#i haven't even bothered to install any of the simple puzzle games on my current devices

[cantsayidont]

Something I find deeply alienating is that I very clearly do not have or wish to have the same kinds of relationships with media that are presumed in online "fandom." I'm very seldom interested in imagining myself interposed into the narrative, and I'm extremely resistant to the idea of treating the media I watch or read as a collection of unassembled pieces that I'm expected to finish myself.

To be clear, I'm not talking about narratives that expect the audience to read between the lines or that leave certain things deliberately ambiguous, which isn't the same thing. I mean that as a viewer or a reader, I don't usually feel like it is (or should be) my responsibility to construct a parallel or alternate narrative to fill in the pieces the existing narrative doesn't supply. It's not that I never have an emotional investment in particular characters, relationships, or story threads; if I didn't, I would drop out after a while and find something more interesting to read or watch. However, if the narrative leaves those elements underdeveloped or unsatisfactorily resolved, my reaction is to mutter, "Well, that was disappointing," rather than to sit down and hammer out a 15,000-word hurt-comfort fix-it AU to post on AO3. If someone were to actually hire me to do something along those lines, or if there were a situation where I thought I could pitch such a thing as a professional project, I might consider it, but approaching something professionally is very different, and necessarily more dispassionate, than being in my feels about a headcanon, as it were.

This is also why I don't like video games beyond maybe the very simple puzzle variety (e.g., Minesweeper), and then only if I'm very, very bored. Modern video game RPGs demand the same kind of fannish labor I find so disagreeable: You're expected to go through the motions to construct and play out the story and its various threads — without any of the kind of creative flexibility found in writing an original story, or even playing a tabletop RPG, where the direction of the story is an interactive, collaborative effort. This is particularly vexing with video games like (notoriously) FALLOUT 3, where the game narrative, especially at the end, really strong-arms you into making the specific choices the game writers and designers have laid out for you, to the point that the game actively thwarts any attempt to find alternative solutions. I find it the worst of both worlds: You have to do the work, but in service of a narrative in which you are still essentially a spectator. Writing an original story, or creating one with your friends as a TTRPG adventure, is also a lot of work, but the results are yours, even if the only compensation is a sense of creative satisfaction.