#((dunno how well i've been expressing that in this thread but. here it is)) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sillyfudgemonkeys · 4 years

Note

this is an outta nowhere question but what are your thoughts on Joker in Smash about a year since he was added? I've heard some folks say the reason the Persona fandom got so toxic is bc Smash got involved and I wanted to know what you thought since you've been in it way longer than P5 and Joker in Smash

Short answer: Yes AND No.

Long answer (it’s me of course it’s gonna be under the cut due to length 8U):

I’mma be honest, there’s always toxic fans. I know Smash Fans (and Nintendo fans in general) haven’t exactly been peaches, esp when it comes to Twitter (which I think is also an issue atm). But there were toxic fans before than and there’ll be toxic fans later. It’s just life tbh. (dunno where to put this but I’ll put it here: Twitter nowadays is like 2012-2015ish Tumblr, different being Tumblr was a bit more hiveminded and if you disagreed with a popular fandom opinion you.....were kinda bullied let’s be honest so no one could really say their opinions. While Twitter now it’s not a hivemind but instead two sided extremist that you need to choose. Both toxic and similar but just a taaaaad bit different, I’d probs take the two extremist sides over the hivemind if I had to chose tho...even tho Tumblr had better content during that era than Twitter right now imo but that’s in general and not Persona only. 8U Tumblr’s REALLY calmed down since the porn ban I’m not gonna lie, and ironically that’s roughly around the time that Twitter started getting shitty. So like....kinda saying there’s a correlation, I think a lot of toxic tumblr people probably migrated to twitter, and while there’s toxic fans everywhere it feels like a lot gather on Twitter so it really highlights the fandom there sadly).

From my experience (which is from P4 PS2 era onward, I missed the pre-P4 P3 PS2 era stuff but apparently there were waifu wars which from what I’ve found I probs would’ve just classified as “shipping war” stuff rather than waifu wars....and it seemed liked standard shipping war stuff from back then), the bigger a fandom grows the more fans it obviously attracts, but that also means more toxic fans too. And that’s why I say yes and no for the smash community, yes because they did attract more fans (and their community seems to be a bit toxic atm, like I get expressing your wants to a company and I support that! but the INSTANT you don’t get a specific character announced for the fighter pass and instead of just being like “oh golly darn :(” but instead “***** this place ***** Nintendo you all suck ****** *slur* *slur*” yeah no that’s a little....you gotta take a step back buddy, so yeah I’m sure there’s a bit more toxic fans in that fandom atm but they are also a BIG ASS FANDOM so I’m not surprised), but it’s also just the cause and effect of the fandom getting bigger in general.

It happened when P4 got it’s anime (btw anime fans ya still valid and are a Persona fan, just keep in mind if you wanna talk lore just know you did watch a very abridged version of the game so be aware you might have somethings wrong cause of that.....cause I’ve seen it happen.....DX btw let’s play watchers are also real Persona fans and I’d say even people who just like Joker in Smash are at least Joker fans and that’s ok too enough gate keeping guys DX), it happened when we started getting spinoffs, kinda with the P3 movies (only really cause FeMC fans were salty or P3 fans upset what was cut/changed, but it wasn’t on any toxic level tbh just normal complaints, I think the fact it was a movie instead of an anime bypassed newer fans than with P4/5 animes), it happened when P5 solidified it into the mainstream gaming market (I’ll stand by P4 helped break Persona into it via all the other avenues of mainstream, with P5 finally latching the main series into mainstream games.....I say mainstream cause spinoffs are looking the same as pre mainstream which.....>.> *shrugs* could be better imo), it happened with P5′s anime, and it happened with Smash Bros. And tbh I’m sure it happened or will happen with the Steam community (and Switch/Xbox if it ever goes there too) and P4G (P4 fans go through the same cycle of BS constantly, most of which I believe originated with the anime generation, that it’s hard to tell if there was an uptick or not). And it’ll probs get an uptick again with P6, and then P6′s anime. And maybe manga cause maybe P6 fans like the P5 fans and won’t listen when people say “don’t get attached to the manga name it’s probs not gonna be used so hold off till the anime” but hey let’s have drama for no reason cause we need it. 8U (obvie you can still like the manga name, it’s more for people complaining about name changes or not getting why Atlus just didn’t keep the manga name even tho an explanation is probs within arm’s reach and they were warned beforehand)

