i think fandoms can be soooo ridiculous a lot of the time (see: all the nonsensical fan wars, discourse, etc) but i cannot understate how much i actually love fandoms.
like yeah it may be super nerdy and even cringe and outsiders look at it like "why tf do you care about these fictional characters so much?"
but 1) my field is literally..... literary studies..... in which all i do is study fiction and analyse it like an insane person, and 2) even if that WASN'T my field, thinking about the stories we consume is important even for any person to do, because thinking about stories exercises our brain to think critically!! why do you think our ancestors used stories as a medium to share knowledge, to propagate moral values and lessons? stories—telling them, thinking about what they're saying, and caring about the characters within them—are all inherent to the human experience!!!
so that brings me to fandom. because we are literally just making these little communities with each other based on our shared love for a particular story, and for a particular character or theme within them that resonated with us, or whatever. we're all here because we loved a thing so much that we built connections from it!!!
like yeah my irl friends laugh at me when i tell them i write fanfic, cuz ha ha what a nerd what a loser etc, but dude. i made genuine real friendships from fandom alone. from just obsessing over two characters we thought were cute together, we've gone to sending each other gifts and postcards and having voice calls and confiding in each other and sharing parts of us and our personal lives and our cultures (cuz we're all from different countries) with each other! like now i don't even share a fandom with most of my old fandom friends anymore but we still stick by each other and that's amazing???
also like, i cannot emphasise enough how amazing and encouraging it is to share your craft (art/writing/etc) with others in fandom. because for example if i make my own personal art or write my own original work, i'd have no one to share it to, no one interested to see it, and thus no one will be there to provide feedback or encouragement.
but if i post a piece of fan art or fanfic, people actually do see the work i post and care about the craft and the content it's depicting and even share their thoughts on it and that ??? is so motivating and lovely ??? because even though i make art for myself, art is still meant to be shared and seen at the end of the day—even if only with one person. so to be given the means of sharing our art in such a way, to have such a community that fosters so much creativity, it's amazing. i don't really get that anywhere else.
and especially to have this in like, a casual setting, you know, where you can just be yourself and do things according to your own time and energy without the pretenses of professionalism and a perfectly curated resume or portfolio, and all the confines of a rigid work schedule, which would all make the process of creation less fun and less genuine, and instead just more taxing and chore-like.
because fandom is essentially meant to be about doing what's fun for you! it's about sharing your creations and enjoying what others share with you. you make friends and you go ham with it.
and also it's why it's more frustrating when people take things too seriously and legitimately get upset over assumptions of other people's beliefs and hold the most minor grievances that could only be felt if you're like, chronically online.
but on that note, there are definitely still honest-to-god bad people in fandom spaces too (see: racists, TERFS, homophobes, groomers, harassers, etc). but that's the case with all communities, because bad people are always going to exist, and thus statistically speaking, the bigger a group or community is, higher chances are there's gonna be some awful people in there. but honestly that is its own can of worms and also that's not what this post is about, but i felt it necessary to address because i don't want to paint fandom as like, the best thing ever in the world, because fandom spaces are incredibly flawed, as everything is.
but i've always been one to appreciate things despite its flaws. and though this may be very personal to me, when i love things so much, i am still willing to stick around and try to change the culture around it in the ways that i can (like promoting internet safety measures, creating safe spaces for thoughtful and polite discussion, raising awareness on harmful stereotypes and fandom depictions or opinions, etc).
so regardless of the bullshit that online fandom spaces tend to perpetuate, i do very much still love the way that fandom allows me to connect with folks over something as silly as our little blorbos, and from there end up making life-long friends, or at the very least new acquaintances. insert reinforcement of my thesis statement about stories fostering human connection here. the end. send post.
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all your gods are dead -mobius
in episode 1 of s2 we see mobius and b-15 have a conversation about telling the tva the truth about the timekeepers being a lie and their identity as variants, to which he says:
think about it. hey, everything you've been doing is wrong and all your gods are dead. how are people gonna take that?
which lays out his character arc in this season so clearly. he feels the responsibility of breaking this news to the people he loves and he doesn't know how to, he can barely admit to loki that he's horrified of learning about his real life, he has this sense of loyalty to his coworkers and cannot imagine telling them everything they know is made up.
so of course he plays it cool. chillingly cool. cracks jokes, eats pie. but we see him so clearly NOT being cool. he slapped brad! he's trying to hold the pieces together and when sylvie confronts him in ep4, she hasn't seen how hard he is trying to keep it together. sylvie is trying so hard to hold what remains of her life together, too, and the contrast in how they do that is a fascinating one. there is no right or wrong between them, but we get to see this glimpse into their inner worlds when everything they know has imploded.
mobius makes quips, he tries to show how steady and responsible he his because that is what he has always been known for, and doing so helps fend off the terror that everything he's been doing is wrong and all his gods are dead. sylvie runs to where she can try and find stability in her own way and when even that is ripped from her she falls apart. they're both falling apart in different ways and the conflict is not with each other but with the universe itself.
