you love can hurt, even when there is no hurt intended. That's even before we get into the question of fanfic and fanart and vids and other fan creations, and how personal one's art is to most artists. Especially for amateur artists, who aren't getting paid and so the only impetus to share our creations is for emotional validation.

There have been more than a few fic writers who have quit writing because of crit -- because getting crit is really hard even for many professional writers, and people writing for fun may not have the emotional energy to deal with it, or just don't want to, and so they stop, or stop sharing their work publicly. But it's not just direct crit that can do this. If you're writing a trope you love, or a pairing you love, and then you see people talking about how much they dislike that trope or how gross that pairing is, it can make you hesitate to keep writing, or at least hesitate to share your work, knowing you might be inviting crit. Or even just thinking that no one is going to want to read it. (Then, some of us are the opposite and such things inspire us to keep going out of pure spite; but even for me that's something I have to work myself into and it takes its own emotional toll.)

And this hurts, not just the writer, but the fandom as a whole, because someone quitting writing means less fic in the fandom for the rest of us. And even if it's not fic that you like personally, that you'd be happy not to see any more of -- someone else surely would like it, and want more, and do you want to spoil their fun, too?

Likewise, talking about disliking canon can stop discussion, because it can be hard to contradict someone -- especially someone with whom you share a fandom, so there can be that sense of comradery, being in the same community. So if you see a fan friend talking about how X canon thing sucks, rather than argue back that you love that thing, it can be easier to not rock the boat, to not say anything -- but then not feeling comfortable to talk about what you love in a fandom can drain your interest in it, and with it the fandom; and then you drift away, and the fandom shrinks.

To be clear, I'm not saying don't be negative. For one thing, sometimes it's important to do so. Calling out things like racism or toxic behavior can be seen as negative but can also be really crucial for the overall health and safety of a community and the members in it. Pointing out that a fic isn't sufficiently tagged can be a type of criticism (and can hurt a writer) but may help many other fans who could be impacted.

For two, complaining about what we dislike as well as what we like is a big part of fanning for a lot of us -- for me definitely; I enjoy a good hard critical analysis, and I'll be honest, sometimes I take guiltily gleeful pleasure in shredding something I didn't like. And sometimes, too, it feels great to talk about and find out I'm not alone in hating X thing. But I try -- have been trying harder -- to limit how I do it. When I criticize canon, I try to tag/mark it for negativity and squee-harshing, so people who don't want to see it can avoid it. When I criticize fanworks (either a specific fic I don't like, or a trope/ship/etc) I try to ensure it's not personal, and/or to keep it in more private locked channels that won't get back to the writer(s), because that's really all about me and what I like; it's not another fan's fault that I have my preferences, and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of the fun of someone else who is enjoying the fandom as much as I am, if in a different way.

I'm far from great at this -- I've hurt friends on more than one occasion without meaning to because I got too into a fannish debate and didn't realize the feelings I was provoking. I have no doubt that I've discouraged other fans from fanning on and writing things they enjoy, and I'm sorry for that. But I'm trying, and will keep trying -- I've been trying harder especially lately because my current fandom is quite small; just about all of us non-lurkers in it have interacted with each other to some extent, so it makes any interactions more personal than they would be in a larger fandom in which many people don't know each other. I'm not perfect but I'm doing my best. And hopefully my fandoms will be a more encouraging place for it.

tl;dr: make squee, not war?

ETA: this post's original subject was "not-so-vague vague-posting" because I was originally inspired to write it by a mess in my current fandom. My original intent morphed in the writing of it, though, to be more about my own changing feelings about how I interact with the fan communities I'm in, for better or for worse, so I've adjusted the subject to match.

I've seen and done a lot of speculation about what the Guardian drama shows us about the Kunlun story, in particular, how long was he really back there, and finally decided to sit down and try to work it out to my (dis)satisfaction.

( Obviously, spoilers for Guardian )

I’ve seen it argued that “good” doesn’t have to mean “deep” or “meaningful”; nor does “good” have to be “perfect.” That a work of fiction that is light or silly or flawed can still be “good” or “great” -- and this is totally true; I completely agree with this. (And “good” and “great” are subjective anyway, of course; anyone can argue them of anything.)

