have been unavoidably detained by the world

So I've gone back and picked the second fic to post. I posted two parts of it and then just...failed to post the rest (it's a five times fic). I THOUGHT I had finished it but actually part 5 is pretty unpolished, so going back and working through it is going to be tricky. (It's, uh, 45 pages long on google docs. So it's a decent five times fic, and I'm excited to actually finish and post even if it isn't perfect.)

( Some musings about what went wrong, just as a record for myself I guess. Reference to fictional character death below. )

This is all a long way to say that...I got hurt, in fandom. It wasn't a big hurt, objectively, but it hit me hard. And I think it's why, as DESPERATE as I am for recognition in fandom (what fic writer isn't??) I'm also pretty scared of being noticed. I haven't reached out to my old fandom friends, even if fluff is exactly the kind of stuff they could like.

Right now it's almost like I'm a fandom of me, my beta, and the really excellent people who encourage me even though they aren't in my fandom at all. And I'm so, so happy for each and every one of you, you have no idea. ♥

So I've always found Discord really overwhelming as a platform, so while I joined every Cursed Child fan discord I could find, I rarely actually could bring myself to check them.

But I took today off of work for a sick day (got REALLY sick over the weekend) and by the end of the day, denied the chance to mindlessly scroll facebook and twitter and tumblr, my brain was rested enough to be like "hmmm, what's happening on discord?"

The two CC discords are dead, is what.

Not completely surprising I guess? The last convo in the "fic rec" part of one discord was a bunch of people yelling about a fic request where someone used some invalidating language about a (sometimes headcanoned) bi character, and then it DEVOLVED into a "top/bottom" fight.

And the last thing people seemed to talk about was the change of Cursed Child from a two part show to a one part show, which, uh, I legit still cry about sometimes (shut up, my fandom soul is fragile and soft) so THAT WAS A FUN THING TO REREAD.

And then all the conversations sort of stopped ages ago and, IDK, on the one hand, it was a pretty toxic and difficult fandom for me in a lot of ways, so maybe it's a good thing. On the other hand, as I'm pretty uncomfortable on tumblr and twitter, it would have been nice to see if I could find people on discord to talk to, because my CC fandom friends drifting away from this fandom and my brain? My brain is still eaten alive.

(...I mean, WHO AM I KIDDING, I still follow the AO3 feed for Torchwood fics, I don't really leave fandoms so much as "sometimes I'm LESS into this thing than I used to be.")

There's a conversation* going on now on tumblr about how the Cursed Child fandom is struggling with updating each other and communicating with each other and how to fix it moving forward.

And it's extra frustrating because while I KNOW every fandom has problems since Kirk and Spock first laid eyes on each other, half the problems are because tumblr is a terrible platform. People can't seem to find each other? Tumblr. Things in the tags aren't showing up properly in feeds? Tumblr. Feeds are overwhelming and people are missing content? Tumblr. Commenting isn't a thing and anons have to MESSAGE POSTERS to force the poster to post their asks so the conversation can keep going? TUMBLR.

*When I say conversation, of course, I mean one person posted, I replied, they replied to me, someone else replied to them and a bunch of people reblogged with no comment. That? IS NOT CONVERSATION. Conversation doesn't happen on tumblr! People yell at each other and other people clap for the yellers they like. It's a giant mess and I hate it.

But. Again. That's where the fans are. There's no way around it. Dreamwidth is a better platform, but it has only a few communities. I mean, LIVEJOURNAL is still more active than Dreamwidth in some ways, and that's a big, bad sign for people looking for a fandom home.

I'm struggling because I suggested a fandom newsletter. And on the one hand, I want to throw myself in, all hands on deck, and support a fandom I love and care about. And on the other hand? It's still tumblr, I still hate it, I would rather not hurt myself playing wall. I have so many other things in my life that are a mess right now, why dedicate myself to this.

As the only person who occupies the Venn diagram center of copperbadge fandom and Cursed Child fandom, I talk about Sam's a LOT. (To clarify, Copperbadge's name is Sam and the original Albus Severus Potter in both London and New York City is named Sam Clemmett.)

