#it’s important for any fandom

[stardust-falling]

One very neat thing I’ve seen with my fanon-debunking meta blog is how differently people react to the debunkings and analysis— not counting any bad faith responses, there are some people who feel vindicated when a popular interpretation is fanon, some people who are relieved when it isn’t entirely disproven, and some replies such as “it’s good to know where it comes from, but this is also an important head canon to me personally even if it goes against canon for <reasons>” and in the end, really, it’s important to remember that every person brings their own experiences to the way they interact with fandom— and that even when something goes against canon, fandom has been transformative from the beginning anyway.

As much as any one person might despise a certain interpretation, there’s another person who it’s equally important to. Personally, there are a lot of interpretations I don’t like and which even make me uncomfortable, but I do think people should still be able to enjoy fandom in the way that best suits them and resonates with them— in the end, I think fandom should stop thinking of OOC as a dirty word. You can write characters OOC to canon, if that’s what you like— if it’s tagged correctly there wouldn’t be half the issues there are. If you’re changing up the way a character behaves, their motivations, their worldviews from the way they are canonically, tagging the work as “<character> is OOC” and posting it is perfectly fine! I can’t say that you shouldn’t write such a story, or that you can’t find enjoyment, or catharsis, or whatever else in it because that’s none of my business.

OOC isn’t inherently bad— when it’s a choice being made for the story. I think a lot of the issues come when the OOC behavior isn’t tagged, because then readers will assume that the way the character is being written is the way you interpret canon.

TLDR; transformative works that change aspects of characters even if directly against canon are perfectly fine and morally neutral actually, please just tag OOC if you’re writing it so that people expecting and looking for canon-accuracy won’t think you’re just misinterpreting canon. That would save creators a lot of “actually this is canonically incorrect” messages, and let others avoid interpretations they’re not looking for.

[shorthaltsjester]

there are literally no standouts in downfall because everyone sat down at that table and said hey you wanna see something cool and proceeded to Become their characters but idk if it’s because they’re beside each other and that aids the dynamic or just because it’s the delicious similarities and insurmountable distance between the god of death and the god of (in various ways) life but ayden and emhira’s interactions were so chewy and delicious. i’ll be thinking of their exchange fairly early on after ayden cast lesser restoration on that old man and emhira not cruelly but just simply stating “you cannot heal everything.” and ayden’s equally simple reply “we can always try.” emhira seeing the family trist has built and wondering at the presence of children, “surprised there is laughter in such a horrible place” and i know she’s speaking of hawk’s hill but i wonder if she is also speaking of exandria itself in some ways. the delicious space between in and out of character that only really happens in improv stories where as brennan is narrating and says “in this dark room” and nick interrupts and adds “it is not dark.” brennan’s incisive point in the cooldown that while the love that ayden and trist have for mortals and for exandria is warm and the kind of love someone would likely Want from gods, there is something maybe more honest or whole about emhira who says . actually these mortals are little shits that will kill you not because they fear you but because they hate you. whose very existence should be (and still often fails to be) a reminder that the gods can be usurped by mortals. the insight nick shared in the cooldown that ayden does not forget emhira’s origins but in a way dismisses them, that the god of death is a different beast. ayden wanting to find. way to save the people of aeor, insisting that the prime deities Win if they can find a way to do so. emhira reminding everyone that death is inevitable (and she does not add anything to clarify that she intends such a statement to only exist for mortals) as she argues for them to work to take down aeor and the people in it. the fact that the god with the most present connection to mortality is also the one given the most explicit clarification that she Is the god we know as SILAHA calls her the matron, brennan’s narration clarifies purvon is her champion, taliesin as asha asks for clarification on the recognition of emhira as a god and prompting the familiar spectre of a woman in a white mask.

i want to be very clear that when i say there are no standouts i Mean it because i’ve been awed and endeared and intrigued by every single character choice everyone made and as always brennan’s narration is so incredibly well suited for the mission impossible greek tragedy vibes that comes with this story and i’m so fucking delighted by the fact that laura, ashley, and taliesin are playing gods that their characters have known quite well in the past. i’m incredibly excited by what we’ve already gotten to see from abubakar, nashir, and nick and cannot imagine what other greatness is to come. i’m psyched to see the relationship between asha and the law bearer and am delighted that (perhaps for now perhaps for the whole arc) it is being seen through the lens of “my wife promised me a visit with apples and all i got was a rock ice emissary”. i also have many incoherent thoughts about the fact that, of the players who appeared as the same character in the opening and the story, taliesin’s ash and asha are the ones whose name remains the most unchanged.

