Interviewer: The internet ships Newt and Gottlieb. There are like two thousand seven hundred and forty eight fan fictions about your characters. (x)
Untitled
Tag: fandom
Untitled
Episode 56 liveblog resumes!
How great were the eyecatches in R though? I donât remember them in Stars, but of the other four seasons, the R ones were easily the best. You peaked really early on this one, show.
This eyecatch has a special place in my heart, mostly because I have it on a tin lunchbox.
The story of this lunchbox goes back to 7th grade, when Sailor Moon was starting to catch on with some other girls in my school. I noticed this girl Lindsey had a Sailor Moon pen and I was like OMFG WHERE DID YOU GET THAT. And it was from a store called “Hot Topic”, in the mall in Oakland, Michigan. (THIS WAS FALL OF 98, Hot Topic was not a Thing yet.)
I don’t know how I managed it, but I got my mom to drive me and another friend an hour up to Oakland (which is in the Detroit area) where I stepped into my very first Hot Topic, and I found the Sailor Moon stuff, and I’m pretty sure a wallscroll or poster of this image was up on the wall.
(but like the whole outfit/pan)
I bought the lunchbox, a deck of cards, a pen, and also maybe a notebook or something? It’s been awhile. I still have the deck of cards, but everything else is long gone.
This was in the golden few months where my best friend was still my best friend and I wasn’t yet getting bullied by the other girls in my grade for liking Sailor Moon and being a total nerd, so pretty much the only period of junior high that I actually enjoyed. It all went downhill soon after this point. u_u
So this lunchbox is still one of my prized possessions. For many years I kept colored pencils in it, but nowadays it holds my sewing kit.
Though there are still marks on the inside from my art supplies…
Probably the most adorable AHHH BABBY ALEX part, though, is my name written on a piece of clear tape on the inside of the lid… in what I’m pretty sure was Gelly Roll ink. (Another fad that took me hook, line, and sinker.)
Untitled
Itâs fine for men to watch shojo anime and read shojo manga like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura.
Itâs fine for men to make pornographic doujinshi of these, buy figurines, and jack off to the characters.
Itâs fine for men to completely invade a Pretty Cure forum created for young girls and scare said girls away. Itâs fine for these men to twist the entire fandom around themselves, its fine for them to show up to Pretty Cure events in throngs and its fine for them to frantically grab all the free handouts before any of the girls can.
Itâs also fine for men to take these magical girl anime made for girls that celebrate being a girl and make them all about their pornography and which girl they most want to put their dick in. Itâs fine, because theres even a cute name for them, âOoki Tomodachiâ (Big Friend).
Itâs fine for them to do the same with My Little Pony, of course. Itâs fine that they can make the voice actors of the show uncomfortable with personal questions, its fine that they can yell out rape jokes to them at conventions, its fine that they have basically made it impossible for any of the 8 year old girls the show was made for to ever google it in public. Itâs fine for them to gather in the toy stores around the pony toys and intimidate young girls. Itâs fine that the whole show, created to celebrate femininity and how âtheres no wrong way to be a girlâ is now associated with their fetishes. And its so fine that these male fans get given a cute name (âbronyâ), get documentaries made about them, have newspaper article after blog post after feature talking about how they are âchallenging gender normsâ and âtransforming pop cultureâ.But if a girl âtrespassesâ into a male space, what happens? (Even when it isnt âtrespassingâ, in the case of Free!, in which a space was actually made for us ) We can expect such timeless classics as: degradation, âyouâre not even a REAL fan!â âI bet you dont even know ______â, all kinds of threats, and, of course, the posts you see on this blog.
– Male Otaku mad about Free! because its brilliant and accurate on so many levels (via shotalita)
This nailed my anger at the whole Brony phenomenon perfectly, yo.
(via joyfulldreams)
I only just heard about a teen girl being harassed with rape threats because she spoke up about the triggery âPrincess Molestiaâ meme rampant in the fandom. I think this post is very relevant.
(via yamino)
I’ve been having a lot of feelings on this subject lately.
Untitled
Do You Hear the Fandoms Sing?
A Parody of âDo You Hear the People Sing?â
Written and Performed by CodotDo you hear the fandoms sing?
Singing of love that isnât there?
Between the people that we knowÂ
will never lay their feelings bare?
