![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aprilvalentineI have been planning on starting my own 30 Days of Blogging to keep the interest going for fans on this platform for awhile and as usual, just don't work as efficiently as I used to. But here I am at last, with a post saying I'm going to post every day for the next 30.
I'll be posting about POI, about writing, about playing with Photoshop and other fun free photo apps, and about other fan activities. I'll try to have really substantive content.
I love fandom and have been involved in it for more years than I like to admit. Suffice to say, that dinosaurs walked the earth, there was no internet and we had to run up long distance phone bills and write long snail mail letters and go to cons to meet other fans. Fun as it was, the changes and growth since the intenet made fandom explode are wonderful. So much easier to find and participate -- it's unbelievable. I'd just like the new platforms such as Tumblr to make it easier to form a sense of community and to talk to each other, the way DW and LJ do.
I know some fans interact on twitter and facebook too, but that's not really me. I'm still of the mindset that the world at large doesn't need to know that I'm a slasher. I'm not on twiter and only do facebook occasionally. I connect there with fellow fans, mainly because most of my RL friends are fans too, but there are the occasional people who aren't fans (what we used to call 'mundanes' back in the day, no criticism intended) and they don't need to know that I fantasize about Reese and Finch gettin' cozy under the sheets, you know? They think I'm a Trekkie and I can live with that but the rest, not so much.
So I prefer and enjoy fannish enclaves where fans who know a thing or two about fandom hang out and when I use terms that are fandom terms, they are understood. There are quite a few new-to-fandom fans in POI, which is both wonderful and disconcerting at the same time. They don't understand that "Rinch" means we ship Reese and Finch as lovers -- some actually think the slash mark means friendship too. (I know, right?) There are what seems at times to be a million het shippers and believe me, I may have been in fandom for a hundred years but I have been lucky enough to be in ones where there's either just slash or slash and a bit a of gen and barely any het to speak of or in fandoms where at least there are comms and lists for het shippers to ship what they please and we slashers to happily talk dirty and not offend them. Not that it's all dirty talk, of course, but the mere concept? It's totally foreign to some het shippers. They seem to seriously never have thought of two men perhaps loving each other. They certainly never think that a male tv character, much less a hero or main character, could be gay or bi unless explicitly stated in canon. Their default is the heteronormative thing they've known all their lives and they really seem shocked by slash. Subtext? Never heard of it apparently. Homoeroticism? What's that? Sigh... and I seem to sometimes say a bit too much... well, they're in fandom so they should realize, IMHO, that there are people in the world who aren't just like everyone else. Fandom used to be a place of tolerance, remember? I'd like it to stay that way.
I've been avoiding spoilers recently for the new season of POI, mainly because of the het shipping hopes that are expressed every moment -- not that they aren't allowed, understand, I just get tired of it -- and the wanking and complaining and threats that if the show isn't exactly the way it was first season again, fans won't be watching. That's okay, watch what you want. And I should be used to fans' tendencies to find fault with what they love, but it's getting to me. So I'm avoiding spoilers. Also, that makes it easier not to let anything slip to my spoiler phobic friends.esteefee, this means you, lol.
So, that's my post for the day. They won't all be complaints, I promise. I hope to hear from friends in response and that more of us will take up the 30 days of blogging challenge!
I'll be posting about POI, about writing, about playing with Photoshop and other fun free photo apps, and about other fan activities. I'll try to have really substantive content.
I love fandom and have been involved in it for more years than I like to admit. Suffice to say, that dinosaurs walked the earth, there was no internet and we had to run up long distance phone bills and write long snail mail letters and go to cons to meet other fans. Fun as it was, the changes and growth since the intenet made fandom explode are wonderful. So much easier to find and participate -- it's unbelievable. I'd just like the new platforms such as Tumblr to make it easier to form a sense of community and to talk to each other, the way DW and LJ do.
I know some fans interact on twitter and facebook too, but that's not really me. I'm still of the mindset that the world at large doesn't need to know that I'm a slasher. I'm not on twiter and only do facebook occasionally. I connect there with fellow fans, mainly because most of my RL friends are fans too, but there are the occasional people who aren't fans (what we used to call 'mundanes' back in the day, no criticism intended) and they don't need to know that I fantasize about Reese and Finch gettin' cozy under the sheets, you know? They think I'm a Trekkie and I can live with that but the rest, not so much.
