Fandom Problem # 3963

When you actually want to be able to DISCUSS THE ACTUAL DAMN SHOW but fandom usually tends to be an infinite loop of "They're ALL polyamorous and in love with each other and if you disagree you're homophobic!!! Actually wait, I change my mind! They're all adopted siblings, so if you ship any of them you're literally disgusting, kys!!", rinse and repeat

Maybe my time as an English Major has damaged my brain beyond repair, but I’m baffled by this sudden insistence that the interpretation of a text that the author intended is the Only True Correct Interpretation. Yes, plenty of people have bad-faith takes regarding certain texts and some people just kind of pull interpretations out of their asses without supporting evidence, but the existence of bad analysis does not magically cancel out the fact that someone may look carefully at a text and come to a different conclusion about it than the author.

This isn’t to say that authorial intent does not matter, but when a text escapes their watchful eye, it is viewed by a myriad of people with differing life experiences and perspectives. This varied readership means that people will see the text in different ways, and may be able to come up with an alternative theme or interpretation supported by details in the text. A text will mean different things to different people, and ultimately, it should.

Tl;dr- There is no singular way to interpret a text so long as you can back up your interpretation with details from the text. This idea is something that you are quite literally taught in Lit 1101, and I am sick and tired of people dismissing it.

Friendly-ish reminder that if you legit hate the fandom your series of choice has no one's MAKING you interact with it. Block liberally at the slightest hint of one of your most hated fandom tropes or don't interact at all, but either way, fandom isn't worth turning into a toxic ball of frothing rage.

feeding my brainworms by shoving yisang into the skin of toei's most traumatised scientist

"he wouldn't say that!" "They wouldn't have kids!" "They wouldn't--" it's fanfic. Click the back button and put it in the filters

Another advantage of pretty much exclusively getting into semi-to-mostly dead fandoms is that I'm exposed to far fewer takes that'll make me rabid

New copypasta dropped

Someone keep this person away from TF2, Naruto, certain parts of the Frankenstein fandom, Hannibal, Mortal Kombat, most slasher films... Oh, and a couple of Tom Lehrer songs.

Anyway reblog with who in your ship is the killer and victim.

Forever disgusted and horrified by people who think its perfectly fine to wontonly tell others to kill themselves.

Like what the fuck is wrong with you

Me any time I see an FFVII ship trending on Twitter because I just know WWIII has started:

So in the MK1 New Era, I was thinking it would be interesting if Sareena became a new version of Noob Saibot if she ended up joining with Bi-han, since she has the whole underworld thing already going for her, but it would also be kind of interesting if they ended up having the younger Hanzo Hasashi basically get a similar backstory that made him Scorpion (perhaps somebody who suspiciously looks like Bi-han kills his adopted mother, Harumi, etc.—though I’d still love to see her actually become a Kombatant, so it would be nice if that could be a fake-out) but this time Quan-Chi turns him into Noob. I imagine since Kuai-liang already has the Scorpion mantle, ol’ Quannie would just go for what apparently is his default wraith ninja. Can you imagine the additional angst when Noob isn’t just Kuai-liang’s brother but his adopted son?

Hey so, as a person with an actual BPD diagnosis, I wish all the Tim-haters armchair diagnosing him with BPD for whenever he has a conflicting internal narration, a very fall into sewer. Y'all wouldn't know splitting from your left elbow. Lmao

While I’m busy getting meta about fandom in general, I think that a missing piece of the puzzle in the discussion of relating to characters/stories and/or getting emotionally invested in them is how people treat others as a result of this phenomenon. The discussion about “how much projection is too much projection” and “how much emotional investment is too much investment” is not, in my opinion the one that we should be having. Too often, I see people discussing some pretty awful entitlement and nastiness from fans, and then implying that people relating to characters “too much” or being “too emotional” about the story are the key source of the problem.

