#where’s that one post of mine where I wrote an entire essay in the tags on feeling like my fics should be perfect & thus not writing a lot | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mayfriend-archive · 3 years

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Totally understand if you're not up for it and fully recognize the ronald mcdonald dom/sub anon vibes which is an AMAZING post btw but like...now i'm curious, what the hell did Lord of the Flies anon DO that got him blocked for the discourse? like...i just can't wrap my head around high school lit being...uh...that inflammatory i guess?

Okay so, I'll start by saying I've had a new anon from apparently the same anon saying they are NOT the person I blocked, just a rando making the same points, but I'll answer your question anyway just to set out why this person in particular got blocked, out of the several thousand who reblogged/commented on that very successful addition to the LoTF post I made.

First off, I added the 'real life Lord of the Flies' story because I thought it was a good story. I had read about it only a couple days beforehand in Humankind and, after reading out the entire chapter to my parents who weren't very interested, I was excited that there was not only a post where it would be relevant to post, but that I wouldn't be hijacking it, as it was already rejecting the widespread interpretation taught in many schools, that humanity is inherently savage.

When making the addition, I a) did not think it would get more than a couple reblogs, because the post was already at 50k notes and I figured anyone that might be interested would already have seen it, and b) I did not know the very specific context that prompted William Golding to write the book; all I knew was that he had been a teacher at a public school (basically, the poshest schools in the country - think Eton, Harrow, very 'old money' places that pump out Conservative politicians by the bucket-load 🤢) who hated his job and the boys he taught (which, valid), and new information I'd been given in Humankind - that Golding had said to his wife one day, "Wouldn't it be a good idea to write a story about some boys on an island, showing how they would really behave?" - which had no mention of The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne, which I have since learned was the text that Golding loathed enough to write an entire novel in refutation of - and included what I considered a very telling letter from Golding to his publisher, in which Golding wrote of his belief that 'even if we start with a clean slate, our nature compels us to make a muck of it.' Another Golding quote that I believe portrays his belief in humanity's 'innate savagery' is that "man produces evil as a bee produces honey."

Obviously, the author of a book putting forward the case for humanity's inherent goodness was going to oppose Golding's hypothesis; Bregman not only noted Golding's literary accomplishments and beliefs, but his personal life.

When I began delving into the author's life, I learned what an unhappy individual he'd been. An alcoholic. Prone to depression. A man who, as a teacher, once divided his pupils into gangs and encouraged them to attack each other. "I have always understood the Nazis," Golding confessed, "because I am of that sort by nature." (Humankind by Rutger Bregman, p. 24-25)

I have bolded the part about him as a teacher, because it is incredibly relevant to the original post that I commented on, which begins with a comic of a teacher locking her class in to see them 'recreate' Lord of the Flies, something which the follow up comments before mine staunchly reject as both misunderstanding the point of the book, and the fact that it took the kids in Lord of the Flies a significant amount of time without adult supervision to go 'savage'. This misreading of the text is widespread enough that when Golding won the Nobel Prize for Lord of the Flies, the Swedish Nobel committee wrote that his book 'illuminate[s] the human condition in the world of today'. Whether or not they misread it is beyond my expertise - they do at least mention the factors of the outside world neglected by many when analysing the book, but still seem to believe it says something about human nature as a whole rather than just, to quote thedarkbutbeige 'British kids being rat bastards' - but Golding quite happily took his Nobel prize on this basis. Which, in fairness, I would too. It's a fucking Nobel prize.

It was with this knowledge, and this knowledge alone, that I stated in my now very, very widely read comment that Golding 'wrote the book to be a dick', in response to the tags of the person I reblogged from. As I said, I now know that Golding did not write the book (solely) because he hated the kids he taught, but as a response to The Coral Island and the general idea that clearly the British were inherently civilsed, whilst the people they colonised and enslaved were inherently savage. So. That's the background.

The anon - or rather, the person I thought was anon - was the sole exception out of dozens of replies, who instead of telling me about The Coral Island politely decided it was time to go ALL CAPS and regurgitate points already made by thespaceshipoftheseus, and implied that the only reason that the real life Tongan castaways didn't go all Lord of the Flies was because they weren't British. Not because they weren't surrounded by violence like the boys in Lord of the Flies, or there wasn't a World War ongoing, or that they weren't the upper, upper, upper crust of a class-obsessed society like Britain - but because they weren't British. A complete inversion of the concept that Golding was trying to get across - now, instead of all of humanity being equally prone to savagery in the right conditions, it was solely nationality that determined it. As in, the British were inherently savage, but nobody else was.

I, trying for humour, made the terrible mistake of replying to them.

I won't lie, I was absolutely blown away that this was real life. What I think they were trying to do was be that Cool Tumblr Person who, after somebody's been shitty on a post, goes to their blog and sees something Damning in their about/description. In an ideal world, I imagine I'd have gone nuts or done something Unforgiveable. In what I can only call the rant that followed, they stated several times that I needed to go back to high school to get some 'proper literary analysis' skills and that the story of the Tongan castaways was completely unrelated to the point at hand which. I mean, I disagree, considering that I made the addition, but I couldn't get my head around how commenting on a post that was already rejecting the thesis that the 'point' of Lord of the Flies was that humanity was inherently savage and was, in fact, about how kids - British or otherwise - learn how to function from the adults around them, and that traumatised, terrified children aren't going to create a mini-Utopia, and put forward a real life example of how without the key additions of an ongoing world war, a colonial Empire and the subsequent mindset of thinking you are 'inherently civilised' and therefore can't do anything wrong, actually, people just want to take care of each other.

A friend has since asked me why I even have 'england' in my description. To be honest, it's a timezone thing - I talk to a lot of people online who don't share my timezone, and it generally makes me feel like if I don't reply immediately because it's 3am, they have the tools to see that I'm not in their timezone and not just ignoring them. I did consider changing it to 'british' or 'uk' after it was... 'used against me', I guess, simply because I didn't want to deal with it, but you know what. No. Not gonna do that. I am from England, and I have never hid that fact. I have a tag called 'uk politics', during Eurovision I refer to the UK's act as 'us' (even if I really, really don't want to. Because James Newman slaughtered that song and it was downright embarrassing), I regularly post stuff in my personal tag about where I live (and mostly complain about this piece of shit government). If people really think my nationality makes every point I make null and void, then they don't have to follow me or interact with my posts; tumblr is big, and I am one medium-small blog very easily passed over.

I did reply to them, trying to explain the above, but their next response really just doubled down. Because I used the word British instead of English - foolishly because the posts above mine focused on Britishness, and also because although Golding was English and taught English kids, the pro-Imperialism author of The Coral Island, R. M. Bannatyne was actually Scottish so, ding ding ding, falls into the 'British' category - they then decided that I was somehow trying to pretend I wasn't English and made all the same points, before ending with this doozy:

At this point, I knew there was nothing to be gained from replying, because if we're whipping out conditions like they're pokemon cards then there's no actual conversation anymore, and I'm not going to start mudslinging like an identity politician. They made up their mind, and I figured there could be no harm in letting them think that they 'won' by blocking them instead of replying.

Until the ask. INNATE ENGLISH SAVAGERY did, I'll admit, make me think it was them, back again. I even thought up a really good response approximately 12 hours after I replied, I was that sure. Until the second message came in, and said they were just someone who came from the post and made the same point by chance. So the saga draws to a close... for now.

It may have been them, it may not have been - the anon feature makes it impossible to be sure, but as the second message I got said, we're in a heatwave. It's too hot to argue. And I've just written a goddamn essay about a book I dislike anyway.

My pasty English ass is going to go melt. If there's Disk Horse, do not tell me. I am Done™

#emily speaks #asks #anon #lord of the flies #this is long. this is so long. why is this so long #i literally got out humankind so i could quote directly. how is this my life

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royalcordelia · 4 years

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The Secret of Distance (4/?)

Summary: Anne and Gilbert embark on their journeys, but stay close to each other at heart. Courting across 1000 miles isn't easy, but they're more than willing to step up to the task. (A post s3 story).

Notes: Welcome, welcome, welcome to all our new AWAE buddies! It’s my pleasure to see a bunch of new faces (and accompanying thoughts) in the fandom. (As always, tag buddies are at the bottom!)

Even in late October, a line of warblers and chickadees sat at the top of the boarding house’s ridgepole and turned the wind to a haven of effervescent song. It gated the garden in, blocking it from the rest of the bustling city. Anne took a deep breath of the fresh air, relishing the way it felt crisp in her chest. The journal on her lap was seemingly forgotten, the last sentence yet unfinished - “With one look at George, Averil realized...” Though the perfect way to complete the sentence evaded her, Anne didn’t fret. In these moments of near silence and endless inspiration, she felt helpless to do anything but reach into the essence of nature and let it tell her what to say.

Then, as if she had turned an open palm to the sky and the phrase flitted down into it, she murmured, “Got it!” Her beloved fountain pen scratched across the page as she wrote. “With one look at George, Averil decided ideals weren’t terribly silly notions, after all. The trick, she realized, was knowing your one’s own ideals as well as one knows themself. George may not have been the melancholy Apollo of her girlhood dreams, but he was steadfast and compassionate. Only in George’s embrace would she feel truly as if she was right where she belonged.

With a sigh, Anne closed the journal. What a wonderful feeling it was to finally complete a story! To give a break to endless essays and readings and merely be with the words of her soul. Averil was a heroine truly deserving of her steadfast and compassionate suitor, even if writing about him did make Anne miss her own.

Before her thoughts could drift too far away to her hazel-eyed love, she heard the back porch door open. There was Lily, wearing her usual kind smile and a perfectly white apron.

“You blend in with the trees!” Lily signed from the porch. Anne spared a glance around at the sunset colored leaves drenched in the afternoon’s golden light.

“One always blends well among friends,” Anne replied, hands forming what she was nearly certain were the correct signs.

Anne had discovered, much to her surprise, that she was the first person to ever really ask Lily to teach them sign language. Past boarders had picked some up over the duration of their stay, but never tried their hands at it - as it were. But Anne wondered what a life must be like spent mostly watching and not expressing. If Lily had truths and passions of her heart that she wanted to share, it wasn’t fair that a barrier should come between them. Thus, every night, Lily sat Anne down at the dining table and taught Anne her language. Anne thought it was beautiful and challenging the way the language focused on meaning rather than the way a thing was said. Nearly three months later, Anne was more proficient than she dreamed she could be, though there was still so much to learn.

“You should come inside,” Lily said, her face suddenly taking an apprehensive expression. “ I think you have a visitor, but Mrs. Blackmore won’t receive him.”

Snatching up her journal, Anne quickly thanked Lily and followed her inside. It wasn’t long before she heard Mrs. Blackmore’s exasperated voice echoing on the thin walls of the home.

“This is entirely uncalled for! In all my years of keeping this house I’ve never -”

“I promise ma’am, I don’t mean to intrude. I was just in town and thought-”

“I don’t want to imagine what you thought!”

Anne gasped. She’d recognize that voice anywhere. Bursting into the entryway, she met eyes with an equal parts frustrated and awkward Bash. He clutched Mary’s old carpet bag in his hand, the fabric crumpling under the strain. As soon as he saw Anne, relief flooded his eyes before elation took its place.

“Bash! What are you doing here?” she exclaimed with a joyful laugh, throwing her arms around his neck. Anne wasn’t sure what shocked Mrs. Blackmore more, Anne hugging Bash, or him lifting her off the ground to shake her.

“I was in town and thought I’d visit! I didn’t get a chance to see you before you left Avonlea,” he replied. “I don’t mind sayin’ that I’ve missed you terrible.”

“Believe me, I’ve missed you all so much.”

“Some more than others,” he said, cocking a brow. Anne nudged him and stepped back to Mrs. Blackmore.

