Entitled knobnuts, part #758

[veronica_rich]

Fandom!Secrets may have moved to DW, but it's just as much fun as ever to read for venting. *G*

A theme I see brought up time and again is entitlement in fandom. As in, "I'm entitled to get to read stories/see fanart of THIS" and "I'm entitled to have what I like be the dominant force in my fandom" and "I'm entitled to do some name-calling when people waste their time on fanworks of things I don't like instead of what I want to see." Pre-Internet, I honestly don't remember fans I knew and met being so judgmental of fanfic or art beyond the usual "is it good or not?" which is fair enough. What I mean, there was none of this "quit wasting your time on slash and build me a het epic, bitch" that's become a staple at FS (which, FS is a concentrated dose of general fandom, so my guess is this maybe goes on in some individual fandoms out there to a lesser degree; I saw just a tiny bit of it back in POTC). I'm not talking about people who simply express a desire to read something specific they would like - I mean those who tear down other people for writing other things that aren't what the bitchers want to read.

And it is all het, occasionally gen. Even the femslash fans, who might have a point about not seeing enough of what they like, aren't whiny and entitled like the het fans who make these secrets or agree with them. I remember just a few occasional threads in parts of POTC where J/E fans (it wasn't ever W/E or even Norribeth or other het fans doing it) would sit around publicly wondering why anyone would like slash in that fandom. Or the few who insinuated from time to time it was down to misogyny because we didn't write Liz as much as they did. But it didn't come up with near the frequency it does on FS, and every time I see it, I wonder, why don't those people write what they want to read?

Seriously. This is how fanfic STARTED long before the Internet and even paper 'zines. Fans wrote what they liked to see and kept them to read again. Or traded with fellow fans. Or copied and passed around. Hell, this was going on into the 90s. So the bitchers who counter with "but I'm not a writer!" - well, I have no sympathy. Non-writers and professional storytellers have been telling themselves stories to beat boredom and fall asleep for tens of thousands of years; if you're so damn lazy you're the type who'd rather publicly bash because you're not getting what you want from people doing it for free, you deserve to be mocked by all of us who do it at FS and anywhere else.

Comments

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

This is what I find disturbing. I would say that this trend started about six months ago and at LEAST once a week a new "secret" has some sort of slash-bashing post. Mind you, they don't say, hey, this fic is really lousy, badly written, just dreck. No. It's generally how reading about men having sexual relationships with each other is disgusting and taking over their fandom (which, hello, really?) and, perhaps, my favorite: How it isn't canon? Frankly, anytime you take a medium beyond what the original creators intended it is NOT canon, so that argument usually brings nothing but contemptible sniggering from me. You want canon? Reread or rewatch the source material and rinse and repeat. THAT'S canon, baby, and anytime you take it beyond that then you've marched firmly into non-canon territory. Can writers (even within their own canon) take things out of canon? Sure. That's called bad writing when a character doesn't adhere to an established arc or a plot veers off into some hare-brained direction that doesn't make sense. But basically, I think once you take source material and start tweaking it, then you are guilty of messing with canon to a certain degree. Which is why I think that argument is bullshit. How het characters would NEVER stoop to suck someone's dick. Really? How do you know?

Most of the time I think it's trolls just trying to get the slash writers to foam at the mouth. In fact, I would say the majority of fandomsecrets is troll generated, specifically designed to alienate groups of people. Seems like a strange way to get off, but it's obvious that a lot of the posts are purely incendiary in nature.

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

This is very interesting. When I see slash in fandom I always figured it was because there were more men than lady character's in the story. Or the fandom is rife with OC's and slash pairing's give a modicum of canon realism.

I read fandom secrets once or twice, I agree most of it is more trolling than whatever it was originally started for.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

There is a most definite backlash against slash. I wish I had a dollar for the amount of WHINING I've read recently whereby all the really good writers only write slash and how readers can't find decent het stories. Or my other favorite, how they suffered under the dictatorship of BNFs who only wrote slash and now that the BNFs have moved on, the het contingent can dominate and return the axis to its rightful order (as in the case of mcshep dominating until the series went off the air and now the fandom is dominated by sheppard/teyla shippers).

