#i know i complain about fanon but i like grian a lot

[elven-kisses]

absolutely insane bonkers about Grian rn. can someone please come hold hands with me and talk about him please

[braxiatel]

Thinking about Grian from a shippy point of view, I think it’s really easy to misunderstand his character.

The thing is that when Grian likes someone he Likes them. Capital L.

Mumbo, Scar, BigB, etc. When he falls he falls hard and he becomes obsessed with the objects of his affection.

And here is where a lot of people get him wrong (and to be clear I’m thinking about this because I am trying to improve my characterisation of him and can see places where I’ve made this exact mistake in the past). The thing is, Grian is self aware and he is trying sooooooooooo so hard to appear Normal about the object(s) of his affection. At all times he is - if not physically then mentally - doodling his name next to his crush’s name surrounded by hearts, but he can’t have them knowing that. He would walk into hell for them but he Will complain about it the whole way. He will wither away without their attention, but will go no further than to coincidentally happen to do so in the place they are most likely to find him.

And that, I believe, is the crux of why getting his character right is difficult. He cares so deeply, leading some people to think that he is all lovey-dovey and not at all guarded with his emotions, but at the same time he is trying (albeit badly at times) to hide his affection, leading another camp of people to take him at face value and think he doesn’t care.

I don’t have much of a point other than how interesting it is, and perhaps a hope of seeing it featured more in fanon

[theminecraftbee]

so a thing this fandom does that remains FASCINATING to me, as a function of the fact a lot of this fandom is people's first fandom or only current fandom, is just... assume a lot of things it does is a scourge that this fandom has invented or doesn't exist outside of it? or like, is uniquely bad here? and i won't deny that sometimes mcyt fandom is a bit more intense by virtue of numbers, but like...

duo names: confusing fandom-injokes to describe duos and groups tend to be an anime fandom thing specifically for many historical reasons, but they're not uncommon. hey quick--if you haven't been in KHR fandom, can you guess what 1827 is? no? i'll give you a hint: that's actually a ship name. or, ygo fans, tell me the difference between puppyshipping, prideshipping, violetshipping, and rivalshipping. my hint is that they're all kaiba ships and two of them are actually the same ship. good luck!

reducing characters to a specific trait: have you read fic in another fandom before? i would recommend you go do so and come back to me. my example here is "sasuke likes tomatoes", for the record.

common au fanon that's confusing to outsiders: my deep cut here is "when i got into certain tv fandoms i was baffled by the existence of sentinel/guide fics", which is a slightly older tv fandom thing so many of you probably don't know what i'm on about. but trust me: in certain fandoms it's ubiquitous and unless you've watched a completely different tv show you're gonna have to entirely pick it up from reading fic. oh hey, hybrid aus and watcher!grian, nice to see your relative here,

fanon being treated as canon: did you know there's this whole bnha character, naomasa, who is treated as canonically having a lie detector quirk? did you know that, best i can tell, that's not in canon anywhere, it just got echoed through fanon enough that everyone treated it as canon? 'fanon trait becomes so ubiquitous everyone assumes it has to be there' is not a new thing. also, batfamily fans, i have been lead to understand the tim and coffee thing is also this.

characters being treated badly to make a different dynamic look better: the fact we have the term 'character bashing' tells you all you need to know, here. if anything my one complaint on this front isn't even that it's happening--it's that i wish bashing and/or "not [character] friendly" was tagged a little more frequently, haha.

characters being reduced to their family dynamics: tale as old as time. "even the family dynamic thing" yes even that. just because this fandom tended to be particularly ship-adverse in the past didn't mean it didn't do basically the same behaviors as any fandom with shipping did with those dynamics, just gen. and other gen fandoms also do that. yes, down to the "and shipping reduces them to a ship, unlike my gen dynamic, which is very in-character; why can't people just be friends?" thing. some of you have to have been marvel fans right.

characters being reduced to their ships: some of you have to have been marvel fans right.

