#it's important to fandoms way outside of spn

[soullessjack]

every day I remember that this fandom simply does not care about autistic people and, much like every other fucking thing I experience as an autistic person, the concept of it being a collective found family becomes increasingly alien to me. love this place.

[lol-jackles]

If I correctly decoded your "clueless and oblivious" anon it's because of this    X com kelios 1792256242812 Destiel shippers are massively butthurt and react in the usual manner by taking it out on Sam Winchester and also Jared and spreading lies in his tags.  I have Destiel blacklisted but I've seen newbie Sam fans complaining about the Destiel infection in the Sam tags and wanting to return the favor.

Link. Ah. SPN fans spent ten years telling Destiel hellers the truth, they're in the minority and a little sanity goes a long way. But nope, delusion and rudeness and death threats all the way! And not just in the SPN fandom, they spread into other fandoms like the 10 plagues of Egypt.

Ever since tumblr released their polling systems, fandoms outside of SPN finally got their revenge. In this month is not even half way over and already 4 polls hits Destiel hellers in in the face that not only are they indeed the fringe minority but also everybody hates their stupid faces and their stupidier ship.

This explains the following comments that showed up on my dash (credit to the person I stole this from):

The only thing the hellers won in the past 14 years is "You Tried"

Naturally the Destiel shippers reacted as usual, by repeating the #1 self-soothing lie in their fandom: Sam is the least important character and Jared is a baddie. Meanwhile Netflix continues to stream Sam-the-final-girl aka Supernatural, Jared's boss is now running Netflix, and even .....(x)

Did this tweet triggered AAs stans? Do I even need to answer that?

[destielfandomlore]

What happened with destiel and was it queerbaiting, queercoding, or both, and why? Also, why are we like this now, several YEARS after the finale?

Hi everyone. This blog is meant to be an archive to collect data to attempt to answer those extremely important questions and then work toward coming up with some sort of viable explanation of events for the past sixteen years. Basically, we’re trying to figure out intent on destiel and its impact on fandom.

Additional research questions we are considering:

1. Who are the players involved and what were/are their views? 

This includes the main cast, other cast, writers, crew, directors, network, general/casual audience/outsiders, con organizers, and fandom.

2. What happened in the narrative? 

This is examining the source material of the show itself to show evidence (or not) of the destiel subplot, including deleted scenes, cut or changed lines, etc.

It’s helpful to mentally break up the narrative into: s4-7 (early seasons), s8-11 (mid seasons), s12-14 (late seasons minus last season), s15, and spnwin.

3. What happened outside the show itself?

This is documenting the events and comments made surrounding the narrative and hopefully being able to come up with a comprehensive timeline of events.

When did destiel stop being a bit and start being written romantically (if it did)?

We’re also working on establishing what happened on Nov 5th and the resulting fallout since then, including destiel-related spn s16 content (referring to 2020-present, not a revival).

4. Why did things happen the way they did?

What was the point of all of this? Was destiel included in and outside of the narrative as queerbaiting or queercoding (+censorship/gaslighting by TPTB) or both?

Did the creatives involved (writers, actors, crew, directors, etc) tell the story of destiel intentionally, or was all of this an accident/coincidence and/or fanon?

What were the real world social contexts that influenced all of the above events? This is considering the impact on destiel of LGBTQ+ history in the US, toxic masculinity, social/political attitudes and differences across the country, role of internet access for fandom, etc. that may help explain what happened.

5. What is the impact of destiel on fandom, tv shows, etc. going forward?

I guess this is something we'll have to wait to find out 🤷🏻‍♀️

So that's that. As always, feel free to send an ask/submission or @ us, and if you want to help us with the chaos, you are more than welcome to reach out via DM to one of the admins!! 💙💚

(Edit 6/30/24: Right now we are good on admins but ofc you can contribute in other ways!!)

[peanutbutterandbananasandwichs]

whats your opinion/how do you feel about wincest

I don't actively ship wincest, but then again I don't really engage with supernatural through a shipping lense at all. What I do usually say is that especially late seasons I do kinda view like at least platonic/weirdcest wincest as essentially canon - and actually when it comes to talking about their abuse dynamic in late seasons I do actually think its more useful/accurate sometimes to frame Sam as Dean's spouse. It's also just fundamentally part of the DNA of the show lol, like trying to divorce spn from wincest is fruitless and frankly boring!

Honestly though, the primary reason I don't engage with wincest content as much as say Sastiel is the issue of too many shippers coming from the position of viewing Sam as an extension of Dean/buying into popular fandom mythology about Sam/Dean/their dynamic. I also sometimes feel exhausted by people who I think could stand to step outside the shipping lense for 5 seconds when considering Sam and Dean's relationship (for instance having a piece of meta about Sam's experiences as an abuse victim reblogged with #wincest and not much else) - not to say of course that you can't enjoy that aspect of their dynamic as part of the appeal of shipping them (certainly that's what makes it interesting to me and is MUCH preferable to the "they are perfect for each other" approach To Me) - but I think it is important to consider Sam's experiences as him as a person first - tbh it makes the shipping dynamic so much richer that way!

That being said Sam fan wincest shippers are some of my favourite people! And frequently produce some of the most inciteful and interesting meta and fanworks about both of them and their dynamic. And I absolutely do read wincest fic - I'm just very, very picky about it (I'm also too ace to read much smut so I'm generally looking for more plot-driven stuff which does limit the options more lol).