POTC was, in the beginning, the most inclusive fandom imaginable. People were honestly (it seemed to me) not too arsed about the pairings one way or the other. Threesomes were very popular (given Johnny Depp's interpretation that pretty much anything sexual was a thumbs up). Slash was very active but not at the expense of het pairings. Little did I know that this was very unusual in a fandom. Of course, then all that changed when the second movie came out and the het contingent were determined to make the fandom a mono-ship fandom. When I complained that hte second movie didn't make sense (as in just linear plotwise issues), I was accused of being a bitter slasher because there wasn't any opportunity to slash the characters. A slash NEVER lacks for opportunity because the last time I looked, all the characters had moving sexual parts. That is ALL you need, IMO.

I think that essentially people perceive shipping as an entrance to a club. and if they don't "get" that pairing or it doesn't appeal to them, then they feel like there is no way they can join in the fun. I think the initial days of POTC were a condemnation of that concept just as much as the latter days of it were confirmation of that mind set.

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

Well, Pirategasm was all-inclusive when it started in 5/2003 and it still is! *wink* It's a lot quieter than it was, but it remains all-inclusive to this day.

But I do think you're right---the entitlement is appalling. I mean, I don't particularly care for most het but others do. Just like some folks love broccoli and others can't stand it. There is no unwritten law insisting that broccoli be eaten. *giggling at the idea of Jack forced to eat broccoli*

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

Pirategasm was/is *absolutely* indicative of how inclusive that fandom was. Seriously, maybe I was hopelessly naive at the time, but it seemed to me that POTC was basically people just writing fic about characters they loved and Pirategasm THE place where we could keep track of what we wrote and who wrote it. Of course it wasn't ALL sweetness and light--there was a vocal contingent of people who didn't get Sparrington--but I certainly never felt threatened when I wrote it. I just assumed that the people who didn't like it, didn't read it. And I didn't feel that the people who didn't read it didn't like me personally, which is how it seems to play out these days, or even worse, that what I write "sickens" people (a term that I have read used more than once to describe a reaction to slash pairings).

There will always be like minds grouping together within a fandom, but lately it seems that as fandom has become more public and more (ironically) accepted by mainstream media, it has become much more cannibalistic of its members. I question whether I would be in fandom today if I didn't have long roots. It's not as nice a place.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

lately it seems that as fandom has become more public and more (ironically) accepted by mainstream media, it has become much more cannibalistic of its members

It almost feels like some political plants from the Radical Reich being sent in to infiltrate and undercut anything not appropriately heteronormative for a good old-fashioned values apple-pie-and-baseball American picnic, yeehaw! What these fucknuts on the het side who go along with this bitching don't realize, if there ever comes a point that slash goes back into hiding (as it was for decades before the 2000s; even in the 90s, really), the Moral Majority frowning over m/m is going to turn its ponderous collective head to what is and isn't acceptable in het pairings next. Or so I wager. That's usually the way of things.

Oh well. If they want to write hand-holding and coquettish eye-batting and bear pressure against "vagina" being written in fanworks, I hope they have fun with that. Slash and any fanfic, really, will live on on the sidelines as it did for so long - and those of us who write it primarily for our own enjoyment won't lose nearly as much as those who do it solely for approval and inclusion. ;-)

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

Amen! Pope Sleazoid the First approves! *LOL*

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

You said a WHOLE mouthful there! Again, it's a small group of loudmouthed morons forcing their ideology on the larger group whether the masses want it or not. My only regret is that I got angry instead of simply tossing them all out on their ears the first time they stepped over the line of civility.

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

Plot issues are plot issues and have no bairing on what you ship! That's stupid.
I got onto the POTC wagon late in the game. Like right before the second movie came out. So I think I missed some of the wank or I just didn't go to the places where it was happening.