i’m obsessed with the fact that this creature sent as a stand in by the god of law and duty believes his primary gift is love. while there is a certain mourning and sadness to every god we see, that SILAHA has a certain playful whimsy and jofyful curiosity about the world. that the only one of them who has been mortal before stops to steal an imp necklace from the neck of a drunk on the train (and that moment between brennan’s narration that this man will be dead by morning but, with death standing invisible in front of him, he is incapable of seeing it coming, and then laura as emhira breathing in deeply and brennan having that spark a coughing fit. they are Story Telling). asha seeing the erased image of a god, of a family member and saying “there’s a hole in all of us.” brennan narrating “this is a place where they tried to kill a story. it’s a very frightened thing to do.” (and god. the motif of fear. especially given the very present fear felt by the gods in current day exandria. they’re doing insane things in the critical role 3 part departure).

trist reminding ayden “he never tells the truth” and asha contesting “he only tells the truth, it’s just rotting.” emhira and asha both as perhaps the less Good™ much more neutral but doing so in such different ways, asha as bitter and hungry while emhira seems uncomfortable but there’s a familiarity and a certainty in her discomfort with mortality (the law bearer would also be included here but the emissary seems much more like trist and ayden (for now) than emhira or asha). something as insignificant as trist and her husband speaking to their children and affirming that little lies are okay while trist has lead a significant part of her life likely dishonest about who she is. the fact that there’s a certain childlike quality to the emissary who they’re all charged with ensuring makes it to the end of things even if they cannot. the fact that nahal (unclear which god they were, and i’m assuming it’s the first god of death but regardless still an absolutely compelling development in a short amount of time) in those opening moments is horrified by the concept of away which is unfamiliar to them only to soon after look upon their family and say. maybe away was better. Especially if those were words spoken by the god who would one day be replaced. these three episodes are going to haunt me and i’m excited to meet the ghosts.

[yourhighness6]

I feel like people who dislike Zuko miss how important his character is, especially to IRL abuse victims. The journey from scared, angry, isolated and abused to confident, calm, loved and accepted while being handled almost perfectly in the context of his abuse is so underrated even while being hailed as one of the best redemption arcs of all time.

[samwinchestermydude]

I think we as Sam fans should be more annoying and loud about the fact that his crossroad demons were men twice.

(This is me being pissed off about how people will say dean is of course bi due to some dumb shit like the siren, which was his brother, and “bi lighting” or something, and then turn around and say Sam is the straightest character. Like what.)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Wei Wuxian eats a watermelon. Yep!

[tea-cat-arts]

I simply think this fandom doesn't give Wei Wuxian enough credit for the various ways in which he saved Lan Wangji

[sammygender]

im so serious when i say disliking sam is an immediate red flag. what is there to dislike. what has he ever done

[galacticlamps]

ok I have A Lot of thoughts about the staircase confession (well really about Edwin's whole character arc, but all roads lead to rome) but for now I just wanna say that, yes, I was bracing myself for something to go terribly wrong when I first watched it, and yes, part of me was initially worried its placement might be an uncharacteristically foolish choice made in the name of Drama or Pacing or Making a Compelling Episode of Television but at the expense of narrative sense--

But I wanna say that having taken all that into account, and watched it play out, and sat with it - and honestly become rather transfixed by it - I really think it's a beautifully crafted moment and truly the only way that arc could've arrived at such a satisfying conclusion.

And if I had to pinpoint why I not only buy it but also have come to really treasure it, I'd have to put it down to the fact that it genuinely is a confession, and nothing else.

