You know, it probably really was. Its a shame its gone out completely out of fashion because that seemed like it was helping people ease their toes into accepting and interacting with their headmates.
Im the headmate that was mentioned before re:Divorcing The Source, and yeah my source's fandom was relatively big (its died down since) and Intense Fandom is part of why I changed my name to be unlike my source name. People expect you to act like the canon character or be 1:1 canon compliant if they are familiar with fictives and in the fandom and. Well im really not. Having my source name be my public use name gave people the expectation that I would behave like the character or be some level of canon compliant to the newest material or *like* the most recent material and want to talk about it with them, even other fictives would assume that.
It really ought to be discussed more- the ways a source can be awkward or uncomfortable or harmful to interact with as a fictive and what solutions/coping mechanisms/etc are available for that. We suppose its probably something that makes a fictive feel less 'valid' in their existence- to not enjoy their source anymore, or to not be up-to-date on the content, and that discourages people from discussing that sort of thing. A 'what to do when your source is hurting you' essay is for sure going on our to-write list at this point. We have really seen one 'the source is giving me panic attacks what do I do?' post too many where we are the only people saying 'maybe stop watching your source and interacting with the fandom at large if you can' and that being some kind of revelation so its time for us to pull out the keyboards.
no subject
Im the headmate that was mentioned before re:Divorcing The Source, and yeah my source's fandom was relatively big (its died down since) and Intense Fandom is part of why I changed my name to be unlike my source name. People expect you to act like the canon character or be 1:1 canon compliant if they are familiar with fictives and in the fandom and. Well im really not. Having my source name be my public use name gave people the expectation that I would behave like the character or be some level of canon compliant to the newest material or *like* the most recent material and want to talk about it with them, even other fictives would assume that.
It really ought to be discussed more- the ways a source can be awkward or uncomfortable or harmful to interact with as a fictive and what solutions/coping mechanisms/etc are available for that. We suppose its probably something that makes a fictive feel less 'valid' in their existence- to not enjoy their source anymore, or to not be up-to-date on the content, and that discourages people from discussing that sort of thing.
A 'what to do when your source is hurting you' essay is for sure going on our to-write list at this point. We have really seen one 'the source is giving me panic attacks what do I do?' post too many where we are the only people saying 'maybe stop watching your source and interacting with the fandom at large if you can' and that being some kind of revelation so its time for us to pull out the keyboards.