#something something cops something something proship antis something something bts and then

[winepresswrath]

5, 9, and 19 for whatever fandom you feel saltiest about

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

This one is so embarrassing but in contemplating this question I realized I’m still holding onto a fandom grudge from when I was like eleven over Harry/Hermione. I am actually much more likely to start liking rival ships out of spite and then troll myself into genuine enthusiasm than have a ship I genuinely liked permanently ruined for me, but I started out pretty agnostic over trio ships and my baby outrage over the Ron bashing still lingers, apparently. To this day one of my least favourite things my fellow nerds do in fandom is projecting their dislike of a character onto other characters who canonically love their unfavourite. My actual opinion is that they should produce the content that makes them happy but some small petty corner of my heart is perpetually chanting “suck it” at them.

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

Sect Leader Yao! Man I’m really not providing any good salt here but I recently rewatched the sleepover at Lotus Pier episode and I am genuinely charmed by how much visceral loathing he can still pull out of me after all these months. Sit down Sect Leader Yao! You enjoy sharing your terrible opinions way too much and your joy is terrible to behold. Sect Leader Yao is what makes me believe those rumours about Wei Wuxian’s experiences being directly inspired by MXTX being bullied online. I will admit that it’s a love to hate situation and the moment where he turns to Wei Wuxian all “well we’ve got ourselves another dark lord, what are YOU going to do about it” while Jiang Cheng looks like he’s gonna puke in the background is just art.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

Twitter artists don’t cross post to tumblr enough, which leads to me going to fandom twitter.

The vast majority of people I’ve met have been amazing and provided me with much needed joy in this not great year, but this the first time I’ve been in a big fandom in years, and also the first time I’ve actively participated in years, and wow! There are definitely some people floating on the edges of my fandom experience who appear to be very invested in being unkind to the people around them, and that just sucks, especially when the fandom is big enough for that unpleasantness to be amplified pretty intensely.

Beyond that I do not think Lan Wangji said “who can tell me who is right and who is wrong” so the fandom could respond “Clearly I have objective textual support for how my favourite was completely justified in everything they ever did and anyone who ever caused them pain or inconvenience was a Hateful Bully with only the lowest and least justified of motives.” Sometimes I feel like people are basically arguing that in any conflict someone is right and someone is wrong, and the wronged person needs to run some emotional math on how much harm has been done to them and how intentional that harm was before deciding if they’re allowed to be hurt and angry. That is both pretty alien to my own experience of how people work and not a very enjoyable way (for me personally) to approach this story in particular.