have been unavoidably detained by the world

So I was talking to a friend, R, about how hard it's been for me to be in a fandom and also kind of disliking the fanfic in the fandom. Cursed Child fandom has this weird "mandatory fluff" culture and it's really hard to find darkfic, and endless angst, both of which are my candy. I've been trying to write what I want, but the truth is that I'm not a great writer and I'm glacially slow (and extremely anxious) so I haven't really managed it yet.

And R, VERY KINDLY, recced me some angsty/dark fics in Star Trek and Marvel Movies, which are the fandoms R reads in, and I'm familiar enough with both of them (I was even in Star Trek fandom, sort of, for a hot minute). But I'm not in these fandoms and I don't ship these ships.

It's so weird! It's so weird to read fic that scratch the itch amazingly. Dark angst and bad decisions and nightmares and bad communication mmmm, perfect. But I don't? Ship these ships? So Nu!Spock and Nu!Kirk keep making eyes at each other and I'm like...I don't see it but okay.

And all the Marvel fics are Tony/Steve and oh boy, I like, sometimes ship Steve and Bucky but my fave Marvel Movie fic was gen. True story! I just don't ship these people very much. IDK, it's not on purpose!

And these are WILDLY popular ships. And of course, the more popular a ship, the more fic there is. And the more fic there is, the more likely there will be fic of all sorts, including the dark angsty stuff that I love. And I am loving that part, some scenes are making me so happy.

And like, I used to be a lot more loud about not shipping things and I'm still willing to mention it in spaces like this, my space where I can say stuff, but I find it super rude to mention to people who do ship the ship. Because like, I'm not here to be convinced? And I feel like it reads unintentionally as a judgement. Which it isn't! I believe strongly in ship and let ship. I WISH I could incept myself to love fandoms and ships that are popular. It would make my life easier! In so many ways!

This isn't even the first time. I read everything Astolat writes in fandoms I understand (I think I might just be in the Astolat fandom) and I love her HP fic. But it's all Drarry. I don't ship Drarry. I sometimes stop reading the fic once the shippy stuff starts. It doesn't hit quite the same way, I think maybe she does a bit more work moving her characters through time enough so that I'm willing to suspend my disbelief a bit more. Or maybe her writing style just hits so exactly on my target.

But IDK. I'm enjoying having some new fic to read which I am assured is the kind of stuff I want in fics right now. I just wish I could get it more in my fandoms I guess? Back to reading this epically amazing Kirk/Spock fic where luckily Kirk is a perfect trash fire.

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lannamichaels has given me a ton of excellent fic recs but I find the unfamiliarity of the fandom too overwhelming so I'm saving them. I have absolutely gotten into a fandom fic-first (Inception, and a little bit Torchwood) so like...it's possible! I just have to be up to it apparently.

Siiiiiigh. (Link goes to a tumblr blog post about recent content from Lindsay Ellis and Sarah Z about fanfiction. The language gets a bit strong, just a heads up.) (Also, there's valid commentary specifically on fandom as a queer space that I'm just not equipped to talk about but don't want to entirely ignore, so, to be clear, I defer entirely to Older Than Netfic on this)

Youtube has been a primary form of media consumption for me for, hmmm, a few years now? And I liked Lindsay Ellis since she was still working with Channel Awesome, so like. The parasocial fondness is real.

But she has been...not great...about fanfiction for a long time. She will admit that she wrote it, but she always spins it either as a dumb kid thing or qualifies fanfiction as her stepping stone to writing "real" fiction.

And like, she's not alone. There's a lot of pressure in that direction in fandom still. When I was younger, I thought that was the only real justification for investing into fanfiction writing. And then Naomi Novick was like, nahh, I can still write my Game of Thrones OTP while cranking out fabulous fantasy novels, bu-bye, and while I have lots of other fun anxieties related to fanfiction, it's been a relief to remind myself, no, fanfiction is wonderful as a goal in and of itself. So I'm actually pretty tired and turned off by Lindsay's perspective on fanfiction. Honestly, the best thing I can say about it is that she rarely talks about fanfiction, and she's so clearly uncomfortable with the topic that she avoids it. Which is great! Please don't talk about fanfiction, Lindsay. You're not in the community, you're not hip to the jive (and like, for ME to say that...lol), you can bring other media perspectives in. Leave the fanfiction corner of fandom alone.

(I enjoyed her videos on the omegaverse stuff primarily because she avoided the fanfiction angle as much as possible. And I thinks she was right to do so!)

Now....Sarah Z. I liked her for a while. I actually think I'm still subscribed to her, technically. But as I literally dig through her archive...I haven't liked anything she's posted in years. I'm pretty sure I found her during the Channel Awesome debacle, where her research skills came in handy in being one of many voices breaking down a complicated story. And I enjoyed her video on Heathers (literally the second-oldest video on her channel) because it was clearly coming from the perspective of a fan of Heathers criticizing problems with the new show. Her content focused on media productions has always been decent.