“Mrs. Blackmore, this is Sebastian Lacroix, a very close family friend of mine and my suitor’s brother.”

“Suitor , eh?” Bash murmured. Anne gave him another light whack on the arm.

“Bash, this Mrs. Blackmore. She so graciously allows me a roof over my head and a meal on the table.”

By the look on her face, Mrs. Blackmore wasn’t feeling so very gracious to provide any of those things to anyone. Still, Bash managed a friendly smile and offered his hand. “It’s a fine pleasure to meet you, ma’am. Sorry about the scare.” Mrs. Blackmore peered down at his hand, weathered from years of labor, her lip curling in disgust.

“I’m sorry, Anne, but your guest cannot stay,” she stated with finality.

“What ?!”

“I don’t say a thing twice.”

A blush rose up Anne’s neck, whether from rage or embarrassment she could not say. She grabbed the woman’s wrist, dragging her away from Bash’s hearing distance.

“Pardon me if I’m having trouble understanding why my guest is not allowed to stay. He’s not my suitor, and therefore he isn’t confined to Saturday afternoons. He came in respectable clothes at a respectable hour, which is more than we can say of some guests we’ve received-”

“Anne.”

“Why, just three days ago, Tillie had several rowdy guests in the parlor and I heard not a complaint from you. In fact, I commend you on your cordiality. So please, Mrs. Blackmore, I’d like to know why my guest can’t be treated with the same courtesy. It goes against our Presbyterian duty to hospitality and-”

“Alright!” Mrs. Blackmore interjected. It was enough that Bash’s wandering gaze snapped over to them, before darting away. “He can stay until dinner.”

Anne frowned. Dinner was only thirty minutes away. “He should stay for dinner.”

“What will the other girls think?”

“The other girls know him! They all love him. Mrs. Blackmore, please!”

There was no stronger persuading force than reminding a good Christian woman of her Presbyterian duty, even in the face of unrelenting prejudice. Not to mention, Mrs. Blackmore was quickly running out of excuses. With an exhausted sigh, the older woman threw up her hands in defeat.

“Lily, add another place setting to the table. We’re having a guest for dinner,” said Mrs. Blackmore’s lips and hands. Lily tossed Anne a victorious smile, curtising first to their guest, then to the other ladies, before flitting off to the dining room. Anne turned to thank Mrs. Blackmore for her understanding, but found the tired woman halfway up the stairs. With a sheepish smile, she looked to Bash.

“I’m so sorry about that. She’s usually one of the kindest people I know,” she explained. “Please, come in!”

“I’m just glad to see you. Avonlea is so much quieter without you and Gilbert around. Every day I wait for you to show up at our door with a bouquet of flowers or a basket of Marilla’s plum puffs.”

At the mention of Gilbert, Anne perked her ears, but folded her hands in her lap to keep her fingers from tapping.

“I hope that my absence hasn’t meant Marilla stops baking for you.”

“Of course not, she just delivers them herself. I think she does it as an excuse to come and visit Delphine. Not that she needs one. Probably misses having a child around.”

A tender smile lifted Anne’s lips.

“Everything is well back home then?” she asked hopefully. As close as Avonlea was - 45 minutes was admittedly not a long train ride - sometimes she couldn’t help but feel like she was on the other side of the planet from home. And Gilbert even farther.

“The harvest is going well. For me, it’s strange not having the extra pair of hands, but we’re managing.” Bash paused, opening his mouth before closing it again.

“Go ahead, Bash, whatever it is,” Anne prodded, already having a sneaking suspicion what he was about to say. Like a carbonated bottle shaken up, Bash threw up his hands and slammed them on his knees.

“I’m dying to know how it happened! One minute he’s moping around the kitchen tellin’ me his feelings for you are unrequited, and the next he’s breaking off his engagement and moving to Toronto.”

A burst of laughter burst out of Anne.

“He never told you? He tells you everything!”

A joking shadow of regret came over Bash and he shrugged, “I think I teased him too much in the years leading up to it that the poor boy couldn’t take anymore. Besides, I think he’d rather spend his letter-writing time writing to someone else.”

“My goodness, how long have you been teasing him?”

“About you? Almost since the day I met him.” Anne’s cheeks turned rose kissed and she bit her lip against a satisfied smile. “You gonna tell me or no, Queen Anne?”

“It’s strange, there’s so much to tell and yet it’s all such a simple story,” she began. “My best friend, Diana, was riding the same train out of Carmody that Gilbert was. She heard him say that he wasn’t engaged, nor was he going to Paris. He almost got away, too. But Diana moved to his seat and demanded to know why he’d been behaving toward me the way he was, why he’d ignored the letter I wrote to him.”

“Well, why did he?”

“He never received it. I left it on your table, so I can’t fathom what could have possibly happened to it. When Diana told him what my letter said, he all but jumped out of the train window to find me. He showed up here, cleared up the biggest misunderstanding between us, then rushed off to Toronto. As for me, I ran into Winifred in town. She informed me, as you said, that Gilbert believed his feelings were unrequited. I did my best to ensure him otherwise.”

Bash whistled. “The Almighty really been trying his hardest to match you two up and you’ve given him the hardest time. I’m very glad it worked for you.” His gaze turned down the carpet bag beside him. Anne had forgotten about it in the midst of her storytelling, but she watched with interest as he pulled it into his lap. “There’s actually a reason I came today.”

Anne lifted a brow with a curious smile.

“Gilbert left for Toronto in such a hurry that he left behind some of the things I think he’d like to have with him. I was wondering if you’d take them to him for me.”

“Me?”

“I can’t leave Delphine for too long. Or the harvest for that matter.” He handed her the bag’s worn handles, but Anne handed them right back.

“I’d love to, truly, but I don’t have enough money for the train or a hotel.”

Bash scoffed. “Already taken care of. There’s an envelope with train fare in the bag, enough to get you there and back. Gilbert has a guest room you can stay in, so a hotel won’t be necessary.”

Anne could feel herself being won over, but she was still hesitant. “What about Marilla?”

A wicked glint flickered in his eyes that Anne looked strikingly familiar to one she’d seen right before a boy tugged her braid. “We don’t have to tell Marilla.” Anne could feel her resolve draining away, but what settled her mind was, “He’d be real happy to see you, Anne. I think he’s been homesick.”

With an excited smile, Anne yanked back the carpet bag and gave a beaming grin.

“Okay, I’ll go this weekend,” she stated, elation bubbling over.

“Good. I’m thankful to you.”

After dinner when Bash had departed, Anne went through the things Bash had packed away for Gilbert - a few medical books, extra socks, a velvet bag she wouldn’t open - and realized that she wasn’t doing Bash a favor at all. He was doing her the favor - it would’ve been less expensive for him to just ship the things. Still, Anne added a few things of her own to the bag of things to give Gilbert, and shoved it underneath her bed.

Plopping back on her bed, Anne grinned at the ceiling. At this time in three days, she’d be with Gilbert. Would she survive until then?

Anne stepped off the train and onto the platform with stiff legs, but the relief in her muscles went almost entirely unnoticed when the sight of beautiful Toronto came into view. The mainland felt so different beneath her feet, as if she were a sailor taking her first steps onto solid land. Around her, travellers rustled and bounded by, talking of business, of family, of pleasure. With a surprised gasp, Anne noticed that beyond the train station, there were no rolling fields or orange-topped trees. In their place were tall buildings, one after another, after another, after another.

“First time in Toronto, eh?” a stranger said, noticing Anne stock still in place. She nodded in response, meeting the kind gaze of an elderly woman. The woman reminded her of Aunt Jo in that her spirit felt trustworthy and she was wearing one of the loveliest hats Anne had ever seen.

“Yes, by chance, could you point me in the direction of…” she snuck a glance at one of Gilbert’s old letters. “...North Sunset Street?”

“Certainly! Why, I grew up on that street. Just follow this main road for about a mile or so, and you’ll find Sunset on the right. A lovely row of brick houses. My mother used to put flowers in the window because the sunlight was always so bright.”

Anne smiled. A kindred spirit, after all.

“I think flowers are nature’s sweetest gift to us. I’ll put some in the window to honor her,” Anne promised. “Thank you so kindly for your help!”

As she traveled up the streets, Anne found her pace matched that of the city-goers around her, fast-paced and eager. How could she help it? There was only a mile distance between her and Gilbert, and the sooner she closed it, the sooner she’d pull him close to her and…and...do something terribly romantic. She’d figure it out when the time came. Tightening her grasp on her cases, she all but jogged through the winding crowds. Then, a street sign came into view with a familiar name and Anne’s heart jolted.

The woman had been right - North Sunset Street had some of the most lovely houses Anne had ever seen. The road was lined with old trees and was full of more greenery than she’d seen in the entire city. How Gilbert’s roommate had come to secure one, she couldn’t fathom, but she was glad Gilbert would spend his time somewhere that had hints of PEI’s loveliness. As she counted the house numbers - 290, 291, 292… - her stomach filled with an entire forest worth of butterflies.

293. There it was. Ivy rimmed and gold in the late afternoon light, Gilbert’s Toronto residence waited for her to burst in. Yet, instead of allowing herself in using the key she knew was under a ceramic dog on the windowsill, she knocked like the perfectly respectable lady she strove to be. Almost instantaneously, an unfamiliar voice boomed through the inside of the house.

“Did you lock yourself out again ? I keep telling you that I put a key underneath-” The door swung open. “Oh. You’re not Gilbert.”

Anne, stunned to be peering up at a man who was nearly an entire foot taller than her, merely offered a shy smile and shook her head.

“I take it you’re Ron?” she said cordially.

“Anne Shirley Cuthbert in the flesh,” he realized right back, eyeing her with an analytical gaze. “You’re... younger than I expected you to be.”

The grin on Anne’s face twitched and she held back the urge to shift awkwardly on her feet. How old did he expect her to be? After all, she was only about a year-and-a-half younger than Gilbert, old enough to be in college!

Ignoring the comment, Anne snuck a glance behind Ron’s shoulder.

“Is Gilbert in, by chance?”

Much to her disappointment, the man shook his head.

“He’s got a friday class that finishes at four o’clock. It’s probably just ended.” His eyes fell to the bags in her hand. “Are you staying?”

“Ah, well, I hoped to. Gilbert’s brother mentioned you both had a spare room that I could probably stay in to avoid the expense of a hotel. Only for the weekend. That is, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

Ron shrugged. “I don’t mind. Gil will probably insist on it with the way he moons over you. School is only a few blocks from here. Why don’t you leave your things here and I’ll show you where his usual haunt is?”

All at once, Anne’s butterflies were back with a passionate fury.

“I’d be ever so grateful!” she nearly exclaimed, her eagerness knocking Ron a few paces backwards. He grabbed his hat from the hook, plopped it on his head, and slid past her. As tenderly as if she were walking on glass, Anne followed behind, trying desperately not to make an utter fool of herself.

“Gilbert said you’re a college girl yourself?” Ron chatted amiably. A gust of wind brought a whiff of his expensive cologne to her nose.

“Yes, English and Teaching.”

“Ah, a reader then.”

“An avid one,” Anne confirmed. “But mostly I want to inspire students to believe in their own talents and grow to love learning just as much as I came to. A good education can help a person through anything. There is nothing so thrilling as watching those you care about succeed at the things they’re passionate about. Don’t you agree?”

Ron cocked a head in interest. If she had been attempting to put up a facade of decorum, that last statement had been the first hint of the free-spirited Anne he had heard so much about.

“You know, Anne, I believe you’re onto something,” he said. “At any rate, it matters little what I think. Your students will crave your approval, and I daresay they’ll have it.”