I've never seen BNF, But in the A-Team fandom Hannibal/Face is a very dominant pairing followed by BA/Murdock, and Face/Murdock and threesomes depending on who's writing what. And in Sherlock fandom Sherlock/John is a very dominant pairing. But I think that in all fandoms, like you said, slash can happen. It's just easier in some fandom's than in other's. And the same goes for Fem!slash. I am sure Sex in the City has pairings between the lady's of the series. I've never seen that show either. But, I think that's another fandom who has more lady character's than men and it'd be easy to put them into those situations.

So long story short; I think you're right and it was very interesting to read about your experience in POTC fandom.

[kronette.livejournal.com]

OOh, A-Team. I wrote Face/Murdock and didn't realize it wasn't the common pairing. It was all I happened to see online, though I realize there were zines out long before when I got online. I remember seeing some BA/Murdock, but I preferred F/M or F/H and there was plenty of it. If there was wank, I never saw it. That reminds me, I never did post that huge F/M story I had done... :)

Slash tends to be my default setting when writing stories, but part of it could be the predominance of men/male leads in TV and movies. It's easier to pair them because they're already in the 'buddy' stage and it's sometimes easier to take them the next step or two. I know in SPN, the shift (for me) away from Dean/Sam happened when Castiel showed up, then it was all Dean/Castiel for me. If I was to write het for the show, it would be Dean/Ellen most likely (the actress calls herself a MILF :)). I can't see myself reading or writing Castle fic, because the show writers are doing pretty well with the on-screen relationship and I don't feel the need to "fix" or "see" anything else. That's what tends to drive the relationship fanfic for me - a relationship that isn't happening, that I think should be happening. Of course, I wrote a Bashir/Garak/O'Brien love triangle just to piss off a few people :) There were some slash fans declaring that writer "couldn't" write a certain pairing, so I did it a few times just to prove them wrong and annoy the smeg out of them. Don't tell me what to write; I'm not holding a gun to anyone's head making you read it. That's what the delete (when stories used to be posted to Listservs and mailing lists) or subscribe to my feed or go to that section of the archive. Why do people go out of their way to make other people miserable? I'll never, ever understand that.

I do know it can be intimidating coming into an established fandom and seeing all the stories that were written ahead of you. It's overwhelming and you don't know if your little story idea will even be heard in the chaos. I ease myself into a fandom by reading & commenting on stories. Then I'll join a list or two to see what's going on/being talked about. Then, if an idea strikes me, I have at least made myself known before I post and wave my new story around, so I'll have people more receptive to reading it. One cannot (I assume) jump headfirst into a fandom, post 20 stories and have everyone love them and declare you the best thing since (insert BNF here).

And I agree; no matter the relationship, you're going to have the same issues crop up in terms of getting them together, circumstances that are keeping them apart, reactions to their getting together, etc. etc.

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

Post that A-Team story. The fandom is far too small. LOL. A-Team is that essential buddy show, even if in the original series BA says he doesn't like the other guys. There's only the four of them and they are on the run. There are eps that show they are interested in other women, mostly Face because he flirts with everything. But, it's so much easier just to pair them together. Sometimes the pairing goes against what is all ready established in fandom or there is so little of it there's no point. I wrote a fic for Nabari fandom. It's an anime about Ninja's but so much better done than Naruto. Anyway, the pairing I wrote is not a huge thing in fandom and the only fan fic I ever wrote for Nabari but that's fine with me. Sometimes you just got to get the story out there even if no one ever reads it.

I too am not interested in Castle fic. The writer's do a good job. It was cool of you to prove a pairing could happen though. That's just awesome. I agree with you that people are not allowed to tell other's what to write or what not to write. Censorship is not allowed in writing whatsoever.

i find it fun to write a pairing that'd probably never happen; because it's more challenging to get them together. And, as you said, every couple has challenges to their relationships. It's something all reader's can relate to.

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

Having been through the hideous POTC sparrabeth shipwar along with V, I think you are entirely right----the whole thing is a bunch of trolls seeking to ruin others' enjoyment for the sake of ruining it. If that is what is considered 'normal' to het fans, I hate to tell them that not only are they doin' it wrong, but they all need shrinks! LOL!