*sighs* Sorry back on topic, each time the fandom grows so will toxic fans. Tbh I feel like the phrase “toxic fans” are thrown around a lot. And it’s esp used for only....”haters” it feels like and I don’t think that’s right (cause it can be fans too), it just feels like ANY negativity (even constructive and kept reigned in by certain users) is viewed as that. Like take me, I’m sure I’m probs labeled as a “toxic fan” due to be being a Megaten/Persona fan but disliking P5 and talking shit/calling it out. But I try my damnedest to do that in the appropriate places (ie my personal blog, maybe a confessions place, or a thread/board that’s expressing negatives only OR it’s explaining/expressing pros and cons type of stuff, I find that to be the best because it keeps people who want to vent away from people who want to gush so no war happens, not saying I am perfect or you HAVE to follow this or you are toxic, it’s what I decided to ascribe to and find it works well and good enough and it gives me a better fandom experience). Aka, I don’t go on twitter to someone’s fanart of Yukari or Makoto and trash the character because I’m not a freaking asshole (or in this case a ~toxic fan~). But this also applies to the “fans” as well who will talk about something they like (character/game) but the ONLY way they can raise it up is by tearing down something else (other character/game), it’s really rude and also toxic as well. Negativity is not inherently bad all the time, and Positivity is not inherently good all the time (with positivity it’s more of giving yourself a break from it rather than saying something positive can be bad at times, tho I’m sure there are times that-that has happened but it’s 2:30 am and I don’t want to think of an example for that). It’s how it’s used/expressed. I see the Twitter community trying to combat the “negativity” by trying to only spread “positivity” and I’m afraid 1) any negative expression, even constructive, will be scorned (I guess I’m afraid of us going back to a hivemind mentality again), but most importantly 2) the people trying to head it are going to be burned out and it’ll hurt them mentally (I do not want it to happen obvie, but I know personally it can wear you down which is why I’m concerned). Don’t get me wrong I love what they are doing/trying to do, but I think we’re generalizing the word “negativity” and “positivity” a bit too much and it’s just raising a few red flags for me (I’m just hoping I’m being paranoid/overanalyzing in this case).

Uhhh there was one last thing I wanted to address.....Oh yeah gate keeping. I know you asked about Smash but this stuff is kinda related and hey think of it as a history lesson for the Persona fandom (or at least Nusona cause I didn’t have a game system in the 90s ;_; plus wee little me wouldn’t have been able to find P1/2 fandoms back then due to me not really using the internet like I do nowadays till around P3 was probs released). Plus you know how long winded I am so this is kinda what you sign up for, 3 am ramblings of overexplaining~! But gdi I will try to cover all the bases and get my point across in....some fashion. 8U

But yeah, Gatekeeping in relation to the Smash fans, cause I see Persona fans shit on new fans that got into Persona through Smash (I know above I said Joker fans are valid Joker fans rather than Persona fans, but I’m assuming they’ve yet to play/watch Persona and are just aware of Joker and are a fan of him vs the fans who saw Joker and then watch/played the games to get into the fandom. One set is a fan of a character vs the other set got into a franchise because of said character. Like I wouldn’t say I’m a FE fan cause I liked Marth/Roy in SSBM, which is why I have that distinction myself BUT if you wanna call yourself a Persona fan that’s valid, you’re valid, it’s whatever, I don’t really care about the details that much, I just have two categories for convenience). Anyway I don’t think it’s fair to shit on them. Same as I don’t think it’s fair to shit on anime only or manga only fans. Or if they got into the fandom through Nusona (Oldsona is P1/2, Nusona is P3-5 atm). Or Oldsona. Or another Megaten game.