Anne beamed. Perhaps this Ron could be a kindred spirit, after all. She seemed to be finding them everywhere these days. Around them, the scenery grew taller and denser as they journeyed into the heart of the city. Ron rambled beside her about some strange fellow in one of his classes, but Anne could only half listen. Then, all of her senses turned to electricity when the sight of an imposing, majestic castle came into view.

“Welcome to the University of Toronto,” Ron interjected when he saw her eyes sparkling with amazement. “Gil should be around here somewhere.”

Yet, as Ron was leading her closer to the main hall’s regal entrance, Anne’s heart tugged her to glance behind her. She squinted to make out a few people sitting on and around a staircase near the west section of the building. Her feet moved on their own volition with slow uncertainty, but her heart had already confirmed what she desperately hoped was true. The closer she got, the more she recognized the outline of his features. His soft hair, his strong shoulders, his chin.

“Who’s that?” Anne heard from the group.

Suddenly, she stumbled to a halt, her breath stuck in her throat. She watched as his head turned toward her, and wondered if he could hear her heart beating from across the garden landscape. He leaned forward, as if not believing his eyes, straining to get a closer look.

Then, all at once, he jumped to his feet, stumbling forward a few steps in shock. A cry of elation tumbled from his lips, a matching one breaking Anne’s silence. His friends cried after him, but he was already bounding away. She didn’t make him run far, hoisting up her skirts to meet him halfway.

On the train ride here, Anne had imagined what she believed to be every possible reunion that could possibly happen when she finally saw Gilbert again. She imagined him opening up his arms and her leaping into them. She imagined him crushing his lips onto hers for a kiss that would heat her to her toes. What she didn’t imagine was running full speed to him, then stopping a mere breath away. Gilbert’s hands were frustratingly at his sides balled into fists. But his eyes...Anne beamed up into them. They were very bit as warm and earthy as she remembered them being, beautiful enough in their affection that she felt a shiver go down her back.

“You’re here!?” he said in disbelief. Much against her own will, Anne felt her eyes mist over just enough that she blinked into sunlight.

“Surprise!”

Gilbert let out a joyful laugh so loud that students on their way to class turned their heads to him. But he couldn’t find it in him to care. Not when Anne was before him, even more breathtaking than he remembered her being - which admittedly, was an impossible amount - smiling up at him with dimpled cheeks. If he didn’t do something soon, he was certain he’d combust on the spot.

Anne seemed to read his mind, and suddenly they were pulling each other in for a kiss. Flinging her arms around his neck, she pushed up onto her toes, sending Gilbert arching back against her fervor. Taking his cue, he lifted her up off the ground, and spun her around, laughing against her lips. The months of separation were suddenly forgotten, and Anne was content to do nothing except bury her face into his neck and breath in his familiar scent.

“But- but how?” he stammered, chuckling through Anne’s onslaught of cheek kisses. Her fingers were still locked behind his neck when she pulled back.

“I took the midnight train and slept most of the way. Ron brought me here.”

Gilbert sighed in relief, finally conceding to the blissful fact that this was not a dream. He dropped his forehead onto hers, and she nuzzled into his touch.

“I really missed you,” he murmured, grasp tightening at her waist. “We barely got any time together before I left.”

“I missed you just as much, but I’ll be here all weekend. That’s enough time for you to make good on all of the promises from your letters.” She blushed remembering some of the things he’d sworn he’d do when they reunited. They ranged from proper teas and dinners to embraces and experimental kisses where he’d learn the face was extra sensitive.

“I hope you’ll make good on yours too,” he replied with a raised brow.

“Count on it,” she assured. Her own promises entailed a detailed report of her romantic daydreams and ponderings from the months before they started their courtship. I know how my own pining went. I’m aching to know every bit of what you were thinking, he’d written once in a letter a few weeks back. The preview she’d granted in her response had been promising.

“Let me take you to dinner tonight. There’s so much I want to tell you.”

Anne nodded happily, not caring a might that they’d been giving each other comprehensive written reports of their daily life. She wanted to hear it all from him, watch the stories unfold on his face as he told them.

“But first,” he continued. “There are some people I want you to meet.”

-----

I hope you enjoyed! Here are all the people who requested to be tagged. If you’d like to add your name to the list or remove it, please let me know!

@pterparkcr @be-feminine-be-unique @firehaireddeamer @annabel-lee23 @beinmyheart @forcordelia @ladyofhousewaters @brookie-cookie3 @peculiarly-deactivated @mrs-shirley-cuthbert-blythe @lexfangirls @amoraeternusforyou @pastaismysignificantother @spellsandbells @instantknightartisanwagon @noctislightning @lonelyscreaming @lbhmoon @findurhappy @mynameisbluenotjane @sarahisatotalgeek @takemetoavonlea @shrillrule @doodlesfan @noctislightning @awaeforlife @neomikaha

#anne with an e #anne of green gables #shirbert #tessa writes #for the whole thing or easier reading #catch this on ao3 too!#i hope yall know that everyone who has told me they enjoy this story is truly so sweet #and you all have virtual bushels of wildflowers ♥

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unliikelylovers · 4 years

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ahh yay u reblogged that ask thing i was hoping u would. ok so. yue/yueki (whichever ud prefer!), azula, bakoda :)

omfg leo <33 this makes me happy ok buckle up for a massive post

yue

how I feel about this character

when i first watched avatar i didn’t rly get her,, like i couldn’t get invested,,

but the more i think about her the more i love her

she is so kind,, so good,, deserves the world,,,,

all the people I ship romantically with this character:

sokka (not to be heterosexual but they were rlly cute onscreen okay)

suki (the vibes!!!!)

katara (moon <3 and <3 ocean <3 gfs <3)

my non-romantic OTP for this character:

yue x a long, happy life leading the northern water tribe and smashing the patriarchy

my unpopular opinion about this character

i can’t think of anything because nobody ever talks about her!! she’s so slept on :(

one thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

it would’ve been cool if she joined the gaang,, i just love that idea sm. she would’ve brought one more braincell too and they Need That

my OTP

probably yuetara bc i just love that thing where u ship two characters who are foils to each other... very good, usually gay...

but honestly i’m only just opening my eyes to the wonderful world of atla wlw ships so my opinion is yet to be solidified

my cross over ship i don’t do crossover ships lol i find it hard enough gauging whether two characters have chemistry onscreen u cannot expect me to extrapolate it across media

a headcanon fact

i think yue probably hated pakku and she was goddamn right

azula

how I feel about this character

listen i skipped this q bc i couldn’t unpack it enough and honestly later on in the post i wrote two entire essays of how i feel about azula so just read that

all the people I ship romantically with this character

nobody, she needs to heal

my non-romantic OTP for this character

azula x therapy

my unpopular opinion about this character

idk if this is unpopular exactly and it’s gonna take some explaining

basically i went into the show (bc i only watched it for the first time a few weeks ago lol) expecting that she would be a Bad Bitch™ bc everyone’s like,,, simping for her

anyway

that’s not what she is?? like at all???

and at first i did not like her and i was like why does anyone like her even a little bit she’s literally just an agent of fascism and imperialism

and while watching the finale i finally was like Oh.

she’s an abused child. and all she ever learned how to do was manipulate and fight and make war

and she literally never recieved love from anyone

i just don’t understand how you can look at her character and think “yass queen” OR “she’s a crazy bitch”

i am fervently on team Uncomfy When People Idolize Canon Azula But I Desperately Want Her To Heal

one thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

realistically, her redemption/healing arc would be messy and complicated and not at all linear and hard to make into a compelling tv storyline

and any “redemption arc” that would be compelling children’s television would not be Good Enough For Me

and unpopular opinion i don’t think it would serve the story to add an addendum of book 4

so no i don’t want the atla writers to concoct an Azula Redemption Arc

but i want the characters in canon to save a little space in their heart for her

for someone she has not directly hurt to see her circa sozin’s comet and say, “this is not the warmaking machine ozai tried his best to make, this is a deeply hurt child”

someone like iroh

scratch that “someone” shit i want iroh. i want iroh to hold space in his heart for his niece, to see that she is not a lost cause. please. you did it for zuko please do it for her

my OTP:

azula x therapy

my cross over ship

a headcanon fact

lesbian.

obviously.

bakoda (which is honestly at this point my actual otp i am fully subsumed)

when I started shipping it if I did

honestly idk? i think i got it from a tumblr post lol i was like “oh? we ship these two? excellent” and just Ran With It

my thoughts

the Old Gays vibes are immaculate. the yearning. the fighting beside one another. the raising children. perfect in every way

what makes me happy about them

that they can grow old together, happily, in their home, in a world at peace...... God

what makes me sad about them

the idea of bato just... pining... for years... the Angst

if we’re talking canonverse then i love mining bato’s injury for angst just consider the possibilities: bato feeling abandoned at the abbey... bato thinking hakoda will never love him if he’s left less mobile... bato not properly taking care of himself

i just have so many emotions about bato someone stop me

things done in fanfic that annoys me:

just straight up ignoring kya or even worse, kya slander, like,, she and hakoda were also in love

((i may or may not have literally done that in one of my fics and still have weird feelings abt it but it was 600 words of fluff so))

things I look for in fanfic

literally ANYTHING i will read any fanfic that has bakoda as a tag, bakoda nation is all about the crumbs

but for real. the yearning. all of the pining. they need to spend years in love with each other without saying a goddamn word

also if it wasn’t clear from my fics,,, whenever a bakoda fic includes kya i Love that shit. makes me go all heart eyes emoji. i love her. i love her so much i need more kya content

bato/hakoda/kya ot3 content is so blessed,, i see bato as gay probably but i can vibe with bisexual or it can be a v configuration

who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other

hakoda with kya, obviously

my happily ever after for them

growing old together.......... just being old queer dads in love...... please i love them so much this is giving me Emotions

who is the big spoon/little spoon

bato is the big spoon he’s like a foot taller than hakoda and hakoda just wants to be Held

what is their favorite non-sexual activity

there’s a bakoda fic on ao3 where the tags “burn scar care” and “mutual pining” are adjacent and uh yeah. That.

#long post #atla hc

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paintedrecs · 4 years

Note

For the fandom talk meme thingy: C (not trying to start drama I swear), I, K, R, and X. =D

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Hmmm, there are a few ways of answering this. One is by listing all my NOTPs, which would be excessively long and ultimately boring because it essentially boils down to “anyone else with either member of my OTP.” I monoship my primary pairings, so I’m pretty strict on what I do and do not like.

(With the way fandom is now, I should clarify that NOTP means that I personally do not like a ship and I therefore go out of my way to avoid it - by muting terms, carefully filtering tags and search results, curating my own space, etc. It doesn’t mean I think the ship is badwrong or that anyone else should stop shipping it. It just means I do not ever want to see it.)

This feels a little less specific on that front, though, maybe more just: people like this and I’m meh about it?

So Allydia comes to mind. I don’t hate it, and if the Sterek’s good enough I’ll still read a fic with them as a background pairing, but I don’t ever like it as a romantic ship. While I ship Lydia with lots of different characters, including Cora, I’ve always seen Allison as straight, so I suppose that’s part of it? And I love Lydia & Allison as bffs - I see them as entirely platonic, like Scott & Stiles, so introducing romance just doesn’t work for me.

Another one is Sheriff Stilinski/Peter Hale. I...I don’t understand it. Unlike the last answer, this background pairing will prevent me from reading a Sterek-central fic.

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

This turned into a complicated and kind of roundabout answer, so I’m putting the rest of the questions under a long-post cut!

I stopped frequenting tumblr for two main reasons:

that whole weird purge thing that made me think everyone was leaving, so I just gave up, which might’ve been premature cause it seems like folks are still going strong on here

the emergence of antis, specifically within the Voltron fandom (although they’re everywhere at this point)

There’s a saying in fandom now:

“Why is the younger fandom generation like this?!??” “Tumblr raised them.”

