@bookshop / bookshop.tumblr.com
I wrote about fandom, purity culture, the rise of anti-fans and anti-fandom, and the utter bullshit that is "proship"
Hi Aja! If the Shenanigang needed to have two people be a pantomime horse for whatever reason, who would be in it along with Blake?
omg hello anon friend thank you for asking! Caroline would 100% be down to be half of a pantomime horse, with or without Blake but always with Blake, for any and all reasons! If Caroline wasn't around, Kate would do it, only on the condition that she be the horse's head, no arguments.
If neither Caroline nor Kate were on hand, Anna would tentatively agree to do it, but she would seek so much direction and ask so many questions about which part of the horse would suit her best and whether she was doing it right, and she and Blake would come up with so many alternate ways of pantomime horse prancing just to be sure all prancing bases were covered, that eventually Elliot, who would be directing from the sidelines and pretending not to, would get impatient and take over from Anna as the other half of the pantomime horse.
And at some point he'd probably decide Blake was the weak half of the pantomime horse and send him off to idk go make eggshell christmas ornaments or something (because i'm assuming this is a christmas pantomime for some reason even though we aren't in the uk, unless we are), and then he'd drag Nicholas into being the other half of the horse with him until Nicholas got annoyed with his backseat directing and removed himself and got Jane to do it, except Jane would absolutely not do it because she realized long ago that the secret to lifelong best-friendship with Elliot was to never get roped into being the other half of a pantomime horse with him
and since Evan is way too tall to ever be half of a pretend animal even if he weren't already doing the sound and lights, and Hazel and Hazel's boyfriend Tim would be doing their whole director-writer duo thing, that would leave Jonah to sigh longsufferingly and deign to step in and horse around with Elliot under the blankets
at least until Blake returned and announced he'd created a motorized horse out of eggshell christmas ornaments; problem solved
reblogging because i just reread this and i think it's kind of wonderful that all of these characters still live with me so many years later, and they all still feel like real friends and people i often wish i knew and could hang out with IRL.
Oh also i caved to self-pressure last night and posted this jonah/elliot fic to AO3 that's just been sitting here taunting me for the last 4 years, because it completely petered out as a fic but also is like the most fun thing i've ever written and i love it so much, probably because i love this little corner of the west village, and marie's, and jonah and elliot, so so much. <3
Aja: What really jumped out at me about your post was the idea that we graduate into independence in adulthood that really often means isolation, because I think that’s probably true for a lot of fans who turn to these fandoms for simulacra of healthy interconnected friendship networks. We all know what the dream of that kind of community is supposed to look like. Yet it’s so hard to achieve that when, like, here in New York you can barely get three friends to settle on a time for grabbing coffee together, much less coordinate ways to more fully intermingle in each other’s lives. Logistically, too, as you point out, we’re spread apart and communes are hard to build.
These fandoms, however, are often built around characters who by necessity have already been thrust into a networked collective. For example, Stargate: Atlantis is infamous in fandom for being a pretty mediocre TV show that spawned a hugely influential and respected transformative fandom. It’s probably not a coincidence that that show isolates its entire cast by trapping them in a giant glass-domed sky city in a galaxy far away for years, forcing them to deal with every cataclysmic element imaginable, pretty much living in a permanent state of emergency. Of course the fandom was interested in the bonds of those teammates; the whole concept is like a found family petri dish.
Similar concept: Many K-pop bands live together in dormitories for years at a time, under strict rules and contract limitations, which naturally causes them to bond over a highly specialized and isolated experience. This sounds like a nightmare, but there are also cameras frequently turned on these living arrangements and they become romanticized. I think fans see these dorm room setups as real-life versions of what a lot of us want found family to be: no parents around, just a constant party with 7 or 13 of your beautiful best friends. That’s quite a shallow fantasy, but fanworks also complicate this idea by allowing these relationships to fracture and be messy and complex while still ultimately staying forged together.
And that is the real fantasy, isn’t it? That you can subject yourself to the mortifying ordeal of being known, not just by one soulmate but by a whole group of kindred spirits, and you’ll still get to keep them all when the damage is done.