[dotthings]

Not the first time I've pointed this out but turns out it's relevant again so reminder:

bibro and brosonly lane's preachiness about how "progressive" and what great "representation" it is to discard all other forms of love outside of Sam and Dean's sibling bond and treating queer love as lesser and not worthy of being important on spn and a sibling relationship as "queer rep" is nothing but a performative, concern trolling, virtue signaling mess as certain accounts scramble over themselves to cover up their own narrow-mindness and downright gaslight queer fans about the actual hurt cause by their favorite, mister-disjointedly-rambled-on-a-panel [old drama, but Jared stans don't know when to quit perpetuating their bad behavior and narrow mindedness over these issues, in their mad rush to put their favorite on a pedestal where they can't even see the self-evident problem and deny all wrongs no matter how many people were hurt] in a queerphobic way, and the harm they themselves are doing with their narrow-minded attitudes. They can have any interpretation of the text they please, but the virtue signaling is designed at attacking queer readings and they refuse to stop. They preach about art being open to interpretation in the same breath that they aggressively keep perpetuating this endless queerphobic othering attitude.

spn has its flaws but I'm going to defend it when these people come along trying to claim spn wasn't about Love. Love of all kinds. The connections that form and why they matter. All of them. Dean and Cas's love for each other saved each other and saved the world. Canon. Argue with the wall.

There is nothing progressive about these stans and their assertions that queer love had no place on a show about Love, and their views are not reflected by the canon. (No matter its flaws, it doesn't do that. This is a stan problem, where a bad series finale handed them a certain amount of fuel and perceived validation but I promise you. This is not what spn is). Nor do their views represent the majority of spn fandom, online or offline, anywhere, I don't care. They are not the majority.

[wenellyb]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel that people who say stuff like this are straight up lying? Or is there some important piece of information I'm missing?

It's unbelievable to me that some people would like that non-canon ships like Stucky or any other non-canon ships paved the way for representation in modern media. Unbelievable.

Destiel, maybe, because of how big the fandom is/was but even Supernatural and even Destiel started out small and got popular because of the fandom and the ship(s).

I feel like people who saying they started shipping non-canon couples because their wasn't any LGBT representation in the media at the time aren't being genuine. I say that because before joining Tumblr, I didn't even know shipping non-canon couples was a thing (I had heard of Destiel, but it was more of a concept to me, even though I unironically watched SPN).

I feel that was they mean is that there wasn't any representation in popular shows or maybe they mean they weren't enough main characters. But otherwise there was!!!

These are just the one I can think of on the top of my head, but there are much more and there is en more if you go outside of the US. And these are just the shows.

If we add the movies... well!!!

You want romance with a Happy Ending?

You want Murder Mystery?

You want Drama?

There are so many many more and, yes these weren't blockbusters but it's not "no représentation and Stucky and Destiel were the only options"

Grey's Anatomy started out at the exact same time as Supernatural and now has over a dozen canon LGBT characters and half of them are/were main characters (Callie, Arizona, Amelia, Teddy, Yasuda, Helm)

When I joined Tumblr, I never even for a minute thought shipping was about representation or activism because there were so many shows and movies I knew but they were barely talked about on here.

Not criticizing ships by any means but I feel like people are trying to pretend that shipping is something it isn't.

In my humble opinion, non-canon ships were never about representation. Shipping was just shipping

I wasn't on Tumblr at the time, but I was on Youtube (old school) and to me, the people who were doing edits of the canon ships, in shows and movies were the real heroes.

Some people might say : "but those characters are side characters or weren't in major blockbusters/popular shows".

But fandoms could have decided to make them more popular if they wanted. Because believe it or not, Supernatural was a niche show at the beginning and I don't think it would have been as popular or gotten as many seasons without the shippers. They chose to make the non-canon couple (at the time) popular. So the fans could have done the same with shows that have canon LGBT characters But they didn't, they focused on non-canon couples.

I have no problem with shipping non-canon couples at all, I do it too, but I'm really surprised by people who want to make it seem like it's some kind of activism... It's not.

And I know there wasn't enough representation that's true, but why focus your energy on shows with absolutely no canon LGBT characters and pretend it's activism??

You guys could have had Noah's arc or Hit the Floor renewed and you focused your energy on Marvel characters.

And some people will say they ship Destiel anyway because they want fantasy and paranormal... Well does nobody remember Dante's Cove? Was it a fever dream😂? I admit the writing was bad, but have you seen the writing in Supernatural (I say this as a SPN fan)???

And I know some people will say they ship Marvel characters because they have a bigger audience and there were no canon Queer characters in blockbusters, but I feel like that a lie too because when there were indeed Queer characters in those blockbusters, they were ignored as well. Like in the Eternals.

Fandoms can be so powerful when they want to...they can make or break a movie, so acting like the focus on non canon couples was the only option surprises me.

Shipping is just about shipping. It's a hobby.

Stucky or any non-canon Marvel ship isn't "History", it's just a ship.

Last exemple: Let's take a look at 2 popular couples from the same franchise: 9-1-1 and 911: Lone Star. Only one of the couples in canon, but Can you Guess which one is more popular on Ao3 and on Tumblr ?

The non-canon couple!

Almost 3 Times as much fics for Buddie than TK x Carlos who are an actualcouple and even got married!

Shipping non-canon couples isn't about representation but about finding a story to fantasize about, which isn't bad itself but it's bad when you pretend shipping is something it isn't?

TL:DR: Shipping non-canon couples isn't activism imo.

I would be happy to hear tour thoughts because as I said, I only joined Tumblr later so I don't have all the info.

[eisforeidolon]

It's not at all surprising that hellers are making asses of themselves to a whole new fandom over a ship vs. ship poll [X][X][X][X].

Again, the problem is not shipping the ship or trying to win silly fandom polls for fun. The problem is acting like the ship is The Most Important LGBT+ Cause everyone has to ship or they're homophobes. Legitimate unambiguously reciprocated canon ships? Pfft, how could they have anything on the power of D/C! There are so many gifsets and meta screeds and fanfics because there's nothing in canon! They know they represent a HUGE unavoidable part of fandom because they only ever leave their echo chamber bubbles to try to shove their ship on everyone else, so they don't realize not only how big the rest of SPN fandom is, but how big fandom as a whole is!

