#I hate fandom culture and I hate this bullshit

[imaginesangie]

It’s so weird to me to see modern ZADR fans who are no older than like 15 whining about shipping. Like, hate to burst your bubble, but the vast majority of people don’t care about “proship” or whatever the fuck. It’s not a real issue (your personal disgust and trauma doesn’t mean that content isn’t allowed to exist) and I’m tired of people hyper focusing on it like it is.

Your feelings towards taboo or “disgusting” art are completely valid, but you have no right to treat people poorly or dish out abusive behavior over it. You certainly have no right to tell those people you wished they died, either.

It’s not the “proshippers” who ruin a fandom, it’s the fandom newbies who are obsessed with purity culture and fake progressive ideas that spread hate and abuse without hesitation.

Stop trying to tell yourself that it’s okay to be bigots and abusive towards the “right people” for the “right reasons”. You make fandom spaces, places that are meant to be fun and chill, highly stressful. Nobody should have to constantly walk on eggshells because you can’t control your temper.

No, I don’t deserve to die. No, I don’t deserve to be harassed. No, I don’t deserve threats. No, I don’t deserve abuse.

Break out of these abusive behaviors, stop bullying and harassing (abusing) people over things that don’t matter or exist. Sincerely, I hope the teens that think this way grow out of that shit. You’re better than this.

I’m not a “proshipper” as I don’t subscribe to such terminally online bullshit, but since you terminally online netizens will call me that anyway, let me break down “proship”.

The word “pro” means you are for something, like being Pro-abortion means you’re for abortion rights. Proshipping just means you believe ships have a right to exist regardless of your own feelings.

Ship and let ship. That was the norm not even a decade ago. Let’s bring back that norm instead of making abuse the new norm.

#discourse #drama #zadr #tagging with discourse #so ppl can block #i’m just so tired #of what fandoms #have become #in the past decade #i will never forgive #the voltron fandom

[sonippep-hohu]

To the people actually threatening the artist and saying shit like death threats: you are the fucking reason no one takes us seriously when we talk about issues. Stop acting like telling someone to kill themselves is the absolute last resort. Oh my god, I am so embarrassed of the people on the internet!! Thanks to you, I get compared to "twitter people who like to whine about everything that's a couple pixels on a screen!" Oh my fucking God!!

#I might like actually legit cannot anymore with this fucking place #how depressing #I hate fandom culture and I hate this bullshit #do not tell the artist this shit #I am upset and frustrated at them but I would never #I just wish they were better educated and I wish the ppl wouldnt baby them - that they'd be educated to #but I dont want anyone to fucking die??? or anything like that?? #fucking christ!! fucking christ!!!! you people are the reason we cant have civil conversations anymore!!! hellworld!!! #this is why no one listens to us because you fuckers are so violent!!!

[fenharel]

had the misfortune to read things in the solas tag again. 12 dead 27 injured

#i hate it here #personal #when will the vallaslin removal scene drama stop 😭✌ #literally the chantry will potray the inquisitor whatever way they want. it doesnt matter what they look like. what does the vallaslin #removal really have to do with that #dont forget ameridan. his story is important for a reason #anyway. whatever. #slightly different topic but this reminds me how an overwhelming amount of people seemingly prefer lying or ignorance #over truth simply out of 'respect' or 'kindness' which is just. scary imo #the idea that stating facts is an evil act because thats just part of the dalish culture now is. shocking. this is bullshit i read on this #website that i wish i could forget about lmao rip #solas doesnt pressure her. doesnt judge. he simply educates. lavellan is free to use this knowledge whatever way she wants #and he respects her decision no matter what she decided on #the way this little scene is so controversial is concerning in more than a ''this is just regular fandom drama'' way ngl #fandom negativity

[habits-white-rabbit]

Every time I see someone use Purple Haze Feedback for 'UwU FuGio real!!' or paint Giorno as a coldhearted sadistic master manipulator I feel myself coming closer and closer to snapping

#theskinwalkerqueenspeaks #granted i don't like fugio #i don't see a problem with the ship it's just not my personal otp #hell sometimes i see really good fugio art or fic stuff and i go 'y'know what fuck yeah that slaps'!!! i'm not a fugio hater #but the entire point of purple haze feedback was not to be endgame ship material #i'm also not saying that you couldn't use that to back up your ship but if that is the only thing you got out of it you should take a step #back from fandom and shipping culture bc you should be able to interact with a piece of media without thinking 'how can i ship this' #also giorno is a deeply traumatized teenager he ain't manipulating the mafia that easily lmfao #that one goes out to the crowd who think that giorno only told bruno what he wanted to hear #which is bullshit in itself because he hadn't even heard of bruno prior how the hell would he pull 'oh yeah same i hate drugs too' #out of his ass without knowing bruno and without bruno ever saying that he hated passione's involvement in the drug trade #it's a huge leap #also!! #giorno went out of his way more than once to try to keep his team alive and at the cost of not achieving his dream at that #those are not the actions of someone who doesn't care who lives or dies as long as his goals are met #you all need to rewatch the series and reassess how you see characters because holy fuck you missed so many gods damn points #rant over

[fighting-these-demons]

So the post that I wanted to reblog with commentary was locked (understandably) so I'm making my own dang post lmao!

