the hold this fic had on the fandom was INSANE. i remember after it got taken down everyone was completely devastated. crying all over twitter. i said i had never read it and a stranger linked me a pdf lmao
I'm not a big fan of Voltron in general, but as a fellow writer I really feel bad for the author. It really shows how fandom toxicity can ruin someone's enjoyment for a piece of media.
I recently had a fandom friend completely retire from social media because someone was trying to doxx her over false accusations, it's really sad how this can happen
I want to post some of my fics as the actual stories or as audiobooks but I feel like I'm going to upset SOMEONE if I do because in a fic I'm working on completing (I'm failing), Optimus Prime from Transformers and Technoblade from the DreamSMP become friends during it and the climax is resolved with Techno having an interaction with Optimus. I feel I may cause the fandoms to go to war over who has the better character if I haven't already with something I did over on Instagram.
these fanfic/fandom history lessons (and drama that are happening today) kinda remind me of a greek epic. i forget the sad version of it. it’s like a warning, a sad tale, didn’t exactly have a good ending, and the people it is told to or should be told to, probably won’t learn from it.
I remember hearing about how dirty laundry was awful and stereotypical of latinos, and so as a latine I set out to read it to see if it was really that bad. By the end of the fic I had already left kudos and cried a little. Sure, it was slightly stereotypical, but it was accurate 💀
It might be bad on the stereotypes part, but can't deny how good it feels to the imagination. I'm not even sure if Dirty Laundry just had a bunch of clichés stitched together, or that the pacing in writing was good. I think it wasn't that revolutionary or something extremely new, but I can't deny it was a holy shit experience.
Sometimes stereotypes are based on racist rumors white people made up, other times stereotypes are based on the fact that for a huge group of a certain set of people something happens to be true. That doesn't mean every single one of those people fit into the stereotype, and it is racist to try to say they all do. But I personally feel it's equally as dismissive to those people it applies to to say it's racist for anyone to write a story with those stereotypes in play at all. Of course, there's a limit. You can't just throw 50 real stereotypes together and act like it's not racist, because it is. The real question is does dirty laundry do that to the point it's realistic, or is it racist? That's not really up to me to decide.
@@Zyleace I personally felt the pacing was good until we got to the end. It was so clearly rushed to finish off and could have been so much better, but I blame that on the bullying.
Yeah I’m also latina and ngl, I remember reading it way back when, and if anything I remember feeling so happy and _seen_ by some aspects of it. It’s been a while so I don’t remember a whole lot of what happened, I just remember texting my friend out of genuine excitement that “hey, that thing that my family does is in this!!!” I was so excited. And I remember hearing about the author getting attacked for “racist stereotypes” and being so frustrated, because I never felt that way at all. It had some stereotypes, sure, but it never felt racist.
@@КачанюкМілана I think the Original Commenter was referring to the cyberbullies harassing the author of Dirty Laundry, not Coley, who was explaining the timeline of events around it.
Oh, I've thought about making an essay about this situation for a long time. I was a latin american fan during the Dirty Laundry debacle and I *adored* the fic. I'm not mexican - I'm argentinian - but I felt so many of the details *so* keenly. Things gringos on the internet critisized (the use of ''Gasolina'', for example, a song from my childhood that it's ICONIC but that gringos called cliché) made me genuinely happy and emotional and represented in the space. ''La chancla'' is a common latine meme. There was latine input in the fic -- the author had a friend irl helping them who was latine and it never felt like it was relying on stereotypes, I could genuinely feel an authenticity. It was a very earnest fic and at the time, the criticism made me really sad because I could tell it came from people who weren't latin american and those of us who WERE latin american weren't fluent in english enough to hold these arguments or were simply ignored in favor of the outrage. I, in one instance, got a bit mocked for my english wording while trying to defend the fic. Ironic. I think the author quit writing publically after that and devoted to art. They're killing it and I'm happy for them but I'll always be sad that they had been fended off writing so harshly at such a young age. I also have to mark: for all the criticism gringos propelled towards this author... the canon characterisation of Lance bordered on the ''Latin lover'' trope and the fandom was equally stereotypical about him. I remember reading a couple fics where he bordered on the ''bad boy crime latino'' stereotype and fics and art where you could tell the creator wasn't even making an effort. It was a fandom wide characterisation that, in my opinion, was incredibly more harmful than the one sweet goddamn fanfiction a 17 y/o had earnestly written.
Honestly, please do make that essay, because this issue of white fandom talking over others in groups they're not apart of is tiresome AF and they make it extremely difficult for us to be heard about actual racism in fandom....shit like authors being harrassed for "blackwashing" characters in anime, for instance. And while I'm here, I'm also tired of white pro-shippers calling anyone who dare talks about the very real biases in media an anti who's just mad about their ship.
When I read DL I was like 17 or 18 y/o. I’m a red blooded Mexican from Mexico City and let me tell you that this fic was soooooo goooood! The songs weren’t cringy, that’s literally what I grew up with, the family dynamics felt genuine and yeah even though the “switching languages mid sentence” might be a cringy stereotype, personally it’s sooooo accurate lmao when I’m talking with my bilingual friends and we just Spanglish our way through conversations. And yes, pinches gringos arruinan todo, la mina si merecía crítica pero no que la lincharan.