That moment is an announcement of what Edwin has come to understand about himself, but because it takes the form of a character admitting romantic feelings for such a close friend, I think it can be very easy, when writing that kind of thing, to imbue it with other elements like a plea or a request or even the start of a new relationship that, intentionally or not, would change the shape of the moment and can quickly overshadow what a huge deal the telling is all on its own. But that's not the case here. Since it is only a confession, unaccompanied by anything else, and since we see afterward how it was enough, evidently, to fix the strangeness that had grown between him & Charles, we're forced to understand that it was never Edwin's feelings that were actually making things difficult for him - it was not being able to tell Charles about them. 'Terrified' as he's been of this, Edwin learns that his feelings don't need to either disappear completely or be totally reciprocated in order for him to be able to return to the peace, stability, and security of the relationship with which he defines his existence - and the scale of that relief a) tells us a hell of a lot about Edwin as a character and b) totally justifies the way his declaration just bursts out of him at what would otherwise be such a poorly chosen moment, in my opinion.

Whether or not they are or ever could be reciprocated, Edwin's feelings are definitively proven not to be the problem here - only his potential choice to bottle it up - his repression - is. And where that repression had once been mainly involuntary, a product of what he'd been through, now that he's got this new awareness of himself, if he still fails to admit what he's found either to himself or to the one person he's so unambiguously close with, then that repression will be by his own choice and actions.

And he won't do that. Among other things, he's coming into this scene having just (unknowingly) absolved the soul of his own school bully and accidental killer by pointing out a fact that is every bit as central to his self-discovery as anything about his sexuality or his attraction to Charles is: the idea that "If you punish yourself, everywhere becomes Hell"

So narratively speaking, of course it makes sense that Edwin literally cannot get out of Hell until he stops punishing himself - and right now, the thing that's torturing him is something he has control over. It's not who he is or what he feels, but what he chooses to do with those feelings that's hurting him, and he's even already made the conscious choice to tell Charles about them, he was just interrupted. But now that they're back together and he's literally in the middle of an attempt to escape Hell, there is absolutely no way he can so much as stop for breath without telling Charles the truth. Even the stopping for breath is so loaded - because they're ghosts, they don't need to breathe, but also they're in Hell, so the one thing they can feel is pain, however nonsensical. And Edwin certainly is in pain. But whether he knows what he's about to do or not when he says he 'just needs a tick,' a breather is absolutely not what's gonna give him enough relief to keep climbing - it's fixing that other hurt, though, that will.

Like everything else in that scene, there's a lot of layers to him promising Charles "You don't have to feel the same way, I just needed you to know" - but I don't think that means it isn't also true on a surface level. It's the act of telling Charles that matters so much more than whatever follows it, and while that might have gone unnoticed if anything else major had happened in the same conversation, now we're forced to acknowledge its staggering and singular importance for what it is. The moment is well-earned and properly built up to, but until we see it happen in all its wonderful simplicity, and we see the aftermath (or lack thereof, even), we couldn't properly anticipate how much of a weight off Edwin's shoulders merely getting to share the truth with Charles was going to be, why he couldn't wait for a better, safer opportunity before giving in to that desire, or how badly he needed to say it and nothing else - and I really, really love the weight that act of just being honest, seen, and known is given in their story/relationship.

[crazy-fangirl2524]

Wymack, Bee, Nicky and Kevin are so underrated in regards to how fundamentally they helped Andrew. Without them Andrew would never have anyone to even take a chance at him. Without Wymack, he wouldn’t have college and exy, without nicky he wouldn’t even have a “home”, without Bee, Andrew’s mental state would have been way way worse, and without Kevin, Andrew wouldn’t have a purpose.

Neil may be the catalyst and Andrew’s main reason to actually live. But these four people (and Aaron) are Andrew’s cornerstones, his foundation, are what’s holding him up before Neil josten even existed.

[deancasforcutie]

still chasing the high of that halcyon age where Supernatural was my healthy safe escape from the horrors of US politics, and then

[chaoticqueerhope]

Not a template from one of my fandoms, but it fit so well haha. Really though, I can't be the only one, right? ... Right??

[scarycranegame]

thinking about. transfems. and trans girls. and how cool they are.. literally if you're a tgirl or girl-adjacent transgender person i want you to know that. you are so wonderful and beautiful and kind and talented.. we need you on this site now more than ever, and im so sorry about literally everything that's happened here. none of you deserve to be treated like this; you deserve so much better, and i'm sincerely hoping that other people (especially people with power to instate significant change that affects a lot of people) will understand this and work towards making this a safer platform for all of you. please don't let anything that's happening right now on this literal hellsite make you think that you're any less than amazing; i love all of you so so so much <333 please stay safe out there!!!

