[ SECRET POST #3983 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3983 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 17 secrets from Secret Submission Post #570.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

This more than anything is what put me off Sherlock's creators.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Lol, Sherlock was literally the first fandom I had in mind when I was writing my comment. Between the actors' often insensitive comments, and all the creators' BS, including all their awful, mocking "fan service," that show left me feeling genuinely a bit sour towards the people involved. :/

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Well, to be fair, Sherlock seemed to have a large number of stans who were making unreasonable demands of the creative team. Which I think is a big change in fandom lately, mostly driven on the fannish side. 25 years ago, few people doing fanfic or RP had any expectations that creators would do much more than give you a indulgent smile and an autograph.

[(Anonymous)]

I can't argue that a fairly small but very vocal contingent of the fandom behaved badly towards the creators and actors. But I think the majority of my issues with how they handled the whole fandom conversation have little to do with how they handled the craziest, most inappropriate fans.

I mean, first of all, Sherlock is one of those shows where the creators were evidently bothered that people wanted to interpret the text differently than they were meant to. It was one of those shows where, from S2 onward, there was always the sense that they were trying to herd their wayward audience into seeing things their way. And then they turned several minutes of the show itself into a tone-deaf mockery of fannishness. Which bothered me mainly because I felt it made for a very stupid several minutes of the show. But also, I'm not sure they really understood that what they were doing was mockery - I think they knew it was silly and absurd, but I think they simply believed that fandom itself was purely that - silly and absurd. And it is, of course, but it's also lovely, and heartfelt, and staggeringly complex and varied - none of which they seemed, at any point during the run of the show, to have any comprehension of. Nor did they seem to feel it was worth understanding before they made their jokes and comments about it.

Also, I recall Benedict Cumberbatch in particular saying some dismissive and belittling things about the fans and their fanworks that stung quite a few people a bit. I mean, it's not like his comments were unforgivable or anything, but it was another case of someone on the creators' side talking judgmentally about fandom without understanding it at all.

[(Anonymous)]

I’ve never understood this mentality that actors should be anything but dismissive of fanworks and the people who create them. And I say this as someone who creates them. Yes, they can be beautiful, but those creators are usually smart enough not to send their stuff to the people they’re writing/drawing about. And the ratio of beauty to kinky porn is not skewed towards beauty. Close your eyes and imagine for a second how much Sherlock alpha/omega mpreg vore Cumberbatch has probably been sent by fangirls. If he wasn’t dismissive, he’d probably never leave his house again.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, wasn’t there a running gag/persistent theme on one of the Sherlock kink memes about slicing up and eating dicks?

I don’t understand how the evocative beauty of fandom is lost on Cumberbunny.

[(Anonymous)]

Actors can be as dismissive as they want about fanworks, that's fine. What's kind of rude and small-minded of them is when they're dismissive and judgmental about fanworks, and what's even worse is when they're judgmental of the people who create them. This article in The New Statesman sums the whole thing up very well:

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/10/why-it-doesn-t-matter-what-benedict-cumberbatch-thinks-sherlock-fan-fiction

And the ratio of beauty to kinky porn is not skewed towards beauty.

Well, maybe if you believe that kinky porn and beauty are mutually exclusive it isn't. But that's not a belief I share. Also, what's good and worthy of respect about fandom isn't just its beautiful parts. It's its complexity, its creativeness and ingenuity, its enthusiasm, its vast productivity, it's diversity, etc. etc.

[(Anonymous)]

So, this really has very little to do with the wonderful complexity of fandom and everything to do with fans behaving as if actors owe it to them to be supportive of their fan works. I’m going to have to ask you to use your empathy here. Do you think Ben Cumbo thinks a graphic depiction of Martin Freeman’s swollen knot in his naturally lubed ass is beautiful? If so, I think you vastly overestimate how much the average person enjoys reading porn involving themselves and a coworker. Seriously, fandom has got to stop asking for head pats from the people they’re making fic/art/dildos of. We’re turning into the creepers stealing used gum and hair clippings, and then acting offended when actors say we’re crazy.

