#there's discourse but it's minimal and people usually stay in their lanes

[waitineedaname]

3, 5, 20, 30 for questions? :)

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

ohhh SUCH a hard question. I feel like this year, I challenged myself to write things I wouldn't normally write, so I have two answers to this question. I am terrified of HTML and find it extremely difficult to use, but I challenged myself to write something in reddit format, and it was a ton of work!! so I'm very proud of how you go inactive for a few months, and everyone decides you’re a missing person turned out. plus I just think it's really funny. the other thing I wrote that was a new challenge was smut! I haven't written smut since I was a teenager, which is embarrassing in its own right, but svsss is such a horny series on its own, so it gave me the courage to write smut for the first time in years! check out Business Incentives for moshang and The Strap™

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

self-written dreams has made me fucking insane. I posted this fic in September, what the fuck do you mean it's got more hits than any other fic I've ever written. what do you mean it has nearly double the kudos of my second most kudos'd fic and more than twice the bookmarks of my second most bookmarked fic. it's also my third most commented on fic and my second most subscribed fic, despite being a oneshot. what the fuck guys. thank you scum villain fandom for being so insanely supportive!

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

we're now on third most reread fic lol probably Business Incentives again. I am just a humble lesbian <3

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

definitely how receptive the svsss fandom is!! svsss is a story that's inherently wrapped up in the relationship between writers and readers, and I think there's something about how it's a story about storytelling that particularly appeals to writers, which in turn creates a fandom that's super supportive of fan writers, because most of the fandom are writers themselves! I've been in fandoms where you have to beg for comments, but the svsss fandom has always surprised me by leaving frequent comments and bookmarks and reblogs, not to mention fanart! getting art for my own fic ideas always makes me explode with joy, and just in general, I'm constantly seeing fanart for other people's fics and it's really nice to see. the svsss fandom isn't perfect but it is generally such a nice and supportive environment to make fan content in <3 thank u scummies

[thehollowprince]

I'm actually very ship and let ship so long as you're doing so like, with your eyes open about what you're doing. So when TFA came out and r*ylo became a thing I thought "I personally hate this but at least we can have some good conversations about why we see a white man being violent to a woman onscreen and instinctively parse that as romantic." What a clown I was, huh? Years later all the "Ben is a cinnamon roll uwu" discourse has turned me entirely off Star Wars. Let alone the damn kiss.

Oh, you're preaching to the choir.

I've long grown accustomed to people shipping the weirdest or even outright abusive ships, but I stayed in my lane. I realized fairly early on that no matter what you say to these people, pointing out how toxic or abusive a relationship is, that they'll bury their heads in the sand and outright ignore you, oftentimes shouting about how I (and others) are "ruining their fandom experience".

That's why how I found myself in the "Anti" community (if such a thing exists). I started tagging my posts condemning these horrible ships appropriately, and they (the shippers) still came for me, often trying to use their own history of past abusive relationships as justification for supporting the ship. To which I usually responded with "to each their own" while scratching my head as to why, if they suffered that kind of abuse, would they support a ship that repeats that behavior.

I stay in my lane, but these people don't take any criticism of their ships well. It always baffles me as to why they go looking for posts that criticize something they love, but that's an overarching fandom problem that I don't have any kind of an answer to.

Circling back to R*ylo, I've said it on my blog many times before, but I originally liked Kylo. I thought he could have been one of the best villains in the Star Wars franchise. When I left the theater after The Force Awakens, I was hopeful. I left that theater knowing that Finn was the male protagonist/lead of the new trilogy and under the impression that Finnrey was going to be the big romance. But then Johnson and Kennedy did The Last Jedi and everything went downhill after that. They just reinforced the stereotype that all bad (white) guys (they're always white) actually suffered some horribly tragic backstory and therefor they're just "lashing out" and are totally justified in their irrational anger.

Someone said it better than I could, but (and I'm paraphrasing here) the reason so many of these villains or antagonists are romanticized or immediately forgiven (both by the narrative and the fandom) is that we're used to the POC being the bad guys, so when a white guy is the villain, the white guy writing him feels a kinship and says, "well they're not bad, they're just misunderstood".

For the record, I'm a diehard Finnpoe supporter. I thought John and Oscar had amazing chemistry together and within the confines of the story, it would have taken minimal effort to make that relationship happen. That being said, this is Disney, and I never actually expected that to happen. I, like many others who watched the movies, were certain they Finn and Rey would end up together, but sadly that didn't happen.

Speaking of Finn, the fandom's complete erasure of him as a character and lead is what made me be so anti R*ylo, because more often than not, when trying to woobify Ren, they systematically dismantled Finn's character and gave his backstory and redemption and nice qualities to Kylo, thereafter calling him Ben Solo. This all-encompassing notion that a black man couldn't be seen as a viable love interest for the white female lead is obnoxious and leads into a further discussion of why fandom, despite constantly calling for more Characters of Color, often overlook them, especially when they're in main and/or leading roles.

(I mean, we know that they only want the diversity if it's in a subservient role to the white people, but they don't know that we know, so we're not going to talk about it. Well feign ignorance a little longer.)

