#expanse fandom

Cosmos, One Strange Rock, etc... Meanwhile I look up the latest Hubble Telescope images.

I need space man...

gifset made by @the-roci​​ 

It is almost time for an appreciation week for Alex Kamal.

It will be held in week 26 (from 26 June to 2 July), we hope you all will be participating with gifsets, fics, videos, meta and anything else you can think of to create for this week. We will be reblogging everything you create onto this blog.

For some of the days we have multiple theme options, just to make it more open to any type of content. It is obviously completely up to you whether you make one of the themes, or both, or if you are skipping that day.

Remember that most people always check the tags of their posts, and that they will appreciate any nice comments (this goes both for people who are creating a type of content for the first time, and those who are always making wonderful content for our fandom), and considering this is an appreciation week obviously ignore the posts if you have nothing positive to say.

Don’t forget to tag alex kamal appreciation week within the first five tags, so we will be able to find your post!

Signal boosting this post would be much appreciated, and info for the other weeks can be found here :)

Themes for the days

Day 1: Moment you started liking Alex or favourite outfit

Day 2: Favourite episode or a song that you associate with Alex

Day 3: Favourite relationship

Day 4: Favourite quote or favourite headcanon

Day 5: Favourite scene from the tv show or the books

Day 6: Favourite personality traits or favourite fanmade content so fic/fanvideo/gifset etc.

To start from the top, Holden has been my favorite character since I picked up book one. Before I knew that my love of 12 years Steven Strait was playing him. Before I even really knew how alike me and him are. He’s always been the easiest for my to connect to. Someone with so much nuance who is so sensitive and kind and fun and friendly who goes through such a dark time that he loses all of that and has to fight himself to get it all back. Someone who subverts and kicks around so many tropes that he could be a soccer player. I really love Holden.

So here’s the rub. I fixate. And I hyperfixated on Holden because i see so much of myself in him and that’s pretty hard for me to do because there’s so much going on in my head. I was going through some deep emotional and self-confidence shit when I got into The Expanse and seeing Holden get through his own shit and also constantly working to keep himself afloat and be the person he wants to be (aka the person deserving of Naomi’s love but that’s not the point here) really helped me start trying to feel better and to be better. Because he was so much like me I thought I could do it. I mean I know I seem fun and confident and like I don’t care what anyone thinks but like... that is so beyond false it’s kind of hilarious.

So here I was hoping to find a fandom who might love Holden as much as I do and not only was I kinda disappointed, but I kept seeing people just talk about how horrible he is and how annoying he is and how he could die and the show/books would be better and all these other things but what really got me was seeing people say negative things about his personality that I share with him. And that hit me hard. Really hard. I work hard to accept myself because i’ve been bullied and misunderstood and played because I have some mental things that make me difficult for some people to understand or for me to express myself succinctly. And seeing people publically talk down on things I’m trying really hard to love about myself or to improve in myself... was super disheartening. And it made me want to defend Holden.

Holden isn’t perfect. as Steven’s said he wears his flaws on his sleeve. He doesn’t hide them. He does good and bad things and he acts out when he’s not okay and that’s not okay. But I do think he sometimes gets an unfair amount of vitriol and very little positive character studies compared to everyone else even when they’re not behaving well either and I get defensive. I wanted to make sure that someone was out there saying that he’s a good person who makes mistakes. That I believe he should and will make up for what he’s done and grow and be better. Because he can and he will! He has a long arc with subtle changes and it plays out differently and he’s suffering from PTSD and that last fact is always lost because... what does it matter? It’s just fucking Holden. And like I’m not okay with that when everyone else gets all this love and attention towards their trauma and how they deal with it but Holden just has to shoulder his? Of course I don’t think he should be taking it out on his crew, but shouldn’t we want him to connect with someone or get help like we want Amos to? Or like we wanted Alex to after he lost those Belters? Or Miller after he lost Julie? It just seemed like everyone brushed it under the rug like with every other important part of his character because “oh he’s just an asshole” or whatever. 

But I think in all of that I just got very pushy and aggressive and impulsive and I started to question myself every time I said something or got on the defense or got very aggressive with my defense and I really started to wonder if I was just being an asshole. I wondered if people just didn’t like me or didn’t like talking to me because I scared them off or they didn’t want to talk about what I like with me because I feel very strongly about what I like. I’ve been accused of being difficult to talk to by like my own mother when it comes to things i’m passionate about and it’s something I’m really scared of. And it’s kind of become clear to me that that’s probably what’s happening.

So, I want to apologize. For being this person I’ve been trying not to be and being it anyway. I’m probably going to back off on a lot of like... aggressive or defensive posts about Holden. I’ll still make all my jokey posts and my positive for the sake of being positive posts because I still need them in the tags to stay sane. Also because I just love to make jokes about Holden. And I’ll still defend him when he actually needs defending. I mean all this is part of why I don’t liveblog on here anymore. To avoid getting upset and to avoid saying things I shouldn’t. But I’m not going to keep coming off like everyone is wrong and I’m right by posting every time i’m angry or upset or hurt.

I don’t want to be an asshole. I want to make sure I’m being the friend and fan I want to be. I’ve spoken up for everyone’s right to express themselves and have fun and to express their own interpretations and opinions without people attacking them or talking down to them or treating them like their wrong. And I have to make sure I’m practicing what I preach. So yeah.

I'm gonna say something that I'm a bit afraid to say. I struggle with Joe Miller. I got into the show because a great friend of mine. I struggled with Miller's story in the show. Now I started reading the book...but every time his story comes up I feel board...

for a while now there have been thoughts about creating some weeks to show our appreciation for the amazing characters on this show.

right now the plan is to hold six different weeks focused on the characters: Alex Kamal, Naomi Nagata, Amos Burton, Chrisjen Avasarala, Jim Holden and Bobbie Draper.

we would like to know if there is a preference within the fandom for when we hold the weeks, so here is a poll to fill out if you have a preference, and we will chose the week that the majority prefers.

announcement posts with the specific weeks and themes will follow once we have decided on dates.

in case people want to see the original post in question it is right here.

I can totally see how people can feel this way. I can’t say I’m perfect when it comes to talking about the books vs the show. And I’ve been told and sometimes have seen what issues you bring up here. It is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed and dealt with as the show gains more viewers (which I think is happening faster than the books are gaining readers for various reasons). 

To that effect, I think we can all do a bit better in making sure we’re more conscious and welcoming to show fans by a) tagging book spoilers, b) being more vague in our own discussions, c) letting people into our discussions, and d) letting show fans express themselves without jumping on them to correct them. I mean hell so much is different already, does the text mean that much more? I know I can do better, and I really plan to and want to.

This fandom has two camps in it that need to work together for it to succeed and for us to all have fun. So I think it’s on the book readers to make sure that we’re being welcoming to show watchers. Older fans to be welcoming to newer fans. We’re all here for the same reason, honestly.

Many people in the fandom are great when you talk to them. A lot of us are misunderstood in their intentions or words. I can understand how that is as someone who is often misunderstood. But there’s still so much work to be done. And I’m happy to spread the word and keep the doors open.