Through the entire run of SPN, they convinced themselves if they just screamed enough about being oppressed, badgered enough actors/writers/crew, won enough polls, and wrote enough clickbait articles on sites without editorial standards? They could not only force the show to make their ship canon but force the rest of fandom to acknowledge D/C as THE MOST IMPORTANT BEST LGBT+ lurve story EVAR. Well, only Misha and Berens were dumb enough to cater to them with that last minute throwaway one-sided ambiguous queerbait scene. Fandom at large mostly only acknowledged the "importance" of the ship by turning that scene into a mocking meme because it was that absurd.

Yet they continue on, thinking if they can just win one more poll, write one more article, give Misha money one more time ... SOON we'll all have to admit how right they were all along! Which is why they get SO salty about losing any given poll or any random article about SPN not at least mentioning D/C.

While they may mislead a few uninformed and gullible souls along the way? For the most part, what they continue to do - as they have done all along? Is turn off people by prioritizing their entitled, myopic obsession with a single specific fanon ship - while insisting it's because they care sooo much about representation! D/C is the best, most important representation possible! Because ... uh... reasons? Which only gets more and more obvious (even to outsiders), the longer the canon has been off-air.

[cr-noble-writes]

Ao3 mememe

Thanks for the tag @swaps55!!

Tagging: @bleuzombie @nickelkeep @imbiowaresbitch @rotschopf-thedrow @n0rmandysr1 and anyone else who wants to do the thing!

I haven't written as much this year as I did last year, but I have written some, and I've written some things that I am exceedingly pleased with!

How many works do you have on ao3? 130

What’s your total word count? 722,233 since 2016

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Season Z (Destiel & Samwena, Supernatural, rated E, collab longfic) 1379 kudos

Watching You (Destiel smut, rated E) 550 kudos

You Should See Me In A Crown (Destiel longfic, rated E) 548 kudos

Truth or Dare (Destiel smut, rated E) 541 kudos

Lock Me Up (Destiel smut, rated E) 280 kudos

Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

Usually! It does sometimes take me like a thousand years if I am not regularly posting things just because I don't get on AO3, but as long as its not like an asshole comment, I always respond eventually! I think engaging with people who have taken the time to read something I wrote, who took the time out of their life to engage with me and tell me that they connected with something I wrote is important. I want people to feel appreciated, because I appreciate the shit out of them!

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I wrote a little like 5k Destiel fic in like 2019 that I think has the angstiest ending I've written. But to be totally fair, I have written a lot of angst, and its really very subjective whether killing a person is more angsty than making them continue living without a soul.

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Oh gosh. I am honestly not sure? I tend toward writing angsty stories, but usually they get a happy ending. A lot of the fic I write are more like snapshots than full stories, also, so like, in terms of endings its sometimes hard for me to conceptualize whether the end of a fic is "happy" or not because its not really an end, it's more like.... a pause. Most of my longfics have relatively happy endings, though.

Do you write crossovers?

I have! Most recently I wrote a Mass Effect/Supernatural crossover for a bang. I don't think it's going to be a thing that I really continue doing because while I did enjoy writing the crossovers I've done, the ME/SPN crossover made me realize that I am inevitably more interested in one part of the crossover than the other, if that makes sense. If I want to write my lil ME guys not in the ME universe, I'll just write an AU that isn't attached to another media.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I was very active in the Supernatural fandom for several years, so yes lol

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I went through a period where I kind of felt like it was necessary to write smut to get engagement when I was in the Supernatural fandom, so I have written a lot of smut for the sake of smut. I don't write nearly as much of it anymore. That being said, I do write smut still. It's just that with very few exceptions these days, I haven't written smut outside the context of like relationship and character study as much? I do, however, think that there are characters for whom sex is a very important part of their personality and development. I also think it is a fantastic way to give insight into the way a character interacts with the world that might not otherwise be shown.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not to my knowledge.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have on multiple occasions. I am actually cowriting a fic right now! I am a lot more picky about who I collab with these days, just because I have done it enough times to know that I simply do not mesh with some people, whether that be in the background creative parts or in the actual writing. So I generally stick to collabing with people I know I mesh with pretty well creatively.

What's your all-time favourite ship?

The Wurst! From Dimension 20's A Starstruck Odyssey.

It's hard to say because there are very specific things that I really love from all my ships, and they all sort of satisfy a different creative need for me. That being said, the one I always come back to mShenko.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Back before I fell out of the SPN fandom, I started a Regency Horror AU that I really love conceptually, but I'll never finish it because I simply cannot engage with SPN in that way anymore.

What are your writing strengths?

God, I am so bad at answering questions like this haha. I think my biggest strengths are world building and character voice. I love world building, its probably my favorite part of the creative process, and solidly building the key factors of the world you're writing in gives you a strong enough foundation that you have so much freedom to fuck around. And as far as character voice, I think I have a pretty solid handle on what my characters sound like, and I am able to carry that across in dialogue and inner monologue pretty well most of the time.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I sometimes have a tendency to overdescribe things that aren't very important and underdescribe things that are. I also frequently have a difficult time carrying across emotions in a way that actually reads and makes sense.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I'm all for it if it makes sense! I also built two conlangs for the purpose of one series of fic, just for funsies.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Like wrote and posted for? The MCU. But I was writing fanfiction for the Xanth series by Piers Anthony in like 4th grade. I just didn't know there was a word for it and no one ever saw any of it lol

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

I don't know that I have any, honestly. I tend to be more interested in taking small things I like from other media and inserting them into the fandoms I write for already. For example, once I get to the point of writing ME3, I plan on giving EDI an array of Warframes to run around in. But I don't have any interest in writing Warframe fanfic.

What's your favourite fic you've written?

Vicissitude, hands down. It's not very long, but I did a lot of new things with it that I feel very much improved my writing, and I think its the best thing I've ever written.