Ok so! Since this isn't going to be on the original post anymore and since I'm generally not the type to put criticism directly in a tag I'll be sensoring Zvt4rla. I'm all for the ship, but I'm not fond of how fandom has behaved since 2005. With that out of the way,

Here's what I was going to comment on the above:

Just as a simple read of the initial posts: neither was explicitly trashing Zvt4rla.

Criticizing shipping conventions involving Katara, sure, but trashing? Nah.

Like it's completely valid for someone who ships Zvt4rla to view them through a lens where they either get and stay together in an on-again off-again way without marriage or in a temporary and highly passionate way without marriage.

And honestly if you go with the political marriage trope then Toph DOES make much more sense because the Fire Nation doesn't really have claim over the Southern Water Tribe and a marriage to Katara wouldn't realistically secure any political power with the Northern Water Tribe since they split 2 generations before. So a Zvt4rla marriage really wouldn't actually fix much of anything.

Literally if you're going for political intrigue or national healing through marriage then Tophko is the better couple to pick. It gives you WAY more to work with.

I know that chill Zvt4rla shippers that don't demonize Aang and ignore his and Katara's character arcs exist out there. I see them every once in a while, which is cool.

Honestly though, most Zvt4rla shippers spend a bunch of time demonizing Aang with made up bullshit to morally justify their shipping preferences.

Which is ridiculous considering they could just, idk, say they like the visuals and chemistry of Zvt4rla better instead of trying to make Aang into The Literal Devil to defend their ship.

Like hell at this point even though Kataang is my number 1 ship in AtLA I'm heavily into Zukaang as a close second because of all the parallels with Sozin/Roku and the fact that Aang seemed pretty attached to Kuzon pre-canon. Plus the Blue Spirit episodes and the Dancing Dragons and the Totally Normal Dual Monuments Zuko has built to represent his Friendship with Aang in TLOK. It's got a LOT of textual support and a lot of chemistry.

But Zukaang shippers aren't out here demonizing Katara to make Zuko into a better choice for Aang.

You can just let a couple split for unspecified reasons or not get together for minor differences.

You don't have to make the ex-partner into a monster to ship something outside of canon.

ALSO Zuko-Katara-Aang or Katara-Aang-Zuko are always a possibility y'all.

You don't have to break Katara and Aang up to get Zvt4rla to happen.

Aang's an air nomad. Air Nomads seem pretty chill about earthly attachment. And like I said, all 3 seem to like each other an awful lot... I don't think he'd be the type to hold it against Katara.

Now KATARA would probably need to work through 8 layers of possessive fury to get there despite her attraction to Zuko - since she's shown time and again that she takes other people flirting with Aang VERY badly (understandable) - but I believe they could get there eventually.

It might take a few years and lots of reassurance but still, they could work out some sort of relationship between the three of them no matter how you view it whether as permanent or temporary.

Whether that's Zuko and Aang as friends that both love Katara who loves both Zuko and Aang, or as all three in love with each other in different ways for different reasons but with love equally as strong in all directions.

Just because it's an ot3 doesn't mean that all 3 have to be present at all times. You can have moments between 2 partners of the ot3 that are just between them without the 3rd member of the relationship being present.

The Ot3 leaves room for all 3 ships: Kataang, Zvt4rla, and Zukaang

#Atlashipcourse #Aang is truly the Canon Female Love Interest Murdered For Her Crimes Against Yaoi in this fandom except it's another Het ship #I feel so bad for him #He's so kind and good and full of love and because he's in the way of an intensely popular ship he's ripped to shreds #He doesn't deserve it y'all #Jesus leave the guy alone #Multishipping is incredibly difficult in this fandom because of how toxic zvt4rla shippers can get #But I'm multishipping anyway #AND LET TOPH HAVE MORE LOVE INTRESTS WITHIN AND OUTSIDE THE GAANG GEEZ #She had a big stinking crush on Sokka and people just like ignore that #She has a type and Zuko shares a handful of qualities with Sokka #Zuko/Sokka/Suki/Toph ot4? #Like #It works travel wise too #Sokka and Toph are the most mobile of the 4 and can visit pretty much at will #And Zuko and Suki and Sokka are a thing for a whike post Maiko break up #And then Toph makes her way into the fold as she gets older and bolder and more confident when it comes to matters of the heart #Before they all break up for whatever reason further down the line #Maybe Suki wants something permanent and committed like starting a family and the other 3 can't do that #Just like #Dang it has sucked being someone that loves Aang since the earliest days. The show loves Aang but if you stood up for Aang irl or online #You'd get roasted for liking the fruity sweet girly boy instead of the cool edgy manly boy and like #For some reason despite all the cultural change between then and now that still hasn't changed in this fandom #It's so weird it's like a time capsule of fandom bullshit #Like I've watched the western YYH fandom completely change over the years from toxic bs involving Kazuma Kuwabara hate and Keiko bashing #And ridicule that you'd get if you shipped Hiei and Kurama with anyone outside of each other #Into the multishipper's paradise that it is today as Western Values changed but AtLA fandom is stuck in 2007. 😞

