Daleyna Geeks Out

Playable Characters: There would be different playable characters categories depending on which medium of fandom you want to play as. In the context of the game, all playable characters are Cosplayers of different figures in fandom. There are Cosplayers of famous Musicians (Taylor Swift, Beyonce, etc.), Sports Players (Patrick Mahomes, Messi, etc.), Video Game Characters (Geralt of Rivia, Insomniac Spider-Man), Live Action Movie Characters (Iron Man, Spock, etc.), Live Action TV Characters (Emma Swan, Billy Butcher, etc.), Book Characters (Percy Jackson, Kaz Brekker, etc.)., and Animated TV/Film Characters (Steven Universe, Luz Noceda, etc.).

This is an interactive group game where the end goal is to make it to a fan convention. You and a group of players will attempt to move past obstacles as a group, a bit like DnD. Each person can set up their character's stats, skills, weaknesses, etc. before the game begins. Some skills and stats are specific to which fandom your character is a part of—like if your playable character is a soccer goalie, they may have fast reflexes, whereas a character like Iron Man may have slower reflexes but higher intellect. Different fandoms will be incorporated with the variety of playable characters from different fandoms and their varying skill sets.

The team will move together through the game and must decide together which decision to make. A sidebar with a groupchat would be next to the story prompts so the players can discuss what move they will make. Obstacles encountered will either be physical or intellectual battles. In the story, "Haters" may approach the group, attempting to stop you from reaching your final destination of the fan convention. They will challenge the team to a physical battle, requiring the team to pick one person as their "champion" who will fight them. In this case, the playable character with the best skills for fighting should be chosen. If a poor champion is chosen and loses the battle, the team gets bumped back to the beginning and must start over.

Video essay 1: WandaVision + culture-centered analysis

Works Cited can be found in video description on YouTube

Video essay 2: WandaVision + psychoanalytic analysis

Works Cited can be found in video description on YouTube

Interactive Fanfic and Mashup: WandaVision, Once Upon A Time + Queer Theory

WandaVision: The CookBook

Vision is Great Autistic Representation: Neurodivergence in WandaVision

Fanworks Project 2: Video essay + psychoanalytic analysis

Monica Rambeau Deserved Better: Black Character Tropes in WandaVision

Fanworks Project 1: Video essay + culture-centered analysis

In 2015, fan artist Zamii070 was posting art on Tumblr for fandoms like My Little Pony and Steven Universe. They posted some art that made the plus-size character Rose Quartz skinny and art that portrayed Fluttershy as a Native American, among other things. What followed was months of intense and persistent harassment across Tumblr from fans attacking them for their artistic interpretations, escalating into a total character assassination until the artist attempted suicide.

This situation's stakeholders included the artist, Zamii070, the fans harassing them, and the show's creators such as Rebecca Sugar, who got involved at one point to denounce the harassers. This controversy also involved many ethical concerns, including policing art, harassing individuals, organized and relentless social media threats and mockery, character assassination to the point of attempted suicide, and the misuse of labels like racist, ableist, pedophile, etc.

Reading this situation through a Rights Lens, the harassing fans infringed on an individual's right to make art and interpret a show's art style to their personal art style. The harassing fans claimed the artist didn't have the right to use their art as personal expression rather than exact duplication of the show's art style.

Reading through a Justice Lens, this whole situation was a gross miscarriage of justice. The fans believed they were carrying out their own justice online by calling the artist out for their problematic portrayals and giving Zamii070 fair treatment by forcing them to face the consequences of their actions. However, these fans took their so-called justice much too far, and instead completely destroyed the individual.

Read through a Utilitarian Lens, the fans were not thinking about the risk to the individual's mental health or physical safety by threatening them so much. They did not think about the consequences of their own actions in their attempt to prove they had the moral high ground—instead, they just dogpiled on this artist, joining in a mob mentality to hurt them.

Where and how do you see ableism and/or disability erasure in your media AND in the fandom for that media?

