#and i KNOW it's mostly cause of fandom's lack of desire for older people

[eph-em-era]

if yall don't include chet in your polyhells big multi-ship things you're COWARDS

COWARDS

i see fics that are like fearne/ashton/orym/dorian/imogen/laudna and it's just like - where's my boy chet???? where's chet?? you know he'd be in on that if he could

[vdragon-creations]

My OC Danganronpa Class

What up!

You’d think that after i did this shit for the MHA fandom, I would not do this shit to myself again! But you would be wrong! Oh so wrong, as I am an artist that likes to put myself through pain! An Artistic Masochist if you will!

Anyhow. Just like I did when I made my OC’s for the MHA Fandom, I may as well do so for the Danganronpa Fandom too! What could go wrong? Right? 

My Class of Danganronpa OC’s are made up of 16 Characters! (My Main OC included!) And here’s a list of their talents, gender, personality, and maybe a brief description of them (If I’ve come up with a look for them in my head yet!) I wanted to be as unique with this group as possible when it comes to talent sets, but I also like clichés and tropes and think theirs nothing wrong with them as long as they’re used well and in an interesting fashion! None of these OC’s have names yet, and again grammar is non existent here! So with that out of the way, Let’s begin!

Highschool Level Ultimate: Cosmetologist- Name: N/A Gender: Male (Was born Female) Personality: He is someone who looks for the beauty in all people, be it cosmetic or otherwise! He wants to use his talent to make others feel happy and comfortable in their own skin, to bring out that inner beauty! He himself had to struggle for many years to feel comfortable with who he was, and through his love for the cosmetic arts, he was able to do that! He’s a very confident individual, and becomes very upset when someone starts to become self-deprecating or he sees someone putting down others! He’s not ashamed of himself at all, and will become quite serious when someone puts two and two together when they find out he’s trans. A kind of “Yeah, that’s right! What of it?” attitude. He can be very eccentric and poetic when talking about the things he loves, this includes people!

Highschool Level Ultimate: Match Maker- Name: N/A Gender: Male Personality: If you took a Multi Shipper and mixed them with a flaming pervert, then you’d have this guy! Despite him being a absolute god when it comes to finding love for others, his own love life leaves much to be desired. As such, he’s always ALWAYS hitting on the girls he speaks too! Even the one’s he’s helping to find love! He’s a horndog, but one can’t deny the man’s talent at finding love for others! He has a nearly 98% Success rate when it comes to his pairings, and a little over half of those end with the pair getting married or being together of many years! He’s very perceptive and is a master at reading body language, which gives him an advantage when choosing partners for others! Deep within that perverted exterior he puts on though, is a genuinely sweet guy who cares for the happiness of those around him! Why would he do what he does otherwise!?

Highschool Level Ultimate: Tattoo Artist- Name: N/A Gender: Female Personality: At first glance, she doesn’t seem like much more then your average Gunge Goth Chick with a thing for looking tired and and just over it. But that the opposite of what she’s actually like, sure she still speaks in a mostly tired and deadpan voice, but she a pretty warm person! She friendly to most everyone she meets, her first question usually being something along the lines of “Yo! Got any Tats?”. She very interested in seeing the tattoos of others and learning their story through them! She’s very gifted at her craft, All of her clients being 100% satisfied with the tattoo’s she makes! When listening to what they want, she’s says it’s almost like she can see their memories as her own, and is able to create exactly what they want! She’s always very chill, and it’s hard to piss her off, but if you hurt a friend of hers, oh! You’re gunna be getting a very unpleasant tattoo from her! The only other thing she can’t stand is when someone mocks another's tattoo. That’s someone’s story and feeling’s put into visual form, and thus she’s very protective of that! She also really hates the term “Tramp Stamp”! Description: She’s a very short and petite young lady who’s always wearing a hoody with the hood over her head. Her hair is platinum blonde and wavy, it always sticking out of the hood on the sides of her face. She has Steel Blue eyes that have very dark rings around them, a mixture of heavy eyeliner and just lack of sleeps. She’s wearing ripped jeans most of the time and sneakers and most of the time, has a lollipop, toothpick, or cigarette in her mouth.

Highschool Level Ultimate: Radio DJ- Name: N/A Gender: Male Personality: Loud! Very Loud! That’s the first impression he gives everyone! And it couldn’t be more accurate! This dude is a party animal! A love for all things music! He’s constantly listening to all the latest hits from all types of music, and loves all of it! One would never guess though that this crazy fellow also has a more chill side! But if you listen to Station 75.9 after 10 P.M. you’ll notice that this guy has quite a calming voice! At night, he runs a late talk show from his dorm at Hope’s Peak for the student body! He plays soft music like Jazz or Classical during this time for those who have a hard time sleeping or just need something going on in the background while they study for the next big test! He also brings in guests like fellow classmates, members of staff, or those that work close with them to be on his late show to answer any questions that the other students can call in and ask on air! He believes that all things can be bettered by the power of music, and wants to do that for the whole world!

