#on fandom

[thursdayinspace]

every time I get an email from ao3 telling me somebody left a comment on one of my fics, every time I see that somebody reblogged something I wrote on tumblr, my day improves instantly. every time it makes me feel that I want to keep going. so I just want to say this to all of you who comment and reblog: I hope you know how important you are.

stories, art, meta -- those things aren't created in a vacuum. they are part of an ongoing conversation between the material, the fic/meta writers and artists, and the people who interact with what they read and see. and that's not just true for art and all forms of writing. the whole world is a big, intertextual web made of billions of voices. we react to each other and that's how we create community and art.

every time you react to something you've enjoyed, you contribute to that conversation. every time you do that in a positive way, you tell the writer or artist "I hear you and I care enough to respond." even if it's nothing more than "I love this." it means artists and writers know their voices aren't just being swallowed up by the great big void. it encourages people to keep expressing their takes on the conversation that is art and writing. it means we all get to have more of it.

all of this to say: commenters and rebloggers, you are superstars. thank you. I love you.

#on fandom #writing #I mean it #we're all in this together #it only works if we support each other

[mylittleredgirl]

when i hear "found family" in relation to an ensemble of fictional characters in media there's two different things that could be happening here.

often it's what i think of as forced family, which is like "i found myself in a situation with these people" but a key part of the trope is that, like most families of origin, they're stuck with each other and can't leave without taking extreme action. voyager's "found family" is a forced family. i'm watching m*a*s*h now and it seems that way too. in both cases there's an outside constraint where you literally cannot escape these people and so grow to love them as a result, often in a codependent or unhealthy way but you are closer to them than you will ever be to anyone who did not share this experience. you would sell some of them to satan for one corn chip but god help any outsider who tries to break you up or even understand the situation. sometimes you get lucky and there's a person or two in there that you would choose to spend every day with regardless of circumstance (but would you really? can you even tell for sure??). but also it's "i will never ever speak to you again as long as i live but i'm really bored so can you give me a ride to the 7-11 first."

meanwhile chosen family is more like star trek the next generation where they are placed in this group at random but there's no hostage element to it. any one of them could request a transfer at any time, but they never will because this community and group of people have become an inseparable part of their identity. in both cases they'd saddle up and risk their lives to save each other forever at any personal cost ("not to me, not if it's you") but forced family also contains the element of "i'll fucking do it but christ alive." not every ensemble fits into one or the other but i think it's fun to distinguish as a concept.

#on fandom #star trek thoughts #i was thinking about all the times when hawkeye and frank are like i would literally murder you at the slightest provocation #but then in that ep where trapper thinks he's leaving he's like are you gonna move out to get away from frank #and hawkeye's like of course not. or the time when they both trick frank into staying at the 4077 for some flimsy reason?? #or when margaret tries to rage quit the 4077 and henry's like lol yeah we all commit psychological warfare on each other #but how could you actually want to leave that?? we're a family margaret hello?? #mashblogging

[morningnoodles]

i saw this comment on tiktok that was like "they don't write 200k+ fics anymore these days. i miss the 2010s fandom so much" and like i get what they mean but also i just. did they- did they forget how much time it takes to write not only 200,000+ words but 200,000+ words that make a story??? that is entertaining??? and that a big chunk of fic writers do these massive masterpieces in their free time???

#ao3 #fanfiction #on fandom

[spindrifters]

I've been sitting on this because it isn't really a big deal, but it keeps happening and I saw something similar happen to someone else a few days ago, so I guess we're doing this. for the last few weeks, I've been getting anons about one particular fic 'stealing ideas' from mine. now I'm assuming that these anons are nothing but well-meaning and I really do appreciate the concern, but I think we really need to have a chat about what's meant here by stealing.