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I've been reading some of your homestuck essays, I think they're really good! I would like to know what you think about post-retcon homestuck and the interactions between reader and author throughout homestucks publishing. I was not in the fandom at the time of it being published, but I find this to be a very interesting aspect of the comic!

I was only on the fringes of the fandom at the time, but even that was enough to recognize that the fandom was absolutely awful. Every bad story you've heard about the Steven Universe, Voltron, and Undertale fandoms has its roots in the Homestuck fandom.

Pretty much as soon as the webcomic got popular on Tumblr, Hussie was put under intense scrutiny for basically every decision they ever made ever. I'm not going to say that Hussie was a perfect individual who never did anything wrong, because Hussie is a human being and that's how it works, but it's basically impossible to overstate how much the fandom tried to make an enemy out of Hussie.

The fandom was convinced that Hussie was their personal LE, and that attitude continues to this day - like, for an easy example of the fandom harassing Hussie for Literally Anything, when he stated that all trolls were bi/pan, to the point where they didn't have specific words for single-gender attraction, comparing it to a "more exacting preference" like somebody who only dates fat people - but that even within that framework, Kanaya was undoubtedly a lesbian character - people insisted Hussie was being homophobic. Fucking homophobic! For confirming all trolls are bi/pan, except Kanaya, who's a lesbian!

Other examples include: calling Hussie homophobic for John saying he wasn't a homosexual and Karkat literally not knowing what a homosexual was, because again, all trolls are bi/pan. Calling Hussie racist for making the kids aracial but accidentally leaving references to Dave having pale/pink skin in (because Hussie is a biased human person who can't be perfect and who did try to be more inclusive as the comic went on). Deciding that the dancestors served no purpose except for Hussie to be mean to their audience. Like there are valid criticisms to be made of Homestuck, but anything that was valid, nuanced, or thoughtful was drowned under a deluge of incoherent accusations of every -ism and -phobia that the fandom could possibly muster, the fandom as a whole racing to see who could paint Hussie as the biggest monster, even as they were harassing them to make more Homestuck.

Not to mention this was the era of rampant, unchecked ship wars and fandom misogyny. Not that fandom misogyny has gone away, mind you, but it's slightly more in check now. This was the era of fandom where it was normal to be sent death threats for shipping the "wrong" ship, and fandom ship wars were often encouraged by media of the time (love triangles were HOT - think zutara vs. kataang, team jacob/team edward, danny fenton/sam manson vs. danny fenton/valerie grey) because it drove up engagement. Homestuck was not really interested in shipping wars and love triangles - while many characters had circuitous routes and false starts, many were also pretty clearly set up to have specific endgame ships. But the fandom wasn't trained to behave that way, and the troll quadrants + canonical bi/pan trolls + active role of romance in the story meant that the ship wars were brutal - and also, Hussie was getting harassed every step of the way for not making peoples' favorite ships canon, a major part of a larger trend of people constantly ragging on Hussie for things not going the way they wanted plot-wise, to the point where Hussie had to comment on it constantly on his Formspring.

And don't think I forgot about the fandom misogyny! Here's a hot take for the class: Vriska is literally just Girl Zuko. She's ostensibly a noble from an imperialistic, warmongering, fascist society with an abusive parent who raised her with strict expectations, who thinks she has to act much more evil and more tough than she feels in order to earn the approval of her parent/society, and who secretly has misgivings and feels really bad about it and was set up for a redemption arc.

And people HATED Vriska. Vriscourse was so bad that many Homestuck fan spaces banned talking about Vriska at ALL, because just the mere mention of her name would spark massive, endless flame wars as people argued whether or not she deserved her little redemption arc (spoilers: yes, it turns out death is cheap in Homestuck and characters changing, growing, and becoming better is a huge part of the story) or whether or not she was justified in doing the things she did. Genuinely, I think a huge part of this intense hatred and anger was just misogyny. God forbid women have Zuko's character arc.

