#varcahs speaks

[theswordwizard]

I don't think this is untrue necessarily, but I think that it's more of a factor that the idea of "fandom" has expanded to people who are more casual than true dedicated fan-types. You talk about Star Trek and Supernatural but those are both EXTREMELY long-running shows that happened to stand the test of time based on (debatable) quality, while managing to keep fans happy for the most part. There also, frankly, are just as many dedicated Star Trek fans today, if not more. That's because the shows are still coming out. There is constantly new stuff to watch.

There are countless TV shows and books and movies from the past that have had fan engagement come and go when it ended, just like we see happen today. It's the survivorship bias of fandom. The average "fan" watches something, is interested in it for a bit, and then they move onto the next thing after its ended, just like they always have. There is a very small portion of the population that is the kind of person to obsess over a single thing far past it's release. There is also not that much media that sustains that kind of long-term fandom, either.

Harry Potter had time to boom throughout the release of the books and then throughout the release of the movies, sustained by building a marketing and merch empire around it and siphoning millennial nostalgia. Star Wars had a movie series and now does TV shows. Bigger shows with more fans have them because they last longer, or tap into some niche or system that lets people project and have an easier time creating derivative fanwork. Homestuck is still going but notably waned during it's longer pauses since 2009. I cannot think of much media that had a big fandom and was only a single movie or book or something. That's how it's always worked, we just also had Superwholock and "Disney" as consolidated fandoms. (Also... if you're really desperate for a long-lasting fan experience... get into comics, regardless of the shows or movies.)

There is plenty of amazing work that doesn't lend itself to booming fandoms because they're complete and enclosed stories, and they still have broad cultural and artistic impacts regardless of "internet fandom." There is a real issue with tons of shows getting cranked out with only one or two seasons, but again I really do believe that there are plenty of shows that simply would not have gotten made in the first place or would have similarly gotten shafted before. Star Trek itself was almost cancelled before the first episode even aired. We have a huge media boom (mixed with terrible business practices) currently so the amount of shows this happens to is higher.

You're looking at the average normie fan and wondering why they suddenly betrayed you by not acting like a die-hard, but they never have been. And that's fine! The algorithms cater to this person but you don't have to cater to them yourself. You can build your own dedicated fan networks (which is how older fandoms worked and maintained themselves anyways, you just need to put in the work) if you want. Fan community requires actual community work. Fandom will wax and wane like it always does, just keep making work that makes you happy.

Not people saying “Fandom has always been like this” in that vent post I made. No. It hasn’t always been like this. Fandom has NEVER been like this until recently and if you were in fandom pre-tumblr purge, pre-twitter, pre-netflix boom, pre-tiktok….then you would fucking know it was nothing like this.

We still had the drive to create. We still sold prints and charms and made zines…but it was never like this.

The introduction of streaming, binge shows that drop all at once, tiktok and vine RIP i still love u vine but you were the beginning of a particularly ugly era) creating this bite sized, quick paced ‘content’ era of creation and it bled out into fucking everything else.

Fandoms didn’t die down when the show ended or the season was over. You didn’t mass unfollow artist, writers or moots just because they changed fandoms. There wasn’t this need to please the algorithm in order for your posts to get seen by people and enjoyed.

Fandoms used to last YEARS. Star Trek is literally the oldest running fandom out there and you got people in there that could care less about the new stuff and still have been happily prancing through their fucking fifty year old fandom today. Hell, even SPN after all it’s fuckups and shitshows has a dedicated fanbase STILL creating tons of art and fic.

There is no patience anymore. No calm feeling of taking in fandom and friends at a pace that which doesn’t make you stressed and is still fun.

Do I blame fandom for this? Of course not, but people are complacent with it and start changing their vocab to accommodate and end up making the situation so deep it cant be fixed.

We call Art & Fic Content now, completely stripping the value of what it is to a level of consumerism instead of personal entertainment & community bonding.