I've scanned the fic in question and the premise is entirely different to mine. even if it wasn't, I cannot stress enough how much a fan creator cannot have a monopoly on tropes or ideas or plot points. so the difference comes down to the execution. and unless it's my prose that's being straight up lifted (which, to the best of my knowledge, it isn't), then this isn't stealing.

in fact, this is what fandom creation is.

it's being inspired. it's an exchange. it's yes, and. it's community and it's folklore. it's swimming in the same pool of ideas and sometimes independently coming to the same conclusion or wanting to explore the same question. and yes, of course, if another work was directly influential or if yours is an intentional remix, then you should absolutely credit that writer or artist. not only should you credit them, you should probably reach out because you probably have really similar thoughts and are about to make a great new friend.

maybe there's more to it, but I really think social media is at the root of the problem here. I'm not saying that fandom being on social media is an inherently bad thing, because it's really not. but the nature of social media is one of personal commodification and platformization, branding and ownership of ideas. and this is relevant here because there's a particularly high concentration of people in this fandom who entered directly from marauderstok, etc. and for whom this is their first fandom ever. so whether this applies to the particular anons in my inbox or not, I think this is an important distinction to make.

what's happening here isn't stealing.

what's happening here is the point.

#on fandom

[vampirepunks]

Seeing "proship dni" (or the variety of rude variations that folks think are cute/clever *sigh*) in controversial communities, attached to dead dove content, or on selfship posts makes my head spin every damn time

my brother in christ, who else is gonna stick up for you? the antis? lol. lmao, even.

#'it hurt itself in its confusion' #it's friendly fire and they don't even realize smfh #like damn y'all we've even got antis in the hannibal fandom as if that isn't a hella proship show >_< #y’all really wanna pretend ao3 isn’t The Pro Ship Website™️ huh #antis really have people believing proshippers are actual criminals when most of us are just fandom anarchists against bullying #people appropriate the label for crappy reasons but that happens with literally Everything #it’s a dumb label all things considered but I really wish people could just be nice for once #though I suppose by definition proship is literally Just Be Fucking Nice To Each Other For Fuck’s Sake #like I’m seeing posts like ‘your f/o loves you. unless you’re proship in which case they don’t and [suicide reference]’ and???????????????? #literally un-fucking-called for #imagine being a bully and taking the moral high ground abt it #pro ship #pro selfship #rant #logan.txt #on fandom #antis dni #unless you’re gonna behave and be goddamn civil for once

[oknowkiss]

look i’ve got a cat falling asleep on my lap so i am not gonna belabor the point, but it really bums me out to see the language of commodification sneaking casually into fanfiction spaces.

i see it a lot on Twitter: well-meaning people talking about how we need to stop treating fic like a product, to stop finding ways to monetize fandom (all extremely valid points!) who then turn around and say that this impacts the consumption of fic.

maybe the cat in my lap or the breeze in my hair is making me romantic, but i would love to see fic removed from the vocabulary of capitalism entirely. the intent in these arguments people are making around commodification is 100% correct, but fanfiction isn’t a product to be consumed, and i personally want to challenge myself to be more aware of the language we use around it.

because fic is a labor of someone’s love to be enjoyed. to be cherished. to be slurped up under the covers like a noodle with a kiss at the end.

what could be more of a middle finger to big capitalism than to say: hey i made this, and i am giving it away for free, because i don’t think you, dear reader, should have to earn pleasure. so to that i say, please don’t consume my fics. read them or don’t, enjoy them or don’t, but please don’t consume them.

#this writing life #on fandom

[saintsenara]

How are you able to enjoy toxic/unhealthy/“problematic” ships/characters without feeling weird (for lack of a better word) about it?

I ask this because I want to be able to do this myself as it seems like a much more enjoyable way of engaging with fiction to me. I can get over some ships just being toxic and the characters not being good together and still enjoy their dynamic but I have trouble with the other ships that feel morally wrong. I know it’s just fiction but I can’t seem to get over the ick feeling I have when I think about those ships/characters. I feel like I’m being too puritanical about these things but I don’t know how to stop feeling like something is gross when I feel it’s gross…

Do you have any tips to stop jumping to moralizing ships/characters?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

i'm going to be upfront that this reflexive gross feeling isn't something i've ever really struggled with - both in fic and more broadly. this is due to various personal idiosyncrasies, above all the fact that i've got disengaged boomer parents who didn't police our media consumption [my favourite book when i was eleven? lolita...] and that i'm a doctor, which is a profession which requires you to develop a very high threshold for what you find disgusting. the human body - at all stages of its life-cycle and its cycle of decomposition - produces a lot of different fluids... and it's also the case that [just as if you can think of it, there's porn for it] if an inanimate object exists, somebody somewhere has got it stuck inside them...