So my poor roommate has had to train me. Now I have to specify "internet Sam" or "Cursed Child Sam."

Which is why I just edited my all-caps text to her from "SAM HAS CATS!!" to "INTERNET SAM HAS CATS!!"

Prepare for cat photos, roommate.

Oh and the second cast Scorpius Malfoy in London is also played by a Sam but I don't talk about him nearly as often, apparently. Probably because he never posts on social media. Good life choices, Sam Blenkin. Good job.

So it was cast change for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child cast 2 (London) this weekend, and I'm just now catching up on cast change content, cast 3 (London) news, and cast 1 (New York) news and I'm basically an emotional roller coaster disaster of tears.

And somehow I'm supposed to go to work...tomorrow...

There is a moment, in Harry Potter and the Curse Child as I've seen it (original cast London, second cast London, original cast early previews NYC) in which ( spoilers happen! )

This post is making rounds on tumblr right now.

Basically it's arguing that you can enjoy art for what it is without criticizing it.

And I agree, mostly. I think it's pushback against the hyper-critical tumblr culture, which tends to eliminate space for nuance and makes it difficult to disagree with people without actively calling them out for the thing you disagree about them with, even if you don't disagree very strongly. And yeah, it's important to just let people enjoy things. Fandom is an escape, for so many, so often, and sometimes you just want to ESCAPE to your escape.

But also. Also no?

Everything, everything, everything is problematic and flawed. Because everything is created by people, and people are flawed. And it's ok to not want to dwell on the flaws? It's ok to roll in the delight of this thing! you love! and want to squee about!

But also it's not. It's so important, so often, to remember that these things are flawed because to someone else, that flaw is HARMFUL and that flaw is DANGEROUS and that flaw needs to be acknowledged and critiqued or we won't collectively improve, and we won't collectively protect the vulnerable among us. Torchwood wasn't a perfect fandom (HAHAHAHA) but I enjoyed that by the end, we all sort of acknowledged our show had a boatload of problems and we were there ANYWAY. That, to me, was a valuable lesson in how to love something ~*problematic*~. And when I come to Harry Potter, which is so much more sprawling, and so much more influential and so much more powerful, I think it's even more important to acknowledge it's flaws and it's deficiencies. You can still love it, I mean, and you can love it WHILE acknowledging the problems?

I don't know. I'm seeing these posts over and over again from Harry Potter fans, and I all I can think of is Sam, who wrote one of the (still) big, popular Harry Potter stories and is still being discovered by new fans whom he has treated gently and kindly while he firmly reinforces that he's Not in This Fandom Anymore. And when someone asks him why, he answers and he doesn't just say he drifted away. He points to flaws, he exposes them and he leaves that there. This is flawed. That doesn't mean he didn't love it, that doesn't mean he makes fun of the love that all the fandom people keep pouring on it via his fic. But he isn't going to pretend otherwise either.

I don't know. I'm having a thinky time with this fandom, and it's been a bumpy ride.

The most HILARIOUS part of being in Cursed Child fandom is that their standard for "dark and/or angsty fic" is adorably low.

That fic where a main character dies makes you sad? I came up Torchwood fandom. Our canon killed off more than half the main characters. Our happy AU fics were the ones where Ianto got a few more years with Jack and we all ignored the fact that Ianto would before dye and leave Jack to the inevitable despair and loneliness of infinite immortality.

Like, the reason I seem to crave some darkness is that it's so gosh-darn cotton-candy colored in this fandom ALL THE TIME. Hahahahaha.

(Notably, BTW, Harry Potter fandom as a distinct entity had a lot of dark fic going on because it had a lot of EVERYTHING. But that is a ponderance for another day.)

Today is the last day of the original cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and I am living vicariously through social media posts and POOR ANTO IS ILL and basically I am a wreck.

And all of my IRL friends don't understaaaaaand. Thank goodness for fandom I too many feelings to handle this by myself. The first six pages of my dash are 100% Cursed Child feels. I'm actually logging into Twitter today. You guys. TWITTER.

I think I'm going to spend all day today lying down on the floor, in my invisible box of EMOTIONS.