Both my parents are Argentinian and people call me a ‘fake Latino’ because to them, a Latine can only be of darker skin. What do they expect me to be like? “Oh sorry, let me just erase my heritage for you.” I’m not some gringo, and I’m fine if someone doesn’t realize I’m Latine. Just don’t make me ‘prove myself’ by speaking perfect Spanish or whatever. I’m not some ‘twitter white girl’ for asking people not to mock my parent’s language in Spanish class. Yes, I’m of lighter skin tone so I’m harder to target, but that doesn’t mean comments can’t hurt me. Sorry that people were so sucky they got onto you for defending something that you had a right to say in. You don’t help a cause by not listening to the people you’re apparently fighting for.
@Dead Dog I wholeheartedly agree. Both my parents are also Argentinian, and I have a lighter skin tone, but that doesn’t mean I’m not latine. One girl all the way back in 5th grade said “Well, you don’t look Spanish,” and that has still stuck with me. A lot of my class would mock spanish and use it in a joking tone. Honestly some people just need to listen to what they are actually saying.
Anyone that bashed this fanfic for the """stereotypes" would never know the joy that is to put old reggaeton and singing it with your brothers despite of how you get along normaly because La Gasolina and Pose are national songs for us
Side note, but any time I'm reminded of Possé, I'm reminded of this ridiculous plot on _The Bold and the Beautiful_ where this chick mistook her daughter's boyfriend for her husband at a masquerade party and they ended up banging each other to this song ☠️ To make it worse, the daughter whose boyfriend she railed was conceived by her _other_ daughter's then-husband ☠️☠️☠️
The fact that the VLD fandom bullied a 17 year old off the internet within the first six months of the show coming out should have let us know of the toxicity to come. VLD had a chokehold on the internet for three years. Entering the fandom in 2020 (post season 8) felt like looking out at the scene of a massacre where the bodies were still warm but no one was left to tell me what happened
I just got in and YESSSS! It's kinda weird to look at all of these things that happened, when I'm way "later" than most of the fandom (pretty much all of them lmao). You see, I wasn't in the fandom to read this fic (and many others) at the time it was released, so now I just see a lot of content with references I might never understand. Seeing all these VLD contents just now, makes me really wish I could have discovered VLD sooner so I could be part of it (even tho all this toxity is/was a huuuuge thing in this fandom apparently)
It's both infuriating, sad and terrifying to see ppl like these are in pretty much every fandom. Like, the author of 'Dirty Laundry' was literally 17, wtf was all that hate??? Especially towards a teen writter that has no bad intentions at all??? It makes me sick.
@@miraculeehwow! I joined the Voltron fandom in 2018 and it’s left a huge impact on me. I wasn’t able to experience some pivotal parts of the fandom but I was close enough to the timeline to see the direct effects of them. I’m so curious, where do you mingle in terms of fandom stuff. I took a long break from fandom during 2020 and since coming back, platforms that use to be such huge places for fandoms like Instagram have become much smaller
@@BlueSpaceDust Admittedly I’ve never watched the show, but the fanfics were so good that I got dragged semi into the fandom. The art and comics are really good too! A majority of the comic artists I follow on Instagram make Klance comics
I remember when the last season came out everyone was just so devastated, similar to GOT fandom on the last season. Because of that I haven't finished the show but I still let myself get spoiled by the ending 💔.
I remember getting yelled at for making a ‘stereotypical’ ADHD character in a story once: They shut up once I told them the character was based off my experiences as someone with ADHD This is why I don’t write stories publicly anymore
people also don’t understand that stereotypes often have some truth to them, and are even necessary sometimes to write a believeable character. like if you write someone with adhd ofc they’ll probably often forget stuff, that’s literally one of the biggest symptoms of adhd. if you can’t use any stereotype, how tf are readers supposed to know your character has adhd? criticism should be based on how the stereotypes are written and whether it comes from a place of malice or not, not on whether or not they’re there at all imo. stereotypes aren’t inherently bad, it all depends on context
@@nonacrina, sterotypes are fine as long as you put your own spin on it, the nerdy/smart character is not the same across all shows it’s a common trope but that doesn’t mean that these characters act the same Walter White and the cast of Big Bang are very different
@@Andyatl2002 Unrelated, so feel free to ignore this. But I fucking hate the cast of Big Bang so much. They're introduced as like the good guys but all of them but Sheldon are stereotypical creepy nerds, just all different versions of it. Ones the foreign nerd, ones the straight up just a creep nerd, ones the "nice guy" to girls faces but is still friends with the creeps and acts the same when the girls leave. All of them also go by the stereotype of girls don't want them because their nerds, which the show preaches basically until they get girlfriends. When irl the reason guys like that don't get girlfriends isn't the nerd part, it's the creep part. And Sheldon is in himself harmful, not intentionally in the same way the others are but because people now think he's how autistic people act. Which is so dumb considering he canonically was tested and isn't autistic, yet common people really associate autism with him. But that's not really the show writers fault. I'm just going off on how the big bang is all harmful sterotypes, which, don't get me wrong, the characters are pretty well written, the only issue is they never actually address the creepy parts and instead just have them keep those parts while getting married and acting like the issue overall was with other people the whole time. Rant over, sorry. Just seeing that name makes my blood boil.