[theswordwizard]

screenshotting for use instead of forcing them to see hella tags but as someone who has a constant background of narration around special interests going on in their head which eventually will start to run out of "canon compliant" possibilities and start experimenting with crossovers: this is why I struggled for a bit to do a coherent plotty crossover between daredevil and nbc's hannibal. this is another rambling "for me and literally two other people with my interests and way too interested in meta-compliancy" post:

basically: daredevil and nbc's hannibal have conflicting main themes in ways where they don't as easily synthesize into a new coherent theme. nbc hannibal basically amounts to: what does it take for a person to become a 'monster,' or otherwise transform into a version of themselves that would be a terrifying stranger to them previously. and it sort of frames it as... not necessarily a power fantasy, but it frames trauma as something powerfully transformative. you become a version of yourself that can survive/thrive/take control in the hell you've ended up in. you will surprise yourself what you are capable of doing when it's your only option. but at the same time, its a sort of "succumbing" to your situation.

daredevil is almost antithetical to this. matt's whole thing can kinda be summed up as "even after everything, it's still you." you can go through any amount of trauma and still be able to recognize yourself after. you can stick to your principles even when pushed to the limit and come out alive, and being able to do so is important. he IS his principles, and even though he constantly falls short of himself, his struggle is a definitive trait of his. whenever he starts to abandon his principles is always tied to him losing his sense of self.

he cannot win (in the long run) if he abandons who he is, even if it's only an internal struggle. it's especially prevalent in the comics where basically whenever he abandons his principles he has a bit of a flip-out and tries to abandon "matt murdock" entirely, and then struggles to maintain whatever new identity he takes and has a whole identity crisis/mental breakdown. his strength is his stubbornness and refusal to remain fallen from his standard of self.

so obviously, one of these themes need to bend so far it breaks when put together. put matt in range of the BAU/Hannibal's house and its the big book vs thin book meme. in part because matt's biggest struggles in his narratives are against structural violence and systems (not to mention... the smells...). "there's this one evil guy causing 90% of the problems" is again basically antithetical to matt's narratives, or are at the most just his weakest plots.

ALSO, a lot of the murders in hannibal get treated as combinations of three categories (by Hannibal, who I would say has the most Thematic Influence over the show): 1) they basically deserved it and they were better off being dead in whatever form than alive (mason, mischa's killer), 2) what the killer gained from their death was more important than their life (sorta the case of melissa, her death being the photo negative so will could understand the ripper), 3) their death was important to the killed person, they were only able to ascend or transcend something in their death (many of the ripper victims and general murder victims.)

Basically "agreeing" with Hannibal, or adopting his viewpoint, (or basically being 'seduced' by the story) requires viewing deaths in those three ways. It requires a sort of dissociation with the reality of a person dying in any practical matter. any death becomes metaphor and symbolic, and the symbol is more important than the ending of life, it transcends it. this also doesn't rock with matt's themes.

even if you go serial killer AU matt's relationship with violence, and the temptation of committing murder, is based around practicality. it's that killing would technically be the most efficient way of stopping someone from hurting other people ever again. it's how he could cut through the red tape and financial security that protects fisk or fisk's stand-in, the way they've manipulated systems of supposed justice to hurt people (and specifically innocents), and just end it for good. obv in cases where that does happen (by his hand or others) it again leans into the fact that there is no single bogeyman that can be killed to stop evil or whatever. if fisk dies, there is a replacement to that power vacuum, if matt steps into that role to try and control it, he fails miserably.

hannibal approaches the seduction of murder with: and it's actually awesome? while daredevil approaches it with: it won't actually help you, and it won't fix anything. you will only destroy yourself. both of the (shows at least) fixations on catholicism also have parallel approaches with hannibal encouraging you to become your own god and daredevil reminding you that you aren't. will is basically betrayed by his friends and community while matt is consistently supported by his.

ultimately, nbc hannibal is very metaphorical and artsy and pretentious (i say lovingly) while daredevil is like. How Would Superpowers Effect The Local Law Economy.

[theswordwizard]

extension of a previous reply but i'm a chronic multishipper because i don't think that any one ship is necessarily "better" or more "real" than another one - whatever is canon is what some other writers who has to answer to larger corporate interests compromised on, that has nothing to do with me. it's all a narrative contrivance and I do what I want and the only master i have to answer to is my own titillation.