The Discourse: yeah this is an "actively running show" fandom thing, but also a hiatus fandom thing. ask a homestuck about vriskourse sometime. as much as i hate to say it, it probably made doomsday discourse look cute.

and those are just like... some things i've seen people complain about on my dash recently. idk it just hit me there are probably fans in mcyt fandoms who are assuming that some things (like hybrid aus or duo names) are the kind of things that only happen here, so i thought i'd offer some examples of other places they happen! i also have even more examples if you'd like.

to be clear: this isn't shaming anyone for complaining about any of these things. lord knows i go complain to my friends about it all the time, just the other day i was complaining in the category of 'they keep bashing my guy'. it's more of just... a gentle reminder that maybe we're big, maybe we're loud, maybe we have problems... but these problems aren't always unique.

so uh. we're all suffering together i guess...?

[poppyseed799]

Least favorite type of person (not really) the people who are like “watchers are just a metaphor for the viewers, fanon watcher lore is so dramatic”

LIKE ARE WE EVEN WATCHING THE SAME STUFF. HUH???

I’ve legit seen people say “watchers aren’t magical beings they’re just us” BRO EVEN IN EVO (where they originated from) THEY HAD MAGICAL POWERS WTF DO YOU MEAN. THEY DIRECTLY CONTROLLED THE SERVER. They literally spawned in bedrock and portals bro 😭 yes they were also meant to represent us, the viewers, but that doesn’t mean that’s ALL they were.

Secondly a lot of things people complain about being “fanon” IS LITERALLY IN MARTYN’S LORE. THAT’S NOT FANON!!! Grian being a watcher? That’s in Martyn’s lore. Watchers making these games to eat the tortured souls of the players? That’s in Martyn’s lore. WE AREN’T MAKING STUFF UP!!! Martyn was also literally one of the original writers of Watcher lore in EVO so you can’t even say he’s doing watchers wrong. Like if you don’t like Martyn’s lore that’s fine enjoy what you enjoy but don’t pin it on us fans we are simply following his word 😭

I swear people know so little like I swear some people thought Listeners were fanon too??? They’re not they were in EVO 😭😭😭

I’ve seen people innocently asking for details on watcher lore cuz they’re interested only to be met with a bunch of people saying it’s FANON and that watchers are just viewers????? DON’T SPREAD MISINFORMATION LIKE THAT IT’S LITERALLY IN MARTYN’S LIFE SERIES VIDEOS!!!!!

Want to make it clear that if you don’t like watcher lore I respect you and you can make your canon whatever you want it to be. But please don’t call the watcher lore fanon. Parts of it are, sure, but make sure you know WHAT is before telling people. These guys talk so confidently when literally watching one episode of EVO taught me that watchers have magic and also not the best relationship with the players.

If anyone wants to know more about the lore I could compile some links hehe. For now tho cuz I’m lazy, watch Martyn’s “shadow lore explained” vod on yt, the evo episodes listed in the listener section of the evo watcher wiki, and the evo episode where they killed the ender dragon (don’t think it matters which pov) (probably watch these in the reverse order I listed them lol)

[theminecraftbee]

i also have a side theory that elytra being codified as bird wings may have some influence from the dsmp fandom. cant really prove it but i noticed that nowerdays i see a LOT of frequent flyers given bird wings by artists that started off coming from the philza angle. wouldnt surprise me if some of those artists migrated to hermitcraft, saw bird grian and went "hell yeah, another bird guy!"

see that can't be the ORIGINAL root cause, because grian definitely already had pretty heavy fanon wings before the dsmp fans came in. (actually i remember hermitcraft fans jokingly complaining that dsmp fans didn't draw their characters non-human enough back in the earlier days, lol, though that was mostly about sam.) it probably can't even be a particularly early root cause because the stronger dsmp influence i don't think started coming in until late 2020/early 2021 (i know that's when i jumped at least and that was around the peak of hermit!tommy stuff). the big WAVES of dsmp fans who left the hermitcraft fandom for dsmp was also like, mid 2021 i think, around season 8? and by then grian already DEFINITELY had wings.

however i think you may have a point about the philza thing? because philza got VERY bird-wing and had less of a bird association than grian, and i definitely see way fewer insect wings than i personally think i should given that elytra is the word for a part of beetle shell that goes over the wings, if i remember right. then again, most artists just... seem to like drawing bird wings more than insect wings, so that may be it?

anyway elytra being bird wings could be philza influence and dsmp influence a bit i definitely don't see them as like, the plain elytra much anymore either. but also i think people just like drawing bird wings. idk its worth looking into.