@leaveyetstillthere261, this is why I do not let people like Temple Grandin speak for myself, let alone Autism Speaks, or the people that are against curing autism, to say nothing of equally idiotic neurotypical people.
I still have the glow in the dark stars on my ceiling in my family home bedroom. I hope that wherever they are, the author is doing much better. It was wild to witness how a single piece of litterature had a CHOKEHOLD on so many of us. It’s both terrifying and inspiring.
from what ive seen from the authors Instagram they seem to be doing pretty well! they dont post any voltron content on their account anymore (which is fair enough) but they have some pretty sweet fanart of other media and ocs i believe
Never was in the Voltron fandom, never heard of this fic, but _dang_ does that sound like a familiar character arc--some people's legit concerns used as a jump off for the people who hate it cuz it's popular, the shrieking of LISTEN TO POC by the white people shouting over the people of color trying to talk, the neurodivergent version of the same thing, harassment, collapse, and the sudden silence from all the Very Concerned Citizens while the fans of the work, the greater fandom who didn't get into harassment, and the creator end up worse off than before...it's like a mashup of every fandom's worst hits
This comment should be featured. :3. Also, if I ever make a band, and it somehow gets popular, I'm gonna rebrand and rename our band name from whatever it originally was and make it into 'Fandom Worst Hits', LMAO. XD.
these fanfic/fandom history lessons (and drama that are happening today) kinda remind me of a greek epic. i forget the sad version of it. it’s like a warning, a sad tale, didn’t exactly have a good ending, and the people it is told to or should be told to, probably won’t learn from it.
I never got the hate for the autism rep. As someone who is autistic only part I didn't really like is how they kind of used it as pitty points? But irl I feel that's a very realistic reaction, especially for the year it was written. So it's more something I don't like about real life then the fic itself. Otherwise that character was very relatable for the children like that I know.
Oh my god, I'm living for these fanfiction history lessons, I am so thoroughly entertained.. it makes me sad that I'm not super deep into tumblr or fandoms anymore, because I live for the drama and I would've loved to just witness all of these kinds of shenanigans. These have become my new favorite kinds of videos from you, so I hope you keep making more!
I read a French translation that was posted on wattpad and didn not have any access to Tumblr... SO I AM VERY SHOCKED TO LEARN IT WAS NOT ONLY THAT BIG BUT WITH CONTROVERSIES??? In my head it was just a fun attempt at translation of a cute fic tf-
13:30 It is a little disturbing how many people that are not part of the group or are just distantly related to it speak on our behalf. Like "latinx" is the perfect example, it was invented in the USA, does not work in spanish at all and "Latin" already exists making it redundant anyways, (not to mention "o" IS NEUTRAL when talking about groups and only masculine when singular) yet it has become the default word in english circles much to 90+% of latinos' annoyance.
I caught that, too, but I think I made the mistake of assuming that that was good faith criticism regardless. It's really hard to tell who has good intentions when critiquing handling of sensitive subjects when you aren't a part of the group that's being discussed (which in regards to POC issues, I am not). (Going on a tangent here, so if you don't wanna hear an autistic person complaining about ableism from some commenters, feel free to skip the rest of this. You won't hurt my feelings, and I apologize if mentioning this makes anyone feel like I'm trying to make this about me. I'm not.) I can, however, tell that the "counter-arguments" against autistic people critiquing the story (especially the one blatantly attacking a supposed "salty autistic reader") are not only made by neurotypicals, but they are alarmingly ableist in their sentiments as well. People really shouldn't be able to feel comfortable bullying autistic people for pointing out potential problems in an autistic character's portrayal since us autistics have SERIOUS trouble finding proper media representation. If the author is not autistic themselves, it doesn't matter if they know autistic people in their lives, they shouldn't just create a low-effort stereotyped character (not saying the author did that- I wouldn't know since I was never in the Voltron fandom). It's not enough to have autistic relatives, you NEED to understand how actual autistic people see things, just like it's important to actually consult people from a certain culture to make sure you're doing your due diligence in representing them. Having perspectives from those minorities that can remain relatively calm, rational, and provide genuine good-faith criticism is already a big step forward, but obviously for some people it won't be enough. I personally have no problem with a neurotypical wanting to write a neurodivergent character as long as they either do their due diligence and get a proper understanding of the disorder they're writing into the character beforehand, or they are willing to accept polite and constructive criticism from people who do have the disorder (or, even better, both). What matters is that the person is willing to LEARN. That does NOT give people the right to bully someone off of the internet for not writing a (mostly) HARMLESS PORTRAYAL of an autistic person the exact way THEY want them to be written, but it moreso DOES NOT give ableists the right to come out of the woodwork and attempt to silence autistic voices who merely wish to express concerns. TL:DR Unless a work is blatantly offensive or obviously made with the intention of being offensive, there's a good chance that the people intent on vilifying the author for being clumsy in their writing ARE NOT a part of any oppressed minority, let alone the ones that may be being misrepresented in the fic. Therefore, if the reaction seems disproportionate to the story content, it's best to assume the outrage is fake/ misinformed and do your own research instead.
@@paigemosher8697 "due diligence in representing them"? Dude, it's a freaking fanfic, not a College paper or a for-profit work of literature, it's fanfic. Having minimal knowledge of things (including writing) is expected when reading a fanfic. You got people as old as ten writing fics, yet you make it sound like 'they should know'. If people don't like it, they can read something else. It's free either way.
