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Friday, 4 January 2019 18:26![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ordinarybirdsI have been discussing fandom-related feelings with pangodillo, mostly just feeling so far outside of it. I've come and gone in fandom circles since I learned it was a thing, when my high school friends and I we were writing decadent HP self insert fic on ff.net in middle school/high school, so--pre-2006?1
I have a weird relationship with media consumption. It's hard to start things, in a way I can't describe; kind of a media executive dysfunction: I want to do this thing. This thing will make me feel better. I have heard amazing things about the thing. The thing is on netflix/hulu/included in our free trial of streaming HBO/free to consume online. I am not doing the thing. I cannot make myself do the thing. What am I waiting for? The thing is right there, to be done, it will probably be a pleasant task and if not I can stop it immediately with no real consequences. I am sitting here doing something I don't need to/really want to do that is of no consequence and yet I cannot?? do? the thing??? I want to do???
And then I get so invested in a universe that it kind of becomes a part of my identity, some kind of psychological spackle. A lot of my fannish behavior has been anonymous--reading fics, posting fics that didn't get really any hits or comments, LJ community drabble prompts, quiet little kudos, anon messages on tumblr. The first time I really engaged with a fandom--as in, other fans of a thing who were not already live-action friends--in any meaningful way was WTNV. Shit, I met my girlfriend there! One whole girlfriend, just because we both listened to the same podcast! Extremely close friends, beloved friends, acquaintances...
And then I fade out of a fandom--either the next installment takes too long to come out or the canon does something that pisses me off too much 2 or the fandom turns into a disaster or maybe just something else catches my mind's eye. But this most recent brush with fandom is the first time I've gotten involved with the people, not just the media, so I feel like I'm losing more this time. And, yes, I admit it, I miss the attention, the validation of getting prompts and reblogs and comments and kudos. One of my goals for 2019 is to work more on a potential writing career, which means lots of submissions that will get a form letter, at best, and possibly no response at all, and to walk into that with no recent feedback other than close friends who are very nice to me is very intimidating.
My brain is picky about what it will latch onto. I love Star Wars, I grew up on Star Wars, but I don't think I've ever felt compelled to write SW fic. I've read it, sure, but it doesn't make my brain itch; same with Leverage, with LOST, with any of the Marvel properties. I am considering maybe rewatching The Good Place, because that's the closest I've felt to "hmmmmmaybe I could take my Tahani/Eleanor feelings and make them into words on paper?"
I think it's also striking me now because of how much ~Discourse~ was on my dash when I still used tumblr regularly, and was between fandoms. I lurk some, now, because sometimes your fingers just need something to do that requires 1/4 of your attention and it's 2:30 and you know damn well you're not sleeping any time soon. Because I have less exposure to it, and less investment, and also mood issues impact what I will or won't care about at any given time, I'm getting some distance from my previous fan-related anxieties. They're still very deeply rooted, in part because my first truly immersive fan experience happened in this fandom, on this platform. Certain voices were speaking the loudest, and with the most brash, abrasive certainty, saying their right (social justice) words3, and it is with that influence I did some of the work I'm most proud of, fan and original, but always while holding my breath. It has seeped over into my non-fandom life enough to make me nervous about sharing original work I've created, such that I am sitting on one whole fucking novel because I fear there is some small error in there that will get blown up and and and and....
...and the world has moved on, and eventually so must I. It will do me nothing but good to step back from tumblr, if not eventually leave it altogether when I have a new home port. But losing even the passive engagement of reading, liking, sometimes reblogging, feeling some connection to people I met through fandom, has made me feel lonelier and more disconnected from the rest of the fan-world.
pangodillo, mostly just feeling so far outside of it. I've come and gone in fandom circles since I learned it was a thing, when my high school friends and I we were writing decadent HP self insert fic on ff.net in middle school/high school, so--pre-2006?1I have a weird relationship with media consumption. It's hard to start things, in a way I can't describe; kind of a media executive dysfunction: I want to do this thing. This thing will make me feel better. I have heard amazing things about the thing. The thing is on netflix/hulu/included in our free trial of streaming HBO/free to consume online. I am not doing the thing. I cannot make myself do the thing. What am I waiting for? The thing is right there, to be done, it will probably be a pleasant task and if not I can stop it immediately with no real consequences. I am sitting here doing something I don't need to/really want to do that is of no consequence and yet I cannot?? do? the thing??? I want to do???
And then I get so invested in a universe that it kind of becomes a part of my identity, some kind of psychological spackle. A lot of my fannish behavior has been anonymous--reading fics, posting fics that didn't get really any hits or comments, LJ community drabble prompts, quiet little kudos, anon messages on tumblr. The first time I really engaged with a fandom--as in, other fans of a thing who were not already live-action friends--in any meaningful way was WTNV. Shit, I met my girlfriend there! One whole girlfriend, just because we both listened to the same podcast! Extremely close friends, beloved friends, acquaintances...
