Nina. Multifandom blog. Officially and hopelessly jornaerys, jonsa,
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Aziracrow trash. X-Files Wincest, J2, Rufus Sewell and David Tennant own me and I will drag Moffits and D&D to my dying breath
The Architecture of Fear: Gatekeeping and Survival in Modern Fandom
There is a side effect of fandom gatekeeping I want to talk about, one I only just noticed, though looking back, it has been present in almost every fandom community I have ever been a part of. When I think of gatekeeping, I usually picture the classic, elitist archetype: the person standing at the door demanding you "name three albums" or prove your loyalty to a character before you’re allowed to speak. But there seems to be a much quieter, more insidious form of gatekeeping happening in niche spaces right now. It isn’t driven by supreme confidence or elitism. It’s driven by absolute terror.
It’s the phenomenon of fans ostracising others, not because they necessarily want to, but because they are terrified that if they don’t throw the stone, they will be the next ones kicked out of the castle. In highly insular, hyper-policed niche fandom spaces, guilt by association is the ultimate law. If a writer or artist steps out of line, maybe they write an unpopular dynamic, express a nuanced critique, or simply fall out of favour with the dominant clique, they become "hazardous terrain."
When someone is exiled from a tight-knit community, a strange panic sweeps through the remaining members. Suddenly, interacting with the exile’s work becomes a political risk. People begin to unfollow, untag, and distance themselves. The mechanism here isn’t genuine outrage; it’s a survival tactic. It’s a preemptive strike to signal compliance to the rest of the group. In a fandom panopticon, you have to be seen actively enforcing the borders, or the community will turn its crosshairs on you next. In this economy of fear, people will trade their closest friends, and their own artistic voice for the fleeting safety of the inner circle.
This desperation stems from a profound cultural shift: for many, fandom is no longer just a beloved hobby or a creative outlet, it has become their entire identity. When an interest expands until it swallows a person's whole personality, every choice, friendship, and moral stance is filtered through the lens of the community. In this state, a disagreement about a fictional character is no longer a lighthearted debate; it is felt as an existential threat to their very sense of self. When your standing in a digital circle is the bedrock of your self-worth, protecting that standing becomes the compass by which you make every single decision.
This environment inevitably breeds intense personality clashes, creating a volatile dynamic between two distinct types of fans: those who survive by performing, and those who simply show up as themselves. In a hyper-policed space, people who are genuinely unbothered, who speak openly, write without asking for permission, and refuse to filter their personalities through the committee, are deeply triggering to those who have built their entire online presence on calculated conformity. To someone who spends every day walking on eggshells to maintain their status, a person who is unapologetically themselves feels like an insult. They simply cannot handle someone who isn't afraid. The refusal to play the social survival game is misconstrued as arrogance, and so the authentic creator becomes an immediate target for hostility.
If the threat of exile is the stick, then performative validation is the carrot. Once a gatekept community establishes its hierarchy, an intricate economy of praise takes over. Have you ever noticed how, in certain circles, every single piece of work produced by the "approved" members is immediately met with giant, multi-paragraph essays of public adoration within hours of posting? On the surface, it looks like a beautiful, supportive community. But when you look closer, this excessive ego-stroking often functions as a loyalty ritual. Praising the right people is a transactional insurance policy. By inflating the egos of the dominant voices or the inner circle, smaller creators buy themselves a protective shield against the very gatekeeping they fear. The praise becomes less about the actual art and more about confirming allegiance. It creates a dizzying echo chamber where the tolerance for differing opinions drops to zero, because a circle that only nods together eventually freezes together.
This hierarchy is further complicated by a strange, modern form of divine right: the proximity flex. Within these insular spaces, a single interaction with the celebrity or creator, a liked comment on social media, a brief conversation at a stage door, or a selfie at a convention VIP meetup, is immediately converted into institutional power. The fans who achieve this treat the interaction not as a stroke of luck, but as anointment. They behave as though meeting the creator has granted them a deeper, more sacred understanding of the text than anyone else, granting them the ultimate authority to decide who is a "real" fan and who is a hazard to the community. It is a desperate attempt to grasp at certainty, using a five-second parasocial interaction as a shield to protect their own fragile standing in the pyramid.
And it’s getting worse. The very architecture of the modern internet is actively accelerating this behaviour, turning what used to be a hobby into a high-stakes game of social survival. We have gamified moral purity, adopting corporate and safety language to manufacture severe offences out of ordinary human interaction. In these spaces, an uncurated adult conversation—even one held naturally and consensually among peers—can instantly be reframed as a boundary violation or "harassment" if held outside the arbitrary lines drawn by the clique. They no longer say "that conversation makes us uncomfortable." They weaponize pseudo-legal terminology to turn a candid, adult moment into a moral crisis, raising the stakes from a matter of personal comfort to an unpardonable sin. By recasting creative differences and casual authenticity as existential threats to safety, the dominant clique grants itself the moral high ground to exile anyone who refuses to speak in corporate-approved scripts.