Thank you for the explanation of the difference between 'latinx' and 'latino'. Seriously, I was confused for the longest time about what exactly the difference is between the two and which one is 'correct', mostly because I'm not Latin American myself, and I live in an area of the US where, up until the last decade or so, 95% of people are white. There's definitely growing numbers of ethnic minorities where I live nowadays, but still very very few Latino people. Now my only other question is, what's the difference between 'Latin American' and 'Hispanic'? I ask this because legal paperwork always makes it seem like these are completely separate from each other, and I don't understand why.
All I gotta say is that the non-binary Hispanics in my life get pretty upset when they are called Latino/a the goal is to not be Latino or Latina. Hispanics that don’t adopt Latinx are seen as bigoted. I’m not Hispanic tho. But if someone tried to call me a negro or something cus it’s chill where they’re from, I’d be pissed bruh
@@SirEdigarious "the goal is to not be Latino or Latina." They can do whatever they want with themselves, but why must the rest of Latinos be forced to accept "Latinx" as our own descriptor and be shamed if we speak against it?
I discovered this fanfics before the show itself, i don't care for all the useless drama around it, i downloaded it in my computer (habits that turned out to be usefull) and re-read it from time to time, it's so perfect and fluffy and angsty
Yeah, I remember it felt weird being a latine in the the fandom after Dirty Laundry. A general sense of, "wow, that's how people are going to 'defend' us?", frustration at white "sjw" tumblrinas, and generally just feeling bad for the author, since the harrasment and outrage was "on behalf of us". Trust me, there was ALOT of fanfic written that had ACTUALLY offensive and stereotypical headcannons/depictions of Lance's latinidad, like one head cannon list I read that headcannoned Lance as Puerto Rican and one bullet point down, said "I also think Lance does that Mexican mariachi yell everytime he wins a battle or does a good shot, I know I'm mixing up cultures but this just seems so like him
I remember being so mad when people were accusing the author of being racist and stereotypical, like it was the ONE TIME it wasn't a stereotype but they want to bash the author over THIS? Ugh.
if i headcannon any character as a ethnicity or race, i will research it, even for my own little thoughts, if i don’t know them. idk i just think it’s so weird how people don’t do that. like if you like the hc or the character wouldn’t you do it???
@@imjustasconfusedasyou that would be general common sense. But like I said, majority of the racist offensive stuff/headcannons about Lance were written by teenagers who didn't know any better or just based their headcannons off of what media they were exposed to/had access to.
God yeah, as a mexican it’s so fucking frustrating when people, _especially_ white non-latines, decide for us what is offensive, and even outright IGNORE latines who say they’re not offended. It’s like on their journey to be open-minded defenders, they trip and fell right back into willful ignorance. I can’t explain how frustrating it was to _finally_ have a story that I could relate to so personally, only to have it disappear because people couldn’t realize that it wasn’t inherently racist to write about a culture outside your own.
So I’ve learned that when there’s crazy outrage, it’s fake. Or it’s from misinformed people. I’ve gone through a few “outrage” incidents where I was actually privy to what happened and watched how others twisted the truth or blatantly ignored it so they could rage about it on social media and also disrupt my work and other very important peoples works. I’ve seen this behavior in other things, too.
Pretty much. To say Voltron was a fairly high strung fandom would be the understatement of the year, but this was especially over blown. Nor was it all the typical fandom purity police dragging the author but a non-zero never of Sheith fans looking for an easy punching bag for all the harrassment they were taking.
I'll keep that in mind when dreading critique in the future. It'll help me come to terms with the feeling of indignation from harsh critique knowing that it's in bad faith, even if a bunch of people were to dogpile on me in the future for any reason.
I mean there's been legit fandom outrages over the years but I think when it's so low stakes it might be easier to be involved. Like y'know like crimes and how people should react to news of crimes, legit outrage. Committing crimes because outrage not so much. I remember death threats over a story where people were upset at what they saw as signs of UST for a pairing they didn't want. From what I remember the whole thing was pairing free and didn't change but just to make sure here's some crimes from your fans to keep you on track. And that might be what makes it hard to provide actual feedback without controversy. I read random slash fic years ago that involved a Caribbean country and I tried to politely point out something I was very upset about. Namely treating all Caribbean culture as interchangeable not to mention the fact it was all white characters using a predominately black country as a lazy prop without any detail. Which I didn't say, I tried to be very restrained with my suggestions. Namely that while the country that picked didn't enforce the laws against same-sex relationships that didn't translate into widespread acceptance so a fake undercover relationship that was also a crime was odd. Then the pushback I got was intense. How important this decision allegedly was to the integrity of the story how impossible it would be to change anything and how I was wrong about how I felt about it and on and on. So I pointed out they mentioned the country name maybe twice and then didn't mention anything specific about the country apart from that. Which was part of my problem but also meant they could improve it in seconds with some googling. I've also gotten death threats for feedback for Dr Who fic after the author asked for feedback so maybe it's just outrage for outrage sake.