[airlockfailure]

Fandom Puriteens

THIS IS ABOUT FICTIONAL CONTENT MADE IN FANDOM NOT REAL LIFE NOT PUBLISHED LITERATURE (though maybe you all should go fucking read an actual book, maybe 1984 or Brave New World or Animal Farm, and take a class on media literacy)

For every one of you #triggered by dark/explicit content in fics I need you to understand and respect a few things here. I know it's hard for you. I know it's difficult to get out of your own #purelife #tradwife #everclearmind bullshit, but for Christ's sake sit your pansy ass down and listen to me right now.

You control yourself, not other people.

Dark content won't cause the universe to implode or society to collapse.

Outlawing dark content doesn't stop people from writing dark content. It doesn't stop people from making dark content art.

Imprisoning/killing people doesn't stop any of the things you're pearl clutching about. It makes new dark content for us to explore.

What the hell are you doing at the devil's sacrament? We warned you.

"But the childr-" See fucking point number fucking one. YOU CONTROL YOURSELF. IF YOU ARE A CHILD: Going behind your parents' backs and disobeying the boundaries they have set for you is the fastest way to get yourself into serious danger! Turn around, do not pass go, go tell your parents what you've done and fucking stay out of adult only spaces. The ADULT ONLY is the boundary!!

Outlawing ADULT ONLY doesn't fix anything. See points 3 and 4.

FUCKING HELL I HAVE BEEN THROUGH MULTIPLE LEVELS OF BULLSHITRY AND HELL AND I'M SICK OF THE PURITEENS AND MORALITY POLICE SAYING I'M NOT ALLOWED TO EXPLORE THAT IN FIC.

Because it gives them the "ewwies". BOO HOO. "BUT AIRLOCK, I'VE BEEN THROUGH BULLSHITRY HELL AND I'M DISGUSTED" Shh

Sit down. Here's tissues, a blanket, and cocoa. See point number 5. Really though, tags man, why are you here? You knew going in this would upset you.

8

You are not a saint just because you shit on the already dirty and rotten.

They will come for you. Eventually.

"But I never-"

Eventually.

Eventually you will also be too impure.

This is how it always goes.

You become the thought/MORALITY police of your peers. The HOA of sin. Your friend beebeebee or whatever gets banned for posting a sketch of Blorbo 9000 biting their lip. Five years later beebeebee is arrested IRL for kissing their gender non-conforming partner in public. You think "no way, kissing???" Bitch, you get arrested a day later for owning a vibrator. Siri reported your purchase. "But I only have this cheap vibrator to clear out my sinuses!!!! I'm not dirty!!!" No one cares, sweet cheeks. Literally no one cares because everyone knows the sick fucks like you are liars and freaks.

And your pure, pearl clutching government of perfect virgin mindhood MURDERED everyone who might have stood up for you.

For fuck's sake, at this rate, we're not going to be able to talk to our therapists about the trauma we've been through because we might "corrupt the therapist's #puremind" and traumatize them.

DEAR FUCKING GOD

Keep your children out of adult only spaces, and control your fucking self. You are the problem. YOU.

#fandom wank #unhinged #my head hurts so bad today #I hate purity culture #I hate the morality police #I have the descent into madness and bullshit #fucking dystopia ass bullshit #cursing #shouting #anger #rage #anti censorship #if you couldn't tell #i'm infuriated #it's my blog #i'll scream and cry if I want to #you could have handled this more maturely #well you see #I'm not here to have a debate with you #I'm telling you to sit down and shut up #the adults are talking

[kareenvorbarra]

it's been so long since i've seen a silmarillion post that filled me with genuine stomach-churning rage that i kind of thought i was above such things now, but i just saw another one, so apparently not!!!!!

people really are out here trotting out the same old "these characters were justified in sacking towns and murdering civilians and setting fire to refugee camps and destroying the greatest works of entire cultures because someone stole their personal treasure" arguments and dressing them up in social justice rhetoric because they want to feel morally superior about their favorite characters even when those characters are instigating and carrying out mass-murders

at a certain point it's like. is it just poor reading comprehension? is it an unwillingness to admit that you like characters who do Bad Things? maybe it's both, i don't know

#fandom musings #'actually the sindar are worse than the noldor!' *meryl streep voice* groundbreaking #i do not like thingol very much but people love to paint him as PURE EVIL and it's maddening!!!! #he's just a dude! he's kind of an asshole but his flaws are very mild compared to (for example) feanor's! #it's a lot of stale tired bullshit but the new spin this post added was #'the theft of the silmarils is theft/appropriation of noldorin culture' #which is one of the most laughably disingenuous reads i have ever seen #as if the NOLDOR as a group care about who has the silmarils! #as if they think of the silmarils as a cultural treasure the way the teleri think of the swan-ships! #(discussion of the swan-ships was conspicuously absent from the post ofc) #you think turgon gives a shit about the silmarils??? #or any of finarfin's children? #finrod values his promise to a dead mortal more than he respects his cousins' claim to the silmarils #the noldor are not a fucking cultural monolith and many of them HATE the sons of feanor!