Highschool Level Ultimate: Journalist- Name: N/A Gender: Female Personality: This young lady has some serious guts! With a passion for the truth and the wit to get the best stories for the student body of Hope’s Peak! She wants so badly to be a reporter and will do the best damn job she can! She’s the first one on the scene to anything happening on campus, and no one is safe from her detective like eyes! She can be a bit accusatory at times and seems to get a little too worked up over her job, which can make her come off as bossy or insensitive. She flustered easily by things that confuse her! Mostly that’s things like Machines or Men! Which is way she mostly writes everything down by hand and mainly only talks to ladies, and when she has to talk to guys, she tends to try and get to the point quickly to avoid a long conversation. This is why she always has her classmate with her to help with these kinds of situations!

Highschool Level Ultimate: Assistant- Name: Naya Yuno (Called Ladybug by most of her classmates and close friends!) Gender: Female Personality: Think of the shyest person you know, and times that by a million! She incredibly nervous around others, especially men! This is due to her unfortunate talent! This girl can be told to do or help with just about anything, and she will do it flawlessly without much protest. Now, this has cause several problems for her with being taken advantage of by a good amount of people in the past, her parents included. She she has a general distrust in most people, causing her rampant shyness. But, she still want to be useful and do good things to help others! So she mainly fallows her classmate, the Ultimate Journalist around. She helps her with interviews despite her shyness, as due to her talent and her orders, she HAS to obey. And if she has to be alone to complete a task, she puts in ear plugs to keep herself from being told to do anything else. But despite her orders, there’s one particular little Hall Monitor that no matter what, if she’s asked to speak too, she freezes and can’t speak too with out turning into a blushing flustered mess. Description: She’s a short girl with a rather nice figure! She’s got a strong pair of legs, as she’s always running in halls back and forth to complete her tasks quickly without interruption. She has long black hair held in a low hanging ponytail, tied with a white fluffy ball-like tie, and pair of Golden Brown eyes. She’s always seen wearing a modified School uniform with a noticeably longer skirt then the other girls and a pair of glasses.

Highschool Level Ultimate: Cheerleader- Name: N/A Gender: Male Personality: If you turned a Golden Retriever Puppy into a human being, you’d have this guy! A literal ball of sunshine and all that is good in this world! This dude kicks ass at gymnastics, Dancing, and singing! Kinda important when  you’re a cheerleader! He grew up with his older sister who is a very Famous and talented Cheerleader for a Sports team. He loved seeing her dance and put smiles on everyone’s faces, getting everyone so hyped! And he wanted to be just like her! Only problem...he was a guy, and guys aren’t supposed to do girly things...right? His sister wasn’t having it! she told him how in other parts of the world, male cheerleading is absolutely a thing, and that it didn’t matter what others thought1 He should just be himself, and have fun! So that’s what her did! He’s a very hard worker and is all about putting a spring in people’s steps! He gets upset if someone bashes him for his interest and will take none too kindly to those who mock him! It just pushes him to do more! 

Highschool Level Ultimate: Empath (Main OC)- Name: N/A Gender: Female Personality: This woman is like an saint! She’s kind, Patient, Caring, and always going out of her way to help others when needed! She’s only firm when she needs to get the job done, but she’s always doing so with a smile! However, don’t push it, cause even though she looks like a pushover, She’s got a will of iron and a smack that can make even the toughest of men tear up a little. And she’ll deliver the blow with that same smile! She hardly get’s any sleep, as she’s always in a state of unrest! So despite her chipper look, she’s actually pretty tired. And who could blame her? Her talent not only makes her deal with the emotions of others round her, but her own anxieties too! She avoids touching people at all coasts, as part of her talent allows her to feel exactly what the other person does just by being around them, but if she touches them, the feeling is increased and can lead to her having nervous breakdowns or even going into shock. She has to e super relaxed in order for this not to happen, but seeing how she’s always on the move, that’s just never really possible. She has a bit of a wild side too! As she used to have a BF before Hope’s Peak who was a biker! She love to dance, sing, drink, and just generally have a bombass time. However, after his death, and her starting work and schooling, she just....didn’t have the time or heart to have that kind of fun again! Sometimes she’ll have a slip up, like letting out a cheer when something great happens, Gushing over her peers, or even a little playful flirting here and there with a certain Fortune Teller.