and so the situation that i find myself in is that i consider it infinitely less weird that i enjoy the odd bit of hot tomarrymort action than that i actively enjoy cutting through bone with a saw...

but, obviously, "get a medical degree" isn't particularly helpful advice...

i am a ride-or-die fan of the concept of stepping outside of your comfort zone. this is why i'm such an avowed multishipper - i think it's good for us as fandom citizens to examine the potential of our faves in relationships [romantic or otherwise] which are either not their canon endgames or which aren't our preferred pairings, and in situations which don't align with their canon experiences [whether that means making them suffer or giving them full-on fluff]. it draws out the multiple aspects of a character to consider them from these different angles - and it prevents us from getting so stuck in one interpretation of a character or configuration of a ship which means that it puts our backs up to stumble across stories which approach things differently.

but stepping outside of your comfort zone doesn't mean that you have to go enormously far. it may be that a reader decides - having only ever read teen-rated fics where characters' sex lives don't extend beyond hand-holding and forehead kisses - to take the plunge into an explicit piece filled to the brim with watersports and age play. it may be that a reader decides - having only ever read teen-rated fics for one canon pairing - to read a teen-rated fic for a non-canon alternative. both of these are entirely valid approaches.

by which i mean, our comfort levels and our thresholds for discomfort are subjective, they're personal. if there are ships or themes or characters you don't want to read about because they don't feel good... you're not doing something wrong if you avoid them. exposing yourself to fics you expect to make you uncomfortable can be useful - and fiction is certainly a way to explore discomfort which gives you much more control over the experience than encountering it in real life - but it's not something you're obliged to do to be active in fandom.

the thing you are obliged to do to be active in fandom is to be nice to other people, no matter what their tastes in fiction. this means, at its fundamental level, that when you see people who ship pairings or like themes which make you think "ew"... you keep it to yourself/the group chat rather than putting it on the timeline.

but, once this is something you've got the hang of [which takes a bit of time! but practice makes perfect!], something i feel can be a really useful way of overcoming a tendency towards knee-jerk moralising reactions is to just vibe in the vicinity of people you know like the content you instinctively feel is gross.

this doesn't mean you have to read any of this content - but you'll learn just by hanging out near them that the people who do are just... normal. one minute they might reblog a rec for a pairing you think "absolutely not" about, the next they might reblog a cat picture which makes you squeal with delight. you'll like some of their content, but not all. you'll agree with some of it, but not all. you might like progressively more of it as you spend time in their orbit - maybe they'll explain why they like the pairing or character in question and you'll think "huh, i've never looked at it like that" - or you might not. this is absolutely fine.

all of us - at one time or other - have made a black-and-white moralising pronouncement: people who think x are gross; people who like y are fucked-up, you'd never catch me doing z. and these pronouncements are different from our wider, societally-influenced moral codes - which are good things, otherwise we'd live in the purge - in that they're fundamentally ways for us to feel good about ourselves and our families and our friends by defining ourselves as better than a faceless other. we say "you'd never catch me reading that, it's foul" when we know [or think we know] that the friend we're talking to would agree with the statement. we are far less likely to say it if we know that the friend - whom we see as a human being who is beautiful in their imperfection and inherently worthy of love simply by virtue of being alive - was reading and enjoying that just the other day.

and so the best way to train yourself out of reflexively moralising ships or characters or tropes is to put a face to the faceless other who likes them. be intentional in sharing a space with fans of the stuff you feel uncomfortable with and, eventually, it just becomes background noise. you'll scroll on tumblr, say "well there we are, jane's written some more of her sirius/harry piss kink fic - although i'm not interested in clicking on it" and go on with your day.

because the other thing i think it's really useful to do is to train yourself into reframing your disgust as disinterest. there are plenty of things which i don't seek out to read - and some of these topics are completely benign and some are darker [i don't enjoy reading explicit non-con, for example] - but this is because i try to frame it as that i don't think these things would interest me.

this is still the maintenance of a personal comfort zone, but thinking of the content outside this zone as something you are disinterested in turns it into something neutral. when you think of it as something to be disgusted or grossed out by, it naturally provokes a visceral response which makes you look through a moral lens. thinking in terms of disinterest, instead, gives you sufficient detachment from this visceral response to recognise, interrogate, contextualise, and control it.

and - in time - this neutral reframing may result in you feeling more interested in taking the plunge into the ships and characters and stories you currently don't vibe with, once you don't have an instinctive disgust response as a barrier.

or it may not. and this is absolutely fine.