The most fascinating (and heartbreaking, as I’ve recently discovered) part of this dynamic is what happens to appreciation when someone actually does get pushed out of the circle. When you are on the outside looking in, the matrix glitches, and you see the architecture for exactly what it is. You might post a story on AO3 and notice a sudden, cold public silence from people who used to comment regularly.
Yet, quietly, your inbox or private messages might tell a completely different story. People will slide into your DMs to tell you they loved your work, that your writing is incredible, and that they are still reading. This is the ultimate proof of the system's hypocrisy. The quality of the work didn't drop; the audience’s permission to praise it publicly did. Public support has been made a political risk, forcing genuine appreciation underground, while the public comments sections of the "approved" circle become an over-inflated theatre of loyalty.
This stark divide happens because the modern internet doesn't actually reward individuality; it rewards categorization. Digital spaces have trained people to be hyper-vigilant compliance machines, neatly slotting others into predictable boxes; safe or hazardous, in-group or out-group. When you show up as a complex, uncurated human being who writes and speaks outside their rigid scripts, you break the unspoken contract of the panopticon: predictability. Your independence becomes a glitch in their system.
For the people stuck inside that anxious bubble, your authenticity is a terrifying mirror. Seeing you refuse to filter your work or bow to the self-appointed committee highlights their own conformity. It is a heavy psychological truth to carry, which is why it is infinitely easier for them to publicly freeze you out than to look in the mirror and admit they’ve traded their creative freedom for a transactional insurance policy. They want your art—their private messages prove it—but they lack the bravery to claim it in the light.
And if you are one of those people, sitting behind a screen, quietly enjoying someone’s work, but too terrified of the fallout to leave a public comment or hit like, you are forgiven. It is easy to judge compliance until you are the one facing the cold wind of exile. But it’s worth asking yourself what you are actually saving by staying quiet. Fandom isn't supposed to be an obstacle course of political manoeuvring or a constant test of allegiance. At its core, it is meant to be an open, accepting sanctuary, a place where people from completely different walks of life gather simply because they love the same world. You shouldn't have to navigate a minefield just to show appreciation where appreciation is due. Joy shouldn't require a permit from a committee.
Getting frozen out of a niche space hurts deeply. It’s a sudden loss of connection and friendship that can make you question your own talent and self-worth. But once you step back from the glass, there is an immense sense of relief. When you are inside that anxious bubble, there is a constant, subconscious pressure to walk on eggshells. When you’re in the thick of it, the walls are invisible. You genuinely believe you are choosing your tropes, your friendships, and your opinions freely, completely blind to the fact that your preferences are being subtly dictated by a consensus you're terrified to break. It’s only when you are forced outside that the glass becomes visible. You write to please the gatekeepers, you use the "correct" tropes, and you filter yourself through a committee of people who are terrified of their own shadows. Once you are out, they lose their power. They have already done the worst thing they could do, they excluded you and you survived it.
Which brings us to the most important part: continuing to create anyway.
When the public stats drop, the temptation is to pull back, delete your works, and stop sharing. But keeping your stories and art out there, regardless of the lack of public comments or likes, is a radical act of reclamation. Fandom belongs to the people who love the story, not the self-appointed committee policing the gates. When you keep creating purely out of your own love for the world, you change the energy of the space.
More than that, you create a beacon. Somewhere out there, sitting behind a screen, is another estranged fan. Someone else who felt the cold shoulder of the inner circle, who thinks they are completely alone, and who is quietly losing their joy for the source material.
When they find your work, unapologetic, persistent, and free from the clique's rules, it might mean more to them than you will ever know. It tells them that there is life outside the fortress.
The silence on your public dashboard isn't a reflection of your worth; it's a reflection of their fear. Go ahead and write the story anyway. Create the art anyway. The right people will find it, even if they have to read it in the dark.
countdown to season 8 → favourite character: jaime lannister
So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the king, obey the king, obey your father, protect the innocent, defend the weak. But what if your father despises the king? What if the king massacres the innocent? It’s too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one vow or another.
ive always been lowk jealous of my friend bcos she loves house md and she has the same birthday as hugh laurie but i just found out that nikolaj coster-waldau's birthday is 2 days before mine so now i feel better.
