#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?

[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.

[allamaiqbaloo]

many feelings about how with regard to the untamed, lan wangji’s fruitless defense of burial mounds is how he gains his lashes and is why he is bedridden/grounded for years following it.

i mean, the wens and the man he holds most dear are long gone—dead, and he is well, well aware of that. and so for me, when he goes to that barren hill and defends it with his life—harms his own elders for it, it’s not with the what if of wei wuxian not being dead and dragging his body, or what remains of it, to the one home he feels he has. no, it’s not to defend a mortal man but a memory, an idea, a what if of a life that was able to be made and shared, and grief that had he stayed to realise it, disaster would not befall the way that it did. it’s a matter of symbolism.

really, burial mounds is lan wangji’s first and greatest regret, before and arguably more so than drawing his sword on wei wuxian, and mere moments before he meets his end.

[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.

[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)

[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

[fangirlingindefinitely]

it’s so fun to be Really Invested in a bit of fandom after being a passive media absorber for years?!? I genuinely kinda forgot the joys of loving two characters so much that I relentlessly draw them kissing on the mouth lol

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@rei-ismyname @mikeellee @professorlehnsherr-almashy @the-blue-fairie @meadow-mellow @maedelin @soviet-supersoldier @positivelybeastly

"Martin Lund responds to claims that X-Men stories are built around a single, dominant experience of oppression by highlighting the danger of conflating distinct depictions of the X-Men across time. As Lund observes, the X-Men’s comic book stories have been written and drawn by many different people across what is now a nearly sixty-year history; to suppose that these comics all address the same real-world sociopolitical context is untenable.

Racial, queer, Jewish, and other issues were not equally important to all creative teams, so one should expect differing emphases and analogies in different stories.

Lund argues that scholars should attend to the distinctive social-historical contexts in which X-Men stories are produced to avoid grand generalizations based on cherry-picking texts across a substantial period of time.

As a case in point, it is telling that X-Men stories came to depict their human opponents in the vein of Christian “hate groups” during the time of the Moral Majority, and that mutant heroes became celebrities during the early years of reality television.

Lund argues that both fan-based and scholarly analyses tend to link the X-Men with whatever political project the commentators in question are most sympathetic to.

As such, producing a more accurate sociopolitical history of the X-Men franchise must include a more self-conscious method of analysis, one that is capable of guarding against commentators projecting their own preferences onto the stories."

(Zeichman, Christopher B: X-Men Films and the Domestication of Dissent, in: Supersex; Sexuality, Fantasy and the Superhero - 2020)

[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.

[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.)

[theweeklydiscourse]

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

[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.

[imascar]

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

[inevitablemoment]

The Traffic and Parking Altercation sketches from SNL, but the father and daughter are Will Graham and Abigail Hobbs.

[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