But sometimes I love things that I think are not good. I love works of fiction that I also think are trash -- and that’s part of why I love them.

When something is good, I want to appreciate it for what it is. The parts that make me depressed or uncomfortable or angry, I have to find ways to explain, to accept, to excuse.

But something I think is trash, that’s the stuff I’m willing to -- joyfully, without hesitation -- to rip apart, to shred into pieces and pull out the parts that I love. To bend and break and melt down and reshape into what I want.

This ship I love came to a terrible end? Oh, that ending sucked -- here, let me write a better one.

That character I love did something awful? Well, that plot twist was stupid -- listen up, I’ll tell you what they should’ve done.

To me, “trash” doesn’t mean “no redeeming features”; nor does it imply one has no taste -- it means “here is an open bin; take what you want and leave the rest.” And I love it for that.

(cross-posted from tumblr)

Trying to join up with mainstream Supernatural fandom is weird for me. Usually at this point in fanning I'd be devouring fic, and/or writing my own. And it's not like there isn't a ton of SPN fic out there - it's the largest single fandom on AO3. But finding what I want to read is difficult...not least of which because I'm not quite sure what I want to read. For all its flaws, SPN is almost a Type A fandom for me in that it gives me pretty much everything I want to see. (Along with plenty I'd rather not see at all, however...)

The other problem with the fic is that I'm out of step with a large part of the fandom - and particularly with the Dean-fan side of the fandom. I adore Sam, I really do (especially the character he's become - he's developed quite a lot over the seasons, more than Dean, in compelling ways. And Jared Padalecki is made of adorable and has gotten a lot better as an actor.) But while Gnine is a Sam-fan, Dean was always my favorite and apparently always will be. Even if I spend large chunks of the show wanting him smacked...that's part of his charm. I do love the assholes. And that always puts me in an odd place in a character-fandom, as I'm often inclined to side against my favorite - I'll take Sam's side over Dean, or Thor's side over Loki. This doesn't seem like a contradiction to me, because it's still all about my favorite, just from another angle...

But more than that, I don't fit with the Dean-fan side because I'm not, as it turns out, a Destiel shipper. ( Which is weird because I love Castiel... )

So, any recs for gen SPN fic?

Tumblr is weird.

For a whole lot of reasons, but for me one of the biggest ones is how...disconnected I feel from it. I'm constantly encountering things on it that surprise/confound/irritate me, but I rarely feel comfortable bringing them up on tumblr itself, because I feel like any opinion I express there is liable to be reblogged and taken out of context and get me flamed in six months because dating on folks' blogs is erratic (really now what's the point of a blog with no visible dates?!) Safer to just stick to squee and baby elephants. (and other animals. but baby elephants, guys!)

On lj I rarely felt this hesitant to express myself, because it's a platform I feel comfortable debating on (sometimes a little too comfortable, apologies; but I did get better...) I'd always have the comments to explain myself if I mispoke, and if I was really worried about being misunderstood, I could f-lock. It's definitely possible to debate on Tumblr, people do all the time; but it doesn't work for me personally, to reblog rather than having comment thread discussions, and to have no way to limit yourself to a personal social circle.

Anyway. Am thinking about this at the moment because Welcome to Night Vale fandom has a lot of Opinions, some of which confuse me quite a lot...

( concerning WTNV fic tropes and the comparative fluffiness of OTPs )

So just read Journey into Mystery 644, and...our theory about where it's going re: Thor & Loki is holding so far...

( spoilers! through JiM 644 )

[So gnine and I rewatched The Avengers and had a long conversation about what Loki was actually doing, and gnine (as is her wont, Smallville fans may recall) figured it all out!]

Whether Loki is the villain you love or the villain you love to hate (or just hate), there are two things about him that nearly everyone seems to agree on. One, Tom Hiddleston makes an awesomely compelling supervillain; and two, Loki's apparent masterplan in The Avengers makes no damn sense.