I had a long interview yesterday with a smart Russian radio series (currently in production in exile in Lithuania) about cancel culture, and they asked me a bit about J.K. Rowling. And the question came up: Hasn't Rowling been hurt, too, by all the backlash against her?
My response was quite cathartic to say out loud so I clipped it in case anyone's interested.
A reminder that this is what censorship leads to and that it wasn’t all that long ago when purity culture was going after ships that antis would consider to be “normal” today.
Also I thought Fiction Alley was that one archive that Msscribe got shut down with her shitstirring
This is what people tend not to realize when they complain about the Ao3 not havng all the bells and whistles, not offering a way for fic writers to make money, hosting content they don’t like,etc….AO3 just isn’t those things. Their whole existence and purpose is like a preservation site or a museum. Nothing stops you from hosting your content elsewhere and even if you never donate AO3 will be a place where your work will be preserved and protected that is it’s function and it’s a necessary function.
By all means host your work somewhere fancier where you can make money but try and value AO3 for what it is, a place where anyone fan fic writer –for better or for worse– can host there content and you will never be asked to remove your content for censorship reasons no matter what trend is currently rampaging through fandom.
As an aside, AO3 legally cannot offer a way to make money, because they are a non-profit organization. This is part of the reason why they’ve been largely left alone (and also the lawyers they have on retainer to fight those Fair Use issues like the one in the Twitter post) and why they will suspend accounts for mentioning commissions period. AO3 can get in legal trou le if they were allowing people to market themselves.
I can’t stress enough how you should not ever, ever mention, hint at or otherwise infer that a fic was commissioned on AO3. I’ve seen accounts get warnings even without a direct Patreon link.
Even if I felt comfortable with the idea of making money off fanwriting (which I don’t because I Was There, Gandalf and it’s still blowing my mind to have this flexibility) I would still rather have AO3 be my main hosting site than to support Wattpad and their lack of fucks to give about the rampant plagiarism.
Fascinating, and important to know.
Ahh i kept seeing mentions of this post in the wild and being unable to find it and finally today on Twitter someone kindly gave me a link!
Anyway, yeah, kids, don't write fanfic for commissions period, but if you do, for the love of god don't talk about it on AO3, don't link your Patreon on AO3, don't flaunt your profit schemes on AO3!
And for the purity culture zealots in the replies who are literally calling my fanfic CP and proclaiming it's good that WB took it down, well, you know the chapter still exists, right? Like, you can just go see for yourself. You can obviously see that it's not CP, so if you want to believe that, I don't know what to tell you, other than you're mistaken, and there are far, far better hills to die on than advocating corporate censorship of fanworks solely because you might disapprove of the contents (without actually having read them).
HI AJA unexpected Kaleidotrope question after five years (how has it been five years???) but also can you explain the “This is the nineties” meme again because every time someone listens they go WAIT WHAT and every time we’re like ITS A MEME WE JUST DONT KNOW WHICH ONE okay thank you love you bye!
look, let this be an editing lesson to you, if your meme is too outdated for your actors to understand, don't keep it in.
then again, they also were (sob) too young to get the "imma let you finish" meme and i stand by that one
Anyway, the meme is just like, for 5 minutes back in idk 2013 or whatever people were saying "this is the 90s" even though it's clearly not the 90s. That's pretty much just it. The joke is that it's obviously not the 90s, but you're trying to ironically point out that technology/culture/society has advanced well past 1999, by pretending that we're cutting edge in 1999.
etc etc
Can I just say that you are an incredible journalist and writer; And I love your posts about wang yibo. I’ve only known of him since mid-2022, and I’m just learning about how multifaceted and incredible he is. So your posts about him are extremely helpful.
That's so sweet of you! Thank you, this made my night. Thank you for reading! I'm so inadequate to talk about Yibo! I have to do it in fits and starts because usually I'm just flailing and speechless.
