[ SECRET POST #2543 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2543 ⌋

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

01.
[Fangirl]


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02.
[Anne Neville, The White Queen]

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03.
[Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan]


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04.
[Merlin]


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05.
[Elementary]


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06.
[Whitechapel]


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07.
[Grey's Anatomy]

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08.
(Legend of Korra)


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09.
[Papa Pear Saga + Doctor Who]


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10.
[Godfrey Gao as Magnus Bane in "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones"]


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11.
[Kwon Yuri, Tiffany Hwang and Jessica Jung of Girls' Generation]


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12.
[Les Miserables/Anton Zetterholm/Rob Houchen]


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01pages, 015 secrets from Secret Submission Post #363.
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

[fscom]

01. http://i.imgur.com/a4wM17S.png?1?1139
[Fangirl]

[(Anonymous)]

I was under the impression that the author based the story partially on her own experiences in fandom.

[(Anonymous)]

Uhh, pretty sure the author has a tumblr, is a fangirl, and is I remember right based the main character partly on herself.

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry the author didn't make the main character 'normal' or some such bullshit so you wouldn't have second hand embarrassment. Yes, how dare she base it off herself and her fandom experiences!

[sarillia]

I didn't realize fandom had a point that you could miss. I thought it was whatever you wanted it to be.

[elaminator]

Pretty much this.

[takaraikarin]

+1000

[(Anonymous)]

If someone's main interest is slash and their slashy OTPs I really don't see how that is at all "missing the point". The point of fandom is to have fun. What point exactly is it missing, other than not doing fandom the specific way you do fandom?

Secret 1 - Fangirl (book)

[transcriptanon]

[Picture is the cover of the book "Fangirl" by Rainbow Rowell. It shows a woman on a computer fantasizing about two men being romantic together. A man approaches the woman and asks something.]

I liked this book. But I would never recommend it to anyone who hadn't had experiences with fandom beforehand. The fact that the 'fandom character' happens to come from a 'broken home,' have serious soxial anxiety and happens to be a 'cardboard cutouts and posters EVERYWHERE, obsessed fan' kind of rubbed me the wrong way. There was also the fact that a majority of her fanfic writing was focused on obsessively writing about a slash One True Pairing and how much the appeal of fanfiction was about her One True Pairing.

I'm not saying that people like her don't exist (she actually reminded me a lot of one of my bet friends who happens to have low self esteem, some emotional problems and ships Destiel quiet a bit (I'm not in the Supernatural fandom)). But she has strong hobbies and interests outside of fandoms.

I like fanfiction, I've written a little bit, I have One True Pairings (including slash ones). But I think people whose main reason to be fandom are GAY One True Pairings are kind of missing the point (more LGBT representation would be great, but some people just miss the point).

I have A LIFE OUTSIDE of fandom however. I'm not going to go and say that "OMG FANDOM SHOULD GET BETTER REPRESENTATION BECAUSE THIS IS LIKE RACISM" because people who say that are douche rockets. I just wish this book didn't read like the author read two pages of Tumblr and based the character off of it.

I'm so sorry for the wall of text.

[(Anonymous)]

What the hell is "the point"? Doesn't it occur to you that some people like LGBT ships just because they like them, and not out of a sense of obligation?
(For the record, m/m, f/f, and m/f are all fair game to me.)

[(Anonymous)]

Look. Normally I read through the wall-o'-text secrets because, hey, a lot of work went into these, right?

IDK if it's because it was #1 and the first thing before the cut, but as soon as I saw it, I was like, NOPE and can categorically say I have met my match.

TL;DR: Nonny found #1 TL;DR.

what is this

[(Anonymous)]

Ugh. I hate when people assume something has to be representative of the whole. It's a book about a girl in fandom. It doesn't have to be a shining example or perfect for everyone (which is impossible). It just has to ring true to the story and for the author.

And there is no point to fandom. People playing around with characters one way is not missing the point, even if it's different than the way you enjoy playing around with characters.

And honestly, I don't think anyone would actually be interested in this book if they didn't know about fandom in general. That's kind of the target audience, so I don't' know why you'd even bother with the whole "I wouldn't rec" part.

[badass_tiger]

My first impression of this secret is that you wouldn't recommend it to anybody who's not familiar with fandom, right? I guess I get that. I wouldn't 'recommend' fandom to anybody to tell the truth.

