Sure, cats falling off things is funny, but NOTHING is funnier than robots miscalculating the speed, force or angle needed to complete a mundane task. NOTHING.
I see a lot of posts going around talking about the need to be critical of fanfic, and how we gotta watch out for the messages weâre sending
Well, hereâs one thing Iâm gonna need us to be critical about:
Every statistic Iâve ever seen says fanfic authors are heavily female (or nb)
And Tumblr, which is a fairly US-centric cross-section of fandom, is filled with this discourse about fanfic writers who create pornography
I need us to stop and think about why weâve decided that fictional sex is the most damaging thing anyone could ever find on the internet
I need us to think about the culture we live in, which encourages us to be sexually available (to straight men) but punishes us if we (sluts) enjoy it
Because hereâs the thing: fanfic is not coming from a position of power and prestige in our society
It is a niche genre primarily written by women, for women, for free
And it is a place where many of us do find power in exploring our own sexuality (or asexuality)
Even when that exploration takes us to gritty, horrifying (or cathartic) places
Iâm going to need us to think long and hard about why weâre prioritizing fictional characters over the needs of real women
And Iâm going to need it to stop
Fandom purity wank is absolutely about control over women and womenâs sexuality. Thereâs nothing ambiguous about it.
Just think about the hot-button issues in the fannish community, the topics that consistently and reliably get people worked up into a lather, the themes that provoke the nastiest conflicts and inspire the most dedicated resistance movements. Think about the fights that are most likely to spill out over their cyber boundaries and start affecting people in the real world – in public harassment at cons, in doxxing and âoutingâ to family and employers, in malicious legal allegations.
Itâs about sex. Itâs always about sex.Â
From the constant tantrums over âproblematicâ shipping to the righteous doxxing of âpedophilesâ (which in current tumblr parlance means anyone who draws or writes canonically underage characters in romantic or erotic scenarios), fandomâs big efforts at moral reform always seem to revolve around restricting and controlling the sexual expression of the majority-women community. You wonât meet many people who stay up past their bedtime to scream at strangers on the internet about unethical portrayals of non-sexual violence – unless, of course, they suspect the women involved in its creation are getting off on it. Youâll struggle to find an anti blog dedicated to the insidious social ills of torture whump fic, or goopy hurt-comfort where all manner of human suffering is put on display for the viewerâs enjoyment. The purity crew dress up their agenda as a desire for collective self-improvement and raised moral standards, but they donât seem too worried about aspects of public morality that donât somehow tie back into sex. What theyâre upset about is the same thing conservative minds have been upset about since basically the dawn of time – there are women out there in the world doing icky sex things without the permission of their communities.
And these people, these moral guardians, theyâve gotten really good at couching their fundamentalist views in progressive language. They donât say âyouâre to blame if you provoke men to rapeâ – they say âyour fic normalises sexual violence and contributes to rape cultureâ. They donât say âwomen ought to be chasteâ – they say âyour fantasies are socially harmful and you owe it to the world to be more self-criticalâ. The messages are the same and the desired outcomes are literally identical.
The core assumption underlying all of it – an assumption that Iâm sure our puritan forebears would find deeply comforting – is that womenâs sexual expression is a matter of public concern, and that women are directly responsible for upholding the moral standards of their communities by restricting themselves to a narrow repertoire of publicly controlled, socially condoned sexual outlets. Anything beyond that repertoire is a grave moral breach.
To anyone whoâs reading this – and thereâs always a few – thinking, âthis is just deflection! [X hot-button topic] is really bad and harmful!â, Iâd like to encourage you to sit back for just a moment and think about why it is, exactly, that you feel the best and most important place to wage your war against moral corruption is in one of the only pockets of popular media that women unequivocally control. Of all the spaces in the world where you could be fighting for your view of a better society, youâve chosen a place where women come together to share the fantasies that mainstream culture refuses to let them indulge. Why?
One thing to write a fanfic, another to deal with deadlines, formats, inputs. Fanfic writers cannot understand.
S.E. Hinton, author of The Outsiders (This tweet of hers has since been deleted otherwise Iâd link it.)
