I’m not in the business of predicting stories anymore…. At least, it wouldn’t be a hill for me to die on, or what have you. I’ve learned my lesson. At the same time, I have opinions, and often they’re pretty strong, and my feeling that I naturally get the narrative subtext in a given story and others seem misunderstand at a basic level is also strong. In a way, it almost seems funny, ‘cause these days it seems like people misunderstand a lot more important information, to a lot more problematic results. It’s like, well, misread fiction all you want. That’s what it wants you to do, especially when you’re talking about plot points that haven’t happened yet. Misreading the news and otherwise factual information is just a bit more dangerous and unfortunate.
Still… I’m not sure I want to forbid myself from arguing with people about low-level fangirl stuff, especially since I mostly do it in my head. It’s okay to have some innocuous debates and disagreements, even– or even especially– in today’s fraught times. Actually, it could even be seen as training wheels for your viewpoint tolerance. If you can’t handle courteous opposition to your interpretation of a book, how can you live in a world where people may violently disagree with your right to live, at least without living in a bunker?
Anyway, to the degree I’m exposed to fandom of any kind, it’s people’s comments on the fanart they post or repost on Instagram, so… really minor. Even so, they often feel the need to preemptively defend their ship from attack, claiming hate won’t be tolerated. No one leaves any room for disagreement, on either side of ship wars, anymore than they do in politics. It’s sad. And you see familiar claims and reactions– new theory comes out with new content, is popular, and before you know it– boom! The old ship/theory is oppressed, hated, persecuted. And the worst part is that the debate probably *does* devolve into persecution. Though I mean, I also think people become pretty sensitized to disagreement and criticism of their beliefs/interpretations, too. I’m not 100% convinced that when the minority shipper fanart posts say 'hate’ they actually mean harassment, stuff that goes beyond strong disagreement.
Of course, I mean, I suppose people are even more justifiably interested in a 'safe space’ in their shipping than most other contexts– certainly moreso than political discussions. You don’t have to entertain debate about your favorite ship. It’s really only because, as usual, people try to justify their ship using rational arguments. But the whole point of a rational argument is that it’s *arguing* something. A ship itself is not an argument but a preference. It’s only once you make up supposedly 'good’ reasons that I start getting twitchy.
I suppose I’ve mostly talked myself out of engaging with the arguments, per se. Overall, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially when the ship in question is seen as the 'minority’ interpretation. Like I said, it’s just because of the argument itself.
In this case, the ACoTAR series Elriel fan quoted Cassandra Clare, who wrote that “Being told that love is forbidden doesn’t kill love. It strengthens it.” This appears to be a reference to Rhys, as the High Lord, forbidding Azriel not to pursue Elain in the book extra epilogue everyone’s in an uproar about. This takes the whole situation in the epilogue out of context, basically. Like, yeah…. this would apply, but only if you claim the relationship in question is *love*. Based on the epilogue, it seems a lot more like lust and loneliness, even entitlement. The whole epilogue interaction before that conversation with Rhys was clearly showing the cracks in the reading which previously portrayed Azriel as a romantic, sweet gentleman when it comes to Elain. Not that he’s not a gentleman with her, but it’s more like he’s not really being himself. The context makes the situation more complex than 'Rhys stands in the way of a strong but forbidden love bond’, and in fact that interpretation is pretty silly.
Anyway, in a book series where 'pure love’ with both main love interests so far involved letting the woman go…. basically, there’s a lot of missing context. I can’t help but come up with these rebuttals in my head. I miss arguing with people about books who were actually up for it… but to be honest, fandom was always pretty bad about enabling healthy debates, especially about anything to do with shipping. You don’t even get to feel good when you’re right (unless you’re in your fannish safe space), 'cause most people whose ships sink tend to blame the author and not their own reading.
Not sure what the ideal would be, though. Probably only if I was actually personally friends with a person who shipped something I didn’t, and then we had a conversation about it when their ship sunk. I have this feeling like a part of the problem that creates ship wars is just that these opinions, once they’re widely enough shared, are automatically presented as *groups*, and therefore they’re part of group dynamics. Basically, disagreeing with a friend or even just a single person is not the same as a whole group constantly saying they’re right and your opinions are wrong. Tbh, though, a lot of times even friendship is not enough. I mean, it’s enough not to ruin the relationship between us, but fans who’re really disappointed tend to just be angry and sad, and not in the mood to care much about the book or show in question. I generally tend to retain some interest in open-ended deconstruction even when I’m really wrong, but even my analytically minded friends have been more likely to just quit the fandom and/or stop engaging with the subject.
