Toxic Fndm - Tumblr Posts
Fandom Woes Part 1: Big Entertainment Fandoms and their War on Creative Minds
I feel like I need to revamp my points it’s about what I perceive to be a problem with modern fandom, and the first issue is its hostility to creative dissent, especially in form of original works or fanfiction.
It seems that fandoms, Anti-RWDE in this case, have decided how story they liked handled a concept or idea is law and appointed themselves as the police force to enforce said laws, all proclaiming to defend those they deem worthy of the title “creator” while harassing those the perceived as “bullshit artists” I guess and feel have offended them and those they defend. And these people seem to be waging an ideological conquest of creative thinking in fears of becoming irrelevant.
For example, I explained how I was upset with RWBY the tragic ending of Pyrrha Nikos and her romantic relation with Jaune, and other characters and parings, Sun and Blake, Ren and Nora, Weiss and Neptune, and Ruby and Oscar, all who I dreaded would end up on the chopping block next.
I said how I felt they should have been couples who endured consequences and raised steaks, but they should have been allowed to survive through them, rather than losing each other driving the other forward kinda like Ed and Winry and Roy and Riza from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
Or at least they could as a different set of characters in a different epic fantasy story.
That, and recently in retrospect, I’ve been looking at RWBY, it’s characters, and world, the ships I wanted, and what they could have been, some involves radical changes, minor changes, heavily different world building, using my Catholic faith as well as my own fictional universe as a basis.
Right now it’s a heavily reimagined RWBY AU part of a fan fiction multiverse which is mostly experimental, idk I can put up with the likes of Syto-kun’s RWBY Remnants, or Celtic Pyro's Fixing RWBY, but I might make it into an original story, Hell, I might even do both, the former first so I can see what other changes I might need to make,
Now as of recently I’ve discovered a Discord Server which I can discuss these things with other RWBY fans, most of who are also disillusioned with Canon RWBY, in a civil manner. Some agree with me, some don’t, but we all act in respect and good faith and we give each other the benefit of the doubt for our disagreements because we all deeply care about epic story-telling.
But In the past with the Anti-RWDE of the RWBY fandom, or whatever you want to call this a toxic minority, I got from was not honest disagreement, but rather disgust, abhorrence, and sneering.
I was sat down and lectured by toxic individuals how raised steaks and consequences forbid such things now, reading posts about Pyrrha and the likes of her and Jaune were only fit for tragic endings because “that's the kind of character she is.” as well these loyalists aggrandizing themselves for liking it mocking others like me with things like
"LMAO Holy Shit, you guys wouldn't like Madoka Magica" as if that was a problem
or "Lol go watch RWBY Chibi"
They resorted to passive aggressive judgment, gaslighting, and superior sarcasm at best, ranting and vicious chastisement at worst. Telling me I should trash my desires and ideas and just go watch Disney, Marvel, Romcoms, and Sitcoms instead.
They told me I was acting smug and superior and arrogant for doing a rewrite/reimagining AU or an original story in response how RWBY was handled, that what I did was inherently malicious and hostile towards Monty, and this attitude seems to come from a lot of loyalist fans who like things the way they are, and in my opinion think a little too highly of themselves for liking things that others don’t, but that’s an argument for another day.
Let me give an hypothetical example for their logic
Let's say among the Gurren Laggan and One Piece fanbase, there's a vocal minority of fanatics think that characters like Kamina and Portgas D. Ace and characters like them could only end in death to drive the characters and story forward and nobody was allowed to actively disagree with that, until Trigger recycled Kamina and Yoko as Galos and Aina respectively in Promare(though I think they recycled Kamina for Kill La Kill as Aikuro Mikisugi)
Then it was okay for small-time creative people, fanfic writers or indie writers, to do it.
Before then, doing that was seen as “hostile” towards “creators” which they mean those who they deem worthy of the title, and they uphold as the law of epic fiction. Or at the very least, until then, it was seen as stupid and uninteresting.
That's what it seemed like to me, and I could be wrong
But it just came off as off obtuse and narrow-minded at best akin to Professor Membrane from Invader Zim, narcissistic and disingenuous at worst akin to Claude Frollo from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame combined with blind consumerist loyalty to big business whether it be western entertainment or anime studios.
Now I’ve spoken to other people and my friends and others, all who mean well, one person who’s been more patient with me than she should have, who told me I might just have to disengage from the source material since I admitted it won’t change canon RWBY and how I am unhappy with it, and friends who said I should let RWBY go because it’s causing me too much grief while another assumed I wanted no adversity and struggle and wanted it to be all fluffy because I didn’t want mentioned ships ending tragically, and I think I came off as hostile
And I feel like this is more due to my failure to articulate my points, I’m not exactly the best at doing that.