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Precisely. Canon is ANYTHING not specifically depicted by the author. If you write what you call a "canon-compliant" missing scene that's not in the book or movie that has the characters doing things we didn't read or see, you can call it whatever you like, but you cannot call it "canon" by any stretch of the imagination. Not unless the original creator is paying you or otherwise commissioning you to contribute to their canon by writing it.

Fandom used to be more live and let-live when it came to producing fanworks, though it certainly had problems - while you could write or draw whatever, there were "rules" that were dumb then and really look dumb now. Rules like, if you wrote anything slash, even just kissing or discussion of a same-sex relationship, it had to be rated NC-17 to protect children and squicked het/gen fans from the evil gay. (Whereas, there were levels of ratings for f/m relationships.) I'm not saying earlier fandom was wonderful, just that people seemed more concerned with finding stuff to read, or writing it themselves, than with bitching about what was already there that they didn't like.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

Just as you pointed out, what IS different is this staggering sense of entitlement, . People are now expecting their itches to be scratched, as opposed to writing something that scratches their itches. Which would be okay if people were paying for this entertainment and then you were royally pissed off because it was so horrible (can anyone say Dead Man's Chest?). But no one is paying me to write my fanfiction dreck, and I find it laughable that so many people expect you to "perform." This is what the internet has brought us. Even people who aren't technically performing are seen as beholden to their readers. This is what I think is the genesis behind a lot of snarky, mean reviews. Rarely do I read a mean comment that actually addresses what might be wrong with a fic. No, it's usually couched in language that basically says, "Hey, you didn't write my characters the way I wanted them written." On these hate memes sites I always get a lot of grief because I tend to not write canon characters. Do I labor under the delusion that I write canon characters? Absolutely not! But it's a huge fault of mine. Apparently.

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

I have had this happen to me. I was writing a HP fan fic a while back and I put in some plot twist I thought was very clever and I got a review of someone saying that it was interesting up and until that point but that I ruined something canon wise or whatever and so that person wasn't going to read it anymore.

No skin off my nose; plenty of other people liked it. But yeah, the entitlement really makes writing a story far more stressful than it has to be because all of a sudden you've got people who expect things. And since I mostly write-and-post it's worse because the story isn't a finished thing, unlike a book.
I wish people could just sit back and enjoy or accept that different take a writer has going instead of getting all pissy because whatever they wanted to happen didn't.

I say those people need to go and write their own fan fic.

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

BWAHAHAHAHA! 50 shades of shite? LOL!

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

You said it, sister!

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

HEY! Those two characters make a BABEE, which makes anything they do all right. You know this.

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

ROFLMAO! I was unimpressed with that whole business when I was in my teens. Nearly 50 years later, colour me even less impressed. After all, any mammal can breed. *wink*

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

Oh god this!
I just love4 you rant. I've run into this in other fandoms. Presently Sherlock.
I can't say how many people just blasted my writing because they didn't like it, but it isn't like there aren't a thousand other fics they'd like to read more than mine and actually say something nice about it. Sometimes it's like they just pick a fan fic to tear down and whine about. it's so annoying.

I agree with you. And I've even done this in fandoms. If I can't find fic about a pairing I like, I'll just write that pairing myself. It may not be the best fan fic out there. But I think that's a personal opinion people can make for themselves. Anyway, at least it adds to the pairing in fandom. I was on tumbler reading Tony/Loki fic even though I haven't seen the Avenger's movie. And the fic recs are awesome and the person I was looking at wrote some of their own fics for that pairing for that same reason. Because there wasn't enough of that pairing in fandom.

I agree with you on that last bit about non-writer's being like that. Maybe they should learn to write. Not only would they walk a mile in other people's shoes but maybe they won't be so annoying when it comes to fan fic in general.

And talking about the POTC Shipping Wars. I was lucky enough to miss it. Though I liked the slash, I was a W/E shipper because I wasn't fond of J/E but, I did read a good fan fic that had a J/E ship and it wasn't annoying. Very well written. I can't remember why I read it. But, I remember that the character's were actually in character and the writer took their time. it was a good fic.

