Online Fandom Pet Peeves

I have been online in "fandom spaces" for about 13 years now. I started writing fanfiction for Avatar the Last Airbender when I was in 7th or 8th grade, and I wrote for iCarly when I was a freshman in high school. Obviously, it was all terrible, but my experience of the "fandom" was quite good! The people who engaged with my fiction were supportive and friendly and overall, creativity was encouraged by all, no matter what your fanfiction or fanart was like.

Not to sound like an old stodgy conservative, but today's fandom spaces are way too sensitive and have kind of sullied the fandom experience. Tumblr, for example, has always been liberal and SJW-ish. But things have swung in such a strange direction. Now, in an effort to be inclusive and inoffensive to minorities/women/those who experience trauma, people online police fanworks and are super obsessed with "purity." It's tough, because as a Christian, I don't necessarily think it's great for "toxic" or "problematic" material to be pumped out into our shared digital space. However, if someone wants to explore darker themes in their work, I think it should be their right to do so. Back in the day, we used to say "don't like, don't read." But it seems people cannot accept that policy anymore and instead feel the need to call out anyone and everyone they disagree with. It's tiring.

In light of this hyper-policed fandom space state, people seem to get offended on the behalf of fictional characters. So, for instance, the character Saiki Kusuo from The Disastrous Life of Saiki K, is often depicted in the source material as being asexual or aromantic. This reading of the character is based on things that the character says about finding romance disinteresting and naked bodies boring. Because of this, certain people become upset when they see fanworks featuring this character in romantic/sexual relationships. However, this character is known to be an unreliable narrator. He also shows signs of having a sort of man-crush on a guy from another class, as well as jealousy over one of his other romantic interests' potential dates. All that to say, there is plenty of canon "evidence" to write his character as asexual, gay, or straight. Or any combo of those identities. But even if canon contained no hints, fans of the source material have the right to portray the character however they want. He's not a real person. It's not like he would care. If you don't like the way another person wrote or drew your favorite character, just write your own fanfic or draw your own fanart.

Fictional characters don't have feelings. You can portray them however you want. But another pet peeve of mine is when people go way too "out of character" with how they depict characters. What often happens is that the fandom will distill a character down to their most identifiable traits and then build their portrayal on that. For example, a character from Haikyuu!! named Sugawara has some sort of motherly tendencies. So the fandom often portrays him as being sort of soft and feminine. But, in canon, he is also very aggressive, assertive, calculating, and determined. If the fandom wants to portray him that way, it's fine, since, as I said, it's the fans' right. But it is annoying. So much so that if I find a fanfic that presents him in that super wimpy way, I click away.

A lot of the most out of character fanfiction/fanart moments, I believe, come from the current fandom obsession with identifying "dominant" and "submissive" characters. It's a shipping dynamic that I think is terribly over-played and spills into fiction that isn't even about romantic/sexual relationships. But a lot of people don't seem to realize that, even in romantic relationships, people don't usually adhere strictly to "dominant" or "submissive" roles. I just hate seeing characters who go through great emotional character development, who through the course of canon learn to be more self-confident, get written as stuttering and shy because of this totally over-done trope. Again, it's totally the authors' prerogative to write the characters however they want, but these types of stories are the type that I close out of in a heart beat.

I'm sure I have tons of other fandom pet peeves, but these are the ones that have been bothering me recently. The great thing about fanart/fanfiction is that it really isn't that serious and it's free. So if I don't like it, I haven't lost anything by viewing it. At the end of the day, people can do whatever they want and if you dislike it, you can just close the tab and move on!