Highschool Level Ultimate: Farmer- Name: N/A Gender: Male Personality: He’s the classes big bear man! He’s a gentle giant with a heart of gold! He works hard, cares for his friends, and wants nothing but the best for those around him! Being a farmer, he knows everything about plants, Livestock, the earth, and how to take care of it! He acts like a big brother for his class as he is quite wise for his age! He’s the first one to put an end to an argument by trying to get everyone to relax and just talk out there differences! He hates violence, and don’t take too kindly to people wanting to hurt his friends! He’s pretty intimidating when he get’s angry, and that’s normally enough to keep folks who might try to cause trouble away. Description: He’s quite a tall and big looking guy! He’s got short light brown hair that’s messed up, and thick hair that pokes out of the top of the flannel shirt he wears and that grows along his forearms. He wears dirty overalls and a pair of large steal toed boots. He had a large straw hat as well but only puts it on while he’s working, most of the time it’s just hanging off of his neck on his back. He’s got a bit of stubble on his chin too!

Highschool Level Ultimate: Pilot- Name: N/A Gender: Male Personality: He’s quite a perky young man! But only when he works on his plane or flying! Most of the time, he looks tired or miserable. Needless to say he hates having his feet on the ground! He’s often daydreaming about flying or just laying in the grass just staring into the clouds. He’s friendly for the most part, but unless you talk to him about something related to flying, odds are he won’t pay much attention to you! Flying just seems to be the only thing that helps him focus on....well, pretty much anything. Despite his lack of attention to most things though, he’s VERY smart! Not only is he a pretty skilled mechanic, but the dude is quite the Linguist! The guy knows Japanese, English, Spanish, German, Russian, and Italian! The only reason his classmates know this about him, is because he starts talking in another language when he starts getting bored in a conversation. He might seem distant to most of his classmates, or anyone really, but he does have a love for people, it’s just hard for him to focus on them, when there is a big old sky just out their waiting to be explored!

Highschool Level Ultimate: Hypnotist- Name: N/A Gender: Male Personality: It’s a little hard to say much about his personality when the man refuses to talk unless he’s using his talent! According to him, his voice is hypnotic to all who hear it, so he refrains from speaking. He’s a mysterious fellow that’s for sure! Apparently, he’s even so good at what he does that not even he is immune to his own talent, o much so that he keep a blindfold over his eyes at all time, so that when he uses his pendulum, he doesn’t enter into a trance as well! He’s quite helpful though, as if his classmates ever need to relax or need a nap and can’t sleep, he’ll gladly use his talent on them! He’s also capable of brainwashing people doing this, however he himself refuses to use it to make someone do something that would cause them harm or humiliate them!

Highschool Level Ultimate: Fisherman- Name: N/A Gender: Male Personality: This dude is an....odd one to say the least. He’s always telling stories about Ghosts, Monsters, Alien, and other stuff that he claims to have seen while out on the water! He’s a hugely superstitious person and is quite gullible, but the guy means well! He’s very knowledgeable when it comes to many forms of aquatic life and even has a pet Axolotl, that he claims to have saved it from being eaten by a Bigfoot while on one of his fishing trips! He’s likes to give “Good Luck” charms to his classmates anytime they’re about to do something stressful. They humor him and take the charms, just so his feelings aren’t hurt, the poor guy is just trying to help after all!

Highschool Level Ultimate: Comedian- Name: Autumn Miwa Gender: Female Personality: A ball of literal joy and sunshine! It’s nearly unheard of to see this girl sad or angry! She’s The Ultimate Comedian after all, and laughter and smiles are her MO! Pranks, Standup, Skits, Silly Outfits, Dancing, Jokes, Tickle Fights, Impersonations, Songs! You name it, this girl will do it to make someone laugh or crack a smile! She’s always the first to want to cheer someone up who looks like they’re not feeling so hot. She loves the sound of laughs an cheers and she gets all giggly herself when someone else is happy too! He favorite people to make smile, are the ones who always seem a bit shy or who don’t talk often, hearing those people snicker or giggle is enough to make her so energized that she could power an entire city for weeks! This said, she does know her place, when a situation arises that needs to be handled delicately, she’s more then willing to set aside her need to make the person smile in favor of just being there to comfort and hold them! This girl loves PDA, and has no problem with hugging or holding hands with some stranger! She especially loves it when they get they get a little sheepish about it, she thinks it’s adorable! There’s actually a sweet little Robocutie that she loves going in for sneak attack hugs and tickles, he always has the best reactions! However, deep down underneath this happiness, this poor girl is hiding quite the shocking secret. She suffers from a incurable and life threatening illness that will most likely kill her before the end of her late 40's. So, for now, she just wants others to enjoy her company and remember her as she is now! It's better that way!