When we put our pen to page,
or place our fingers on the keys,
Our ships will sail through the feelsÂ
of our OTPs.Will you join in the belief
that John and Sherlock are a thing?
Or do you think instead
that Castiel would spread his wings
For a Winchester boy?
Holy shit what a joy, what a fling!Do you hear the fandoms sing?
Singing of love that isnât there?
Between the people that we knowÂ
will never lay their feelings bare?
When we put our pen to page,
or place our fingers on the keys,
Our ships will sail through the feelsÂ
of our OTPs.We know Tony and the Cap
will share a love thatâs filled with sass,
and we know Jonathan Crane,
will lust for Edward Nygmaâs ass,
We will churn fanfics out,
Let us sing it or shout it en masse!Do you hear the fandoms sing?
Singing of love that isnât there?
Between the people that we knowÂ
will never lay their feelings bare?
When we put our pen to page,
or place our fingers on the keys,
Our ships will sail through the feelsÂ
of our OTPs.PERFECT.Â
Untitled
A little something we can all relate to.
Untitled
Vintage Fandom -or- Alex Found Old Photos
Top Photo: My AMAZING ARSENAL of art supplies, from 2001ish, pictured with some early Hues pictures. If memory serves, the Sailor Moon lunchbox contained colored pencils. I still have the lunchbox, but now it holds my sewing kit. :)
Bottom Photo: My VERY COOL collection of manga and figures and dolls. I had forgotten that I once had a little Yuna figure, as well as the Cardcaptor Sakura dolls. I sold a bunch of this stuff off before I started college, for space reasons.
ASTUTE VIEWERS (coughMEGLETcough) will notice the printed-out SEC fanart on the wall (though not mine, for whatever reason) that stayed there for many years.
Instagram ain’t got nothin’ on my shitty camera from 1998.
It’s possible to enjoy things, while still recognizing their problems
It’s possible to enjoy things, while still recognizing their problems
There seems to be this pervasive notion that being a fan means youâre not allowed to critique the things you love.  I donât understand⊠if you love something, wouldnât you want it to be the best it can be? That includes recognizing things that could be improved upon.
Itâs also possible to enjoy something you totally hate.  Like⊠I loathe Ke$ha, everything she stands for and sings about, but⊠I secretly dance her to her music sometimes.  It makes me feel dirty*,  but itâs got a good beat for shaking your caboose. Â
* Not in Ke$haâs âI just crawled out of a dumpsterâ glam kind of dirty, but the âAll the perfumes of Arabia could not wash the stench of this shame off my handsâ kind.
I think a lot of consumers of media need to understand this. Maybe it’s from growing up in a feminist family, maybe it’s for other reasons, but developing a critical eye and applying it to just about everything I lay my eyes upon has been part of how I interact with fiction and media for so long, I can’t imagine not doing it. Just blindly drifting along with the ebbing and tides of a fandom is a notion that’s incredibly foreign to me.
I’m bad at fandom
It’s probably telling that the last major fandom I was involved in was Sailor Moon in the late 90s and early 00s. I’m the kind of fan that can passionately care about a title/series/etc, and I can watch on my own for years and years and be happy, but the moment I dip my toe into a community I discover… people.
For example, The Office. I binged on the first three (American) seasons on Netflix, then at the time, the 4th seasons was still airing on TV. I think I discovered fan blogs for the show around season 5, and I excitedly checked comments on the newest episode to find that I absolutely cannot stand any of the people on the internet.
“This was the WORST EPISODE EVER.”
“…has totally jumped the shark.’
"This episode needed more _____.”
“This storyline needs to go.”
And I’m like… really? Worst episode ever? You don’t even know what the overarching plot lines of the season will be and how they connect and GH,0EA,;‘IKGWPAGK:EWAGJLE.
My kneejerk reaction is that everyone just needs to calm the fuck down. And maybe it’s just something unique to fans of The Office and other non-geeky ilk? Since TO is pretty planted in the mainstream? I don’t really think so. People are the same pretty much everywhere you go.
I guess being somewhat introverted, I’m even more of an introverted fan. Unfortunately, other folks can damper my enjoyment of a work with their opinions and such. I’ll just be over here in my corner, enjoying my fandoms on my own, kay?