What if you’re ALL wrong? | Malfoid
The Malfoid thing is all over our corner of the internet right now, and I am not here to argue about whether fan fiction is good or bad. That is a false dichotomy. The actual problem sits underneath it.
My issue is with how this one is being framed. The idea that the right is losing ground because people are drawing a genderbent Draco Malfoy is backwards. If anything, the fact that this is the conversation happening right now is the proof of the thing I keep pointing at. You are once again carrying a cultural narrative for an IP you do not control. Nobody in this argument is in a board room on Harry Potter. Nobody in this argument has a seat at the table on any of the properties we go back and forth about every single day.
That is what the lack of participation looks like. There is no sustained investment in a real alternative, so the only thing left to do is argue about properties somebody else owns.
I used to do it too, so I am not talking down from anywhere. I had to realize that if I want people to care about the characters I actually own, I cannot spend most of my time narrating somebody else’s catalog. A lot of creators feel like engaging with legacy IP is the only way to get any attention at all, and that is a real pressure rather than a character flaw. It still ends up in the same place.
Talking about nerd culture is not a distraction and I am not telling anybody to quit. The error is doing it without purpose and without intention.
So no, this has nothing to do with fan fiction. It has to do with not treating your own work like it carries authority, and with the fact that almost everything people do engage with is either made out East or made here by folks who are not fond of them.
Y’all make this way too complicated.