snowflake challenge #3

Challenge #3:
In your own space, talk about a fannish opinion you hold that has changed over time.

I am sure I had plenty of opinions change over time, but I can't remember all of them. When I became active in fandom, I was primarily a slash shipper and I am embarrassed to admit that I definitely was harsher on female characters than I should have been, especially ones that were "in the way" of my ship, but fortunately grew out of that (I hope). I'm not proud of the fics I wrote where I have bashed other ships/characters. I keep them up because a) I feel bad deleting when someone may have enjoyed it since I know what it's like to lose fanworks you enjoy and 2) just to remind myself where I came from and the need to grow/learn/do better.

There are still characters and ships I don't like but major character/ship bashing tends to give me second hand embarrassment, especially in fic. I have had character opinion changes too - there are some characters I've always liked and still criticized but somehow got more protective over them when they faced fandom backlash (Clark Kent in Smallville, Rory Gilmore in the years after AYITL, Steve Rogers post CACW).

If I'm still in fandom in five, ten years, I'm sure I will have even more changes. :)