Maybe it’s cause I came from P4, where it got shit on cause it wasn’t (”dark”) like P3, it wasn’t (”dark”) like Oldsona, it wasn’t “dark” like other Megaten games, it got shit on every way to Sunday for daring to try to have a more lightened mood at times (3 murders happen, we see 3 dead bodies, a 6 yo dies onscreen, we have characters going through intense existential crises, we deal with characters mourning through death as well as other relatable struggles, basically shows our teammates die one by one in the final boss, having a chance to hear Naoto’s death scream on the phone if you don’t stop Adachi, just the “you didn’t save the person” phone calls in general, talks about society’s toxic gender roles and how it can negatively effect a person both to an extreme extent and minor, god forbid they eat an animal cracker to lighten the mood, and this isn’t counting the dark shit that happens in the spinoffs). As if P1/2/3 don’t have comedy, or any other Megaten game, all the demons are freaking weird of course there is comedy. Oh and it also got shit on for going mainstream first, and not even counting that it got shit on for spinoffs (which P3 was included but no P3 gets a pass for some reason), and the fact that it was shit on for not being P5 (before and a little while after P5 came out) because it wasn’t “dark” like P5 (fdksjafajkfljafj P5 has it’s moments, esp with Shiho, tho P4D did it first and went through with it, but seriously each game has it’s own light and dark moments and one isn’t better than the other only cause they have more of one than the other). And....*sigh* let’s just say thank god that I was able to buy other Megaten games right before the flood gates of shit came in, cause I dunno if I would’ve wanted to give it a chance if I had to hear my fav game shit on constantly. I say I dunno cause tbh I was craving more after P4 so badly I still would’ve probs gotten into it regardless of the fandom, I wanted more from the franchise even if it wasn’t 100% like P4.

But tbh I don’t blame P5 fans, anime fans, or Smash fans for maybe not wanting to get into the rest of the series. I get old fans of whatever feeling like they are...I dunno being invaded? By new people in the fandom. Or their afraid of new fans not fully understanding the franchise (hey guys that’s where you teach people instead of try to passive aggressively try to get them to leave the fandom I dunno maybe make posts to educate instead of trying to push away??? 030). And change is hard and yeah. And maybe you don’t like the new game (keep in mind there’s a diff between saying “*insert* Sux” and “I don’t like *insert* because...” one’s shitting on something and the other is constructive), but hey shitting on the game they like is probs not gonna win them over to your fav game sflkdjafkjafja Educate and be helpful, don’t gatekeep and drive people away. That’s a sure fire way for us to lose this franchise (remember we almost lost Atlus all together, but it was able to get a 2nd life thanks to P4 saving it....tbh probably wouldn’t have ever gotten P5 nor SMTV nor any spinoffs if not for P4′s success with its game and anime, this is both a history lesson and a word of warning since it already almost happened once).

Tldr; Smash didn’t help but it’s really just the fact the fandom got bigger and bigger fandom means we also end up getting more toxic fans mixed in. Twitter now is basically 2012-2015!Tumblr (diff is Tumblr’s was a hivemind vs Twitter’s now extremist two sides only thing), and Tumblr’s porn ban probably migrated a lot of their toxic fans to Twitter which probs hasn’t helped any fandoms on there. Negativity in general isn’t an issue, it’s if you’re being an outright asshole where it’s an issue. Don’t be an asshole in general, if you need to vent then vent where you need to, if you wanna gush then gush were you need to and without bringing anyone/anything down obvie. You are a Persona fan, regardless of where/how you started. Don’t gatekeep for the love of god, or so help me Jack Frost will sneak into your house and smack you in the face with a snowball (and if he doesn’t then I will.....jk...half jk 8U). Also *sprinkles of (allusions to? I dunno I tried it’s 3 am and my 2nd try on answering this and the first one was just as long) Silly’s Persona fandom history lessons throughout the post*

3 notes · View notes