Dear Wildbow

Your pedantic, needlessly-rambling, and pseudo-intellectual response to what was maybe the gentlest response does not do you credit, Wildbow.

So, first off: ask yourself how many times in this story you say "But I think..." in this essay of a reddit comment. Each and every time, ask yourself if you're stating an opinion, moral stance, or matter of fact. If it's the first, then it's outside the realm of this argument ("I personally feel all writing is critical). Your attempts to describe your viewpoint don't actually touch the meat of the issue with regards to how you interact with your fandom, though they do explain why you forced out Sheep.

Second, this whole author-audience-text triangle thing you're trying to press? This is as relevant to critical analysis as the Golden Ratio to artistic critique. This "rhetorical triangle" (most frequently used to structure 5 paragraph essays) seems to have been blown so completely out of proportion that you have completely lost sight of the past fifty years of development in understanding media.

Step one: what words mean is not determined by you. I can use slurs in public, say “It’s just a prank bro!” (and even mean it!) and still hurt people. In the same way, you writing Taylor eyeing up every vaguely-attractive woman she meets and going “oh muscles” means something specific, even if you think it means something else.

Step two: Critical analysis is not discovering what saucy themes the author hid. You may have tried to present a specific idea with your work, but if no one picks up on it or cares about it maybe you used the wrong words. If you didn’t intend for some combination of terms to exist but everyone else reads the work that way, then the work is right and you are wrong (see: Fahrenheit 451, American Psycho, Joker). This is a tough pill to swallow, but if you write Nazis being Cool and Numerous and Respectable When They Die In Battle Or Defy The Criminals, then maybe when your fandom gets a Nazi population it’s because you used the wrong words and they were (correctly) critically analyzing your piece.

So what the fuck does all this have to do with fanfic?

Fanfic can be read as a form of critique. It can also be premium mpregnancy. It can be an unlimited number of things, up to and including original fiction (like, say, Romeo and Juliet, or Paradise Lost, or half of Neil Gaiman’s works, or ninety percent of Disney’s). You are applying a prescriptive lens to what you want fanfic to be, what you want fandom to be, and perhaps the reason you’re so confused, disappointed, and angry enough to banish lonsheep from the fandom for making one of the highest effort memes ever is because you don’t quite get that at some point fans engaging with the work isn’t about you or what you want Worm to be.

It’s about the words on the page and how people read them.

Wildbow, if you skimmed the above, are angry, or just dgaf about what some random English major is telling you about how media and fandom interact, just take a break from interacting with fans. Don’t reply to comments, don’t offer WoG’s, nothing. Just write with a blind eye turned to the trashfire which is your audience (yes, it’s still trash, you know this) and try to make a good story. I promise it will be easier when you stop thinking about what your audience’s reactions will be.