( So here's a plan that does! [Detailed spoilers for the Avengers, on the off-chance you haven't seen it yet.] )

So as you might have heard, various pro fantasy authors (Diana Gabaldon, GRR Martin, and Katherine Kerr among them) have been speaking out about how fanfic is disrespectful to actual money-making authors (because you're not a real artist unless you're making a buck with your art), is illegal (because apparently copyright law is what they say it is, as opposed to what's actually on the books), immoral (and akin to rape and/or white slavery, because one's original characters are like one's children, and for someone else to dare write their names feels just like having your kids abducted and sexually abused), gross, and inherently inferior to original fiction.

Obviously I have a few mild opinions on the matter. But it's the last point that I keep getting stuck on. Putting aside bookshop's straightforward rebuttal that there is an enormous amount of derivative/transformative literature out there by distinguished professional authors (Bill Shakespeare was such an immoral hack, you know), the fact is, fanfic is not the same as original fiction. A lot - the majority, perhaps - of fanfiction would not work as original fiction.

And it's not because fanfic is inherently bad fiction, or that fanfic writers are talentless wannabe authors who lack the creativity to write their own original characters/worlds. There are a lot of stories that, by their very nature, require that the reader already be familiar with the characters or the world.

( Read more... )

I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings, and I hate people like that.

--Tom Lehrer

Recently it seems like the latest big fandom is Fandom - that the majority of fan-related discussions I'm seeing on my flist are not about series or characters or pairings but on trends in fanfic, and trends in responses to fanfic, and metaing about trends in fannish meta. It's rarely squeeful meta, either; there's some fanfic recs, but most of it is about how this aspect of fandom is problematic or that behavior is harmful. And it's not that these are bad topics, a lot of these issues are important to people, and it's good to open or continue dialogues about them. At the same time, lately it's been feeling like many fans - myself definitely included! - are doing more talking about fandom than actually fanning. And more than that, some of this meta to me comes across as very critical, not just of fandom trends, but of the fans who participate in such trends - it is really hard (maybe impossible?) to criticize a behavior without passing some sort of judgment on the people who do the behavior. Which tends to leave me feeling:

There are fans in Fandom who judge their fellow fans, and I think that is totally wrong!

Which isn't really true, because as I said, I think that a lot of these discussions are important; and a lot of them aren't trying to pass judgment anyway but simply offering opinions and talking about personal experiences and wishing things were different about their communities, which is all cool...but I miss my fannish experience being more about "Coolest ep EVAH ZOMG!" and "I have the most CRACKTASTIC AU in my head" and even "oh man did the writers drop the ball? on my foot? from 100 stories up? or was that just me?? :P" and less about "I don't like it when other fans do This."

...and yes, self, part of the problem, much?! >.>;;; I need a new series...I've watching a hell of a lot of TV lately, but none of it has struck quite the right chords; not sure if it's the shows, or it's me, or a combination, but it's awful frustrating, to want to be out sailing but to have no ship...

So I accidentally-on-purpose read (well, skimmed) a MUNCLE death-fic today - well-written, clever, heart-wrenching. It wasn't angst-ridden; the opposite, really. (It was azdak's "Divided Halves" if you're curious.) And it broke me, as they usually do, and not in the good way, but in the makes-me-mopey and -flaily and -writing-essays-instead-of-my-sga_genficathon-story-which-is-due-Thursday way. I love black comedy, and death-badfic just cracks me up; it's the good ones that kill me and my fragile OTPer heart.

( musing on death-fic )

In other news, watched the Twilight movie with the MST3K fangirl squad of gnine, naye, and acchikocchi, and vaguely horrified myself by not hating it. Edward & Bella are as stalkerifically wrong a young love as Romeo & Juliet, but since they are teenagers (sort of) it doesn't bother me overly much, and oh! the emo! The director was so, hmm, sincere about the prettiness - so very shoujo, I could almost see the bubbles. And the sparkling was almost as hysterical as promised.

But the Cullen family was just so freakin' adorable I couldn't even laugh at them. A big happy vampire family! That plays baseball together! And cooks Italian! I've seen plenty of vampires trying to get on/stay on the wagon, but never a whole vampire family. Edward can actually depend on his vampire sire, and listens to him about the saving of his favorite hamburger true love...so much trust! Awww~!

Also saw the Who Easter Special. "I love you! I love you!" AHAHAHAH <333