[fandomsoda]

Kinda hate fandom polls tbh

like dude what is even the point it is so exhausting who gives a flying fuck who’s better just let other people enjoy whatever they want STOP PITTING MY BLORBOS AGAINST EACH OTHER IMA ACTUALLY CRY-

#text post #anti polls #please #i am so exhausted #i hate fandom discourse #let’s all just enjoy our things #who cares who’s better? #it’s bullshit and only causes needless infighting and stress #fandom #fandom culture #If I wanna shit talk a certain character or discuss ships I’ll do that on a case by case basis #asserting some kind of winner or loser or superiority complex is archaic and mean

[gentil-minou]

I'm gonna get so much hate for this and people are gonna come after me but I genuinely think bts has actually made the kpop fandom worse ajsjkfks

#tbh if i get hate for this it would just prove my point #but if youre mocking a fandom for being sad their fave is enlisting suddenly out if nowhere just before a much anticipated comeback... #then that says everything tbh #'culture merit award' my ass 'pave the way' bullshit your boys got lucky thats it and having the sk govt on your side doesnt make you #somehow better or whatever like come on #no other fandom makes everything avout themselves the way they do sjsjcksk #anyways im so pissed at this bs #there are plenty of nice fans out there and i have no problem with you but its the annoying bunch that i abhor completely #bushy rants #exo

[good-to-drive]

Why are certain fandoms so utterly toxic and horrible like how does that dynamic even start and why do so many people make it their life's work to keep it that way

#im a huge fan of Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney and BTS but sometimes i hate them because their fandoms are so gross and fucked up #I think it has to do with getting disproportionate amounts of hate which all of these groups have received at some point in the past #so their fans think they have to defend them by being equally horrible #but y'all you're not actually helping #off topic but if you're sick of fandom bullshit you might want to watch the swarm #really summarizes how I feel about stan culture these days

[single-malt-scotch]

I don't think it's hard to understand why I come to this blog w no intent to directly interact with the fandom lol.. I joke about the fear of a creator coming on Tumblr but genuinely I'd love it. Id be so thrilled they want to see people's creations and share this space. Maybe don't be fucking weird in tags for people where you don't want people to see posts. It would so cool if fandom-goers wouldn't act like their space is some kind of unseeable territory no one else is allowed into if they're a creator. You are Online. You are in public.

#i am getting flashed back to hellish early fandom days... not for mcyt just various things #i follow like max 3 ppl who post mcyt bc i followed them before #and i see One post bout some bullshit #i hate fandom culture lol toss my shit in the tags and never look inside

[nickywhoisi]

Okay shout out to @02cm for

tfw u want people to comment back and talk to you because you're lonely, only to get a user with an extremely bad hairpin trigger case, what seemes to be a fascist denial of allowing me free speech, a salty attitude about her taste in ships, and a dumpster fire take on a piece of art with a subject I feel many things about and just wanted to comment on? Like the first thing this nutcase says to me is "why are you reblogging a piece about how perfect akane and ranma are for eachother, with what you said about them" and so much onward

why you ask? because um...kiddo? You uploaded art? And maybe I liked the art? And I like Ranma 1/2? And it invoked a lot of things I had to say? Things I've been starving for a platform to share with the world? And that I am within every goddamn right to say as I please about anything? That I am not unallowed to have my opinions shared on the internet? That my opinion was cultivated carefully by being a decades long fan, probably for much longer than you, and is informed completely on what I've seen in the series? And that maybe you shouldn't be online or uploading anything if you apparently can't handle a thought different from your own? Like do you know how social media works is this literally your first day

Like there is so much to unpack. She turned off messages so I can't talk to her discreetly like I wanted to, because of course she is a fascist coward. What else am I supposed to call an absurd hysterical authoritarian who doesn't want me to use the site's built in functions to be able to speak. This is a disturbed child if they're not an adult fascist. Are you fuckin ok do you need the paramedics

#What the actual fuck #I am stressed out because of this prick #I was having an ok day until this happened #This is why I don't allow interaction until I approach nobody can fucking control themselves #Not creeps like this anyway #Sorry for namedropping that's probably not kosher but there was no other way to address this crap get it outta the way #I can't believe anyone online behaves this way...It was bullshit all the way back in the 2ks and it's bullshit now #Why can't it just end nobody wants this #Fuck off and get out of my fandom twerp evil makes me triggered so you definitely need to leave #Nobody speaks down to me like this and NOBODY dares to frisk away my right to speak at all ya little pissant #Learn how the culture of internet works how you're supposed to carry yourself with people then maybe come back but not like this #devos #hellspawn #hate post #callout post #tw callout #callout tw #problematic users #sick and tired #I am literally inflamed in my body now gdi fuck didn't ask for this #taking this fucker to e court and suing for psychological damage and breach of civil conduct #God I don't wanna do this today but gotta get justice for myself #this is whatchu get idiot #u invoked the ancient rage beast

[thankskenpenders]

Help me out here: Why is there so much Ian Flynn hate going around lately? I thought everyone loved that he was contributing to the games. Now suddenly they aren't. I guess that's par for the course for this series but I don't get it. He isn't perfect but I like what he's done. Am I a weirdo?

