#immersive fannish compersion

[triflesandparsnips]

An abbreviated list of the many, many reasons I love that the season 2 OFMD episodes are being released more closely to a regular television schedule than a single huge binge drop:

1. It allows for this cumulative building wave of meta and art and conversation to develop between episodes, growing higher and higher, yes, but also wider, broader, bringing in people who might have otherwise been missed in some big there-and-gone surge, creating (when in any fandom where new canon drives enormous fan engagement and creativity) an experience that I consider to be the greatest benefit of being in a live, active fandom: immersive fannish compersion.

2. It gives time for people to come up with theories based on one ep, and then have those theories absolutely smashed with the next (an important part of learning to play in the tidepool of media analysis rather than making oneself stationed there).

3. It gives time for us to literally feel time-- as Stede and Ed must spend time apart in the narrative, we must spend time watching them apart in real life, providing an element of emotional consonance that heightens our understanding of the characters and our engagement with the text. (In game design theory this is called ludonarrative consonance, btw, and it's fucking fascinating.)

4. And relating all this together, the slower release helps with the long tail effect, where the longer OFMD is out there and being actively engaged with, the longer there's space for new fans to enter into the fandom while fan activity is at its most FOMO height-- thereby increasing the show's overall reach (in terms of accessibility to new viewers through word of mouth and shared experience) and depth (through fan engagement and iteration on the canon and one another's work).