Pov : you are rich and a murderer and you're about to meet the most insane little man
in a previous life i would have tweeted this to a handful of fellow columbo fans but lol needs must
i absolutely love love love columbo, i've seen all of the original series multiple times through, and i only recently realized that tubi has all of the extra specials from the 80s and 90s, so i've been steadily making my way through them, and i just got to one of the later ones tonight that unexpectedly features robert culp — robert culp!!!! — as a guest star, and i was completely unprepared for it and i let out this delighted fangirl gasp, ahaha, it's absolutely like finding an extra bit of candy in the bag when you thought you'd eaten them all! COME TO ME ROBERT CULP, YOU SCRUMPTIOUS, SCRUMPTIOUS COLUMBO CAMEO CANDY!!!!!
Did you noticed that EVERY TV show and movie that involves a journalist has commentary journalism and never a simple fact based article?
You know how often we are allowed to do commentary journalism when it is about a case? Its a beautiful round number: 0
TV show journalism is a dreamland
This is so true re TV, but also it's nice to be reminded how lucky I am to get to do commentary journalism, for true crime as well as everything else. I have somehow stumbled into an amazing role at an amazing company and sometimes i feel like i can't say enough how grateful i am to the universe for that. when this job is good (and for a while now it's been wonderful), it makes up for, you know, *handwaves* all the other stuff.
All this just because I was looking for Lidia Poet gifs, thank you, Tumblr!
For any longtime fandom people, I just ran across Maciej Ceglowski aka Pinboard guy saying he supports J.K. Rowling's views and that people are "required to pretend J.K. Rowling hates transgender people"
As someone who has paid Pinboard hundreds of dollars over the years to archive like ten thousand fandom links, I'm pretty devastated by this. Fortunately, Pinboard inadvertently broke my entire archive last year (and then didn't respond to my email about it), so I'm slightly less upset than I'd be if it was still intact. But still, what a heartbreak.
I saw this, btw, because someone linked him to my article rounding up the many, many major moments of transphobia that Rowling has had. I hope very sincerely he reads them and realizes what he's supporting when he says things like this.
J.K. Rowling’s supporters frequently claim the author has never actually said or done anything transphobic. It’s a position you can see on social media, in the pages of the New York Times, and even on a new podcast with Rowling herself.
It’s also an easily debunked lie.
Although some in the media distort the anger directed at Rowling from trans activists, trans people, and allies, the truth is those feelings — not just anger, but betrayal and grief — are justified. Rowling has made her antagonistic position on trans issues clear through tweets, sound bites, actions, and even a 3,600-word blog post. By 2023, her transphobia has become so rampant and constant that it’s difficult to build a completely comprehensive timeline of it. For those attuned to it, she doesn’t have to spell it out every single time; it’s a huge part of her identity.
We actually didn't set out intending to write this article, but it turns out that it's really hard to find a full, comprehensive, clear rundown of all Rowling's major transphobic statements and actions. Most of what's out there either includes extraneous info like what Harry Potter actors think, or stops around June 2020. But of course we all know Rowling has kept going.
This timeline starts in 2014 and is current as of a month ago.
All the respect to the Vandoliers for playing at a country joint, in drag, in a state where that was just outlawed.
Toward the end of Hidden Blade (无名), the arty Chinese World War II spy thriller that has now reached US cinemas, everything comes to a halt.
“Matte kudasai,” Wang Yibo, playing the canny, careful Secretary Ye, says in silky Japanese. Wait, please.
And then we all — the character he’s talking to, the camera, the film score, the audience, the movie — slow down and wait. We wait for him to light a cigarette, take a drag, then another. We wait for him to look at his reflection. We watch him, wreathed in smoke, take his time.
With a lesser actor, this would feel excessive, showy; it would flatten the moment. But this is Wang Yibo, star of The Untamed and Street Dance of China, former K-pop idol, sometime motorcycle racer, multitalented polymath, and multinational heartthrob. In the pause, tension and dark purpose coil in his jawline, his shoulders, in every flick of his wrist. I have never wanted to look at anything more in my life.
Naughty Space Void.
Smug with victory, he has no remorse. He'd do it again.