Ian Flynn has always had a lot of fans, but any creator putting their work out there is going to have detractors as well. That's just the nature of being an artist. To some extent, it's no big deal. He's not a perfect writer. Nobody is! I consider myself a fan of his work, but I've criticized plenty of individual writing decisions from him on here.

But Ian doesn't just have critics. He has his own obsessive hatedom. And the specific nature of Ian's hatedom is... interesting.

A decade ago, Ian was only the guy writing for Archie Sonic, meaning any debates over his work were quarantined within that tiny niche of the larger Sonic fandom. Only people who kept up with the comics month to month had any real reason to have an opinion on the guy, which means we're talking about merely thousands of fans as opposed to millions.

Within that group, he had some haters. You had the people who were mad about story changes made during his run, particularly things like ancillary characters getting killed off (although over the years we've learned that most of those were editorial mandates from Mike Pellerito). You had the people mad that Ian didn't push their favorite ship, with feuding SonAmy and Sonally fans claiming that he was CLEARLY biased towards one or the other. You had the people who just really, really liked one of the previous writers way more - usually Penders, as hard as that may be to believe today. That sort of thing. Pretty normal comic fandom type stuff. Again, it comes with the territory.

Unfortunately, many of those haters only got worse over time, morphing into reactionaries who constantly try to incite Comicsgate type culture war bullshit.

There are people still mad at Ian for making Sally bi and pairing her with Nicole instead of Sonic in the later Archie comics. There have been elaborate MS Paint red string conspiracy boards explaining how people like Ian and Jon Gray have apparently been destroying the franchise from the inside for years by Making Sonic Woke. (Jon gets dragged into this because people are still mad about him drawing The Slap 20 years later. Yes, really!!) There was an unhinged change.org petition trying to get Ian fired, specifically from people who were mad that the Freedom Fighters aren't in the IDW comics. There was even a very sad little fan campaign from these people trying to get Sega to move the Sonic comic license away from IDW and over to Udon, because they thought Udon would bring Sally and Bunnie back and also make them sexy again. There's a lot of this.

(Unfortunately, Penders has also exacerbated this by gossiping about Ian on Twitter and giving these fans ammo, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)

The thing is, for years, people who only played the games or watched the cartoons had no reason to pay attention to any of this. Now, though, Ian isn't just writing for some weird spinoff comics that only the super nerds read. Now he's writing comics that are canon to the games, and ALSO some of the games themselves, and ALSO consulting on other tie-in media like Sonic Prime, and ALSO writing the official Sonic encyclopedia, and ALSO serving as part of the new Sonic Lore Team at Sega. And on top of all this, he's got an increasingly popular podcast where he fields questions about his work on all of these things, which serves as one of the fandom's main windows into creative decisions being made behind the scenes.

As a fan of Ian's work, it's been really cool to see him rise in prominence. But the dark side of this is that his obsessive haters from the Archie days now have WAY more of a potential audience of their own. Now, every Sonic fan has to have an opinion on Ian. What this frequently means is that you'll have the Comicsgate types taking things Ian writes or says out of context, attempting to get more of the general fandom to yell at the guy.

Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of Sonic fans who take the bait:

You've got hardcore fans who disliked basically any recent piece of Sonic media and are looking for someone to blame.

You've got the people who are concerned about the sanctity of Sonic's canon, who shoot the messenger any time Ian mentions a new retcon from Sonic Team on the podcast - or any time he even mentions the THOUGHT of changing anything about the canon, as we saw recently with the Sol Dimension nonsense.

You've got people who romanticize some sort of mythical artistic vision that Sega of Japan supposedly has (or had) for the franchise. To many of these fans, American contributors like Ian just don't "get" the heart of the series and are trying to turn Sonic into something different. (This "heart of the series" tends to be some mix of Japanese instruction manual lore, the cinematics from Sonic CD, the OVA, and/or the games written by Shiro Maekawa, depending on what Sonic media the fan in question grew up with.)

You've got fans of specific characters or ships who pin the blame for how their faves are depicted entirely on Ian - most vocally fans of Shadow, even though the root problem is that Sonic Team hasn't known what to do with Shadow since 2006. At best this stops at regular old criticism, but at its worst this devolves into claims that Ian has an agenda against certain characters.

You've got fans annoyed by a perceived over-emphasis on comic-original characters in the IDW comics, ignoring the obvious facts that these characters exist because the game cast is so tightly controlled by Sega, and also, you know, that people just like the IDW characters and want more stories about them.

