#because they were ace + had written ace-spec Dorian Pavus

[not-poignant]

I remember reading some asks that when you were in Guardians fandom, people were always correcting some stuff too, that they though is wrong or smth. And I feel like especially after so long writing your own universes, those very "smart" anons are really annoying. I just hope that they won't suck any wind from benith your wings and you don't spend much energy on answers to their asks and that you know always know - your writing is your own and we are fucking blessed for reading it <3

Maybe I just have forgotten so that I can mostly remember the good things (haha) but aside from people always having a bone to pick with me calling Pitch's daughter Seraphina, Rise of the Guardians was generally pretty chill!

I think back then there were a lot more 'why are you depicting Bunnymund this way?' or 'Why are you making this choice?' which as open-ended questions I really don't mind answering!! Even when it's obvious that the person who's asking the question doesn't agree with my depiction, then I can explain myself, vs. someone just anonymously coming in to go 'hi you are wrong' when... I'm not O.o

Different fandoms have different feels to them, kind of like visiting different countries! DnD / FR as a fandom seems to have a pocket of vocal people who want to prove they know more than me about DnD / FR to which I'll just say - you all know more than me, you win, here's your trophy, now let me write my fic the way I want thanks and learn how to read tags/author's notes :D That being said, the folks who don't care about that shit and just want to enjoy Astarion being railed / living his best-worst life have been the BEST and I really enjoy how thoughtful they are and how cool their comments are. There's some super engaged folks in this fandom who have really great takes on things, and I enjoy that side of it a lot.

Rise of the Guardians was incredibly creative. Like, to this day, I know one fanartist who went to work at Dreamworks, one who does official art for Hearthstone and works for Blizzard (her dream - and I still have her fanart of Gwyn in my house!), plenty more who went on to become professional artists, comic writers, writers, animators etc. I think the visual art and style of that show attracted so many people who love art, which was fun. We also had antis, but whatever, I feel like every fandom has those if you're active in the fandom.

Stardew Valley is mostly very mild, because it's intermittently very quiet and there's so many different pairings, and I've always written rarepairs. Generally people who enjoy that game are pretty low-key, and they're some of the nicest folks I've met in like anon asks and in comments! Love SDV peeps and it's been a pleasure to come back to the fandom.

Dragon Age: Inquisition was... lol. Lol. Well, look, I made some amazing friends through that fandom who I still know today. It attracted actually a surprising amount of older fandom folks who brought a lot of knowledge about how to write fic, so the fandom is drenched in really good fic, really good art. There was a ton of fucking drama, and some of the most acephobic rhetoric I've ever seen came out of this fandom, including asexual block-lists where people hunted each other down on Tumblr with things like 'have you blocked this person yet they're asexual' in anon. So like... DAI was a RIDE. The people I met in that fandom as friends I'll treasure. The actual fandom itself was a trash-fire depending on where you were. There were definitely a couple of BNFs in this fandom who made it their job to just hate other people, especially if they were ace and liked writing an ace Dorian Pavus. That was the first time I learned that blocking is good for the soul.

The Beast that Chose Its Own Bridle is a tiny fandom made of people who all love Felix and Mildmay very much :D

Detroit Become Human was a weird experience and it felt like a weird fandom. It was I think Korean or Japanese fanart that actually inspired Eversion, since that's where the first reverse!AU fanart (at least that I saw) began. But the comments could be weird, the anons were sometimes weird (not always, but sometimes! Especially in the beginning - and I just think first impressions really count lol), and I remember joining a Connor/Hank Discord where the most active folks were very quick to tell me how I should write my story, which was like - I like that they liked the story, but I've never had people try to show how much they like something by trying to change it into something they like more in quite that way before? I didn't really feel like staying in the fandom, tbh, it's extremely cliquey, especially all the folks that have like 400 names for the different versions of Connor, and it feels like it has a steep learning curve if you want to join the 'club.'

It was also the story where I had to do the most heavy lifting on BDSM education. Like, this fandom felt very BDSM naive *overall* - there's obviously exceptions, but I had to literally change how I was writing the story to explain more things than I normally would have done in a fic like that, because I was just getting so many 'why would Connor want to be humiliated during sex' anons and comments which was like okay, okay, let's actually do some 101 brochure stuff with this (the chapter where Connor calls Luuk and they talk about Connor liking being humiliated was not meant to be a whole chapter dslkfjas).

In fandoms like Thorki I could assume that the majority of readers would sort of get that even if it was a kink they didn't like - it was still just a kink that people can like and/or help others out with explanations. So it's possible D:BH skewed young and/or just not BDSM experienced! Which is fine! It's just I've noticed it here the most of all the fandoms I've been in. There were folks who knew kink really well who didn't need any explanations there at all, because I tend to over-explain a character's reasoning at the best of times, but yeah.

These are all like... deeply personal experiences influenced by the pairings I'm writing and how deeply I'm going into each fandom! I was tag-tracking in RotG / D:BH / DA:I, so I saw a lot more stuff, I think.

There's other fandoms I've been a part of but not really written for much or at all, like Thorki (love it there) and Sebaciel re: Black Butler (love it there too, but we lose a lot of writers because of antis), and also Murderbot (really weirdly cliquey in a 'oh... I see' kind of way, which might explain why a small pocket of people are writing most of the fics - because they're the only ones allowed in their Discord lol). Murderbot fandom is why I didn't end up writing Murderbot fanfiction sdalkfjdsa

Anyway, fandoms are weird, personal spaces that should be heavily curated! But I can't stop anons coming into my inbox with certain 'flavours' of question per fandom unless I turn off anon and honestly where would be the fun of that :D :D :D

#asks and answers #personal #pia on fandom #DA:I was vicious because i remember realising i was ace at the time #so it was a pretty damaging fandom to be in #some of my favourite fanartists and writers got blacklisted #because they were ace + had written ace-spec Dorian Pavus #and my god the amount of cis gays who were like 'that's homophobia' while simultaneously #spouting the most acephobic shit you can imagine #was wild