I've seen a bunch of "fandom etiquette" posts on my dash today and I'm going to say something that is maybe going to be unpopular but;
The absolutely pervasive mentality that unwanted criticism or critique shouldn't be given and should be ignored is why fans of color don't stay in fan spaces.
And I am not going to mince words here:
A lot of you are racist. A lot of your fan works are racist.
That might have been difficult to hear. And if it was, you should probably reflect on why that was.
"Fandom etiquette" has created a space where fans of color either bite our tongues and eventually leave or say something, get dogged on, and then eventually leave.
So much of "fandom etiquette" seems to be about insulating creatives from Feeling Bad and hostility to any kind of negative feedback is a pretty big contributor to why bigotry festers in these spaces.
#imo the potluck analogy applies- it would be rude to critique someone's icing technique at a potluck bc it wasn't as good as at the bakery #but if they had decorated their cupcakes w hate symbols it wouldn't be rude to tell them that's gross and gtfo #in fact it would be inappropriate to NOT say anything in that situation #or to complain that another guest who did point it out was 'ruining everyone's potluck' #and pointing out racism in fan works is 100% the second thing not the first! (via destructions-daughter)
eating disorders and abortions are two things that are like, spoken about in most mainstream discourse as though they are pretty rare and aberrant, but then when you’re actually friends with a lot of women you come to find out that they are extremely extremely common and kind of banal & mundane
the fact that people are in the odyssey tags criticising the nolan movie for its changes to the original myth (valid) only to then turn around and recommend epic: the musical of all things as a “more accurate” alternative is hysterical like please. let’s be serious now
[frankie's pov during this scene. starts right after she steals sinner's cig]
frankie and sinner have been sharing everything for years: a car, money (if they had any), clothes, guns. and lately, cigarettes too. there's no much difference between sharing everything else and finishing each other's smokes, in frankie's opinion.
it's oddly intimate, the way most of the things they do tend to be. like an indirect kiss. thats stupid, frankie scolds herself, what are you, twelve? she feels a pang of shame deep down in her gut for even thinking about it and wonders if the thought ever crossed sinner's mind too. probably not. sinner's not the kind of person to dwell on such things, too busy suppressing any thought that might threaten the precarious life they've built for themselves. if she finds frankie's new habit odd she hasn't said so yet.
with no distractions other than the roar of distant cars and an old janis song playing on the radio (something about love and blues and having nothing left to lose), sinner's intense gaze is almost unbearable. it's like a physical weight, oppressing and suffocating.
frankie feels the foolish urge to cover herself. the need to hide something from sinner is a foreign sensation. there was a time when they knew everything there was to know about each other, back when everything was a matter of life and death, hunt or be hunted. when the most important thing in the world was finishing the hunt they were working on at the time, to kill the vampire, shapeshifter or whatever it was that was terrorizing one of the thousand of nameless towns they passed through. and then move on to the next one.
frankie misses the rawness of it all. there was no room for hesitation or doubt, back then.
jesus, she's exhausted. she's covered in blood (hers or sinner’s? does it even matter?), monster guck and who knows what else. she needs a shower and a drink but she knows she won't get either until tomorrow night, if she's lucky. it's not safe to stop now. they should put this town in their rearview mirror and drive three or four hours before allowing themselves a break. getting rid of the monster of the week does not mean the town will be grateful, not in their line of work. they have a long night ahead of them. and it's starting to get cold.
for a wishful moment frankie lets her mind wander, what it would be like- for sinner to take that last step separating them and steal her cig back. to feel her breath on her skin. the proximity of her body (real and alive and right there), close enough to feel the heat radiating from her, close enough to touch. her shirt (their shirt) damp with blood and dirt, the butter soft feel of her old leather jacket.
she wishes sinner would kiss her. so close, it’s hard not to notice the few inches frankie has on her, and a small part of frankie rebels at the fact that sinner would have to look up, maybe even stand on her tiptoes, to kiss her. frankie's seen sinner flirt with the women she picks up at random bars in nameless towns. she knows all her moves, her cockiness and sleazy looks, the mask she wears around strangers. but it wouldn't be like that. sinner would lean in, unsure and slowly but so, so honest. she'd be real. she's only herself around frankie.