Dude, I hear the shipping wars in HP were the worst. It's like no one could accept that other people had a difference of opinion and just respect that. Sometimes fandom is screwed up.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I feel like if you're not getting paid for what you're writing, there's a certain amount of criticism you're not required to put up with - primarily "I just don't like this content." There are things that squick me too - incest, child porn, chan, furry sex, etc. - but if it's fiction or drawn art and not photographs of such things, it's a gray area how much I can righteously bitch about it. What's NOT a gray area to me is depicting fictional consensual adults doing their thing (yes, even incest - blech). But more than that, it's what I put up above: Fanworks are free, and nobody has the right to whine that they're not getting what they want because those creative fans are doing other things.

Besides, it's Stupid Logic(TM). Me writing a slash story is not keeping anyone else who wants to write f/m from doing it. There's all this open space on the Internet, after all.

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you. I write what I want to read, or wish there was more of on the internet to read.
The people who whine about it aught to get their butt's in gear and write their own ship instead of whinning about how there isn't enough of it, or, and more importantly, how writer's like us need to conform to their idea of fandom.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

It's not exactly the same, but the tennis site I post on has a General Messages forum for match results and discussion where you can guarantee that every other thread will end up being dragged off-topic. All it takes is one poster to mention their favourite (call them Player C) in a thread about the match between Players A and B, and the thread will turn into a childish argument between different fanbases.

Also, the largest fanbases (of the most successful and / or attractive players) will inevitably bring their faves into discussions which aren't about them. Basically, they're not fans of tennis, just of particular players. They seize every opportunity to point out how much better their player is than yours (ner-ner).

Fortunately, the more successful players have their own fan forums, which tend to be a lot more civilised. I spend most of my time chatting to fellow fans of my recently retired fave, simply because I find it more enjoyable than arguing with posters who either are 14 or act like it. ;)

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard the band and sports fandoms are kind of crazy; I stick to movies and shows. Those are crazy enough for me!

[kronette.livejournal.com]

Ya know, this is why I'm staying out of the "core" of fandoms (that includes RD; I don't read the boards). I stay away from discussion lists now, and my fandom life is sooo much easier. I remember a few postings back in the day, not very many, implying that if I wrote het I couldn't write slash. As if one is exclusive of the other. I wrote what I consider my best story in Highlander fandom, it happened to be slash, yet it was so G-rated it was unreal. Then I turned around and posted a completely Gen story featuring Methos and it got just as much positive reaction. The crossover audience for both stories was probably 60% - those who read both. Maybe the late 90s was the last of the "we'll read a good story, regardless of content" type of fans? I do recall fights with the X-Files fans who insisted that Mulder/Scully was slash, no matter how often we stated that the traditional definition of slash was a same sex pairing, and that they were confusing multitudes of new fans. Their argument was that slash was defined as a non-canon pairing, therefore M/S qualified, but Brian/Justin from Queer as Folk didn't. It made my head hurt. I left that fandom and haven't missed it one iota (XF, not QAF)

I left Sentinel fandom soon after when we had to put an explicit warning section for stories if we had Blair cut his hair. I shit you not. Now this was only on one list, the main fandom list, but it was where everyone posted their stuff. Like I'm going to warn for something as silly as that? I wrote what I wanted, posted it on my own site, and announced it with only the disclaimer "This story has warnings. Consider yourself warned." I wouldn't stoop to the majority (at least it seemed like the majority at the time) stupidity.

When I first started reading fanfic, I didn't think I could write. I had friends encourage me to try, and it was initially to be accepted as part of the group. I wrote gen, then het, then slash, and from that point on, I wrote what I wanted to read about. I wrote Trip/Archer because that was the minority in Enterprise fandom and I wanted to read more. I wrote Amanda stores in Highlander because I didn't like the characterization I was reading.

Those LOLcats pictures with cats walking with their tails in the air with the caption "haters gonna hate"? That's all those "fans" are - whiny, spoiled brats who are used to getting their way. Can we blame parents for this kind of me-centric thinking throughout all walks of life?

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

I congratulate you.
It's awesome how you handled your fandoms.
I agree though, Mulder/Skully isn't a slash pairing. It may not be a canon pairing, but they had so much UST that it'd be so easy for the show to put them together. They just didn't because they wanted to keep fans interested. That's why most show's don't do the fans favorite pairing sunless it's something that's all ready been established from the start. To keep the interest and keep playing on the fans desires.

