ladyyatexel replied to your post “A lot of people in the B5 fandom came over from the DS9 one (me…”
I am really glad I am not seeing any of this ‘ugly’ stuff, but I feel like I’m not seeing anything period. Though I hope you’re not seeing any of my ‘ugh i ship this’ as having an ugly problem. It’s a lifelong shame anxiety about enjoying things :C
The ugly stuff comes up every once in a while for me, like the one time I had someone send me an ask on my unflatteringcaps sideblog saying something along the lines of “finding a flattering cap of Londo would be a challenge”
Feeling like you’re not seeing anything is a problem I had, too. There are occasionally new Londo/G’Kar fics every couple of months or so, but the fandom is still pretty small. I’m pretty sure that during 2010-2013, a lot of the old prominent fic writers left for different fandoms/left fandoms altogether, which is where the “missed everything” feeling comes from. There does seem to actually be quite a few new people joining the fandom right now, though, so maybe we’ll be seeing some new stuff soon? Also, a lot of people aren’t writers, so even if they do ship it, they don’t contribute to the fic count. There are some more shippy ones listed under gen, though.
And no, the post wasn’t about you. It was more about someone else’s posts, and some stuff I’ve seen in general. I definitely understand that anxiety about enjoying things.
Oh, I saw that post when scrolling through the blog. Fuck that noise, I can’t stop smiling looking through that because he’s kind of adorable and infectious? I don’t understand this kind of ‘too ugly to enjoy’ mindset. I’ve seen some of it on dA too of people like, 'ugh, I don’t want to see people shipping that because Londo is not good looking’ and I’m just kind of 'Wow, fuck off? What a shitbag thing to say.’
That blog has actually been super useful for me to grab reference from, incidentally, because they’re all super candid images rather than posed for promotional stuff, so they’re more expressive.
Here I was worried there was some kind of freaky epidemic or something. I don’t typically track the tags of the things I love because I end up seeing hate and it sets off the shame and anxiety things, so I thought maybe this was all going down in the proper tags for all this nonsense and it was something I was missing for not having tag adventures.
Because then it was like, 'Okay, if there are enough people to whine about (and be wrong about) it, surely something is GOING ON SOMEWHERE? WHERE IS IT HAPPENING, SHOW ME THE THINGS.’
I’ve had several followers volunteer to follow me into this particular swamp of fandom misery after they all watched my liveblog into oblivion, so I may have a trail of other enthusiastic people coming in behind me soon~ But yeah, everything you’re saying is pretty much exactly what I’ve been seeing - all kind of in 2010-ish stuff happening anywhere and sort of blips here and there, but not a large constant stream of activity.
Anyway, that’s a relief that you didn’t think I was contributing in some sort of negative way, that would have been upsetting. My terror with liking things is a lifelong adventure, unfortunately, and these two don’t get to be an exception. I’ll get braver the more I do it, so I’m mostly doing some weird combo of forcing and indulging myself now, haha. Eventually it’ll be something that looks emphatically shippy but that generally requires more comfort with myself and just getting used to drawing the shapes of the people involved. Garak and Bashir was the same way, and I eventually got comfortable, but seeing some hate early on in my Shipping Adventures with them nearly made me shut down entirely and just stop doing anything, which I definitely don’t want to risk that happening again.