[runawaymarbles]

20 questions for fic writers!

tagged by @chubsthehamster- thanks!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

32, unless you count the book covers. I've got 106 book covers

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

487,170

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Whatever I get stuck on at any given moment. My most recent ones are 9-1-1, Inception, ATS and Hawkeye, but my repeat fandoms are Spn, X-Men, The Old Guard and Black Sails.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

I'm copying chubs and doing my personal favorites, because my top four kudos'd fic are all for the same fandom (The Old Guard) and written within like three weeks of each other.

The Scroll of Saint Barnabas (9-1-1, Buddie, 15k): recency bias, but I had a lot of fun with this one. I also probably drove my girlfriend*and cousin insane during the writing process. Sorry about that. The basic premise is: we all know how time loop fics go, but what if after the loop is broken the character has PTSD from all the things that nobody else remembers? And also what if you get a knotted dildo hooked onto your permanent retainer? *though we've now established consent and parameters for whether we can have sex if one of us is stuck in a time loop. It's always important to have these conversations in advance!!!

What The Moon Was Saying (Spn, destiel, 16k.) It's about Dean rescuing Cas from the Empty, technically, but it's also about Dean working through things he refuses to think about directly, and it's also about the perspective of dead characters who aren't all-knowing and have no clue what happened after they died, and it's also about Inanna's Descent into the Underworld and how many jokes about Sumerian mythology I could fit in there that probably nobody else is going to think are funny but I think are funny, and it's also about what issues Orpheus would have had if he'd succeeded. The central thesis statement is that Margaritaville is thee Dean Winchester Mental State song.

The Mixtape, Or: Six Things You Learn in Thursday School (Spn, destiel, 6k.) I always had this idea that I was going to write a fantasy book of some kind, where the first part would be about the founding of a religion and then the following parts would jump ahead a few hundred years and see how that religion and that original story change in the telling. Instead of writing that book I wrote 6,000 words about a post-apocalyptic religion whose foundational text was the Winchester Gospels, except they don't actually have the Winchester Gospels, so they're relying on collected ephemera and thirdhand accounts. It is also about both academic and online discourse.

The House on Graymalkin Lane (X-Men, background cherik, 92k.) My nice little outsider-POV x-men haunted house fic. It started out as "the x-mansion would be a bonkers haunted house" and then it turned into a love letter to the original timeline (we barely knew ye). It's about the mortifying ordeal of being in high school and also about how all my grandparents died at once and I had a lot of complicated feelings about that.

The Ill-Made Knight (X-Men, cherik, 1.5k) OK so you know that trope that's like "if anyone is going to kill me I want it to be you"?? it's that, but instead of being used as a statement of everlasting love and devotion, it's being used as psychological warfare. And also kind of a statement of everlasting love. But in a fucked up sort of way. Because Cherik.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! I didn't used to but I do now because I always like it when people reply to mine. Sometimes I miss them and respond years later but like... I got there eventually?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

the whole estate of mortal man. (Black Sails, silverflint, 40k.) Silver is immortal but has a very impermanent self. Flint is mortal and has a very permanent self. There was only one way that was ever going to end and I stand by it.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Of recent ones, I guess The Most Fun A Girl Can Have? (Kate/Yelena, 8k.) They're having a pretty good time for most of it.

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Not since like, high school.

9. Do you write smut?

Nope. Hats off to smut writers, you're doing God's work. It's very difficult.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I haven't, unless you count every Marvel fic being a crossover. And Good Omens show/book. But that seems like a cop-out.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Some very kind people translated The Punishment of Sisyphus (Black Sails crackfic) and Antebellum (Black Sails, Anne & Eleanor fic) into Russian, Stalefish (Old Guard, Nile-centric) into Polish, and Kidnapping for Dummies (Old Guard, Joe shenanigans) into Spanish. I can only read the Spanish one.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yessss. The #ImmortalHusbands Conspiracy (The Old Guard social media fic) with @phoenix-acid. That was very fun.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Why would you ask me this. This is cruel. I can barely pick a top 5.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

The Marvel pirate AU, probably. It's almost a complete story on its own as it stands. There's about half a next chapter written and I could probably us that to tie things up, if I cut out a bunch of things, but I'd have to reread all my research. I did way too much research for that.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Character voices? I hope it's character voices. I watch a lot of youtube compilations before writing anyone to try and get a handle on how they talk.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

The actual romance part of a romance. What do you mean they have to get together after I've set everything up so that they get together? Ridiculous.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I've never done it before, but I respect people who can pull it off. I do really hate that trope though where a multilingual character calls their love interest pet names in their mother-tongue, when they are never shown using it that way (or mixing that language and English in a conversation) in canon.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

....percy jackson and the olympians.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Since I listed five favorites up there I'm switching this with the kudos question. Fic with the most kudos is Kidnapping for Dummies (The Old Guard, 3.5k)

Tagging @monstrous-femme @thegeminisage @bomberqueen17 @ellelans @annerbhp @significanceofmoths and anyone else who wants to do it. say i tagged you. nobody will ever check to find out.

[jinkieswouldyoulookatthis]

The whole DNI banner thing in general feels very new and sad to me. Just so emblematic of the culture of trying to force everyone else to cater to the online experience you want, instead of tailoring your experience for yourself. It's one thing to expect people not to be hateful or mean in your notes, and another entirely to restrict the people you're willing to interact with to the ones you don't think are "degenerate".

Depending on how you define "shipping", I've always "shipped" Destiel and never "shipped" Wincest, but I've always enjoyed reading Wincest and Daddycest content. Specifically the darker stuff (my first big favorite spn fic was "Sins of the Innocent" by reapertownusa). I'm just not sure what, exactly, the folks who don't want to interact with "Wincesties" are afraid of. We're all just, like, regular people, and the world out there kinda thinks that *all* shippers are freaks, anyway.

As far as I can tell, and I realize that the situation will not be the same for everyone, there's this need to shun people who are deemed to be degenerates (as you said). Liking Wincest is definitely taken as a sign of real life moral failing.