It was also part of two other large trends in the fandom - the first was that, despite finding every possible reason to call Hussie -ist and -phobic they could, the fandom itself was, ummm... "of its time." For example, the original March Eridan stuff was pretty clearly meant to be funny because, look, man in a dress! Isn't it sooo funny when Eridan wears a dress? (No hate to the artist, this was a long time ago and I'm sure they're a different person now.) The fandom was also constantly goading Hussie on WRT which characters were fat, and while we can argue about whether Hussie is fatphobic because none of the characters are canonically drawn to be fat, I'm going to go to bat for them on this: people treat the Fat Vriska jokes as though Hussie is the creepy weirdo exclusively, but the fandom was goading them on and thought that shit was hilarious, because that was what early internet fandom was like a lot of the time - at the same time as it harassed and decried creators for being problematic, it would turn around and delight in shitting on women, neurodivergent people, POC, and fat people, and Homestuck was rampant with it.

The second trend the Vriscourse was a part of was one that also hasn't fully gone away, but it's better now - wilful ignorance of the actual comic's contents. I'm not talking about the usual fandom fare of noncanon ships or "x character is trans/autistic/etc. even though I know there's no canon basis," which is all pretty damn harmless, but I mean like, memes and fanon would override canon and you would be outright harassed for not playing along. There are STILL places to this day that will call you an actual fascist, genocide liker, evil and irredeemable, etc. if you try to stick up for Eridan, even though Eridan is actually the LEAST casteist highblood and his entire character arc is about how his shitty fascist society makes him deeply anxious and unhappy. Similarly, you can/definitely would be be harassed for saying you don't like March Eridan and/or think it's OOC (it is), and I have nothing but sympathy for Gamzee and Equius fans, who also get it really bad.

The most vocal parts of the fandom, if not the majority, were people who were generally uninterested in engaging with Homestuck on Homestuck's terms, instead dead set on making up a version of it in their head and harassing people who disagreed, including Hussie. Echoes of that persist to this day - Equius, Gamzee, and Eridan get it bad, but practically none of the trolls have fandom interpretations that actually line up with who they are - Kanaya is actually just Eridan's bully (and did nothing to help Tavros after she caught Vriska kissing him), but people portray her as Nice Team Mom. Feferi is a casteist hypocrite who loves classism and calling people the r-slur, but people portray her as bubbly equality lady. So on and so forth. Like, damn, I barely participate in fandom and I'm out here meeting people who think Karkat ACTUALLY hates his friends like he says he does.

And then, of course, these people went and harassed Hussie because actual Homestuck did not match up with the Homestuck that existed only in their own heads.

On top of all the fandom harassment, Hussie was also facing ballooning scope. Most of Homestuck was a single dude drawing, writing, and animating it, and they would update every two or three days, sometimes less. So from the get-go, Homestuck was an INSANE project that demanded an insane amount of work and time from Hussie, and as it went on, it only got worse - and fandom expectations only got bigger. Suddenly, Hussie had to be in charge of merchandise, in charge of vetting, hiring, directing, and paying third-party artists, planning animations months if not years in advance, creating entire sections of the comic that had GAMEPLAY, directing ACTUAL GAMES, etc. ... there's an argument to be made that Hussie should not have taken on a workload they couldn't manage, but at the same time, the fandom certainly wasn't telling them to slow down. If anything, they harassed Hussie for every update, and were furious when hiatuses needed to happen to plan and execute some of the bigger moments later in the comic.

There's a Sarah Z video out there on the creation of the Homestuck game, which I think is OK if you take into account that Sarah kind of has fandom brain and is a little biased against Hussie (and I guess Hussie did send a spurious legal threat which is pretty funny but, y'know, understandable that Sarah would be peeved), where it's really clear that Hussie was not ready for the kind of responsibility, time, and effort needed to manage a whole-ass video game.

So by the time Game Over and the Retcon roll around, you basically have to imagine that Hussie has so many irons in the fire that the furnace is about to pop like a balloon, and the people they were making the damn things for in the first place have been relentlessly harassing them for YEARS, and weren't even that interested in engaging with the actual story in the first place. I'd say the majority of the fandom to this day STILL does not understand Eridan - how do you think they would've taken his redemption arc, and especially the fact that he was set up to date Karkat and Roxy? Given the pattern of their behavior up to that point... they'd probably harass Hussie and call them homophobic.