Ableism and disability erasure happens extremely often in Marvel movies. Because most of the main characters have superpowers, the way their powers are portrayed often come into conflict with disability. For example, Hawkeye has been canonically deaf in the comics for a long time, and some of the most famous comic runs for his character feature plots in which he is grappling with his new disability. However, in all of the movies, this was never a featured aspect of his character. He didn't get much screentime or development as a character anyway, but the erasure of his disability left many fans rightfully upset at the lack of representation. However, in the new Hawkeye DisneyPlus series, with more screentime (and perhaps in response to the fans' outcry), the showrunners made Hawkeye deaf and explored his grappling with his new disability as someone who had been able-bodied for much of his life. It wasn't perfect disabled representation, but it finally acknowledged the character's comic book history and gave fans some disabled representation. Alternatively, superpowers have often been used to cancel out, "cure," or erase disability in some way. For example, one of the most famous blind heroes in pop culture, Matt Murdock/Daredevil, may be blind, but his heightened senses essentially make up for his disability and even make him better at navigation and other things than the average able-bodied person. His blindness becomes more of a cover when he needs to hide his identity, reinforcing the negative stereotype that disability is a superpower or something a person can shed when needed.

In the Marvel fandom, fans tend to reflect the ableism from the movies. Many tend to romanticize disability, especially in fanfiction. There are entire tags and genres of fanfic like kinkfic and hurt/comfort fics that are centered on self-insert narratives in which readers take care of disabled characters. Bucky Barnes is one of the biggest victims of this, being a character who has been fetishized by the fan community. Fanart usually includes his prosthetic, not typically omitting it, and when his prosthetic is absent in fanart or fanfic, emphasizing his disability, he is then promptly infantilized. Fans express wanting to take care of him when he doesn't bear his metal arm prosthetic, which can come across as quite problematic. Moreover, the ableism often coincides with racism in the fan community. Bucky Barnes is a white man, which is likely one of the reasons he is discussed most often in romantic/sexual spaces because his whiteness is viewed as more desirable. Characters of color who may be disabled never get as much attention as white ones in most fan spaces. Matt Murdock is another white disabled character whose disability was often the subject of sexualization—the scene in which he feels Karen's face to "see" her in the show sparked many to falsely think this was how blind people learned to recognize faces and they romanticized the moment, many wishing they would encounter someone who would touch their face in the same way.

2. What are some ways that we can make fandom more accessible?

Photo by Andrew Jian from Flickr

Gods/Religion: Hydra--mythological beast with nine heads, when one gets cut off, it grows back. Immortal as far as anyone knows, but no one has seen one for centuries. Legends say that an entire pack of them lived in the water of the lake, and in reaction to the people's attempts to hunt and kill them, they rose up and destroyed the previous civilization in a battle with the humans, leaving a single Hydra left to retreat to the depths of the lake and the remaining nine families were left to rebuild the entire city, resulting in the one that stands today. Rumors/myths that the last Hydra still lives in the deepest depths of the lake below the city and that it will return one day to destroy the new city above in retribution for the destruction of its pack. As a result of this widespread religious belief, the people in the city are afraid to go into the water and hunt for food only in specified safe areas by the shore. They worship everything that comes from the lake—the water, the fish, and the vines and other materials they use to build their houses, clothes, and tools from. Everything from the lake is treated as sacred, and everything they forage from the lake is used. They bless the Hydra for sharing its wealth with them, as they believe the Hydra has dominion over the lake. Snakes and eels are never eaten, harmed, or touched because they are believed to be the Hydra's closest relations.

Government: The Floating City is ruled by an oligarchy of nine families descended from the original nine families who survived the attack by the Hydra. These nine families rebuilt the entire city, and so they have designated themselves the leaders of the Floating City. They work similar to a republic, and elect among themselves the next representative for each family. Each family's representative then work together in the Council to make decisions for the people and the city. The nine families rule over nine provinces, and their family representatives are meant to function as representatives of the province their family rules over. But every representative can do as they wish—some have become corrupt and cater to the desires of lobbying groups or their own selfish whims, while others work as democratic representatives for the people in their provinces and try to act in their best interests. Some provinces like their representatives, others don't. But the people are not allowed to vote for their own representatives—the voting happens among the nine families. Some citizens want to overthrow this government or change the voting system so the citizens get a voice. Others revere the nine families as a divinely chosen group of figures since they were spared by the Hydras, and have developed a cult-like following of them.