For me, for years, tumblr was a really wonderful space where I had a lot of great conversations and read very thoughtful threads that helped me to learn some important things about myself, other people, and a world much wider than my own.

But I was an adult when I joined this site, and it really does seem like there’s a whole new crop of kids who have no actual context for ideas like social justice, the need for canonical representation in our media, and a lot of other things that eventually got folded into a big ball of disconnected rhetoric that they now fling as hard as they can at the heads of fandom creators who are committing the ultimate sin of creating content for ships they don’t like.

It’s late, and I don’t feel like getting into a whole Essay Rant about all that.

So on an entirely personal level, I quit running appreciatejack (my Check Please/zimbits/Jack Zimmermann blog) because someone sent me really vile hate for daring to ship Shiro/Keith from Voltron (two unrelated adults in a cartoon). It’s why I turned my ask boxes/anon/chats off on most of my blogs, and then eventually just...got tired of running them.

When I started up appreciatederek, I got a couple asks from people who wanted to know if it was going to be multiship or just Sterek, and when I said it was Sterek, they presumably went off to find other things they were into, because I never heard from them again. Y’know, the reasonable reaction. And then the rest of it was wonderful: finding content for it, and getting responses from people who enjoyed that content.

I thought appreciateshiro would be similar, but it was all so messy from the very start. The Sheith tag was FULL of hate. I was initially checking it every day, trying to find artists and writers and gif-makers to reblog and encourage and support, like I’d done in Sterek fandom, but instead I’d spend literal hours blocking people who came into that tag just to talk about how much they hated the ship.

Every day, I’d look for content for my OTP, and every day I’d come away from it angry and sad and frustrated. I never seemed to run out of people to block. And they never, ever seemed to run out of hate.

It was exhausting. It made me reluctant to go on tumblr at all. And eventually I just...sorta stopped.

So the answer to this question is more, I guess, “fandom made me stop liking tumblr, and in the process I stopped liking most fandoms.”

I’m sure you can kinda tell from the fandoms I’m currently the most invested in.

I love Sterek, and I will always love Sterek. Part of that’s the ship itself, of course, and part is because I had an incredible fandom experience with it. People within this fandom are still really great - always so welcoming and super excited about new content, even so many years on.

Otherwise, my current fandoms are kiiiiinda tiny:

Xanatowen (Gargoyles), which currently consists of exactly 2 people and 12 fics (3 of which are mine).

Trevorcard (Castlevania), which only has ~200 fics on AO3.

Taibani (Tiger & Bunny), which is an oldish fandom with only ~600 fics on AO3.

Remember, I came from a fandom that has SIXTY THOUSAND fics.

So while I feel very lonely and very sad about the low content levels in these fandoms, they’ve also given me the space to let go of some of my fandom hurt & anger and remember what it’s like to just...peacefully love something. I really miss just loving things and talking about loving those things and searching for other people who also love those things without running into....thousands upon thousands of people who HATE that you love that thing.

(Until I wrote all that out just now, I actually hadn’t realized how much this had still been hanging over me, or why I was so hesitant to come back to “reclaim” a space I’d once been super active and happy in. Essay over! Next questions.)

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

Answered here!

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

Answered here!

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Found family. This is probably a big part of why Sterek was my first real fandom, because the idea of Pack makes it incredibly natural to build out relationships beyond just the central romantic pairing.

It doesn’t have to be a werewolf thing, though. I’m honestly not hugely fond of the whole puppy piles concept - I’m less interested in “biological urges make characters literally physically all snuggle up together in bed” than I am in the actual build of the friendships, and the concept of choosing people who will become the family you’ve been missing for whatever reason.

Maybe it’s reconnecting with biological family, or maybe it’s discovering that your friends have been filling that space for you all along, without you even fully realizing it. (The concept of “home” is another big one for me. Home is where your heart is etc etc.)

And hey! Now I can pull back in another question from earlier: about “pairings” that I might not have initially considered. As I suspected, I do have more! Mostly platonic.

For instance: Derek and Sheriff Stilinski becoming bffs. I thiiiink I can probably tie my ABSOLUTE LOVE of this concept back to HalfFizzbin’s can't be hateful, gotta be grateful. And then Cupboard Love really has to be the source of ALL my alive!Hales feels, which also includes folding Stiles into their family.

Fic is largely responsible for building out Derek’s relationship with Boyd, Erica, Isaac, his sisters...making them into an actual pack and friends and family in the way the show never bothered. And frankly while I don’t like canon!Scott at all at this point, I love his friendship with Stiles in fics, and I absolutely believe Stiles and Lydia would be amazing friends once he got past his crush on her. I’d point to another fic here, owlpostagain’s will to follow through, as the ultimate source for major Team Human feels.

So yeah. I’m always going to be drawn to stories about family, in whatever form that takes, particularly if it’s one that’s a little bit off the normal white-picket-fence path.

In Tiger & Bunny, it’s Barnaby joining the Kaburagi family, and learning how to be a dad and a friend to his new husband’s daughter.

In Gargoyles, I’m completely obsessed with the (canonical!) idea of a family that consists of a man, his wife, their son, and the chaotically loyal fae babysitter/tutor/third parent. It is not a stretch to tweak this the tiiiiiiniest bit to turn it into a nontraditional family structure of a man, his wife, his son, and his fae boyfriend. Honestly.

In Castlevania, the fic that made me sob my eyes out at one point does something the show would absolutely never. It gives Alucard the time to rebuild his physical home while befriending the people in the little town that crops up around it. It’s about Trevor and Alucard falling in love, but it’s also about them making a place for themselves in a world where that kind of comfort and stability and friendship is so badly needed.

I think we all kinda need that in our world right now. So I love being able to find it in fic, for the characters who’ve grown to mean something to me.

#meme #fandom talk #long post #littlerosetrove #did tumblr seriously break my read more and stick it up in the ask section #i don't even know #thanks tumblr

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ashvayr · 4 years

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10 Questions Tag Game

i was tagged by @montevena! thank you so much i actually can’t wait to answer these <3

rules — answer the 10 questions, ask a different 10, and tag 10 people.

which trope you’re writing is the hardest for you?

i’m actually really bad at identifying tropes in my own writing drtfyghnj this is not to say that i’m not writing them, just that i’m a Fake. but blood and bones, and the entire godswar saga really, has a chosen one trope that's sort of twisted, and because i don’t outline (so many people just screamed, but if you would like me to further explain this, i definitely can in another post!) i found that turning it into an overarching plotline to the whole series was difficult, but i have it pretty much sorted out now!

who are five of your favorite characters from books/tv shows/etc.?

mia corvere from jay kristoff’s nevernight chronicle is probably my favorite character of all time. those books are honestly just masterpieces; murder, sex, revenge, brilliant dialogue, better twists, canon gays. mia epitomizes all of this, of course, and her character i find is very unique especially in the sense that she’s a female assassin in a high fantasy novel, her actions/dialogue are still very natural and clever, which pairs really well with the world. she’s not like other girls, basically, in this essay i will

tyrion lannister from “game of thrones” (the tv show, not the books, i’ve never read the books, i am ashamed) (i am not talking about season 8 though, as i never will) is another favorite of mine. peter dinklange does a great job playing him and i never found myself tiring from him, his story, or his characterization. again, i must use the word ‘clever’.

alex stern from leigh bardugo’s ninth house has actually found herself in my top five. going into the book, i wasn’t sure what to expect, mostly because leigh’s previous stuff had all been ya high fantasy and this was adult low fantasy, but i was pleasantly surprised. alex became addictive almost (darlington too, leigh really knows how to write pretty boys™) and she had a very different kind of smarts to her that she was able to apply to a number of situations, all made very enjoyable by a generally cynical (more pessimistic? there isn’t one word for it i don’t think) personality.

nona grey from mark lawrence’s red sister surprised me, mostly because the story was such a great combination of world and character; it felt as if you were watching a film while reading, there was sort of this bigness to the world around nona, even though the plot was driven by her. also, a majority of the book, nona is not older than 12 and i often find that kids under the age of 15 are portrayed as naive and stupid, so the fact that nona was not (which was partially due to her trauma) was refreshing. her aspirations were also much older than she was, which ultimately strengthened the character/read relationship.

baru cormorant from seth dickenson’s the traitor baru cormorant is another excellent character. first of all if you like politics in fantasy at all i highly, highly recommend these books, dickenson does a brilliant job not only world building but building in complex politics, with themes that deal with colonialism and its effects, something i rarely see in fantasy. you follow baru all through her life and her thought process is left bare for the readers, something that works really well in the book’s favor and aforementioned complex politics.

who are five of your favorite ocs?

i only really have five ocs and you can read about them here! i’ll also be doing individual character edits soon, hopefully.

what literary devices do you enjoy reading most? are they the same ones you like to write most?

ur kid loves a good juxtaposition.

if you could only have one wip, which would it be? why?

i only have one wip :( this is because i am lazy :( :(

fantasy or contemporary?

fantasy, generally, but i think it depends on the themes of the contemporary. mixing the two can also be very interesting.

romance or bromance?

i’m not a very big fan of most romance, especially in fantasy where it can overpower the need for world building or decent characterization, drowning out the actual plot, but when it's done well, it's done well and i prefer it.

do you have any pet peeves in writing?

i have so many and yet i can think of none. adverbs are the first to come to mind, i just hate when people don’t use them sparingly. lacking description, or rather, saying instead of telling. on that note, when the author thinks the reader is dumb (this is a bigger problem with newer writers i’ve found, you have to remember that readers are smart and once invested and trusting your story/ability to tell that story, they will want to figure out puzzles and problems. that trust won’t come though if you’re treating them as stupid.) i really don’t like it when flowery writing is used for anything outside of literary fiction, as in genre fiction it tends to distract or make the writing look unprofessional?? again, i think i would need a whole post to explain this rdtfyubnj

if you had to choose one album of some musical artist/band to represent your wip, which would it be?

anything by BANKS is probably the best musical representation of blood and bones just because her songs are all sort of dark and romantic and betrayal-related. shameless plug to my self-made soundtrack for bab and the playlist for the entire series.

do you have any pet peeves on writeblr?

writeblr is pretty much the perfect tumblr community (is that what we are i honestly don’t know), but i do think that creations, whether that be writing or edits, are not reblogged nearly enough, even though they should be!

tagging — @helleruine @astorsa @katabasiss @noloumna @norawritess @gothemark @medeaes @paracomas @zielenheil @alknst and anyone else who wants to do this!

my questions —

are there any historical events or people that have inspired the events or people of your wip?

which of your characters are more likely to adapt to their environment and which are more likely to change their environment?

what are the overarching themes (both tangible and philosophical) of your wip?

what is the greatest influence for your magic system? if not applicable: what is the greatest influence for your mc?

do you think that there is a “right” way to write?

do any of your characters possess a tragic flaw that becomes their downfall (not necessarily their death) and if so, who and what?

greatest visual inspiration? audio inspiration?

your favorite writing resource(s)?

a genre you wished you read more of? wrote more of?

a book, graphic novel/webcomic, tv show, or movie that you think needs more attention?

#i wrote Too Much for my favorite characters ftvghbjnkml #i do love them though :'(#plz give those books more attention writeblr they deserve it #ty again for the tag dasy!!#also i remembered halfway through my own questions that not everyone writes high fantasy xdfcghyuijok #also!! if you've already been tagged in this kind of post dont feel like you have to answer ten more questions frghjk

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farkenshnoffingottom · 6 years

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Ace Discourse, Here We Go

So. *rubs hands together* I decided it’s time for me to break into the discourse. Largely inspired by recent happenings on @highkingfen‘s blog. I’m going to bring some theory into this so we can understand why people are so invested in this.