But this problem of cannibalizing a hero of color to enhance a white character isn't new. Anyone who's been to my blog in the last few weeks knows that I've been dealing with a particular Anon who absolutely loathes Scott McCall, a Mexican-American character and the titular character of the show Teen Wolf. That fandom (probably the most toxic I've ever encountered) had continuously gone out of it's way to demonize the protagonist to prop up his best friend/sidekick, often by stripping Scott of his good qualities and draping them around Stiles in an attempt to make the character more palatable.

I used to be very much a "ship and let ship" person, but I draw the line at the erasure/demonization of the characters of color in an attempt to make those crack ships happen.

(PS: sorry I took so long to get to this. Tumblr is... well, Tumblr, and I haven't been getting the notifications that I've gotten mail.)

[thebellwitchblog]

Some Things I Feel the Need to Address in Fandom

Hello there! I’ve been in fandom for a long time and as such have witnessed it evolve into what it is today. I wasn’t around during the times when people feared Anne Rice and her lawyers, but I did pop into the scene soon after when the horror was still fresh in everyone’s minds, and I’ve been around in some capacity ever since. Fandom has always always had problems that needed addressing, and that’s what I intend to do in this post. Yes, there are plenty of posts just like this one floating around Tumblr and other sites where fandom gathers, even in the author’s notes of fanfiction where disclaimers once stood.

All fandoms across the board have the same problems, some more so than others, but the same general themes show up. Of course depending on the canon material there are more problems of certain types than others, but really most problems stem from one thing: People are trying to police how others experience fandom.

What do I mean by this? Well, simply put, select people are trying to decide what is and isn’t acceptable for other people to do in fandom. This goes beyond educating about polite ways to interact with each other and straight into deciding what is or isn’t okay to headcanon or ship.

The major problem with this is that fandom arose from people that were passionate about some creative work or another and wanted to share this passion with others, even if they didn’t agree on certain aspects what bound them together was their shared love for the source material. There have always been ship wars and discourse in the communities, but here within the last few years, particularly here on Tumblr, these have gotten out of hand.

It is perfectly fine to disagree about who should be paired together, to disagree over headcanons and how characters should be remade. It’s okay to disagree, but once disagreements become demonization and a toxic us vs them ideology then fandom becomes a dangerous place. I’ve witnessed all out vicious wars on here over things like shipping a 17 year old with someone in their mid-20s. This isn’t okay.

Fanon is literally anything you want it to be. That’s why it isn’t canon. Fanon is taking the canon and changing it up as much as you would like until it’s perfectly suited for you. Do you ship these two characters? Great now they’re together in your fanon. Do you think this character gives off major ace vibes? Well guess what! They’re ace! In your fanon. Your fanon does not under any circumstances get to invalidate someone else’s. Let me repeat that one more time, but bolded. Your fanon does not, under any circumstances, get to invalidate someone else’s.

So far I’ve talked in really general terms, but now I’m going to address some more specific things I’ve seen. Again, these aren’t about any specific fandom, but specific problems I’ve seen people fighting over in multiple fandoms.

Shipping minors with adults. This is, not gonna lie, a very very iffy area and it comes up a lot. Whether or not this is okay is dependent on the age gap. NOT the age gap in the canon work, but rather the age gap in your fanon. What do I mean by this? Well, let’s say a character in canon is 21 and you’re wanting to draw them with another character that’s maybe 15 in canon. How could this be made remotely okay? Easy! Age up the younger or de-age the older enough that they’re within an acceptable age gap. This sort of stuff has existed in fandom since the dawn of fandom. It’s really nothing new. Note: This is not pedophilia! Pedophilia, by definition, is a chronophilia (sexual attraction to individuals within a specific stage of life), and mental illness, characterized by the sexual attraction to pre-pubescent children, which the DSM-5 includes up to age 13, by adults. Even without changing the ages, a 15 year old being shipped with a 21 year old is not pedophilia. It is Hebephilia or, more likely, Ephebophilia depending on whether the 15 year old is experiencing puberty or just after it and what definition of the two you reference as these have not been formally included as a mental illness as of yet and thus do not have an agreed upon age range, but regardless 14 and 15 year olds do not fall in the range of pedophilia.

Shipping canonically non-het characters in het relationships. This is what we’ve been doing all along with cishet characters this entire time, guys. Literally probably 90% of slash/femslash (oh geez are these terms even used anymore? I think I’m showing my age) is two canonically heterosexual characters being shipped in a pretty gay relationship. Granted this usually happens because there wasn’t a lot of representation, but now that representation is growing it’s to be expected that people are going to do the same with the LGBT characters. This goes right back to what I touched on earlier in this post- let everyone experience fandom like they want. Note: It is not homophobic to ship a non-het character with someone of the opposite gender just like it’s not heterophobic to ship two het characters in a gay relationship. This especially goes for characters that we don’t know their sexuality specifically we just know that they’re non-het.