You've got a LOT of discourse over IDW's Sonic being a hero who tries to give his enemies second chances, as if half of Sonic's closest friends aren't already former villains and rivals. Honestly this is very transparently just reheated Steven Universe discourse lmao

You'll also see people who just think they could do Ian's job better. They can't believe that THIS GUY is the American fan working on all these Sonic projects, when clearly THEY understand the characters and lore and themes SO much better than this charlatan.

All it takes is for someone in one of these categories to be unhappy about some recent piece of Sonic media, and for them to come across an out of context quote or comic panel that rubs them the wrong way, and suddenly the leftist Zoomer Sonic fans will join the latest dogpile on Ian alongside the reactionary Comicsgate types who are mad at him for Making Sonic Woke.

In general, when fandoms get upset, they tend to want a scapegoat. A person or two to point a finger at and go "THAT's who ruined the thing I love!" This tends to be based less on reality and more on which contributors are the most visible online. You'll sometimes see teenage and adult fans of children's cartoons single out a storyboarder who's particularly vocal on Twitter, blame them for every story decision they don't like, and harass them off the platform out of a sense of retribution for their favorite ship or whatever. Failing that, fans might choose to blame every nitpick, down to individual lines of dialogue and frames of animation, on a showrunner, just because that's the name they associate with the show. And unfortunately, when it comes to Sonic, Ian is now arguably the most prolific and outspoken contributor on the English speaking internet, and therefore a common scapegoat.

Some of the things I've seen Ian blamed for are truly wild. A lot of people have claimed for YEARS that he's just lying about the existence of creative guidelines and restrictions from Sega - or, as fans call them, The Mandates - even though they're just an inherent aspect of working on a licensed property. Others claim that The Mandates are real, but somehow Ian's fault. A vocal minority of fans have convinced themselves that Ian is the sole reason the Freedom Fighters don't exist in the IDW comics, even though Ian says he's been pushing to bring them back since day one.

Sometimes you'll see people say he ruined shit he didn't even work on. A few weeks ago on Twitter I saw someone claim that Ian had written a rejected script for Sonic Forces in which Tails died. I could not find a source for this for the life of me. As far as I can tell, the rumor seems to have been born from an alleged leaked script for Forces with margin notes from Aaron Webber that criticized the way Tails was written, and also an old tweet where Aaron joked that Tails would die in an upcoming episode of Sonic Mania Adventures. These merged into "Aaron Webber criticized a draft of the Forces script in which Tails died." How'd Ian get dragged into this? Who fucking knows!

It's all just a big game of telephone. All it takes is some asshole to make something up about Ian on Twitter or YouTube or a DeviantArt journal or some forum, and at least a couple people will believe it, and then it gets repeated as fact. Again, this used to be contained by the niche nature of the Archie Sonic fandom, but now there are WAY more people who are receptive to this shit.

It's just sad to me that Ian tries to be so open and honest about his work, to try to explain the rationale for certain things, to keep fans looped in on the direction the franchise is headed, and this just gives the Flynnspiracy types more quotes to take out of context and try to paint him as the devil. If it sounds like I'm being overly defensive and dismissing his critics, man... some of the things I've seen people say directly to him are just unbelievable. People will send paragraphs-long angry screeds in to his podcast that completely tear him apart, and he has to sit there and be like "Well, that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it." People literally pay for special guest interview episodes where they just rapid fire complaints about his writing at him directly to his face. I don't know how he does it. I would snap.

All of this over Sonic the fucking Hedgehog of all things.

I don't know how to wrap this up. Engaging with fandoms online is very tiring, which is why I tend not to do it. Things like this are too common. I guess, just... remember that making art collaboratively is a complicated thing. The people involved are generally trying their best given the circumstances, but they're only human. They make mistakes. But please treat them like humans. Criticism and dogpiling are not the same thing.

#anon #ask #tkp asks #tkp post

[lizardsfromspace]

What's the worst thing about fandom in the last 20 years, and what's the worst thing about fandom that's always been true of it?

The worst thing about fandom in the last 20 years has been the incentivizing of fandom-as-conflict: not merely as a field in broader culture wars but as the field for endless intra-group battles.

This manifests in many ways: as seven hour videos complaining about The Last Jedi, as Twitter backlash campaigns, but also as stans defending their faves from any and all criticism real or imagined, as the endless boom-and-backlash cycle to any fandom meme or joke you see on Reddit, and as the drive for people to look for evidence other people discussing a thing they like are hysterical illiterate dolts, before anything else.

