Chillicothe

[cornerofmadness]

It's strange, I've been here for nearly 20 years and I've been very indifferent to this city but this year it has grown on me. I think going to the historic downtown has changed my attitudes. It was Ohio's first capitol. It's OLD (Marietta and oddly enough, Gallipolis are older) It has a very cute downtown. Don't get me wrong. It's POOR. The biggest employer is Kenworth and a papermill (that reeks) and the latter is going out of business. There's an active serial killer (I don't feel particularly threatened by this as he goes for drug addicted prostitutes like so many of them, picking the most vulnerable).

I was there today to get the car fixed up (It needed a transmission flush) and got in a little shopping (not much as the tiredness is real). I wanted to take pics of downtown but I forgot my camera and my phone is stupid (it will only let me upload to social media which is a pain in the ass here) AND unfortunately it's paid parking which is annoying (especially when it's now all credit card which creeps me out)

I did however get a lot of writing done on my Math Horror story but I'm not sure I'm going to get to the third killing because it should be kinda easy to figure out who so maybe I put the explanation too early. Might want to wait on the explanation. I don't know and probably won't have time for a beta on this one. I need to get moving on Jethro tull too (I really wanted to do the fantasy one but they're reading for the SF one and they're not sure they're going to get to do the fantasy one). I have an idea but I'm not sure it's going to be short.


So fandom stuff finally. I wanted to talk about leaving a fandom. I'm curious to know what makes you leave a fandom. I'm sure, like me, it's a lot of little things.

Sometimes, I just get bored with the source material or the author takes it in a way I don't care for. Anita Blake vampire hunter series, for example, which started having Anita being more and more ruthless and it didn't sit well. Also Anita and Sookie Stackhouse (from another vampire series) started getting female fantasy ridiculous in that everyone wanted to sleep with Anita and Sookie (to the point Harris actually gave Sookie a genetic reason why everyone had to bone her). Now I'm pretty sure most of you realize I'm totally fine with sex positive women but on the other hand there is a limit to believability for me.

Other times, there is something that just pisses me off and that was the start of this entry really when I finished Maggie Stiefvater's book Greywaren which ends the entire series. Part of me sat there thinking was THIS what we got because the fans pissed her off so badly about Ronan/Adam not getting sex scenes. Ronan wasn't in his own book until the last couple of chapters, not really. I now no longer want Stiefvater on autobuy because I don't trust how she handles a series.

And then we come to the problematic creator. God, what do you do with these jerks? I totally missed
this reveal back in 2020 You know what, it's hard being a SFF fan sometimes because we have a shit ton of fuckwits (Yeah romance seems to have a lot of racists but SFF has some real winners) After a while you realize JK Rowling isn't the worst SFF author out there (not that I'm defending her, she's awful) In her case, I am reading/buying nothing that gives her money. About all I do with her is watch the movies on tv because I did love them and they are comfort watches for better or worse.

Eddings work was where I went post Tolkien as a kid (him and Piers Anthony who is also a problem) I had zero idea until this week that he freaking tortured two adopted kids before he was even famous (and got very little punishment for it). I have not reread the Belgaraid since I was a kid in fear of hating something I once loved (because I think a lot of the misogynism sailed over my head when I was 13) I didn't like any of the sequels but the original... sigh. Eddings is dead so me keeping/tossing his books doesn't matter and his estate gives all sales to charity so there's that.

Then we have Marion Zimmer Bradley who helped her husband raped young girls. I was never that fond of her work and it's gone from my shelves now. Samuel R. Delany a member of NAMBLA was another I had to toss off my shelves (Stephan Donaldson isn't a problematic creator that I'm aware of but his Thomas Covenant character was a rapist and that WAS a problem for me as a reader) Let's not even get into the Sad puppies or the freaking creator of dragoncon. And of course there's H.P. Lovecraft but at this point he's seminal and long dead we can even say (to a point) it was a different time with different thoughts but he WAS racist and xenophobic and anti semite even by their standards which is saying something. And truthfully I never did like his stuff much but I AM enjoying the BIPOC stories that are taking Lovecraft's work and making it their own like Victor Lavelle (though for the fans of Lovecraft Country the tv show we have the star arrested for domestic violence).

So yeah a varied reason for leaving a fandom. Others have faded to the back ground because I've said all I had to say (Elfquest) or only pick up occasionally (Buffyverse (speaking of problematic creators!) and The X-Files) but even with the old ones, I hope to keep a toe in. it usually takes something more than age to drive me out

Comments

[falkner]

> There's an active serial killer
What?!

[cornerofmadness]

Yep, he even made a week long special on ID Discovery

[spikedluv]

I don't think I have ever been in a fandom when the creator became controversial (Joss Whedon, I'm looking at you), but I did have to nope out of the Anita Blake books after a while because, omg, wtf?!!

I think I fall out of fandoms just because of time and other fandoms catching my interest. I never intend to leave a fandom, but sometimes the brain is like 'oh, look over there!'

