#Fansplaining

[elizabethminkel]

In a normal year, @flourish & I would have made a list of five big fandom trends for our annual "Year in Fandom" round-up. But the podcast is on hiatus, and I was left with MANY THOUGHTS about fanfiction seeming to break containment this year and nowhere to put them. So this is a "Year in Fandom" segment of sorts, about a set of related fanfiction trends that I'm pretty unhappy about!

I get that sense that a lot of fandom folks are, like me, worried about the way the ground seems to be shifting beneath us: in meta after meta, I’ve seen frustration over a larger but increasingly passive fic readership; dismay that traditional publishing has a growing influence over a practice that partly exists in opposition to it; and anger that some guy can just copy-paste your work and charge money for it, and no one outside of fandom seems to care.

What happens when fanfiction scales—but participatory fan communities do not? Read or listen to an audio version via the link above!

[fansplaining]

Bafflingly, there’s very little evidence of Disney trying to curb the toxic side of Star Wars fandom, a community dedicated to sabotaging Disney products and alienating potential customers. Time after time, actors of color have faced ruthless online abuse with minimal protection from the company that put them in the spotlight. It’s all very well to launch projects like The Acolyte and promote them with upbeat press tours, but what matters is the follow-through. And that half of the equation currently involves cancelling the show within weeks of its release, pissing off its fans, and leaving the lead actor to be harassed on Instagram by jeering troglodytes.

— @hellotailor in our latest article, which digs into how the recent cancellation of The Acolyte fits into the broader patterns of the Star Wars franchise. Read the whole piece—or listen to an audio version!

[xyliane]

this whole article on fic, fandom, and the decoupling of writing, fan, and community with the increase in ai slop, or with fanfic readers increasingly not interacting with fandom or fic writing even as readership swells, is worth reading. but this passage haunts me:

As market forces loomed over fic in 2024, I thought of one of Alex Norris’s most famous “oh no” comics, in which a minority creates a space for themselves, the majority crowds into it, and then attempts to eject the minority in turn. OK, maybe “ejection” is a bit strong; “fic writer” is not a marginalized identity, and neither big publishing nor the AI Grifter of the Week are stopping me from writing my X-Men fanfiction. But what fic will become in the years ahead remains an open question—and it increasingly feels like fans get less and less of a say.

I will never stop writing fic (it just never ends up published these days) but this puts to words what I have been thinking about for the last year or so

[zencribnotes]

Really good article about the trends in fanfiction with current marketing and profit trends by other industries trying to capitalize on it.

[christotokos]

The War That Almost Broke a Classic Fandom

Blake’s 7 fans and actors mixed regularly at cons and on the pages of zines—until an anonymous letter changed everything. (By Lena Barkin)

[my-mt-heart]

The "Bethylers" among the EPs/showrunners are actually Nicotero and to a lesser degree Kang, Gimple never acknowledged that relationship as being flirty or romantic, I get that you hate the man but let's not make things up when it comes to a subject as icky as this one.

Gimple was the showrunner on S4, which means significantly more than just being a credited writer on an episode and he's still an active EP on the spinoff, so let's not point fingers at other women who have no power and excuse the men in charge when it comes to a subject as icky as this.

[rust-4-life]

people keep making these posts going more “in depth” or explaining “more” or explaining how “important” the hbomber video is and they just come across to me as yes literally i watched the video, you’re just restating the video, congrats you consumed media, you aren’t teaching us more than the video taught us you’re just info dumping to people who already watched the same thing. pls stop fansplaining to me i’m already there!

[foxestacado]

The Fansplaining Podcast had me on as a guest for their latest episode! Listen to me talk about my fanart journey, how artists navigate take-downs, and finding community in Artist Alley. And my middle-school obsession with Xena: Warrior Princess.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

frank what do you think about mindfang/dolorosa

I think it's a good ship, and I like both characters.

Mindfang is cool because she has this really weird vibe about her -- you can tell that she was created by someone who had some genuinely wacky ideas about the nature of personality and identity, but didn't quite know how to make them work in practice (and also doesn't realize when they don't). (She seems so alien to me as an individual that it often feels less "fanon" than just a canon character.)

Dolorosa is nice because she seems like such a nice, normal girl at first glance until you start paying attention and notice things are wrong with her, which makes for interesting dynamics between her and other characters who have their own problems, like Vriska or Rose

[oddlyenthusiast]

Here is an excellent episode of the @fansplaining podcast that discusses this feature, along with how death impacts fandom as a whole. It's a super interesting discussion.

There's a transcript available for the episode as well!

TIL that you can assign an AO3 next of kin to control your account in case of your death???