#asks answered #on fandom

[shorthaltsjester]

honestly as someone who has been in various fandoms for a long time now and who also watched campaigns 1 and 2 without really getting into cr fandom it isn’t Shocking but it is annoying how often people will look at the stories that cr tells and make absolute claims about the goodness of characters (goodness here meaning Moral goodness, not I Like This character and think it’s well made goodness, which is a separate post entirely). particularly regarding the gods and pc parents. and honestly like, typically in fandom i get annoyed by people bending over backwards to woobify characters who are active in their choice to be unkind and generally horrible but in the cr fandom it’s tended to be the opposite where like. a character is just. a human being (in the sense of being Average not in the sense of Fantasy Races) and huge swaths of the fandom act like that’s the most unforgivable thing someone can be. and maybe it is, but one of the most powerful things about fiction is that it tends to encourage people to expand their empathy and exercise their ability to forgive. because fictional characters, no matter how much people like to project onto them, tend not to cause anyone harm, so it’s easier to learn how to forgive and accept things you don’t understand without also villainizing them.

this is mostly prompted by the recent 4sd and the fact that matt’s response to what’s up with the dawnfather was a very insistent “He’s not bad!” and also seeing the online reaction to the mention that the matron would punish vax for saving keyleth that has taken the as usual completely bonkers tune that the raven queen (Who When Met With A Brother Asking A God To Kill Him In Favour Of His Sister, Gave Him A Job, and Later Extended His Natural Life To Help Protect The World And Have More Time With His Family And Allowed Him To Visit His Sister On Her Wedding Day) is a horrible evil abusive bitch of a god. like. can we grow up? can we understand the world and fiction that represents the multitudes of experiences found in it in shades of grey? is that too much to ask (i know it is).

but also specifically the like Extremely Adamant way that both matt and laura were like no no no no relvin isn’t Horirble he’s average. he’s not good he’s just. he’s A father, not a good or bad one. and on the surface it’s hilarious that they’re both so like. enthused to point out that he’s Average because typically when people respond to a claim of a characters badness with the level of immediacy they both did it’s a rebuttal of “no, this character is good actually.” but it was just to affirm that relvin did harm imogen, but not because there’s some aspect of his character that is inherently cruel or especially Bad. and like. yeah actually. yeah you should react like that to a claim that this average person who Has hurt someone, the way that nearly every single person has hurt someone in a way they cannot repair, with immediacy to say this person is a Person and thus imperfect and capable of great harm, but that isn’t some all encompassing judgment on their morality or capability to also do good or be fine.

anyway this is kinda just a rant post but also is just me saying i’m very grateful that when surrounded by a fandom that tends to paint characters as Good or Bad and even while using a game that can encourage that with its alignment system, cr has always told stories that see goodness as a persistent choice that might sometimes falter and that can be chosen even after a lifetime of Badness. i can’t remember exactly what the quote was so forgive me if it’s incorrect but when jester is talking to caleb after he claims he’s not a very good person and she says “good people do bad things sometimes. even bad people do good things.” that’s it! that’s one of the most consistent themes across campaigns. and yet.

#on fandom #cr tag #i just. maybe it’s the philosophy major in me but. good grief the shit some of y’all say about morality and then turn around and ignore #what you’ve just said. good grief #lately it’s specifically been the people who support liliana (i too love evil women) and act like she tripped and fell into her current #position. and then turn around and call relvin an abusive devil #like. sorry which one has been manipulating imogen. which one abonded her? #that’s besides the point. my point is. the words good and bad are meaningless. #the good placeism. is this character trying to be better today than they were yesterday #this is the imogen temult problem actually. like yes she Chooses to be good. but that is only a choice because we have Seen her be selfish #and cruel and manipulative. if i had to choose to call imogen good or bad i’d of course choose good. but that undermines so much of #what makes her ‘goodness’ actually compelling. #honestly same with fjord. like his character as a charismatic paladin who fights for Good™ is comtextualised by having seen his journey #like. otherwise he’d be boring. #like. if any cr main character was just Good or just Bad. i promise it would not be as popular as it is #critical role