And I don’t want the rest of the RWBY Fandom, RWDE or sane neutral fans to misunderstand me, mostly due to my last reblog I got too heated and not made my point clear
I’m not saying the direction RWBY went with V3 or Pyrrha and the rest of the cast being tragic in some way or another is objectively bad, it was just not my taste
And I am not saying every normal RWBY fan/RWDE person who liked it is an elitist about it nor are all of them trying to insult me and attack me personally or say my ideas are bad but rather help you guys understand my experience with the toxic strain of the fanbase.
and I am not trying to change canon or its “trajectory” , nor am I doing this to spite Monty, especially when I never knew the guy. This is a difference in handling ideas and concepts.
I’m doing my RWBY AU, which will most likely be revamped into an original story since it takes a whole different directions with the characters and world, but it's mostly because with post V3 and now in retrospect I saw what this world, characters, ships and other ideas could have been all in a story I believe is worth telling. And I was very disappointed and frustrated that it wasn’t along with my own personal exhaustion how epic storytelling has been going in several franchises.
I mean yeah it's also due to personal tastes and preferences and subjective feelings, at least I’ve been told, but I also try to integrate that in a meaningful way.
Everyone, big business or small time creators, should be allowed to take an idea and take it in a different direction, even if it comes from a place of disagreement and/or distaste.
That's one of the many ways inspiration works. Some of Tolkien’s own ideas came from his distaste how Shakespere handled the elves and his unhappiness that there were no talking and walking trees in Shakespere’s Macbeth, and the Valar Aule and his creation of the dwarves are akin to an anti-Prometheus.
I mean, what do Anti-Rwde and other toxic fans like them of other franchises expect us to do?
“Oh Ding-Dong-Diddly-Darn and Golly Gee Wally-Wilikers guess I gotta go watch another show and hope the storytelling gods give me what I exactly want next time, sure I saw a different story worth telling, but f*ck me I guess!”
I can only imagine how many small-time aspiring writers have been intimidated into giving up due to these petty rules these fanatics enforce, invoking the works and names of their appointed idols, even when said individuals and companies didn’t even ask them to in the first place.
It basically felt like to me was this, and I could been wrong here,
"Whatever you thought this story could have been, the world, characters, what ships you wanted, how it all could have played out, its awful, worthless ,and uninteresting and there's something wrong with you for thinking and subjectively feeling that, so you gotta throw it all in the trash unless those we deem worthy of being 'creators' do it first or you bend over backwards for us, and we might let create what you want. Otherwise, you're only allowed to use inspiration from source material you 100% agree with or else your being malicious and not a true storyteller.”
And then they used what they liked, whether it be Arkos ending tragically and the dark direction post V3 or Bumbleby over Black Sun in V9, as an opportunity to aggrandize themselves, flaunt their tastes and what they also like and mock and sneer at everyone else who’s unhappy and force their preferences onto said dissidents. All for what seemed like to me for pride, moral superiority, and social currency.
and they would turn around and lecture you for being entitled, smug, superior and smelling your own farts.
And once again, this isn’t directed at sane fans and RWDE who liked these things for honest reasons and objective analysis, you guys are fine and this is not towards you, its to help you guys understand where I'm coming from.
And from what I've heard, there's someone amongst the anti-rwde/rwby rewrite by the name of LilithFairen who used this to attack Fixing RWBY RWBY and Madoka Magica and fans of the latter.
While I don't like Gen Urobuchi's work myself and Fixing RWBY sounds too dark for me, I do not condone her behavior. Bullying behavior is not justified wether be based on objectively good storytelling or personal/subjective feelings or personal taste/distaste.
My grief is with a toxic contingent with fandom, who seem conceited, self-righteous, and self-absorbed that they think what they like, from broad things like lighthearted to grimmdark to nitty-gritty details like concepts and what direction they go, are the objective end-all-be-all law of epic fiction.
The only exception they'll make is those they admire who they see as the lawgivers who can write and repeal these "laws" and then once again appoint themselves as the police force to enforce these laws onto the peasants who they believe are obligated to be obedient to their will.
People who have less wealth power than those they claim to defend.
This certainly has happened on the opposite side of the spectrum in the past.
With the Gmod community I used to be a part of in, the toxic among the My Little Pony fandom of Gmod flaunted the success of MLP and championed themselves as the avatars of friendship and accused anyone who didn’t like the show or aspects about it, especially due to personal taste and subjective feelings as those who hated friendship. And I've heard horror stories in regards to the Steven Universe Fandom.
And for a while, individuals like these on both sides of the light and dark spectrum had managed to get away with this.
Until, there’s been a growing audience who’s been tired with Big Entertainment, and choosing between what seemed to me either pure grimmdark or pure lighthearted
People who these individuals had at best, dismissed as the minority, and perhaps we were for a while.
But from my perspective, that changes over the years, it's a natural swing of the pendulum.
Now that's not to say an objectively well written story can withstand that, that's what critics are for, and neither does it mean subjective and personal feelings and tastes/distastes should be disregarded either, but all of this is for another topic for another day.
