#Fandom Musings

[theweeklydiscourse]

Why is nuance dieing?

The younger generation seems to be so much more obsessed with moral puritanism in fiction and irdk why. Could it be because kids these days don't interact with real people and are just chronically online so they repeat what they see on the internet?

Actually saw someone saying people who like fictional bad boys are the reason why men get away with sa & rape irl and countries are criminalizing abortion...

It's just so depressing to see that. This line of thinking is scary actually.

I don't remember people going this mad over morals when shows and movies like Vampire Diaries and Twilight saga were huge. It's like people have regressed.

The media we consume is becoming more and more didactic as we enter an age where it seems like every piece of popular media is obsessed with delivering their messages and themes like an after school PSAs. Media is becoming increasingly more sanitized and “family friendly” to appeal to the broadest possible audience to create more and more profits for corporations. This obsession with sanitized fiction has become commonplace with many younger people who parrot what they see online and on the media they consume and proceed to deliver underdeveloped takes on subjects they don’t fully understand yet.

It becomes even more interesting when people point to fictional narratives as the cause for societal problems when there are already larger institutions that have historically been responsible for what they claim fiction causes. They displace the blame for societal ills like SA, abuse, patriarchal violence and misogynistic legislation onto fiction, fan fiction and media that explores taboo subject matter. While I don’t deny that fiction has power, 90% of the time these people have no idea of the ways literary works influence our culture and default to a 1:1 “monkey see, monkey do” explanation for why people must consume the “correct media”.

Another factor is the way that people have become accustomed to moralizing their content consumption. They have convinced themselves that they need a concrete and righteous justification for their likes and dislikes and this has ruined the way fandom interacts with literature, film and other art forms. With this in mind, they can no longer dislike or even hate something without creating some moral justifications for why “hating this thing is actually progressive and righteous!” and in the process, conflate consumerism with activism.

The comparison to Puritanism is quite fitting in this case. After all, the principles of that religion were based in purity, obedience and censorious beliefs for self-indulgences and we can draw comparisons with the way people online discuss certain subjects. There’s a phenomenon where people will say something along the lines of: “It’s alright to like (insert problematic character here)! But you need to acknowledge that they are a bad person.” To them, it seems like a gesture at fairness and magnanimity when in reality, it is an attempt at exerting unearned moral authority over the tastes of others. It is a demand that a person proves their moral innocence to them in a performative manner that validates their need to feel superior. But it’s all performative purity because even if a person did explain/justify their fictional tastes, these people wouldn’t care and would continue to demand purity from others.

People can’t even discuss certain characters anymore without running into people accusing them of being terrible people who would approve of real-life violence and abuse. And I can’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t always like this, when did it change?

[bapple117]

I don’t wanna play devils advocate or pit different fandoms against each other, this is just a general and personal observation, BUT

In six months of being in the Hazbin fandom for the first half of this year, I experienced a whole lot of stuff which I struggled with. Excluding meeting and getting to know all the WONDERFUL people in my server & being so very fortunate to have my fics do well, I actually got so burned out of that fandom due to toxicity and drama. I directly dealt with rude entitled people, bullying, feeling socially excluded from specific cliques… As well as observing all of the other weird (and constant) fan wars that seem to happen in that specific fandom

It is just a vocal MINORITY but it’s enough to sort of like, exhaust a person eventually. Again, I can’t express enough how wonderful some parts of that fandom were and still are - I’ve made some incredible friends & have some very treasured memories, and I still consider myself a part of the fandom, but…

The latter 6 months of this year I returned to the Gravity Falls fandom actively (have been in it since 2012) and boy oh boy, has that been a different experience. It’s just so much more… chill? I haven’t had weird entitled anons in my ask box, I haven’t felt excluded anywhere, I haven’t had people trying to micromanage my stories or play bitchy mind games with me. It’s just been so… wholesome. And peaceful. The Theraprist readers (especially those in my server) are just the coolest bunch ever, so supportive and funny. Idk. It’s just an entirely different vibe, and look - let’s face it, I was not in a great place mentally for most of this year, especially in the first half. Maybe I just got unlucky with the types of people I ran into in the Hazbin fandom, I don’t know.