Feeling like the creators of the source work owe you something. This one isn’t something you see outright stated a lot, but it’s evident in how people act towards animation studios, authors, etc. Whenever something doesn’t go how people want it to in the canon, then people practically riot and threaten the creators- even the voice actors and actors will get hate from fans when they don’t have any, or very minimal, control over where the story goes. Yes, you can get upset over what happens in the canon and get worked up, but when it gets to threats and absolute chaos? Especially when it’s just a rumor? That’s not okay anymore. That’s when it gets toxic. We have headcanons and fanon for a reason. It’s there so that if the canon material goes completely opposite of what you’d like you can still have that perfect ending. That’s a large part of why we have fanworks. 

Other Problematic Ships. Policing ships isn’t always due to age gaps. I’ve witnessed it with canonically abusive characters a lot, for instance. Regardless of why a ship is “problematic” there is no excuse for telling someone they cannot ship it. Not only does this fall back to the whole “Let everyone experience fandom how they want” ideology I’ve brought up on multiple occasions throughout this post, but also they can interpret this ship however they want. People disregard canon a lot in fandom, so why is this any different? More often than not the character isn’t abusive in their fanon no matter what the canon might say. Even if the character is still abusive in the ship, that doesn’t mean they’re not allowed to ship it. I’ve talked to some people where these ships were an honest to god coping mechanism for them after they got out of an abusive relationship. Note: This does not make it okay to romanticize abuse.

These next few points aren’t specific to fandom but instead Tumblr as a whole that are a huge problem in fandom as well.

Echochambers. Tumblr, and social media in general, is notorious for this. People surround themselves with like-minded people and block anyone that even slightly differs from their opinions. Why is this a bad thing? Because when we’re surrounded by the same viewpoints our viewpoint narrows. A lot. And misinformation spreads faster and is harder to get rid of. Not to mention other problems such as nurturing an us vs them ideology. Things get blown out of proportion, people become unable to cope with opposition, and it’s just not a good time for anyone involved.

Callout Culture. Callout posts are so so so common that it is honestly overwhelming. If you’ve been on this site and actively posting for any length of time, you’ve probably been called out by someone for some perceived crime against humanity. Whether or not you actually committed this crime, or if this “crime” is actually worth the backlash, you’re now blacklisted by a varying number of people depending on how many followers the person has. Congratulations! Crimes can be, but are certainly not limited to: - reblogging a post from someone you didn’t know was some vile creature in human clothing (whether they actually are one or not doesn’t matter. What matters is they’re considered one). - you used a term you had no earthly idea was a slur. No slap on the wrist for you, you’re going straight to the gallows. - posting fanart of a ship someone considers problematic (see two prime examples above!) Why is Callout Culture such a problem? It demonizes and turns entire communities against someone for minor mistakes or entirely bogus reasons in the first place. If someone makes a mistake they shouldn’t be blacklisted immediately; they should be informed of why what they did was wrong first and foremost and given the chance to change.

Holding Grudges. Please. I am begging you. Let. People. Grow. If someone says something years ago and then not only apologizes but proves they’ve changed? Let it go and move on. What is the point in insisting that people need to widen their views if you won’t let them live down a mistake they made beforehand? If they change then reward their efforts instead of holding their mistakes over their head. This goes for actors and actresses, directors, producers, people here on Tumblr, etc.

I could keep going and bring up even more problems, but honestly I’m tired. It’s time to wrap this up.  tl;dr stop acting like you own fandom and let people do what they want. Let people ship what they want, headcannon what they want, etc etc etc. Fandom belongs to everyone and canon material belongs to the actual creator, not you. The only thing you own is the stuff that you make. Mind your own business, stay in your lane, and let things go every now and then. You’ll be a lot happier, I promise.

[markantonys]

how do you decide who you follow on here?

first of all i follow new blogs veeeeery rarely bc my dash is carefully cultivated to make me happy and i like it as it is. i don’t want to risk accidentally following someone who’s gonna end up annoying me and then i have to unfollow them and it’s awkward, so i’d prefer to just have never followed them in the first place lmao this sounds super snobby but i promise i’m not a snob, it’s just that the Tumblr Environment stresses me out really easily and sooo many blogs on here are so negative and salty all the time and i really really don’t like that bc tumblr is supposed to be my escape from stress and negativity

but when i DO follow new blogs: to be perfectly honest, i do a LOT of snap judgments based on urls & icons which i know is bad bc there are tons of people out there who have bad urls/icons but great blogs and yet i can’t help my human tendency to judge a book by its cover ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ once a blog has caught my eye i then look for:

mostly star wars (preferably prequels & anidala) and/or good tagging system so i can blacklist fandoms i’m not interested in

good quality content

no drama

minimal negativity and Discourse™

either shares my star wars opinions or doesn’t openly shit on ones they disagree with

is generally a nice person, tho this is hard to tell from a quick glance at someone’s blog so it’s not so much something i look for when following as something that would cause me to unfollow (that is, i’d unfollow if you’re an asshole and constantly rude. this seems awfully rich since i was being super rude yesterday but that was a rare occurrence resulting from many buttons being pushed throughout the day okay i’m usually pretty nice i promise aksjdf)

obviously everyone in the star wars fandom on this site is very negative and doesn’t know how to stay in their own goddamn lane re: star wars opinions they don’t agree with, hence i’m only following 74 blogs rn lmaoo