OKAY, I’m going to respond to a bunch of this and probably do a whole lot of navel-gazing, as well as work really hard not to feel guilty about kind of publicly melting down a little bit. But @forcearama was kind enough to reframe something important for me and I realized that sometimes struggling through this stuff in a public way can be helpful, for showing that other people go through a lot of stuff and can still come out of it.
Warning for a whole lot of navel-gazing and is probably only really interesting to like a handful of people, but also maybe if you’re struggling with feeling like fandom is worth it, that you feel like you’re just constantly dodging people throwing shit at you, that you recognize they have the right to dislike or like whatever they do, but sometimes it gets really hard to reconcile that with your own place in fandom, then COME SIT BY ME AND WE’LL COMMISERATE ABOUT IT. Because it’s a hard struggle, but one that I think will help us understand ourselves better, if we use it that way.
Also, like, a buttload of replies.
I’m at a difficult place in my fannish life at the moment, because I’m struggling between “I just want to hang out with my friends and talk about our stuff together and be silly and/or cry about feelings!” versus “if you want a happy place in fandom, you have to build it yourself”, which means reaching out or establishing your corner, like “hey, I wrote a bunch of Obikin fic recs if you want to check them out!” versus “once you put that out there, you have to deal with antis”.
I’m struggling with recognizing that you can’t control the way other people act in fandom (nor should you!), you can’t really even stop them from trying to argue with you about stuff you’re not interested in arguing about. You can block them, but if you’re running a public blog, you have to deal with people publicly checking it out, even if it’s to the point of creeping on your blog for a long time, so long as they’re not harassing you, you have to put your big nerd undies on and deal with it or not put yourself out there VERSUS that I am still just a single person looking to enjoy my fandom with other people who enjoy it in the same way.
Which normally I’m good with! If someone who hates something I enjoy is stalking or hate reading my blog, well, that’s their choice and I’m just going to continue on posting about the things I love.
But sometimes that does get hard because we’re all human. Sometimes I feel really Watched because I’ve established a presence on-line (it feels conceited to say that, but I think it’s true, any time you write a lot of meta about things that have a lot of both pro- and anti- fans for it), sometimes I just get exhausted by all the negativity, sometimes I get tired of how we’re arguing over made up space stories when real world political stuff is so completely horrible. Sometimes I just get really upset that we should be able to set boundaries for ourselves and that the way each person wants to interact with fandom, however they get enjoyment out of it (let’s set aside that I’m clearly not talking about spouting actual hate speech, obv.) but that’s not always respected.
Sometimes I use spite as a motivation to continue on, like, “OHO YOU HATE MY JEDI HUSBAND? LET ME TELL YOU ALL THE WAYS I LOVE HIM, ALSO HERE ARE SOME GIFS OF HIS HANDSOME FACE.” and that works great for awhile! But there are days where it fails and what am I left with then? An attempt to be positive that doesn’t always feel rewarded?
But I guess that’s when it’s most important to continue being kind and to continue enjoying what I enjoy for itself. And that I shouldn’t feel guilty about stumbling with this sometimes, because we all stumble and the important thing is to step back and look at ourselves and what we need to do, to weigh in our minds what’s worth it, that we need to look inwards to find the balance of what we can let go of, what we can live with, and what we need to walk away from for our own health. We have to look at ourselves and understand what we want to accomplish as a larger goal and weigh that against how we treat each other and how we present ourselves and what’s best for us in the long term.
We have to decide where the line is between being passionate about something that’s important to us, whether made up space stories or real life issues, wherever you land on the gamut, and being respectful to others, treating them in a decent way. And learn to live with, fight back against (and how you do so), or walk away from that fandom is not going to always draw those same lines as you are going to.
And I think understanding these things about myself will let me get back to being chill (look, just because I scream in caps and flail about how much I’m crying over fictional characters, that doesn’t mean I’m not chill!!!11!) and hopefully being warmer and friendlier again.
This probably seems weird and out of left field, but it does all tie together in my mind, especially with the whole aspect of “So what’s the aim of this blog?” that’s been on my mind lately. Which seems silly, I know! But, as mentioned, I’m from the school of fandom that firmly believes, “If you want a fun corner of fandom, you’re going to have to do the work to build it yourself.” But that comes with a lot of complications and a lot of navel-gazing to figure out how to deal with them and stumbling sometimes.
So, if you’re like me, and you sometimes just get fed up, you look back on the last couple of weeks of your blog and it’s not quite what you want it to be, that’s okay. You can take a deep breath and refocus yourself. Or if you know who you are already and are just tired of whatever in fandom, you can also come sit by me and kvetch about it for awhile until you turn to happier things again, because I think it’s important to show that, yeah, sometimes we get into moods and that’s when we reach out and hear that other people are going through a similar feeling and you know you’re not alone.