Economics: The most valuable resource on the island is water. Though it's readily available in most provinces, it's still needed for all aspects of life, and people treat water with a reverence because of its religious ties to the Hydra, their god. Inner provinces don't have as much access to it, so the outer provinces' economy is built on sending water they drain from the lakeshore to inner provinces, food caught from the lake like fish, and materials found in the lake to the inner provinces. As a result, the inner provinces tend to be poorer and lack resources. Black markets deal in supposed Hydra blood and bones found in the lake, said to make people immortal.

Image generated using the prompt "floating city on the water," Adobe Firefly, 2023

Geography: The Floating City on the Water. It is a city and its own continent, floating on a massive lake and entirely isolated from any other civilizations, if there are any. The environment is mostly swampy and marshy, flat, without any mountains. Many rivers and ponds run throughout the land, providing the inner provinces with some resources. There are only two seasons: dry and rainy seasons. In the dry seasons, more water must be drained from the lake for drinking and other uses, and the underprivileged communities may suffer and die for lack of water. In the rainy seasons, shorelines must be evacuated, crops must be protected, and the underprivileged communities often die in the flooding that occurs. Since the island is surrounded by water and there is no land nearby, escape from the Floating City is virtually impossible.

I'm a fan of a lot of things, but one of the fandoms most integral to my identity and which I've spent possibly the most time engaging with is WandaVision. WandaVision is a nine-episode limited series that released weekly episodes on DisneyPlus beginning on January 15, 2021. The plot of the show surrounds super-powered Avengers Wanda and Vision living idealized suburban lives together, but they quickly begin to realize that not everything is as it seems. This show and this fandom have influenced me so much. I wear clothes and accessorize in ways that convey my pride in being a WandaVision fan, and I'm always hoping to find other fans that way so we can geek out together. Half of my wardrobe are Marvel graphic tees, but I have four shirts alone dedicated to WandaVision. I've also collected accessories and Funko Pops!

Some of my Wanda and Vision merch!

As a fan of WandaVision, I went back and watched the show multiple times to analyze subtext, find easter eggs, etc. I am a very analytical person, I was already a Marvel fan, and Wanda and Vision had been two of my favorite MCU characters for a long time, so this show seemed made specifically for me. WandaVision was uniquely suited to rewatching because the plot was a mystery. The audience doesn’t know how Wanda ended up in what is revealed as the hex, and we also don’t know how Vision is alive either—in his last appearance, he died (technically twice). So, each episode hints at the answer to the mystery and the other forces at work that Wanda comes into conflict with. That’s one of my favorite elements of all Marvel content—they’re built for Marvel fans looking for easter eggs referencing the comics or foreshadowing future projects.

I was heavily involved in the online fandom community for WandaVision, but mostly as an observer. I didn’t write any fanfiction or make analysis videos of my own. That’s how I interact across all my fandoms, no matter how engaged I am with the content, simply because I’m nervous to ever say anything online since it’s permanent. I was afraid to get hate or regret what I’d put out there. I watched many YouTube analysis videos and TikTok fan commentary videos. If I ever had anything to say, I would make little notes to myself. Something about revealing myself online in any capacity is scary, even if I had the mask of anonymity. So, this textpost with my own name on it is a big step out of my comfort zone, but I'm excited to finally share my thoughts with others.

On social media, I followed the actors. I also looked into the directors and writers behind the show, since I’d like to work as a screenwriter one day and admired the way they wrote the show. In addition, I followed content creators who primarily analyzed the show. Two Youtube creators that I was already following—New Rockstars and Beyond the Trailer—I returned to religiously every week to watch their analyses and reviews of the show as it dropped weekly episodes. I planned certain days around watching the show; I created a ritual of watching new episodes at night after dinner, then watching fan commentary immediately afterward. I can’t say I’ve been that dedicated with other shows simply because I wasn’t as passionate about the characters—I'd already been emotionally attached to Wanda and Vision for years.