just thinking about it makes frankie swallow, her throat dry. she really needs that drink. it could be so good. we- we could be so good. frankie wouldn't even tease sinner about her height.
her eyes travel over sinner's face, from the sweaty fringe plastered to her forehead to the arch of her eyebrows, following the shape of her nose, all the freckles that adorn her skin, invisible under the night sky. but frankie doesn't need to see them to know they're there, just as she knows there's a small, almost imperceptible scar on her left cheek, where a shapeshifter nearly got her a few years ago. her eyes keep going down, down, to her bitten red lips, the gentle curve of her chin.
she notices a small cut on sinner's jaw and thinks that would sting if I grabbed her face. fantasy-sinner would complain between kisses, fond and playful (careful with the merchandise, frankie-) but she'd let herself be held.
in frankie's fantasies sinner kisses back. she always does.
as expected, none of that happens. frankie stands there, hesitant, reluctant to break the spell, and takes a long drag because she doesn't trust her own voice. she wouldn't know what to say anyway. she feels naked under sinner's intense scrutiny. her body torn apart, guts and secrets spilling out, making a mess. everything on display. embarrassing. she needs to pull herself together.
she waits and wonders do you want me? do you need me? could i make you feel better?
and then, with nauseating fear, do you even know?
just as her thoughts begin to spiral out of control, a bright, warm sound breaks the silence of the night. sinner's laughter is familiar and comforting, like an old, worn shirt. it realigns frankie's world and pulls her back to reality, away from her fantasy world (where sinner wants her back, they're in love, and their lives aren’t so fucked up that they can't do anything about it-).
sinner smiles, "girl, you've gotta start buying your own smokes" she says. her voice is unusually high, bursting from her as if she's desperate to fill the silence, too. frankie, in a gesture that now feels almost like second nature, pretends not to notice. for both their sakes.
If any part of your plan involves the words “nobody could be that stupid”, please be prepared to be proven wrong at any minute at a moment’s notice. Pay in mind that the person determined to prove you wrong may already be aware of this assumption, and is already approaching your current location at an alarming speed.
In 2011 I attended an event called Bmore Fail, in which entrepreneurs in Baltimore talked about their failures and what they learned from them.
What I learned is that there is an inflexible rule about how people interact with systems. If your system would work perfectly if people Just Would, and yet they Don’t, then your system is bad and you should feel bad. Systems must be built with an eye toward “will people actually do this”?
Recycling was a thing when I was a child. (The 70’s.) In my home in New York State, you could carry recyclables to a recycling center. Nobody did. Now in 2024 Baltimore there is a trash truck that comes every week to pick up my recyclables, and I and my neighbors fill our cans with objects that can be recycled, because a system was developed that was easy for busy people to do, and there’s a lot of social pressure to do it – but the social pressure wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t easy to do. Only the most crunchy granola people bitched at you if you didn’t recycle in 1979, when it required a lot of effort. Now it is considered kind of on par with spitting in the street or leaving a dirty diaper on the diaper changing table in the bathroom instead of throwing it out, if you don’t recycle.
Your job as the system creator is to make it as easy as possible for people to do the right thing, and as hard as possible to do the wrong thing. This is why web forms have data validation (but too much data validation actually makes the forms harder, so hit the spot in the middle.) And if you want people to adopt social change, whether it’s environmentalism, accepting gay people, or whatever, make it as easy as possible. And don’t guilt people about not doing it until it’s as easy as possible; instead phrase things more like “wouldn’t it be cool if”. It’s not the fault of the individual that they can’t get things done in a bad system. Fix the system.
if users regularly fuck up using a tool you made, and your answer is “you’re holding it wrong”, the next question you should ask is “why did i make this tool so it’s easy to hold it wrong?”
That’s the problem with making animal proof trash cans for parks. The animals tend to be far more motivated to open the difficult mechanism than the tourists do.
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