Until recently, many creative writers and audiences were limited to companies and corporations who’s mandates in creating works was very limited, and many stories, while didn’t follow these standards, were not well planned out and executed. Sword Art Online being my personal example.
Not to mention, in the past fan fiction was also seen as a joke due to teenager fan fiction stereotypes and the likes of 50 Shades of Grey.
Thus, making any contesting ideas against the status quo seem inherently bad and keeping any dissident voices in zones of restrictive dissent.
But the world isn’t like that anymore.
With people becoming increasingly disillusioned with the likes of Hollywood, Fanfiction has been getting significant amount of attention as well there being a bold new movement of storytellers going indie, and with new effective online indie platforms from webcomics, to novels, kickstarter and indiegogo, and the likes of YouTube all of which are also getting attention, and challenging or at least contrasting certain ideas and concepts from other works in epic fiction or how they are handled, all without the Anti-RWDE’s authorization.
In other words, creative individuals no longer need to bend over backwards to publish their visual stories on effective platforms.
Which, at least what it seems to me, makes these toxic individuals realize that epic fiction and its handling of certain kinds of concepts, characters, tropes, characters, worlds, and ships, right down to their ultimate fates, do not revolve solely around their terms or at least the terms of those they worship. Which in turn makes them insecure and upset.
So I have a message to Anti-RWDE and other zealot fans of these franchises who do this
Like it or not, and whether you agree with them or not, these dissident fans and creators are your only equal in this equation.
The fact you would resort to your little manipulative games and would even go so far as to suck up those who you deem worthy of the title “creator” and have more power and wealth than we do to enforce these stupid rules puts you all a significant step away from your peers.
Which might sound inconsequential to you now, but in the long run will hurt you all, gravely.
because one day some of these dissidents will use that they liked and what they wanted to create fantastical epics in various indie formats(novels, webcomics, YouTube web-series, etc) or AU FanFiction, or most likely both
Whether the inspiration comes from a place of agreement or dissent
And when you come along to sneer at it and accuse it being “hostile” and “leeching off” other creators because its inspiration came from a place of disagreement, especially without any analytical evidence, you’ll end up enraging the audiences of those works, who might have been dissident and disappointed fans of the works you enjoy, and are now finally getting works that resonate to their tastes both broad things like lighthearted, grimmdark, or something in the middle and nitty gritty like concepts and what directions they go.
And they’ll remember how you mocked, lectured, gaslit and policed them and told them what they wanted was “uninteresting” and inherently “malicious” towards those you deem worthy of the title “creators”, and how you went so far as to suck up to “The Man” to do so.
I’m a Catholic, I’m taught revenge is sinful, but the other reality is that some people aren't as graceful as others, and those people may decide to give you a taste of your own medicine.
Those “creators" aren’t gonna be there to help you when that happens, I guarantee it.
Because most of them don’t care about this whole ordeal, and might even be completely unaware of it, nor do they know who you are.
So maybe instead of jumping to broad accusations, bad faith, and intentionally misinterpreting what people are saying and their thoughts and subjective feelings, and assume this creative disagreement is inherently hostile, smug, and malicious, all without any evidence, you ask constructive questions or just disagree honestly instead.
Because of your only intention is to suppress alternative ideas, preferences, thoughts, and feelings along with lecturing everyone and silence a discussion of such things because they come from a place of disagreement and displeasure, especially when you say “It’s not gonna change canon”, then you should be the first person to walk away from the debate.
Because let’s say what we had in mind is just pandering, and nobody in would find it interesting, along with considering the fact whatever we do “wont change canon” of the stories you enjoy
With all things considered, then I dare ask, what are you doing in our conversations?
Why are you getting mad and jumping into our discussions?
Why are you trying to control what we create and enjoy, especially because we disagreed how something was handled?
Either we make a reimagined AU fanfic, or recycle what we liked and wanted for our original works.
Either way, as you said it yourself, it won’t change canon, people don’t find it interesting, and it’s only pandering to people who you seem to not like, so why are you inserting yourself into our discussions in the first place?
If we are making it your problem, how are we? Because we created something in disagreement how certain ideas and concepts were handled and we put it out there and it’s getting attention? Is someone making you consume our stuff?
Because from where I'm standing, you guys are the ones going out of your way to make it your problem, which in turn you use to justify in your mind what you do to other people.
Because you want to control and suppress what us poor people create and enjoy as well as control and suppress what we think and subjectively feel. Which is at best, very weird.
We're trying to do our own thing, and you're trying to control other people.
If you truly believe what you like is the end-all-be-all and transcends all of this and you yourself are superior for liking these things, then do yourself a favor, save yourself the time and energy, and get out of our tags, servers, and conversations.
Just move along and continue to enjoy whatever those you deem worthy to be “creators”
These types of fans of RWBY, and MCU, Star Wars, and any other franchise for that matter need to take that advice
“It’s not gonna change canon, it’s not for you, disengage from the material, and move on”
Because that advice only works, when you are fine when things are going
See the irony there?
