where’s that 2012 post that was like “whovians grab your screwdrivers! spn family grab your salt!” those are the vibes i am feeling in this dashboard tonight

hellers, grab your spanish dubs

You know what I hate the most? It's that I don't think Misha was left out of the finale because of Covid. Looking back on everything Jensen said on how Misha was saying goodbye to Cas in 15x18, before production got shut down, I don't think Cas was supposed to be shown at the end even in the original script.

And you know why? Because then they would need to deal with the love confession. The moment you put Dean and Cas in front of each other, you have to give an answer about whether or not Dean reciprocates.

And they didn't want that. So they took the coward's way out, simply told us that Cas is in Heaven, that he has access to Dean's Heaven specifically, made Dean give a tiny little smile at a single mention of his name, and that's it. We decide whether or not Dean went after him. Whether or not they ended up together. It depends on how we interpret it.

And that's just fucking awful. Because if they were a heterosexual couple, there would be no question whether or not they're together at the end. If Cas were in a female vessel, he'd be waiting for Dean at the freaking gates.

And this hurts. It fucking hurts.

that’s the same thing I realized even before the episode came out. I just had this tiny feeling they were gonna pussy out with bringing Cas back, because if they were to bring him back they’d HAD to have addressed the confession between Cas and Dean in more depth. it’s like even though Destiel’s technically canon they still made it as ambiguous as they could and I still just feel a little queer baited ngl. I'm not a writer and I have yet to professionally work in film and tv, but just wow I feel like it could have been done better. 

It really was a coward's way out—there's really no other way to say it. And what's even worse is that they wanted us to watch the finale, but didn't want to deal with the confession, so you know what? Let's give them hope that Cas/Misha is coming back. He's not allowed to say his goodbyes. He's not allowed to say, "No, guys, I'm not in the finale. Please don't get too hopeful."

The only reason they gave us that confession was because they wanted to kill off Cas while making sure that we'd watch until the end, because they knew we'd want a resolution. That we'd expect some kind of resolution.

This was cruel. It was the worse thing they could have done. They played us, and they know our fandom has a lot of people who have issues with anxiety/depression, and they still did this. They just don't fucking care.

This ^^ exactly

They did say that Misha wasn't in the finale, and they had Misha say it, but it's no wonder nobody believed them since Misha didn't really get a proper goodbye and things still felt so unfinished between Dean and Cas. Naturally we thought "oh suuure 'he's not coming back' yeah I got it"

And I'm sure they knew that. They still used Misha to promote the show, the PR tweet telling him goodbye was a week after his last episode (barring the takeout call from Lucifer)... I just feel like it was intentional on their part, that they said "he's not coming back" but didn't make it feel like an ending so that way people would watch, in hopes of getting reciprocated Destiel.

Gee why wouldn't we believe that someone died on a show where no one ever dies especially Cas

Saving people, being super inconsiderate, the family business.

It’s been 7-years fam

To Hell + Back’s Community Book Program (CBP)

Hi all!

So, we mentioned yesterday that we’ve started a Community Book Program in light of both the current financial instability folks are experiencing due to COVID-19, and some incredibly generous and thoughtful members of our fandom who approached us asking how they might be able to purchase additional copies of To Hell + Back through our fundraising campaign, and then have us gift them to fellow fans who are experiencing financial hardship.

Essentially, the Community Book Program has been set up kind of like a collective giveaway, where people to buy Community Books to gift to other cash-strapped fans (that they may not necessarily know personally).

If you’d like do donate a book to the fund, click here to learn more.

If you’d like to enter the draw for a book, please reblog this post and enter the Community Book draw:

Please enter before Wednesday May 6th 2020! **Limit of one entry per person: multiple entries will be deleted! 

We will randomly draw names and announce winners on Saturday May 9th, 2020. The number of names selected from each of the 3 draws will be based on the number of Community Books that have been purchased for each of the 3 shipping destinations by the May 6th deadline. If you are the lucky winner of a Community book, we will contact you via email to obtain your shipping information…yay!

If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to shoot us an ask!

Campaign | Wiki | Instagram | Twitter

Coming into a fandom late

Coming into a fandom early and watching it become an angry clusterfuck

Being in a dormant fandom that suddenly comes alive again after a new book/movie

Don’t forget about those who come in the midst of a fandom war. 