Once again, I do want to stress that while I don't ship it, I have nothing against Destiel as a ship. When I first got into this fandom I read a lot of of everything and that's how I learned what worked for me and what didn't. That was in 2015 and I remember being more embarrassed about liking a ship at all than I was about being more drawn to the idea of Sam and Dean together than I was towards Dean and Castiel. So it took me a long time before I just embraced it. During that time I've seen the shift in the shipping wars, the imposed battle for morality that some seem to think that they are fighting. And I've seen it mirror the outside world's steady slide into authoritarianism.

These DNIs are not really important in the grand scheme of things, I'm a respectful person (no matter what kind of shit I may spew when I get frustrated here) and I wouldn't ever knowingly push my ship, or anything else, onto someone who made it clear they didn't want it. I even double check blogs that I reblog from (or whose gifs I add to my own posts) before adding even a wincest tag to a post, to do my best to avoid upsetting anyone. I've been yelled at too many times and generally prefer to avoid unnecessary conflict.

And that's just it, if these blogs listed that Wincest squicked them, I would do all of this to avoid upsetting them, and still be able to share this space with them. But I don't think it's just about them not being exposed to Wincest, that's part of it for sure, but it's also about them not wanting to share this space with me. They don't want me in their space at all because they have made a personal judgement against me based on the flavor of fiction that I enjoy being an idiot about on this dumpster fire of a website.

It's that I see so many posts that have nothing to do with Destiel being tagged with it which feels like another way of setting up a fence between them and those of us they think need to stay away from them. These DNIs feel like giant no trespassing signs, the really over the top ones that tell you exactly what kind of gun they'll shoot you with if you don't obey the sign. And I guess that I just expect more from tumblrinas because I assumed that we better understand what it feels like to be judged and excluded. But really, people are people, and sometimes people are scared, reactionary, assholes, even here.

[orionsangel86]

So I've had quite a bit of time now to absorb the above take and consider all perspectives on this and whilst I can understand where OP is coming from on their specific perspective, I think OP is fundamentally wrong on a few points. I get that not everyone on the internet that day was an avid Supernatural fan/Destiel shipper and I get that the state of the world and the political climate (specifically in America) were particularly dire at that point and so I can see why you would want to reduce the importance of SPN/Destiel's role in the hysteria, but the truth is that regardless of everything else, Destiel going canon very much was the fuse that blew everything else up, and nothing else would have had even remotely the same impact.

Let me attempt to explain why.

Under a cut because obviously this isn't a quick and simple thing to explain so only click read more if you genuinely want to understand this whole insane mess.

Now bearing in mind I am not American, even I can admit that on a global scale the US elections this time around were tense - Trump turned your country into a global laughing stock on one hand, and quite a concerning dangerous liability on the other. The rest of the world was very much watching on with baited breath to see how the election would turn out. But I think we should stress that the Election took place several days before November 5th. Yes, the results this time around were taking a while to be revealled, building up the tension and anticipation, but regardless, had Destiel not come along and caused mass hysteria the Election would not have had such a huge impact on pop culture at the time. It would have still been iconic and pivotal of course, but it in no way would have caused the same insanity everywhere on the internet for the following week.

OP states that any inane fandom drama could have had the same effect. That any other fandom ship going canon could have given the same outcome. This is where OP and I fundamentally disagree. OP actually already contradicts themselves when they state "except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis"

Because here is the thing. I have been on tumblr nearly a decade, and I have certainly learnt a lot through dashboard osmosis. I knew about Superwholock, and Hannibal, and Spirk of course, but nothing holds a candle to Supernatural and the Supernatural Fandom for size, consistency, and dedication to shit posting. There is a reason SPN fandom became infamous back in the days for "we have a gif for that". There is a reason why Destiel holds the top spot for most fanfictions on AO3. There is a reason tumblr groans every April 1st as someone inevitably tries to recreate the mishapocalypse.

If it had been Spirk going canon somehow, sure, the internet would have celebrated. They probably would have done it in some reasonably well written respectable way. Old Spirk fans would surely have come out to cheer it on. The internet would have laughed about the timing sure, maybe we all would have trolled that old bastard William Shatner until he finally deleted his Twitter (if only). Spirk would have probably trended (though perhaps not over the election), but the likelihood of anyone outside of Star Trek fans going mad and joining in on the hysterical shit posting hilarity of that night and the following days is probably quite slim. I think the same can be said for most ships. Because lets be honest now, most ships aren't Destiel.

Now I'm not saying this in a smug "my ship is better than your ship" way at all. Because the Destiel impact is absolutely not about that. What you have to understand is the very specific very hostile relationship that Supernatural Fandom has with the Supernatural Creators which is very much unique to Supernatural and was very much responsible for the hysteria that night. (yes we can argue Sherlock creators were also hostile towards the fandom but I promise you with every fibre of my being as someone who experienced both shows and fandoms in real time they were NOT the SAME.)

Supernatural was a 15 year long reign of terror on its fandom. It was 15 years of queerbaiting that somehow became genuine queer coding once the showrunners had changed hands enough times, yet still consisted of an internal struggle among its creators who were half very supportive of the ship and half absolutely adamantly against it due to either a genuine dislike of SPN even remotely stepping away from a brother-centric narrative, or just run of the mill homophobia. It was a ship that was built upon consistently without long hiatus's over a 12 year period (which is an extremely long time in internet time) and its fanbase at its height was most definitely among the biggest on the internet.

