#fandomology

Below you'll find prompts for every week of the month. Get creative, get spooky, and don't forget to tag #monstermonth24 🖤

To some extent, I think any big fandom is going to rewrite, overwrite the main character, but I do think you have a point...

I remember a lot of Naruto fanfic radically changing Naruto’s childhood too.

It might be “overly heroic dumbass”, but I think it would be hard to put Harry in the “heroic dumbass” category. He’s not always heroic because he WANTS to be, he’s heroic because he expects no one else to help. Ever.

For the best example of this is the second task: this is obviously a school event, but Harry seemed fully ready to believe that the schools were going to let people drown for a tournament.

We can argue if that’s “dumbass”, I suppose, but he’s not like Naruto or Izuku who throw themselves into heroics because they BELIEVE in what they’re doing. They want to save people and send a message; Harry does what he does because for him it’s literally do or die. Messages are very much not a concern for him.

I’d have to look into it more, but I also think part of the habit of people rewriting these protags is because they have extremely specific childhoods that lead to extremely specific outcomes and outlooks.

It’s easier to write Harry if he trusts adults, it’s easier to write Izuku if he’s always had friends and isn’t only just now learning what friendship is...

These are, of course brand new opinions that I haven’t validated or looked in to, but it might have some merit.

For start, the barriers to entry are ever lower. There’s no reason for people to learn the history of a site that’s just THERE. If you don’t have to search out mail lists and vet all your fandom sources, there’s so much less incentive to learn about or understand the history of the platform you‘re using.

Secondly, fandom is largely a hobby. For some people, the meta stuff becomes the hobby. But increasingly it’s becoming some place on the internet people stumble into. Of course these people aren’t going to be interested in learning about the LJ Strikethrough, they’re just here to see characters get a happy ending/suffer/kiss/what have you.

Thirdly, and compounded by the previous two things, there isn’t really a big push to show off places like fanlore. Fandom history comes in fits and spurts when people decide to tell an engaging enough story that gets echoed through screencaps or reblogs. Fanlore and the OTW are background agents for the deep fandom nerds.

Which means that:

Peoples’ point of entry into fandom and specifically fic is increasingly erratic and unpredictable. The point of reference that older fans have is no longer the majority experience. The understanding that they might have isn’t prioritized in fandom, and the diy expertless aesthetic of fanfic helps to de-emphasize ideas of authority.

Also: AO3 has set itself up to be THE fic archive. The idea that AO3 is THE place for fic writers and readers means that the image it projects- correctly or incorrectly- is one of AO3 being an accurate image of fic-writing fandom. AO3 might have been set up as Slash’s Last Stand, but the fact that it’s grown to be THE happening place in fandom means that a lot of new fandoms are fairly represented in AO3′s statistics, so it’s COMPLETELY VALID to note and discuss the abundance of m/m stories.

Slash might have built AO3, but we’re all living here now, and paying rent, and building additional stories* so we are allowed to critique the architecture.

It is now Week 3, which means it's time to show some love for our extraterrestrial friends 👽👾

Solstice Sewing Circle Stream Saturday, December 21st 9 AM to Noon, Eastern Join @/wayward-Impy and the MoShang server for some streaming and some sewing. If you don't know how to sew but have always wanted to learn, now is your chance! Impy will gladly teach you the basics of hand sewing. Or, if you just have a project of your own that you'd like to work on while we're all chatting, that's good, too! If you are planning to learn the basics during this event, you will need:

Scissors suitable for cutting fabric

A needle

Some thread

Masking tape or a chalk pencil or even just a regular pencil

Fabric to practice with (note: woven fabric is better than a knit for learning, and please make sure any fabric you use has been freshly laundered first)

Also good to have available but not strictly necessary:

Straight pins

A ruler

A sharpie

Fret not, though, for we have a shiny new prompt for you! This week's theme is Psychological Horror 😨😱😱