Highschool Level Ultimate: Seamstress- Name: N/A Gender: Female Personality: Basically everyone’s idea of a grandmother in the form of a sweet young girl! She very gentle and kind, and has a need to make everyone around her comfortable! Warm clothes, Soft Blankets, Cute Plushies! She makes it all! She also makes warm cookies, though that has less to do with her talent and more to do with her general love for sweets! Though, as sweet as she is, she is also quite clever and tactful, and isn’t above a little bit of blackmail to get people to do what she wants. This is only done to people she may not care much for of course!  She LOVES AESTHETICES!!!! She has a mood board, one for each of her classmates that she always references from when making them something!

Highschool Level Ultimate: Actor- Name: N/A Gender: Male Personality: This guy is as dramatic as they come! He’s quite the overreactor, and tends to get super emotional over the smallest things, good or bad! For example, he once openly “proposed” to a girl in the middle of the Dining Hall, just because she was kind enough to let him have the last Dinner Roll that was left at the buffet table. And the other time he started acting like he would be raining fire and brimstone on a guy just because he accidently clipped him on the shoulder while trying to walk past him! He can be really exhausting to be around but is kind enough! Though, he does have a bad habit of accidently insulting others while trying to give compliments. Most of the time, he can be found practicing his parts for plays and movies alone in the gym. He adores dramas and tragedies most of all, even though he is more then capable of doing over forms of acting. This guy is a master at reading people, which is what makes him so good of an actor, he can sense deception from a mile away! So he’s a pretty hard person to fool!

Highschool Level Ultimate: Meteorologist- Name: N/A Gender: Female Personality: A small chucky lady who’s a sweet as candy! She’s a super smart young lady who loves the weather! She spends a lot of her free time collecting weather data and helping the folks in the greenhouse and gardens by giving them her findings so they can better their crops and protect them if needed. She has a fondness for rainy weather, but more so if it’s still sunny out while it’s raining! I has a huge obsession with Rainbows and Tornados, in fact one of her biggest dreams in life is to go on a real Storm Chase one day! Truly an adventurous young lady!

[keysmashchronicles]

my history in phandom and fandom

I’ve always been an avid reader. If I’d have been born twenty years later than I was and grew up in a time when every kid has tablet or a phone, that need for stories might have been filled by TV or other formats instead, but in my childhood years it was all about books, and visiting the library as often as possible. I often daydreamed about the characters in books the books I read, mostly egocentric thoughts of what it would be like if I were to somehow find myself in the stories I was reading. What would it be like to have them as my friends, to be part of those adventures? Of course, in typical Mary-Sue fashion, it wasn’t the real me that I imagined in those daydreams, but some idealised version that was cleverer and funnier and prettier and of course, someone all the other characters either envied or adored.

As I got older, and we moved beyond the stage of just having one TV in the house, my obsessive nature shifted to include TV shows as well as books. The first show that really caught my imagination was Dawson’s Creek. I loved it, the over-articulate teens with all their angsty problems heightened by their hormones going haywire, going through mental health issues and struggles with sexuality and of course, the classic love triangle. I couldn’t wait to tune in every week and catch up on what was happening in Capeside.

I’m not sure how it happened, but one day I was online on our cranky old computer and stumbled across some Dawson’s Creek fanfiction. I was amazed, and fascinated, and also terrified that someone in my family was going to walk in and catch me reading it. But I read every story on that website, and then started looking for more. I couldn’t believe there were other people out there like me, people who didn’t just watch a TV programme and then forget it about it until the following week.  There were others who thought about the characters in a TV show so much, it was almost like they became real. People who wanted to analyse every aspect of the relationships the characters had on screen, and also take these characters off into plots and stories and worlds that were nothing like what actually happened in the show, imagine them in endless different scenarios and see them experience every kind of emotion and think about how they’d react. People who wanted to write or read over and over again about the same characters because they found more and more to discover about them every time they did.I had found my happy place!

Over the years, the obsession with fanfic remained, but the focus of it shifted.I’d go through a cycle – discover a new fandom, immerse myself in it for maybe a year or two, then slowly lose interest. There would be a period where I wouldn’t read fic for a while, maybe 6 months or a year, and then all of a sudden, a new show would capture my attention and I’d be off and running again.