It is because of this very particular relationship that SPN has with its fanbase, that has lead to SPN fandom over the past 15 years being pretty fucking hilarious in its self deprecation, humour style, and its own antagonism towards the show. There are genuinely people on tumblr who claim to be part of the "SPN fandom fandom" who don't care about the show but follow the tags and bigger bloggers simply for how fucking hilarious the fandom has become through 15 years of experience in dealing with this absolute dumpster fire show and its ridiculous real life dramas. I cannot express enough how unique SPN fandom is in this regard. The fact is, if you were part of SPN fandom at any point, you would have picked up this particular style of humorous blogging and even if people left the fandom over the years, that particular experience never would have left them. No other fandom could have pulled of the mishapocalypse (to this day still probably the best April Fools joke in internet history) and you betcha that SPN fandom was pivotal in getting Goncharov to have as big an impact as it did. You may consider modern tumblrs sense of humour to be just a tumblr thing, but I guarantee it would not be the way it is without SPN fandom laying the foundations all those years ago. Calling Tumblr "The Destiel Website" is not actually hyperbole. It's fact. Destiel and SPN were unique in building the foundations on what we now consider pretty standard tumblr culture.

So on that note, You have a fandom that has "sleeper agents" all over the world all sporting the same "trauma" about this show and years of experience in excellent shitposting on the internet, you have a show which has basically been playing Schrodingers Ship with its fanbase for at least the past 3 years. Most people who had a tumblr blog during the height of the SuperWhoLock era are aware of Destiel and how insane it was, even if they never really had any interest in it (if only thanks to their posts being hijacked by a SPN gif). Even if it were a regular day - no US elections, no covid19, no horrible real world traumatic events dominating the trending topics on Twitter - Destiel going canon would have still caused absolutely insanity online unlike any other fandom ship could have caused. I guarantee it. Not just because of Destiel being a very long running popular ship, but because of the way it happened. Because no other show would have done it like that. No other show would have had one of the lead characters confess their gay love for the other lead character seemingly out of the blue (it wasn't, but only if you really pay attention to subtext) and then immediately die whilst the other lead character has barely any reaction and doesn't respond (he does have a reaction, but unless you are very clued in on Jackles micro-expressions its not gonna register).

No other show would have made a queer ship go canon in such a ridiculous way that was so perfectly primed for tumblr style shitposting (tumblr style being SPN fandom style originally anyway). So of course, even if there hadn't been historic world events happening, it would have been an absolutely insane night on the internet. The fact that it DID happen in the midsts of several historic world events only added fuel to the fire and created a perfect storm of hilarious memes and chaos and caused Destiel to trend over the US election - leading serious political journalists to scratch their heads and wonder what the fuck was happening.

It wasn't the US election that lead to the insanity of November 5th 2020. It was Destiel. Destiel was the fuse, the US election was just fuel being added to the fire. Everything else - the Sherlock S5 rumours, the Putin stepping down rumours, the revelations in certain Manga and Anime fandoms - none of that would have even been a blip on the wider internets radar were it not for Destiel and SPN fans (both current and former) going nuts with the memes, spreading rumours and world news like wildfire across the internet, all because of their glee over Destiel going canon in typical SPN style - being the most ridiculous and frankly hilarious way possible.

The reason we have the Destiel news meme, and the reason why it continues to be one of the most popular meme formats next to distracted boyfriend, is because Destiel fans were spreading the chaotic news about the election and other weirder news globally on that night and throughout the following week. Because whilst OP calls the Destiel part inane, and irrelevant in the grander scheme of what went down that night, the truth is that no other insane fandom news would have had even a fraction of the impact that Destiel did. Because no other fandom has the same batshit crazy history and build up that Destiel did. No not even Spirk. Spirk may have a longer history, but it doesn't have anywhere near the consistency Destiel had. No other fandom would have been able to carry all of that hysteria and spread it like a virus across the internet the way SPN fans did.

If Destiel hadn't happened, November 5th 2020 would have been nothing more than another night during an intense election in America, and the rest of the world would have simply forgotten shortly after - with the exception being the UK who continue their disturbing tradition of burning an effigy of a traitor who tried to blow up a tyrranical government 400 years ago on a bonfire on this particular night each year and created the very apt poem "remember remember the fifth of November" for it, which is easily co-opted by SPN fandom now. No other fandom news would have had the same impact on internet history. No other fandom could have turned this into an annual Tumblr holiday. No other fandom is quite as insane as SPN fandom nor as devoted to shitposting and irritating the fuck out of anyone not in SPN fandom in order to pull this off.

If it had been anything else, it wouldn't be the same. If it had been anything else, OP certainly wouldn't be writing about it now, because the anniversary celebrations wouldn't have irritated them enough to complain about Destiel in a tumblr post - because no other fandom is quite as annoying as SPN fandom enough to make random people want to revise the history and erase that which annoys them. No other fandom does it like them. I say this from experience.

So whilst anyone not interested in SPN and Destiel are more than welcome to blacklist the tags, block the bloggers, and try as hard as they can to ignore the truth of what happened that night just over 3 years ago, don't you dare try to pretend that it wasn't the very specific trigger of Destiel going canon that caused that hysteria - a global hysteria mind you, not an America-centric hysteria. Because whilst OP tries to make out that November 5th was primarily about the US election, Destiel was a global event, or at least, a Western World event with people joining in the hysteria all across Europe and even as far as Australia and New Zealand (and Destiel has a huuuuge fanbase in South America as well). We don't rewrite history in these parts. we embrace it, even if it is really fucking annoying.

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

[destielficarchive]

PSA: Livejournal in Danger?

Those paying attention to the awful news coming out of Eastern Europe and Russia likely have already heard that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin is planning to cut Russia off from the international internet on March 11. There's no way to know, before it happens, how exactly this will impact Russian access to international servers/websites or how this will impact international access to servers/websites hosted in Russia. The range of possible outcomes for people outside Russia is wide, everything from "no noticeable impact at all" through "complete loss of access to anything hosted in Russia." (For people in Russia, impacts will also presumably vary - if you're in Russia now would be a good time to get a crash course in how to use a good VPN...)

But. That's not why I'm posting about that on this fic archive Tumblr.

Livejournal, as of 2016, is hosted on Russian servers.

Don't panic, but if you've got a favorite fic that's only available on Livejournal, now would be a great time to back it up.

Don't panic, but if you still have a personal or fandom Livejournal and you don't want to lose it, now would be a great time to import your entire blog to Dreamwidth.