This is why I genuinely cannot blame Hussie for turning on the fandom and truncating their story. Vriska got upgraded to main character and had her character development reset because fuck you, fandom, you couldn't understand her redemption arc in the first place so now you don't get one. DaveKat got (kind of) made canon but as a weird throuple with the Mayor because fuck you, fandom, you didn't appreciate any of the actual gay ships that were set up so now you're stuck with brutally OOC DaveKatMayor. Karkat and Jake have their plot threads left hanging because fuck you, fandom, you never even noticed all the prophecies and symbolism and character arcs because you were all too obsessed with screaming at women and took the dancestors as a personal insult, so now the guy who's supposed to defeat LE and the guy who's supposed to bring equality and forgiveness to all bloodlines don't even get to participate in any of the important boss battles.

People call Hussie a troll, and they really aren't. If you read their old Formspring, they're clearly deeply fucking passionate about the art of storytelling, and switch between bafflement, mild indignation, and playing along when people ask them stupid questions. But back then, they were always very serious and genuine when they answered questions asked in good faith, and I'm being 100% genuine when I say that I've learned about how to tell stories better by reading Hussie's Formspring. Over time, however, those stupid questions became more common, and often morphed into outright harassment, and in response to that, Hussie's answers became more humorous and facetious, and the fandom - who was already trying to find ANY reason to hate Hussie - started to paint Hussie as an unreliable trickster and liar who got their jollies by shitting on the fandom.

Honestly, in doing so, the fandom was what turned Hussie into exactly that. Again, I'm not saying Hussie was a perfect baby who did nothing wrong - there's a lot of stuff to critique and scrutinize about their writing, their biases, and what topics they found appropriate to joke about. However, I AM saying that they were also just a human fucking being who was trying to write a good story, who was harassed at every turn, mostly for things that actually weren't problematic at all, whose words and actions were always taken in the absolute worst possible faith, and that the fandom is not fucking faultless, and if there's anyone that I'm mad at for how bad Homestuck ended, it's the fans.

That's my hottest Homestuck take.

[reel-fear]

Genuinely so curious who Mike thinks is gonna be buying The Cage or the new DCTL GN bc with the way he tweets as far as he's concerned, it's not gonna be:

The queer people he has actively admitted he will never show any representation of in the games.

2. The POC he has actively fought against representing in his franchise. [Who he also mocked for thinking they would be represented in his franchise]

3. The Bendy fandom which has always been concerned with topics of diversity esp in the sense of queer people since its creation. Who he has responded to really poorly esp in regards to the GN.

4. The fans who critique him. [He blocked me for doing so lol]

5. His fans in general who he tweets about like this currently. [He's being vague about why people were mad at him or sent him 'nasty messages' because if you actually looked into why you'd see he was in the wrong. Either way, a very hateful way to speak abt ur own fanbase.]

Reminder while Mike is trash talking his fans he has always treated them rather poorly. The fans who won the fanart contest for Chapter 5 never got their posters actually in game due to it being rushed. Not only was chapter 5 a big slap to the face story wise, but it was literally so rushed he couldn't be bothered to add in the art his fans gave him for his game FOR FREE. [Meatly blames this on a crazy timeline, reminder him and Mike are the literal ceos of this company. The proposal of future updates here is also pretty cruel considering Mike nowadays happily admits he corrupted Chapter 5's source code and therefore literally can't update it At All currently. Because he is a moron]

At least they got to be in Boris and the dark survival, and by that I mean that was the Only game they got to be in so far, isn't that just treating your fans like you love them? Shoving their hard work into a spin off game almost nobody has played or addresses much. [Hell, who knows if with the Lone Wolf rebrand they'll even stay there. In which case they'll be in None of the games, only in the credits of BATIM]

6. The Bendy fans who just generally disagree with him on stuff. Like the new ink demon design where there is literally a public poll showing people generally prefer the old one.

7. The Bendy fans who can see he is actively lying to them. To their fucking faces.

He says this has always been the case, but screenshots and links to tweets regarding the books being canon prove it was not. Does he really think bendy fans are stupid or something? [Unless he's admitting here he lied to Kress when he told her the books were canon which sounds worse!]

8. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of giving money to a guy who laid off tons of employees then afterwards thought it was a great idea to express his anti-union views! Also brag about how good of an employer he was, according to his employees, he was not!

So in summary; Mike is an awful person who has not learned anything from the awful things he did. I will not be purchasing The Cage because, combined with this and his absolute refusal to take any kind of critique or see any differing interpretation of his franchise, I have no reason to think my problems with the franchise will ever be addressed or fixed. I probably will pirate The Cage along with any future Bendy Products [Including the movie] and will do my best to avoid giving it any kind of monetary support. Unless this changes any time soon, I can't see myself making anymore positive Bendy posts soon.