If you’re fine the way it's going, and someone is actively disagreeing with it, especially through creative works…
“It’s not gonna change canon, it’s not for you, disengage from the material, and move on”
Just do not insert yourself into this.
Just mind your own business, and just gossip about it in your own groups, tags, and forums.
Be that indifferent, loyal, and culturally and morally superior overman/overwoman that you just love to position yourself as in these discussions and leave us alone.
These people are trying to show off to everyone saying
"Look how hopeful and courageous we are in spite of tragedy and suffering!"
They see themselves as Nietzsche's Übermensch and gotta show it off to everyone, as opposed to those who like this stuff honestly.
I think its to convince themselves, if you gotta brag about something, you probably don't posses the quality.
People who truly take these things to heart let their actions be their words, only speak of it when asked, and are often humble about it.
It's what I've heard about the toxic Steven Universe fandom, they preach its morals yet act absolutely deplorable rather than act on these principles.
"Pyrrha and the rest of JNPR are based on tragic martyrs! How can you write a well-earned happy ending in your reimagined AU!?"
Me: *currently stuffing dying-and-rising figures into them like suitcases* Yeah and Pinocchio doesn't die, become a real human, and die again and Lampwick doesn't stay human and get eaten by a monster, yet here we are.
Honestly I feel like my bad experience with fandom steps into a larger problem.
Society has become a d-measuring rat race and we get punished for doing what makes us happy no matter what it is or why That’s been the case for for conceptualizing reimagined RWBY AU and niche writing in the past.
It’s made for “the wrong people” when I should be writing for “the right people”
I don’t mean to sound like a hippy, but society seems to have become so egocentric, all to the benefit to an elite who has hijack the concept of the greater good to work to their benefit.
There's no respect for anyone and their limits and boundaries and tastes from the broad things to nitty gritty details or walks of live regardless if they are moral or not
Everything it pit against each other, majority or minority, niche or mass, objective or subjective, individual or collective.
It's no longer "I'm different than you."
It's now "I'm these things and like these things and dislike these things because I'm a better person than you."
It's not just politics, its pop-culture, hobbies, jobs, everything.
The more I look up CS Lewis and remember GK Chesterton, the more I realize how screwed up everything is.
RWBY Fandom: “*sneer* the changes you made in this AU, its not RWBY anymore! Change it up and make it an original story!”
Me: Fine. *tweaks the designs, change the names, and aesthetics…*
Fandom: “Ah! This story is thinly-veiled fan fiction and its characters, world, and ships are clearly influenced by RWBY’s world, characters, and ships you wanted among other things along with you being butthurt which is pathetic and sad cope!
You should disengage the source material, use something else which you 100% agree with, grow up, and ya know, you need to learn to be more original!"
Me: "Philip Pullman did it with the Chronicles of Narnia in "His Dark Materials Trilogy" and you also got Omniman and Homelander from Invincible and The Boys who are Evil Superman..."
Fandom: "Well they can do that with your stuff, but you can't do that with our stuff."
Me:
My Frustration 2: Electric Boogaloo
This is something of a sequel to my previous post because looking back on it, the way I described 'pop-culture/literally intellectuals' and how they go around spouting "raised stakes and consequences" and especially relating to my distaste of Pyrrha and Arkos being tragic, and Black Sun seemingly thrown out the window or even if it didn't they would be put on the chopping block next sounded to broad and generalized
I want to make it perfectly clear, I'm not saying every person who uses those terms are snobs and are being completely arbitrary
I am aware Monty always intended Pyrrha and Arkos to be tragic, and I get why the story idealistically works(such as Celtic Phoenix is trying to do with Fixing RWBY) and I get why it works for a majority and why its objectively good and what not
But I'm gonna be honest, and pardon me using a Harry Potter gif because I know the whole ordeal about JK but the gif is a mood...
I love the world and characters and certain concepts of RWBY, but I honestly I just really don't like the story that was told with them or directions they went, which once again isn't to say its objectively bad
I’m not saying the direction RWBY went with V3 or Pyrrha and the rest of the cast being tragic in some way or another is objectively bad, it was just not my taste
And I am not saying every normal RWBY fan/RWDE person who liked it is an elitist about it nor are all of them trying to insult me and attack me personally or say my ideas are bad but rather help you guys understand my experience with the toxic strain of the fanbase.
and I am not trying to change canon or its “trajectory” , nor am I doing this to spite Monty, especially when I never knew the guy. This is a difference in handling ideas and concepts.
