AI: Changing Feelings About a Fandom?
By One of the absolute best new things on the internet in the past week has been Tracy King’s post I’m Breaking Up With You over on Skepchick. I loved it.
It got me thinking about all of the ways in which my relationships with various books, movies etc. have changed over the years. I’ve participated, to varying degrees, in several fandoms. Some of them were a really big part of my life for awhile, like Rocky Horror. A few still are important to me, and I’m starting to think seriously about halloween costumes based on some of my current fandom interests (Battlestar Galactica probably).
Have you had your relationships change with a fandom? Did Tracy’s post ring true to you, either with that fandom or another? Do you still have fondness for a movie, TV show, or book series that you have previous steeped yourself in for awhile? Or are you not generally the “fan” type?
Image is from thtwad.blogspot.com
I am definitely the ‘fandom’ sort, and I’ve had some relationships with fandoms erode and others maintain (or in the case of Labyrinth, only grow more obsessive with time… >.>) over the years.
I’m a gamer, and the biggest change for me has been the loss of my once-beatific adoration for Blizzard. I played the Warcrafts and Diablo as a kid, Diablo 2 as a teen, and WoW in college and a while after. Diablo was one of the first games I really connected to, because damnit, I could play a female character and be awesome. And then there was the Warcraft lore with Jaina and Tyrande and Sylvanas, at that time in my little nerd life I would grasp at whatever scraps of characters to identify with I could find, even if I had to overlook chainmail (actually, usually plate) bikinis to do it.
And then I played Dragon Age, where women were not only allowed to be heroes, they could fall for other women and even wear clothes while doing it!
I was (am) in love, and Blizzard’s never getting me back. Not the same way. Oh, I played Diablo 3 shortly after release, and it was fun, but pretty much my first reaction upon loading into the game with my female wizard and then again, more loudly, with my female demon hunter was “oh come ON, I do NOT FIGHT IN MY UNDERWEAR.” Having played games that make me feel like a human being both as a woman and a queer woman, I can never muster nearly the same level of enthusiasm for otherwise well-crafted games that don’t meet those new standards.
I still don’t understand what that post was supposed to be about. Like, I know it’s got something to do with Star Wars but the whole thing reads like a simile within a metaphor inside an inside joke. To me the whole thing was a giant turducken of obfuscation.
As for the “fandom” thing I don’t really consider myself a fan of anything. Like, there’s movies I like and books I enjoy and stuff but I really can’t get “into” fiction. I’m always aware that the whole story is just a bunch of stuff test never happened to people who don’t exist. That’s probably why I enjoy sci-fi more than any other genre, the actual plot is usually just a flimsy excuse to explore the setting.