Mike has just managed to make it so hard to speak positively or optimistically of this franchise when he's so willing to broadcast how little he cares about it or its fans. I'm at the point where I refuse to pull any of my punches with my problems with it. What's the point of trying to play nice with my critique when either way the people creating it don't care?

So with this post, I want to invite anyone who feels similarly about the franchise to tell me, make a post or send an ask talking about how all of this makes you feel. It may not change how things are, but genuinely seeing other people share my feelings of anger makes me feel better. It feels nice to see when other people share our same concerns and worries. I'd also love to know if anyone else thinks they'll be avoiding purchasing Bendy products over this.

I'm not forcing anyone to participate in it nor trying to say anyone who doesn't supports mike but genuinely maybe if we can collectively decide to boycott things like the movie, graphic novel and The Cage... It might at least make the bendy devs acknowledge how much they have destroyed their own fandom's faith and trust in them.

The way Mike tweets about his actions like he had no control over why people were mad at him at least proves to me he takes NONE of it back nor regrets it. If you didn't know about his actions and only went off his tweets, you would be led to believe Mike has been needlessly picked apart by fans over things he couldn't control [or in his own words, had his words twisted and taken out of context]. That is not how you speak about your actions if you have actually learned better from them.

anyway, that has been my bendy dev callout post. This is an open invitation to anyone feeling similarly upset about the way the franchise is going to talk about it. It's genuinely nice to see how people feel about this and the more we talk about the more it's likely the bendy devs are forced to address our concerns. I don't think they will but hey, that's why I'm not gonna support them with my money anymore nor am I gonna be nice to them in any content I make critiquing Bendy. I mean I'm also basically making this post just in case anyone asks me Why I feel this way towards to bendy devs/as a way to respond to anyone who thinks I am too harsh in my critique in the future.

As always, it seems the best part of Bendy isn't actually anything about canon but about what the fan's are creating with the ideas Bendy failed to do anything interesting with.

Also the books, the books slap.

[buggachat]

Basically, what's your favorite non-cat-related Adrien lovesquare petname?

[conkers-thecosy]

Hullo to my fellow fandom creators.

How you guys doing? Good? Good.

I just wanted to drop you a little note to say I hope you’re all having fun out here. Because fun is what it’s all about, right? Fun and excitement and hobbies and interests and all that good stuff!

While I’ve been wandering about in my little corner here at tumblr dot com, I gotta tell you, it can be so easy to get discouraged sometimes. Like SO easy. And I dunno folks, I guess I just wanted to remind you (and me!) that when we create stuff for our fandoms, it’s for fun! Because we love it! Because we love making it! We love sharing it! We love the source material and the characters and the world-building and all that other neat stuff!

Sometimes we all need a little reminder, I find. Because sometimes people don’t like what we’re making. Sometimes they’ll be rude or complain and make demands about how fandom "cOnTeNt” (yuck) should be made (double yuck) and act kind of entitled about it. And idk, that gets kind of disheartening. Especially when you’re pouring all your heart and soul into what you’re making, simply for the love of it.

So! Yeah I just wanted to check in with you folks because I’m seeing a lot of that weird entitlement in various fandoms lately, and from one creator to another, I wanted to just say -if I may wax poetic for a moment here- nuts to those people. Nuts to ‘em. NUTS, I TELL YOU.

Not everyone is going to like the stuff you make, and that's okay. The important thing is to remember that their opinions have nothing to do with you or me or anyone else making art or fics or edits or whatever our little hearts desire. Just because what you're making doesn't tick someone else's personal boxes doesn't mean that what you're making is wrong or bad!

If people want specific stuff in fandom, they can make it. If they don’t like what we’re making, they can move on - that's fine. If they want to publicly whine about it and try to make it everyone else's problem, that's their baggage and we don't have to take any of that on board. It’s no reflection on you if someone wants to demand that their own specific tastes be met, rather than actually taking part in the community in a positive way. Because we’re here for fun, aren’t we.

Are you having fun? Good. That’s all that matters.

Go make something cool and fun, and have a great day!

Love you!