I’m doing my RWBY AU, which will most likely be revamped into an original story since it takes a whole different directions with the characters and world, but it's mostly because with post V3 and now in retrospect I saw what this world, characters, ships and other ideas could have been all in a story I believe is worth telling. And I was very disappointed and frustrated that it wasn’t along with my own personal exhaustion how epic storytelling has been going in several franchises.
and my original story which might be a magitek space opera, is kinda cross between RWBY, Fairy Tale, Star Wars, Flash Gordon, and The Chronicles of Narnia
The problem with that in the past is I have met individuals who were just snobs using the fact 'raised stakes' and 'consequences' in epics are necessary to just flat out negated any alternative ideas for concepts without even going into detail and from where I am standing it's becoming more legalistic and arbitrary to the point nothing is allowed to go right, at least not on the small scale as well as the large scale
Like for example, my original story recycles concepts of RWBY such as Jaune and Pyrrha, Blake and Sun, Weiss and Netpune, and Ruby and Oscar as new characters but they get well earned happy endings and they reign as kings and queens on their respective planets and the last couple reigning over them all as emperor and empress
in the past on other websites a lot of ideologues just kept harping on 'raise stakes' and 'consequences' like cheerleaders at a prep rally as if those things inherently forbid such things
for example
"Arkos ended tragically worked, ergo all couples and characters in epic stories like Jaune and Pyrrha(the dork knight and the warrior woman isolated by society) especially if they are directly inspired by them must also end that way to raise steaks and consequences, and they only way they can have a happy ending is in a sitcom/romcom. Doesn't matter what the epic story is about, what happens, their roles, or why, or why it makes audiences happy, if they don't end up dead in an epic, it means nothing."
and to borrow a point from another previous post, when it came to my AU and original story, the fandom would set me and others like me up into a conundrum;
RWBY Fandom: “*sneer* the changes you made in this AU, its not RWBY anymore! Change it up and make it an original story!”
Me: Fine. *tweaks the designs, change the names, and aesthetics…*
Fandom: “Ah! This story is thinly-veiled fan fiction and its characters, world, and ships are clearly influenced by RWBY’s world, characters, and ships you wanted among other things along with you being butthurt which is pathetic and sad cope!
You should disengage the source material, use something else which you 100% agree with, grow up, and ya know, you need to learn to be more original!"
Me: "Philip Pullman did it with the Chronicles of Narnia in "His Dark Materials Trilogy" and you also got Omniman and Homelander from Invincible and The Boys who are Evil Superman..."
Fandom: "Well they can do that with stuff you like, but you can't do that with stuff we like."
and to borrow my point from my other post as before, when I tried to explain my personal distaste how it feels like tragic romance is bleeding into other stuff like DC Comics when Dan Didio trashed Bruce and Selena's wedding and ruining Clark and Lois's marriage and the 'hero's shouldn't have happy personal lives' gibberish, one rwby individual condoned it because
"single batman and superman sells well"
right after he said what I wanted was inherently 'pandering' which in my eyes is hypocritical since to do what 'sells well' can be pandering along with the idea I can't stuff my niche interests into stuff they like, but when its the reverse, its totally acceptable
They would go on how "they're just fictional characters, its not that deep" and then we would actively disagree with these things creatively, it all of a sudden was a matter of life and death
the pattern was pretty clear
and combined with my experience a lot of people in the RWBY fanbase began flipping off people who walked out on RWBY V3, insulting them and what they preferred, and telling those people basically "shut up and go watch a sitcom" just gives me this feelings there's a bias, and The RWBY fandom is the tip of the iceberg...
If you like the right things, think the right things, subjectively feel the right things, and subvert the wrong this for the right things, your justified in forcing your opinions onto others, can get away doing and saying whatever you want on the internet anywhere and to anyone without suppression, and simultaneously suppress and censor others within your own communities
"Who wants to see Arkos, or ship like it with a happy ending? Who wants to see that for Black Sun, who wants to see something like RWBY but more upbeat and uplifting? Who thinks concepts like that can be meaningful? Who wants so see-?"
Me, relatively speaking:
“I just think you can tell all kinds of stories with a world like RWBY and it’s characters”
The sad part is you could do wonders with its characters but from what I noticed the fandom never wants to expand on those possibilities.
Strangely many possibilities become stagnant because no one want to try something different.
Examples would be your version of Jacques: instead of the always being evil or a non threat in most fanfic you made him into a good person (something that we barely)…sadly I have met some members from discord that hated the idea that Jacques can be good: it is either him evil or nothing even with the AU tag…
Same with cardin: I don’t like fanfic that use him for literally that one scene in stories. To me personally I hate the bully arc because it just makes the characters like Blake, ruby, yang and especially Pyrrha look bad not doing anything to stop it and on top of that it was there to ignore the mistakes and flaws jaune was doing in school to give a power boost.
How is cardin in the whole entire school (possibly the vale kingdom) was the only racist in the school??? One man cannot be the fuel for racism.
I honestly would have remove it like ice queendom.
He could have been a jerk with a heart of gold protecting his kingdom from evil (vol 3 of him protecting beacon).
Instead he is only used for a copy and paste scene of the bully arc in fanfics…
Ciel (that one atlas partner for penny) had a fanfic story where she was in a time loop trying to save everyone. I never thought you could give her personality due to barely any screen time but some writers actually manage writer her beautifully!!