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[the better reality | nms apollo & traveller]
At the center of the galaxy, you are left holding the cinderblock-heavy truth of the world you live in. The enormity of it all sits almost demurely in its place on your exosuit, that little red starseed and its cosmic significance.
Sixteen minutes. Always, sixteen.
Of course, Nada only hushes you when you try to speak about what you’ve seen. They stretch their palm outwards as you rush to inform them, sweeping away your words before they come. They are afraid — you know they’re afraid — to lose their haven to realization. Of course, despite everything, even though they have severed themselves from their people, they are still Korvax: they still fear the Atlas they reject so fiercely. You can’t bring yourself to shatter anxious Nada’s naivety.
You still find it in yourself to feel stung.
Still, though, they can see the anguish in the lines of your posture (Why won’t you listen? Why won’t you hear me? How could you leave me alone with this?), and they have never lost their kindness. Nada’s fingertips light gently on your shoulders, and when they draw you into an embrace, you return it twice as fiercely.
Polo squeezes your hand as you pass them.
“Nada fears, Traveller-Friend. Some things are best left unexplored.”
(TRAVELLER, the Atlas had said — had pleaded.)
You miss Apollo so terribly.
Sometimes you dream of a better reality: one where the world had yawned wide as you came out of the portal, and your friend was there to greet you.
Getting the details right can be tricky. You know what Apollo sounds like, sharp, sometimes guttural, mechanical and harsh at first blush. You know that standing beside them would suffuse you in subtle golden light, that it would play off the starsilk strands and fine leather of your suit. The details get sketchier and ruin the picture if you dwell too much, and so you try not to linger too much on any one point. Broad strokes.
They are bigger than you are, you remember from the tower transmissions; they are built sturdily, like industrial equipment, like a blunt force weapon. They get testy when you poke fun at it — “I don’t make fun of you for being soft, do I?” — and you know that this body is not necessarily theirs by choice. There had been grudges involved, and vengeance quests, and altogether you can understand why they choose to walk as a lone iteration entirely, free of the wistful togetherness of the Space Anomaly’s menagerie. Such tenderness doesn't suit them.
But Apollo could bludgeon you into an entirely new iteration, and Apollo chooses not to. That is how things go, in the reality where you break through to one another. The two of you cut a wonderful contrast walking worlds together. The gear you have chosen means that beside their simplicity, you are all tritium-hydraulic agility and solar-vitrified stealth, and they snipe at you over comms because they are made for steady distance and could never keep up with your gimmicks.
“Somehow Artemis was never half as much trouble as you are,” they tell you, with their strange blend of indifference and annoyance over-top a curious attachment.
“With Artemis, we really would have been unstoppable.” The thought slips out unbidden, and you pick at the enameling adorning your right pauldron as if to distract, or to mollify.
“… Yes,” Apollo says, a reply you don’t expect. Their tone is thoughtful, but not closed off, and you realize you’ve earned the rare right to their emotional input, such as it is. “We would have.”
In this reality, the pressing loneliness of all the world before you abates with your friend at your shoulder. Apollo is not necessarily talkative — in fact, without you there to prompt them, you think they might go days without a single flare of vocal activity — but their heavy tread at your heels and their ruthless haggling at trade stations compress the frightening vastness of it all into something uniquely enticing.
(The weight of the last sixteen minutes rests lighter on your shoulders, knowing that they, too, understand. They take the news of the galaxy’s infinite end steadily, a steel-stubborn levee refusing to succumb to the waves of despair that had submerged you before.)
(“Well, we all have to die sometime,” they had told you, rolling prism-studded shoulders. “And what time will be more interesting than this?”)
(They hear you, they listen, and they are not afraid.)
(In this other reality, they choose to do what no one else does: to accompany you. To understand.)
(And you know fully by now that those other iterations are just as real as you.)
(So just knowing that, you think, alone in your ship with your face to the stars — just knowing soothes the sting.)
Sometimes you dream of a better reality.
In it, all the world lies before you, and Apollo is at your back, and beneath the tint of your helmet, your eyes are wide and wonderstruck.
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