My long-suffering editor emailed me this morning to complain about fandom. Keep in mind, we’ve known each other for 12 years and met through fandom, so this is a bonding exercise for us.
But... *sigh* Goddamn it is a different sort of fandom these days, when a headcanon blog feels it necessary to complain about posting a headcanon for a “problematic” character.
This entire attitude is so displeasingly mind-boggling to me. Not only can we not like a character (or god forbid, ship them) who has Done A Bad, now we can't even have headcanons about them? We can't think about """"problematic"""" characters at all?
For the last time*, liking a character =/= you want to behave like that character
*I wish
You can like Loki and still think he’s a villain who did bad things (or not!). You can write noncon and incest fic and still not condone rape or want to fuck your siblings. Enjoying shows about suave murdering cannibals is not an indication that you yourself are about to go out and start rocking plaid suits and serving gourmet People Platters.
And if these things bother you, you can and should curate your own online experience so that you can avoid interacting with them as much as possible. (God knows I do, my tag blacklist is a mile long.)
But getting up on your soapbox and preaching about how fans are fanning wrong because the character they like isn’t a precious perfect ray of moral sunshine is one of the least helpful things in the world and also, the entire discipline of literary theory would like to have some words with you.