Realizing you’re not alone, that you can rise above the murk of your own feelings and the tangle that is fandom, is helpful to me. Hearing from people who say that I’ve made them smile or been a positive person to hang out with or that they like my fic recs or that I can give them feelings is so, so kind and sweet of you. That I can reach out and say I’m feeling like I want to just leave this goddamned hell pit of a fandom sometimes and realizing that puts you in a difficult position because what do you SAY to that? “No, I don’t want you to leave!” is guilt tripping the person who may need to do so! But it also puts me in the position of, “Well, if I don’t leave then it looks like I was just fishing for attention!”
But I’m human. Sometimes I’m going to talk about how I’m considering leaving, because I genuinely was, and if it was an attempt to reach out for some connections to other people, to get reminders that I’m not alone either, then maybe it wasn’t perfectly handled, but I can suck it up and sheepishly say, yeah, I fell back down that depression hole again and it makes me act that way sometimes, I’m working on not doing it so much, but it happens. Maybe I can be an example to show others that they’re not alone in how you’re going to trip sometimes, but you can climb back out again, you can find your way to feeling it’s worth it again.
And I can get some navel-gazing time out of it and this will be one more step towards understanding myself and my feelings and that’s worth it, too. It’s something I can use to exorcise my frustration from the last week or two and remember who I want to be and what I want to do.
So each and every person who reached out and listened to me, who took time out to say something kind, who simply just cared, I want you to know that you’re doing the lord’s work to help people. And that if I can provide even a smidgen of something good to this fandom or something kind, then it’s because people exactly like you have helped me along the way.
AND NOW A BUTTLOAD OF REPLIES.
i feel you, friend; yesterday i unfollowed a long-time mutual bc they posted shipping discourse calling shippers like me “gross.” and i was like, wow, really? guess what i’m not gonna read anymore. but then i found a great discourse-free blog that posts stuff about bb8 and porgs!! so idk; this is just a commiseration comment bc people lose sight of what’s important, which is treating real people well and enjoying stuff about fake people together. (½)
(2/2) and as we all know, it can be REALLY hard to hold onto your enjoyment when there’s a constant storm of garbage whirling around and maybe throwing random old fast-food containers at your head while you’re just minding your own business. when things are extra garbage-y, it becomes even harder to remember the love… but those people can just go be horrible in their corner and we’ll just do our best to ignore them, like any creepy people we meet IRL.
I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with that, too. ): I’m generally pretty live-and-let-live with opinions on stuff, that’s something I’ve always been able to make peace with--sometimes it’s harder than others, when something really matters to me, but I have the strong belief that people come to fandom with different viewpoints and experiences and their way is their way, my way is my way. Which isn’t always easy to hold onto when you’re feeling bombarded by the rest of fandom.
And sometimes we’re going to stumble or just feel down about it, but I think that’s when it’s most important to double down on what you want out of fandom, to continue being happy because there are going to be people like me out there who are trying to quietly get over something that’s been building for a couple of weeks and they’ll see you feeling the same way and it’ll just let all the steam out of that feeling, because, oh, hey, yeah, it’s not just me.
That, in five years from now, I am going to remember this conversation far more than I’m going to remember whatever was sending me off-kilter. I’m going to remember every silly or hilarious piece of art, I’m going to remember the fic that made me cry or squee or both. It can be hard to build a corner for yourself that doesn’t feel intruded upon, but that’s when you just keep building it all the more, because that is what you’ll remember five years from now.
(Looking back to five years ago, to ten years ago, those are indeed the things I remember. It gets hard in the moment, so let us all reach out when we need to, talk about it when we need to, but then be like, well, okay, I feel guilty about melting down in public, so you know what? I’M GONNA LIVEBLOG THIS HILARIOUS STORY and the people you want to enjoy something with will light up at that. ♥)
Aww, you are very sweet, thank you for the kind words, it does help to go, okay, shut up, brain weasels, you’re not winning today, because there ARE kind people out there!
@albaparthenicevelut said:
I feel you, I’ve been seeing a lot of kind of heightened rhetoric about shipping lately and it is Tiring. Also, some of the well… rage is a little creepy. I get to hide because I’m not a big blog so people who read my stuff are generally just people who want to read it but I do sometimes read this stuff and feel angry and put off and kind of worried.
I genuinely don’t want to judge people who are angry on tumblr, because I understand how addicting it is, as well as they may be coming from experiences that I don’t understand. Or maybe they just honestly enjoy being the way they are or feel they have to or something else that I’ve never thought of. But, for me, anger is something that really stole a lot from me, I was angry for so many years and it cost me so much, relationships that I’ll never fully get back, years of misery and a lack of self-understanding that I can’t undo.
We can’t change other people, it’s hard to navigate the same waters as some of the more vicious and mean-spirited people, which makes it tempting to take our ball and go home. But there are others like us, who we can just hang out in our corner and have fun with. It may not always feel like it, but I think we are building that and welcoming new people to it whenever they want to come and have fun with us! Maybe we can’t change as much as we’d like, but we can build our own space and that’s so very, very worthwhile, too.
