#the collective joy of fandom is really easy to fuck up but also really worth trying NOT to fuck up

[triflesandparsnips]

So listen: filming has started. And that means that, at some as-yet-unknown date, we're gonna get whole new gay pirate canon that will

absolutely wreck

like n+1 of all of our deepest held personal convictions about the ultimate storyline, the growth or decline of the characters, the moral rectitude of every member of the cast and crew, the state of the youth of today, the truth of who shot JFK, etc etc etc. Such is the nature of a bright-burning baby fandom with only a single season under its belt (and thus no way to triangulate a narrative course), in the internet age, when given several months to sit around and Get Weird About It All.

Anyway. Rather than let myself feel betrayed by whatever a group of writers/actors/artists/conglomerates (none of whom, tragically, are me) end up doing with this story, I'm instead going to make the most of the potential fun available to me

To that end, let me introduce you to my:

This is the current iteration of my card, but I can switch things around or replace any of them riiiiiiight up until the first episode of season 2 airs -- then my card is locked in. Current contenders, from left to right, starting at the top, are:

Ed kept the summer linens

Izzy is nonbinary

The red heart is Ed's silk

A third Badminton appears

Ed is weird about his cravat

Izzy kisses anyone

Oluwande backstory

Calico Jack lives

Ed thinks Stede is dead

Mary and Ed meet

The petrified orange is a plot device

oh my god that's Jemaine Clement

FREE SPACE: PHALLIC BLADE INJURY

Lucius is living in the walls

Ed fucks someone else

Lucius is "haunting" Ed

Alma Bonnet on the high seas!

Black Pete punches Ed

Stede is weird about touch

"Never left"

Stede kisses Ed

Jim's brother appears

MASQUERADE

Stede kisses someone else

Stede hallucinates Ed

...sadly, I've already had to make some terrible choices (farewell "A sudden storm" and "Kraken version of the love theme")-- but I doubt they'll be the last.

So anyway. That's my card. I wanna see other people's. I want to get wooed away from one of my treasured options in favor of something daring-- or so likely to occur that it might as well be another free space.

I want to play a massive game with the narrative and as many people as I can rope into joining along, because, at the end of the day, I find fandom infighting to be boring and toxic-- but the concept of fandom competition, collaborative and iterative and, idk, potentially unhinged in a truly awesome way, to be fucking delightful.

So what's on your bingo card?

[ninasnon-sense]

I really miss having an uncomplicated love of Star Wars. It used to be so easy to just enjoy it. Since The Last Jedi though it’s just been so much harder. All the online stuff made it borderline intolerable, mostly because if you think that particular movie sucks then people assume you’re awful when actually you just wanted something different to what you got. I swear, the more exposed to the wider fandom I got the less I enjoyed being part of it.

Don’t get me wrong, the Star Wars fandom has always been fucking terrible. But I was into it as a kid pre-internet. I was 11 when Phantom Menace came out and unironically loved it and talked about it with my friends. I didn’t get online with the fandom until after The Force Awakens came out and made me feel like an overexcited kid again. Fuck, I even have Kylo’s Upsilon tattooed on my ankle. That thing was the first time I clapped eyes on a space ship and understood why people collect models of them.

I fell hard and fast for TFA and did what I’ve done with pretty much every fandom I’ve ever been in. I absolutely devoured fanfic and fanart of it, mostly on the Kylux side of the fandom because I’ve always loved villains and also because the bad guy section of fandom just tends be more calm. (Seriously, I swear the nastier the thing, the nicer the fandom.) And from the edges there was just this unpleasant bullshit that got harder and harder to ignore. Bullshit that was just so much worse than anything else I’d seen in fandom. People bitching about Rey being a good pilot, just nasty shit about Finn. Just outright misogyny and racism being piled on. In fucking Star Wars

STAR WARS! The whole point of Star Wars is that Bashing the Fash is good actually. As much as I love villains, I’m not an idiot. I know that the Space Nazis are bad, no matter how cool Vader looks, no matter how awesome force lightning is, no matter how fucking beautiful the Upsilon shuttle is in black, the Empire and the First Order are fucking awful. They’re oppressive regimes, the First Order is literally a fanatical cult. And they are meant to represent the real evils of bigotry and oppression. And fans of it were just being openly, almost proudly, fucking terrible.