But first, since the first line of attack always seems to be aimed at people’s identities, I’m gonna go ahead and state mine right now: I’m transmasc nonbinary, gray aroace, and sensually, aesthetically, and platonically attracted to all genders. I’m also not able bodied, so I want you to understand the physical toll getting involved in this debate means for me, so that you know I am invested in this discussion. I apologize in advance for any errors, although I think I caught them all. (Long post, so I put it under the cut)

I will use queer in this post because I am queer.* Let’s start with some basic politics of sex, then work our way into queer politics, and then bring it back around to aceness.

In 1984, anthropologist Gayle Rubin wrote an essay called “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” in which she argued that feminism could not take on sexuality theoretically or politically (she was writing in the midst of the feminist porn wars), but that we needed a distinct politics of sexuality. The part that strikes me as most relevant here is when she describes her theory of the sexual hierarchy.

(While this does not include asexuality, it is fair to say that asexuality can fall behind some of these walls too, because it is not accepted. Underlying the category of “good” sex is the assumption that people will be having sex, so asexual people are a threat to this social order that requires that people have “good” sex to reproduce itself.) I highly recommend you read this article, but I am mainly using it here for the visual. Walls are high, and I would say most people cannot just scale a wall all by themselves. So the way we get around this is to throw each other under the bus, to mix my metaphors. In order to cross the line into “good” and acceptable behavior, people have to step on others, push them further down, to advance themselves (instead of, say, just destroying the walls). It looks a little like “we’re exactly like you, we just love each other, we want to get married, we want to be normal. They’re the ones having public sex, turning tricks on the streets, flaunting their sexuality, etc.”** Anything that buys into the normative narrative gets you a little closer to the “good” side of the wall.

Now, I’m sort of rambling, but I promise I have a point. That point is that while asexuality may seem diametrically opposed from Rubin’s list of “bad” sex, it actually is theoretically and politically very similar. Society needs people to have sex to keep itself alive, but it just wants people to have the “right” sex. In a biopolitical way (see part five of the book linked), queer sex is just as threatening as no sex at all. The state is highly invested in controlling their population and regulating its function. This is why "Hyposexual Desire Disorder” appears in the DSM IV (It now appears split into separate disorders for males and females, which I won’t even get to, and now contains the caveat that it isn’t a disorder if someone identifies as asexual). So, improvement, right? Not quite. It still fits into the long history of queer identities and people being pathologized by medical and psychiatric authorities. Our cultural institutions acknowledge the danger asexuality poses to the social order alongside its other queer counterparts.

So, I’m counting that as my theoretical evidence that ace people belong in the queer community and moving on a little bit. One of the critiques I see of including ace people in the community is that asexuals aren’t discriminated against enough to be counted. First, see my very brief discussion of pathologization above. Second, the “cishet asexuals pass as heterosexual, so they don’t experience oppression” argument misses the point. I assume most people in this community understand why heteronormativity hurts. The assumption that you are straight when you’re not hurts. And that’s exactly what this is. The assumption that you’re straight, and that you are sexually attracted to people. And it hurts, except now it’s our supposed community that’s telling us we’re straight even after we say over and over that we’re not. Asexual is by definition not heterosexual. Three, the microagressions: lol you’re asexual, does that mean you reproduce like a plant? Don’t worry, you’ll find the right person some day (remind anyone of “but wait how do lesbians even have sex?” or “don’t worry, you’ll find the right (‘opposite’ gender) one day”?). We can acknowledge that microagressions are bad in other areas, so why can’t we admit that it’s true for ace-spec people too? Four, “corrective” therapy and/or sexual assault happen to us because of our orientations too. Even though I could go on and on, I’ll stop there. Just check my “ace discourse” tag for more. Or don’t. It’s exhausting stuff.

Another critique I see is that this somehow plays into the desexualization of gay people. People who are attracted to their own gender will be hypersexualized or desexualized by straight society as their politics call for.*** It is not asexuals’ fault that people cannot conceptualize the difference between asexuality and desexualization. Asexuality is an identity. Desexualizing someone is an act of perception and political understanding.

Additionally, asexuality is newer (not in concept, but in public visibility) than other queer orientations, and yet no one seems to want to remember that each of those past orientations had to go through the same thing, fighting to be seen as real and not pathological or unhealthy. Sure, we don’t have a legal fight in the same way that homosexual and trans people do, but that is mostly because a lot of people have no idea we exist. I’m going to point you to AVEN for an asexual history, because they’ll do a much better job than me.

Finally, simply this: it is not your job to decide who counts as queer “enough” to be in the community. Another thing we tend to forget when having this argument is that identities shift all the time. It’s politically important when dealing with the straight world to be able to say “it’s not a phase!” But sometimes, your identities shift, and that’s okay. I thought all sorts of things about who I was before I figured myself out, and I’ll probably end up somewhere a little different from where I am now. It is not so cut and dry. People can come out while they’re still questioning, and then realize that they were wrong and are really something else. Some people can be solid in an identity for years, and then start to think maybe there’s something more to it. And that is okay. What’s the point of saying we’re queer if we are just recreating the exact same structures and hierarchies and expectations that we faced in straight society? There is no need for gatekeeping here. I realized I was ace only two years ago, and started to question whether I was aromantic only a year ago. And guess what. I’m still not entirely sure who I am. But that’s fine. It’s okay to explore yourself. You don’t have to be locked into one category forever. Asexuals are not straight, and they are and should be welcome in queer spaces.

*While this should probably be covered in another post, I want to point out how intentional my use of the word is. Queer and LGBT are different concepts, in my mind. See my “queer discourse” tag for some history and theory that others have contributed. Also, read Queers Read This! to get a sense of the approach I take. For now, I will just say that queer has a historical and political meaning that grew as it diverged from the lesbian and gay movement (which was half-heartedly tacking the B and the T to the end of their name) in the ‘90s. Queer as a concept has a much higher capacity to be inclusive of ace-spec identities, because it defines itself and prides itself in its difference from the norm rather than its attempts at being normal. **For a much better discussion of this concept than I can provide here, Michael Warner’s book The Trouble With Normal is excellent, and I highly recommend it.

***Besides, the mainstream movement intentionally desexualized themselves to be acceptable to the straights. The more mainstream turn in our politics was essentially to de-sex gayness. That’s where things such as “love is love” and the gay marriage court cases came from. These were very effective political attempts to play into the normative “good” sex narrative, and distance themselves from all those bad queers doing the things on the other side of Rubin’s walls. Again, I’m going to point you to The Trouble With Normal, even though it’s almost twenty years old, because it just so brilliantly addresses all of this.

ETA: Michael Warner does talk about sex as being essential to queerness, specifically because he is writing his book in response to the desexualization of gay politics. I do not read this as an argument that asexual people aren’t queer, because I don’t think he is trying to account for our existence in this book, and it seems likely that he wasn’t thinking about us at all (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because it’s not what he set out to do with his book, and I’m fine with that. You’ve gotta narrow down your scope to something manageable, and he already has a huge topic to address).

#long post #ace discourse #queer discourse #queer #ace #e's endless rambling #i'm tired and in pain #but i had to get this out of my system #I'm too exhausted for this bs #gatekeeping #happy pride month everybody #with just a hint of sarcasm #and frustration #i don't know if any of this made sense #but i hope it does something meaningful for someone somewhere #aromantic #asexuality #asexual #The Discourse™

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sparxwrites · 6 years

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I would be incredibly interested to read what you were talking about in the tags of that ask/post~

#there’s a lot more i could write abouthow this is an emerging pattern in fan culture #and how what wasinitially meant to be a community free from content creators #is nowincreasingly becoming a community beholden to them and their approval#a community that operates within their oversight #and how people whouse fandom for what it was traditionally used for - as a sociallysubversive medium outside of mainstream control #are being penalisedfor refusing to sanitise their content and fall in line

Ihope you wanted an 8k essay about fan-creator interactions and whythey frequently end up being toxic for fans, creators, and also aboutfandom as an increasingly monetized and manipulated community, anon,because that’s what you’ve got.

Asa disclaimer, before we start: I am a linguist by training, not aneconomist, sociologist, or psychologist (though my discipline doescross over with the latter two in several places). This is written inan academic-ish style, but it’s largely based on my personalexperiences in fandom over the past ten years, the personalexperiences of the hundreds of friends and strangers that I’vetalked to or read essays by during that time, and a lot of personalresearch and reading. It’s not Word Of God, and I’m entirely opento people critiquing it, arguing with it, or elaborating on it –stuff like this is, I feel, something we need more dialogue about infandom spaces. With all that said…

Thesisstatement: Historically,fandom has very much operated on a “keep creators as far fromfandom as possible” basis, for some very excellent reasons. Withthe rise of social media contact, the gradual mainstreaming offandom, and increasingly fandom-aware creators and corporations, itis no longer possible to keep creators away from fandom. However, inthe rush to embrace creators into fandom, many of the hard-learnedlessons of fandoms past (and present) have been forgotten andignored. This, in combination with the increased monetization offandom and the exploitation of free fan labour by capitaliststructures, is a dangerous and potentially toxic combination. Whilstit’s not possible – and not desirable – to turn back the clock,fandom needs to carefully consider exactly whywe’re inviting creators into fandom space, how that should behandled, and how to mitigate the potential consequences of that.

Firstoff, there are a few pieces of terminology uses I want to make clear,and a few starting assumptions I want to detail, just so we’re allgoing into this from somewhat the same starting point:

When I say fandom here, I mean creative fandom – ie. writers, artists, graphics makers, cosplayers, and various others, along with the people who support them and interact with them in a variety of ways. There are other kinds of fandom, of course; notably casual fandom where someone simply enjoys a book / show / movie, or collative fandom, focused on collecting facts / statistics / comic editions / props. These types of fandom are not the ones I have experience with, however, and are also not entirely relevant given this discussion is specifically about creators in creative fandom.

I’m assuming that fandom is a space where people should be allowed to create whatever the hell they want, within the bounds of legality. That means if people want to write rape fic, draw art of extreme kinks, cosplay “problematic” characters, or ship unhealthy / abusive ships, they should be able to – without people going “think of the children!” or “you’re a Bad Person”. Debating whether this attitude is the right one is another conversation entirely; you can read more about why I take this stance in an essay I wrote a while back about ‘heavy’ kinks, and also in the purity politics tag on my personal blog – but if you fundamentally disagree with this stance, you’re probably going to disagree with this essay in general.

When I use “creator(s)” here, I’m talking about the people making the canon content – whether that’s an actor, a voice actor, a writer, a director / producer, a comic artist, a game development studio, a youtuber, whatever. When I use “fan(s)”, I’m primarily talking about individuals within creative fandom (ie. those who create fan content, and those who support them). Yes, some (if not most) fans are absolutely creators too, given fan content is just as valid and creative as ‘official’ content – but it is, linguistically, easier for me to use “creator” and “fan” rather than having to tie myself up in descriptive knots. Yes, there are areas of fandom that are primarily about curation rather than creation, and there are fans who simply enjoy the source material and don’t involve themselves in what they would consider “fandom” at all, and those are valid ways of interaction with the source material – but, as I mentioned above, that’s not the aspect of fan-creator interaction and fandom I’m talking about.

So,now we’ve got that out the way…

1.Fandom History, “Purity Politics”, and Censorship

Historically,mainstream media has not been kind to fandom – nor have mainstreamwebsites, or even primarily fandom-oriented websites for that matter.Fanfiction.net is notorious for having done a mass-deletionof “adult” works(though theirongoing policing of this is spotty at best and nonexistent at worst),and I remember them also having a list of authors who’d contactedthem and “asked” them not to host fic from their books / serieson the website. Livejournal also had severalmass deletions thatpartially targeted fan communities, especially communities producing“unacceptable” fanworks. Slash communities and the like wereoften specifically targeted, because the people pushing for thedeletions had homophobic agendas and considered queer fiction more“inappropriate” than heterosexual / gen fiction.