Don't panic, but...this could potentially be a huge disaster for fanfiction communities, and there's far too little time to try to "rescue" all the content potentially in danger, and any preparation we do may end up being unnecessary, but...better prepared than weeping for the fic that's gone.

(Also, if anyone reading this has a few hours between now and Thursday, I'd appreciate a ping - I have 281 "to download" fics on my masterlist that I haven't yet had time to grab from LJ, and I'd really like to get them all, and there's absolutely no way I can do it myself. I just don't have time. If you think you DO have time, please get in touch...)

[pray4jensen]

Twitter rn is full of ppl criticising dean cas fans calling them fetishising and making everything about their fanon ship then proudly have “Wincest” in their bio like you really want to talk about fetishising?? The hypocrisy astounds me

gonna be honest with you, idk how these ppl can be all up on twitter fighting over fandom ships when there is a pandemic raging outside, when people are suffering left and right, and when the work being done for the black lives matter movement has never been more important

all i can say is i suggest these ppl get some perspective; i love spn and it means a lot to me in very profound ways, but it does not compare with the importance of real lives being at stake so to see ppl fighting over ships at this moment of time leaves me a little empty

[the-rollerchloster]

including original tags, cos they gave me a giggle:

#he could personally write and direct a scene of cas hitting it raw and people are still goign to call him homophobic#and anti-destiel because it doesnt show dean's pulsating asshole#meanwhile the bronlies are going to insist it's not romantic/sexual#because [insert the most absurd logic youve ever heard in your life]

When I think about how exhausting I personally find this fandom from time to time, I feel so very, very sorry for Jensen, because he literally cannot win. No matter what he says, there is someone vilifying him. And yet, he continues to show up for the spnfamily, time and time again, because he, like us, cannot let Supernatural go.

Do the people who hate him (hate his answers, hate his fence-sitting, hate his vagueness), realise that without him we wouldn't even have these cons and these answers to be angry or elated about? Yes, there are multiple other cast members who continue to show up to these conventions, and they are also important, but it is Jensen's involvement that keeps them going - well at least the Creation ones. Let's look at CE's 2025 SPN schedule...

None of those headers have anyone other than Jensen confirmed. Whether you like it or not, Supernatural conventions continue to exist because of Jensen's brainrot/role as executive producer in any future SPN properties.

The ship war in this fandom has Jensen in no-man's land - we all know that - and not only can he not choose a side, I don't believe he actually wants to. The extreme ends of both sides are full of toxicity and erasure, which even as an objective outsider is disheartening to see. Fanon often planes away the nuance from the story, and leaves a hollow shell of what brought us all here in the first place. Bronlies wanting everything to be about just Sam and Dean are erasing the found family of the extended cast of characters. But hellers wanting everything to be about Dean and Cas fucking nasty on the bunker's map table are doing exactly the same thing. What makes Supernatural compelling is more than just the relationship Dean has with either Sam or Cas.

We cannot know for sure how Jensen feels about destiel, but anyone with eyes and common sense can see how it has evolved over the past ~16 years. But we can also see that Jensen feels very strongly about the bond between the Winchester brothers, and how that is at the core of the whole show. Two things can be true at once, and the black&white thinking of fandom makes that difficult to safely articulate sometimes.

I have faith in the jackles long con, but I am also excited to see that play out in the way we least expect.

Do you think Jensen is uncomfortable being asked about Destiel?

yes but i don't think it's because the concept of destiel makes him uncomfortable at this point. i think it's because every single time he speaks about destiel, no matter what he says, a whole bunch of people are upset in a whole bunch of different directions. he says cas was dean's best friend and well that just means he's homophobic because obviously cas was more than that, but also how dare he forget about sam. he says dean was thinking that he should've said i love you too and well he obviously meant it platonically and how dare anyone think otherwise but also he stuttered when he said it so he was trying to hold back slurs. he says cas's confession testament isn't something that needs to be resolved which obviously means they will never ever address it despite the 6000 other things he's said about wanting to give it the weight it deserves when dean and cas reunite. jensen hates gay people and specifically he wants to spit in hellers faces but also how dare he say things that legitimize destiel he's a monster and this is why we love jared.

[eisforeidolon]

It really does seem that getting too deep into niche shipping fandom absolutely kills some people's media literacy. Like, I was reading this interesting anon post on Nancy's blog [X] about following a rewatcher going on about bi lighting and expecting a romantic HEA from fucking Supernatural and it sent my brain off on a tangent.

I mean, I remember thinking literary interpretation in school was so fucking absurd when it got to the point of analyzing a goddamn autobiography and waffling on about the author remembering the grass in the spring being green when they moved as a symbol of rebirth. As absurd as I still think interpreting on that level is? It did work thematically, because the interpretation matches the surface level of the story - that was when the character's life started through a period of growth/rebirth. Did they intentionally mention the grass for the symbolism of the color green, consciously or unconsciously? Fuck if I know (or care, tbh).

The problem with the way hellers (and other similar conspiracy shippers) try to use this kind of interpretation is that they ignore several majorly important factors that apply when you're talking about an open canon rather than a closed one where you know the ending. When you do this with a story that's finished, where you know the whole picture? Even if you're so openminded about what the story could have been despite all genre conventions and other outside information that your brain is on the verge of falling out and rolling away down a hill? You can filter out the noise of potential symbols and meanings that do not match that finished, overarching story. And there is a lot of fucking noise, because our brains really, really like to find patterns whether they exist or not - but most random details are not intentional symbolism, and most symbols do not have one single definitive meaning. With any sufficiently large text (which SPN definitely is), you could pick out enough random symbols and meanings to point to literally any-fucking-thing you wanted as a possibility - but without knowing the end that's no more an indication of what direction the story is actually heading than any other randomly chosen set of symbols and meanings.

