#distanced

This contains a screenshot of spoilers for Season 5. It's about halfway down, so if you don't want to be spoilt, scroll past it.

It's been about a year and a half since I distanced myself from the fandom. I wasn't sure I was going to write this, but I think I need to get it all out. This distance was around the time season air dates were released for CBS and MacGyver was scheduled for January.

I stated then that it felt like the fandom was becoming toxic. Fans were already upset about George Ead's departure from the show; some were quick to say that was when the show lost its appeal to them. Fair enough, some people may have only watched for George.

I digress, back to why the announcement of S4 left a sour note in my mouth. Several fans went on a campaign to tweet angrily about it - saying that the writers, producers etc. Didn't care. That Hawaii 5-0 and Magnum P.I were getting more favour than MacGyver. TV works in complicated ways. It isn't as simple as being allocated a time slot and that's it for as long your show runs. There's all sorts that go into TV production, and if a company needs to fill a prime time slot, they aren't going to wait around for episodes to be filmed. They're going to go with the show that already has that stuff sorted. Additionally, S4 would not have been able to do a full 20-22 episode run. There was barely enough material for the 13 episodes it got.

The reason I'm even writing this today is because of the replies to the MacGyver writers spoilers.

Now I won't share all of them, but the majority I saw were MacRiley shippers. That's cool - you ship whoever you want to. Not everyone wants to see them end up together. Not everyone wants Mac and Desi together. Personally, both of those pairings would be fan service and completely undermine the strong characters they all are. Since when did their strength revolve around love?

Seeing some shippers though, respond to anyone disagreeing with, "everyone wants it," or "how can you not see it" is so toxic.

I understand every fandom can be toxic, I've been in enough to learn that the hard way. But for goodness sake, if someone doesn't agree with your ship, or your opinion, don't go on an attack of them. It's not nice, and is really upsetting.

Like I stated earlier, it's been about a year and a half since I distanced myself, but it's still infuriates me how the fandom seems to have gotten more toxic instead of more welcoming.

I know some people are lovely, and I'm not going to name names, this is solely my opinion and letter as to why I distanced myself.

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s 17-year-old daughter Sunday Rose used to be the spitting image of her mom — even channeling her whimsical Practical Magic style. But the teen just made a bold beauty move that shows how she’s starting to distance herself from her famous parents. The young model was a cover star in a new issue of Nylon, where she debuted her stunning hair transformation. Instead of…