Sorry for the rant, I guess I am just bothered how barely anyone especially the side characters are not even expanded upon in a lot of fanfics. What is point of imagination if we are restricted from expressing new ideas??
sorry for the long wait to respond
But you are not wrong in any of this, and call me a conspiracy nut, but I feel like this is all connected.
There's a rise of hatred of creativity in fandoms, wether be AUs or original works inspired by them, especially disagreement and disappointment, unless it subverts the 'wrong' things for the 'right' things.
And this works deliciously well for big entertainment, they don't need to worry about competition from little guys or the very least share the spotlight which in turn makes them money.
Creative thinking is actively discouraged because that requires more risk and less money. Big Entertainment doesn't want that, they want good little consumer units.
Hey FNDM, the way you treat male abuse victims is repulsive.
"Disengage the fandom and curate your interaction!" - It's not that simple.
One thing I've told about my woes about fandom is "disengage from the fandom" and not to "hyperbolize" or not "open floodgates", and be "rational" and just accept not being "serious storytelling" or else it comes of as "fragility" or I guess would be "breaking from fragility"and being "defensive" and "not touching grass"
And I know this comes from a good place and I know these people mean well...
The problem is that advice doesn't work when it comes to certain fandoms who use these labels and also hyperbolize and "floodgate", the escalation of interaction, and the "consequences" of that. At least in my past experience
The problem is when you try to "disengage with the fandom" requires you to drop social media entirely. And when it comes to pop culture and creativity and start with projects, most of that stuff now requires social media and the internet.
If you "disengage" your often just left with people you know at work who might have no idea what you're talking about and can't help you in any way.
Michael of RetroBlasting of YouTube his Unplugged Video about " 'Ignoring it' and doing nothing"
It isn't the analogue world anymore, you don't just leave a comic book shop full of jackasses and go to another one and continue your business. And toxic fandoms know this too.
In fact this video explains this kind of stuff best
And what toxic fandoms do, is they set you up into a conundrum.
In the game of The Toxic Fandom, if whatever your doing that takes elements of what you liked of safe franchise, especially out of disagreement and disappointment gets big enough, they invade your space and harass you and often resort to their own brand hyperbolizing and "floodgating" first and assume the worst reasons of what makes you happy and what you want.
If you stay composed and rational and use milder words like "disheartened" and "bummed out", accept your ideas being labeled as "not seriously storytelling", and "disengage" from where if your you put stuff out and find another platform.
They see you as a wimp and keep pushing you back because "oh he's just disheartened guys, he'll get over it, so we can keep pushing him around. What's he gonna do? Be Mildly annoyed? LOL!"
and use the fact stayed "this label" instead of changing to "that label" to screw you over because "we need to make room for real storytelling, thats the consequences sorry!" for whatever reason
And if you do anything aggressive or assertive back;
which might involve hyperbolizing and flooding gates, or at the very least get more aggressive with your tone
If you defend yourself from labels and explain why you wanted what you wanted and why it makes you happy, which is not necessarily being 'defensive'
If you do anything that isn't passive...
You "Broke" from "fragility" your being "defensive", your "not being the bigger person" and "not accepting reality"
and you need to "touch grass"
So the fandoms won't let you win
So in this context, you keep being passive and keep on "disengaging" and keep accepting these labels, the fandom will become more bold and invasive and even actively sabotage you by slandering you such as LilithFairen, KnightOfBalance, or Canonseeker does with AUs and ReWrites of RWBY and they might even falsely report too.
So instead of things getting hypothetically better in the long run, the damage gets exponentially worse
Now of course the argument can be made "well there's always gonna be haters no matter what." Of course there will be, so you might as well fight back to stop the unnecessary bleeding.
Now of course there's cases where it is the case where the person is overreacting and need to step back, but the problem is in my experience there's outsiders who don't bother to take the time time and figure out what's going on before making their judgement call because they think they can just assess the situation by just looking at it and make an assumption because they know so much.
Because the think they’re doing this
when in reality their doing this is getting in the way
Another example I can think off is the success of Kamen America which is an active disagreement with what was done with the idea of Captain Marvel, combined with other elements of course so its not a blatant rip off.
Once it got big enough, Captain Marvel fanatics began shrieking its nothing but a "Porn Captain Marvel Rip-Off" and try to reputation assassinate it, which ComicsGate tried to jump in because the "leader" has a personal beef with the creators
And these are the same people who cheer on evil superman clones like Omni-Man and Homelander or cheer on "His Dark Materials Trilogy" which was made by an author who had a big beef with The Chronicles of Narnia and CS Lewis
Because supervision/inversion is awesome when it subverts/inverts things they don't like I guess
So once again, the fans like myself had to step in and say something and fight back so those out of the loop knew what was actually going on.
