Ugh, When you Love the Thing and Can't Stand the Fandom

In all fairness, this only happens about 50% of the time in my experience and there are always red flags for me when most of a group is female. I try to be direct, end up offending someone sensitive, they turn passive aggressive and then to 'subtle' insults. Not that subtle or clever though.

Fanfiction.  I love doing it for fun.  It was never meant to be serious. I gave it a go with a group.  My joking around was always well-received, but let's be clear.  Many of these groups say they aren't but they are hug boxes.  Big ole ego-filled hug boxes.  You start to get a feel for that dynamic from the first when the same three or four look-at-me types post asking for discussion but not opinions, look at what I can do self-inflating posts on hits (when you can easily score 10 hits off of one person with a poorly loading tablet), and no actual pushback. The only thing I can honestly say didn't irritate was people posting their links.  Totally expected.  What I hadn't expected was the same phenomenon I faced in college where some people want to hang with creatives, but pretty much ask people to walk them through damn near every scene they write.  You can say it's optional, but the frequency of these posts dictates otherwise.

I turn to fandoms to avoid the drama and politics of the real world.  I turn to fandoms for intelligent discussion.  When I can't meet that criteria, I move on.  Sometimes I end up adding a few friends before I go, but sometimes I just wipe the slate.  I would never presume everyone in a group is all the same, but I have a demand on my time and that means quickly weighing the value of things to determine whether they actually help me grow or hinder me with irritation.

It's sad, but it has to be said too: I am posting this publicly, which means anyone can see it.  If you are 'stalking' me and take umbrage to my assessment, even though I've been kind enough to not name names or specifics, kindly fuck off. I normally attempt to be diplomatic, but I do not take kindly to internet harassment.  This blog is for recording experiences, favorable or not.  Doxxing, harassing, or negging, whatever tf you want to call it, is unacceptable. Go ahead and blog about what a horrible person you think I am on your outlets. This one is mine.

These fandom spazz-outs though; I've had this happen with anime.  It's happened with dolls.  Hell, even crochet groups can run into speed bumps with people taking offense.  I don't deal with it.  Life is way too short, too precious, to let random internet faces bring you down.  By all means, let them lift you up, but it's not a marriage and you can terminate things that are destructive to your personal goals.  It doesn't make them bad people, just bad for you.

Yeah, I've lost a lot of people I care about and it made me see that being the best me means I had to change a lot.  It means I've had to be stricter on some aspects, gentler on others.  It means recognizing people and actions that are toxic for me.  It means finding strength by understanding vulnerability. It also means not tolerating people who don't care whether I succeed or fail.  You shouldn't put up with it either.

Professionally, I have goals that require a lot of discipline.  Creative fields are subjective, volatile, terrifying.  The most commercially successful are both loved and hated.  Making friends is terrific, but I suspect I'll make plenty of enemies too. Art attracts obsession and mania.  This is part of the reason I briefly addressed some of the issues with fandoms-- when people feel strongly, clashes have more impact.  Often with fandoms, I find the best course is finding people who don't immediately balk at your approach. Find a handful of people who you don't rub the wrong way and build each other up. Don't linger and try to iron out kinks.  More often than not, it's just like petting a cat in the wrong direction. People decide pretty quickly whether they like you or not.  Don't waste your time-- there are plenty of people out there who are going to love your take on things...

On a work note, my goal is getting UnNamed up to speed by this weekend.  Got a campaign to start after. It's a lot of work, but daaaaamn, nothing gets me higher than the zone!