i wish "bite you to death" didn't sound so weird in english

[furiosity]

You know what I really hate? Fen looking down on other fen for how they engage in fandom. Like, the long-standing disdain for slash at certain archives, or the general disapproval of fan fiction in some circles, or fictional character shippers from one fandom disparaging RPS shippers from another, or ficcers/fanartists snubbing vidders or

Comments

[furiosity]

I agree it's okay to be squicked by other people's kinks, but I don't -- at all -- agree that people from one corner of fandom are allowed to get away with being judgemental/snide towards people from other corners, for whatever reason. "Approve" is not a verb I believe should even exist between fen, because not one of us has the authority to decide what is and isn't worthy of approval on the fannish scale.

There's nothing wrong with disliking certain pursuits or avoiding certain corners of fandom -- but all sorts of things go wrong when we start talking about "approving" and "understanding", because there is a big difference between disliking slash and judging people because they like slash. I dislike real person fic and avoid it to the best of my ability, but a fair number of my friends are into the current AI RPF craze, so I keep seeing RPF squee on my Twitter feed, in the form of fangirling, links to fic, discussions of charity fundraisers, or whatever have you. Sometimes I see comments that cross the boundary into "creepy" for me -- like somebody @replying to an Idol demanding they make out with another Idol, a couple of months ago -- but by and large, such behaviour is rare, since fandom is pretty good at separating the real from the fictional, even within the scope of RPF.

I'm not going to turn my back on these friends or even unfollow them just because I don't understand what's exciting or hot about Kris having sex with Adam when Kris is married to real woman and Adam has a real boyfriend. My friends are having fun in their own way; it's not my place to approve or disapprove of what they're doing. It's the same idea with total strangers on the opposite end of fandom -- it's none of my business what they find hot or exciting, and, because I too am in fandom and find a variety of non-mainstream things exciting, disapproving of their interests would be hypocritical to say the very least, and yeah, I'd feel like a blithering moron for doing it.