[twobrokenwyngs]

remember when Mark Hamill said, “if you think Luke is gay, then of course he is”? how is it that a 65-year-old man could so easily understand and embrace a concept that so many young people in fandom struggle with?

every day I see posts, in varying degrees of seriousness, of people threatening to commit seppuku if their blorbo isn’t canonized as gay or their OTP doesn’t kiss on screen. I see people holding their breath in anticipation of seeing their headcanons played out, I see people threatening creators and cursing god at the idea of their favs - who, let’s be real, were almost certainly conceived and written as straight in the first place - not suckin’ ‘n ‘fuckin on primetime tv.

if it’s been said once it’s been said a thousand times — y’all have got to stop giving canon so much power. calling for representation is one thing but when you start resting your enjoyment (not to mention your mental and emotional stability) on whether or not your interpretation of characters and their dynamics becomes “real,” you’re doing it wrong. you just are.

if that’s the way you see it, it IS real. because it’s all made up in the first place!! canon isn’t law, it’s nothing but building blocks, and it’s no more “real” than the version of things in your head. so like. chiiiill. may we all aspire to be more like Mark Hamill.

#on fandom #the way people demand canon queerness #from creators who aren’t willing or equipped to even serve it up #like… why would anyone even want that??? #if a character is gay in your head then they’re gay!!! #it’s just as valid as if it was confirmed in canon - you don’t NEED that #you don’t need canon to validate your interpretations!! #and you absolutely should not wait for that!! #when when WHEN did we lose sight of this and when will this concept return to us as a society

[the-pen-pot]

I find AI generated fanart infuriating.

#On Fandom #Fanart #Fuck AI

[nyxelestia]

Maybe we need to complain about fandom things MORE, not less.

Not because I'm tryna get rid of tropes, cliches, trends, etc. but rather the opposite.

Part of the problem with the polarization of fandom culture is that we've created this norm where people try to express a personal opinion and others treat it like an attack...

...which is honestly understandable because a lot of people try to shroud attacks as merely expressing personal opinions.

What happens if we normalize saying, "I hate X for Y and Z reasons but I don't think this means it shouldn't exist or there's anything wrong with the people who DO like it"? What happens if we take away the shroud of "I'm just expressing my opinion" from the people who are actually trying to instigate a personal attack? What happens if we make people stop treating every personal opinion as a moral judgment in fandom?

#on fandom #fandom problems #antis #fandom puritanism #fandom #nyxie is drunk

[thisliminalspacedaydreams]

@bicholsdrarrysideblog made this post about loving tall Harry vs tall Draco and they said : "IN THIS HOUSE WE SUPPORT TALLER HARRY AND IF YOU SPECIFY IN YOUR FIC THAT DRACO IS TALLER REST ASSURED MY MIND IS EDITING!!!!!!" And listen. This made me think.

REST ASSURED MY MIND IS EDITING.

REST ASSURED MY MIND IS EDITING.

That's literally all you need to do, if something you're reading doesn't suit your fancy, like the eyes aren't the right color or they aren't the right size of have the correct haircut or whatever. If you want to keep reading, just EDIT IT IN YOUR MIND.

Not in the comments. Just in your mind. Your mind can be a blissful space where you can auto-correct your own headcanons just for yourself in peace and quiet and under your little covers with a lil smile on your face thank you and goodbye.

#REST ASSURED MY MIND IS EDITING. #that person said it all #fandom etiquette #fandom things #on fandom

[utilitycaster]

One of my least favorite types of post in fandom, particularly for actual play, is the "why isn't everyone dropping everything to focus on my blorbo's mental state," and I wanted to talk about why.

The most obvious surface reason, of course, is that unless you are watching something with a very clear single protagonist and that is the character you're talking about, and the story is explicitly about people helping them heal, this is simply not a thing that's likely to happen in most works. It doesn't mean you can't want it; but that want is best explored and expressed through transformative works rather than trying to get the "let's watch blorbo carefully work through every trauma they have" blood from of the narrative stone. (I'll admit my own interest in such works is very limited, but that shouldn't stop you.)

