An Open Letter to Fandom
Dec. 6th, 2018 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kari_izumi posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fanficrants Hi, folks.
This is my first comm post in....gosh, I can't even remember how long. Probably well before I joined the Navy and that was before iPad was a thing.
But wow, it's sure cool to be back on an LJ-like place again...one whose culture of inclusion, and particularly that of the original FFR, I didn't appreciate nearly as much as I should have:
d I'm glad I've seen a few Tumblr posts reminding people to not come in and assume that all their behavior will carry over to established communities, because coming into original FFR from the horridly toxic Godawful Fanfic was a shock for me. I was a feral fan, and I think I ended up there googling something unrelated. But that was unfortunately my first toehold into anything resembling a fandom community--one that encouraged harrassment of people who didn't write well, or wrote extreme gross stories or who though writing abusive ships and incest and yaoi were beyond the pale and should be driven out the fandom--
...and if youre in any way familiar with Tumblr culture at all, you can probably see where I'm going with this rant, but we'll put a pin in that for now.
Cut to 2006, when GAFF went down for repairs and FFR was the closest thing to a replacement for that. I sign up. All's well and good until I make a post laughing at a response I got to a hot take of a review I left. As you can tell from the poorly spelled review and my callousness that shocked even me when I reread that for posting it here, the anti attitude of placing fictional purity over real life people is nothing new, even if the motivations are different. And like a typical anti, I was way, way off base about that issue addressed.
I got torn a new asshole that day--at least, it felt like it. Compared to some post, that was positively civil, all things considered. And even then I'm sad to say the only thing I immediately took away from that encounter and most of the ones I had for the next two years I posted there (and well after that, which again, I'll pin) was that I just couldn't wait for GAFF to reopen. Then it did and that became an even bigger festering shithole than it had been before when tonly the bullies returned, but that's a rant for another day.
You know what made me take that good long look in the mirror at myself? Tumblr culture did. Because when I saw fanbrats (and antis are far more deserving of that title than any OC fanfic writer ever was) launching harrassment campaigns over fictional ships and false reporting accounts and seeking out content to be offended by for the purpose of attention, I had to ask: how was that any different than what I'd been doing 12 years earlier? Sure, I didn't have any particular moral crusade like Klance antis claim, but the end result of driving creators out of fandom was the exact same.
I've come across more than one person who was driven off of writing because of that shit, including most embarrassingly a fellow mutural who sounded exactly like this very author. And it's like...what was even the point? For fandom purity? To get "good" stories? And who knows how many others were flamed off of FF.net for inoffensive Mary Sues as every OC was called, or songfics or other stuff that we could've...idk, not read?
That's was when every single post I'd come across the original FFR finally clicked. I finally got why people defended incest fics, and abuse fic and "weird" pairings which was often code for slash pairings. It was also why anyone even approaching homophobia was chased out in quick fashion before any of that shit could take root here. I'd be lying if I thought every single beatdowns I saw was warranted, but knowing what I know now about the history of fandom and queer history in general and especially everything over the last two years IRL...I understand why.
Here's what I'm coming to in all this, and I need to say it because it's been at least ten years overdue:
Thank you to all those who fought for everyone to be included in fandom.
Thank you to all those who set me and other useful idiots straight, and tried to educate us. You guys are the reason I did exactly that when I created my discourse sideblog.
Thank you for those who, when I tried justifying nasty behavior I'd received, because I didn't believe in being a hypocrite, told me I didn't deserve bashing like that over a stupid error (even one that I or one of my four betas should've picked up on before chapter 15, but...)
Thank you to the mod Theo_Harrison in particular. We had a bit of a dust-up at the FFRR once where you assumed I was being a bigot for enabling bad behavior. We eventually resolved it but it's a post I come back to and I show anytime anyone speaks over minorities (especially trans people like yourself IIRC) as an example of what not to do (ie, what I did, lol) and that we aren't done growing our minds until we're six feet under.
Thank you to every person who every single fanfic writer. Every last one of you, from the drabble writers to those who been 300k epics; from canon-compliant works to crack fics that turn characters into ducks for no reason other than the author could; from those who plot to those who writing off the cuff; for those who who wrote slash lemons in secret so that kids today can write their mlm G-rated domestic AUs in the open--and to actually have it be labeled G-rated and not bumped up for virture of being queer
And just know that if and when the Great Tumblr Migration wanders over here once that place shuts down for good and the antis try to come in here to pull the same ill informed bullshit I did, I will be here to defend every single last one of you and your right to write your stories in peace.