[theswordwizard]

internet really shows the breadth of human experience because i just saw a poll of "who first comes to mind when I say the name Michael" and michael afton and michael mell were the first two listed (who i had to google) and there wasnt even a single michael myers, no michael jordan, no michael keaton, and not even michael JACKSON?

[theswordwizard]

ive honestly thought a lot about driving as a modern, alternative state of convalescence. it's a perfect mix of an extended task that requires a decent amount of awareness/focus, but as it also functions a lot on muscle memory and can be relatively easy. especially on long drives your mind is free to listen to music or enjoy the scenery or just stretch out and think, without any pressure to be more productive. you can't do whatever comes next until you reach your destination, and you can't (SHOULDN'T) really be on your phone or do much that way. You have free reign to mentally be free.

(excerpt from EXHAUSTION & EXUBERANCE: Ways to Defy the Pressure to Perform by Jan Verwoert)

saw my friend reblog a post about hating driving and listen. i understand you. however i love driving because i am locked in a metal box for three and a half hours on the regular where i can do nothing but focus on not dying and listening to music i love as loud as i want while i pass through gorgeous mountains in weather that could destroy me like an errant fruitfly. it enriches my warrior monkey brain to go fast at speeds no man was meant to go and try as hard as possible to fight against the constant threat of dying in the concrete arena. does this sound relaxing? perhaps not to the regular man. but a man i am not.

[theswordwizard]

hey this isn't a request or anything but your most recent art post got me super interested. what would be your idea/rendition/iteration of (comic) matt's daredevil suit?

i am desperately procrastinating on some work so you get a drawing anyway! i generally add/subtract details every time i draw the suit depending on pose/vibe/memory/whimsy but heres the gist of it. i like to keep it a mix of practical but also cute. i hate the look of spandex and armor is a pain so its more of a tactical pant/shirt combo vibe.

[theswordwizard]

for the 'top 5' ask post: top 5 books?

HMMM I've been reading mostly nonfiction lately so I would say:

The Internet Does Not Exist (E-flux Journal) - It's a collection of essays from different people talking about technology in ways that really opened my mind a lot to how I think about systems. They also published The Wretched of the Screen by Hito Steyerl which is a collection of her essays on 'the politics of the image,' and I always love her writings.

New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future by James Bridle, which is about how we as a collection of societies haven't prepared for the radical increases in computational power we've achieved, and how they actually make it more difficult to understand the world as we're overwhelmed with data. Incredibly informative on a lot of different interweaving topics.

This is a manga but I just finished Billy Bat by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki. It's almost a detective story? A Japanese-American comic artist in America learns that he might have copied a character from a manga in Japan and takes a trip to check. 100 or so chapters later astronaut speaks to the cartoon character drawn on the moon and chooses whether to end the world or not. I don't think it's officially released in English so I read a scanlation online somewhere (I don't think it's particularly hard to find though).

The Queer Art of Failure by Jack Halberstam, which was honestly a primary inspiration to actually making Butchverse as a semi-serious series of essays. It proposes alternatives to the mainstream, the heteropatriarchal, the accepted, and blending together high theory and low culture in a really comprehensible read. He also wrote Female Masculinity, which I reference a lot in Butchverse.

I recently finished Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer, and if you liked the movie you will definitely like the book. INCREDIBLY suspenseful even after watching the movie, it's pretty different. The next two books in the series aren't as heavy-hitters IMO, but I know a lot of people that really like them so I think they're worth reading.

If you want a really great narrative that's essentially a book with some images and REALLY good music, I'm still halfway through Umineko (use the original graphics!!!) and it is possibly the GOAT.

[theswordwizard]

I bought butchverses 1 and 2 today, almost cried reading the essays and then said "fuck off" out loud after finishing the butchverse 2 puzzle.

