001: Tumblr, Fandom, and Fan-Entitlement (hint: fans aren't entitled to anything)

[useyourlove]

My poor LJ was abandoned around April because I had been very involved with multiple fandoms and had just finished off writing my Master's Paper (which was fandom intensive.) I ended up just shoving all of my energy into one or two things and disappearing off into Tumblr because I had more active friends there

Comments

[useyourlove]

I had the misfortune of being exposed to a really terrible side of SPN fandom right at the beginning of my love for the show so it quickly became "I LOVE THIS SHOW SO MUCH but I HATE THIS FANDOM EVEN MORE." Ick. I mean, I see where people read the Wincest into it, but I just don't understand it beyond the hot guys either. (I had a friend who doesn't shit anything posit that the appeal of Wincest must be the smokin' hate sex. Which sounds legit to me, but most of the fandom doesn't read Wincest as destructive as it would have to actually be, because THEY DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO THE CHARACTERS.)

Agh, anyway, yeah. I'm really grateful for the corners of fandoms that I've found that are amazing (like the K/L folks here on LJ, who I've completely fallen out of touch with, curse me). But I'm dead certain people aren't actually watching these shows, they're more picking out actors, attaching names, and them using them in their playhouse of porn or fluff or whatever other wishful thinking fic they want to read/write. It's when they try and impose that back onto the actual original media object that shit starts to get hairy the way it does with the SPN fandom. *shudder*

[crazyfoolstiney]

People get so caught up in shipping that it's all they see, regardless of canon.
I mean I ship. Shiat, I've have the SAME ship for 12 years when it was just the A-Team tv show but I can separate the two because I was a fan long before I shipped.
I had someone tell me the other day that "Face does whatever Hannibal tells him because he loves him that much." Really? I'm sorry did we SEE the same movie? Because we're first introduced to Face via him in a stack of tires about to be set ON FIRE because he went against Hannibal and got himself in big trouble. But they want it to be different so their ship is more canon so they ignore all of the things that point out otherwise. My ship? Nowhere near canon, never would be but I still have fun because it's not serious end of the world business for me.
And I totally agree I think it is look at this hot actor let's smoosh them together with this one BECAUSE I SAY SO.

[useyourlove]

I always hate to comment on other people's enjoyment of media because whatever floats their boat as long as it doesn't effect me. But oftentimes, with some of these fics it does effect other people, because it's often the fans who take canon so out of whack that are the most vocal and angry when that canon doesn't fit the one in their mind. It's fine to have those ideas, but it's not fine to throw a temper tantrum at the creators when the shit in your head doesn't happen on the screen because you warped it all out of context to begin with.

Ah, shipping. It is both a joy and a curse, and probably the most polarizing thing that can happen to any fandom, short of season-arc breaks (like S1-5 of BtVS or 1-5 of SPN where the planned arc has played out, but they keep going with the show.)

[crazyfoolstiney]

Most of the time I just float along doing my own thing until someone will vehemently tell me my ship is "wrong" and there's no evidence for it in the movie like there is theirs, blah blah blah. And I just want to shake them and go "What is WRONG with you? Neither are "there"!!"

That's where British television gets it right a lot of times. One of my favorite things ever was 'Spaced.' There were 14 episodes that's it. It was perfect and hilarious and at the end of 14 boom it was over. But I can look back and there's not a single episode that I hated. It didn't have that time to get bogged down like series tend to do when they go on longer than they should.