Oliver Stark about the negativity concerning Buck's bisexuality

Rule one of fandom: there are some things that only exist for us.

Don’t send actors fics

Don’t give them explicit art ever

Don’t tag them in rpf questions or theories

Don’t try to bring them into fandom drama of any kind

Don’t hold them responsible for what the producers and writers decide

They’re still people.  They have private lives, which do not include fandom.

A lot pf people don’t understand this and it’s a shame

ALSO: DO NOT SHIP REAL PEOPLE WHO PLAY CHARACTERS WITH EACHOTHER??? THEY ARE NOT THEIR CHARACTERS!

No.

If you want to bash rpf shippers for *existing*, make your own post.

RPF has been a part of fandom since the beginning, and I’d highly recommend doing some research into the topic; as always, Fanlore is a good place to start.

The problem with RPF is when people breach the fourth wall, which fandom is doing more often as the internet expands and becomes the current culture, and newcomers to fandom either are not taught or do not care about the basic rules (i.e. the purpose of this post).  The problem is not with people having fantasies or telling stories.

Fandom is transgresive by nature as much as it is transformative, because we are thieves and magpies and because here we’re allowed to talk about things that we’re not supposed to in mainstream culture.  I have never seen a space like fandom creates, where people are able to share their desires and fantasies and kinks openly and *talk* about the taboo.

And when people come along and talk about how RPF shouldn’t even exist, it is frequently less rooted in a concept of “this causes this specific harm” and more “this is disgusting and I don’t want it near me, how can this even exist.”  It causes discomfort because it’s rooted in taboos (talking about sexual fantasies in public, openly, even though those same fantasies are well acknowledged in pop culture - think about the concept of the “free pass”).

When people break the fourth wall and get the actors involved, sending fics (or letters back in the old days), explicit images, harassing them online or at conventions and concerts, they have committed actions that cause harm.  And there is real harm, I’ve done my digging and seen the results in bandoms and fandoms (hell, my fandom has done some things over the years.)

Thoughts are not actions.  Fantasies do not make you a villain, telling stories is not a sin (though it has been a crime).  Sharing those things with other people is part of what makes fandom culture what it is.

There are conversations that need to happen about objectification and dehumanization, there are conversations (like this post was meant to be) about maintaining healthy boundaries and treating the actors as people when we interact with them; there are conversations that need to happen about how much more mainstream fandom is now than it was fifty years ago, and what that does to the relationship dynamic we have with our creators and actors, what may need to change as we move forward.  The Hockey RPF fandom’s solution to that problem was to lock a great deal of their content so that the fourth wall could not be breached.

RPF is the single greatest squick I have dealing with fandom; the way people talk in my fandom hits my “someone is altering my sense of reality” button really hard.  I frequently have to blacklist it to control my exposure to the low-level shipping that permeates everything in my community, otherwise I get punchy.  But my discomfort with the topic doesn’t mean I’m ever okay with throwing those people out of the communities they helped build.

I don’t have to like something to defend it.  Fandom is built by people who were told “you shouldn’t do that, go back to the shadows”, and we are not doing vague purity-culture and thought police nonsense tonight.

OP, fantastic post but this rebuttal is a thing of pure beauty. Thank you.

My god y'all if you don't have a Dropout subscription get a Dropout subscription. I just started binging Game Changer and what the hell is this show.

It's a Saw-like dissection of Brennan Lee Mulligan's psyche and last nerve.

It's Sam Reich telling the players one episode that he's phoning it in today and they're just gonna play Jeopardy and then the Jeopardy board becomes an elaborate pirate adventure with custom art of a sexy octopus man, a city inside a whale, and a Jimmy Buffet-esque parrothead Poseidon.

It's Ally Beardsley getting paid $5000 to buzz a notch into one of their eyebrows on camera.

Noooo don't get a tattoo it's so permanent blah blah blah my tattoo is whatever I want it to be and today it's an octopus

Petition that British citizens who have participated in the Palestinian Genocide be prosecuted on return

In the UK? Please sign and share.

Not in the UK? Please share this anyway!

Learning how to weave! After a brief attempt at card weaving, I discovered pick-up weaving and immediately switched over to weaving with a heddle. And since I need to make everything as complicated as possible, I'm working on creating my own patterns as I learn.

Still figuring out how to maintain an even tension when I move my set up around. Ultimately, I'll get a loom and that should solve most of my issues. They're a tad wonky, but I'm pleased with my patterns and excited to come up with more! :))

Here's a peek at what playing around with these patterns looked like on paper!

The red and white speckled effect reminded me of mushrooms, so I turned all the houses into mushrooms for my last repeat. I also added in a fox (mostly successfully) and tried to turn the hill into a hobbit hole (less successfully). I'll iron out these motifs in a future band!

The ducks were my first attempt at creating a pattern and you can see how much I adjusted things as I went along! (The left being the beginning and the right the end)

I've learned a LOT about pick up pattern creation by working on these guys, especially where one should and shouldn't add pick-ups/push-downs. I'll continue tweaking these patterns as I learn more and hopefully have a nice proper pattern to share with you all at some point!

So even Jews are antisemetic if they feel bad for Palestine? Bruh

From Tolkien's illustration by Roman Pisarev

Wanted

The Fellowship When I was a kid, my folks basically told me I was a hobbit. I cherish the memory of them reading all these books to me--and I turned around and read them to my little siblings and eventually to my partner! I've drawn and painted a lot for The Hobbit but never The Lord of the Rings, and this ECCC seemed like the right time to debut one!

a real life moment between my boyfriend and i

bonus:

Happy "Germany picked the funniest date to kinda legalize weed" day