Me before fandom: okay so this one’s enjolras, right? Who are all the others?
Me now: did you see in hour 2 minute 12 that snippet of Feuilly’s sideburns looking glorious because I did
Those people who constantly reblog your stuff but you never really talk:
I do notice my regulars. You guys are the best.
“Regulars” makes me feel like a bar-tender…
Wiping down my dash at the end of an evening, I see your read-more, over-hear your rant in the tags, so I pour you a drink.
“…what’s troubling you, kid?”
It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday As the regular crowd tumbls by There’s an old fandom queen blogging next to me And her little gray tags catch my eye
She says tumblr I’m feeling like shit today can you send me some posts for a smile can we talk about slash, can you fill up my dash so I won’t have to think for a while
Laa dahdah didee dah La dahdah didee dah dadum
Fill up my dash, you’re my followers Fill it with pictures and fic Yeah we’re all in the mood for some memery And occasional pictures of dick
Now Jill is a centaur novelist And she writes of her girlfriend and wife She reblogs from Toni, who’s in My Little Pony, And probably will be for life.
As the staff implements wretched changes And we think of how aliens bone We are writing a lot about loneliess: It’s much better than writing alone.
As a new comer to the Les Mis, Barricade Day seems to be the one time of the year when the Les Mis fandom acknowledges that, yes, all those characters died horribly and bloodily in a failed revolution, and just wallows in it’s angst. The rest of the year we’re very happily sailing down a river in Egypt talking about Enjolras’ beautiful hair.
First, thank you for asking. This is something I feel is important!
Second, to those who wonder where this question came from, a while back, I reblogged this, and added the comment about squicks not being the same as triggers.
So what, you ask, is a squick?
A squick is an old fandom term for something that makes you supremely uncomfortable and you absolutely do not want to read it. It can be a trope, a ship, a concept, or just an event that happens within a fic or in canon. For me, abused animals are a definite squick. I don’t like it, and will generally avoid reading any graphic descriptions of such. (That includes tumblr gif sets and such too, people! Tag that shit, will you? Even if it has a happy ending.) Another deep, deep squick of mine is infant age play. Don’t like it, don’t get it, don’t want to think about it.
Now, neither of these things are dangerous to my mental or emotional state. I have never experienced either in my life, and they do not bring about any sort of PTSD, dissociation, or spiral of depression, anxiety, etc. They are simply things I prefer not to think about in my daily life, or read about in my escapist hobbies. Therefore, theyare not triggers. Triggers are very real, very bad things for some people, and to label things we choose not to read because we find it disturbing or gross or weird is to diminish the very real danger of actual triggers.
I love the term squick. It perfectly describes the concept without assigning any negativity to the thing you dislike, or to people who do like the thing you dislike. It is something you personally do not care for and wish to avoid, simple as that.
A squick is an old fandom term
*waves walking stick in the general direction of her lawn* This.
So I’m on AO3 and I see a lot of people who put “I do not own [insert fandom here]” before their story.
Like, I came on this site to read FAN fiction. This is a FAN fiction site. I’m fully aware that you don’t own the fandom or the characters. That’s why it’s called FAN FICTION.
Oh you youngins… How quickly they forget.
Back in the day, before fan fiction was mainstream and even encouraged by creators… This was your “please don’t sue me, I’m poor and just here for a good time” plea.
Cause guess what? That shit used to happen.
how soon they forget ann rice’s lawyers.
What happened with her lawyers.
History became legend. Legend became myth…. And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost.
I worked with one of the women that got contacted by Rice’s lawyers. Scared the hell out of her and she never touched fandom again. The first time I saw a commission post on tumblr for fanart, I was shocked.
One of the reasons I fell out of love with her writing was her treatment of the fans… (that and the opening chapter of Lasher gave me such heebie-jeebies with the whole underage sex thing I felt unclean just reading it.)
I have zero problem with fanart/fic so long as the creators aren’t making money off of it. It is someone else’s intellectual property and people who create fan related works need to respect that (and a solid 98% of them do.)
The remaining 2% are either easily swayed by being gently prompted to not cash in on someone else’s IP. Or they DGAF… and they are the ones who will eventually land themselves in hot water. Either way: this isn’t much of an excuse to persecute your entire fanbase.
But Anne Rice went off the deep end with this stuff by actively attacking people who were expressing their love for her work and were not profiteering from it.
The Vampire Chronicles was a dangerous fandom to be in back in the day. Most of the works I read/saw were hidden away in the dark recesses of the internet and covered by disclaimers (a lot of them reading like thoroughly researched legal documents.)
And woe betide anyone who was into shipping anyone with ANYONE in that fandom. You were most at risk, it seemed, if your vision of the characters deviated from the creators ‘original intentions.’ (Hypocritical of a woman who made most of her living writing erotica.)
Imagine getting sued over a headcanon…
Put simply: we all lived in fear of her team of highly paid lawyers descending from the heavens and taking us to court over a slashfic less than 500 words long.
all
of
this
Reblogging because I can’t believe there are people out there who don’t know the story behind fan fiction disclaimers.
Does anyone else just get like really stubbornly indifferent towards a popular character? Like you don’t feel hateful but you feel yourself giving less fucks and falling deeper into fuck deficit every time people gush about how great they are and its kinda like being at a party where everyone else is having a good time and you’re awkwardly standing in the corner with the underappreciated dog.
I will, until I am blue in the face, defend any adult’s right to enjoy whatever silly, all-ages thing they like without being hassled for it.
But there’s a flip side to that right: As adult fans it is absolutely our responsibility to make sure our enjoyment of that thing does not interfere with a minor’s ability to enjoy the same thing in a safe space.
That means putting warnings on fics that have adult themes, that means not posting porn in the main tags, and it absolutely positively means not having any inappropriate interactions with minors you meet on this website, even if it’s their idea.
This is the basic price of admission every adult has to pay for entry into an all-ages fandom.
A message of reassurance for those getting into Star Wars for the first time right now:
If you end up liking the prequels as much as the original trilogy, there’s nothing wrong with you. If you love the prequels more than the originals, that’s perfectly okay. You can prefer Ewan’s Obi-Wan to Alec’s. You can like or love Anakin Skywalker over Luke. Loving Anakin and Padme is not wrong. It’s okay to be a fan of Jar Jar Binks. You are not lesser if you love the prequels.
I just wanted to put this out there because the Star Wars fandom is full of nasty gatekeepers who would try to make you feel like an idiot for daring to love anything more than the original trilogy. So if you’re getting into it now and enjoy Episodes I-III more the Episodes IV-VI, I want you to know that doesn’t make you any less of a Star Wars fan.
And if you end up loving The Force Awakens more than any of the six that came before it, that doesn’t make you any less of a Star Wars fan either!
(This is basically just a rehashing of this wonderful post, but I feel like it’s important to reiterate this point).
People get so ANGRY when I say The Force Awakens is my favorite. But here’s the thing, I always vaguely liked the original trilogy but I only saw myself in Leia. And I don’t know. I didn’t particularly feel like a Leia. I liked it but it was always very clear that I wasn’t the intended audience. The Force Awakens is the first Star Wars that feels like MINE. I see myself reflected in multiple characters. Rey is my favorite. This is the first Star Wars that I want to make costumes for and read fan fic about and draw little hearts around characters faces. This one feels like mine!
So I tell people it’s my favorite. And when they get angry I just say it again louder. Because this one is mine and I don’t care if you don’t like it. The Force Awakens is my favorite Star Wars movie of all time. ITS MY FAVORITE.
eirenical17 