Okay, folks. Today is a dual-purpose blog post, and although it might look too long for the TL;DR crowd, I promise you the paragraphs are short. But I’ve been fuming all week, because I’m part of a “fandom” from which ‘verse one of my two current primary fronters originates from... and I finally decided fuck it: recent events have made me decide to both “come out” more bluntly about that fact — this person is from the SW universe(I’m a “fictionkin”, if the blog title hasn’t made that clear, have been for almost thirty years; although I HATE the word/the “kin” association) — and the fandom has become overrun with shitty, toxic people. I have a few choice words to say to them, as well as on a subject that’s been bothering me. So here are both as one, and I’ll kick it off with this: every week or so, I have at least one full-blown panic attack over the contents of Episode IX. (Stick with me and read to the end. It’s relevant.) I’ve talked before about the difference between
Right now, my Twitter timeline is full of outraged reactions to Avengers: Infinity War : without giving away spoilers here, a lot of these reactions are deeply personal hurts to a lot of people. I’ve seen innumerable posts to the effect of “If X happens in (Y franchise), I’m DONE. That’s it. Game over. I won’t accept it. They can’t do (X thing)... can they?” And for once, my wife and I share their anxiety. Not because we’re outraged fans, though, and not because we feel like we have any right to anyone else’s creative direction; which some people might think is odd considering our daily lives. (We may be us, certainly. But we’re still not in charge of other people’s interpretations, for better or worse.) No, we share their anxiety because in some of our people’s lives, some major, life-breaking, irreversible events have occurred... but in their “canon” timelines, these things have not happened yet. And they may happen, may not happen... or may be shut down hard because