OK but if you leave you have to at least tell ME where you’re going OK because I WILL BE REALLY SAD IF THEY EVER GIVE US A KENOBI MOVIE AND I HAVE TO GO THROUGH THAT WITHOUT YOU.
I’m pretty sure that if I actually tried to leave, you’d physically drag me back because, look, ONE OF US has to go through the entire Obi-Wan tag every day to reblog all the gifsets and graphics of his swooshy hair and stupid handsome face, and you have kids, so you need a partner in crime. I NOW UNDERSTAND THAT I AM NEEDED. XD
I really wish the block feature made it so people straight up /couldn’t/ see your posts by any means, but. :/
I really, really wish this, too! But, to be fair, if they were truly intending to harass a person, they could just make a new blog or check it while logged out, so I’m not too fussed about how tumblr’s block feature works. (What I’d REALLY like is to go back to the Livejournal/Dreamwidth style blogging. *wistful*)
@super-happilydancing said:
To quote Obi-Wan “You must do what you feel is right of course”. But to quote Rey “Don’t go”. Hope that helps 🤗. Jk the second one is my selfish reasons, I love your blog. ❤️But you need to take care of yourself first and foremost. 💗💗💗
I can’t lie, it always feels good when people say, “NO DON’T GO.” even though I don’t think that’s what I was fishing for. (I like to think that if I need that, I can say it more directly. Idk, maybe I am backsliding, but I HAVE DONE ENOUGH NAVEL GAZING FOR ONE DAY.) Sometimes hearing that people want to be selfish to ask you to stay can be really meaningful, especially when your stupid brain weasels are telling you that nobody likes you or wants you to be around.
(I think this has a lot to do with how I’ve been kind of wound up lately, so I’m probably not as easy to talk to. I AM GOING TO WORK ON CHILLING THE FUCK OUT AGAIN, I PROMISE. XD ♥)
So this is genuinely not meant passive-aggressively, because you have to take care of yourself and do what’s right for you!! But I want you to know that (even though I’m not good at interacting with other tumblrs) I love your blog and it’s a bright spot in my day, and even if you decide to leave SW fandom tumblr, I will always appreciate you having been here! (I particularly love your fic recs, those are sooooo good!!)
This isn’t at all passive aggressive and I want to convey how much it means to me that you said this, especially if you feel like you’re not good at reaching out, that you’d do it anyway (as someone who has trouble with this as well) that’s incredibly touching. That I can provide some brightness to your day is doubly so, when I’ve been feeling like I’ve been failing at that recently, so while “Thank you for the kind words!” feels inadequate, I want you to know that they are whole-heartedly meant and absorbed and make a difference.
I don’t have much to add to what other people have said (basically, I will miss you if you go but absolutely do what makes you happy first and foremost), so… <3 that, basically, from my mostly-lurking corner <3
I struggle with finding the balance between, “I WANT TO LEAVE THIS GARBAGE FANDOM” venting of genuine feelings versus trying to untangle the knot of how I need to look at things to be able to stay, so I greatly appreciate the support and sweetness of your comment while I work through this! I think, more than compliments, it’s the kindness that really makes a difference with me. *hugs*
Sorry you feel that way!! I know this hell site can be icky sometimes. But I just wanted to say you’re a valued member of this community and I always love reading your thoughts on the Star War. You make me smile! If you feel like you need to leave, you’ll be missed!
This hell site is definitely icky a lot of the time! But I just have to drag myself back up out of this depression pit I’ve fallen into and use it to examine myself again and figure out what I want. And getting such a sweet comment, knowing that I could make you smile, that there’s such light in this fandom, really does do so much for me, thank you. ♥
AND FINALLY, jesus, I’ve been trying to put this into words for like three hours now, I fell down a depression hole and I’ll probably need another day or so to climb out of it (the queue will keep running, though) but people reaching out when I was stumbling are the good eggs of fandom, are the kindest people that I want to keep hanging around and keep trying to add something to make your days brighter, too. I want to be there, however I can, when any of us struggles with whatever. And I’ll probably fall back down this hole again at some point in the future, I’ll probably have to ask for your patience again. That’s how this brain weasels slash hell hole thing works. But I have a thing I want to liveblog on Sunday or Monday afternoon and you can believe that I will always be lured back by how goddamned married Obi-Wan and Anakin are (and how much I want to throw Padme in there for my OT3, JUST LET ALL OF THEM BE HAPPY, I clearly haven’t cried about that enough yet ^_~) and how I want to flail with people.
I’ve probably been more worked up than I realized over the last week or so, so I’m going to try to relax and work out the final kinks and be cheerful and silly to interact with again. (Unless you need to crab about fandom then COME TELL ME because, look, I LOVE gossip and also turning that into “well, yeah, this fandom sucks, but also have you considered this hilarious thing, too?” when we’re ready for it.)