Thiswas, in some ways, the beginning of our current purity politicsepidemic – people campaigning against certain types of fanfic thatthey personally disliked or disagreed with under the banner of“protecting the children” – except, in these instances, it waspressure coming from outside fandoms rather than within them. AO3(and the Organization for Transformative Works’ associated effortstowards fandom archiving, fannish academia, and legal advocacy) wasfounded partiallyas a response to these deletionsand to the concept of “acceptable” versus “unacceptable”fanworks.

I’mnot gonna do a huge history lesson here, but if you want to read moreabout this, a little bit of googling will get you a long way (as willfollowing the links above). These events have been talked aboutextensively by people who were more involved in them than I was, andif you haven’t heard about them before, they’re worth readingabout. Fandom history is important, y’all.

WhatI’m getting at here is there’s a reason older fans / peoplewho’ve been in fandom a while have a good reason to be faintlyparanoid about creators coming into fan spaces, or being too aware ofthem. Specifically,fans who write “inappropriate” or “bad” fanworks –including adult or nsfw content, Real Person Fiction (rpf ) / RealPerson Slash (rps), slash or femslash, anything involving dark ormature themes such as sexual abuse, child abuse, incest, rape,domestic violence, etc. – have the most reason to be concerned.Backlash to the same degree as has happened in the past is a littlemore unusual, due to the mainstreaming of fandom and increased fansolidarity, but it still happens.

(Assomeone who’s both been in fandom for A While now and remembers theaftermath of the deletions (even though I didn’t have an LJ accountor write mature fanfic at the time) and writes “bad” fanworks, Ihave doubly good reason to be paranoid. Hence why I talk about this alot, and have Strong Opinions on it. Most of the other people I’vetalked to who have Strong Opinions on this tend to fall into thosetwo categories, too. If you’re not from these groups, then… maybeconsider, if you’re sitting there going, “yes, but Idon’t feel threatened by anyof this,” whyyou don’t feel threatened. Try to see it from our perspective.)

Inaddition to corporate / website efforts to stamp out fandom spaces ingeneral, and “undesirable”, non-mainstream, or subversive fanspaces specifically (including, again, gay / queer spaces, becausethat was considered “undesirable”), various authors and showsmade their own efforts. Anne Rice is notorious for her veryaggressive stance against fanfiction. Even JK Rowling, one of thefirst authors to publicly say she was okay with fanfic, has gone onrecord saying she objects to adult work involving HarryPotter characters – although“innocent” fics by “genuine fans” are okay, apparently.

Theshow Supernaturalhas had several entire episodesdedicated to taking the piss out of fandom in general – andfangirls specifically, caricaturing them as ditzy, obsessive, creepy,lonely, unlikeable, sex-obsessed – despite the fact that theirfandom is the only reason they’re still running. It’s all thesame usual, unpleasant stereotypes that get pulled up every timewomen, and especially teenage girls, become invested in or excited bya piece of media. A previous fandom of mine, the Yogscast, had ahistory of begging and / or outright stealing fanart from artists formerch, video use, or general promo stuff – but also decided to reada fairly ‘innocent’, fluffy fic on stream in order to mock boththe author and the fic (and in the process drove the author off theface of fandom internet, basically).

Again,we see fandom and fanworks being split into “acceptable” and“unacceptable” by content creators – people not actuallyinvolved in fandom, but feeling as though they have a kind ofownership over it, or say in it – based on mainstream mediastandards and their personal morals (and what they can monetizeversus what they can’t, though more on that later). And the reasonthey feel like they have any kind of ownership over fandom is veryoften that they are a creator, and they see fanworks as, in someways, “belonging” to them rather than just being a derivative oftheir work.

Creatorshave always struggled to understand that fandom is, primarily, forthe fans– not there as an expression of the fans’ heart-eyed adorationfor the creators, but as an expression of the fans’ creativity, oftheir ideas and enthusiasm for the work itself, and often of theirdissatisfactionwith the source material. Fandom is a space for the fans, butcreators often feel as though they should have some kind of say init, merely by merit of having created the source material.

Historically,this entitlement – valid or not, though I’m inclined towards not– has manifested itself as creators aggressively(and generally unsuccessfully) trying to stop the creation of fancontent based ontheir material. Which is a pretty terrible option, given it destroysfandoms and often leads to harassment and legal issues for fans.

Somewherebetween that and where we are now, we had creators realising therewas fuck-all they could do about fannish activities, given the sizeof the web and the determination of fans, and instead just did theirbest to ignore it all. This was, in my opinion, a pretty good courseof action. This was what tended to happen with fandom when I firstentered it – creators were aware of it, it occasionally got broughtup in interviews if a particularly dedicated reporter had discoveredit existed, and the creator usually laughed nervously and saidsomething to the effect of, “I know it’s out there but I tend toavoid it for legal / personal reasons”.

2.The Monetization of Fandom, and the Exploitation of Fan Labour

So,what changed between then and now? A lot, I think – including theemergence of a generation of new, fandom-savvy and tech-savvycreators, many of whom grew up in fandom (think Rebecca Sugar, AlexHirsch, the cast of Critical Role to a degree… others, probably,but those are the ones I’m aware of) knowing where to go to findfandom. Also, the rise of social media, and the increasing ease ofinteracting with fandom on a variety of platforms.

Asa creator, when you’ve got a bunch of people who love the thing youcreated, and are producing a bunch of derivative works from it, thatcan be very flattering! And people tend to react positively to theopportunity to interact one-on-one with a creator, which social mediaallows them to do, and again this positive feedback is veryflattering. Being in a fandom space for a creator is, at its mostshallow and cynical, an ego boost – you have a huge base of peoplewho all (usually) like a thing you’ve made, like you and thinkyou’ve very clever for having made it, and are (usually) eager tocreate things either based off of the thing you did, or even as adirect present for you.

There’salso the fact that fandom is now big enough to very successfullymonetize, and creators (and big businesses) are increasingly workingout how to do this successfully. This takes a lot of different forms:ever-growing conventions with ever-more dealer tables, more merch,subscription-based services (such as Geek & Sundry and Nerdist’sAlphaor Roosterteeth’s First,or even Twitch subscriptions), Youtube in general, Patreon /Kickstarter… and also, more insidiously, theuse of fandom as free labour.

Fandomhas alwaysbeen partially about labour,as anyone who’s ever made fanart or fanfic or manips or a podcastor… well, really anything, can attest to. Even being actively partof a community is, in some ways, labour. However, there’s adifference between free (and freely given) labour – writing a ficis hard work, true, but often it’s funtoo, and is done as a labour of love, as a form of play or relaxation– and exploited free labour.

Freelabour is the creation of fanart and fanfic and other art and objectsby fans, for fans. Free labour is labour done under the heading of“play” or “relaxation” or “a hobby”, something thecreator enjoys doing. Free labour is even fan-run websites, or fanscampaigning to get a show back on air, or doing other things thattraditionally PR and advertising managers would do except for free,of their own free will just because they love the source material.

Exploitedfree labour is Anime Expo, a 10,000 attendee strong for-profitconvention callingfor volunteer translators to do skilled labour for free.Exploited free labour is the Yogscast, a major Youtube network,askingfor free art from skilled fanartists, and repeatedly failing tocredit fanartists who’ve done commissions for them.Exploited free labour is Amanda Palmer raising $1.2 million onKickstarter, but solicitingfans of hers who were professional musicians to work for her for freebecause she “couldn’t afford to pay them”.Exploited free labour is Universal Studios solicitingFireflyfans to help market and promote the movie for free, and then sendingthem a cease-and-desist letter once the movie had been released.Exploited free labour is E.L. James getting FiftyShades of Grey published offthe back of reviewsand collaborative idea generation from hundreds of fellow fandommembers, butcompletely failing to acknowledge this. Exploited free labour isLiveJournal’s(thankfully failed) attempt to make a for-profit fanfiction sitewhere writers had to surrender copyright to the creators of canon.The examples go on, and on, and on.

Fandomhas gone from something small and rather community based – wherepeople didprovide skilled labour for free, because cons and such were organisedby the community for the community, because there wasn’t a lot ofmoney going round, because it was about fandom rather than profit,because they were recompensed for that free labour in non-monetaryways (including reputation and other social currencies) – tosomething monetized. Cons are run by businesses now, primarily, andorganised fan events are professional affairs where a lotof money changes hands. Corporations that try and equate the two arebeing deliberately manipulative.

Basically,fundamentally capitalist constructions like the kind we see incorporate-ized fandom deliberately invoke fandom’s history of giftculture in an attempt to scam fans out of free labour. The wholepoint of gift culture is that it is reciprocal– I create something for a friend or someone I like, and in returnthey create something for me (even if that creation is a review ofwhatever I created, or something more abstract than a tangiblereward). The whole point of capitalism is that it isn’treciprocal, or at least not in the same way – I provide a servicefor someone who is likely to be a complete stranger, and in returnthey give me money. When capitalism tries to wriggle out of the“giving me money” bit of their equation by appealing to the factthat, in a gift culture, I do things for “free”, it’s blatantbullshit quite frankly.

It’sblatant, deliberatebullshit, because the companies know exactly what they’re doing,and what they’re doing is devaluing and exploiting fan labour offthe back of fandom’s cultural traditions.

(Andbefore someone says, “but it is reciprocal! Creators make a thingfor us, and we make a thing for them,” I’m going to point outthat often fans have alreadyengaged with the capitalist modelto access the Creator Thing in the first place. Fans have paid forthe movie, book, TV show, or they’ve subscribed to the Twitchchannel, or the Patreon, or donated to the Kickstarter. The creatorsare already getting monetarily compensated for their work, becausemainstream creators work in the context of the capitalist model, notthe gift culture model. Therefore, the things the creators are makingcannotbe the reciprocal part of the gift culture, since that has alreadybeen bought.)

It’sone thing for me and a friend to organise a fanmeet for a fandomwe’re in, for free, where the meet is about meeting friends fromthe fandom and socialising. It’s another thing for, say, a companyrunning a convention that will be making tens of thousands, if nothundreds of thousands, of dollars of profit, to ask if I’llorganise thatfor free. That’s a dramatic (and somewhat unrealistic, though seethe translator thing above) example, but the point stands.

Capitalismtakes advantage of fandom’s innate gift culture, and itstraditional free exchange of ideas and fan collaboration, in moreinsidious ways, too. As thispaper (which youmay not be able to read in full if you don’t have institutionalaccess, but I can provide if you message me) notes, regarding a viralseries of videos on Youtube called Lonelygirl15that was one of the first new media fandoms:

[…] the team consciously used to theiradvantage the myth of the do-it-yourself (DIY) celebrity inherent toYouTube. […] YouTube’s ability to freely distribute content tomillions with little investment holds the promise to broadcastoneself to fame and fortune. As a result, hundreds of fans, with thehopes of becoming legitimate storytellers, created videos around theLG15world. Most hoped that mere mention of their work in the franchiseproper would open doors for them. In the process, the fans werewillingly generating value for the franchise. The team, on the otherhand, heavily regulated the boundaries of the LG15canon by actively marking fan fiction as ancillary and used copyrightclaims as ways to carefully manage community initiatives. Keeping thefans at arm’s length ran counter to their initial rhetoric ofcommunity-led collaborative storytelling and subsequently estrangedthe very community that had initially given them exposure.

[…] I argue that it is a form ofexploitation because the creative team mislead the fans into thinkingthat their participation would have a more meaningful impact on theshow proper. This intentional misleading was primarily to garner theattention of the mainstream media and grow the show into a robustfranchise. The team claimed to be experimenting with a new type ofstorytelling, a community-based narrative that embodied the generalspirit of co-authorship. They sold their show to fans as anunprecedented initiative that would blur the actor/producer and fandivide, a promise that did not actualize for many fans and wasfrequently curtailed by the creative team’s eagerness to protectthe artistic integrity of their show. Ultimately, the team’s goalof proving LG15 to be a financially viable initiative led them toconfine fan engagement within strictly defined parameters thatultimately undermined their initial rhetoric of community-ledstorytelling.