Gravity Falls just always feels like home to me. It’s my favourite show of all time, Bill is my favourite fictional character of all time, it’s just… I don’t know. I’ve just had a much better experience being active in that fandom this year overall, and that makes me both happy and sad, because I kinda owe my current “fandom creator status” to Hazbin, really. 2024 is the first time in all my thirty-two years of life I’ve ever been active in fandom spaces, rather than just a lurker. I don’t regret any of it, but I do wish I’d been less naive / vulnerable in the Hazbin fandom, sometimes. My people pleasing and anxiety was off the CHARTS for a hot minute there (if you know you know LOL)

Maybe I’ll have a better, more well-rounded experience with Hazbin once season two rolls around. I hope so. I’m wiser now - I’ve learned some valuable lessons 😂

I need to say again though just how grateful I am for ALL of my readers, and I still love Hazbin absolutely. I just really, REALLY needed a break from thinking about it, cause it kind of got muddied up with a whole cluster of bad feelings and anxiety for me for a while there. I think I’m moving past that, now. I see my boys on the horizon and I feel radiostatic feelings in the depths again 🤣

[graendoll]

Saw a post about how Buddie is giving Bellarke vibes and honestly yes because I have trust issues, but also no it's not because Minear isn't a bitter piece of hot garbage like Jroth.

Unless the spin-off for 911 is 911 El Paso and Ryan is the lead for the tie-in, in which case may the curse of 1000 Billy Boils be cast upon thee, Tim.

[batbeato]

Phenomenon not unique to Umineko but starkly showcased because of it: the difficulty with separating discomfort of a character from analysis, and from judgement of others.

There are so many characters in Umineko that make people uncomfortable - Rosa is one of the first that comes to mind, but Kinzo does as well. They are such well-written, human characters - and also terrible abusers. They are uncomfortable to watch, they are uncomfortable to analyze, because it feels uncomfortable to remember and acknowledge that, yes, the abusers are human too even though they are terrible.

And there are people who will love characters like Rosa because of how well-written she is, just as there are people who will dislike or even hate her because she is uncomfortable, she is abusive. Some people will then go on, as they hate Rosa, to also hate people who enjoy her character, equating their enjoyment of her character to condoning or ignoring her actions.

I've also seen the opposite, wherein people who love a character will be upset that there are people who heavily dislike or hate a character who, while well-written, is abusive and uncomfortable. They may even equate this dislike to a lack of understanding of Umineko (a common way people are attacked for their opinions, and one I'm trying to move away from using).

People should respect that people may enjoy a character they do not, and that does not always reflect on their views regarding real-life treatment of others. They should also respect that people may not enjoy a character they do, and that does not reflect on their understanding of the text. Again, not a problem unique to Umineko fans, but I've noticed it amongst us.

[kareenvorbarra]

i'm forever caught between scylla (agamemnon stans who think he's a better-than-average mythology guy who only has fully consensual sex with the women he's enslaved) and charybdis (agamemnon haters who think he's the worst person ever and that achilles is much better)

[ectoentity]

An idea I vaguely have been thinking of but don't really know how to flesh out into a DP concept:

The concept of ectoplasm comes from the spiritualist movement. It was described as an ephemeral material that would manifest during a seance as an indicator that the medium was using psychic entergy. Typically what was really happening was mediums hiding a thin fabric or paper (sometimes coated in paste) and using sleight of hand techniques to make it "appear" during a seance. The rooms were dark, only lit by a few candles, so the material was hard to see clearly. It was basically practical effects for a small in-person performance.

But the point is, it wasn't originally considered "ghost matter". It was psychic matter created by psychics, and ghosts just kind of took advantage of it to manifest.

[viktheviking1]

What's a fandom that you think needs more attention?

If you even mildly like Hamilton, You will love SIX the Musical. It's a history musical but it's British, plus feminine rage.

We stan the queens

[gofancyninjaworld]

See this as the self-indulgent ramblings of a greedy fan. In my greedy mind, I'd love the OPM manga to come out in 'seasons', like 10 weeks of 4-6 longer chapters (50-60 pages a piece) with a six-week break* between them to submit the next volume, take a break, and sketch the next set.

To really make it work, I'd love it if ONE would take a page from his webcomic and make sure that each set of storyboards has some point to be made. It's what's made the long gaps between wc releases bearable -- you have a good, meaty chunk of content to digest and ponder about in the interim. In a perfect, perfect world, the release of a new volume would anchor each set of chapter releases.

It'd work out to three volumes' worth of pages. Which is about 570 pages a year (Murata draws way more than that most years), just more concentrated. I'm thinking that with the multiple projects each man has, shorter but focused bouts of attention for OPM would work to the better.

Here I am writing in a semi-forgotten corner of the internet in a language neither man speaks. That should tell you all you need to know about how likely this is to end up a suggestion! :D

Ah well, who knows? They've been changing up how they do things since the beginning and they may hit on just such a way.