And then I fade out of a fandom--either the next installment takes too long to come out or the canon does something that pisses me off too much 2 or the fandom turns into a disaster or maybe just something else catches my mind's eye. But this most recent brush with fandom is the first time I've gotten involved with the people, not just the media, so I feel like I'm losing more this time. And, yes, I admit it, I miss the attention, the validation of getting prompts and reblogs and comments and kudos. One of my goals for 2019 is to work more on a potential writing career, which means lots of submissions that will get a form letter, at best, and possibly no response at all, and to walk into that with no recent feedback other than close friends who are very nice to me is very intimidating.
My brain is picky about what it will latch onto. I love Star Wars, I grew up on Star Wars, but I don't think I've ever felt compelled to write SW fic. I've read it, sure, but it doesn't make my brain itch; same with Leverage, with LOST, with any of the Marvel properties. I am considering maybe rewatching The Good Place, because that's the closest I've felt to "hmmmmmaybe I could take my Tahani/Eleanor feelings and make them into words on paper?"
I think it's also striking me now because of how much ~Discourse~ was on my dash when I still used tumblr regularly, and was between fandoms. I lurk some, now, because sometimes your fingers just need something to do that requires 1/4 of your attention and it's 2:30 and you know damn well you're not sleeping any time soon. Because I have less exposure to it, and less investment, and also mood issues impact what I will or won't care about at any given time, I'm getting some distance from my previous fan-related anxieties. They're still very deeply rooted, in part because my first truly immersive fan experience happened in this fandom, on this platform. Certain voices were speaking the loudest, and with the most brash, abrasive certainty, saying their right (social justice) words3, and it is with that influence I did some of the work I'm most proud of, fan and original, but always while holding my breath. It has seeped over into my non-fandom life enough to make me nervous about sharing original work I've created, such that I am sitting on one whole fucking novel because I fear there is some small error in there that will get blown up and and and and....
...and the world has moved on, and eventually so must I. It will do me nothing but good to step back from tumblr, if not eventually leave it altogether when I have a new home port. But losing even the passive engagement of reading, liking, sometimes reblogging, feeling some connection to people I met through fandom, has made me feel lonelier and more disconnected from the rest of the fan-world.
1. I am hilariously bad at establishing a personal timeline. Pre-2006 means "some time before I graduated high school??" because I did the math to figure out what year I graduated high school because I am just that bad at time, no wonder I related so hard to Cecil Palmer.
2. I'd say "ask me about my feelings on Violet and characterization and instant depression cures" but everyone who cares and will see this has already heard it, at least once but probably more than once. Also fuck Violet. My feelings on this matter are so strong that I recently had a dream about trying to explain why I don't listen to WTNV anymore and woke up too mad to go back to sleep.
3. "Goblin king! Goblin king! Wherever you may be! Take this bullshit wank far away from me!"
no subject
5/1/19 02:02 (UTC)Violetttt McDaniellllllsssssssssssS!!!
also doing the math to figure out what year you did [x thing] is extremely #relatable--I have to count it up every time I want to know how long I've been married. (Seven years? I swear I've been married for seven years for like two years now...)
no subject
6/1/19 02:10 (UTC)no subject
5/1/19 13:26 (UTC)I like DW so far in terms of how people seem to slow down and think about what they’re saying here, but it’s also very quiet. There’s no way to “reblog”. There’s no way to even like. It’s hard to get the feedback I’d grown accustomed to on Tumblr. And doing prompt fic here is ten times more difficult and awkward.
I don’t want to go back to Tumblr, on principle...but selfishly I do. (I think, though, that what was there before isn’t quite there anymore.)
Oh my gosh, I would love to read Tahani/Eleanor as written by you. I’ve read most of the handful of fics that exist. It’s the first non-Star Wars fic I’ve thought I might try to write in years.
Night Vale fandom was truly something special, while we had it. Writing fic for each other and going to shows together was amazing. Meeting you, in general, was amazing. You’re so precious to me that it’s truly strange to think that without Night Vale, we probably never would have met. I’ll always be thankful for that, even though I too have left the show and fandom behind.
no subject
6/1/19 02:24 (UTC)DW would really be an ideal platform for slower fandom interaction, if we could only convince people of its potential. It's not a tumblr replacement, but it is MUCH easier to curate your own experience here, and to control who sees your content. Even tumblr gets too manic for me sometimes, especially at my peak fandom participation, and I know I wouldn't last a day on fandom twitter.
(and ngl so far all I have for a potential T/E fic is a title, taken from a song that makes me think of them, because of course I do, music is how I function :p )
no subject
5/1/19 15:18 (UTC)no subject
6/1/19 02:07 (UTC)