I Have No Idea What I'm Doing

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Tumblr turned fandom content into mindless consumption instead of community. I’m no expert on human behaviour, but I’d put money on this.

Here’s the thing: a few years ago, fandom on Tumblr was just as interactive and inclusive as other fandom platforms. I mean, it was different than the old bulletin boards (bbs), LJ communities, and Yahoo groups, but we made it work. It was common for readers to reblog stories and comment on them. It was common for writers to reblog again with comments or to reply to comments in new posts. It was common to answer replies in new posts rather than privately or in the reply section (that very few users actually read through on posts that aren’t their own). When I moved into the Tumblr community, I had no problem finding my people and making friends and gushing together over all the Things™.

For deeply personal reasons, I had to take a step back from fandom life for a couple of years, and when I came returned, the landscape had changed dramatically. One of my fandoms had moved completely to Twitter. Most fandoms are on discord servers (and the interaction is still pretty thin there), and Tumblr has become a mausoleum where we just hang up pretty pictures for ourselves. Gone is the interaction. Gone, even, the epic, impassioned essays in the tags. Well, not gone entirely, but severely muted. I don’t quite know how the change happened; I wasn’t there.

I think social media as a whole has had a huge shift towards the impersonal, and it’s trickled down to fandom. I’ve been surprised by how many asks that @ao3commentoftheday has gotten recently where the sender worries about being too annoying and/or stalker-y by commenting on stories or reblogging or sending messages saying how much they enjoyed a particular fanwork. There are even asks from writers gnawing their lips over whether or not it’s appropriate to reply to comments from readers because “does that make me a stalker?? am i too annoying??”

I also believe—you can fight me on this all day and I won’t change my mind—that the Western culture of helicopter parenting has had a major effect on how “consumers” deal with “problematic” themes in fanworks. I started out in fandom as a young mother, and now half of my kids are adults; that’s my resume on this topic. I’ve witnessed a contingent of children grow up having all of their experiences curated by someone else. Any potential injury, no matter how small, must be avoided at all costs. So of course, now they’re old enough to engage in social media and, by extension, fandom (because fandom is so incredibly accessible these days), they truly believe that the onus is on the writers and artists to make sure their experiences are pleasant with nary a trigger. If we really cared about our readers, we would never produce anything potentially harmful ever. They should never have any kind of exposure to things that might hurt them, even seeing the story summaries with tags and warnings that show up while they’re searching through AO3.

Dehumanizing the content creators through the impersonalization of social media and the complete lack of personal accountability for our own experiences is destroying what was once an inclusive, fun, “anything goes” community in fandom. It’s a pity because it’s chasing away the old guard. I mean, if I wanted to write solely mainstream stories in an utter vacuum, and then have little to no interaction with my readers, I’d sell novels. I wrote fic, created fan art, and made fanvids as a way to immerse myself in the community, to make friends, to squee together. And now, what’s the point?

legolas, aragorn, and gimli are all used to combat, sam works as a gardener, merry and pippin often gallivant off and get into mischief so they have the advantage of experience in whatever it is they’ve gotten up to/would possibly fight dirty, gandalf is gandalf so while weapons are out of the question i suppose that depends on if magic is involved. i don’t think i could take him without magic even if he IS old because he’s a very large guy, but maybe

First off, Pippin has it coming, so you won’t be fighting your conscience at the same time.

Secondly, Pippin is a spoiled rich kid. He’s no less gentry than Frodo is, but Frodo works out and is shown to have better stamina, at least at the outset. Pippin is also both the stupidest and the slowest of the hobbits. They both nearly beat one (1) troll, so that’s comparable, but Pippin appears not to have got a single hit in against the orcs that captured them while Merry was cutting off hands like a boss. Pippin also straight-up tell Bergil that he’s not a fighter.

Also there’s a nonzero chance that Frodo will just straight up curse you (if the guilt of fighting Frodo isn’t enough if a curse by itself).

So here’s what you do:

You fight Legolas.

The thing about fist-fighting Legolas of course is that you will lose. This is not a fight you’re gonna win no matter what. But Legolas has his standing competition with Gimli, so once the challenge is issued, he’s not gonna let anyone else step in and fight you either. No one is liable to volunteer on his behalf, either, so you will only end up fighting the one member of the fellowship. If you are lucky he might also take his shirt off. Bonus!

Anyway.

Legolas will mop the floor with you, but he’s also already convinced you’re weaker than him anyway because you’re not an elf, so he’s gonna go kind of easy on you. And when you lose he will be all snide and superior about it, which means everyone in the fellowship is gonna sympathize with you, and Gimli will probably challenge him on your behalf afterwards, but here’s the key thing:

You will have lost a fist-fight to an immortal warrior prince.

Millennials are fighting back just by surviving in a job market where the minimum wage doesn’t cover the living cost. Millennials are awesome at “killing” the diamond, golfing and napkins industries. Millennials are using the internet to make sure things that corporations want to keep in the dark are exposed. They’re open LGBTQIA-friendly business, they’re supporting each other with online donations so everyone can survive this shitty economy.

And the Gen Z kids? The Gen Z kids are rad. I remember a post about something like the millennials making a collective promise to never become a disenchanted generation that only criticizes the next one and I want to point out that this “millennials vs gen z” trend is trying to do exactly that: split us apart. Prevent millennials from being the older siblings that teach the younger siblings to throw a good punch and turn them into the annoyed adult complaining about “those kids” on their lawn. We are the two groups that grew in a connected world of information. We are two very unique generations.

Tony hates public appearances, they’re all fake pr crap but SESAME STREET?! 

Sesame Street didn’t think they’d get him but it wouldn’t hurt to ask, right?

Tony showed up beaming, he was so fucking happy. He dropped them enough money to run for a year.

He loves Sesame Street. He loves Bill Nye. He plays a recurring role as himself on Cyber Chase.

He appears for free on any kids’ science show that will have him because he knows that will boost their ratings and get kids to watch.

Tony donates to underfunded schools. 

Tony unironically judges science fairs.

TONY LOVES SCIENCE AND WANTS EVERYONE ELSE TO LOVE IT TOO

so when Wakanda opens it’s borders? When he meets Shuri?

Director Snarky only has one eye, which is why his trench coat gets stuck in things so often (depth perception issues, you know) but luckily his friend Agent Molehill is always willing to lend a hand.

Mary Molehill’s segments are mostly about taking big jobs and breaking them down so they’re manageable. She shows different ways to do the same jobs, too because not all methods work for all people.

Agent Coldson has some scars from an accident that happened a while ago. Most if the time he’s the one helping everybody else but sometimes his ptsd makes things hard for him and his friends, both in the Assisters and at S.H.E.L.L. have to make sure they help in the right way.

Frigga, super Done and staying out of it: ask your father

Loki: dad, why do I have blue blood?