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Legitimizing Fight as Fandom

I can’t tell if fandom has gotten worse in terms of constant discourse fights, or if I’m falling victim to the bias of reflection. I’m fully aware that fandom has always been a shit show of abuse and harassment, and that there was never a time that everybody held hands and sang songs about peace, but I’m not sure if it was always like this.

By “this” I mean constant discourse, for lack of a better word, although that deserves a few caveats. I don’t mean critical analysis of the text or calling out racist actions of fans or anything of the sort. Discussing racism and other topics is essential and are something that can only improve fandom. What I’m thinking of is more like… bullshit, I suppose. Bullshit though that often masks itself as the former.

Ed, Trauma, and Coping

I wanted to examine the way Ed’s character is broken into several archetypes throughout the series and what these roles tell us about him. This will be talked about from a trauma-informed perspective, but I am not a psychologist so take anything I say with a grain of salt.

Throughout the show, we see Ed represented through several versions of himself, all of which have different names: Edward, Blackbeard, and The Kraken. All these identities are a part of who he is, they’re not performances or something he’s forced into doing by others, but serve a purpose to Ed of ensuring his survival. This unconscious splitting of self is a result of sustaining substantial trauma at a young age and acts as a coping mechanism that he carries well into adulthood.

Piracy Isn’t Toxic Masculinity in OFMD

From what I can tell, the idea of piracy being a metaphor for toxic masculinity in Our Flag Means Death seems to be a prevalent opinion from critics and fandom. I strongly disagree with this interpretation and would argue that this as a takeaway relies on classist and racist biases.

OFMD Fandom is so Bad at Race

Overall, I find the way OFMD fandom interacts with race, especially in regards to Edward, to be extremely disappointing. I’m saying this from the perspective of someone who is Black, but also as an outsider to Māori culture. I wish people would put in a greater effort to do research before commenting on how they assume race and racism interacts with Ed. I also don’t feel anywhere close to an expert because again, I am not Māori or Polynesian, which is why I prefer to just keep my mouth shut and continue learning about things so I don’t write anything stupid in my fanfictions. So, take anything I say with a grain of salt where I’m continuing to try and educate myself as time goes on and encourage others to do the same.

High School Writing Contests

Continuing on with the theme of me finding things I’ve written as a teen: I got my girlfriend to pull out a copy of the short story I submitted in high school for a creative writing project.

This is some time in my junior year when I was 17 and I did not win which I was very salty about as a kid even though I was also like “…I mean what was I expecting tho lol” because for some reason I decided to submit batshit gay romance.

I feel like I find this more embarrassing than other old writing just because I’m like “damn… I sure did submit this to an actual contest” like omfg the boldness.

Old writing part two

(This is a short story I submitted to a writing contest when I was 17 that I was able to find!! I thought it was neat to look at again, so scanned and uploaded it. I talk more about it here.)

How I Do Research

Intro

This is vague and is not meant to be viewed as a guide on researching or to present myself as an expert in shit at all. I’m just documenting my general process for learning about new things and what I look for. This is me laying the groundwork for understanding a topic not me becoming an expert.

Confrontational blogging

Thinking about fandom and the way I’ve been actually trying to be as nonconfrontational as possible on my separate social media profiles. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences in fandom rather consistently since I joined. I think it is partially my own fault since I am, in fact, a cunt. HOWEVER, I also think it’s very disproportionate from what the average other fandom members experience.

Here are the three areas I’ve isolated for fandom controversy directed towards me:

Writing as a Teen

I’m literally obsessed with the recent Twitter discourse on fandom. All fandom discourse, as a rule, can be narrowed down to three distinct types:

RP drama
A creator ran a scam
Adults and children beefing again

Guess which one this is.

Looking at old writing

(This is in relation to this post)

Look up to the sky. Clouds swirling. Gray invading. The illusion of frost creeps upon the edges of the sun.

Look up to the sky. Birds migrating. Horizon stretching. Spread your fingers and reach.

Look up to the sky. A balloon lost and floating. God is watching. Your hand is poised like a gun.

Bang.

You won’t die.

Look up to the sky. Look up to the sky. Look up to the sky.