But even when that is the stated purpose, that's just not the sort of story I'm drawn to. It feels too artificial and dishonest to the human experience, and leaves a strange taste in my mouth. I think it derives from a set of intertwined fantasies this represents, and they are admittedly a very seductive pair of lies.

One is the idea that there will come a time, amid seemingly insurmountable external challenges, when everything can pause and during that magical lull all will be resolved. It's the "this weekend I'll get my life together" fallacy. The truth is that this stoppage almost never happens, and in the cases when it does it is rarely a gentle hold, but rather a screeching involuntary halt. The fix is often not enough to truly fix, but rather just enough to get one moving again before being thrust back into the unceasing world. It's magical thinking, of a magic that even fantasy worlds (perhaps especially heroic fantasy worlds, where all the stakes are impossibly heightened) cannot provide: that the world will stop turning long enough for a complete fix, and that a complete fix is even possible or attainable, and that it will not require any ongoing work to maintain once the world has started up again.

The second is the fantasy of being understood without effort: that this quiet period will come without you needing to speak up and say "stop". That your walls will be broken with no contribution from within; that someone else will do all the work and love you despite that. And why not? As anyone who has dealt with any sort of mental health issue knows, it is exhausting. Wouldn't it be nice if someone else just...knew exactly where to place the leverage to pop you out of that rut as you sat unmoving?

It would be! It's also not going to happen.

I am, despite what I say, not against projecting on characters. That's what characters are for. I'm just not particularly interested in seeing characters who get what I sometimes want and know pretty much no one can have. I want to watch characters experience what I might, and succeed, but I do need the struggle to be as real for them as it is for me. I want the character to be in the same hole and know how to get out because they've been here before, not turn to me and shrug and say "honestly, everything went great for me - you're on your own, pal" and levitate out.

There's much more to it too - I love character dynamics, and so the idea of everyone else fading to flat grayscale tools to help one character is uniquely unappetizing. I also find a lot of the discussions surrounding this sort of premise believe that this magical fixing also occurs without anyone ever saying anything even remotely challenging to the person being helped. It really is just essentially reduced to a flavorless hand waving a magic wand over the character in question, which makes for a very short and bad story.

There are other fantasies too, all tied up in this, and all both understandable to have and tedious to watch, most notably the ideas that suffering is purification and that the blorbo who needs help is eternally blameless and never complicit in either their own pain and their actions towards others; and that give and take (and on a meta level, focus within a story) are easily and meaningfully quantifiable and are required to be kept in some cosmic balance (usually one rather heavily tilted towards a fan's favorite character) for a story to be good.

The question ultimately needs to not be "when will everything stop and center and therapize and fix the character I most relate to" but rather "will this character's traumas and issues and past be explored in any meaningful way during the narrative, or, if they are not, will the fact that they are not explored carry its own weight." Ironically, the stop/fix/magic wand wave away fantasy does away with any possibility of meaningful exploration, and that's really why I can't fucking stand it.

#on fandom

[swampthingking]

“if tsc isn’t jerejean i don’t want it”

y’all are ungrateful shits — i can’t even imagine being so entitled and fucking weird about a story we never expected to get. nora is literally gifting this to us and y’all are only focused on a ship that was pulled from buttfuck nowhere ?????

i could say more but i do not care enough, weirdos like the people who say that are the reason nora took a break from socials. just pisses me off

— a fellow jerejean shipper but also someone who values the importance of jean’s story as HIS OWN person (something he was NEVER allowed to be)

#tsc #the sunshine court #on fandom #please #please shut the fuck up #(and leave us alone) #jerejean #hot take #aftg #swampy speaks

[sinigangsta-ao3]

Thursday Thoughts: On fandom and a sense of belonging

I love @ao3commentoftheday, in general. But I particularly love how succinctly and beautifully they summarize how, as we participate in fandom, we are ultimately (even if it's unconsciously) seeking out community.

Yesterday, I reblogged their transcription, where they reflect on why fic writers specifically — and creators and artists, generally — seek and savor engagement metrics (e.g. kudos, comments) when they share something online. As they summarized: it's because kudos and comments are the only tangible points within an online space that can be presumed as points of connection. As signals of community.