Anyways happy early birthday to me and nikolaj coster-waldau
Oh you’re Nina!! I know you from the Hollywood AU that actually has the verisimilitude of what the industry actually is like!! Also as a David Tennant fan I have to recommend Rivals to you. He’s an absolute riot even if he’s playing a character more evil than when he played a literal demon.
Yes, I am! Guilty on both counts.
I have to watch Rivals, it's not available where I live, but the talent of Davit Tennant compels me to find a way!!
This has been sitting in my drafts for ages. Ever since the memorable day when someone who claims to like Sansa (but is also shipping her with her abuser) said that Sansa is “not that nice”. I guess there is no time like the present to post it.
Even with the POV trap and unfavourable introduction we get to Sansa in place I seriously can’t fathom how anyone can read the books and walk away with the impression that she isn’t a nice person. I’ll go so far as saying that it can sometimes be hard to seperate her grand lady persona from her real character, but then her lady persona is a pretty nice one too.
Please feel free to add if I’ve left anything out. I haven’t done a full reread of her chapters to make this, but gone from memory and found the references, so it’s very likely that I’ve overlooked something.
A Game of Thrones
1) Being nice to Beth, stroking her hair to take theharshness off correcting her (AGoT, Arya I)
2) Covering for Arya to Septa Mordane x 2 (though the first time might just be her instinct to avoid trouble and hide that Arya had been insulting the prince (Myrcella was within earshot)) (AGoT, Arya I + Sansa I)
3) Actively finding reasons to be sad about when Ser Hugh of the Vale is killed, amd her initial reaction is to emotionally disconnect (AGoT, Sansa II)
4) Feeling sad for the Hound and telling him his brother was “no true knight” after he had been insulting her and trying to scare her (AGoT, Sansa II)
5) NOT telling Jeyne her thoughts about her crush on Beric Dondarrion (Oh yes, people give Sansa shit for this, but what she was thinking was true, but she didn’t say it. Someone with less care for other people’s feelings surely would have) (Sansa III) (By the way also the chapter where this child, who is shipped with adults thinks that 22 is old)
6) Drying her own tears to comfort Jeyne when they were locked up together (AGoT, Sansa IV)
7) Remembering to ask Cersei about Jeyne’s father in an incredibly stressful situation (AGoT, Sansa IV) (... I vividly remember how one particular anti translated “Jeyne's scared,” Sansa said. “She won't stop crying. I promised her I'd ask if she could see her father” into: “Sansa got Jeyne sent away because she complained that she cried all the time“.)
8) Begging for her father’s life in front of the entire court.
A Clash of Kings
9) Saving ser Dontos while risking Joffrey’s wrath herself. It was a close call (ACoK, Sansa I)
10) Advising Joffrey to comfort Tommen when he fell from his horse - This just after the incident with Dontos (ACoK, Sansa I)
11) Defending Tommen to Joffrey when he cried saying goodbye to Myrcella. Earning herself another threat (ACoK, Tyrion IX)
12) Persuading Joffrey to throw money instead of ridning down the woman with the dead child (ACoK, Tyrion IX)
13) Pleading for the man who threw dung at Joffrey and hit her with it too (ACoK, Tyrion IX)
14) Add her every interaction with the Hound in this book. I’m not going to insert references right now. But Sansa always shows him empathy, even though he never deserves it.
15) Praying/singing for just about everybody but the Lannisters before the battle of the Blackwater (ACoK, Sansa IV)
16) Trying to persuade Lollys to cross the drawbridge (ACoK, Sansa IV)
17) Still choosing love over fear - “If I am ever a queen, I'll make them love me.“ (ACoK, Sansa IV)
18) Calming the ladies after Cersei leaves (ACoK, Sansa IV)
19) Getting help for Lancel. An enemy (ACoK, Sansa IV)
A Storm of Swords
20) Telling Olenna that Joffrey is a monster. Even when she knows that it would be better for her if he married Margaery (ASoS, Sansa I)
21) Repeating the warning to Margaery. Still in Sansa’s best interest that Margaery marries him (ASoS, Sansa II)
22) Telling Dontos about the Willas plot (Sansa II)
23) Feeling bad about not kneeling for Tyrion (Really, she didn’t have to feel bad about embarassing him, but she did anyway) (ASoS, Sansa III)
24) Then actually kneeling in front of him for the rest (ASoS, Sansa III)
25) Oh, and then she even asks him to dance (ASoS, Sansa III)
26) Trying to find Tyrion’s beauty on their wedding night, remembering that Septa Mordane told her that all men are beautiful (ASoS, Sansa III)
27) Praising Lancel’s valor and saying how good it was to see him getting strong again, making both Lancel and Ser Kevan beam (ASoS, Tyrion VIII)
A Feast for Crows
28) Letting Sweetrobin sleep in her bed. He asks Sansa if she is his mother now. Sansa says yes because she knows this lie will soothe him (AFfC, Sansa I)
Trying to find things his future wife will like about him
(AFfC, Sansa I, Alayne I)
29) Helping Sweetrobin across the bridge by pretending to be scared and needing his help (AFfC, Alayne)
The Winds of Winter sample chapter
30) Coming to Ser Wallace’s aid when he was stuttering and being made fun of by his relatives (TWoW, Alayne I) (In real life you should never interrupt people that stutter, but in the fictional context here it was well meant and well received, and clearly written to show Sansa managing the situation in a kind way)
I’ve been thinking about doing two rewatches: The X-Files and Game of Thrones.