After my interest in Dawson’s Creek had run it’s course, the show that took its place for me was Buffy. As I recall, I had only watched a few episodes here and there and then a writer I was already reading started to post Buffy fics. I read a couple and realised that there must be much more to this show than I’d thought if it was inspiring such good writing. I think that obsession must have lasted a good 3-4 years, one of the longest I’ve had.  There was just so much good stuff for writers to work with - a whole cast of interesting well-developed characters, the good vs evil narrative, the endless possibilities of spells and demons and alternate universes and origin stories and the threat that the world might end at any moment….the list goes on. And also, there was the smut  - I’d read a fair amount in my previous fandom, but Buffy fics took it to a whole other level (this by the way being a major cause of the confusion I had when trying to work out my own sexuality - how can I be asexual? Have you seen my AO3 history???)

After that came the West Wing, followed by House, followed by the other behemoth of my fandom life, Sherlock. With all of these, although I read a hell of a lot of fic, that was always as far as my involvement in fandom went. I didn’t feel the need to join any fandom communities, in fact I don’t really think I would have known much about where or how to get involved if I’d wanted to. In the early days, the fic I read was on fan-hosted sites, with the aid of webrings to help you discover other authors. Then for a long time it was fanfiction.net, livejournal and finally AO3 where I read most of my fic today.

So how did I get into phanfic? In the aftermath of Sherlock series 4, it felt like my engagement with fic in that fandom came to a bit of a stop – there wasn’t really anywhere much to take the story in terms of canon, and a lot of people felt that the whole Eurus plotline had been kind of a jumping the shark moment. For myself, I’d got to that stage where it felt like there was nothing new under the sun. I was feeling the fatigue that always eventually came when I’d overread a fandom, and no matter how hard I’d try to find something to interest me, nothing seemed to capture my imagination any more.

I left the fic alone for quite a while, turning mostly back to traditionally published media – I dipped a toe back into Sherlock fic on occasion, read a bit of MCU here and there but nothing significant.

Then one evening in June 2019, I was scrolling through Twitter when I decided to check what was trending and saw a name I didn’t recognise – Daniel Howell. I had no idea who he was, but lots of other people were clearly very excited by something he’d done, so I thought I’d have a look and find out why. Usually when this happens, it turns the person is either on a reality TV show or plays sports of some kind,  but on this occasion I saw the words ‘YouTuber’ and ‘coming out video’ and it piqued my interest. The only experience I really had of watching YouTubers was through my step niece, when she’d had an obsession with Miranda Sings and we’d watched a lot of her videos together, including collabs, so I knew a few names but not much beyond that.

I clicked on Dan’s video, fully expecting that like with most random clicks, I’d watch for a minute or two before getting bored and looking for something else to occupy my attention, but that didn’t happen. The video was incredible and I was absolutely transfixed for the whole 45 minutes. I thought it was brilliant - the deeply personal story that was being told, the humour, the well-thought out and confidently delivered arguments – I don’t think I’d ever seen anything like it. As someone who had come to identify as asexual and panromantic but not until they were in their late 30s, and who was (is?) still in a place of trying to understand what that meant in my life, it was also hugely resonant to me on a personal level, helping me to realise the unacknowledged but damaging internalised acephobia and homophobia that I was still carrying with me.

I went to Dan’s channel and watched some of his videos, then was curious about that guy named Phil that he’d mentioned, so I watched some of his videos too. I came across the first PINOF and was completely charmed by it, by their rapport and silly humour and how they clearly felt so comfortable just to muck about and be themselves.

For a while I was happy just going through all the content on their channels. It didn’t really occur to me to look for fic until it was referenced in one of their videos. Up until then, RPF had really not been my thing – I’d seen some fics written about the actors who played characters in my various fandoms and I’d avoided them because it had made me feel uncomfortable about what they’d think if they saw them. I’d also scrolled past a lot of 1D and BTS fic when browsing on AO3 tags and to be honest, had had a pretty snobby opinion about it.

But having heard Dan’s story, and then seen dnp’s obvious connection in their videos, I was curious to see what the fans’ take had been on their relationship, and also to see what was being written about them now that Dan had come out. I looked to see if there was anything about them on AO3 and bam! There it was, my next fic obsession had grabbed hold of me and there wasn’t anything much I could do about it!

Since then, I’ve not only read a ton of fics, but even had a go at writing a few. It’s painful because they never come anywhere near the standard of the fics and writers I really admire. I have the desire to want to write well, but also a complete lack of the patience and dedication it takes to develop the necessary skill. But for the first time I didn’t let that stop me from publishing a few fics as I realised I was really writing for myself, to have an outlet for thoughts and ideas that had been going around in my head, and if anyone happened to read it, that was just a bonus.