Once Fandoms become invasive and are policing social media and creativity to a certain magnitude and try to throw what makes us happy to the dogs when the opportunity hits, being passive and rational might not be an option.
Sometimes it is. But sometimes it's not.
Fandom Woes: The Reductionist game and well poisoning
“You cannot go on seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it... If you see through everything, then everything is transparent.”-CS Lewis
One thing I get really annoyed about toxic fandoms is one thing they love to do is to reduce everything what you like and what makes you happy to basic components and then make it sound stupid(reductio ad absurdum) and make you feel like a stupid and crazy person for liking it.
"Oh, you don't like the Dork Knight and the kind amazonian isolated by society ending tragically? Nor these ships ending tragically? You just want everything to be all sunshine and rainbows and want nothing bad to happen ever. Just go write a sitcom or something."
Or if you don't meet their standards or use the fact it's "this and not that" or its niche to also make it look inherently bad.
"The fact it's an AU, or a fanfic, or its and original story inspired by this, or the fact it's so out of the way and has an audience smaller than ours just shows how bad it is. But whatever makes you happy I guess."
Both of these things what CS Lewis called "Nothing Buttery" or what some would call "Reductionism"
Let's say you explain why you love kissing your girlfriend/boyfriend and you go into things that are not rational
"You just like touching lips with your significant other. All that stuff is all style and no substance."
Which often their standard of "substance" or any other necessary quality they measure by a nebulous standard if not an unfair one and make unfair and unnecessary comparisons.
All it hopes you feel guilty and conform your thoughts and subjective feelings to theirs, or if you don't, they can justify in their minds and to those none the wiser throwing what you love to the dogs when the opportunity hits.
I say this because that's what happened to me in my past experience with fandoms.
And often it has an element of hypocrisy because they like niche things but they will go on how they have every reason in the universe to like something while you just like something different because "it just makes you feel good" and you go into detail and they say "thats not substantial"
You see the psychological scam going on here?
Speaking as a Catholic, it also seems rooted in the modern idea if something cannot be 100% rationalized, its irrational and needs to be suppressed, silenced, or even outright destroyed. But that's another discussion for another day.
“Zealots cannot be brought to the negotiating table, though they always claim they can be. Zealots do not want peace, but will always claim they’re peaceful. They deal in absolutes, and their intangible objective is the only justification needed in their minds for what they do to other people.”-RetroBlasting
RWBY fans: Ruby would never want to hurt Jaune for killing Penny because she is a sweet pure innocent bean!
Also RWBY fans:
Pop-Culture Gnosticism: Why Fandoms are Toxic
We all know about toxic fandoms, and I've had my share of them with the RWBY Fandom and have heard horror stories from others about other fandoms, all of which bizarrely always preach bout positive things.
My personal example is with the FNDM with its preaching about "hope punk" and "trusting love" and claiming their appeal to the tragedy is driven by "ultimately hopeful" motives even though their tone and behavior seem to show the exact opposite.
Now looking back on it along with my faith as a Christian, Catholic to be exact, I have theory the reason why.
It's a form of secular Gnosticism.
Those who don't know what that is, Gnosticism is an esoteric religion/mystery religion thats rooted in having "The Gnosis"(knowledge) for salvation
The gnostic believed that the material world is evil, a prison created by a trickster god known as "The Demiurge" and our bodies themselves prison as well, for we are supposedly pieces of God, "The Monad", being kept from achieving "oneness" with him and the only way to achieve salvation is to gain "gnosis" or "knowledge"
This led to very hedonistic practices(sleeping around, drugs, self mutilation) or puritanical practices(akin to Christian Fundamentalism or Puritanism) in order to become "pure of corruption" or even trying to bend the material world to ones will to bring the world to "oneness" with "the monad" because Gnosticism basically says "Because you have gnosis, you are a piece of God, therefore you are God and whatever you do is justified if its to help all of humanity achieve oneness with the Monad"
During the Church's infancy, the Church fathers fought furiously against heresies that infiltrated the church, and for good reasons.
Gnostics not only try to deny Christ's redemption of the material by becoming man, they were also doing very terrible things in the name of a nebulous greater good while holding double standards against others, doing harm to others and society in the name of virtue.
Sound familiar?
"It's not bad when we do it because we understand it better than you do. It just looks evil or bad to you because you're ignorant. So we get to be nasty to you, because it's you who has the problem and not us."
let me given a personal example with my experience with the toxic FNDM post-V3 Finale which I can go into detail in another post at later time
A considerable amount of people left when the dark turn and the tragic end of Pyrrha and Arkos happened, and a lot of loyal fans used it as an opportunity to viciously mock them and accuse them wanting everything to be all "sunshine and rainbows" all while boasting the morals and messages of the finale and season and make this the end-all-be-all for characters like Pyrrha and Jaune in epic stories. Because they had "the gnosis" and these supposed to be plebeians, wether they were majority or minority, did not. Even having the nerve to act like they can be offended on Monty's behalf and his family even though they never met or spoken to them.