But I realize, as I scroll through Sarah Z's content, that I never really liked her content on fandom, even when I agreed with some of her points. I actually tried to watch her video on the Oncler fandom multiple times because it was a fandom I didn't know, and I love learning about new fandoms. What are the trends, who are the people, what is the content being produced? Individual fandoms are like individual little ecologies, existing both independently and intertwined with larger fandom as a whole. And getting to see other fandoms, without my personal Fandom Brain getting in the way, can be a delight!

But I just haven't gotten very far in the video. Sarah Z's obvious distaste for the fandom, and her past self, were such visceral turn-offs for me that I couldn't proceed.

I actively avoided her video essays on Sherlock and Supernatural. I'm not even in either of those fandoms, but I didn't want to hear her making fun of them, and I fully expect that to happen. Hbomberguy's takedown of Sherlock was, in my opinion, so gentle to the fans, and made it clear that the fans were treated terribly by Moffat. Based on nothing but the title card, in which Sarah Z is rubbing her temple in obvious judgement of the fandom, I wanted nothing to do with that video.

In fact, looking through her content, I'm not sure why I still think of myself as a fan. I did want to watch some of her videos about being a youtube creator (although I'm hesitant to try as I expect she's going to be kind of a jerk about her fans, and even when they deserve it, I don't trust her POV, you know?) and I think her video about the history of Rebecca Black's Friday is another valuable commentary, but that's...maybe it. At least Lindsay is sometimes willing to admit that her fandom feelings are uncontrollably bursting out of her, even if those feelings are not allowed to translate into fanfiction.

I wish there were youtubers who were more familiar with and supportive of, fanfiction and fanfiction-adjacent fandom spaces. It's odd how the youtube platform, which is one so borne of internet culture, is so hostile to fanfiction. Sure, fanfiction is acknowledged? But frequently as the butt of jokes. Lindsay Ellis' "well, this is something I did as a child but no longer" seems progressive almost, in context.

Maybe it's the result of youtube being so clearly tied to real life identities in a way fanfiction communities have avoided for so long? Either way, it's a strong support for my old school preference for the safety of the fourth wall. I would rather spend time with the people who get it, who are kind and supportive and accept fanfiction as a good thing (or at least a neutral thing!) and cheerfully encourage fan creation in all it's wild and weird ways.

Oh, and also; so glad to be off twitter. So, so, so very glad.

I want to post more. So, here is to more posts, less second-guessing, less editing *cough* and the five people left on LJ/DW that aren't in online RPGs.

I realized over this Dragon*con that I'm not remember the usernames of new fandom people as well. I've always had a pretty hard time with names (and faces) and fandom can be kind of an overwhelming place with so many active people that it can be confusing. I normally take a looooong time to get into a fandom, which can give me time to distinguish individuals as I go.

But I've been lurking around Inception for, gosh, over two years now, and I've still only remembered dozen or so names.

I think it's a little bit from the new fandom platforms. I used to remember people using a lot of visual cues, like their default user icon, their journal layout, etc. Tumblr users don't utilize userpics the same way, and the layouts are either super-plain or horrible.

But even more important, AO3! I think the layout to AO3 is fabulous and the downloading options are the best thing ever, but there is very little to distinguish the author while I read. Just the username on top, which I TOTALLY skim by sometimes.

I think there's a cultural shift that comes from putting the fic in a seperate place from the meta, the journal, the messy thought and the unbetaed flash fic. It's not necessarily a bad thing! AO3 is, for lack of a better term, a lot more cleaned-up than LJ. It's easier to find the fic you want and just zoom past all the other junk.

On the other end of the spectrum, tumblr is so jammed with junk that even when I know that people post flash fic or ficlets or dabbles and what-have-you on their tumblr, if I'm not constantly checking and saving (and I'm TOTALLY NOT) I won't find it again. It can feel that if it's not "clean enough" for AO3, it won't get archived.

There's a part of me that even misses the really messy ff.net days, when for lack of anything else, people basically wrote journal posts as Authors Notes at the beginning of their fic chapters. I would sometimes know a lot about the writer's personality, thought process and sense of humor (remember when authors used A/Ns to reply to comments? :D) before even reading the next chapter.

By contrast, AO3 notes tend to be fairly minimal, sometimes to frustration.

Of course, ff.net also had the "lack of distinguishing visual characteristics of the fic layout" problem, and I memorized very few writer names on ff.net, and I was never much active in fandom there either.

But at least people filled out their profiles on ff.net. On AO3 and tumblr, I may never know anything about anyone!

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OH! I also want to post about LJ BNF culture. I had some really interesting discussions.