Accuracy at its best

Being in a fandom and not even knowing there’s a war going on…

all of this shit…lol

When You’re Not In The Fandom But You’re Nosy AF

When you get into a fandom only to discover it’s dead

This gets better every time I see it. 

@fuboos-mess

Being in a dead fandom…

Or being in such a tiny fandom that it feels like youre the only one

The accuracy hurts.

Being in a fandom that had a shit ending.

When you’ve been fangirling long enough, you’ve experienced all of the above.

Being in a fandom meant for kids.

This just gets better..

@mi-kleos

When you realize that joining the fandom has ruined you

Fandom hell in general

Yes.

This^^^ just… ALL OF THIS.

Being in so many fandoms that you don’t even know what’s going on

THIS IS THE SKULDUGGERY FUCKING PLEASANT FANDOM IN ONE POST!!

Trying to recruit people to your fandom

Annnnnnndddd it’s back

Being in a fandom which has so many antis

I’ve probably reblogged this before, but that was before these great additions.

Being in a fandom that actually works together

Why is this so true? All of it.

being in a fanbase but all your mutuals suddenly turn into Kpop blogs

I always enjoy it when a good post comes around again and has been improved by the reblogs like the years for a fine wine.

Being in a fandom when shit goes down and everyone has different opinions

When you are in a fandom and don’t care for others people opinion…..even if they are right…(believe me, I have met several of those)

Being in a fandom you never meant to join

I love this. and it’s gotten better

After abandoning a fandom you’re still a little bit emotionally invested in….

All of these are me. Lol

Being in a fandom on Tumblr

And it reached its epic conclusion

Cannot resist this at this point

Oh gosh! This is a really good shit!! I feel 100% identified with all this!!!

R. I. Fucking. P.

shit, guys, you can practice a religion and not love everything about it.

Finally a version of this post I can reblog. No religion in this world can or should function like that, either.

Excerpted from: Ivan Askwith, Britta Lundin, Aja Romano, “Industry/fan relations: A Conversation” in Melissa A. Click and Suzanne Scott (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom (New York, Routledge, 2018), 369-370.

Aja Romano: I spend a lot of time arguing that there hasn’t been an escalation in fan entitlement, but rather creators and industry people can see it more often and get freaked out about it more. I use “entitlement” here snarkily to mean “fans doing natural things like critiquing the text and wanting things.” I think there’s definitely a growing trend of people using social justice language and the modes of grassroots political crusading in order to see their desires for a canon implemented (Romano, 2016). In other words, I think the modes by which fan desire is expressed have evolved and coalesced into something that feels more like groupthink.

Britta Lundin: I think it’s great that fans can talk back. As a fan, you’re not just sending your opinions into a void, now you can actually feel like little-old-you might actually be heard by the big folks in the media tower. Sometimes those feelings are toxic, sure, and sometimes they’re completely warranted. I don’t think we can paint them all with the same brush. Sometimes the people really do need to hold the creators accountable.

Ivan Askwith: Totally agree. If you want to explore a specific example, let’s look at Veronica Mars: Fans always had strong feelings about that the Veronica-Logan-Piz love triangle. “LoVe” (Logan/Veronica) was a very rapid OTP (one true pairing) candidate. But back when the series was running [in 2006], Twitter hadn’t emerged, so people could have their opinions, and discuss them, without feeling indignant that the showrunners weren’t obeying their preferences. (Which, to be fair, is an essential freedom to tell good stories.) Point being: Fans knew that they shared some strong opinions, but there wasn’t a clear, open channel that made the fans aware of the extent to which the showrunners were aware of those opinions. 

Now, jump forward to the movie [in 2013]: Because Kristen Bell had gotten more famous, and because the Kickstarter was a big deal, we had to contend with a challenge on the film set that the series never faced: paparazzi. And one of the things the paparazzi caught early in production was a photo of Veronica and Piz holding hands and walking down the street. We were trying not to get any LoVe related details out, but that one escaped. Now, you’ve both seen the movie, so you know how it worked out: Veronica started out in a relationship the fans didn’t like so that she could end up where they wanted her.

Narratively, that ends up being a satisfying and cathartic experience. But taken out of context in paparazzi photos, a lot of fans got FURIOUS. We got a few dozen emails the day those photos were published, saying, “If this is what you’re doing, I want my money back! This is NOT the movie I wanted to help you make!” And [showrunner] Rob Thomas and I had to discuss how to manage expectations. Ultimately, we asked the fans to at least wait and see the movie before passing judgement on it.