- “Exposingconvergence: YouTube, fan labour, and anxiety of cultural productionin Lonelygirl15” by Burcu S.Bakioğlu

This“business model” – in which fandom-savvy creators with a closeconnection to their fandom and a marketing-based knowledge of howfandom works string their fans along with ultimately empty dreams,whilst simultaneously holding them at a distasteful arm’s length –can be seen as echoes through somany new media fandoms, and avariety of traditional ones too. It’s the typical push-pull ofcreators who are hungry for the free advertising and labour fans canprovide, but who find fandom in all its queer, subversive,traditionally-female glory to be fundamentally distasteful.

(Fanartistsare, I think, the most vulnerable to this kind of exploitation.Fanfiction is often seen as undesirable (sometimes even within fandomspaces, but that’s another essay), but fanart? Provided it’s the“right” kind of fanart – ie. sfw, fairly canon-compliant,well-drawn, no implications of gay/trans stuff – then it’s verydesirable. Fanart contests,t-shirt or merch design contests, gif contests, are all fairlycommonplace. I’ve never heard of a fanfic equivalent.)

It’sa far more subtle form of monetization, but all the more dangerousfor it, especially because it lures fans into a false sense ofsecurity with the creator. They feel that the creator is on theirside, is “one of them”, is going to reciprocate the unpaid labourthey put in, actually “gets” fandom or is supportive of itsnon-mainstream and subversive endeavours… only to then bedisappointed, because inevitably the creator isn’t interested inanything other than maximising profit by manipulating their fanbase,and may actually find the fans they’re toying with activelydistasteful.

Youcan find a hugeamount of writing and research on these concepts via googling “freelabour fandom” or “fandom labour exploitation”, by the way, ifyou’re interested. This isn’t a concept I’ve just come up with– it’s something academics and business-people have been aware offor a long time, but hasn’t quite filtered down into general fandomconsciousness yet. The companies know about it, and are activelyusing it to their advantage, but fandom as a whole hasn’t quitesavvied up yet.

Whichis, I think, a large part of what I take issue with. Some people,after reading the above few paragraphs, will respond with, “So? Ilove [thing], I don’t mind my labour being used to support it andits creators.” However,some people will be going, “Holy shit,I didn’t realise that was a thing? That’s awful, even though I dothings for [thing], I don’t want to support the parent company / Ididn’t consent for my labour to be used like this.” Some of bothgroups, given the fact that the average age of people in fandom isskewing increasingly younger, will be twelve, or thirteen.

Thisis what I object to. Not necessarily that the labour is being used,but that there’s no informed consent to it (and also that it’soften used by the same people who mock fandom, or find it‘disgusting’, or have rather poor views of their fans). That it’smanipulative,very deliberately so. That it’s often couched in terms of it beinga moral obligation, a “labour of love”, a “volunteer position”,as “helping the community”, even when that’s evidently bullshitbecause the group trying to feed you that line is a business that isonly interested in fandom as a profit-making machine. That, often,it’s vulnerable fans – younger fans, poor fans, fans fromminority groups – being taken advantage of, deliberately andmanipulatively, by creators.

Fansare inherentlyvulnerable, for a variety of reasons (more on that later) due to thepower difference between them and content creators, and thatvulnerability is being exploited, often using the language of fandomto disguise the exploitation.

Howoften do creators run a “design a t-shirt / poster for us!”competition, where the artist gets paltry recompense (or none atall!) and often no credit for their work? How often do competitionTerms of Service end up having loopholes where the creators nowlegally own your work, in its entirety, forever, and you can’t doshit about it? Professionalfreelancers are aware of these kinds of things, and look for them incontracts – youraverage fan is not,however, and yet they are being used as (easily exploited, preciselybecausethey don’t have the experience professionals have) freelancers bycreators.

Asthisarticle regardingthe Amanda Palmer debacle above rather neatly puts it:

Ideally, you don’t even know you areworking at all. You think you are keeping up with friends, ornetworking, or saving the world, or jamming with the band. And youare. But you are also laboring for someone else’s benefit withoutgetting paid.

3.The Fan-Creator Power Imbalance and Fan Vulnerability

Let’sbe honest here: all of this manipulation is possible because fans,and fandom, are incrediblyvulnerable, on severaldifferent fronts – legally and financially, emotionally, and oftenin terms of age and experience. Though not allcreators take advantage of these vulnerabilities, it’sunfortunately not unusual.

Fansare primarily vulnerable legally. In general, the legalityof fanfiction and fanworksis super iffy,to the point Wikipedia has an entire article on it, and creatorsaren’t always happy that it’s being written (again, covered inthe Wiki article, and mentioned above as well). Fans also don’thave a great deal of legal protections– one of the reasons why AO3has a legal teamthat fights for fans and fandom – and what they do have has oftenbeen won by other fans who’ve fallen foul of copyright laws orcease-and-desist demands and fought back. Often though (but notalways), fans are young, and have neither the money nor the legalknowledge to fight back should a large corporation or dedicatedindividual creator with a beefy legal team decide to start legalproceedings against them.

Fansare also vulnerable because of their age and life experience.Increasingly, fandom is skewing younger and younger, which means manyfans (perhaps now even the majority) are underage. It issignificantly easier for creators to manipulate and use younger fansthan it is to do so with older fans. Even older fans, though, whohave more life experience, may not have relevantlife experience. A lot of fan writers and artists are hobbyists, notprofessional freelancers. “Tricks” by corporations such as dodgyterms of service or questionable phrasing in competition terms may beless noticeable to fans than they would be to professionals providingsimilar services. Fans may also not have the same tools asprofessionals when it comes to knowing how to deal with being takenadvantage of. Professional artists may have a standard procedure theyfollow when they discover their art has been plagiarised, or haveother professional artists they know as part of the community who canadvise them – fanartists are lucky if they have any such resource.

Fansare alsouniquely vulnerable with regards to interacting with contentcreators. There’s a power imbalance. This isn’t exactly the placefor discussions regarding (usually sexual) harassment / abuse of fansby creators, and I don’t want it to turn into one entirely, but…it happens. It happens a lot.A quick google search found me thisarticle listing anumber of scandals and allegations of sexual abuse or abuse of power,just regarding Youtubers,in the past year or so alone. Here’sa post from my personal blogsummarizing the multipleallegations of harassment levelled against the Yogscast, includingsome really rather serious ones, and the… frankly appallingresponse from the Yogs. That’s without even touching on theaccusations against more mainstream / Hollywood personalities thatcrop up every five seconds.

Thiskind of stuff happens a lot more than fandom would like toacknowledge. Creators hold power over fans, and sometimes – a lotof the time – they don’t use that power entirely for good.

Ofcourse, fans often enjoy having creators in fandom spaces – or,more accurately, enjoy having creators accessible. Fans want to benoticed by creators, have a personal relationship with them, meetthem, talk with them, share things with them. They often also wanttheir fandom pursuits, whatever those may be, to be validated. Theseare all perfectly normal things to want, especially from people youadmire and look up to. Hell, I would be a huge hypocrite if I triedto pretend I’ve never wanted to be friends with the creator of afandom I was in. I’m not here to rag on people for havingfantasies, or for looking up to creators – I’m here to point outthat people should be exercising caution along with those.

Becausethe issue is, a lotof people don’t feel safe with creators too far into the fandom.And some other people don’t see that as a reasonable boundary forthose people to have, or are too caught up in their “senpai noticeme” heart-eyes to care.

Beingon twitter is good, it makes creators approachable, you can tweet atthem and they might even respond – and sometimes it’s even a bitfunny if they admit they’ve gone looking for fanfic. But a creatordemonstrating a huge deal of internet savvy, having a tumblr blog,going on AO3? That’s enough to make a lot of people feel unsafecreating and sharing fanworks.

(Ifmonetization and exploitation is a particularly big issue forfanartists, then feeling unsafe is a particularly big issue forfanwriters. Not that fanartists never feel unsafe, especially if theyproduce “undesirable” content – but, for almost every creatorI’ve ever come across, whilst somefanart is acceptable, perhaps even desirable, fanfiction isunanimously “othered” in terms of fan crafts. Perhaps because,due to inherently needing a plot and the use of headcanons and havinga non-canon focus, it’s more threatening to the creator? I’m notsure and, again, that’s another issue. But for fic writers, eventhe most “harmless”, innocent, fluffy, G-rated gen fic risksscorn, humiliation, disapproval, or accusations of being “weird”or “creepy”. Those who write darker or more mature stuff, likemyself and many of my friends, have to deal with being aware thateven creators who take a “live and let live” approach to fanficwould likely be disgusted if they ever found our work. As I saidbefore: if you’re sitting here thinking “but I’mnot worried”, consider why.)

And,again, fandom is primarily forthe fans. We should beprotecting fans above and before creators.

Areally good way of doing that, whether protecting them from legalthreats, from having their labour exploited, or from creatorharassment, is to keep fandom separated from creators. Not entirelyseparate, not “buried in the depths of the web where no one canever find it” separate, but just… an acknowledgement that fandomis for fans, not creators. That fans deserve spaces they can putthings up for other fans to see, without being worried about theirwork being stumbled upon by creators or ‘upsetting creators’ –or, more unpleasantly, being mocked by creators, broadcast outside offandom spaces without their consent, or being judged according to anarbitrary, mainstream moral code.

Fundamentally,fans deserve a safe space. And when I use that word, I don’t mean“somewhere where no one will ever be triggered” or “somewherethat has been entirely morally sanitised” or “somewhere whereroving mobs of thirteen year olds get to dictate who is problematicor not”. A fandom safe space should be a space where people canpost what they want (within some reason) without fear of Big BrotherCreator watching, without fear of being mocked, without fear of beingtold they’re gross or disgusting or Wrong – and a space wherepeople can reasonably be expected to take ownership of their owncontent consumption, helped by stuff like content warnings orblacklists or AO3 tags.

Havingcreators there complicates that. It makes people worried, for a wholevariety of reasons. Something I said on a post a while back that isrelevant here: “Creative fandom, in terms of art and fic, issupposed to be an area of fandom without creator oversight – orwith very limited creator oversight. Feeling like you’re beingwatched, worrying that you might unintentionally offend, killscreativity.” Even if canon creators don’t intend to have anegative impact on fan spaces, or even want to join fan spaces inorder to interact with and please fans, they have an adverse effecton the safety and fandom-ness of the space.

Or,as out-there-on-the-maroon’sresponse to thatpost put it, probably better than I did:

This is something I’ve seen happen inreal time on the various official G&S [Geek and Sundry] discords.Initially fan-only spaces, they quickly started to welcome andexplicitly invite the cast and crew onto the discords. Which has itsbenefits and cool aspects, but also turns a fan-only private spaceinto a space watched by the creators, where the creators havepowerful voices of authority.

Suddenly any criticism or “I didn’tlike this part of this episode” comments became awkward orself-censored. Fanfic talk got dialed way back, hidden in privateDMs, or moved to separate private discords. Then there were clasheswith mods and other fans who were debating what was appropriate talknow that the cast were becoming members. It’s one thing to yell“omg I HATE [writer X]!” during a livestream of a tense episodewhen in a private discord, it’s another to do so in a channel wherethat writer frequently reads the chatlogs. Among fellow fans it’sunderstood that such talk is hyperbolic, but when the creators areright there chatting with you in a friendly way, it becomes risky.