Not like all my ships have come true by any means, but generally, I have an innate sense of what’s likely and why things make sense in context, especially in retrospect. This reconciles me to all sorts of unfortunate events in stories that I wouldn’t have otherwise preferred. The type of people that see things this way tend not to take sides (or have ships) to start with. Myself, I am like a true believer/fangirl type and the centrist/canon only type rolled into one. I definitely take sides and have strong feelings and preferences… just… retaining a sense of humor and rational criticism of my own preferences and thoughts. Alas, most people are… not this way.
I was reading through Stiefvater’s blog post about her health struggles, specifically thinking about the mentions of the rather predictable fandom response to the resulting errors in The Raven King, her absences from touring, etc. I was thinking about how fandom– and online culture in general– tends to catastrophize, assume the worst of people but specifically creators. Naturally, that’s if we’re not idolizing our faves. Maybe you can’t have one without the other, I’m not sure.
Even when I agree in principle– for ex, about queerbaiting issues– in the end I disagree when the discussion frequently turns to intent. Some people do talk about queerbaiting regardless of creator intent, but that’s a touchy topic and a difficult balance to strike, isn’t it? If you’re upset, you want to blame someone. And if you see something wrong, the default assumption (even if it’s a reasoning error) is that it’s intentional. No one thinks to imagine the thing that irritates or hurts them is just a largely meaningless accident, let alone a result of totally unrelated personal issues like with Stiefvater. Surely it’s got to be related, people reason. Surely it’s about you.
However, the fact is, 95% of the time, I’m guessing it’s not, in fact, about you, or me, or us (or even them). It’s about the creator(s) and whatever their needs, desires and personal issues are. So yeah, I’m guessing most creators don’t do anything either for or against fandom, most of the time. Is that an ugly truth, or just boring?
Sometimes creators want to keep you in suspense. That does happen. JK Rowling and Moffat, for example, are both fans of playing with fans’ minds in that way. But it’s not personal. It’s a part of the performance, rather. In the case of shocking plot reveals, your shock as the audience is part of the theater of it all. Actually, this kind of audience manipulation is probably as old as stories. I’d imagine Shakespeare must have been a fan of the shocking reveal/reversal where possible. Romeo and Juliet is full of that sort of thing. And that play really plays with the audience, too. I only imagine it was limited by the fact that it wasn’t a long-term serial. Alas.
Anyway, back to the point. Anytime someone assumes the creator(s) are out to get you (or us) just for kicks and/or for some even more nefarious reason, I’d take a step back and indulge in some healthy skepticism. Not that I expect this to happen anytime soon, alas.
If you look up fanart for Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comic, you’re going to see something weird, but consistent. In fact, it’s weird *because* it’s so consistent. Even when the art is done by clearly pro-level artists, the depiction of Despair– a fat woman– is almost always amazingly bad. Like, we’re talking she barely looks female, and often enough barely looks like a human (even though, of course, technically she’s not). Or, alternatively, she barely looks comfortably plump. We’re talking either man-shoulders and a rugged jaw (to go with the man-belly, I guess?), or looking like an average middle-aged soccer mom. That’s if she looks human, particularly in extra cartoony styles where every other character is super idealized. Despair is just like a weird vaguely person-shaped blob in those styles. I almost feel bad for them, ‘cause I suppose it’s hard to imagine ugly fat women could be cute. And yet, you know, fat babies are cute, so…. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway, why am I posting about this, you might ask. Well, I remember being at a con one time, where another Harry Potter fan suggested I draw her some overweight women. I realized my plentiful female doodles were all too similar and their bodies were definitely idealized, but I wasn’t super motivated to draw people who looked more like me. I say that, even though it actually meant a lot to me to read about a character like Despair when I was a teenager. I may have liked literally every other member of the Endless more and found them cooler and more interesting, but I identified with Despair. I liked seeing her unapologetically fat body, defying the audience– and the world– to look at it. She wasn’t pretty but she felt real to me. She was too depressed to be too self-conscious about being naked in public, and dammit, I liked that. I loved how real Despair was.
So the main thing that offends and bothers me is that to all these people– let’s say 8 out of ten artists– Despair isn’t real at all. We’re mainly talking about pro artists who can clearly render human bodies well, but I’ve also noticed that beginner fanartists whose poses and perspective all need work also have the most trouble portraying a grossly fat, naked woman believably. No matter what, Despair always looks the worst. It’s really like they’re not trying, and sometimes she’s in fact left out of Endless fanart entirely.