"Hey guys, do you want to lambast a child for attempting to write outside their comfort zone while simultaneously silencing LGBTQIA+ Latinos?" "Yeah, sounds like a great time." Why did Ao3 decide to become twitter for a single fic? I mean, I know why, the whole it-got-referenced-everywhere thing, but there's so much _worse_ on Ao3 than one baby Gringo taking a stab at trying to get into the head of a different culture. I support everyone's right to write their story so I don't condone any sort of harassment, but seriously... Other massive fandoms aren't out here going "this underage warning was serious, time to harass the author into deleting this entirely" or "that dog was dismembered, time to raise the outrage flag" or anything.
i just finished reading dirty laundry I'm pretty late to the voltron fandom, a few months ago i was finding the original dirty laundry fanfic and it turns out it got deleted- in those few months, i also did some heavy research on how the fandom died. edit: i love hearing experiences of older voltron fans, idk I'm just really interested on how the fandom was like back then
Oh boi, even after all these years just hearing the name Voltron gives me a slight sense of loss. The fandom was one of the few I actually felt like it was a home, and that bubble just popped suddenly after it ended because most of us didn't want anything to do with it anymore. Just enjoy the show and the fanworks left behind.
the fandom was convinced that klance would be canon back then due to terrible marketing schemes with lots of queerbaiting. it was a fun place to be but there WERE ship wars, be warned. i kinda miss the old voltron fandom tbh
I'd never seen a fandom implode so quickly as VLD did after season 8. I came to the series pretty late in its run so I didn't have nearly as much emotional investment as many. Still, that ending was a right kick in the bollocks, and not just because who did or didn't end up with one another. But on that tangent, I'm positive the overall piss poor shipping culture that developed around the fandom plays as big a part, if not bigger, about the sudden implosion of the fanbase. After enduring two and a half years of all the bugfuckery VLD is now infamous fall for a show that was never worth the defending, fans were obviously upset. It's not a surprise that most of the more active fanbase today is made of people who came after it ended and couldn't project a bunch of expectations on it.
Another well known fic is from the Haikyuu fandom called ‘in another life’ it is centered on the pairing bokuaka and its crazy popular but it’s so sad that it makes you wanna chop off one of your fingers
She said in a stream a while ago that she was going to make a video on it but idk it still hasn’t happened yet. I remember because I was the one spamming the chat stream asking her about it.
It's quite strange that I'm a long time fan of the two fandoms but I've never read Dirty Laundry and In Another Life. I think I'm just scared to be heartbroken again.
I remember a girl I knew in high school was obsessed with Voltron and kept talking about this fic. I don't even know what she said, but she said a lot of it.
I was a major Klance shipper, and I remember Dirty Laundry being everywhere! I never read it because I'm personally not a fan of modern setting or fake dating AUs and had no idea there was so much drama! Hope the author is doing alright nowadays.
I will never get over how people bullied gibslythe into deleting the fic. Honestly i did get a backup because it just meant too much to me, but it's horrible that people coming into the fandom are missing out on it
@@junedominic6642 there were repostings on a lot of places again the author's express wishes on Wattpad and FFN IIRC That and you can ask any Klance fans, I promise one on them will have a copy or can find it very quickly.
God. I didn't ship klance - it was a notp for me even - and I still read Dirty Laundry. But not being in klance circles for obvious reasons, I didn't realize how insane the fans were around it. Sometimes it feels like everything the voltron fandom touched turned to ash 😬
Same tho, I didn’t know that dirty laundry was so popular until like two weeks ago where a classmate of mine was asking if I’ve read it. I never rlly shipped klance but I was curious about the fanfics and just clicked on it🤷♀️😂man I still have the unfinished epub, I never finished it cause another fanfic caught my interest and I lost interest😔
Whenever I first started watching Voltron, I legit only shipped Klance and no other relationships, but by the time season 3 (iirc) came around, I legit couldnt even look at cutesy Klance fanart without feeling sick because of how toxic the Klance fanbase was. I tried reading Dirty Laundry despite this, however, but I couldnt get past the early chapters.
Me too! Klance was my notp I read it since a lot of People claim it was really good. Give it a try, and it was good/meh? I dont know how it became such a good thing in the klance community XD There were ref from that fic everywhere!! Amazing how fandom culture works kajakns
Hell, I cancelled my VLD fict, because I was scared of the fandom coming after me. It was mid posting, it was an AU where Shiro was a dad who adopted the paladins and Allura was his next door neighbor... It was going to be Shallura, but after season 7 and 8, I just quit. (I was one of the people who headcanoned Shiro as bi and oh boy the VLD fandom's biphobia was REAL...) I turned that fict into an original book instead.
I vividly remember reading this. I recall how this fic engrossed the whole fandom and even those on the outside; Dirty Laundry was such an impactful form of art. As stated, a project - which reached a lot of the youth including myself. 😌 Around this time, I was 16-17 years old and it was a great escape from reality; from medical health reasons & high school. I had no idea of the controversies nor did I search for the reason why the fic was deleted off the platform entirely. I think I was a bit aloof with having read such a story and it being so well liked; that it was gone. I loved the art inspired from it though, I can’t really remember if I did Fanart from it too but I’m sure the thought was there. 🤔✍🏽 This fandom was so toxic. (I have no idea where it stands now as I’m in The Witcher fandom now lmao) I semi cringe whenever I think back to the fandom or the show…even though I made new friends (to which I’m still friends with some to this day) and have had good moments, the toxicity and immaturity of it all sadly overweights it. I guess that is how I feel with this fic as well, it’s bittersweet; I hope the author is doing well now. 💐 …for graduation, my 2017 yearbook quote was from Shiro by the way. I don’t regret that at least. 💜
Idk if anyone remembers, but there was another fic called "Smile for the stars" and I think it was quite popular around that time, but this one, unlike "Dirty Laundry", was straight up depressing. I remember bawling my eyes out with that one.