Then TLJ came out and I thought it was terrible. For many reasons. And even though I could wait to see how twelve dudes in an old weed van were going to save the galaxy I couldn’t ignore that so many people were being foaming at the mouth fucking weirdos about not liking a film. Don’t get me wrong, I have hours worth of ranting about that bullshit movie clocked (we all know that the cat horse things just got shot, right? Or at best tranqued and dragged back), but holy shit some of the thing people were doing.

One thing in particular I remember that made me feel ill. One racist/misogynist went and bought a fuck tonne of Rose dolls. And cut their head off. Who the fuck does that? Fucking hell. Just, on youtube. A really long video of him decapitating doll after doll with a pair of scissors. And it was popular. People praised the fucker for it while I was wondering if this shit head was a potential serial killer. Then there was the huge harassment of pretty much any woman or POC in the movie to the point of some of them being driven off of social media.

By the time Rise of the Skywalker came out (which was awful for so many reasons but at least felt more like Star Wars to me than TLJ) I almost didn’t want to go and see it. I did, mostly out of morbid curiosity by that point. And gods, I just didn’t give a shit. TLJ pissed me off, ROTS just made me tired. And still it was surrounded by this toxic smog spewed out by a bunch of bastards that seemed to not even be familiar with the concept of not being a dick.

I almost wish I could just stop liking it, but I doubt I ever will. Rogue One was amazing. It was everything I had wanted from a Star Wars movie after TFA came out. I loved Solo mostly because of how disposable it felt. It was big, brashy, dumb as fuck and didn’t matter in the slightest, which was exactly what I needed at that time. I haven’t finished watching the Mandalorian yet, though I will. That fits better than the main movies have as well. I’m finally getting around to watching the cartoons and while I think the art style is an ugly blocky mess, it kind of fits. Star Wars is many things, but pretty has never really been one of them.

I love the setting. There’s something about that scratches an itch in my brain the way nothing else I’ve come across does, and for that reason I doubt I’ll ever really give up on it. But I also doubt it’ll ever make me feel that swoop of joy that TFA brought me again. And I’m sort of okay with that, but in the same way that I’m okay with only interacting with people that used to be my best friends once or twice a month on facebook. I still love Star Wars. I probably always will. But the type of love has changed. It’s less unfettered pure love and more “I’m glad I knew you but we’re walking different paths now”.

[tohrusthoughts]

Entitlement.

The problem with social media and game development is that in the beginning of all this.

People made games and design choices with a through abd through complete package. Yes. Developers made games so that people can enjoy them to the fullest. But it was done in the sense of a novel or a movie.

Once it came out. And experienced it was already out. There was no changing, there was no listening to fan feedback or social justice mediocrity. That was to be adjusted and adapted and made better in the sequel or the next game by the developer.

You can't please everyone, it isnt even fucking quantifiable to attempt it. But you could attempt to make the best product possible and see your intended story and character development through and through with the use of an interactive medium and a type of experience that is impossible to get with anything else.

Now. With the abillity to interact with developers and content creators on easily accesible platforms. The idea is that we can give them feedback on things were looking forward to or would like to see happen. What ideas are good, what ideas are bad.

The innate problem is how oppinionated human beings are. Every single individual believes that the way they see things is the only singular way to view an outlook over design. And some people can share this "singular outlook." Collaborate the notion with no challenging approach or alternative perspective. What they intially see and or think is the only way....cause they didn't like it.

This negative outlook will continously be reinforced either by lack of desire or more commonly by other people who are similiar minded and just go "Yeah thats right! Fuck this thing I don't like it."

Well let me be real with you for a second.

I don't care.

The developers shouldn't care.

No one. Should care that you don't like a design choice or a storypath that you disagree with or don't like.