So I prefer and enjoy fannish enclaves where fans who know a thing or two about fandom hang out and when I use terms that are fandom terms, they are understood. There are quite a few new-to-fandom fans in POI, which is both wonderful and disconcerting at the same time. They don't understand that "Rinch" means we ship Reese and Finch as lovers -- some actually think the slash mark means friendship too. (I know, right?) There are what seems at times to be a million het shippers and believe me, I may have been in fandom for a hundred years but I have been lucky enough to be in ones where there's either just slash or slash and a bit a of gen and barely any het to speak of or in fandoms where at least there are comms and lists for het shippers to ship what they please and we slashers to happily talk dirty and not offend them. Not that it's all dirty talk, of course, but the mere concept? It's totally foreign to some het shippers. They seem to seriously never have thought of two men perhaps loving each other. They certainly never think that a male tv character, much less a hero or main character, could be gay or bi unless explicitly stated in canon. Their default is the heteronormative thing they've known all their lives and they really seem shocked by slash. Subtext? Never heard of it apparently. Homoeroticism? What's that? Sigh... and I seem to sometimes say a bit too much... well, they're in fandom so they should realize, IMHO, that there are people in the world who aren't just like everyone else. Fandom used to be a place of tolerance, remember? I'd like it to stay that way.
I've been avoiding spoilers recently for the new season of POI, mainly because of the het shipping hopes that are expressed every moment -- not that they aren't allowed, understand, I just get tired of it -- and the wanking and complaining and threats that if the show isn't exactly the way it was first season again, fans won't be watching. That's okay, watch what you want. And I should be used to fans' tendencies to find fault with what they love, but it's getting to me. So I'm avoiding spoilers. Also, that makes it easier not to let anything slip to my spoiler phobic friends.
esteefee, this means you, lol.So, that's my post for the day. They won't all be complaints, I promise. I hope to hear from friends in response and that more of us will take up the 30 days of blogging challenge!
(no subject)
27/8/13 21:45 (UTC)Their default is the heteronormative thing they've known all their lives and they really seem shocked by slash. Subtext? Never heard of it apparently. Homoeroticism? What's that? Sigh... and I seem to sometimes say a bit too much... well, they're in fandom so they should realize, IMHO, that there are people in the world who aren't just like everyone else.
Reading this, it suddenly hit me... I wonder if it's one of the symptoms of the thinking that's producing the backwards progress attempts in USian society, like the attacks against womens' agency and voting rights, etc. Very hidebound, and won't allow for any other viewpoints.
I mean, the idea of homoeroticism was new to me, too, when I first dipped my toes in fandom. I think it took me maybe a day before I grokked what people were talking about. I blinked, said a cautious "oka-a-ay", realized it wasn't my place to make waves and everyone was entitled to their own idea of fun... and then fell for slash hook, line, and sinker. <g> I'd never heard of 'subtext' either... but when someone pointed it out, it was so obvious! (Jim hugging a drugged Blair, anyone?)
Seriously, if they're old enough to be fans of a grownup show like POI, they should be old enough to accept differing viewpoints.
Fandom used to be a place of tolerance, remember? I'd like it to stay that way.
Yes, please!
.
(no subject)
28/8/13 04:19 (UTC)Same here. That was June 26, 1976... the day I met the ladies who did the first fanzine dedicated to the Kirk & Spock relationship. They went on to become my best friends for over 20 years. (God rest their souls.) It took me about a day to get it too, lol. I'd always like what I called the "character interactions" scenes -- one of the pro Trek books had a scene where life support had broken down on the ship and as their air was running out and they neared death, Kirk and Spock reached out and touched hands! I must have read that passage, slight as it was, a dozen or more times. Then, I got a name for it and was off and running. I didn't start doing slash until I got into Starsky & Hutch fandom but I knew most of the early K/S authors as the whole thing took off. We also were reading the gay novels of the day, "The Front Runner" and a few others, like Mary Renault's "The Persian Boy" and Marian Zimmer Bradley's "The Catch Trap." So much fun and so educational.
Yes, I have seen backwards progress for a while now, all over the country. People feeling free to judge online and tell people how to live, bullying and such, plus eroding women's rights -- that whole thing about a woman not being able to get pregnant from a rape and not having insurance pay for birth control because of the perception that "sluts" are the ones using it (my DIL needs to take it for medical reasons, had to even before she was with my son or any boy) and the voting rights thing. I think, what did we fight for in the 60s?
Yes, if they watch POI, with it's many mature themes, they should be a bit more tolerant. Not the fans I know, but on the official FB page for the show, people were all up in arms when the Number of the week was the married lesbian doctor! They were saying how disgusting that was and they used the word 'wife' too many times and that they'd stop watching the show! What were Reese and Finch supposed to do? Say, we'll help save people, only if they are straight? Sheesh. It was horrible. This is one of the reasons I try to stay off FB so-called fan sites, lol.