In all seriousness though, your work has given me a new way of looking at gender/butchness/transmasculinity that I hadn't got from reading "mainstream"/classic queer theory. So thank you <3

🥹🥹🥹 omg I'm so glad they spoke to you!! (also MWAHAHA/I'm proud of you for completing the puzzle) I feel like there really isn't as much work seriously examining butchness in the modern culture that doesn't also lend toward misunderstanding/transphobia/getting stuck in a very antiquated concept of it. Everyone has a different personal definition of what it means to them so I wanted to do my best to articulate what it means to me, which is: the world ❤️❤️. Matt and Frank are my tools of discovery 😌

[theswordwizard]

If you're nervous about having to buy whole vegetables you might not end up liking, I would highly recommend going somewhere like a hotpot or buffet style restaurant with others. With hotpot you pay for your base broth and then any of the vegetables or meats you order are free, and while you can share with your friends, you can also likely just ask for much smaller amounts of different veggies, and say you're trying them out. You can then stir them into your broth and they taste so much better than you'd think. Every time I come back from hotpot I always have a few new veggies I start adding to my ramen.

i mean this in the gentlest way possible: you need to eat vegetables. you need to become comfortable with doing so. i do not care if you are a picky eater because of autism (hi, i used to be this person!), you need to find at least some vegetables you can eat. find a different way to prepare them. chances are you would like a vegetable you hate if you prepared it in a stew or roasted it with seasoning or included it as an ingredient in a recipe. just. please start eating better. potatoes and corn are not sufficient vegetables for a healthy diet.

[theswordwizard]

was just thinking that i need to start unfollowing people (i follow about 1500 blogs (this account is over 10 years old)) and someone just put attack on tltan on my dashboard... a sign

[theswordwizard]

that interview with fujimoto saying his goal is to make work people think about for a long time.... he nailed it. look back, goodbye eri, fire punch, chainsaw man? theyre not leaving me.

[theswordwizard]

richard siIken talking about writing w/ncest showed up on the dash again and i will give no opinion about that kind of fic other than it is corny and exclusively written by people without siblings but i just saw someone in the comments saying how w/ncest was the mothership of all m/m slash and I think that just underlines how outright delusional some people are. spock and kirk did not start a fire in the heart, loins, and pens of 60s housewives for you to call a show from the early 2000s the mother of fuck all just because literal brotherhood is completely alien to you.

[theswordwizard]

top five fictional world endings

I really liked the ending of Snowpiercer because I do love endings where everyone dies... I think the setup of everyone stuck on a train in a frozen wasteland is very cool.

I haven't finished the third book in The Southern Reach Trilogy but I think at least so far how the sort of apocalypse is turning out is really cool.

I like Slaughterhouse Five's end of the Tralfamadorian world where they know what mistake is going to kill them all but how they view time differently they view it as already inevitable.

Devilman Crybaby........ I love that kind of ending (no spoilers)

Interstellar was just awesome all the way through.

I do really like crazy endings where its impossible to return to anything resembling the status quo. I should actually watch Evangelion all the way through.

[theswordwizard]

its such an exercise of failure to try and have any serious discussion about homestuck's weaknesses or discuss anything that happened around the 2019 era outside of close friend groups because a majority of what I see posted is

rumor, based off something that did happen but completely misconstrued and important details missing/ignored

straight up lie

claims of "character assassination"

[theswordwizard]

i think this is a little bit reductive in how we consider "genderbends." I talk about it a bit in butchverse but there are the majority of genderbends where a big butch/masculine man, after being genderbent, is suddenly a petite and hourglass shaped girl with long hair and makeup. its not about being uncomfortable but its just exhausting how gender essentialist, boring, and frankly disregarding of character they are. Not to mention how many ethnic features that are considered "too masculine" get shaved down into european "feminine" features.

so, this is something i've noticed in fandom spaces and want to see how people ~generally~ feel regarding genderbends & genderswaps, especially if they are transgender themselves!

if there's a reason for why you like/dislike genderbends please share in the tags, this is something that genuinely interests me

[theswordwizard]

was wondering if youd be at galaxycon this year ! bought vrisrezi & dr kasukabe prints from you last time.for sure 2 of my favorite things i got:]

omgggg im so glad you like them, thank you!! I will be at Galaxycon Richmond again this year (as well as Awesomecon!) though I Have to warn you the only new thing I'll have is Butchverse 2 and maybe another print or so 😭 I've been busy