Coley’s vids always reminds me of how chaotic fandoms can be and why I dislike them so much and avoid them at all costs. Also, I feel bad for the author who based a character on someone they knew, like why get mad at that??? If Autism spectrums are so different, who says a fictional character can’t have the same attributes like someone the writer knows? Is it so bad now to “write what you know”, even if it’s not intended to be offensive? Idk, man, ppl are weird.
I read the fic when I was in the fandom and as a Hispanic person I really liked it. I never saw it as "portraying stereotypes" I saw it as realistic. The fear over Abuelitas potential reaction or the fathers inability to understand felt very real to be cuz it was stuff I had gone thru. And having to grow up hearing the same soundtrack played every day, one of the songs absolutely being Gasolina, that part of the fic made me laugh. I think that as long as the portrayal is Accurate and isn't demonizing an entire minority, it shouldn't matter the race of the person writing the story. Also, white hispanic people exist? That includes white Mexican people? Did y'all forget that most Hispanic nations have been heavily colonized and so we have a Wide variety of skin tones and shades? Idk why the writer being white made so many people go off, but even so she didn't even do it in an offensive way. She did it in an Accurate way.
One fic that I’d be interested in seeing you cover is “More Than Human” by sbj. It isn’t finished, but it’s incredibly long and has been being written for more than ten years now, iirc. It’s had a massive impact/influence on the PPG fandom, and it’s probably the best written fanfiction I’ve ever read. Note: I’d recommend reading the AO3 version, as it has more chapters than the FFN version.
I wasnt even a klancer I was in entirely different character circles of the voltron fandom and I still knew exACTLY from the title what this would be about and all the scenes and references I knew of instantly came rushing in my mind that is how inescapable-
This makes me very glad I got to read dirty laundry while it was still up. I didn’t know how big of a deal it was in the fandom because I mostly stayed out of it but I am very glad I got the chance to read it it was a good and I really enjoying it and I am very sad that the author had to go through all of that. she handled it in a very mature way and I completely understand her wanting to get rid of a story that caused her nothing but grief when she just wanted to have a good time in the fandom
I feel like every fandom has that ONE fanfic that you have heard about even if you never read it.. I wish I could have read "a spring without you is coming" before it got taken down.. not cos I support the author, I'm just curious about it
YES OH MY GOD i can list so many: all the young dudes for the marauders, droplets for jeanmarco from aot, heatwaves for dsmp, in another life for haikyuu bokuaka, the predatory was for killugon from hxh, it was all just a game for drarry, young & beautiful for larry, the first time he kissed a boy for renga, ect ect
Aaaaand this is why I will proofread every single one of my fics before turning them into audiobooks =>= But for real, this poor author didn't understand how certain themes triggered others and they TAUGHT THEMSELVES and got help from an actual person before continuing. A win in my book. But because of the fandom toxicity, they wanted to get rid of it so that they wouldn't be harassed anymore. The fact white people pretending to be PoC to get rid of a fic is truly vomit worthy :(
I remember the most the author made when she took the fic down. Although the harrassment she had personally taken played a part in her decision, the more prevalent factor was the overall fandom behavior following season 7 about Adam's demise and the wank about Allurance being canon. The author felt embarrassed for having helped popularized the ship and she made the decision to remove the fic because she was tired ™. I don't blame her one bit, this is a uniquely terribad fandom, even outside of the horrid Klance antis whose bullshit has infected every fandom after it in its wake. And I hate how fandom had trivialized important issues for the sake of ship wars. I mean, as a black woman, do I wish I didn't have to read so many food descriptions for dark skin? Yes. Do I wish fandoms gave more attention to black characters? Also yes. But fandom is just as much my escape from the real world as everyone else's and I don't need it to become an activism space. It just doesn't have to be.
@@KariIzumi1 I'm curious and if you don't mind me asking, why are food descriptions for dark skin not that comfortable to read? I know in my country, describing a person's skin tone like food or jewelry is almost always a compliment (in southeastern and medditeranean Europe), whether it's lighter or darker skin. For example, comparing it to olives, soil, coffee, snow, pearls, milk, silk...
@@KariIzumi1 Thank you for telling me more about this! I take things to heart too often so thank you for telling me the other reasons the author took the fic down.