Sometimes I'm glad I just read fan fic in a fandom and don't get involved. Some fandoms have so many hater's it's hard to even feel excited about a fic to put out in that particular fandom.
Funnily enough, I found that this entitlement schtick not only crops up in fandom but in other area's of life and it's so annoying.

I totally agree with you by the way. On everything. And I am duly impressed. It was funny to read about the hair cutting thing. I'd have laughed at anyone who "ordered" me to put warnings up for that!

[kronette.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you by the way. On everything. And I am duly impressed. It was funny to read about the hair cutting thing. I'd have laughed at anyone who "ordered" me to put warnings up for that!

Sentinel fandom got very, very strange right as the show ended, and what I deemed the "good" writers, those who cared about trying to put out a good story, did research on cop procedures or medical jargon, and who tried to keep the guys from falling into whiny crybabies (my GOD, were there a lot of people who wanted to see Blair cry) all left the list because of the stupidity. Canon, as in the show finale, had it strongly implied that Blair may go into the police academy. For those of us who liked to keep our writing mostly in "character" or in line with the canon of the show, those writers had him going to the academy, which meant his hair needed to be whacked off from the hippie vibe he'd had since the pilot. Then a small group of writers got it in their head that "smarm" (a term they either came up with, or was so underground none of us had heard of it before) dominated the list and the rest of us sane people left. Smarm, by their definition, was the guys sleeping in the same bed, french kissing, showering together, but it WAS NOT SLASH. Arguments were hot and heavy, but they insisted it wasn't slash (and even went so far as to have penetration, I believe, yet it STILL wasn't slash) so we gave up and let them take over the list.

tl;dr - some fans be straight up stupid, yo. (I've been watching too much Breaking Bad - sorry!)

[day221b.livejournal.com]

Smarm, yo! Don't get me started on smarm. ;)

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

oh wow.
That's like saying "No Homo".
I'd say Smarm was slash though. Weird.
Those people just couldn't accept it, I suppose. Oh well.
Well, there is less tress when you're not dealing with idiots and people who actually want to read that pairing. Without being bogged down by stupid rules that shouldn't exist.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Oh boy, I didn't realize the Sentinel fandom had been that crazy - I knew a few people in it and they were pretty normal human beings. They never mentioned any of that (then again, maybe they stuck strictly with the fic, too). But I can believe craziness like that; you wouldn't believe the things I got yelled at for relating even tangental to POTC fandom that I would've never expected, really.

I *like* discussions and thinky posts on fannish stuff. But what I like are fans who like to be goofy, yet you know they're sane and they act like that even while being "obsessive" on the particular post they're writing. I haven't seen much in RD fandom yet to concern me (I hope influx of new canon and fans this fall doesn't change that - it seems when fandoms get that influx of new "mainstream" casual fans, there's the possibility for them to regard fandom like the rest of their real life ... which is to say, conform to what they want instead of them having to get along with people already there).

[day221b.livejournal.com]

Why write it when you can b*tch and flounce and bring people down? Where's the fun in that?


I completely agree with you. The entitlement is mind-blowing and it seems to be a growing concern now that fandom and fanfiction are "out of the closet." Personally, I wish we all were back in the closet in that respect. There was wank, yeah, and BNFs, yeah, but it somehow felt more accepting. Of course, having said that, I'm now remembering the Sentinel fandom. That place was veritable viper's nest at times and was nearly enough to kill any fandom love I ever had. So maybe the big name fandoms have always had some level of entitlement issues of one sort or another. If it's not pairings people fight over, it will be the level of skill in writing, or some other such nonsense. Thankfully, I mostly prefer small fandoms. I won't touch Sherlock, for example. Oh, I'll read the fic, but I refuse to follow any discussion whatsoever. I learned my lesson long ago. Whatever my opinion might be in big name fandoms, it isn't worth it to share or read other's opinions. I especially don't want to read opinions from writers I love in those types of forums. It might just turn out that not only are they amazing writers, but they're also asshats. And that just ruins the experience for me.

