Eighth Post!

[hoisinsauce]

It's one thing if mankind is hunted to extinction by ChatGPT, but I really do object to being executed by Bing.

(https://secretfanspace.dreamwidth.org/2511.html?thread=3169743#cmt3169743 )

Welcome back! Fandom chat, misc creativity, internet weirdness, books, films, anything! Tell meme about it so we can get to the next post title!

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Comments

Re: Fandom Things

[(Anonymous)]

All of the female fanartists I looked up to and adored as a younger fangirl are now trans-identified. I just ran across another one today that I didn’t know transitioned. Top surgery, name change, testosterone, the works. It makes me feel like there’s something deeply wrong with me, that I can’t accept this constant stream of women “becoming their true selves,” i.e. getting double mastectomies and injecting hormones. I love art and fannish culture and being a tomboy. Or at least I used to. I feel so deeply alone.

I used to be a TRA, and at least then I felt like I was fighting the good fight. But I’ve been disillusioned. And ever since I peaked, it’s like I’m walking on eggshells. Thinking I can find genuine connection with people who would immediately throw me off a cliff if they knew I didn’t believe in gender ideology anymore.

Anyway, I’ve given myself a stomachache now, and idk if I’m making any sense. Sorry.

I should just stick to reading fanfic, I guess, and ignore the fanart sphere entirely. The fanart communities I used to spend so much time in just feel so foreign to me now. I used to be one of them, a fangirl in a community of other fangirls. and now I’m a freak.

Re: Fandom Things

[(Anonymous)]

I feel you, nona. It sucks in part because it's almost impossible to ignore, especially on social media. I've basically stopped checking Twitter these days because the people I follow simply can't stop posting about how great it is to be trans (while being miserable on their private account) or going on completely unsolicited rants about how much they hate JKR and how Harry Potter is the worst book ever published, actually. For people 'becoming their true selves,' they seem awfully focused on getting validation from the internet.

Well, at least you've got us. We might be several spidermites in a trenchcoat, but according to TRA definitions at least, that still qualifies as a woman.

Re: Fandom Things

[(Anonymous)]

It's hard; I think we need to make new fandom hubs with sane culture, but difficulties:

* almost nobody wants to be unanon

* A non-openly-gc community will be assumed to be gendery, so leaning has to be relatively visible or it'll get swamped

* An openly gc community makes itself a target, and runs the risk of becoming a mirror of the genderstuff, by talking about only that. Users usually won't leave their old haunts for new; they'll use new just as a place to vent about things they can't discuss in old. This leads to a ranty gender-ruminating atmosphere.

* People don't want to feel judged when making art; a space having any political leaning creates tension with that

Currently, I think the only way to get around this is for the culture in the new space to be so good and refreshing (and only findable there) that it's worth it to make a detour. That needs some effort to put together, and maybe relies on having a critical mass of people to start. But if it goes well, expanding looks less appealing, because then you don't want to damage the culture you have!

I think the only way to initially find people is to be open about your views and see who sticks around. I tried getting a forum off the ground; it died quickly. I don't know what to try next (or how to tweak it to try again!).

Re: Fandom Things

[(Anonymous)]

I feel you, nona :(

Same here, but with fic authors instead. One even wrote a really nice 'always-a-girl' fic with crossdressing, so you'd have thought she would have known better. But no.

I've been abused by women to the point of being fearful around them (Yes, I am female). Online fandom was one of the few spaces where I could just be my nerdy tomboyish self and hang out with other women who liked the same things I did, who sometimes also shared experiences of not fitting in with other women, whom I could get to know in a 'safe' environment of text-to-text before we met up irl.

Now, I don't really have a way to meet female friends anymore. Most of my close friends are male, so it feels like something has been lost.

Re: Fandom Things

[(Anonymous)]

I feel you. You're not a freak, you're just comfortable enough in yourself to be yourself without running away from your sexed body. I'm reidentified, and I've realized my sex is just my sex, nothing special about it, and no different from any other material fact encoded in my DNA. It's really hard to see so many women I know run in the opposite direction and try to "live their truth" by embracing a lie. Stomachache, heartache, headache: it all aches.

I miss fangirls, I really do. Just reading fanfic won't help that much. I've lost track of how many of my old friends are now caught up in this, and the ones who aren't are such rabid TRAs that I feel uncomfortable when I think too hard about it. (Sometimes, I get a little "you have no idea...mwahahahahaha!" when they post things about the Evil TERFs, but mostly, I just get sad and wish they'd make peace with their sex and get over it like I did.)

Re: Fandom Things

[(Anonymous)]

DD

Basically this.

IDK about missing fangirls. I missed a lot of the time I had with fellow fans, but there were enough crazies by then that I kind of feel I dodged a bullet by being out of it. But yeah most of my former friends are all transitioned in some way.