How do you engage with the sonic fandom? I love Sonic from the games, but whenever I try to find fan content, he’s always characterized to be extremely obnoxious and smug at times and I hate the way his friends get characterized as well. I really enjoy your works, as well as your mutuals, but if I go into the general tag of sonic the hedgehog, I feel as though I find more content like what I mentioned earlier.
the answer is I don't engage with the wider fandom, because engaging with it is entirely optional. going into the sonic tag doesn't appeal to me either so I don't do it.
obviously it is frustrating and I've expressed grievances before but at the end of the day you can't control other people. you can only control your own actions, and a few steps I've taken to enjoy myself are the following:
1. have a close group of friends/mutuals in the same community who vibe with you (bonus if they're people you can also have meaningful discourse with)
2. stop engaging with parts of the fandom that don't appeal to you as I mentioned earlier
3. make more of what you want to see
step 3 is one that I want to emphasize because it is the most impactful deciding factor for me. I stay in this fandom so I can keep making art of what I love about Sonic. if I didn't bother doing that then I would have left long ago.
not only will it make you feel better since you're making something you're passionate about, but other people will naturally gravitate towards your work, and you may find yourself meeting people who are in the same boat as you. you may even inspire others to make their own works in a similar fashion, like a chain reaction. by making what you want to see, you are essentially instilling the idea of "there's space for this in the fanbase" into others.
