I am so in love with this post and with your beautiful way with self expression. Everything here. Absolutely.
I could pull out pieces I particularly loved, but there are so many it would take all of the space.
Except okay I'll do it anyway:
And this should go without saying, but apparently it needs to be said? Just because you like something better, doesn't mean it's objectively better.
This is the DUH-HOWDY I so wish every single person everywhere embraced.
If you say that your show is more feminist or progressive or whatever than another show is as a way of putting down other fans, or if you bash another ship as being really *ist or whatever…do you win anything? It accomplishes nothing except creating ugliness in a place—fandom—that should be about love: love of stories and characters and creation and community
You call yourself sappy for saying this. But this is not sap. This is the foundation of fandom life, as far as I'm concerned. I would like fandom to be a microcosm of what I live outside the computer on a daily basis. It ought to be a community. It ought to be based in love. Dammit, it MUST lift me up and make me feel empowered and surrounded by open, accepting arms or what the heck am I even doing here? There are no winners when we fight about shows and characters and ships as an underhanded way of knocking down other fans. I'll never understand it.
I want to know the stories. I want to hear the stories we love in old, familiar ways and in new ways, because they ways we tell them and the ways we hear them become threads of our fabric. We are the stories. If that's sappy then I'll dip myself in the stickiness of it and then roll around in cornflakes. Because it's the heart of why I'm here. Because of all of the people in fandom who illuminate themselves by illuminating the stories we love to tell about the characters who are a part of us. All I ask is that we all remain kind to one another. And allow each other the space to be accepted. To be gentle, with ourselves, and with our stories too. We can be fierce, but let us always be gentle.
I need my fandom experience to be both enriching and joyful. If it fills me with dread than I'm at the wrong party. As long as folks are respectful, we can all coexist together quite well. And we do, for the most part.
Also I would like to second your love of well-done motherhood narratives. *places hearts and flowers all around them*
no subject
I could pull out pieces I particularly loved, but there are so many it would take all of the space.
Except okay I'll do it anyway:
And this should go without saying, but apparently it needs to be said? Just because you like something better, doesn't mean it's objectively better.
This is the DUH-HOWDY I so wish every single person everywhere embraced.
If you say that your show is more feminist or progressive or whatever than another show is as a way of putting down other fans, or if you bash another ship as being really *ist or whatever…do you win anything? It accomplishes nothing except creating ugliness in a place—fandom—that should be about love: love of stories and characters and creation and community
You call yourself sappy for saying this. But this is not sap. This is the foundation of fandom life, as far as I'm concerned. I would like fandom to be a microcosm of what I live outside the computer on a daily basis. It ought to be a community. It ought to be based in love. Dammit, it MUST lift me up and make me feel empowered and surrounded by open, accepting arms or what the heck am I even doing here? There are no winners when we fight about shows and characters and ships as an underhanded way of knocking down other fans. I'll never understand it.
I want to know the stories. I want to hear the stories we love in old, familiar ways and in new ways, because they ways we tell them and the ways we hear them become threads of our fabric. We are the stories. If that's sappy then I'll dip myself in the stickiness of it and then roll around in cornflakes. Because it's the heart of why I'm here. Because of all of the people in fandom who illuminate themselves by illuminating the stories we love to tell about the characters who are a part of us. All I ask is that we all remain kind to one another. And allow each other the space to be accepted. To be gentle, with ourselves, and with our stories too. We can be fierce, but let us always be gentle.
I need my fandom experience to be both enriching and joyful. If it fills me with dread than I'm at the wrong party. As long as folks are respectful, we can all coexist together quite well. And we do, for the most part.
Also I would like to second your love of well-done motherhood narratives. *places hearts and flowers all around them*