Sometimes people get their start in fandom with something like, idk, the MCU or light action shows like Supernatural or children's fantasy like Warriors (this last example said with love), where the writing is an inconsistent mess, characterization can change on a dime, there's no themes stronger than like "family" or "stop the bad guy from changing our way of life". And their fandom experience is taking the hints of interesting ideas presented and dropped and spinning them into something interesting, or just fluffy and fun, and then discarding the rest.
And then these people come to a piece of art that like. Actually has themes and good writing and a coherent vision, but they're still trained on The Giant Trash Heap That Must Be Sorted Through, so they start their routine of excising fun yaoi moments and throwing the rest in the trash, except now the rest is like. A professionally made passion project by a group of skilled writers with a hundred years writing experience between them, and this fan is writing the same coffee shop AUs as ever. And it makes something that feels same-y and fandom out of something unique and well-made and, well, interesting.
And like. That's their prerogative, more power to them, but it makes me wanna pull my hair out to talk to these people about a piece of media I actually care about beyond that Trash Heap level.
And if you're someone whose only fandom experience has been Trash Sorting and you're running into people arguing with you abt their favorite piece of media, give them a second thought I guess?
stormborns
gummygunk
discoholicmusic
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