Re: The DBDA Fandom Is Dying (inspired By @crafteeauthor)

Re: The DBDA fandom is dying (inspired by @crafteeauthor)

Can't speak for other creators but:

Am I uploading fewer fics than I used to? Yes! But what you don't see is that I'm writing a 100k word longfic in most of my writing time. This is true of many writers in the fandom, too! We all are devastated by cancelation and are working on long projects to get justice for our faves.

But for my shorter oneshots, fine. I have been getting fewer hits on my DBDA fanfic lately but the hits-to-kudos ratio is genuinely insane. Like, for every 2-3 hits I'm getting a kudo. I'm getting a veritable smorgasbord of comments at that.

(Also the hits are far from bad like I get 500 regularly still. They're just, like, not like the 2k-3k I'd get in the beginning.)

Plus, the fan events on here like @dbdpromptober (the one I've been doing) are immense successes!

Sure, some more casual fans are dropping off, but the fans who engage are staying. The fans who CREATE are staying, based on the sheer volume of wonderful fanworks (art, fics, etc) we're getting daily.

This is very obviously becoming a creative community that is here for the long haul. Which is wonderful, a rare and beautiful thing.

Also! The magnitude of people who are still discovering the show is awesome. Every day, I'm seeing new people in the tags going "just watched Dead Boy Detectives and learned it was CANCELED!?!?"

Like, the community is growing! Please!!

As someone whose other main fandom genuinely did die out after the last book was released, this is not what the death of a fandom looks like at all.

So don't worry! We're clearly in a Fireflyesque situation, and as Charles once said, we're not going anywhere.

Our Dead Boy Detectives Billboard is LIVE!

If you plan on traveling to see the Billboard please share photos! 💜 It will be up from today October 14th to November 17th! Thank you to this amazing fandom for making it happen!

So when I saw that the prompt for Day 12 for DBDA Promptober was "Magic 8 Ball", I realized today was the day I wanted to post about this.

I made a bunch of little paper tokens to include in my letters to Netflix. For luck, for laughs, and (mostly), to further illustrate a bit of the love for the show behind what I'm saying.

And each of them has a specific reason and meaning that I'll maybe talk about later, but the first ones that I made were the Magic 8 Ball.

I had the idea that I'd like to include a little Magic 8 Ball in each letter with "Renew Dead Boy Detectives" written on it, and had a vague idea of how I wanted to make that happen. I got construction paper, and some little tags with ribbons to sandwich inside each one, since I wanted it to be something you could hang up if you wanted. (They are two-sided: one side has the 8 and the other has the window with the die).

But it was when I found the blue glitter cardstock that I absolutely knew I was making these.

The glitter is in honor of someone important to me -- I don't know for sure if she would have liked the show, but I like to think that she would have. But I know she would have listened to me ramble on about it, and I 100% know that she would have approved of me participating in any fan action where I could incorporate at least a bit of glitter. (So not unlike Niko, in that way, now that I come to think about it 💖)

And knowing that made it feel like each one would be just a little bit extra lucky (and surely it can't hurt to have the Magic 8 Ball's recommendation).

Yep, Kaos has gone the same way as (deep breath) Lockwood & Co, Dead Boy Detectives, The Society, Fate: The Winx Saga, Warrior Nun, Archive 81, 1899, Sense8, The OA, Jupiter's Legacy, and more - cancelled prematurely by [Netflix]. (Griffin, Louise. "Netflix Robbed Kaos fans of a proper ending -- and it won't be the last time." Radio Times. 08 Oct. 2024.)

Radio Times

Netflix robbed Kaos fans of a proper ending - and it won't be the last time

The series has been cancelled after one season.

WTF Netflix.

I had thought that Kaos was safe. Big name star power, consistently in Netflix's top 10 all month. I wasn't worried.

I only heard about the show at all a couple of weeks after it released. I didn't have much idea of what it was about until at least a week after that. Even then, my research didn't give me a great idea of whether or not it would be something that I would like, but I was hopeful.

It's been a busy month -- I still haven't watched it yet.

But Kaos has only been out for 40 days, and now it's cancelled. Same pattern as before; word comes out via one of the cast or crew on social media maybe, and then Variety makes the announcement. Never Netflix themselves.

I just…

It's frustrating, when Netflix won't say why.

It's even more frustrating to feel forced into a way of relating to the service where if I want to see a new show for more than eight episodes, I have to watch all of it within 28 days of it launching, and I have to do my part to make sure the watch numbers only go up each week and never down. Or else there won't be any more of it ever.

And being consistently in the top 10 is not enough.

And I'd get it if we were in the old days of broadcast, but we're not, are we? And I didn't get to watch 8 episodes of a show in a month then, either.

What is the point if my choices are "binge it now or regret not having watched it in time later?" What if I don't want to binge-watch a show?

What if it takes me actual time between "I have no idea what this is, I've never heard of it" and "Oh, hey, I know what this is about and yeah, that does sound like something I'd be into?" Why does Netflix's approach to marketing not ever seem to do anything to help me reduce that turnaround?

(Oh, Netflix will occasionally tell me "we think you'll like this" -- and my response is always "Why?" and "Are you sure? Because sometimes it feels like you push things you'd like me to like instead of things I'd actually enjoy." And then they somehow fail to make it easy for me to get answers to those questions, when it should be the easiest thing for them.)

I just…

It's frustrating. And disheartening. And once again I'm learning more about a show in the wake of its cancellation than I knew about it when Netflix was supposedly promoting it, and I am so, so sorry for all of the fans. Again.

Netflix, WTF.

Edwin looking at Charles

Charles version