Or, in other words: a lot of fandoms are full of assholes these days, whose main interaction with fandom is using it as a reason to be an asshole, and to defend being an asshole. The actual “fandom” part of fandom no longer really exists for them. The discourse more or less is their fandom; someone whose main fandom activity is sharing videos about how Steven Universe is a fascist (?) isn’t in the Steven Universe fandom, they’re in the videos about how Steven Universe is a fascist (?) fandom. I mean, the chief fandom for many people is their side in the fandom war. What type of fanfic you write is secondary to what your affiliations are vis-a-vis battles over fanfiction

(One trend I've noticed is people who aren't at the stage where they only talk about what they hate and not what they love, but are at the stage where they can only talk about what they love in relation to what they hate. "I love this movie...and it proves this other movie is bullshit made by a hack". No ability to say just "I love this movie", period, end of sentence. This is how like two-thirds of Film Twitter talks about film, the remainder are all the grindhouse people going "man you've GOT to see Wrong Turn 5")

Another one, that I think is related, is that fandom’s become...more transitory, maybe? There’s Big Fandoms that are inescapable and then everything else feels like it’s here for a weekend and then it’s gone. And we’ve always had fandoms that endure and fandoms that vanish quickly, when the show runs short or turns out to be bad/boring, but we did use to have a lot of enduring if small fandoms for Okay shows most people hadn’t heard of and now you don’t really. Or they burn themselves out fast.

So we’ve reached this stage where fandoms are either so big they have seven hour long discourse videos, or they’re a smattering of fanart over the course of two weeks last August. But that isn’t really the fault of fans so much as modern media release schedules.

A lot of fandom activities of old are just...impossible now, with many shows? The slow build of speculation and fan works and in-jokes and theorizing and analysis simply can’t exist in a world where the premiere comes out the same day as the finale, and you can’t talk about the finale because you have no way of knowing if the person you’re talking to binged it all in one weekend or is still on episode four. That was the kind of thing that sustained the fandom of something that wasn’t a big hit, or even something that was. My fave fandom experience ever was watching the online Lost fandom wildly theorizing for all six years of Lost, and we’d never get “and what if the Smoke Monster is a dinosaur but only the head?” under a Netflix release model. Now at a base level, we either have shows nobody can discuss because nobody’s sure who’s seen or what, or shows where everyone just discusses the finale right away, and where you get One Week of Show and then a massive hiatus, which either kills all momentum or...drives fandom in the direction of hyper-analyzing everything and fighting because, well, what else is there to do? And that plus the outrage cycles of social media plus the fact that “man who yells at Star Wars” is now a viable career choice result in, well. *gestures upwards* All that

(Really, shout out to Cartoon Network for engineering the Steven Universe fandom to Be Like That through their inscrutable strategy of dropping episodes during one random week every five months or whatever)

As for something that's always been with it...cliques and a certain fannish elitism, like, that sees engaging with media in a fandom sense as more creative or analytical or intelligent than your average person. You see it now in the form of, like, people holding up fanfic above published fiction as more representative or authentic (I’ve seen more than one post on here strongly implying queer rep doesn’t exist in mainstream non-fic storytelling???), or going “well, we think about shows, unlike those normies watching sports”. But that was probably way more pronounced a thing in the past, in the 40-50s sci-fi fans were calling non-fans "mundanes" and calling themselves "slans" as an in-group signifier (a reference to a book with superintelligent psychic mutants known as slans). Like at the very least we should be happy no one’s calling non-fans “muggles” anymore. In the evolution from “mundane” to “muggle” to “normie” normie’s probably the least bad one

#asks #fandom #schafpudel #long post

[mywitchcultblr]

I'm done with your purity

I'm fucking done with all of you westerners fucks who take your freedom for granted. AO3 was banned in china because pissy fans reporting RPF TO THE GOVERNMENT UNDER FALSE REPORT OF PEDO OR WHATEVER thus making life a living hell for Chinese writers and fans. ALSO LET ME TELL YOU that fanfic and AO3 is a safe space for many oppressed LGBT people outside of the west

I can't fucking say that I'm trans and bi without having people beating the shit out of me, but I can fuckin' write that I'm gay as fuck in fanfic or writing gay shit about my fave with fanfic

Imagine some people defending state wide censorship over fanfic, because they don't like icky fanfic, that's a sign that either you are brainwashed or fucking privileged and taking your freedom for granted. You know why Asian and other non western USA-European are more chill with fanfic and fandom?

Why we are less prone to make some stupid callout over fanworks?

Because most of us doesn't have the same information and expression privilege like the west, we take any freedom that we can have

That's in 2017... There's probably more than one million websites being censored rn. I cannot even buy pride pin here because NO ONE outside of internet selling it! The censorship always begin from "banning information to protect children and moral from nsfw" down to censoring Spongebob Squarepants

You don't like something? Just don't fucking read it, it wouldn't stop the author to write and when they do stop writing usually after they are harassed so bad to the point of mental break down or suicide. What the actual fuck...

Defending and supporting state wide censorship because you want to feel superior on the internet is beyond stupid and it showing your privilege... Also yah fuck you who defend china aggressive state wide censorship because adult x adult RPF icky or whatever, I like reading Tom Hiddleston x Reader, because I'm lonely and it's fun. Don't lie that you never thinking of marrying your favorite celebrities or dreaming about dating Gerard Way.

What the fuck you gonna do about it? Crucify my ass? So long you are not shoving it to the person's face, who give a fuck? It's not a justifiable ground to cheer for government mandated national wide censorship. A lot of westerners are so privileged and terminally online to the point their mind revolve around online discourse 24/7 I'm not saying discourse has no damn merits but you get what I said...