[elizabethminkel]

hi i read your article on fanfiction culture changing and it reminded me of a comment i got on a fic in 2023. (i was going to say this year/recently but then i checked and wow time moves fast) it was phrased like i wasn't ever going to see it. which is weird bc there were only 2 other comments both of which i'd responded to. it was written almost to an audience that did not include me. idk what that says about the "culture" but i enjoyed your article!

Aw <3 thank you so much! (If anyone hasn't read it yet, this is in reference to "The Endless Appetite for Fanfiction.")

That's super interesting, and definitely relates to this broader ~thing~ imo. My first thought is about the (significant?) rise in people putting fic reviews on Goodreads. That's definitely part of the overall context collapse—and deeply annoys me!!—but it does make me think about the concrit conversation, and how fandom post-LJ has largely shut down critical discussion of fic, which was not a rarity back in the day. (I'm not opening that can of worms now lol.) Like, I have sympathy for the Discord fic book clubs, because you should be allowed to say whatever you want about a fic in private! But I feel like that needs to be just one component, especially if you have a lot of positive things to say about a work.

Funnily, I got a comment somewhat recently that felt, at least in one bit, like it was addressed more to the world than to me. It was a really nice comment! But I showed it to a friend in my confusion (and then just replied like it hadn't struck me as odd). I've also received comments in the last few years on older stories in which the commenter acts like I've long departed from my fandom—when I've published new works as recently as a few weeks prior, and post on my (linked from my AO3 profile) tumblr daily. Which seems related, too—like, me, the fan, is still right there, very easy to see?

I do think there's something to be said about depersonalization across social media, and the way people collapse "content creators" with their "content" (to be clear, I'm not calling fic writers or fic either of these things, but part of this whole situation is that a lot of readers are thinking of them that way). Like, the creator economy is structured to encourage people do that, even. And of course there's great commentary here on tumblr dot com and elsewhere about how people talk to strangers in ways they'd never dare to in real life. I mean, the digital disconnect led to plenty of...issues...back in the day, even when fandom and fanfic weren't as bifurcated as right now.

Anyway, I think this is all swirling together...and like, it's not great! (Haha this is like how I ended the article. "This sucks! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯") But thanks again for your message—this topic has so many interesting, if depressing, facets!!

[fansplaining]

Some fangirls would spend entire fan-club meetings doing “Beatle-talk” in their approximation of Liverpudlian accents. They would act out scenes from “A Hard Day’s Night,” or even make up their own scenes, assigning each other Beatles personas, which they would stick with in the long-term. (Pity the girl who got Ringo!) ... Pamela des Barres, the groupie famous for her dalliances with real-life rockstars like Mick Jagger and Keith Moon, recounted her experiences with fantasy ones, too—as a teenage Beatles roleplayer. “We were two girls in a constant state of Beatle skits. I played John and myself, and she played Paul and herself. We could switch personalities with the flick of an accent. We [...] professed undying love with semiperfect working-class Liverpudlian accents. At night, we played all four people at the same time, when we would lie entwined in each other’s arms, pressing our four sets of lips together in an eternal expression of Beatle Love.”

@areyougonnabe's latest for Fansplaining digs into modern-day Beatles shippers and fanworks creators—but she also casts back to the fan practices of the 1960s, particularly the act of “Beatle-play.”

Read the article—or listen to an audio version, read by Allegra herself!

[uncleasad]

One of my other online acquaintances (from more academic-ish/non-fandom spaces) who’s an OG Buffy fan (aka since The Bronze era) recommended this long-ish article on 2024 in fanfic by by Elizabeth Minkel (Fansplaining):

There are a number of threads to the piece—as there were a number of trends in the milieu surrounding fanfic this year—including some of the things around attention spans and whatnot that @unsiredtribrid and I have chatted about this year.

One of the themes that really stuck out to me, though, was the whole notion of decontextualization, of all the ways that fandom (as in “being a fan of a piece of media”) is being removed from fanfic.

As my acquaintance’s recommendation for the article said, …

If you care about fandom, fanfiction, bad actors, and the pull-to-publish pipeline, this is a great read.

[varda-star-queen]

This is one of the big reasons I was scared to take part in fandom discussions until pretty recently! And also the whole 'being villainised for liking ROP'. It's odd to me that people are like that (and irritating), because I can actually be one of those annoying people who points out the differences between books and films BUT… and I stress the BUT! I have never let my enjoyment of book, film, adaption, etc. influence my enjoyment of each and would never seek to foist my opinion on others.

In my mind, books and films are like separate entities with their own identity. Sometimes adaptations match my own visions as to how things might have been, other times not so much, but just because it's different to what I imagined doesn't mean it's bad and I certainly don't feel the need to have it 'fansplained' to me as to why my opinion may or may not be wrong!!!