It’s not like it’s a shocker that people have issues with fat or that it’s often ignored of idealized away even in photos these days. I know how it is. It’s just surprising to see this obvious of a skill gap. As an artist, I like to think I want to portray everything I attempt with skill. I certainly wouldn’t want to just leave an obvious blooper on a finished, otherwise well-rendered work. Not purposely, at least. Not after attaining a level of some excellence in overall performance. And yet, these bloopers are common. People just really don’t want to try to 'draw what you see’ if what you see is a naked, grossly fat woman.
Obviously, I mean, truly pro comics artists, such as the one(s) who actually worked on The Sandman, can and do draw Despair realistically. So this is specific to stuff they may *choose* or want to do, as opposed to stuff they’re paid for. And the fact is, they simply don’t want to spend any real effort on fat women. I fact, many artists (and possibly people in general) seem to have some sort of mental blind spot when it comes to fat women. To draw Despair so masculine in more than one case, it’s hard not to conclude these artists are men who implicitly categorize fat women as 'not really female’. This is not even subtle sometimes. In at least one case, everyone else looked great but Despair looked a lot like a smaller version of Thing, from the Fantastic Four. You know, the mutant stone guy with the huge shoulders. Then there’s the drawing where Despair’s skin is literally gray, and instead of curves and roundness, it looks simply like it’s a creature with no obvious anatomy whatsoever, aside from being vaguely humanoid (again, this weird look only applied to Despair, not the others). I’m trying not to project, but this seems really obvious to me from what I’ve seen. A part of me thinks it’s better when Despair looks well rendered, just not really fat. But that’s just a different kind of issue.
I’m sort of insulted, but mostly just bewildered, even though I’m not surprised. It’s not like I myself generally choose to draw fat women. It’s just I’d make an effort if that was what I was going for. I certainly wouldn’t pretend Despair didn’t really matter if everyone else looked great. Although I will say all this has certainly made me think I should probably practice drawing fat ladies after all. I guess my HP fandom friend was onto something.
“frenemies” is a really good character dynamic actually
like it’s SUPER funny as a concept but also. it brings up this dilemma of “this person is my number one rival and i’ve made it my goal to defeat them etc etc but at the same time we’ve been doing this shit for so long that it’s become a part of our daily routine and neither of us really wants it to end because it’s so much fun and if one of us were to succeed in besting the other it would be devastating on both ends because we’ve formed this sort of bond and we give meaning to each other’s lives and oh shit i think we’re friends”. fuck dude that’s good shit
Truly the best collection of tags. i remain astonished that “frenemies to lovers” STILL has not been marked as a common tag since I wrote this fic 2 years ago ahaha
Today I found out that yarners think crocheting socks is subversive and controversial and I just…on one hand, why the fuck not, I guess yarners are allowed to have their controversies, but on the other, how much time do you have in your FUCKIN DAY??
My main concern is how they would feel but Maggie u know yarn fandom gotta think about something while knitting five miles of stockingnette for a sweater
Look, you can’t just leave it at that, why is it subversive and controversial? *gets popcorn*
I mean, I’m taking this on good faith, and I’m not saying this is my own personal belief. I believe in all crafts.
But…the structure of the stitches and the resulting fabric is pretty different between crochet and knitting. You get different effects between them, which lends themselves to different crafts. And none of the effects of (most) crochet stitches lend themselves naturally to socks. You’re (usually) going to end up with something either stiff and bulky, or full of holes that will Not Feel Good to walk on. Whereas knitted socks will just…BE elastic and comfortable.
Sure you CAN do it. And there are people and patterns that do it well!!
But MOST crochet socks are a bit like calling this a bicycle
I mean… Okay? But people are going to Talk.
But this is BABY controversy, this is nothing. You haven’t even touched on the good shit like RHSS or that time the Olympic Committee dissed us.
Iiiinteresting. So one of those “just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD” things.
Also I know very little about the yarn fandom except for that bit where a woman had to fake her death and had a nervous breakdown over selling homespun/dyed yarn so like, I already have big expectations.
Was that the one that “died” of leukemia or the one that “died” of lupus, or the one that overdosed?
From what I know of the narrative as it was described to me, I want to say the one that overdosed, but I am intrigued and vaguely concerned that there are multiple distinct individuals the above situation could apply to.
hey umm, what the fuck
the fake deaths thing: indie yarn dyer gets popular, gets overwhelmed by orders, can’t refund money because of shitty bookkeeping, decides faking online death is the only way out.
i’m sure some of them are unintentional rather than premeditated scammers but they’re all still thieving assholes who shouldn’t be running businesses and need to give all the money back.
the olympics commitee: ravelry, well-known knitting (fiber arts in general) site, held a contest they called the ‘ravelympics’ to drum up olympic support then get a cease-and-desist letter for copyright infringement, and the letter said that calling it that ‘denigrates the true nature of the Olympic Games’ and was ‘disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes’
except, you know, ravelry had like 2 million users who all, by nature of ravelry being a website, have basic tech literacy. the social media backlash was so bad that the olympics board had to make 2 official apologies because the first wasn’t good enough.