Some people particularly white westerners are so privileged they have the chance to goes back 180° and agreeing with conservative mindset they claim to hate so much... Also your kink critical bullshit and your bullshit crusading over dark stories? Yeah. Heavily influenced by TERF and conservatism. Newsflash...

I'm not a person who agree with all ship or stories, i don't claim any moral high ground. I was so scared of getting cancelled due to the hostile neo puritan fandom culture, but seeing people defending China great firewall and aggressive censorship finally broke something inside of me and I cannot stay quiet

I don't give a fuck about your fanfic discourse, If i don't like something i just wouldn't fucking engage with it and wouldn't read...

I'm done, I'm tired. Fucking tagging this shit as anti vs pro because i need to get the message out there and LET THE CHAOS begin

( When you want to escape your country censorship to the internet but then you see the supposed liberated westerners people wanting censorship because they want to feel moral. Yes there are even westerners who don't want to see anything even remotely 'problematic' example: they will attack Zutara or fuckin' Reylo shipper whatever. See? You are terminally online and so privileged... Congratulations... Here's your fucking medal and gold star)

#ao3 #fanfic #shipping #shipping discourse #terminally online #puriteens #puritan #china #censorship #SEA #Indonesia #fandom #fandom wank #purity wank #fandom discourse #fandom critical #rpf #archives of our own #lgbt #politics #antis #vs #pro ship #asia

[olderthannetfic]

Whenever I see the "there is no F/F content in fandoms, fandoms hate women" discussion on Tumblr, all I can think of is a phrase that is guaranteed to enrage half the Tumblr fandom audience, maybe more: "Have you tried imageboards?".

When I was younger, I used to frequent different anime and cartoon-themed imageboards. Big ones like 4Chan's /a/ and /co/, smaller ones meant for specific fandoms or kinks, non-English ones in my native language, you name it. The users were mostly straight men, and the F/F content and shipping flourished there. The "waifu threads" exclusively dedicated to gushing about female blorbos. The wast majority of kink content involving fictional women, either alone, with a nondescript self-insert man or with each other. The F/F fanart, fanfiction and ideas were just limitless, to the point where you would struggle to find one or two discussions about the guys in the midst of everyone celebrating the women.

The anime, cartoon or comic has a cast full of women? They will all get love. Women and men both? Women will generate much more discussion. One or two women amidst the cast full of men? People will mostly post about the two women, deal with it. Sure, there were designated boards and threads for the male characters, but good luck expecting there to be as much activity as there were in the waifu threads. The fandoms with lots of female characters, such as Touhou Project, thrived on these grounds, and much F/F shipping was had by everyone.

Now, of course, the imageboard culture is an entire separate beast. Right-leaning, edgy, bigoted - basically, what you get if you put a bunch of ostracized and lonely cishet male nerds in an echo chamber and let them feed each other bullshit all day long. A lot of the F/F art they made was sexual in nature, something that could be decried as sexualisation, but, the way I remember it, it was not much different from what is often done to male characters by straight women who ship M/M because they find the two dudes hot. A lot of gushing about waifus by the anonymous 4Chan dudes could be seen as misogynistic, despite the language being practically the same as when a Tumblr fandom girl is describing her blorboman and the things she wants to see done to him.

It all comes down to the the real life influencing the way we interact with fiction: male sexuality is viewed in a different light than female sexuality, despite both being more or less demonized in our society, just in different ways. Men are always predators, women are always victims. When a guy has sexual fantasies about a female character, he is a creep who wants to hurt real life women to enact these fantasies. When a woman has sexual fantasies about male characters, she cannot tell fiction from reality and is at risk of getting hurt by men while trying to enact these fantasies. And if either of them fantasizes about a same-sex couple, they are fetishizing queer people, obviously.

However, that's just how people roll - you cannot change what gender you are attracted to, and people with similar attractions stick together. It just so happens that the fandom side of Tumblr largely consists of straight women and queer men, so you get ships with guys, while the fandom side of 4Chan and the like largely consists of straight men, so you get ships with women. Both sides also happen to have cultures that don't mix well, and someone who frequents one place is likely to avoid the other.

I don't frequent 4Chan anymore, and I'm not big on fandom Tumblr, either, but Tumblr continues to be the unique place where I am more likely to stumble upon erotic fandom content featuring men than women, who are the majorly discussed and shipped characters practically everywhere else. I obviously do not excuse 4Chan's bigotry and rampant hateful bullshit, but my point still stands: if you want to see more F/F shipping and discussions of girl blorbos, but don't feel like making some yourself and creating a like-minded community on Tumblr, you should try your luck elsewhere on the Internet, especially when it comes to anime and cape comic fandoms. Tumblr is a unique place in terms of male-centric fandom content, and honestly, it's not that bad, if Tumblr isn't the only place you find your stuff at. It simply occupies a specific niche and doesn't offer much of everything else (though you can still find it if you look).

--

Now, be fair: plenty of imageboards are full of nominally straight guys who love millions of female blorbos... and art of Link getting wrecked.