Honestly tho, the fandom was so toxic so you really didn't miss out on much, there was good too but a lot of that was overshadowed by the crazy toxicity
What's really sad too is that the toxic was a small percentage compared to the good people in the fandom, but it was just so bad that that's really all I can remember personally
@@ClurBy938 yeah, that's sad. it happens in most fandoms tho, the toxic minority of the fandom always overshadows the good part and makes all fans look bad :/
i swear to god i read this fic before it got deleted, like i DISTINCTLY remember reading the first few chapters of a klance fic that involved the characters and laundry back while the show was still airing
I have never 1. read this fic, and I didn’t even know the title until this video 2. watched a single episode of voltron AND YET. I still knew that gasolina was The Lance Song
"Upset for latino stereotypes" me a latina who jokes like this all the time: this is completely fine-- what-- thats just how we joke/exaggerate our own stuff
i feel like sometimes stereotypes can be a good thing, needed, or actually funny. i’ve never really got why most words have an immediate bad connection to it. if i met it in a good way, and told you that, why is it still a problem. correct me if i’m wrong but in the cases of, dirty laundry, some jokes, and queer coding, it can be good or needed when creators can’t give the rep or the story they wanted.
OMFG I REMEMBER DIRTY LAUNDRY THERE ARE REFERENCES EVERYWHERE I GO- Whether is omegaverse or a coffee shop au, there are ALWAYS dirty laundry references
I remember when I read the fanfic before it got taken down, and omg the intense flashbacks I got when I saw the title. That fandom gave me so much fandom trauma, I think all of us who witnessed the dumpster fire firsthand should get a medal.
Wow! I had 4th hand experience from being a diehard fan of a reviewer who watched voltron (who referenced it constantly)of the toxic fandom but dammnnnnn is this video something else!
I’ll be honest I was around the Voltron fandom at that time and I never read it. Mostly just because I tend to avoid the most popular fics of any fandom on principle and a Modern AU Klance reason was NOT the reason I was lingering around the Voltron stories.
I was never in the Voltron fandom, in fact to this day I’ve never seen a single episode of the show, but I know that if I was in the fandom when the show was being released (which believe me I was tempted since content for it was everywhere) I likely would not have been the biggest fan of this fic. I don’t know why, but when fanfics get such immense popularity within a fandom that it has its own fandom wide sub-culture, I can’t bring myself to be a fan of it. Two times I’ve tried to do that exact thing, once with Heat Waves and again with (The First Time) He Kissed A Boy. Heat Waves while well written and very atmospheric was just not really for me, I guess because of the length of it. Nowadays the length would be less of an issue, but I read it during the break between chapters 7 and 8 and still couldn’t catch up at the time so I dropped the whole thing. For (TFT)HKAB, it’s a different story but with the same result. Difference being, I was there to read the first chapter the day it released since that was during the peak of my Sk8 fixation and I was reading almost anything I could get my hands on. I kinda forgot about it after the first chapter since I didn’t immediately follow it, but I remember it being very cute and honestly thought it was just a one-shot at first. After it started blowing up, I read the fic only to realise I had already been there and was really just playing catch-up, but in doing so I became bugged by how many plot-relevant and non-tagged OC’s the fic had beyond the first few chapters. I’ve never been a fan of OC’s in fics, even less so the more relevant they become, so as adorable as the fic is in general and how much fan art and even cosplays I’d seen for the fic, I couldn’t get into it and never finished it. Dirty Laundry seems to have the same issue with me as (TFT)HKAB does, plot relevant OC’s (and a lot of them) in an otherwise would-be-fine-and-fluffy fic. So looking back, I’m glad I didn’t get into the fandom not only due to its general widely known toxicity but also because I know that so much propaganda for the fic when I don’t even like it that much would have gotten on my nerves eventually. All that being said, I think (TFT)HKAB would be a good fic to be reviewed as it’s own video. It caused such an uproar in the Sk8 fandom upon release, and to this day still kinda does. IMO, it would be interesting to see how you would dissect that.
I completely agree. I'm not too fond of OCs and AUs, and I prefer fanfics that are grounded in the original source material rather than having so many headcanons and new stuff they might as well be original stories. That's why my favourite fic of all time is A Young Woman's Political Record, in the Youjo Senki fandom - it legitimately feels like an actual sequel because of how well it captures the spirit of the original work.
as someone who also read (tft)hkab while it was coming out (and at the peak of my sk8 hyperfixation), and enjoyed it, i also think itd be great if a video was made on it!! i didnt mind the non-canon characters too much simply because sk8 is a show that,, doesnt exactly have very many characters, and some of the plotlines in the fic wouldnt be possible without ocs though it must be strange being new to the sk8 fandom and trying to figure out who the hell miguel is (HOW did he become a character that was basically accepted as canon,,?)
I still remember when some klance shippers were extremely toxic, I definitely remember people receiving death threats anytime they shipped lance with a woman. I loved Voltron for awhile but it will always be a toxic fandom in my book
Oh hey i know this fic, i'm not (nor was i ever) in the voltron fandom but i first heard of it after seeing a couple people mention it in a lyric video of gasolina. Ngl this is NOT what i had expected it to be, by the way people were talking about it i thought it'd be some kind of joke story involving mexican stereotypes
omg the way my body immediately reacted to hearing "gasolina" at the beginning, i got whiplash from turning so fast 💀 immediate flashbacks to middle school not familiar w the fanfic btw, just mexican lmao
4:50 oooo I’ve never read this fic and haven’t been in the Voltron fandom for yearsssss but that line… “Lance’s Mexican-American roots” is literally physically painful, I felt that deep in my soul
me, new to the Voltron fandom thinking im late to the party and its already dead person: mentions klance multiple times also person: there last post mentioning klance wasnt 2017 but ACTUALLY RECENTLY me with a single teardrop in my eye: "so this-this must be true happiness" person: the fanfic was deleted though me feeling like my body was just covered in paper cuts and trampled by rinos googling this fanfic and saw people copied and pasted it so i could read too so obviously all is right in the world even though I made an account on that app to read it BUT THATS IRRELIVENT
i was in the voltron fandom when i was 8-10. i witnessed a lot of things i probably shouldnt have at that time, this fanfic being one of them. can’t believe this fanfic is what introduced me to daddy yankee lol
Maybe you could talk about all the young dudes? This fanfic is the backbone of the marauders fandom who's only direct connection to the books is that one scene where harry sees the past. And that's just an incredible fanfic is general
Gosh that’s really true, these two fics are the big things of their fandoms, aren’t they. I feel like there are more fics of that popularity in other fandoms, but I don’t know/can’t remember what they are.
