i r alive

[schmevil]

Hey hey. I have been so uninvolved in fandom that I forgot that I signed up for remix and I forgot that I finished some stories, wtf. Best get on that.

So on FFA people are talking about how terrible Marvel fandom is. Having come of age in Harry Potter fandom, I find myself thinking "Naw gurl, naw." The part of LJ/DW fic culture I'm familiar with has always been pretty civilized (outside of pits like FFR), and generally speaking, I think it's gotten less critical over the years, and far more cult of nice, at least as far as writing criticism goes.

I haven't had an outstandingly mean comment on a story since I was in Smallville (and shit, that was one limpass flame), and I'm all about readers being encouraged to respond however they please. Certainly I prefer long, detailed reviews and conversations, but I make no bones about welcoming criticism. Flames even--the most I'll do is some flocked loling. But the flames haven't come. Reviewers in Marvel and Supernatural fandoms have been unfailingly polite. Granted, I'm an unproductive, uncontroversial, non-porny NNF, but in HP everyone took some bad hits. Whether it was your first ever story, or your thirtieth, someone would pop out of the woodwork to call you a delusional hack and request that you die in a fire, posthaste.

Between YKINMK, "Stories are gifts!" and the widely accepted assumption that readers should ask before giving constructive criticism, or posting public reviews, there simply isn't a lot of room for actually talking about writing. Let it happen on anon memes. Haters gonna hate, and most everyone else is pretty damn nice.


*Consider these comments as separate from the Avengers troll issue.

Comments

[dirty_diana]

Eh. I can definitely see how there's a group of louder fen who will let you know if you wander off what they consider IC or canonical or canon worth liking/posting about. It happened to me when I was a newbie, so the movie people actually shouldn't feel singled out. And when you're a newb, you don't know enough to feel confident that it's that person's *opinion* and that yours is just as valid, which adds that extra hit of unwelcoming. Like one person mentioned, it's probably a comic book geek culture thing in large part. But jarring if you're not used to it.

(And it's a phenomenon that's not all that related to concrit, imo. Hooray for concrit, says I.)

[schmevil]

I haven't experienced this so--would you consider it worse than in other, similar fandoms? Or just the typical grouchy old fan bullshit?

[dirty_diana]

Hmmn. The word "worse" implies qualitative equivalency; I mainly think it's very specific to comics. We love to argue about what's in character and make references from 1967 and assume we know more about the source than anyone else in the thread. Plus we just love our fandom. So when someone comes along who we think hasn't put in that kind of time or time on what are considered the right things, We Have Opinions. I know I got a education-type lecture on The Evils of The Ultimates on my very first fic and no, it's not something I've experienced elsewhere.

And now that I'm more settled in I would reply with "this is what is awesome about The Ultimates, sorry you didn't get it". But when it's your first post and you're not used to how comics fen talk to each other, yeah. Very easy to feel like you've done something wrong and are not welcome.

(I don't know enough about DC to make a comparison there, and X-Men fandom for whatever reason managed more mellowness. X-Men may have had less pop culture obscurity, pre-movie.)

eta: I suspect Avengers also has a couple bnfs who particularly like that discussion mode, so either you also learn to talk that way or you shut up.

[schmevil]

I think I only experienced this in Scans Daily or on some of the larger boards. In the fic side of fandom, people... didn't really argue with me, or get on my case. That said, I was writing Steve/Tony and mostly keeping my head down otherwise.

I still don't like Ultimates but I'll never understand fans attitudes to fans of Ults. "It's bad, you're bad, and you should feel bad."