Then through reading the Seven Basic Plots, I realised that what I’m more interested in at the moment than learning to write fics myself is to come to a greater understanding of how they work, and what exactly has been fuelling my fic obsession for over 20 years (wow....that was weird to think about! Such a long time!)

So that’s my history in fandom, and in phandom, and explains why reading a book about the nature of stories and their purpose made me immediately think that I wanted to examine those ideas in relation to something I know and love – phanfiction.

the seven basic plots // 1st plot - overcoming the monster

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Many do not come from a genuine place of being anti against one particular ship. Trust me when I say the ship they love is just as problematic as the one they hate. It’s called jealousy, immaturity and being bored with a side of getting off on attacking others.

oh, trust me - I know anti-shippers have never met a double standard they didn’t like. I’ve talked at length, over and over, about how the ship that gets derided as problematic based on the Fandom Anti Trinity of Evil (Pedophilia, Incest, and Abuse) is nigh-arbitrary, decided after anti-shippers have collectively settled on their preferred ship(s) and have time to figure out what’s wrong with everything they don’t like. After all, with the expansive way that fandom antis define the Trinity of Evil, pretty much any ship can be classified as falling under at least one of them.

when I write about ‘why antis do the thing’, I’m not taking a look at the reality of the situation - which is that their standards for purity vary widely from ship to ship & their efforts to enforce their standards are mostly dependent on what kind of emotional/social/etc gains can be gotten out of enforcement. Because while I’m sure that some fandom antis are absolutely aware of their own hypocrisy … most of them honest-to-god have no idea that they’re so two-faced. They genuinely think they’re internally consistent and gloss over the evidence that they’re not.

When i ask why antis do what they do, it’s me trying to understand their internal world. 

What lets them maintain the fiction that they are logical and fair-minded? What mental flowchart do they follow? what internal justifications do they maintain for the inconsistencies they can’t hide from themselves?

simply speaking: Making an effort to understand the thought processes of fandom anti-shippers makes them less frustrating for me. But this approach doesn’t work for everyone.

“It’s called jealousy, immaturity and being bored with a side of getting off on attacking others.” 

I get you. you’re not the first person to tell me that actually, anti-shipping is very simplistically and obviously motivated, and all the posts on this blog talking at length about how and why antis do what they do seem like a waste of time.

and hey: I have little doubt that jealousy, boredom, and the pathology of the empathy-deficient, immature mind* all play a role in this. tearing down popular people out of envy has always been a motivator for cruelty, and every year anti-shipping activity spikes during the northern hemisphere’s summer and falls again in autumn. Obviously, a lot of antis are still in school in some capacity.

and yet, I can’t see it as quite so simple.

it’s too controlling.

this isn’t just bored teens looking to pick a fight: it’s steady, sometimes fanatical, devotion to the cause of Cleaning Fandom Up. It’s a two-sided coin: a sense of justification and superiority when they enforce the rules on others … and fear of what will happen if they don’t enforce them. 

and the people who fall ass-backwards into this … wanting to be controlled.

It’s antis warning each other when they reblog from someone who is not among the anointed and the warned anti rushing to clean up without hesitation or further investigation (’omg ew thx for warning me #deleted! #ugh #pedophilia apologists dni’). It’s adolescents writing in to popular anti-shipper blogs and asking if it’s okay to ship a ship. It’s the popular anti-shipper blog mods saying ‘cut off anybody who disagrees with us. Cut off everyone older than you.They’re vile, evil, and want to hurt you’ - while simultaneously rewarding those who dig up proof of ‘problematic behavior’ by their enemies. While simultaneously being older than many of their followers themselves.

It’s the fact that so many anti-shippers simply parrot each other, and respond with a flounce or intense, personal fury when others contradict them - like you invalidated their very being, not just their arguments. It’s the widespread lack of interest in engaging with any counterpoint longer than a sentence. Its their absolute conviction that they are right and you are wrong. It’s their utter lack of interest in figuring out why they are so right and you so wrong on their own - a lack of desire to do anything that involves expanding their horizons beyond their little anti-shipper yard.

and fandom antis aren’t the only young people I see this kind of behavior in. many shippers just parrot what they’ve been told, or echo some part of anti-shipper rhetoric (’ship whatever you want - except if [x]’ is their rallying point.) Many fandom adolescents agree that we need rules, boundaries, people who tell us what’s okay to do or not do; they just disagree on what those rules should be.

