I think some ppl have forgotten how to fandom or never knew, it’s not like there’s a manual of etiquette. That’s the short answer. And hasn’t this all been said in infinite variations?

Isn’t fandom about making/keeping friends who can revel in your deepest desires with you? Who can respect the fantasy world you want to live in, and go there with you? 

Unfortunately, thanks to Tumblrland Hyperbole™ – which seems to have escalated exponentially in the past year – there are now:

• Winner-take-all SJW attitudes about one-up-man-ship (”YOU ARE SO WRONG ABOUT YOUR HEADCANON AND IT OFFENDS ME GRRRR”; you can respectfully disagree, but do you need to take every opinion posted on someone else’s blog as a chance to soapbox?), or
• Unnecessary competitions for popularity (”THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE RPer FOR THIS CANON CHARACTER”; no, they’re fictional, the internet is big enough for everyone to play with them, too).

There’s a daily parade of Real Life ppl who call us “creepy” for loving vampires, robots, thawed-out super soldiers,  billionaire playboy philanthropists, aliens, women warriors, etc.

I’ve been called “creepy” at work. I tend to wear alot of black bc I don’t want to spend alot of money on work clothes, and sometimes I let my “macabre” interests slip out, seeking to make a connection; I shared a picture of Halloween makeup (Redditor Specialxk’s zombie walk face-and-throat trompe l’oeil makeup job) with someone at work I thought might be as impressed at the artistic skill as I was, and that person still won’t talk to me, some 3 weeks later.

Fandom, for me, is about making/keeping friends who can – and want to! – revel in our deepest desires, who can – and want to! – respect the fantasy world we want to live in, and go there together!

Specifically, currently, there are ppl in the fandom who seem to thrive on drama, and I considered answering this privately bc I don’t want to encourage it, but I’m going to take this as an opportunity to pay tribute to the one – yet another among MANY over the past several years that I’ve witnessed – who’s been pushed out because of it. 

I don’t know what their public participation will be like in the future, I for one hope that the mun will take time off, and the fandom can collectively welcome them back, or the fandom can fracture, and let those who want to fandom with the mun do so, and those don’t should ignore ppl they don’t like, and invest the time and effort spent anonhating in more positive ways.

It seems like we’ve lost another RPer (merciful-death-archive), and what’s especially sad is that this RPer had been active for 3+ yrs, responding #ic and #ooc to all kinds of fandom topics, and these responses were often so well done that the mun was often complimented as sounding like the canon character! For their writing and all the mun did to encourage building friendships and welcome new people into the fandom, bringing ppl together to squee and critique and all the fun stuff we like to do about this series and its characters, this RPer was nominated as the fandom “Mom” figure, and it stuck.

This RPer was popular. Maybe it was the mun’s popularity that drove a group of ppl to try, time and time again, to tear the mun down with anonhate. They have their reasons. Supporters of the mun rallied time and time again to try to solve the issues as they arose, both privately and publicly, with little success, although there were periods when the anonhate tapered off.

This RPer was greatly appreciated by the fans in fandom who want to participate and actually make friends, isn’t that what fandom is about? The mun was someone who tried to promote building relationships in fandom, through fandom positivity. With the positivity blog, they did it anonymously, on their own time, spending tireless unpaid hours on it, so it wasn’t for self-promotion. It was for actual love of the fandom and the ppl in it who make it worth the effort by giving that love back through responses and fanworks.

We’ll miss merciful-death-archive, and I for one will welcome the mun (and all who have been pushed out) back when/if they are ready to return.