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I wrote a little meta in response to this post about creator participation & its effect on fandom spaces over at my tumblr but I thought I might replicate it here because it's a couple of paragraphs long so why not.
I feel like fan attention towards canon and canonical authority was always pretty prominent in het spaces - thinking about the last het fandom space I operated in, which was Harry Potter, huge amounts of the fannish focus there was on what would/might/should be canon. But it is new for slash, maybe, which is a sign of social progress I guess, but like @hotgaydumbledore I am not sure I like it.
I do know that I find increasing creator presence in fandom to be … oppressive is the wrong word, but depressive in the sense that it feels to me like it presses down on the fanworks that are created. My issues with the way this affects the Young Wizards fandom space are on record. I’m not a conspiracy theorist about this, I don’t think it’s deliberate, but I do find it to be a flattening presence. It does push people towards canon ships, especially canon het ships; it does push people away from weird/sideways ships; I think it kinda pushes people away from ATG slash.
I know many people might be happy about that last one and there’s an extent to which I agree, but I do think that the one positive characteristic of ATG stories is that they just don’t give a fuck about what the creator intends, are often written in total opposition to what the creator intends. That means that great relationships are tossed aside for, well, two white dudes, but I do kinda like that insouciance. ATG shippers never or rarely expect their ships to become canon, and I do think that’s a better relationship dynamic - or at least, it’s a dynamic I prefer - with showrunners, a you-do-you-and-I’ll-just-kick-around-in-this-sandbox vibe rather than a give-me-what-I-want-now vibe that I find frustrating.
I want more representation, doesn’t everyone, and I don’t think it’s wrong to demand representation, but I am not a big fan of demanding representation in *this* character and *that* character. Demanding representation doesn’t mean you get to put your ships in your show. It’s OK for your ship to not be canon.
I should say I’m thinking specifically of LGB representation here. That was careless, sorry.
I feel like fan attention towards canon and canonical authority was always pretty prominent in het spaces - thinking about the last het fandom space I operated in, which was Harry Potter, huge amounts of the fannish focus there was on what would/might/should be canon. But it is new for slash, maybe, which is a sign of social progress I guess, but like @hotgaydumbledore I am not sure I like it.
I do know that I find increasing creator presence in fandom to be … oppressive is the wrong word, but depressive in the sense that it feels to me like it presses down on the fanworks that are created. My issues with the way this affects the Young Wizards fandom space are on record. I’m not a conspiracy theorist about this, I don’t think it’s deliberate, but I do find it to be a flattening presence. It does push people towards canon ships, especially canon het ships; it does push people away from weird/sideways ships; I think it kinda pushes people away from ATG slash.
I know many people might be happy about that last one and there’s an extent to which I agree, but I do think that the one positive characteristic of ATG stories is that they just don’t give a fuck about what the creator intends, are often written in total opposition to what the creator intends. That means that great relationships are tossed aside for, well, two white dudes, but I do kinda like that insouciance. ATG shippers never or rarely expect their ships to become canon, and I do think that’s a better relationship dynamic - or at least, it’s a dynamic I prefer - with showrunners, a you-do-you-and-I’ll-just-kick-around-in-this-sandbox vibe rather than a give-me-what-I-want-now vibe that I find frustrating.
I want more representation, doesn’t everyone, and I don’t think it’s wrong to demand representation, but I am not a big fan of demanding representation in *this* character and *that* character. Demanding representation doesn’t mean you get to put your ships in your show. It’s OK for your ship to not be canon.
I should say I’m thinking specifically of LGB representation here. That was careless, sorry.
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