Aja Romano: I feel like we see this happen over and over again in serial narratives like this, this divide between fans going “we need to let the show take its course” and fans who take one plot development early on as a sign that the show has failed them. I always like to think that most fans accept that they need to wait and see, but it feels like it’s gotten a lot harder to ask that of them in the current climate!

Ivan Askwith: True! But it could also be that most fans actually do accept that, but the contingent that doesn’t can look like it speaks for the “silent” (and patient) majority. And then, when only the more active and upset fans are speaking, the overall conversation can feel stressful and hostile to writers and creators. My point, I guess, is that fans have always wanted certain things. I think entitlement begins when they start to believe that they deserve them, and have a natural right to dictate how stories should be told. So, take Devin’s article: I think it’s a huge mistake to tar the desire for diversity of sexual orientation (e.g. for Elsa, or Captain America) with the same brush as demanding a specific romantic pairing.

Britta Lundin: I feel like in these scenarios, many fans understand that they need to wait, but there’s always going to be those that don’t. You guys had, what, 100k people donate to the Veronica Mars Kickstarter? A dozen emails doesn’t seem like an uprising, to be honest. I think what we’re grappling with, is that a noisy minority can seem like the majority – to both other fans, and creators.

References

Ivan Askwith is the former head of the Digital Media division of Lucasfilm, and has planned and run the most successful fan-centric crowdfunding campaigns of all time, including Veronica Mars (2013), Reading Rainbow (2014), and Mystery Science Theater 3000 (2015). Britta Lundin is currently a writer on the CW series Riverdale (which, it should be noted, had not begun airing when this conversation was held), and author of Ship It, a young adult (YA) novel focused on fan culture scheduled for publication in 2018. Aja Romano has written extensively on fan and geek culture for The Daily Dot, and is currently a web culture reporter for Vox.com.

Oh, FFS

If you think people are JUST NOW talking about the possibility that someone above Andrew Dabb’s pay grade might say/have said that canon Destiel is not going to happen, you have not been paying attention.

Meta writers have been saying this SINCE SEASON 8.

Important to remember, I think. 

Not only because the discussion has been ongoing for such a long time that it should be considered part of the fandom fabric, but also important to remember when considering whether canon Destiel is viable, and whether canon Destiel is necessary for the overall enjoyment of the final season. Yeah?

Now, I happen to believe that they will fight tooth and nail to finish strong and finish strong means tying up the entire narrative, wrapping it in a bright red bow and pretty much making history. That’s what I want to and so choose to believe. Until proven otherwise. #daretoliveuptoyourselfproclaimeddefianceCW

:)

Want to Talk About Fandom Discourse?

Hello! My name is Adrienne Raw. I am a long-time fanfic reader and writer and currently a PhD student at the University of Michigan doing my dissertation on fandom.

In fandom, we spend time talking to each other about fandom — whether it’s memes of fanfic tropes, debates about fandom etiquette, appreciation posts about what fandom has meant to us, or critiques about the parts of fandom or fannish behaviour we don’t like. And I want to know what these conversations mean to us as fans and to our fan communities. I’m writing my dissertation about the role of fandom discourse/meta/wank and other conversation about our fandom spaces. I hope to understand how talking/reading about fandom shapes how we see it.

If you participate in online fandom in any way, I’d love to hear your thoughts about fandom discourse in my survey.

Take the survey here: https://umich.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7ZGu6xS4TRdwSEZ

I’m looking for all kinds of people who participate in fandom, from fanfic readers/writers to Tumblr commenters to lurkers!

This project was deemed exempt by the University of Michigan’s Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board (IRB-HSBS). Anyone 18 and older can participate. You may stop participating in the survey at any time.

The survey will ask you about your experiences with fandom discourse and what you think it does in fandom and for you. You will be asked basic demographic questions at the beginning of the survey.

Also, you’ll be asked if you are interested in participating in a follow-up, paid interview study.

If you have any questions about my research, send me an ask or email me, Adrienne Raw, at [email protected].

Thank you for your participation and please reblog and share the link!