[…] A large chunk of the “drama”that happens in these new media fandoms can be traced to there beingpoor separation of personal and private, be that a creator venting ontwitter and getting into fights with fans, fans sending explicitfanfic to a creator, or those “dramatic readings” at conventionswhere a room full of adults is invited to mock the un-edited writingsof a 15 year old. I’ve seen a lot of issues arise when someone, saya youtube star, rises to fame very quickly and is ill-prepared forputting up boundaries between themselves and their fans. (Mostyounger celebrities are actively discouraged from doing this,encouraged instead to be always available, always friendly, alwaysopen and personal with fans.)

Havingcreators engaging with fandom is not necessarily bad in and of itself– fans are excited to be noticed by their heroes, creators areexcited to hear from people who love them and the stuff they produce.It can be good, or at the very least not-bad. The issue is, though,that creative fandom is for fans, by fans, and there’s no intrinsicplace for creators in it, but creators are increasingly trying tomakespace for themselves in it anyways without understanding the effectthat has. That’s where the problem lies.

I’mnot suggesting we never ever let creators talk to their fans everagain. I’m just saying that we have sites like twitter for that –they don’t need to be coming onto tumblr, or browsing AO3, to haveconversations with fans. It should be up to fans to make the firstmove regarding contact, nine times out of ten, not the creators.

Creatorsdeserve spaces where they’re safe from being exposed to contentabout their characters that they don’t want to see or finddistasteful. Fans deserve spaces where they don’t have to worryabout the creator deciding they’ve seen stuff they don’t want toor stuff they find distasteful. The easiest and best way of doingthis is to make sure there are separate spaces for creators and fans– and that each side acknowledges, when they go into the other’sspace, they play by the rules of that space and don’t try toenforce their own. End of.

4.“Not MyCreators!”

Ifyour response to this has been, “Yes, okay, but mycreators are nice, though,” then consider: you’re probably notgoing to be in that fandom (or at least, not solely in that fandom)forever. You are eventually, inevitably, going to encounter a creatorwho isn’t nice. Your creator may also not be nice forever – it’snot unusual for creators to seem lovely and friendly and reallyinvolved in fandom, and then turn out to be a massive douchebag (seealso, Ridgedog and Sjin from the Yogscast).

Eventhe nicest creators can cause drama and conflict, too. If they’reseen to endorse a particular headcanon that people start trying toimpose as canon, if they state “preferences” for fanworks thatpeople feel compelled to (or are forced by other fans to) obey, ifpeople think they’re playing favourites… it gets messy. And thelonger someone is seen as “the nicecreator”, the longer they’re up on that pedestal, the harder theyfall when they do the slightestthing wrong.

It’snot just fans that can suffer when creators get too close. In myprevious fandom, a fan that was jealous of the attention a creatorwas showing to another fan (ie. notto them) decided to start asmear campaign over it. They tried doxxing the creator in question,got several other people to threaten doxxing, started attacking otherfans (myself included) and sending death threats, and generallymanaged to really badly fuck up a whole number of involved parties’mental health. A similar thing happened with another creator in thesame fandom, where said fan is stillrunning a smear campaign against them. These are not isolatedincidents.

AsI mentioned in replyto a content creator I’m personally acquainted with, on one of my initial posts on this topic:

I think… regardless of how hard theytry to integrate, canon creators are Apart and Above fans. They can’tbe part of their own fandom in the way that fans are - howinsufferably arrogant they’d be if they were! - and they have anatural, inescapable power over the fans in the sense that their fansare inevitably going to look up to them and idolise them / put themon a pedestal. It makes things a little sticky for creators in thesense that they’re stuck as almost a god-figure, but also thattheir fans want to be friends with the Real Them - and, of course,either the creator keeps up the god-figure persona, stays on theirpedestal, and disappoints the fans who feel held at arm’s length;or they drop the god-figure persona, get off (or fall off) thepedestal, and disappoint the fans who feel angry and betrayed andupset that their idol is actually fallible and human (and hasopinions the fan disagrees with / is boring / is bigoted / isn’tfunny when they’re not performing / isn’t a role model ordesirable when they’re not pretended to be a god-figure). Damned ifyou do, damned if you don’t.

Fandom,especially younger fandom, has an idolatry issue when it comes tocreators – and it hurts people on both sides of the god-worshipperequation that that behaviour creates.

5.Conclusion…?

Isuppose, actually, that despite the thesis statement there are a fairfew different questions actually being asked in this essay: How okayare we – as a community of fans, regardless of the particularfandoms we call home – with censorship? How okay are we, or shouldwe be, with the commodification and monetisation of fandom by bothbig business and / or fans themselves? How okay are we withnon-fandom people and groups, whose aims and morals may not alignwith fandom’s, attempting to manipulate / change fandom and use itfor their own ends? How do we plan to protect our own?

Theseweren’t the questions I expected to end up asking at the end ofthis essay but, here we are.

Iwould hope I’d made my personal positions on them clear. First andforemost, we should nottolerate censorship. Not fromwithin fandom, and not from without. We should alsonot tolerate manipulative attempts at monetisation by corporations –and should fight hard within our communities to preserve gift cultureand the fandom-as-play mentality that fandom is built on, despite therise of commissions-based fan interactions and Patreon / Kickstarterculture. We should fight hard, not to prevent fandom from changingper se, but to make sure we don’t lose our roots and principles.

Creators,by merit of being the people who create the media we love and engagewith so much, have power. A hugeamount of power. Maybe that’s legal power, maybe that’s the powerof a savvy and manipulative marketing department behind them. Maybethat’s the power conferred by being adored and idolised by a largenumber of fans, maybe that’s the power of having a twitter mob attheir control that will harass anyone they disagree with. Maybe thatpower is just older fans knowing how creators can turn on fans andfandoms, and being afraid to create things because “big brother iswatching”, regardless how benevolent that all-seeing eye is. Maybethat power is just having people feel it’s “polite” to “respectthe creator’s wishes” regarding what sort of fanwork can / shouldbe produced in that fandom.

Asthe old fandom term “Word of God” implies, creators are… well,the gods of their fandoms. That’s not necessarily a title theyearned (some creators are supershitty people, let’s be honest here), it might not even be a titlethey wanted(see also: Undertale, Homestuck, and other fandoms that suddenlyexploded), but it’s a title they have nonetheless.

Inthe end, this issue ties together a lot of things, I think – notjust creator involvement in fandom, not just censorship, not justmonetization, but purity politics, and the legality of fanworks, andhow to manage communities both online, and irl and the habit ofpeople to put creators they admire on a pedestal.

Howdo we, as a community, plan to self-organise, disseminate importantinformation, make decisions, and work as a united front in thefuture? Is that even possible – is fandom a fundamentallyanarchistic entity, unable to survive attempts to formalise it in anyform still recognisable as “fandom”; or, conversely, is fandomdoomed to dying and being subsumed by corporate manipulations if itdoes notformalise and organise, and work to protect its roots and the uniqueculture that has sprung from them?

I’mafraid I don’t really have the answers to those particularquestions, but… food for thought. I know I certainly think aboutthem a fair amount, and perhaps it’s time fandom in general starteddoing so too.

6. Fandom: The Next Generation

Whatdo we doabout all this, though?

Well,for starters, we educate both fandom and creators. There’s somegrassroots efforts to do this within fandom – professionalfreelancers making pushes to ensure people who offer commissionsprice their work correctly, and also checking through various contestterms of service and spreading the word if something’s dodgy, therecent pushback against censorship and purity politics within fandomspaces. Various fandoms on tumblr who know their creators often usetumblr, or check specific tags within it, have developed “private”tags for nsfw or shippy content, or fanfiction, to keep them awayfrom creators – either at the creators’ request, or of their ownvolition.

That’snot enough, though. We also need to educate creators.Even for those that grew up “geeky” or “nerdy” or “infandom”, they’re often talking primarily about the curative sideof fandom activities, not the creative. That side of fandom has verydifferent rules, social mores, and opinions to the creative side offandom. Creative fandom, essentially, needs to set out its stall forcreators – this is who we are, this is what we do, this is how youengage with us politely. We’re happy for you to come look at ourthings, if you want, but if you’re coming into ourspaces (ie. livejournal, tumblr, ao3) then don’t try to tell uswhat we can and can’t do, because we’renot doing this for you.Remember, when you interact with us in our spaces, you’re in ourterritory, and you should behave as such. Remember, we are acommunity, and if you try to take advantage of us or our vulnerablemembers, we will not tolerateit – even if you didn’treally realise that you were trying to take advantage.

Andhonestly? Some creators just need to remember to have basic goddamnmanners. Going on twitter to go “ewww I just read the creepiestfanfic about my book” and linking to it, or reading something outon stream without author permission, or telling part of your fanbasethey’re bad people because of how they choose to engage with yourmaterial… that’s just plain rude. We shouldn’t have to teachcreators how to be decent human beings. A remarkable number ofcreators fall short of this standard, honestly, and we need to stoptolerating it.

Ifthe creators aren’t dicks, then they’ll want to learn how to dobetter, both for themselves and also for their fandom. If they aren’tdicks, they won’t want to take advantage of their fandom, or farmthem for exploited labour. And, well, if they are dicks… that’s alittle harder, but it requires fandom as a community to stop keepingcreators on pedestals, to separate fandom from the creator of thesource material, and to be willing to occasionally kick someone’sass if need be. We’ve got to protect one another, is what I’mgetting at here.

Isuppose, if I have to end this essay with anything, it’s this:educate yourself.

Knowyour history – there are plenty of older fans on tumblr talkingabout their experiences, and plenty of blogs dedicated to it. OTW hasa huge number of resources for this, including their open-accessjournal for fan matters (TransformativeWorks and Cultures), theFanlorewiki, and the summaries of the legal activism they’ve done in agiven month for fandom in general and also specific fans. Livejournalis practically a treasure trove, with huge communities that gatheredand collated drama, wank, and general history and informationregarding fandom. Wikipedia, and the wider internet, also hasincreasing amounts of information on fandom history as fandom getspushed into the mainstream media spotlight.

Educateyourselves, educate others, and listen to people who’ve been infandom longer than you have been – though “listen” doesn’tmean “automatically agree with”. And, most importantly of all,look out for other fans. Help them, support them, protect them.Fandom’s something pretty special, after all. We’ve got to lookafter it for those that come after us.

#fandom history #meta #idk what else to tag this with but i Do sort of want to get it Out There so...#anonymous #ask #sparx chats #essays #i am sorry this took so long to do but... 8k lmao #this is a subject i am Real passionate about #(and real salty about)#and i may not have all the answers but i sure as hell have a lot of questions i'm gonna yell about til fandom actually pays attention

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improbabledreams900 · 6 years

Text

2017 Fic in Review

I was tagged by @sous-le-saule

Thank you!

total number of completed stories: 9 in 2017, counting the 2017 GOHE and excluding the 2018 GOHE, and excluding a music video

total word count: somewhere in the neighborhood of 330k (my god)

fandoms written in: Good Omens, Rivers of London

looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?

I’m going to go with more, because I’m terrible at predicting how much time I will be able to devote to writing in any given year (due to personal and professional commitments). Had circumstances been different, I very easily could have written only one fic and then given up on the whole endeavor entirely.

what’s your own favorite story of the year?

That’s got to be The Inheritance of Eden, because I was just so thrilled to finish my Eden!verse series, and I was really proud of how it turned out.

did you take any writing risks this year?

I co-wrote Back to Bedlam with pudupudu. I’d never co-written before and was a bit skeptical at first, but we have similar styles and approaches to writing, and it was actually a lot of fun.

do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year?

Write stories for as many of my ideas as I can before Real Life inevitably arrives and tells me I can’t spend hours upon hours writing hundreds of thousands of words of fanfiction.

best story of the year?

Best as in...? As already mentioned, I really love The Inheritance of Eden, but Don’t Play With Holy Water is an all-around masterpiece imo.