It’s left-wing baby’s first authoritarianism, is what it is.

and the reason it’s worth detangling is because if we don’t starve and fight off the social and mental processes that lead us to yearn for a strong despot leader that we can rally behind, crushing all our political opponents before us, all we can hope for is a population that elects more world leaders like Trump - with politics more or less liberal than his, but inevitably controlling and always deadly.

tl;dr: anti-shipping is petty, sure. but it’s training - or continuing the training - of young people in submitting unthinkingly to authorities, avoiding critical thinking, and tearing down or destroying anyone to whom they consider themselves inherently superior (while feeling justified in doing so).

it’s hard for me to shut up about that.

EDIT: addendum post! (tl;dr version: “maybe ‘wanting to be controlled’ isn’t quite the right phrase. But ‘scared to make their own decisions without approval from the closest authority in their life’? yeah - a lot of fandom youth seem to be pretty into that these days.” )

(*adolescent brains are unusually preoccupied with themselves and how they ‘fit in’ socially; at the same time, they haven’t outgrown the childlike self-centered worldview that makes it hard for them to understand the thoughts and behavior of others apart from the effect it has on themselves. That’s why they’re particularly vulnerable to any school of thought that says ‘if it hurts, bothers, or otherwise inconveniences you, it’s actually evil and you’re within your rights to destroy it.’ (There’s a reason high school is a particularly hellish social experience for many people.))

[mild-lunacy]

The Fandom and Great Expectations

I think that it's part of the nature of fandom to want more, but only if that's just like the old stuff, mostly, with only a few things changed. It's a game of expectations: whether it's a ship you want (or don't want) or a favorite theory, or a character you have headcanons about. A lot of times people have valid critiques, obviously, but the nature of fandom for any ongoing series is that people like the stuff they saw in it at their point of entry. If that's what they like, it's going to be what they want to see more of. A lot of the issues people have with characterization being 'wrong' or the genre changing with Sherlock comes down to this. The alternative (or, most of the satisfied fanbase) isn't really those seeing the story for what it is so much as learning to project properly, so that what they see coincides with or follows their headcanons and personal wishes.

Does that seem a bit harsh? It's not that I'm immune myself. I certainly enjoy seeing the story 'my way' (say, the queer reading of Sherlock S4), and I don't begrudge people their enjoyment or bitterness, as the case may be. I do tend to have rather mild expectations, if any, though. I'm easily enough convinced by new evidence, and I don't need things to stay the same or even very similar. I'm definitely very nostalgic by nature, and enjoy my favorite tropes and a certain measure of predictability, but I don't view stories as a product that's catering to me, or a moral quantity that I ought to judge by its social usefulness (as is popular in fandom). This lack of expectation (even when I'm convinced I do know what's going on, as I was with Sherlock) is something that seems rather unusual in fandom. That's the biggest thing, it seems to me. I generally am happy to let the story do what it wants and aim to figure it out on my own. I mean, it's not that most people want 'warm paste' (at least with Sherlock), necessarily, but certainly the *same* paste, which seems reasonable. Even with this, I tend to be rather flexible, though.

Needless to say, this is all very well-known stuff, really, 'cause clearly that's why we're usually given more of the stuff we've shown interest in buying, with the dominance of mass media franchises. Ironically, perhaps, BBC Sherlock, while technically part of a sort of long-running Holmes multiverse franchise, was produced on an older entertainment model. It wasn't made to please the fans, or to satisfy the current resurgence of interest in media as social or moral activism, and the focus on minority representation for its own sake. It was made by and for the interests of the creators, to reflect and feed their nostalgia, their favorite tropes, satisfying their own desires. That's not a given, by any means. Not a whole lot of mass-marketed media is made this way anymore, and certainly little that has a really big fandom or is a franchise of some sort. Of course, that's not to say most popular shows are necessarily super sensitive to the needs or desires of their actual fans; some projection is involved on both sides. Popular enough properties tend to aim at the lowest common denominator, though. That's my point.

As for myself, I'm an old-school aesthete type of reader, and writer for that matter. I read fantasy and romantic adventure, primarily looking for escape and exploration, or whatever appeals to my aesthetic interests, whether it's good for me (and the world) or not. I write only for myself, though naturally I'm open to convincing and susceptible to flattery (I *am* a vain but insecure author, after all). Generally, though, this attitude means I'm very sympathetic to those creators who have similar motivations, and march to the beat of their own drummer. I'm always open to seeing fiction as a journey that I'm not in control of, a destination I cannot imagine. I have plenty of opinions and ideas about what 'makes sense', what's interesting, what works best, but in the end I'm a passive receptacle for the story if I'm interested enough to start. I want stories to sweep me off my feet, and so I tend to give them a wide latitude in determining where we end up together at the end. I can only imagine that most fans are more interested in staying with familiar ground, retaining a sense of understanding of the structure, keeping the underlying control. Expectations keep you grounded, and allow the audience to gauge whether they're receiving what they want from the experience. In a sense, they're also inevitable when emotional attachment to the characters is involved.