RHSS: Red Heart Super Saver is cheap Walmart-level yarn. some people hate it because it used to be just really fucking awful and they haven’t bothered updating their opinions. some people hate it because they hate non-natural yarns. some people hate it because they’re yarn snobs(which, btw, comes in two flavors: the disdainful assholes and the people who just don’t see the point if you have the money and don’t indulge yourself). a lot of people defend it because it’s cheap and widely locally available and honestly not that bad after a wash and some fabric softener.
crocheted socks: exactly what kaitoukitty said. people who crochet socks tend to either be new crocheters who are not aware crochet is not the best medium for socks or experienced crocheters who are pushing the boundaries of the medium.
babies on fire: i can’t believe we’re talking about yarncraft controversies and no one mentioned babies on fire. that’s my favorite controversy.
so when deciding what material to make baby blankets out of, in addition to considerations like softness, ease of washing, and allergy concerns quite a lot of people like to consider what would happen to the baby if the blanket was set on fire. yes, really.
wool has the problem of hand-wash only blankets for a new mother (superwash wool exists but that’s a whole ‘nother paragraph), allergy concerns, and also real fucking expensive if you want quality not-itchy-on-baby-skin wool. but pro-wool-blanket people insist that because wool actually resists being set on fire pretty well and also can self-extinguish, it’s the only sensible choice.
acrylic on the other hand is cheap and you can throw it in the washing machine, and while bad quality acrylics might be stiff and plastic-y they’re not itchy, but if it gets set on fire it will melt onto the baby’s skin. pro-acrylic people insist that if your blanket is on fire, you probably have bigger problems than what the blanket is made of.
wow I didn’t expect such a detailed response. thank you!
Fiber Arts Just Be Fucking Like That.
Humans Just Be Fucking Like That.
I mean, seriously, we will do this this shit in literally any goddamn community you care to conceive of and some you haven’t. The human condition, man. It’s literally everywhere humans are and has been since we started being human. so, like, a couple million years.
Same wank different fandom.
And NO ONE likes it when you mistake knitting for crocheting or crocheting for knitting.
And weavers are salty because everybody forget we even exist.
But spinners are all HERE LET ME TEACH YOU TO DO THIS THING, but we get snippy amongst ourselves about wheels vs spindles.
Meanwhile, embroiderers and tatters are off in the corner like “hey….hey we’re still here….anybody wanna learn?”
I feel like there’s needs to be, like, handbook for authors who post on Ao3 for effective metatext.
By metatext I mean like tagging, summary, and authors notes (especially initial authors notes at the beginning of a fic). The means by which we communicate to our readers what they’re getting into.
Because we kind of all have to learn it by osmosis and there are conventions but nobody’s really taught them at the start, so there’s inconsistencies and misunderstandings or people just not knowing things through no fault of their own.
This ends up breeding frustration and confusion and in the worst cases resentment, hurt, and aggression.
I’m severely tempted to make such a handbook and get it circulating.
I think it would do fandom a lot of good.
Good news, I’m writing it
Update:
I’m at 9680 words, roughly 16 pages single spaced, with two or three sections to go.
Update:
First draft done. 11,100 words, 29 pages with formatting
The final draft is getting cleaned up right now. I’ll probably be figuring out how to post it tomorrow.
On which note, anybody know the best way to make a PDF available online?
Okay it is done!
Gohere for the PDF, or here to view the whole document as a tumblr post.
I recommend the PDF.
Related note: the post length limit on tumblr is apparently more than 13,000 words.
Worth a read; even as a long-time fandom veteran I encountered things I didn’t know were in use, like the “& Related Fandoms” tags.
Knowing a fic author through AO3 is like attending someone’s thesis presentation and politely clapping at the end, knowing a fic author through this hellsite is like going over to their house at 3AM to watch them eat mayonnaise out of a jar
Sometimes I attend somebody’s thesis presentation and I’m so impressed that I follow them home to watch them eat mayonnaise out of a jar at 3am.
Sometimes I watch someone eat mayonnaise out of a jar at 3am with such fervour I am compelled to attend their thesis presentation