The reason I state this is as entertainment goes. You're developing a product. Whether its niche or not it fits a specific style and audience. This is defined by genres.

People who like rpg's more often then not, don't like shooters or action games. (Or atleast not in the same way as you can like multiple genres). The point of mentioning this is that when formulating a product within a genre it follows a set of mediums and thoroughfares that fit into that genre as all of these things have been predefined at this point with tropes and junk.

And secondly(but technically more importantly) they follow the creator/developers vision. Their storylines, character concepts, gameplay types, etc. etc. Its their individual vision and ideas become realities.

Not.

Yours.

You didnt make it.

You in fact didn't have anything to do with it.

At best you are exactly as intended a fan.

Fans when it comes down to the bare basics. Do not get to decide what a developer should and should not do with their vision. Whether you as the individul, as the fan, as a collective, or alone like it or hate it with every fiber of your being.

When it comes down to it. Truthfully. Even as a fan and something happens within a medium or a product you just, barebones morally disagree with. Stop supporting it. Move on.

What you shouldn't do. I want to say can't but thats never gonna be the case at this point....shouldn't do is harass, be vile, or hateful, send death threats or the worse style of harassment to people who

A. do enjoy these choices and can find some sense of joy or fun from the product.

Or worse B. do this to the developers.

Telling someone they should go die because of blah and blah is flat morally wrong and makes you a shit person and not worthy of an ear to listen to.

And No. you can't call blabbering like a child over your distaste as criticism.

Criticism is analytical, constructive in both postive and negative and has a purpose of creating a better product.

If social media worked like this towards developers and content creators it would be ok I like to think.

But its not. And we're not going to pretend it is.

I look at development in video games and anime as a hobby. I don't work in the industry but i throughoughly love watching creativity unfold.

And please believe me not all of it I find positive. In fact its a healthy middle of both. Somethings I get really excited about. "Oh thats really cool." Somethings its like...."Why?"

Investigate the reasoning and decisions, and decide for myself whether or not i wanna continue to support or be a fan.

Easy example. Any game that has lootbox styled orientation mechanics in anything. I will never buy. Something that has happened to many of franchise I have loved. But once it happened. It didn't matter that I was a fan. It dont agree with that concept as a gamer. I moved on.

And when talking about these games that has had this happened to them. I explain my choices. i won't support it and let others decide for themselves. But my money will never touch that product.

But this is where the real issue lies.

Fandoms.

Fandoms as a collective tend to think products belong to fans.

But they don't.

The only people who can lay claim is the people that made it. Full stop.

Right now. Which is what started this rant few will fully read, are complaining about the redesign of Sheila from the Spyro trilogy remakes.

Why?

She went from a bald kangaroo to a kangaroo with red hair. And she looks more feminine.

Feminity is not a negative. Girls can be the typical style of feminine if they choose to be. They can also choose to be butch, androgyness, or anything else. None of those are negative character archetypes but its not we "want" so we make them negative....and thats not only the wrong way to look at it but wrong in general.

What I wanna describe it personally as they added visually a fully realizied characterization. Which is what they've been doing with every single redesign. From her to the dragons.

Hell all the dragons went from generic pallet swaps of the same model to fully fleshed out visually. None of them even remotely similiar to the original designs.....AT ALL!!!!

So why is this ok for them and not her?

She looks like she has a ridiculously tiny waist now and they're sexualizing her.

Ok?

I don't get the sexulization argument. Cause i've looked at this same image. I am attracted to females. I like furry characters. I took one look at Sheila's redesign and went "oh hey thats a lot more vibrant visually contextulizes the character better. Why'd they change the eye color tho? The original i think was better."

Yes..that was it the eye color was the only thing worth noting that was upsetting in the slightest.

Annnnnd then I moved on. Still hyped for the game. It wasn't a huge deal, and even if it was. whats my options harass a developer....nah man don't buy it.

I didn't design it. Nor do I work.on the staff that is developing it.

My opinion on it regardless has no trinsical value one way or the other.

Cont.....one post up.