Back on the entitlement issue, I recently read a post from someone in one of my fandoms who said something to the effect of "I want this and this to happen. I want these two characters to do this and I wanted the fic dedicated to me because I'm special. Squee!" Now granted, I'm paraphrasing, but that was precisely what the poster was saying. She even complained she had nothing to read. And honestly, I think she did "Squee!" in the post.

Fanfiction writers have to start somewhere. And basically it comes down to writing what you *want* to happen. Maybe it won't be good the first ninety nine or one hundred times, but that's what practice is all about. Because that one hundred and first time you might nail it.

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

I agree. Don't touch Sherlock unless you're gonna stick to the comms. The kink meme get trolled far to much for my comfort to even post there anon and the rant meme is HORROIBLE. No exageration.

See. That is an easy fix for the person you mentioned, she/he can write their own fan fic featuring those character's and that specific situation and she/he can be narsisitic and dedicate it to themselves. That's what I do when I get into a fandom. I write what I want to read. It's fun when I remember to write more for myself instead of my audience.

[kronette.livejournal.com]

ROFL. Sorry, I just posted my rant about Sentinel fandom in answer to johnnypenn :)

Back on the entitlement issue, I recently read a post from someone in one of my fandoms who said something to the effect of "I want this and this to happen. I want these two characters to do this and I wanted the fic dedicated to me because I'm special. Squee!" Now granted, I'm paraphrasing, but that was precisely what the poster was saying. She even complained she had nothing to read. And honestly, I think she did "Squee!" in the post.

*rolls eyes* That's what the xmas-stuffers or request lists or charity lists are for - to request something you want but don't want to write yourself. My response to that type of post would be, "You have a keyboard, yes? You have the idea, yes? Try writing it out yourself. You'd probably be shocked at what you can accomplish."

[day221b.livejournal.com]

kronette, I noticed your post just after I posted. Oh, Sentinel fandom, may you rest in pieces. Actually, I have good memories from that fandom, too. Although the bitterness creeps in every once in a while because it was all so unnecessary and wanktastic. BNF's behaving badly, entitlement issues, cliques, and everything in between. And I remember the "Blair's Hair" wank now that you've mentioned it.


And I completely agree with you about the "Squee" poster. One of my fandoms is so small that it gets updated with fic, if I'm lucky, maybe once every nine months (if that.) Since I want more fic, I've taken it upon myself to write the fic. It's not because I'm on a crusade or anything, it's simply because I love those characters and their world. It's my fandom-of-choice, and it's the fic I want to read (and has been for well over a year.) It's inspired a couple others to write which makes me all kinds of thrilled. Sometimes you have to give a little to get a little.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

*SQUEE!!* Sorry, that's kind of hilarious.

I don't mind if someone puts out a general request for a story to be written for them; someone might want to do that. But it's when they look at what's already out there and bitch about THAT instead. As I said, the Internet is SO not used up yet; something already being there does not preclude other things from being written or drawn.

Believe me, I was perfectly happy when fandom was under the radar of the mainstream; I was never one of those who thought it should be "outed" for everybody's judgment.

[day221b.livejournal.com]

*nodnod*


I generally don't mind requests. It's the manner in which the request is given that tends to rub me the wrong way. This particular person struck me as very demanding and self-absorbed.

And I see what you're saying. I agree. I wasn't aware of FS until this post. Actually spent a good chunk of last night reading some older posts. Now I know where Fandom Wank has gone. Not that I enjoy wank. I don't like it when it touches my fandom. Although, I found it odd that FW hadn't been updated for months.

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

This has to be the best conversation on fandom I have ever seen or been a part of.
Of course not all of it is good, though you may get those fandom's where wank is quickly taken care of and doesn't have a place in fandom activities.
And then you've got the huge fandom's where you can basically count on the wank.

I just want ya'll to know how awesome you are. Responcible fans are awesome!

[day221b.livejournal.com]

They are indeed.

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

This is the most interesting conversation on fandom I've ever been a apart of.
I kinda want to do a study of fandom for some reason. I don't know why.