Jensen states that fandom is often characterized as an “obsessive loner” or the “hysterical crowd,” creating, “a thin line between ‘normal’ and ‘excessive’ fandom,” (qtd. in Malone). WandaVision may have that distinction between normal and excessive, but I would argue that for most viewers it was excessive. And that excess became the new normal. This new excess as normality became the standard for much media, like WandaVision, released during the pandemic—a time when most people didn’t have much to do, were stuck inside, and were experiencing much emotional turmoil. Thus, they turned to newly available streaming services for entertainment and escape. The conditions around WandaVision’s release made it perfectly suited for excessive fandom: it was the first Marvel DisneyPlus show, so it received extra promotion, which built excitement among the already strong Marvel fanbase; episodes dropped weekly, giving fans time to discuss and build more anticipation week-to-week; and TikTok was becoming popular in the U.S., so people anywhere and everywhere with access to the app could talk about it.

According to Nielsen ratings, in its first week, with just two episodes, WandaVision was number 6 in the top 10 most watched original shows (Spangler). I would argue that pandemic-era shows like WandaVision pushed the line between “normal” and “excessive” fandom more toward the excessive side, raising average fan engagement levels. Excessive fan engagement became more normalized and remains that way thanks to how active and accessible fan spaces on TikTok, Tumblr, Reddit, and Twitter are.

As for myself, I’d say I've always been an intense fan of whatever I get into because I’m a naturally obsessive person. It’s hard for me to be a “normal” fan of media I consume unless I can't emotionally connect with the characters. However, I would say that WandaVision pushed my threshold more, and I became invested in it more than I had in possibly any other fandom before. 

I became so invested in WandaVision because of my circumstances at the time. The show, like many other fandoms, compensated me psychologically. The times in my life when I have felt the loneliest are when I’ve become the most obsessed with my fandoms. When I got into WandaVision, it was during the COVID-19 pandemic when everything was shut down, and I was stuck in the house all the time. On top of that, my dad was going through chemotherapy at the same time. I was already a fan of many things, but the fandoms I got involved with during this period were at a heightened level I’d never experienced before, and I don’t think I’ve experienced since.

My WandaVision (and other fandoms) themed homescreen

WandaVision gave me something to look forward to every week when everything else in life seemed like shit. I needed an escape, and I love to analyze shows, so WandaVision became my life. I thought about it all the time, I bought a ton of merch, and after the show ended, that summer I made all my devices WandaVision-themed and even taught myself how to code to program my phone so that when I plugged and unplugged it from the charger, Vision’s voice greeted me (I have since forgotten how to code, unfortunately). I developed a kind of parasocial relationship with Wanda and Vision—I was devoted to their love story in the show, which was bolstered by my years shipping them since their first MCU appearances in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Their relationship in the show gave me intimacy that I was lacking at the time. I lived vicariously through the two characters since they had such a positive relationship.

Wanda was experiencing so many mixed emotions around the same time I was, and in the penultimate episode when she realizes her happy family life is entirely a fantasy—that her children don’t exist and the love of her life has been dead all along—she breaks down, and so did I when I watched it the first time. Wanda releases all of her emotions in this blast of energy, and breaking down with her was a cathartic experience for me because I had much tension in my own life. Plus, I missed Vision—he's been my comfort character for years. It felt like I was losing a friend who’s been with me since 2015. As a result, WandaVision was psychologically compensating for me in a liberating, positive way. The show gave me an emotional outlet when I lacked one. It came at such a tumultuous time in my life, and I became so deeply entrenched in the show and in the discourse surrounding it at the time that it became a part of my identity. I can't imagine how I would've gotten through the loneliness and lethargy during the pandemic without the intimacy from my attachment to the characters and the online community of WandaVision fans that I became a part of.

I miss them :')

Works Cited:

Malone, Lauren. "Fan Autoethnography." Canvas, https://utampa.instructure.com/courses/15499/assignments/43917?module_item_id=287377.

Spangler, Todd. "‘WandaVision’ Breaks Into Nielsen Top 10 Streaming Rankings." Variety, https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/wandavision-nielsen-ratings-top-10-streaming-1234907166/.