And the funny thing is, they live in completely different rooms of my brain.
Game of Thrones lives there rent free. It keeps generating plot bunnies, fix-it fics, canon-divergent disasters, political marriages, emotional reparations, Jaime Lannister problems, Sansa Stark defense essays, and the occasional “what if this one decision accidentally reshaped the continent?” situation.
But I do not know Game of Thrones by heart.
I watched most episodes from seasons 1 to 6 only once. I may have skipped half of season 5 because sometimes self-preservation is a noble calling. I remember the emotional impact, the big arcs, the performances, the wounds, the crimes, the dragons, the family rot — but if I’m going to talk about it properly, I need notes.
So the GoT rewatch is research.
It is me going back with hindsight, affection, rage, and a notebook.
Expect young Sansa defense from day one, because we are not doing 2011 Sansa hate in this house. She was a sheltered child raised to believe in songs, courtesy, queenship, and marriage. The tragedy is not that she was “stupid.” The tragedy is that the songs lied.
Expect Cersei cheekbone reports, because Lena Headey weaponised bone structure and contempt like a woman personally appointed by the gods of television.
Expect Nikolaj Watch, because my Nikolaj Coster-Waldau problem arrived later but it arrived with paperwork, cheekbones, and emotional damages.
Expect foreshadowing notes, especially around Daenerys, because “Mad Queen Dany came out of nowhere” and “Dany was always evil” are both boring takes. The seeds were there early. The problem was not the destination. The problem was that the final seasons stopped doing the emotional and political math on screen.
And expect me to point at Jaime and Jon and say: the characters survived the show, even when the writing dropped them down a ravine.
Then there is The X-Files.
That one is different.
I’m not going back because I forgot it.
I’m going back because I know it too well not to.
I’ve loved The X-Files since it first aired in Italy on 29 June 1994. That is almost thirty-two years of my life spent with Mulder, Scully, damp Vancouver forests, basement lighting, government conspiracies, motel rooms, monsters, trauma, trust, and Chris Carter saying things about Mulder and Scully’s relationship that made every shipper on earth collectively roll their eyes and open a fanfic tab.
My friends used to test me with episode openings and screencaps. I could tell them the episode, the season, the writer, and the director.
This is not nostalgia.
This is expertise with a flashlight.
I am a die-hard MSR shipper, but not the kind who needs every episode to worship at the altar. I will defend “3.” I will defend “The Field Where I Died.” I will defend Oubliette, The Calusari, Firewalker, and other less-discussed episodes with a legal brief and a shovel.
I can quote Pusher and The Post-Modern Prometheus.
I watched Paper Hearts three times in a row because apparently I looked at psychological devastation and said, “Again.”
I also despise many Darin Morgan episodes because, yes, he is clever, yes, he is funny, yes, he is structurally brilliant, and yes, he often writes Mulder like a moron. I said what I said.
The X-Files rewatch will be about Mulder damage reports, Scully skepticism appreciation, MSR as trust before romance, monster-of-the-week as emotional mirror, underrated episode defense, and a lot of side-eye for Chris Carter.
Because one thing you learned very quickly in X-Files fandom was this:
Never trust Chris Carter with Mulder and Scully.
Trust the text.
Trust the glances.
Trust the hallway silences.
Trust the hospital beds.
Trust the motel rooms.
Trust the hand at the small of her back.
Trust fanfiction, because fanfiction has been the universal coping mechanism of shippers since 1993.
So yes.
Two rewatches.
For Game of Thrones, I’m going back because the characters still generate stories, and I need to understand the bones again.
For The X-Files, I’m going back because the bones are already in my hands.
Welcome to the basement.
Previously on emotional damage.
Longer versions, extended essays, rewatch notes, and full emotional autopsies will live on Ko-fi.
Because apparently my fandom damage has become a filing system.
theartofmadeline
areudirty
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
germansingergirl
romaincrisis