especially since now it is the #1 fic with the most 'hits' on ao3. It cause a huge resurgence in the Harry Potter and Marauder's fandoms, and it gave lgbt+ people a safe place to go in the not-so-accepting fandom of Harry Potter.
@@tristansaurusrex4604 the larger fandom is queerphobic? I havent been in it for a while. Are people leaving it bc of Joanne and then it’s just slowly being filled with terfs?
@@Alice-gr1kb not necessarily the majority, but a good chunk of people have been... idk less accepting? I'm not sure how to put it. as a trans person who is still in the fandom after almost 12 years, I've experienced on multiple occasions people telling me "She doesn't want you here, get out. clearly you aren't welcome anymore." like I said, it's definitely not a majority, but a loud minority that has made me uncomfortable with staying in the fandom even though I want to.
I thought I would never see you touch Voltron again, let alone the biggest Klance fic of the whole fandom. This show clearly left a big scar on many lolol. Thank you for the video tho, I’ve somehow been going back to VLD for some reason lol.
I was even younger than the author when I first read it and I thought it was a cute fic. Fake dating is (and probably will always be) my favorite trope, I liked the interaction between characters and it was overall quite similar with my experience as latina. Good thing I didn't use to be on Tumblr by that time because this kind of discourse is just fandom at it's worst and there's surely not a lack of Voltron fans being toxic
BEFORE we watch the video: on a scale of 'Heatwaves' to 'Sexy Times With Wanxian', I feel like this is near the middle, but leaning closer to 'Heatwaves'. Let's see if thats right!
I have never heard of this fic but wow 😲 so many things happened!! I'm sorry that the author had to go through such things, I hope they're good now. Just by hearing about the things in this fic already comforts my heart. it's so nice to see a fanfiction getting attention and becoming the fandom's it fic, kinda reminds of Truth and Measure by Telanu which is also becoming a book this month!! it's huge on the WLW fics and one of the first ones to get that much attention back in the days, even people who haven't watched The Devil Wears Prada would read it because it was just so good.
If you're looking for other famous/infamous fan fiction, I might suggest Detective Pony from the Homestuck fandom. It's not technically fan fiction but I know it had a huge impact and is just a really cool project overall.
This was great! I remember reading through ao3 comments and getting confused over references to Dirty Laundry, and I could never figure out how fanon had such a well established image of Lance's family and background lol Also, I think it would be so cool if you did a video about podfics! Maybe with a focus on blanket permission controversies and accessibility issues in fandom. Thanks for being awesome :D
I'm not in the vld fandom but the show is popular enough that I've seen many bloggers who is fans of it and so I've also heard of this fanfic so I kinda realized what this video was gonna be before I clicked it lol. I feel bad for the author - their first fic and they got this much hate. It was fanfic for fun and they didn't mean any harm but it seems everyone acted as if the author and their fic has a ton of responsibility to be the best representation which it couldn't be. I don't blame the author for deleting it.
I remember reading a few chapters, and my feelings are very much the same as Coley’s - it was imo fine, but nothing mindblowing. I bever knew about the controversies, though, so thanks for educating me
I'm interested in what you might say about All The Young Dudes, but honestly I'm good with any videos you make on fanfiction. I love all the history stuff, I always learn something new :)
Man I still have the phrase "dirty laundry" filtered on tumblr XD joined the fandom during the height of the controversy, which I'm sure one could imagine my reaction to
I didn’t even read dirty laundry on Ao3 I read it republish on watt pad But like, this fanfic man, middle school me was kicking my feet in Bed while reading it. I read it all during my Christmas break as well, and I thought it was so cool I was reading it during the time it took place
Me: they fall in love in ten days? How is that a slow burn? Also me: gets a crush on a person (don’t even know their pronouns) after seeing them across the room from my orientation. Me: oh okay yeah it’s a slow burn.
honestly the voltron legendary defender and steven universe fandoms were one of the things that convinced me having more than a couple hundred followers on any given platform would make my life hell on earth if i actively participated in fandom.
I was only in the fandom for a short while before I dipped, and boy I am glad I saw mostly only the positive sides of the fandom and the honestly high quality ff
i was literally just thinking about this fic for the first time in like 4 years and you went and uploaded this 👀 what a throwback to my darker days on the internet
Another famous one recently is all the young dudes a mauaders fic - it would be cool to hear about this and it resurgence on tiktok and the controversy
