Snowflake Challenge 2025, #3
Jan. 7th, 2025 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
22degreehaloChallenge #3
In your own space, talk about a fannish opinion you hold that has changed over time. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
I struggled with how to answer this one; even though I will openly promote the value of changing one's mind and being willing to admit it, the reality is always more difficult.
One answer that comes to mind is that of sporking and similar fanfiction-mockery from the 2000s era of fandom. I can vividly remember being 13 and checking up daily on Pottersues and HMS STFU and other very mean-spirited fandom channels. I thought I was so very mature back then, being only 13 and year knowing not to make all these dumb mistakes, and definitely wasn't like one of those crazy raving loony Harmony shippers!!
Nowadays, all that is... pretty hard to look back on. Why was it all so widely accepted? I guess partly it's that fandom felt so much like yelling into a void, even when it was fandom you were yelling about; we just didn't think these things would ever get back to the people we were making fun of. It was also just... sort of the style of the time, to do these really exaggeratedly angry and overblown reviews? Like a performance piece. It felt... yes: it felt mature, along the lines of the fans of cult-classic MST3K. To enjoy 'making fun of bad things'.
I guess, to an extent fandom nowadays does that, too, but under the guise of morality. But it's a shitty thing to do either way. I'd be horrified if I came across someone's fic being 'sporked' this way nowadays, regardless of the reasoning for it. Even if were because of outright racism or something like that, I'd just... be really concerned about dogpiling and harassment and even doxxing. I just don't like that sort of thing, at all.
On a related note... fandom's cultural shifts did enlighten me on the subjects of racism and misogyny and the like, which I hadn't thought much at all about beforehand as a kid and teenager. I learned so much more about dog-whistles and unconscious bias and representation in the media. So when people on tumblr started saying that it was also very bad to depict abusive and toxic relationships - or to ship such relationships and write fanfic about them - for a good while I got really chastened.
I was a bit susceptible to the arguments; I was in love with Steven Universe and I hated all the sexual assault in yaoi manga, so I saw this stuff a lot, and some of it really rang true. (FWIW, I was and am primarily a Pearl/Rose shipper, which... I feel is in-between, 'problematic'-wise?) I never cared for villain characters (still don't!) and was badly squicked by age gaps. Some of all this was really, really easy! Besides: I was just moving away from Supernatural into a universally-beloved fandom, agreed by all to be the pinnacle of racial sensitivity and POC excellence, a fandom I could finally be proud to sign my name up to: none other than Hamilton!!!!
...yeahhh that's not one of my finest hours, prediction-wise. I obsessed for way, way, WAY too long about whether my obsession with John Laurens made me a fundamentally bad person, all while going through the most difficult period yet of my life, where unfortunately there were few other comforts. I tried so hard to do things the right way, even though I knew that as hard as I tried to acknowledge Hamilton's track record on slavery, the mental pain of acknowledging that I cared and was writing about a Bad Person prevented me from seeing it all clearly.
Also, I've been an incest shipper since as long as I could write. (Seriously, I remember writing little fake picture books as a kid of adoptive siblings falling in forbidden love :') ) I didn't delete any of the incest fic I wrote, but I did orphan some, and sure as hell worried about antis tracking them down somehow and Revealing me to the masses. (What masses??? Also the incest was literally publicly available on my ao3, no 'unearthing' necessary.)
So, it all just sorta lost its steam. I still don't like evil character ships (because they're not heartwarming/sexy/interesting to me, and therefore are boring), and I still hate belligerent sexual tension ships, and it still bugs the hell out of me when darkfic fans mock fans of 'good people' (just because they're good people doesn't mean I don't want them in abject misery!!!! or fucking their sisters), but you know what? That's all on me. Don't Like Don't Read was a good motto, actually. Early fandom was right in that respect. Fiction should be a place you can explore things you would never, ever want to do IRL. That is not the same as an unconscious racial bias bleeding out into your stories.
Which... I mean, I guess that answer is really about a time I was right all along??? :') But I did get sucked in by anti arguments for at least a year or so. I was never pro-harassment, but... I did think that people just Should Not Write fanfic about, idk, Snape and Hermione doing it while she's in her 6th year, or whatever. And I thought that telling people very sternly that they Should Not Do this would achieve something. In my defence, I applied that same logic to myself at great personal mental health cost... not even to mention all the incest fics I didn't read/write for a few years there. :'( And in the end, isn't that the greatest tragedy of all, here?