The issue with that conclusion is simple: feelings and actions can be, and often are, separate. For every person sending unsolicited messages to creatives about how killing off their blorbo made them suicidal and how it’s all their fault, there are five people who are genuinely hurt and distressed by the loss of the character who are grieving non-confrontationally in their own spaces. Emotional reactions are automatic, and due to a person’s individual history, personality, or neurology, they may be triggered by something that another person would deem inconsequential. In addition, there is nothing wrong with getting emotional over a story or character or relating to them heavily — this is actually the expressed goal of some pieces — so to get upset at people for seeing a bit of themselves in a character or being moved by a story is to deny the power of centuries of storytelling. The reality of the situation is that a fair number of fandom goers make an active choice to behave badly when they don’t enjoy an aspect of a story or become uncomfortable, and with everyone having access to one another 24/7 due to the reach of social media, more people are exposed to and caught in the crosshairs of these individuals. This isn’t to say that people being awful to each other over fiction isn’t a problem, but rather, that it isn’t a new one and that it has been amplified to an alarming degree over the past decade or so.

It should be noted that social media often rewards loud, confrontational behavior with virality, meaning that the guy calling everyone nasty names over the latest episode of a tv show is going to be put in front of many more sets of eyeballs than the person just quietly saying that they weren’t a fan of that particular episode. The access that fans have to creators shouldn’t be overlooked, either. Creators have gone from pretending fandom didn’t exist when they weren’t treating it like a seedy underbelly to actively courting fandoms as a marketing strategy. In 2005, a nasty fan might call a show runner a rat bastard for breaking up their OTP via a creepy, angry letter. Nowadays, that same fan can find that show runner on Twitter and explain exactly how they were born out of rodent wedlock for the entire world to see.

Tl;dr - The issue with fandoms isn’t people being emotional or relating “too hard”, it’s people being nasty and being able to do so in front of an audience.

Is it just me or is it kinda rude to reblog other people's art and add "do not tag as ship" to it when they didn't make that request themselves?

Limbus brainrot is gripping my ass again

Eeyore's loneliness doesn't stem from him literally being alone, he feels alone even when people are around and mentions this a lot. I'm not on the "all the Pooh characters are mental illness personified" train, but Eeyore in particular is lonely because he has depression (in fact, iirc Eeyore being described as "depressive" etc started that whole dumb theory), Disney doesn't really put that word to it anymore. Meanwhile everyone around Eeyore is almost always saccharinely happy. I'd be fuckin get wrenchingly lonely in the same room as other people too lol

Not entirely related but it's always screwed me up a little bit that there's a Disney character with anxiety enough to constantly think any innocuous situation will end in his own death but so depressed and apathetic to whether or not he survives that that he will agree to go along with it anyway (and also he's probably just happy to be included, even if he does think he's going to fucking die)

some of this feels like it's touching on theories and such that i've never heard of in my life, so for those i'm just gonna say "okay" and move on. i'm not sure i would describe the rest as "saccharinely happy" though. tigger certainly is, and maybe pooh himself is pretty chill, but the others can be angry and sad and anxious too. and at the crux of it you've got christopher robin, a very real and very thoughtful little boy that loves and supports him completely and unconditionally. not in like a really toxic way either, they accept him and his depression and don't try to force him to change.

the Lonely works by tearing you away from your support systems, eeyore may feel sad and alone a lot, but even on his bad days he is supported by and wants to support his friends. i can't imagine he would want to lean into cutting himself off like that.

When exactly did fandom become so allergic to even acknowledging existing posts/discussions/fics/ideas etc. or god even other people in an already tiny fandom? Did the rise in the weird overcompetitive, individualistic, seeing-other-writers-as-your-rivals-rather-than-fellow-fans nonsense coincide with the rise of social media? Because let me tell you, I am 100% DONE with it.

If you can't be respectful of other writers, as in other fans who love the source material/characters just as much as you, as in your peers, if you can't give someone else credit or support or accept that they might see a character in a different way to you, if you don't know the difference between inspiration and plain theft, or you can't even so much as throw someone a bone when they've tried and tried and tried...then please don't follow me. Please just stay away from me and let me write in peace.