SECTOR 2814

The post on changes in fandom I reblogged resonated with me a lot. Tumblr peaked for me between 2012-15. Hasn’t been the same since then. I’m glad for my time here though since I did make some good friends, for life, I hope.

This blog stays up as an archive. So enjoy the content. If you want to look for anything for the most part things are tagged.

So apparently tumblr with the new rules is against people keeping blogs up as archives unless they use them at least once a year or something, idk, so this is me using it.

Keep enjoying the blog if you like, it’s a fun backlog of things.

Also I ended up returning to tumblr because of The Karate Kid/Cobra Kai, run a blog on that now, and The Sandman I guess (dreamling mostly).

You can message me if you want the url.

Stay safe everybody, and I guess once on tumblr always on tumblr.

I wonder where the break happened that such wide swaths of younger fans don’t grasp fandom things that used to be unspoken understandings. That fic readers are expected to know fiction from reality,  that views expressed in fic are not necessarily those of the author, that the labels, tags and warnings on various kinkfics are also the indication that they were created for titillation and not much more, please use responsibly as per all pornography. The ‘problem’ isn’t that so-called ‘problematic’ fic exists but that some of the audience is being stupid, irresponsible, at worst criminal, at best not old enough to be in the audience to begin with. And that’s on the consumer, not the author who told you via labels, tags, ratings, warnings and venues what their fic was about and what it was for.

I can’t stress enough how important this post is

Tumblr. Tumblr is what happened, with its never-ending scrolling, with its lack of nested contents (or ANY comments, when fandom sailed here from the old world), with its tags instead of membered communities.

Tumblr turned fandom content into mindless consumption instead of community. I’m no expert on human behaviour, but I’d put money on this.

When Authors stopped being friends and turned into content providers, new fandom members never learned to care.

“When authors stopped being friends and turned into content providers”

Well that reframed my view of every fandom I’ve touched for the last five years, and it explains a lot.

(I wrote a whole essay on this, and the Tumblr App ate it. So here I go again…)

Here’s the thing: a few years ago, fandom on Tumblr was just as interactive and inclusive as other fandom platforms. I mean, it was different than the old bulletin boards (bbs), LJ communities, and Yahoo groups, but we made it work. It was common for readers to reblog stories and comment on them. It was common for writers to reblog again with comments or to reply to comments in new posts. It was common to answer replies in new posts rather than privately or in the reply section (that very few users actually read through on posts that aren’t their own). When I moved into the Tumblr community, I had no problem finding my people and making friends and gushing together over all the Things™.

For deeply personal reasons, I had to take a step back from fandom life for a couple of years, and when I came returned, the landscape had changed dramatically. One of my fandoms had moved completely to Twitter. Most fandoms are on discord servers (and the interaction is still pretty thin there), and Tumblr has become a mausoleum where we just hang up pretty pictures for ourselves. Gone is the interaction. Gone, even, the epic, impassioned essays in the tags. Well, not gone entirely, but severely muted. I don’t quite know how the change happened; I wasn’t there.

I think social media as a whole has had a huge shift towards the impersonal, and it’s trickled down to fandom. I’ve been surprised by how many asks that @ao3commentoftheday has gotten recently where the sender worries about being too annoying and/or stalker-y by commenting on stories or reblogging or sending messages saying how much they enjoyed a particular fanwork. There are even asks from writers gnawing their lips over whether or not it’s appropriate to reply to comments from readers because “does that make me a stalker?? am i too annoying??”

I also believe—you can fight me on this all day and I won’t change my mind—that the Western culture of helicopter parenting has had a major effect on how “consumers” deal with “problematic” themes in fanworks. I started out in fandom as a young mother, and now half of my kids are adults; that’s my resume on this topic. I’ve witnessed a contingent of children grow up having all of their experiences curated by someone else. Any potential injury, no matter how small, must be avoided at all costs. So of course, now they’re old enough to engage in social media and, by extension, fandom (because fandom is so incredibly accessible these days), they truly believe that the onus is on the writers and artists to make sure their experiences are pleasant with nary a trigger. If we really cared about our readers, we would never produce anything potentially harmful ever. They should never have any kind of exposure to things that might hurt them, even seeing the story summaries with tags and warnings that show up while they’re searching through AO3.

Dehumanizing the content creators through the impersonalization of social media and the complete lack of personal accountability for our own experiences is destroying what was once an inclusive, fun, “anything goes” community in fandom. It’s a pity because it’s chasing away the old guard. I mean, if I wanted to write solely mainstream stories in an utter vacuum, and then have little to no interaction with my readers, I’d sell novels. I wrote fic, created fan art, and made fanvids as a way to immerse myself in the community, to make friends, to squee together. And now, what’s the point?