To quote them:

"For me. That's the piece that's missing. That's the piece that people crave, the thing they're looking for. It's not about the comments, it's not about the numbers, it's about connections and relationships. And that's the part that's missing."

Additionally, in response, @ishtarelisheba reblogged and added a big YES-AND — underscoring that, in addition to finding community, it is both reasonable and valid for writers/artists/creators who are sharing their work online to expect a positive feedback loop. Because who wouldn't want the confirmation that one's efforts and vision are not only seen but also appreciated by someone else in the world (especially because the artist made a point to put it out in the world in the first place?).

As they so beautifully summarized:

"Very few people actually want to work hard on a piece of art, a piece of writing, a sculpture, a dollhouse, a carving, a sweater for their dog, and just Gollum it and never show another person. For most creators, showing your creations to others is vital for that creative part of your soul to thrive. Of course you should love what you do and enjoy what you make! But don’t ignore the part of you that wants to hold it up two inches from someone else’s face and get love and enjoyment from them, too, just because some false platitude instilled a sense of shame for that pretty much universal need."

Both of those needs — connection and validation — can and do exist whenever anyone enters a space, either online or offline. And, in addition to saying we seek out community when we enter fandom, I would even take it a step further (hold on, Corporate Nina is entering the chat) and say that we are seeking out a sense of belonging.

I'll link some articles explaining this in a bit more depth below, but — as summarized within this organizational study in the Harvard Business Review — we experience a sense of belonging within a group when we experience the following (in parentheses, I've added some of the online "engagement" equivalents that we probably look for to find indicators of belonging):

We are seen for our unique contributions (hits, views).

We are connected to other group members (servers, blog communities, social media platforms).

We are supported in our work and in our artistic and creative development (comments, kudos, reshares, other individuals in the fandom talking up your work).

We are proud of the group's values and purpose (sustained enthusiasm/desire to participate and create in fandom).

I know that these tenets were crafted based on workplaces and formal organizations — but I don't think it's a far reach to apply them to fandom. Because, at its core, fandom is still an organized, social body comprised of individuals coming together based on a common goal and/or shared interest. It's like a school. Or a workplace. Or a social group, in that regard.

And, regardless of why and how someone finds themselves within fandom (or any organized space), it is not only valid for someone to want to receive indicators that they're welcome and that they belong — but it's also a biological and psychological human need to feel connected and validated within a social space (you can read about this phenomenon in the 2020 MIT study that cites that we receive neurological signals akin to physical hunger when we crave social connection).

On a more personal note:

Over the past few weeks, I've been wrestling with this sensation myself. Mostly because I initially intended to join this particular fandom in order to simply write — and I was surprised when I realized that no, I wanted more than that. That, as cited in the quotes above, I did truly want to make friends, connect with others, and find community. To connect with others to a degree that, in full transparency, I don't typically do, both online and offline.

I did think that I found a little pocket of community. And I enjoyed it a lot, felt like I thrived and like I might have found those people that "got" me...

And, sadly, that sense of belonging I thought that I experienced ended up a bit of a facade.

Now, I'm in a space where I'm trying to figure out where, how, and (sometimes) if I even belong in this space. There are a lot of things that I like to add, that I get a lot of joy out of — but I also receive a lot of indicators on a daily basis that maybe, just maybe, I'm not as welcome here as I originally thought...

Basically, it's interesting to be a participant in fandom in this day and age, when it is both so easily accessible to enter the space and so challenging to navigate and assess authentic connection.

I don't necessarily know what the answer is. I know I'm bringing some of my equitable organizational design principles into my thought processes here (and I know that some people think I'm overthinking this but whatever) — but I do think that there are both individual responsibilities that need to be upheld and systemic changes that need to be made in order to sustain a sense of belonging for all participants.

But, in the meantime, I'll just continue to assess meaning in this space for myself, continue to lift up others, and continue to suss out where and with whom I can find those bits of connection and validation. Because I would really, really, really like to think that I still belong here.

---

Final note: as promised, here are some articles about sense of belonging, in case you're interested.

"Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger" (Nature Neuroscience, 2020)

"Create a Sense of Belonging" (Psychology Today, 2014)

"Missing Your People: Why Belonging Is So Important And How To Create It" (Forbes, 2021)

"Sense of Belonging: A Vital Mental Health Concept" (School of Nursing and Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 1992)

"What Does It Take to Build a Culture of Belonging?" (Harvard Business Review, 2021)

#on fandom #sense of belonging #online community #fic writing #writer problems #thursday thoughts #nina-bean writing #sorry i'm always on my soapbox

[shorthaltsjester]

once again, begging, BEGGING everyone in the cr fandom to stop making posts critiquing how the fandom is being weird about one cast member by saying "if it was x, the fandom would love this/hate this even more." it turns out the cr fandom contains Multitudes of weird ass people and just because you haven't seen those reactions (or, even funnier if you are making claims about what the fandom does/does not do to other cast members, were not in the fandom during c1/c2) does not mean they do not exist. like there are certainly different social dynamics and injustices at play in some of the reactions the audience has to cast members, but almost always it is less a case of misogyny/queerphobia and more a case of people forgetting that storytelling is about understanding choices you would not yourself make and watching characters develop through conflict/struggle.

like, you can have the most salient point to make in the world about how shitty the reaction of the fandom to a certain cast member's (not their character, but the cast member as a person) choices but you immediately undo that if you make a claim like "if liam did this, the fandom would love it." perhaps the part of the fandom you are in, but certainly not the fandom that wanted to persecute him for having vax choose keyelth over gilmore, certainly not the fandom that consistently manufactured actual dislike between him and marisha throughout campaign 2 because of character choices.

likewise you might be absolutely right in criticizing the choices of the character that one of the cast members is playing, but if then in turn you say, "if this was a female cast member, everyone would hate it." my brother in christ, You are already the person who hates that character choice and it Wasn't a female cast member, so what is the truth? unless you have the statistics on the opinions every person who engages with the cr fandom has, truly just. you can make your point without appealing to a sense of misogyny/queerphobia/favouritism or whatever that you have no actual grounds for believing exists except for the fact that misogyny in general exists.

this isn't to say that things like misogyny don't influence how people react to things, all of our opinions are mediated through the social and material conditions in which we live. obviously, misogyny exists. however, truly, truly, the bigger problem in the cr fandom (at least on twitter/tumblr, idk about reddit and that is a choice I've intentionally made) is the consistent expectation that the cast adheres to what so many fans call 'comfort media' and a requirement that one's own opinions be validated by what the majority of the fandom believes (which aside from the obvious, is also an absurd expectation because trying to gauge the 'majority' of the cr fandom would be truly so much data). the cast have made it explicit many times that they value things like high stakes and big risks in their storytelling, and sometimes that means stupid character choices, character deaths, or interparty conflict. so much of the fandom has decided to engage with cr regardless of this and then gets upset when the liveplay of a ttrpg built around conflict contains conflict. similarly, people who claim to enjoy this conflict then get pissed off when other people in the fandom disagree with them and give away the ghost that what they want is validation by arguing that it is somehow problematic for the other side to have their opinions. it is much easier to blame any lack of satisfaction on how, actually, your section of the fandom has the right opinion and, actually, if everyone else wasn't queerphobic/misogynistic then they would see the proverbial light.

anyway, this is just me ranting out of both literal and metaphorical exhaustion with the "persuasive" (heavy quotes) tactics that some people in this fandom use. please look up some tips on like, how to avoid logical fallacies or formal critical thinking or just like. state your opinions and say you dislike the other options without thinking you need to provide some (often blatantly and horribly incorrect) rationale for how you're right. accept the pretentious bastard within yourself and stop seeking validation for your opinions in the fandom around you, your opinions are already correct if you assume them to be.

#yes this is about the recent ashton shit #yes ashton is a bastard. yes much of the fandom hates what he did. another bunch of the fandom Loves what he did. #i promise if liam had done it the same would be true it would just be different parts of the fandom #likewise if say laura had done something like that it might be opposite parts of the fandom than the opinions on tals choice as ashton #but the fandom would very much still feature both opinions heavily #anyway from one pretentious and exhausted grad student to a multitude of people in the fandom who have accurate things to say that get #undone by their false generalized claims about the fandom. you can just say something is fucked up/fantastic without having to address at #all the people who disagree #critical role #on fandom #my post