Episode #27 - Canon Enough

We’re shipping it with author and TV writer Britta Lundin - this episode features a deep dive into Britta’s incredible novel ‘Ship It’ and a very special chat with the author herself. In our interview segment, Britta discusses her own fandom history and her unique perspective behind the scenes on pretty much all sides of the fandom/creator divide - as a voracious shipper with plenty of queer readings of assumed straight characters, and as a TV writer who works on a CW show and is privy to many of the practicalities, restrictions and realities of television production.

Then, in our panel discussion, we bring together three hosts with different levels of fandom immersion - a prominent fanfiction writer, a deeply invested consumer of transformative fanworks, and an obsessive curator and analyst of canon information. Together, we hype and gripe over the ‘Ship It’ experience and all the ways it related to our individual fandom behavior.

#ANA - Ask NATW Anything: "What two characters from different shows/movies/books do you ship?“

Follow us on EVERYTHING: Twitter // Facebook // Instagram // Tumblr // iTunes // Stitcher

Visit natwpodcast.com or email [email protected] for more information about our shows. Feel free to leave us your questions or comments through any of these mediums!

This episode’s hosts are: Brittany Lovely, Natalie Fisher and Cassandra Hutton.

Our special guest is: Britta Lundin.

Resources/Recommendations:

Britta Lundin’s Tumblr

Riverdale on Netflix

The Bold Type on Freeform

House Love Debate: Cameron, Cuddy or Wilson?

Natalie’s 'Ship It’ Review

Brittany’s Vacation Tenzin fanfiction

Cass on Archive of Our Own

The Dean/Cas Pinefest

Tom and Lorenzo’s Mad Style

Mandy Moore and Darren Criss - Variety Actors on Actors

'Ship It’ on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, Book Depository and Goodreads

'Carry On’ on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, Book Depository and Goodreads

'Fangirl’ on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, Book Depository and Goodreads

'How To Repair A Mechanical Heart’ on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, Book Depository and Goodreads

'Stranger Than Fanfiction’ on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound, Book Depository and Goodreads

Produced by N Fisher and L Bunch

Direct Download

success.gif finally made @thevioletcaptain podcast with me and as suspected, she is brill.

of course, it helps when you have something as genius as @brittalundin‘s hot fandom takes to inspire your discussion.

i love everyone in this bar.

I mean I SAY I love the ‘Enemies to Lovers’ trope but what I really MEAN is that I love the

‘Enemies to Resentful Allies In A Time Of Crisis to Grudging Mutual Respect to Growing Fondness Concealed By Snark to Hurtful Betrayal to Slow Reconciliation With A Greater Understanding Of Each Other to Strange But Solid Friendship to Unexpected Feelings In A Time Of Crisis to Denying Their Feelings While Growing Closer As Friends to Epiphanies Of Love In The Worst Possible Circumstances to Mutual Pining to Unbearable Sexual Tension to Lovers’

trope

Tumblr’s Supernatural fandom and the rhetorical affordance of GIFs

Abstract – The rhetoricity of GIFs on Tumblr is analyzed by using the Supernatural (2005 – ) fan community as a case study. Tumblr’s platform design, which encourages visual communication and content sharing, allows users to assert their identities as fans and their memberships to fan communities through the production and curation of visual content. Supernatural fans on Tumblr make affordances of GIFs from the show and its extratextual materials, putting them to various rhetorical uses, including emotional expression, transformative storytelling, inside jokes, and argumentation. Tumblr’s platform, which facilitates the spread of content through its reblogging function, allows GIFs to be shared among various interpretative communities for whom the images contain different connotations and meanings. Because of their decontextualization, recontextualization, and intertextuality, GIFs offer a complex and rhetorically layered mode of communication on Tumblr.

Hautsch, Jessica. 2018. “The Rhetorical Affordance of GIFs by Tumblr’s Supernatural Fandom.” In “Tumblr and Fandom,” edited by Lori Morimoto and Louisa Ellen Stein, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 27. http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2018.1165.

tl;dr

Things I Wish I Knew Earlier In Fandom

But maybe these will help somebody now.

Archive your fandom stuff

As we sit on the cusp of changes to the Internet, after your other activities to support Internet freedom, archive your fandom stuff.

Save the electronic files of your favorite online fandom works. Consider print-outs of your favorite online material. And save paper ephemera from fandom events.

