#pro-fandom

[even-more-pro-fiction-jellicle]

"If you could go back in time to prevent one thing from happening, what would it be?"

Letting normies and mainstreamers into fandom spaces.

[torigingerfox]

I’m so tired of being quiet. I’ve been quiet my entire life because I get anxious with confrontation, but this is all kinds of wrong.

There’s this famous author that LIES about being kicked out of groups, when she in truth rage-quit all the groups that apply a pro-fandom stance and allow file sharing.

File-sharing is how fandom WAS BORN, for those who don’t know or might not remember. File sharing is the rule, those holier-than-thou authors who want you to believe you’re guilty if you download and share fics aren’t. You aren’t guilty.

No other fandom has such issues with file sharing. YOU KNOW WHY? Because no fanfic writer holds rights on their stories. It’s all JKR’s, since we’re talking about the HP fandom. And if we REALLY were to always respect creator’s wishes and be “decent human beings” (apparently I’m not), we wouldn’t write non-canon pairings like Dramione, nor would we write smut. Do you see JKR making a fuss about it though?

Also, NO ONE IS STEALING ANYTHING, the author is always credited. Even AO3 has a download button that saves automatically all the author’s info!!

If this anon is saying *I* was the rude one, I suggest a reading comprehension crash course, since I simply 1) pointed out Colubrina was never kicked out from the groups 2) tried to point out that downloading fics is VITAL to preserve fandom history (and there are SO many authors who’ve been in the fandom well before Colubrina, like Bex-Can and Akashathekitty who agree with me).

Also, I am not the one who low-key compared file-sharers to rapists, accusing people who don’t agree with me of not caring about consent.

It’s bloody fanfiction, woman.

All in all, I don’t believe I was rude to point out the truth, but I did feel rudeness on the other side, and refused to engage further.

If this anon wasn’t for me...well I guess I got infected with the “world revolves around me” syndrome and I beg your pardon.

[kari-izumi]

(can I ask what the great NB split was?)

One rather large pro-ship blog (who's got dragged for other problematic stances and hot takes before on their last account) posted some blatantly transmed shit and another blog posted an untagged vent about how sick they were of seeing pro-shippers letting this exclusionist shit slide in our community just because they can dish some shit out to the antis. Suffice it to say a whole lotta nuts got shaken off the tree after that and I've blocked at least seven big blogs as a result.

It's like what one post I came across recently said: pro ship exclusionists make less sense than inclusionist antis. They can fully grasp and write ten page essays on why fiction doesn't effect reality and how writing is a healthy way of expressing emotions and desires, yet they can't understand that gender is not a binary. Trans people are not binary. Hell, the transmed that started the whole issue isn't even trans themselves, so I dunno why they were even in that convo anyway 👀

My theory is such people have glomped onto this as an acceptable way to talk shit about them uppity liberals and get away with it. Antis have taken shit up to level 11 especially when VLD was in first run that such exclusionist lingo could go unnoticed. The constant use of SJW in regards to fandom anti rhetoric is as much a red flag as a Lance lesbian flag* icon is for antis.

*or Glimmer icons, since antis canceled VLD. Allegedly.

Sadly after that dust up and people claiming to be anti truscum, many of them went right back to reblogging from that person and others in that circle. I guess that caring for real people more than fiction only applies to the other side, huh? 😒

We say pro-ship, but it really ought to be pro-fandom. Specifically, it should be the safe space it's always been for marginalized people: not just queer people, but PoC and the disabled to explore and express themselves too. I admittedly don't know much about fandom racism personally despite being black since this isn't something that comes up in anime circles. But I have seen the evolution of about people's thought on yaoi(tm) (LJ joke that carbon dates me) go from having to warn for yaoi/slash in a fic no matter how minor to fandom now warning for depictions of homophobia and writing about queer experiences beyond being cis gay and lesbian.

Maybe if we did that, the fake wokesters on our side will crawl back to the Chan boards they have far more in common with.

[aeroknot]

really personal post about x-files revival and my own life, feel free to skip

“Everyone wanted to do it, and the negotiations actually began in November, and were finalized yesterday.” - Chris Carter

November was when I was at my lowest, wanting to die, mourning my life. That was instigated by the abandonment I felt from my ex breaking up me the way he did, but it wasn’t wholly about the destruction of our relationship; it was everything. My depression back after I had spent two full years thriving, growing, alive, and determining who I wanted to be, and actually, for once, being proud of that person. My father was battling cancer. My faith in God was broken, basically gone— I stopped praying. I stopped believing.

In Novemeber, I fell in love with Bethyl. I rose from my bed—no, I didn’t actually leave it, but I rose to sit up, stop wailing into the pillow, and to study storytelling. To pick up art again after months of avoiding everything. I gained more followers. I shared theories, analysis, opinions. I made friends who I could interact with on my terms, on our time on the computer— friends who I didn’t have to force myself to be happy with because all we talked about were things that naturally made me feel happiness when real life friends wanted to only talk about conventional things that made me so fucking anxious I felt like I couldn’t breathe, let alone grit out a smile about the topics. Friends who I didn’t feel safe with anymore. I felt safe on tumblr. I felt safe investing in Beth Greene and her story in The Walking Dead.

TWD broke my heart in November as quickly as it had bandaged it. I still gained strength from that. I’m still bitter about it, but it launched me off into a platform of finding my voice. It bolstered my convictions— it actually gave me something to feel convicted about. With my ex, with my life experiences lately, I feel guilty cursing the skies. I feel like I brought those on myself in many ways, or that because life is too uncontrollable in some ways, in these ways, that I shouldn’t feel I had a right to be angry about anything. But I was full of indignant rage with TWD writers and it felt justified. I’m a good fucking fan if not person, Beth was a good fucking character, EK is a good fucking actress— it was so much easier to be indignant about something and it gave me strength. But simply anger isn’t sustainable.

I began watching X-Files in February and finished it this weekend. Two days after I watched the last movie, this announcement comes out. At the same time, I dovetailed into more depression about my Ex. The Ex and the X-Files became this pattern of willful ignorance to my own heartbreak while I could cheer on Mulder and Scully’s soulmate status… it’s complicated. I can be happy for them, but only if I don’t connect to it from my own personal experience. The intricacies of that might be for a different post, another day. But it’s hard. March has been hard. Yesterday was hard. The XF finale was hard. 

I spent all day yesterday crying about my ex and I felt like I was falling back into the place exactly where I was in November.

And the day breaks with news about the revival of a series that has given me a lot of comfort in not knowing things. A lot of comfort in unfinished mysteries. A lot of comfort in trying my best to believe in deep friendships. A lot of comfort that… I’ll find my truths. They may not be what I want, but maybe I’ll find them; it’s likely. It’s possible. It’s out there.

It’s just a really important thing. Stories are really important, noticing how they're woven throughout our lives is really important, and for a person whose been losing faith in whether any timely coincidences can mean anything, when finding meaning in those things gave me faith and hope, when they felt part of who I am and how I understand the overwhelming narratives of my life, to notice Chris Carter say November and then this happens in March... It means something to me, too. It means there might be cosmological powers or divine intervention or fate or spirits or physics or something pulling the strings behind the scenes in a way not to destroy me, but speak to me, to comfort me, to perhaps guide me. It means maybe there's hope I'm not completely insane, and there's things still left to believe in.