As for shipping wars, I despair! Where is the harm? It's like the whole scenario about people looking down on romance novels but loving crime. If you say you're a romance author, your must 'only write fluff' whereas you write crime, then you must be very intelligent and smart. Shipping feels similar - Eru forbid, people want to see love between characters... BUT if you want imagine them bumping each other off left, right, and centre, I'm sure that would be considered absolutely fine 🤷🏻‍♀️

Anyway, I've written an essay there, just to say I agree with you 🤣🤣🤣!!

Adding my two pence in to the Sauron shipping and sexuality discourse since I am a fan of Tolkien’s written works and The Rings of Power show whereas quite a few people debating this seem to fall into one camp or the other (not all, I will clarify, just from what I’ve personally seen).

Before I start, I’m not out here trying to cause strife, I’m trying to advocate for people to be nicer to one another about their conflicting views.

I love The Silmarillion. When I first read it, and in subsequent readings, I did not interpret either Melkor or Sauron sexually at all. I just didn’t. Not that I thought they were asexual or aromantic, I just didn’t think of them in terms of sexuality. It’s not what I was focussed on when I was reading and it’s not the vibe that I personally got, even when looking deeper at subtext and in between the lines.

I heckin love Angbang though. The art, the headcanons, the crack, the writing, the goofy stuff, the sexy stuff, and everything in between. I arrived on tumblr, stumbled upon Angbang and that was me seduced! I have space for my original interpretation of Melkor and Mairon and then the Angbang interpretation. I enjoy both.

I had fun watching The Rings of Power. Admittedly, Season 1 was a bit “eh” for me, but Season 2 slapped in my opinion. I think Charlie Vickers is doing a fantastic job of portraying Sauron. I was, and am, excited to see one of my favourite characters given more exploration on screen.

Charlie Vicker’s depiction, along with the writers’ and directors’, is just one interpretation. One based on limited and often vague literature (the appendices of The Lord of the Rings). The same way that Peter Jackson’s all-seeing, fiery eye atop Barad-hûr was an interpretation.

Peter Jackson’s LOTR films, TROP, Haladriel, Saurondriel, Angbang… they’re all interpretations based on Tolkien’s works, people’s own worldviews, people’s own preferences, and how people view Tolkien as an author. None of them are wholly “correct” and none of them are wholly “incorrect”.

So please for the love of Eru and the sanity of Tolkien lovers everywhere, stop acting as though your definitions, your ships, your perceived ideologies of a character, are the only correct ones. Let people enjoy what and how they may, without attacking one another.

Also as an added aside, when I make TROP memes, crack, and headcanons, they are solely for the characters as portrayed in TROP. I have my own headcanons and crack for written work Tolkien characters. I enjoy both. I love hearing other’s ideas and analysis, even if I end up not seeing it the same way. I appreciate not everyone can compartmentalise like that, but for me it allows me to enjoy more of Tolkien’s works. Heck, if I didn’t, I would not enjoy Angbang and what a sad world that would be for me because Angbang is ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥.

So go forth and ship and let ship!

[antigonewinchester]

FK: [laughing] I know! [both laugh] That’s part of my point here, right? Is that, like, some of—I definitely think that it can be helpful. I do think, actually, that the idea of, like, “Hey we made ‘don’t tag your hate’ a meme, can we make anything else like this, like, a little bit catchier?” You know? Can we do that? That seems to me maybe good, you know? I think “don’t tag your hate” actually, as a thing, has helped. So much of this is just— 

ELM: [overlapping] Do you? 

FK: Yeah, I think that there are people who genuinely didn’t know at one point, or who might not know initially that, like, that was a problem.  

ELM: Yeah, explaining platform dynamics to people, saying, “Hey, you may think you’re just talking to yourself, but by the way, if you say, like, ‘Bucky…’ and then, like, ‘Bucky hate post’ or whatever, it’s gonna show up in the spots with all the Bucky love posts,” right? And you’d be like—

FK: Yeah, I think that was helpful. 

ELM: And to understand that. The person who hates Bucky does not give a fuck. They would like people who love Bucky to know how awful he is. 

FK: Yeah, well, that also is a personal growth issue, [ELM laughs] and this is my point—

ELM: [laughs] You can’t just keep saying—

FK: —is that I think that there’s some of this in terms of giving people information that is helpful, but I don’t think that there’s much we can do if people want to, you know, if people are not willing to look at themselves and be like, “Wow, I’ve done some things that were not prosocial.” [ELM laughs] You know? I say this about myself, right? I certainly am guilty of some internet dickery over the course of the years. [laughs]

ELM: Wow, what are you gonna own up to right now? What crimes have you committed online? 

FK: Oh, many. Dude, I was a member of the Harry Potter fandom in the early 2000s. What crimes haven’t I committed? 

[shewhotellsstories]

You know what, I think now's a good time to listen to the "If You Give a Fan a Cookie," episode of Fansplaining.