In the above example, let's say you don't know anything about autobiographies in general, that author's life in particular, and stopped reading at that chapter to try and predict what'll happen next. Aha, the grass out of the window when they moved in spring was GREEN! Well, yes, that might symbolize growth and the character's life finally starting on a new positive path now. But green can also symbolize naivety and/or hope, and that could have been a brief shining moment of good possibilities before things went even more to shit. Hell, it can also mean jealousy, where maybe it would turn out their best friend who stayed behind got an opportunity they missed because they moved. Not only are those not the only possible symbolic meanings of the color? The author might have also just decided to describe the grass out the window as green because grass is generally fucking green in spring, yo. A major part of the reason someone can sit and pontificate about the ~*deep symbolic meaning*~ of that passage without potentially being obviously hilariously wrong is that they DO know where it ultimately leads and have tossed out the interpretations that explicitly don't fit the story.

What the shippers in question try to do is insist they know what the ending HAS TO BE ... because reasons. As such, every single symbol they find which could potentially signal that ending must be doing so, despite any number of other possible meanings ... because reasons. Naturally the symbols that they find are actually meaningful symbols as opposed to every single other random detail in the story with potential meaning ... because reasons. Then we reach the end of the story and they're oh-so-shocked that because reasons ... isn't a real basis for anything, actually. HOW COULD MY AMAZING INTERPRETATIONS HAVE BEEN SO WRONG WHEN I CHERRY-PICKED THEM SO CAREFULLY? CONSPIRACY! HATE CRIME! WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! There was never any basis for their assumption they knew those symbols were legitimately symbols with significance, let alone their assumption they knew the ending - other than their own fixation and entitlement.

Just to finally drive the point home about how absurd it all is? In my original autobiography example, we're talking about an autobiography of a famously successful person. Any remotely savvy reader can make pretty reasonable guesses from the genre conventions of autobiographies, that person being Known Name successful, and context in the surrounding text about how important that move was going to be to the author's life to be such a focus - and therefore what things in the surrounding text might be *cough* reasonable symbolic signposts. There's still some potential to be wrong about the particulars of that moment, but it's a more educated guess about where the story is likely to go because of everything you know about the protagonist and the genre.

Similarly, any remotely savvy watcher who has some familiarity with horror fantasy as a genre, who spent fifteen seasons watching a show where everyone fucking dies and two brothers are obsessively and intensely brothering each other to the exclusion of all their other relationships every episode, from every single premiere through every single finale? Nevermind anyone who also basically ever heard the showrunners and stars talk about it? Is not going to reasonably think, oh, hey, this is totally going to end with the single central relationship of the show indifferently separating to turn into a fluffy HEA romcom with random side characters. Even if you take off the ending of that sentence which is "because I totally found a bunch of secret clues in food and lighting that told me so".

It makes no fucking sense on a micro interpretation level of symbolism and signposts, and it makes no fucking sense on a macro interpretation level of genre and overarching themes. But, like, they really wanted it, so who cares about that? Um, all the rest of us who actually liked the show for what it was, not an entirely different thing we tried to convince ourselves it would eventually have to be ... because reasons. Especially anyone who gives even half a shit about how decent storytelling in media actually works.

[givemearmstopraywith]

technically i dont have anything against fanfic as long as its kept in its proper place but objectively i think that considering it a form of literature by arguing that its more inclusive than mainstream lit is incredibly insidious and ignorant. for one thing it is stripping both writers and readers of their ability to engage critically with texts in favour of reducing all text down to core parts- is it queer? is it diverse? does it fulfill the right quota of moral markers for me to consume it and reassure both myself and the audience of my reading that i am the “right” kind of consumer? 

this is problematic for a number of reasons, including that it presupposes that the value of all art- not just fanfic- is based on moral content and its ability to be consumed morally, which is not a new way of thinking but, when it has been shown up in the past, has usually developed alongside moral panics. attributing a moral value to a work of art, which is not created out of morality but out of creativity, is the first step towards censorship. we see this in a variety of circumstances throughout history, none of which are things we should try to emulate.

for another its insulting to the queer and bipoc writers who pursue traditional publishing, and do so successfully. when i see arguments concerning the importance of fanfic, it very typically falls into the rhetoric of the fact that it represents the stories of underrepresented or historically marginalized groups, but what actually are the most popular fanfics on ao3? according to screenrant the top five are:

castiel and dean winchester

sherlock and john watson

derek hale and stiles stilinski

bucky barnes and steve rogers 

draco malfoy and harry potter

what i am seeing is that fanfic is primarily concerned with white cis men. there is not a single person of colour or canonically gay person in that entire list. and yes, you may argue about the transformative power of fanfic, but creating a fantasy narrative in which a white cis male fulfills a certain number of quota in or outside of a fantastical narrative (you can’t tell me that a/b/o developing in the spn fandom was a big win for gay people) is not progressive, nor it is actually addressing issues of systemic oppression. especially when the consumption of fanfic, outside of fanfic, seems to turn into people who almost exclusively consume only YA lit because its more “diverse” that literary or adult fiction, which is completely and categorically untrue and symptomatic more of laziness on the part of the consumer than it is a lack of representation in publishing. 

there was a tipping point in fanfic culture in the last decade or so where it ceased to be a collaborative safe space for people and instead became a crutch which is now being used to bash anything deemed morally subversive or averse by what appears to be a consumer base of people who reduce all art and text down to consumable parts according to a fairly benign standard of morality. it is turning the act of reading from something which is meant to broaden and transform experience into something which feeds itself the same formula repeatedly in favour of keeping personal experience almost entirely in stasis. fanfic is not transforming literature, it is rather disturbingly allowing consumers to not interact with anything unlike themselves while simultaneously having the more disturbing effect of bringing continual attention to massively successful, corporatized storytelling like marvel and harry potter instead of the truly marginalized stories and diverse authors people claim they want to read but simultaneously claim doesn’t exist for their consumption. 

what it comes down is that people dont care about diversity: they care about what keeps them comfortable.