[(Anonymous)]

God, this. It creeps me the fuck out how much fans expect their idols to be charmed by graphic fetishes.

[(Anonymous)]

Seriously, fandom has got to stop asking for head pats from the people they’re making fic/art/dildos of.

I think this is where the miscommunication is happening. I don't want "headpats," and nobody I know in fandom wants "headpats."

What I want, what most of the fans I know want, and what it's perfectly reasonable for any fan to want, is for actors and creators of things to not say judgmental shit about something they don't understand and haven't even tried to understand. If you don't know about fandom, just say you don't know about it. Hell, if it makes you uncomfortable you can say that, that's fine. But this whole, "Let me make partonizing and judgmental assumptions, over-simplifications, and generalizations about an entire group of people " thing is kind of shitty.

Also, I find it odd that you're equating "we would like to not be judged and belittled" with "we would like headpats." That's...yeah, no.

Seriously, I have to recommend that New Statesman article again. It articulates the whole situation very well.

[(Anonymous)]

+100000000

Super late to the thread, but I just want to say THIS SO MUCH. There's a huge difference between "praise me for my fanworks!" Which veryvery few fans even want, and "please don't make ignorant judgments about our psyches, and our appearances, and our social lives, and our sexualities."

And I agree that newstatesman article is great. I remember reading it when that BC interview first came out and just being like, wow, this article actually gets it.

[(Anonymous)]

There's a huge difference between "praise me for my fanworks!" Which veryvery few fans even want, and "please don't make ignorant judgments about our psyches, and our appearances, and our social lives, and our sexualities."

Yeah, this, exactly. Like, the majority of fans I know would hate having their fanworks pushed onto the actors or creators. And I mean, that actually happened once in the Sherlock fandom, and literally the only response coming from fandom was outrage at the Mod (Caitlin Moran I think her name was?) for doing that.

It's definitely not praise most people are looking for. It's not being actively derided for no good reason.

[(Anonymous)]

They understand what they’re exposed to, and they’re judgmental because what they’re exposed to is, for the most part, creepy and invasive. You want them to be more graceful and tolerant about what is, in the overwhelming experience of most actors, artistic sexual harassment. Make the effort to put your house in order if you want to change how fandom is seen by celebrities. No one is required to go out of their way to spare the feelings of the people who are sexually harassing them even if they’re famous. Get over yourself.

DA

[(Anonymous)]

It seems like you don't really understand fandom, fanfic, or thethe nature of sexual harrassment at all.

[(Anonymous)]

what they’re exposed to is, for the most part, creepy and invasive.

I would agree with you that the miniscule fraction of fans who attempt to push their non-gen fanfic/fanart on the actors are being invasive. However, it is, as I previously said, a miniscule fraction of the fans who do that. And when the actors respond negatively to those fans and that particular behavior, I have no problem with it whatsoever.

However, let's be clear here: it's not the fanfic - sexual or otherwise, kinky or otherwise - that's creepy. It's people pushing it on the actors. If you don't push your fanfic on the actors, then it's all fine.

You make the assertion that "No one is required to go out of their way to spare the feelings of the people who are sexually harassing them." That does seem - as the anon above me has already pointed out - to be a very serious misunderstanding of both fanfic and what constitutes sexual harrassment. Fanfic is not sexual harrassment. I'm a little baffled that I'm even having to state that.

The only way fanfic could remotely be construed as sexual harrassment is if a fan were to push sexualized fanfic onto an actor. And that's because pushing any kind of sexual content onto anyone is inappropriate behavior. In that scenario, the fact that it's fanfic they're being pressured to peruse has very little to do with the inappropriatness of it.

But in the vast majority of cases, it's either interviewers pushing fan content onto actors, or actors looking into it for themselves out of curiosity. In the case that an interviewer pushes explicit fanworks into an actor, the actor would be within their rights to take issue with the interviewer for doing so - but blaming the creator of the fanwork would be unjust. In cases where an actor chooses to look into the fanworks that are being crated based on their character, they are perfectly within their rights to like or not like what they find. But if it makes them uncomfortable, the person who created the fanwork does not bear responsibility for the actor's discomfort.