Anyway, questions like yesterday's comparison of John Watson's characterization seem to ask, 'why would a character change in a way that's negative?' More specifically, perhaps, in a way that contradicts one of the central tenets of many fans' understanding of John. No reason, no amount of emotional logic can really suffice as an explanation when the complaint is about this sort of unforgivable change. And then when people talk about how the show and specifically John's characterization is actually consistent, that only goes to show he was always an asshole who didn't really appreciate Sherlock. In other words, the important thing isn't whether S4!John is believable, but whether he's still giving the people what they want from his character. Not a shocking conclusion by any means, but something I try to keep in mind when thinking about people's critiques.

[tea-cub]

Fangirl Problem

I don’t know if anyone else has ever had this problem, but I’m going to come out and say it anyway. Feel free to consider it a little bit weird.

I’ve been a Sherlockian since it first aired; that’s eight years now and obviously Sherlock has been the fandom in which I’ve been the most active. I’ve written a lot of fanfiction, and read even more. However, I worry about my current relationship with it as I keep putting pressure on myself to produce Sherlock fanfiction.

This is a bit of an ongoing problem. I want to write Sherlock fanfic, however, I don’t think my heart and head is 100% in it and I’m actually struggling with figuring out how to write Sherlock and John as a pair. I want to be involved in the fandom, I want to bring some good stuff, but I don’t know if, with this fandom, I’m being true to my own desires. I always feel the lack of it when I’m not doing it but then when I am doing it I’m not actually sure how to write it and my hands can shake on the keyboard. In this fandom, essentially, I feel ‘constipated’ and a little obsessive and while I still enjoy it, right now I feel I’m doing better from the sidelines.

 My last few Sherlock fanfics have been produced with a marked deterioration of enthusiasm; it’s like my heart’s not all there and I keep obsessing over small details - ‘would John do this,’ ‘how would Sherlock do that,’ - and it’s causing me a lot of pain. I felt very lonely for a while, feeling unable to write anything and feeling the frustration of that. I honestly don’t know how I want to write them anymore and I used to be able to flow out. My best fics in the fandom are my older ones and I keep desperately trying to regain that which I feel I’ve lost; I feel I don’t have the gift anymore. I’m obsessive-compulsive and this has actually brought out my OCD tendencies; rumination, obsessiveness and mental rituals have been involved in my creating Sherlock fanfic and I just don’t enjoy it as much as I want to. It’s a shame, because fandom should be the opposite to stuff like that; it should be a distraction, an antidote, a means to feel better. Unfortunately, I’ve just made things worse for myself. 

I think I’m trying to recapture what was; I have such good memories of the 2010-2011 hiatus, when Sherlock was just starting, when Sherlock and John were unbreakable BFFs, when anything was possible, when John was kind and loyal, when less was more. I’m trying to bring up that same good feeling from the past - but maybe the way the show went changed my mind. These days, shipping Johnlock comes with a lot of angst, mostly because of John’s behaviour in Series 3 and 4, rather than that shared hope and happiness of Series 1 and 2 and I don’t have the energy for that. I never wanted a John Watson like that and part of me feels that after all that, he doesn’t really deserve Sherlock. I know it’s not really a case of ‘deserve,’ it’s about putting things right, but I guess I don’t know if I ship Johnlock in a platonic capacity, or in a platonic and romantic one. I genuinely don’t know how to see them anymore. It’s wonderful that people can still find meaning in their relationship, though and that they can still produce and bring wonderful content to the fandom. 

The good news is that I have found distraction and fresh mojo in the Check Please fandom. This has given me back my writing confidence - it’s what I need right now. I keep thinking maybe I should step back and leave Sherlock alone for a while, show, fics and all but there’s something about it that pulls me back. I want it, but it’s not necessarily what I need right now. I wish I had that confidence; I know I should just write and dump what I don’t like but I keep repeating the same stuff and I don’t know physically what I want to share with the world; what I feel comfortable writing down and sharing. 

That’s why I’m struggling. That’s why I’m half-in, half-out. That’s why I’m a little bit distressed. I enjoy this fandom, but feel I can’t partake due to my own obsessiveness and indecision. I just need to write what feels good to me, personally, and hopefully we can go from there. Maybe the sensible thing would be to walk away, but I honestly don’t know. 

Wish me luck.