With all of the love,
One Grumpy Old Fandom Mom ( 😉)
This is my first comm post in....gosh, I can't even remember how long. Probably well before I joined the Navy and that was before iPad was a thing.
But wow, it's sure cool to be back on an LJ-like place again...one whose culture of inclusion, and particularly that of the original FFR, I didn't appreciate nearly as much as I should have:
d I'm glad I've seen a few Tumblr posts reminding people to not come in and assume that all their behavior will carry over to established communities, because coming into original FFR from the horridly toxic Godawful Fanfic was a shock for me. I was a feral fan, and I think I ended up there googling something unrelated. But that was unfortunately my first toehold into anything resembling a fandom community--one that encouraged harrassment of people who didn't write well, or wrote extreme gross stories or who though writing abusive ships and incest and yaoi were beyond the pale and should be driven out the fandom--
...and if youre in any way familiar with Tumblr culture at all, you can probably see where I'm going with this rant, but we'll put a pin in that for now.
Cut to 2006, when GAFF went down for repairs and FFR was the closest thing to a replacement for that. I sign up. All's well and good until I make a post laughing at a response I got to a hot take of a review I left. As you can tell from the poorly spelled review and my callousness that shocked even me when I reread that for posting it here, the anti attitude of placing fictional purity over real life people is nothing new, even if the motivations are different. And like a typical anti, I was way, way off base about that issue addressed.
I got torn a new asshole that day--at least, it felt like it. Compared to some post, that was positively civil, all things considered. And even then I'm sad to say the only thing I immediately took away from that encounter and most of the ones I had for the next two years I posted there (and well after that, which again, I'll pin) was that I just couldn't wait for GAFF to reopen. Then it did and that became an even bigger festering shithole than it had been before when tonly the bullies returned, but that's a rant for another day.
You know what made me take that good long look in the mirror at myself? Tumblr culture did. Because when I saw fanbrats (and antis are far more deserving of that title than any OC fanfic writer ever was) launching harrassment campaigns over fictional ships and false reporting accounts and seeking out content to be offended by for the purpose of attention, I had to ask: how was that any different than what I'd been doing 12 years earlier? Sure, I didn't have any particular moral crusade like Klance antis claim, but the end result of driving creators out of fandom was the exact same.
I've come across more than one person who was driven off of writing because of that shit, including most embarrassingly a fellow mutural who sounded exactly like this very author. And it's like...what was even the point? For fandom purity? To get "good" stories? And who knows how many others were flamed off of FF.net for inoffensive Mary Sues as every OC was called, or songfics or other stuff that we could've...idk, not read?
That's was when every single post I'd come across the original FFR finally clicked. I finally got why people defended incest fics, and abuse fic and "weird" pairings which was often code for slash pairings. It was also why anyone even approaching homophobia was chased out in quick fashion before any of that shit could take root here. I'd be lying if I thought every single beatdowns I saw was warranted, but knowing what I know now about the history of fandom and queer history in general and especially everything over the last two years IRL...I understand why.
Here's what I'm coming to in all this, and I need to say it because it's been at least ten years overdue:
Thank you to all those who fought for everyone to be included in fandom.
Thank you to all those who set me and other useful idiots straight, and tried to educate us. You guys are the reason I did exactly that when I created my discourse sideblog.
Thank you for those who, when I tried justifying nasty behavior I'd received, because I didn't believe in being a hypocrite, told me I didn't deserve bashing like that over a stupid error (even one that I or one of my four betas should've picked up on before chapter 15, but...)
Thank you to the mod Theo_Harrison in particular. We had a bit of a dust-up at the FFRR once where you assumed I was being a bigot for enabling bad behavior. We eventually resolved it but it's a post I come back to and I show anytime anyone speaks over minorities (especially trans people like yourself IIRC) as an example of what not to do (ie, what I did, lol) and that we aren't done growing our minds until we're six feet under.
Thank you to every person who every single fanfic writer. Every last one of you, from the drabble writers to those who been 300k epics; from canon-compliant works to crack fics that turn characters into ducks for no reason other than the author could; from those who plot to those who writing off the cuff; for those who who wrote slash lemons in secret so that kids today can write their mlm G-rated domestic AUs in the open--and to actually have it be labeled G-rated and not bumped up for virture of being queer
And just know that if and when the Great Tumblr Migration wanders over here once that place shuts down for good and the antis try to come in here to pull the same ill informed bullshit I did, I will be here to defend every single last one of you and your right to write your stories in peace.
With all of the love,
One Grumpy Old Fandom Mom ( 😉)