My first thought was, clearly this woman has never participated in a big bang before. But it honestly goes so much deeper than thatâŠ
You know, Iâm always proudest to call myself a fan fic writer when someone, especially someone like S.E., bashes on it. Itâs like Iâm harboring this little secret about what I actually do when I write fan fiction versus what theyâre accusing me of. And while people who put us down about writing fan fic are trying to make us look like idiots, if you ask me, theyâre the ones who end up looking stupid. Itâs always apparent when someone who gives you crap for writing fan fic has no idea what theyâre talking about other than what theyâve heard. They have no idea the amount of passion, dedication, or heart that goes into fan fiction. They have no idea how supportive (for the most partâŠ) the community is. They donât know the fear of putting oneself âout thereâ when sharing their work, or what it feels like to have someone admire your work even though youâre not a published author. They might never know what it feels like to have something that brings them so much joy laughed at, or mocked, or disregarded because itâs different. They cannot understand.Â
Yes, S.E. is a published author, she wrote her first novel as a teenager, and the book is still well known today. She knows about these grueling deadlines, and formats, and inputs she speaks of. But what she seems to be missing about us measly fan fic writers? So. Do. We.
The thing is, countless fan fic writers are writing because itâs an escape, because itâs something weâre passionate about, because itâs a way for our voices to be heard; a lot of us will stop at nothing to be able to write even just a little bit every single day. So many of us are full time students, parents, holding full time jobs, often times doing any combination of the three and so much more. Dead lines? Yeah. I have them. I get to write when the kiddos go down for a nap. Two hours. If I donât get out what I have to say in those two hours the opportunity is gone unless I want to sacrifice something else (like sleep, for example). Many others are squeezing in words on their lunch breaks or in between classes, staying up late to get something put on a page because they worked all day or havenât had time otherwise. Sure itâs not a ârealâ deadline. No publisher or editor is hanging a contract over our heads, threatening our jobs. But you know what comes with that publisher? What comes with that editor and that deadline? A paycheck. Compensation for the time youâve spent writing. A paycheck just like youâd receive at any other job. So yeah, we may not have ârealâ deadlines, according to published authors such as the acclaimed S. E. Hinton, but thatâs because no oneâs forking over cash in exchange for a word count by Monday. Weâre writing because we love it. Because we want to share a piece of ourselves whether it comes with money attached or not. Weâre writing because we care about something so much, it spills out of our hearts and onto the page in the form of high school AUâs, and slow burns.
We may not understand deadlines according to the âreal writing worldâ, but we sure as hell understand doing what we can when we can because otherwise we wonât get the chance. That does not lessen our skill in any way, shape, or form.
But input, oh. We donât understand input. âŠExcept for you know what comes along with all that fan fiction weâre not being paid to write? Input. In every single form imaginable. Kudos, and comments, and reblogs, and likes. That is our input. Reviews, recommendations, criticism most of us donât ask for, thrown at us on our AO3 accounts and our tumblrs, our fanfiction.net accounts, our livejournals, and our wattpads â places most of us go to for solace. Whether we want to see said input or not, itâs there, glaringly apparent. And a lot of times itâs great input! A positive comment on one of my fics can make my day. But sometimes, just like input any published writer may receive, it is not kind. Often times itâs harsh, degrading, discouraging. And we donât have editors, or assistants, or publishers to keep us going. We donât have the buffer of âwell Iâm getting paid to do this so it doesnât matter whether they like my work or not.â All we have is each other, and our own strength, strength a lot of us have garnered from both tough life experiences and you guessed it, being a lowly, silly fan fic writer.
So you know what? Go ahead. You keep on giving your [shitty, unwelcomed] input on what you think about me writing fan fiction and what I could or could not ever understand because Iâm not like you. Iâll be over here doing something I love, something I often times have to fight to be able to do, and Iâll keep doing it because nothing you or anyone else could ever say will make me feel like what Iâm doing doesnât matter. Because it does. And that is something you could never understand.
Anyone who think fic writers donât know deadlines has never participated in an event and written 10k words in two days fuels by coffee, wine, and good music and no sleep so that they donât disappoint someoneâŠ.
Fic writers are real writers mother fucker donât forget it.
one thing thatâs always bothered me about most peopleâs depiction of Holmesâs usage of cocaine is that most people in Victorian England were only just beginning to realize how badly it affected people???
like tbh I feel like a better modern equivalent would just be Holmes dumping a five hour energy into his fifth cup of coffee while Watson, a trained medical professional, stares at him in horror
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