And they became more puritanical and hostile to Blake and Yang ships that are not Bumbleby and rewrites and AUs, such as the case of Fixing RWBY and RWBY: Remnants, and I'm sure RWBY Evermorrow is on their hit-list too. They see it as an obstruction of achieving "oneness" and a form of "impurity"
Bishop Robert Barron explains this kind of phenomena pretty well. It's an appeal to one's pride because humans love the feeling being the select few who "get it" and "we really know what's going on."
This isn't the perfect theory, there is a gnostic pattern here. I can go into detail later on in another post but I hope this explains somewhat of what might be going on.
I know I've said before in a long post before
But I think the hatred of fanatics for reimagined RWBY AU's or tweaked rewrites like FRWBY along with other franchises or original works that recycle certain elements for indie stories is simply this.
They accumulate a niche audience that's big enough, not necessarily bigger than the fanatics it may still be smaller, just big enough who these fanatics and literally snobs see as "wrong people" Which in turn means the possibility that maybe the creators of said works and their audience, despite being what these snobs and loonies deem to be "wrong people, might see something that they don't and may not be wrong.
Keep in mind I say "possible" not "an absolute fact"
The very fact its possible is what drives these pricks insane.
"How dare these self-entitled hacks and their vermin audience not abide to us 'Right People'! Their acting entitled to everything like Watts said to Cinder!
It's totally not us being a bunch of self-righteous and self-absorbed hypocrites! We don't think to highly of our own judgement and standards of 'raised stakes' and 'consequences' at all! We are purely objective and rational and above and beyond subjective and personal feelings and those other icky disgusting things!
In fact, can these wrong people take a moment to appreciate how we 'Right People' are above and beyond all that?"
I know my RWBY AU won't be for everyone, and I know I will get some haters, but I would like someone to have my back when that happens.
But last time that happened to me, nobody had my back.
Even the most composed and seemingly rational people telling me to be 'objective' and not being 'self entitled' and talked about 'toxic fandom' seemed to have no problem with me get dogpiled because I thought the direction for rwby was too dark and not liking arkos being tragic despite Pyrrha's name and allusion 'looked so bad' for me.
And even worse happened when a certain Knight launched a harassment campaign on a DeviantART user for not liking Pyrrha's death to the point the man almost considered suicide which he thankfully didn't thanks to his family talking to him.
How did that not get YouTube levels of attention?
Oh yeah thats right, because the Knight was defending the tragedy of Pyrrha and liked Gurren Laggan and Madoka Magica so 'good taste' justifies horrendous behavior even if it might get blood on your hands.
I might go into detail in another post, but there's been the most composed and seemingly rational individuals of RWBY, and other fandoms who will call out thuggish and mobbish behavior, but stand by passively and accept it when it goes after people who they disagree with and things they don't like.
In the words of RetroBlasting on YouTube
"Hypocrisy; thy name is Modern Fandom"
If you don’t care when the mob goes after people who you disagree with and what they love, maybe you’ll care when they go after you and what you love
And you’ll have no sympathy from anyone when that happens
Watts: *gives Cinder a lecture that reeks of self-aggrandizement and hypocrisy*
FNDM: OMG GET HER ASS DOC! SHES SO SELF ENTITLED!
Yang: *Neglects her sister when she’s breaking down while going Gaga over Neko GF*
FNDM:(makes violent art against people who point it out)
My Two Cents: Hypocricy of "Being original"
Another editorial which I give my perspective of another factor why people are writing AU fan fictions and not original material all to the detriment of indie creators and to the benefit of big corporate entertainment The Factor? Hypocritical Literary Intellectuals who will criticize fanfic writers for making AUs "unrecognizable to the source material" and original works that recycle concepts, especially out of dissent as "derivative thinly veiled fan fiction" while supporting creatives who do the exact same thing. Because its different when "The Right People" do it to the "Wrong Things"
Don’t forget 4
“Monty was secular Jesus Christ and his death was a secular crucifixion, so if you disagree with his vision in any aspect, you hate him as a person and will be punished for blasphemy.”
Rwby Stans: hello newcomer! Welcome to the Rwby fandom! Now before you proceed here are list of very strict rules to follow
Worship everything about rwby. Treat it like the holy grail. If you have even the mildest criticism against rwby, we will hunt you down.
Worship crwby. If you have a problem with how they handle rwby or bring up any RT controversy, we will hunt you down
Worship bumbleby. If you don't ship them or say anything critical about them we will hunt you down, homophobe
Have fun!
Also Rwby stans: Why has the fandom gotten smaller? Why aren't new fans coming to watch the bestest show ever 🥺😢
Snobs: Nobody finds that kind of a story/idea interesting, sorry.
Me: *points* there's people clamoring for this, so there is a potential audience.
Snobs: Those are wrong people, they are too stupid and crazy to know what good storytelling is. They should just go consume (approved thing)