*wait, I hear you say, 'wouldn't that only add up to 48 weeks? What about the other 4 weeks?' It's called 'vacation.' Or whatever else they want to do.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@thealmightyemprex @themousefromfantasyland @piterelizabethdevries @the-blue-fairie @shiv-multifandom-mess @themetropoliskonboy

So a thing that I'm finding fascinating is learning about granted important elements of superhero lore that originated in medium outside of comic books.

Like the introduction of Superman's origin story as the son of scientists and survivor of the explosion of his home planet who lands on Earth as a baby originating in a newspaper strip series and a novel, while his weakness being Kryptonite, his work in the Daily Planet and his friendship with Jimmy Olsen and Perry White originating in a radio series.

In the world of Batman, you have the character of Barbara Gordon, one of the longest holders of the Batgirl mantle, originating in the 1966 live action TV show and proving to be a character so popular that they end being added to the comics produced at the time and appeared in a lot of movies and cartoons ever since.

The newspaper strips were where people first saw Peter Parker and Mary Jane become a married couple before the idea was brought into the comic books.

And they still continued to be happily married in those strips.

And the X-Men characters Firestar and X-23 were created, respectivelly, for the cartoon shows Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends and X-Men Evolution.

So we audiences tended for years to assume the idea that "movies and TV shows are adaptations, and comic books are THE ORIGINAL SOURCE MATERIAL FOR SUPERHERO STORIES."

But since a lot of elements that flesh out those heroes are created in other medium simultenously with comics, or even originate in medium outside the comics, can we even say that a Original Source Material exists?

Compare and contrast for instance, the character of Scrooge McDuck from the Disney Ducks universe.

He is a character that originates in comics as side character for Donald Duck, even an antagonist one at that, before becoming a protagonist, and then he goes on to star in numerous cartoons.

And here is the catch: most of us enjoy and understand the character in his own right in those cartoons.

There is never a demand to go back to the Original Source Material to enjoy and understand him.

We may go to find and read then if we want to, but we hardly see people debate wether or not "the comics are the right version of Uncle Scrooge and the cartoons are not the real deal."

No matter where you first found the character of Uncle Scrooge, is still all valid as Uncle Scrooge.

Maybe a similar is needed to be taken with superheroes: each person chooses the prefered medium and art form to follow those characters.

Be it a comic book. A newspaper strip. A radio series. A stage musical. A movie. A live action or cartoon TV show. A videogame.

In the end it is all a valid art form meant to make following a character and a world in a way that is accessible for YOU.

[deadtwinksdetectiveagency]

hey i just wanted to say! thanks for your addition to the cat king post. the original honestly made me kinda uncomfortable, and i think you added a lot of nuance to that conversation

Hi! Thanks so much for this message. I really appreciate it. I spent quite a bit of time thinking through my comments there, and I'm actually a bit sad not to have gotten any response from OP or the person I reblogged from :< Ç'est la vie!

I do feel very lucky that I've been in many fandoms here with some truly excellent and thoughtful people (some of whom I almost always agree with, others of whom have absolutely insane takes)—and I'm very glad to have found so many similar folks here in the DBDA fandom too :-) Here's to us!

(Here's the post/my response in question.)

[imascar]

Is Lasagna to Season 7 what Couch Theory was to Season 6?

[theweeklydiscourse]

Zuko really is the most complex redemption arc tumblr can handle before they start getting scared.

[aripithecus]

I absolutely love how the mainstream Star Wars fandom was so completely blindsided by WolfWren that they never really talked about or got into arguments about it. The ones who did cover the phenomenon immediately outed themselves as queerphobes and the rest were left scratching their heads.

[graendoll]

Unpopular opinion but if 911 doesn't go Buddie canon I will stop watching.

I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting something from fiction and DNF-ing it when it no longer gives me what I want *shrug*. Like legit if I had watched 911 in real time I would have DNF-d about half way through s5 because the S4 payoff was minimal and wasted.

Anyway, don't feel loyal to bad stories that don't fulfill you. That's what fanfiction is for.

[kareenvorbarra]

It’s been probably ten years since I last got into a real argument online about the silmarillion, but to this day I see one bad take and I’m all fired up and ready to throw down

[inevitablemoment]

So, you know that necklace with the three stars that Callie wears?

Okay, I have a headcanon about that.

The necklace was a gift that Egon sent to Callie after Trevor was born. Her ex-husband was the one to find it in the mail and passed the gift off as his "push present" to her; it originally came with two stars, but she added a third after Phoebe was born.

In the Cathleen Lives AU, Cathleen is the one to give it to Callie, but Egon asks her not to tell Callie that it's from him. It's only after the end of Afterlife that Cathleen tells Callie the truth.

EDIT: When Callie divorces her ex-husband in the canon verse, he fesses up that the necklace wasn't from him, but doesn't tell her that it was from her father.