Why save? Because you put the effort into a fanwork. Because you may be surprised when a fandom stays alive for years, or gets revived, or when an academic asks to cite your work. Because it’s stupidly hard to find items on Tumblr. Because, lo, in ages past, many fandom archives have risen and fallen, taking favorite fics off the ‘Net. Because it made you happy, makes you remember. Because you never know.

What can you save?

Behind the cut…saving from Tumblr and AO3, delving into lost web sites, how to save computer files for the long term, and why I’m glad I saved physical fandom items from 10+ years ago.

Keep reading

So I am going to add onto this because there is, in fact, a professional archival interest in preserving fandom as well.  I’ve spoken with some people about this before, but here’s the bottom line: PROFESSIONAL ARCHIVISTS WANT TO PRESERVE YOUR STUFF!  HELP THEM DO THIS!

There are pre-existing fandom archives.  Where are they?

These are the big institutions doing collecting, but the archival profession and fandom need to start talking more.  Born digital material is always at risk, and at present, it is mostly Western fandoms being preserved!   Moreover, some facets like cosplay are currently overlooked, and that is something that needs better documentation!

If you’re interested in archiving of fannish material, especially in relation to the OTW and it’s Open Doors project, I highly recommend reading this transcript from 2016.

The transcript is from a chat between Peter Balestrieri (mentioned above, curator for the Science Fiction and Popular Culture Collections at U of I), Jeremy Brett (curator of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection at TAMU), and Nancy Down (head of the Browne Popular Culture Library at Bowling Green). It’s a really interesting read and they give a lot of information (and links!) about their archival work, how fans can get involved, pop culture and fannish history, and more.

To quote Jeremy Brett:

Archive all the things!

That’s a hell of a coincidence of a name. And good advice.

I know, right?! When I was doing history stuff and ran across him, I laughed so hard. My grad school librarian is named Robert Vaughn, which amuses me almost as much. He has thus far resisted my efforts to make him buy all of MFU for the library.

I don’t usually share this kind of thing, and I will delete it later. But this June 20th the EU want to pass Article 13 that will destroy fair use on the internet and will effect non-EU residents too. Goodbye to making money from fan art and livestreaming games and parody videos. No can do. Visit saveyourinternet.eu to very simply send a pre-written email to you MEPs. Please spread awareness as there’s not much time.

All you people who were afraid of Net Neutrality should be terrified of this.

C’mon, guys.

To all my fellow Europeans, please, get involved. Make your MEPs aware of your objections to this article. Spread the word to everyone you know and make them understand that this is something that might happen and that will affect them. 

I’d like to add that many people are saying that the Art. 13 is about fighting fake news, Russian bots, Nazis and whatsoever. 

It’s not about that, and that’s not the issue people have with the text.

The article is part of a COPYRIGHT DIRECTIVE the European Parliament has been trying to push since 2016. 

You can find there original text HERE, but it’s been going through many re-drafts. HERE you can find all the original EU texts, including the latest versions that are being discussed. 

As @transformativeworks posted HERE, it’s really difficult to foresee what this directive could mean for transformative works. Article 13 makes online content sharing service providers (like Tumblr) responsible for all the content users upload. It could easily force them to use preventive filtering programs to scan through uploaded content and block/take down content that (they find) infringes upon copyright and license agreements, since it calls for “appropriate and proportionate measures” from said providers, including “implementing effective technologies”. (from version 8 of the proposal draft you can find HERE).

It’s vague, isn’t it? You know what’s also vague in the EU? Fair use. Remember that the EU doesn’t have a formal doctrine on fair use. 

Send your representatives an email, tweet, or phone call before June 20 and EXPRESS YOUR CONCERN. If you still have doubts, ask for clarifications, ask them about our worries, they owe us!

As the Organization for Transformative Works suggested, contanct your MEPs, and let them know that:

Without safe harbors for user-generated content, Article 13 of the Copyright Directive would stifle free expression on the Internet. We don’t want mandatory filtering. Algorithms don’t understand limitations and exceptions to copyright like parody, public interest exceptions, fair use, or fair dealing, and we don’t want our non-infringing videos, website posts and art blocked because of a biased algorithm created by big corporations. We want the law to protect user-generated works, not harm them.

Some links:

saveyourinternet.eu 

https://changecopyright.org

Statement from 169 European Academics warning against the directive

I have no idea who said that, but it’s awesome.