[cornerofmadness]

Glad it wasn't just me with the Anita Blake books...

generally I leave a fandom for the same reason, I just don't have time for ALL of them and I lose the bunnies for them. I mean Buffy and Fullmetal are both what? 20+ years old already (HOW)

[spikedluv]

The Anita Blake books got unbearable!

[cornerofmadness]

And I tapped out pretty early on between her torturing people and the jealousy of everyone

[dewladen]

wowow a math horror story sounds fun! and GOSH what? i hope they catch that serial killer.

those are all very understandable reasons to leave a fandom! gosh such heartbreaking discoveries to find out something you loved was created by a horrible person. i don't think ive been like IN a fandom where i found out the creator was a big problem, maybe due to lack of information or some of them being overseas/non english speaking -- who knows what they could have done honestly haha? the closest to that was jk rowling because i sure was a casual fan of HP, but i wouldn't say i was active or creating things in the fandom. generally i mostly fall out of a fandom because it's been a while, but i think i still consider most of them a home that i miss!

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks

yeah not the first time I've lived where there's a serial killer (also had 2 as patients in o ne of the mental hospitals I worked at)

True, a lot of weirdness could be going on in Japan with some of the creators I follow there and I might not know.

Mostly I leave when new fandoms take me over

[alexseanchai]

I hesitate to say there's any fandom I have ever been in that I'm not in anymore, but after Miraculous Ladybug fandom schismed over the series bible leak, it got a lot less fun to be part of the fandom, bc it's always been hard enough to discuss aired-out-of-order episodes without risking spoiling someone who's waiting to watch in order, and the more of those that air before someone can watch in order, the less fun it gets to discuss after the watch-in-order marathon bc so much more of the discussion has already happened and there's no room to discuss in between those episodes, and adding to that how many people thought it was cool to talk about the leaks as though everyone either had seen them or needed to and as though nothing could have changed between the version of the series bible that leaked and when the episode(s) in question aired—

(and then I hated how S5 ended and I haven't watched the special that has since come out, and all the ML plotbunnies in my head have found a quiet place to hang out and not bother me, and all the plotbunnies bouncing around center stage are now for Yuri on Ice)

[cornerofmadness]

Oh ouch, I am not really in the fandom and my interest sort of petered out when she didn't grow as much as I would have liked so I didn't know about the bible leak.

Do we know why they would show these out of order?

But I feel you on not liking how S5 ended. I had that issue in the Buffy verse that I ended up skipping almost all of S6 and most of S7 due to the actual canon making me cringe.

I did at least see all of S1 of Yuri on Ice (actually I don't even know if that was a one and done or not)

[alexseanchai]

ML S1–2 don't have a canonical episode order, even though some things obviously happen in a set chronological order, and I understand the showrunner was trying to get the networks to air at least some of that in the set chronological order, and failing that, to get the fandom to hold off watching "Malediktator" until after "Style Queen" and "Queen Wasp" (if not also "Anansi", which is also definitely before "Malediktator"). S3+ do have a canonical episode order, and for S4 and more so for S5 they were trying to air in that order. but the episodes weren't completed in that order, and the theory we've had for a while is the networks were supposed to get so many episodes by such and such a date and that kept not happening, so to keep out of trouble with the networks, in S3 especially but also S4–5, they sent the networks whatever they had completed and that's the order stuff aired in. subject to the complication of, a lot of people watch whatever version airs first, in English fansub if it isn't English dub, and therefore the order any one network aired anything in doesn't matter a whole lot to a lot of people's initial watch order anyway. (and "Stormy Weather 2" would have looked different if it'd been completed later in S3, given the reason it was completed so early is pretty obviously, it was mostly a clip show.)

re YOI, technically no? the creative team was talking about S2 but it's never been officially announced, and a prequel movie was announced with an expected premiere date of 2019 and hasn't been officially canceled, and I think the most recently released official art is from early 2022 (Beijing Olympics) but there's been a lot of official art. and like, judging by the reaction to Fantasy on Ice 2023 doing the YOI opening song as the group opening number and the reaction to Yuuri's Japanese VA's releasing an album earlier this month that's all songs written in character as characters he's voiced, if S2 or the prequel movie were to be officially announced, the studio and producers would make bank!

but also I get why they don't want to do anything with prominent sympathetic Russian characters while the war on Ukraine, and also covid undoubtedly did a number on the studio's production schedule for everything, and yet both of those are too recent of factors to be why S2 and the prequel movie probably aren't happening

[cornerofmadness]

Ah okay, that makes sense. It's unfortunate but since I have zero idea how things work in an animation studio I'm not sure why it kept happening repeatedly.

As for YOI yeah, what you said makes sense. It's a shame. I liked that even though it is absolutely nothing I would ever watch normally. So many friends loved it that when Right Stuf had a super sale on the dvds I bought them sight unseen. Did not regret it (though it doesn't much plot bunny me)