The point of it all is: incest shipping is good, actually. Join the Macrocest discord server today!!! 👍
In your own space, talk about a fannish opinion you hold that has changed over time. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
I struggled with how to answer this one; even though I will openly promote the value of changing one's mind and being willing to admit it, the reality is always more difficult.
One answer that comes to mind is that of sporking and similar fanfiction-mockery from the 2000s era of fandom. I can vividly remember being 13 and checking up daily on Pottersues and HMS STFU and other very mean-spirited fandom channels. I thought I was so very mature back then, being only 13 and year knowing not to make all these dumb mistakes, and definitely wasn't like one of those crazy raving loony Harmony shippers!!
Nowadays, all that is... pretty hard to look back on. Why was it all so widely accepted? I guess partly it's that fandom felt so much like yelling into a void, even when it was fandom you were yelling about; we just didn't think these things would ever get back to the people we were making fun of. It was also just... sort of the style of the time, to do these really exaggeratedly angry and overblown reviews? Like a performance piece. It felt... yes: it felt mature, along the lines of the fans of cult-classic MST3K. To enjoy 'making fun of bad things'.
I guess, to an extent fandom nowadays does that, too, but under the guise of morality. But it's a shitty thing to do either way. I'd be horrified if I came across someone's fic being 'sporked' this way nowadays, regardless of the reasoning for it. Even if were because of outright racism or something like that, I'd just... be really concerned about dogpiling and harassment and even doxxing. I just don't like that sort of thing, at all.
On a related note... fandom's cultural shifts did enlighten me on the subjects of racism and misogyny and the like, which I hadn't thought much at all about beforehand as a kid and teenager. I learned so much more about dog-whistles and unconscious bias and representation in the media. So when people on tumblr started saying that it was also very bad to depict abusive and toxic relationships - or to ship such relationships and write fanfic about them - for a good while I got really chastened.
I was a bit susceptible to the arguments; I was in love with Steven Universe and I hated all the sexual assault in yaoi manga, so I saw this stuff a lot, and some of it really rang true. (FWIW, I was and am primarily a Pearl/Rose shipper, which... I feel is in-between, 'problematic'-wise?) I never cared for villain characters (still don't!) and was badly squicked by age gaps. Some of all this was really, really easy! Besides: I was just moving away from Supernatural into a universally-beloved fandom, agreed by all to be the pinnacle of racial sensitivity and POC excellence, a fandom I could finally be proud to sign my name up to: none other than Hamilton!!!!
...yeahhh that's not one of my finest hours, prediction-wise. I obsessed for way, way, WAY too long about whether my obsession with John Laurens made me a fundamentally bad person, all while going through the most difficult period yet of my life, where unfortunately there were few other comforts. I tried so hard to do things the right way, even though I knew that as hard as I tried to acknowledge Hamilton's track record on slavery, the mental pain of acknowledging that I cared and was writing about a Bad Person prevented me from seeing it all clearly.
Also, I've been an incest shipper since as long as I could write. (Seriously, I remember writing little fake picture books as a kid of adoptive siblings falling in forbidden love :') ) I didn't delete any of the incest fic I wrote, but I did orphan some, and sure as hell worried about antis tracking them down somehow and Revealing me to the masses. (What masses??? Also the incest was literally publicly available on my ao3, no 'unearthing' necessary.)
So, it all just sorta lost its steam. I still don't like evil character ships (because they're not heartwarming/sexy/interesting to me, and therefore are boring), and I still hate belligerent sexual tension ships, and it still bugs the hell out of me when darkfic fans mock fans of 'good people' (just because they're good people doesn't mean I don't want them in abject misery!!!! or fucking their sisters), but you know what? That's all on me. Don't Like Don't Read was a good motto, actually. Early fandom was right in that respect. Fiction should be a place you can explore things you would never, ever want to do IRL. That is not the same as an unconscious racial bias bleeding out into your stories.
Which... I mean, I guess that answer is really about a time I was right all along??? :') But I did get sucked in by anti arguments for at least a year or so. I was never pro-harassment, but... I did think that people just Should Not Write fanfic about, idk, Snape and Hermione doing it while she's in her 6th year, or whatever. And I thought that telling people very sternly that they Should Not Do this would achieve something. In my defence, I applied that same logic to myself at great personal mental health cost... not even to mention all the incest fics I didn't read/write for a few years there. :'( And in the end, isn't that the greatest tragedy of all, here?
The point of it all is: incest shipping is good, actually. Join the Macrocest discord server today!!! 👍
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Date: 2025-01-07 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-07 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-08 12:40 am (UTC)So I'll check that rec out, thanks!! n.n