[(Anonymous)]

The style of this art looks so framiliar, but when I looked up the cover artise, I didn't recognize her name and can't figure out where I've seen her stuff before.

[(Anonymous)]

What I didn't get about this book, or why so many people are going 'omg, this is me!' is that the main character didn't seem to be having any fun in Fandom. Yeah, she shipped a pairing, but we didn't see why she liked them. Writing her WIP was an obligation, just something she needed to do or felt guilty over. We didn't see her online squeeing and discussing the books with other fans.

I found the whole thing really offputting and very much like the author was an outsider trying to write about something she didn't understand.

[(Anonymous)]

I really like that this book both displayed the fact that fandom can often be a coping mechanism of sorts for kids with problems - but also it can be a healthy interest. Like, even after the protag dealt with some of her personal stuff, like her dependence on her sister, her mom leaving the family, etc. she still wrote fanfic and was involved in fandom, but it wasn't her way of getting away from the "real world" any more in an unhealthy way.

Basically I went into this book expecting to hate it but ended up really liking it.

[pts]

This book bugged me because there wasn't ENOUGH weird fandom politics in it. It felt like it could've been very much the same book without most of the fandom trappings.

I mean, the main character is a GIANT BNF, but this winds up being barely important to the plot. I don't know. I liked aspects of it, but I was disappointed in the lack of what felt like realistic fandom experiences.

[(Anonymous)]

RE: the purple text

You sound straight.

[starphotographs]

WTF, fans aren't like, FANS of stuff! They only kinda like things, like regular people! It's not like it's a community founded on having more love for a thing than most people have or anything, god.

...What is this, 2008? Are we really gonna do that which-fan-can-be-the-least-interested anti-fangirl McCarthyism thing again? Because that was dumb as shit.

"douche rockets"

[(Anonymous)]

I am absurdly pleased with that phrase. I will have to add it to "douchecanoe" and "douchenozzle", so thanks for that OP!

[logicbutton]

I know she's the main character and therefore the message she sends carries the most weight, but Wren, Abel, Abel's new girlfriend, the girl she met in the library - all of them were into fandom, and none of them (from what we could tell) were weird obsessed no-life shut-ins; Wren clearly isn't, and Cath thinks the girl in the library doesn't "look like" she is either. I felt that the author was making a point of trying not to imply that all people in fandom are a certain way.

[mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com]

I get this feeling the OP thinks "Good Fans" shouldn't have OTPs and centre their fannish enjoyment around their OTP.

Just speaking of my own POV:

When I get into a fandom, I either go looking for a pairing to settle on, or I was drawn into the fandom by the prospect of a pairing. Usually it's a slash pairing too, because I happen to be a slasher - someone who favours male/male stories.

My OTPs are the spice that makes my fandom experience a bit brighter. They are not absolutely everything about Fandom for me, but if I didn't have pairings, I wouldn't be in any given fandom. I wouldn't be in The Hobbit if I hadn't thought Bagginshield looked interesting. So many of my other fandoms are exactly the same story: DBZ-Vegeta/Bulma, DBZ slash-Goku/Vegeta, HP-Harry/Draco, LotR-Aragorn/Boromir, FF7-Sephiroth/Cloud, SPN-Destiel, Hobbit-Bagginshield.

Admitedly, those are just the pairings that drew me into those fandoms. Many of them I found other pairings after, some of those starter pairings I left behind, some I didn't.

So the implication I see in the secret that concentrating on one's OTP somehow is a bad way to be a fan... feels like the OP is the one who is a bad fan. Having an OTP is not bad. Having one's OTP be the central reason one loves Fandom is not bad either.

It only gets to be bad when someone is all "You disagree with my OTP? You should die horribly!".


TL;DR - The OP comes across to me like they are saying concentrating on an OTP is bad. I disagree.

(I didn't even bring up the slash aspect. I also get an undercurrent of "Slash OTPs are bad!", which makes me side-eye hard.)

[caerbannog]

Uh. Most people do have a life out of fandom. But you'll find when they're in fandom spaces they're going to talk about fandom.

tl;dr your secret next time cause eeesh.

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, you sound just as prejudiced as what you're accusing the author of being.