Maybe the wise answer isn’t to walk away, shaking our heads at the loss of the good ol’ days. Maybe the wise answer is to keep fighting, keep producing fanworks as the muse takes us—regardless of the few outspoken fans who don’t yet know how to take responsibility for their own experiences—and reach over that damn wall that got put up between creators and consumers in fandom. We have to show them what makes fandom special. Otherwise, it’s gone. And there’s going to be another startraveller out there, secretly loving things that most people in her real life would scrunch their nose at, and she’s going to feel acutely alone.

X-Wing Pilot Leia submitted for your approval

sex education season 2, episode 4

i can’t believe we’re all young professionals and academics and we’re still logging on to tumblr.com every single day to clown on ourselves. who let this happen

I’ve had it with youtube and its bullshit. Scary movie ads can be really triggering. We all know this. I want youtube to SEE this and DO something. Get famous youtubers on this. Get attention. Please. Make it all stop. Make them skippable. Make the unskippable ones not have scary things. Make youtube safe for people who not just want but NEED it to be.

If you go into your Ad Settings page on google you can turn off horror film advertisements. It doesn’t help %100 of the time but it still helps a great deal. 

You can also use AdBlock Plus as an extension for Chrome. It should disable all ads on youtube.

just so yall know YouTube is doing this bullshit again for the new movie Crawl

extra: soundcloud is doing this one ad for that anti tabacco company truth, where they say maggots are crawling in your earbuds and play slimy noises in the background. watch out for this if this is triggering.

OH MY GOSH, I’M NOT PRO-TOBACCO BY ANY MEANS, BUT GOSH I HATE TRUTH SO MUCH

Youtube and Google record all sorts of your info, so they know damn well that I struggle with eating disorders. But yes please keep giving me ads about all the new ways to lose weight quickly yes that doesn’t trigger a relapse at all no.

Fucking disgusting. My skin crawls at the anti vaping ads. THANKFULLY I’m not triggered by most of the ads I’ve seen but this is just awful.

Seriously, why the FUCK does YouTube THINK I VAPE?? I DON’T

I NEVER WILL

STOP SHOWING ME THOSE NASTY ANTI VAPING ADS

They’re usually unskipable and very gross

ESPECIALLY the sound effects!!

IKR!!! I hate those ads so much and they make me very uncomfortable so please stop it!!

They’re fucking EVERYWHERE. YouTube. Spotify.

FUCKING EVERWHERE.

“this makes me personally uncomfortable”, “this seems in poor taste”, “this is somehow harmful but presumably because you’re misinformed” and “this is actively malicious” are all different things. remember that

Incredible Wonder Woman covered by Ian MacDonald and Mikel Janin! Wow!

Stunning Lois Lane cover by Tula Lotay!

Chris Evans at ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ Press Conference - March 11, 2014.

I think my favorite thing about the Reylo kiss is how blatantly obvious it is that Rey has no idea what she’s doing and she doesn’t give a FUCK.

She hesitates for a second, isn’t sure what to do with her hands or how to kiss a boy but goddamn it, she’s alive and Ben Solo is here, with her, and she loves him so much that she just can’t wait one more second to kiss him when she’s wanted him so much for so long and she just LAUNCHES herself at him and figures it out as she goes.

And then there’s Ben, his body broken, his life force all but gone, but Rey is alive and in his arms and he would never try to kiss her first because finally, at last, this is for her, everything is for her with no expectations. But then she kisses HIM and he can’t help it, he meets her halfway with one hand clutching the back of her neck, one arm going around her, and he nuzzles and deepens because this may be all they have but it’s THEIRS, and for this one perfect moment, they can just hold each other and know that they’ve loved each other all along, know that no matter what happens afterwards, they’ll never really be apart anymore.

That’s what it was all about. That’s what saved the galaxy.

Maybe he’s ordering a decaf because he has a heart condition, and you’re about to give him a heart attack and send him to the hospital.

Or maybe he’s just ordering a decaf.

Maybe she’s ordering sugar free because she’s diabetic, and you’re about to put her six feet under.

Or maybe she’s just ordering sugar free,

Maybe they’re ordering non-dairy because they’re intolerant, and you’re about to ruin their day. Maybe they’re allergic, and you’re about to sponsor an all black event in an open field.

Or maybe they’re just ordering non-dairy.

Maybe they ordered gluten free because they can’t process it, and you’re about to destroy their digestive tract.

Or maybe they’re just ordering gluten free.

Maybe they’re ordering this way just because they don’t want the food, for whatever reason.

But are you willing to bet their life on it?

#also in the reverse#they might need the caffeine for a headache#they might be allergic to soy or almonds and need real dairy#they might have low blood sugar and need the boost#there are no safe assumptions when it comes to what people eat#even if it will just make them a little sick you’re still making them sick#just give people what they ask for