#fablespeaks

People go to great lengths to defend their faves, seemingly afraid they’ll get the same treatment Nexus did both by the fans and the series and become the demonised unfavourite - the scapegoat who can do no right. At the same time many insist Nexus and his fans somehow uniquely “deserve” this treatment (Nexus can’t, he’s made up - his fans don’t, some people are just mean) and that these things befell Nexus specifically for an actual reason.

They did.

The reason was the writers wanted something new for the character.

Not him not trying hard enough to grieve better or be a better victim of Ruin’s actions. Not him “liking Solar more than Sun”. Not New Moon being the “worse” choice out of him and Moon (meta reason given is Moon literally came back because they needed a Moon - of course Moon was the better choice out of him and Nexus who was an active threat at the time, the reverse would’ve been true if it’d been New Moon vs Moon with the killcode actively causing damage). Not him being more villainous than Ruin or Eclipse (I am not going to be debating whether genocide or murder is morally better or worse than verbally, psychologically and physically harming a small handful of people, sorry). Not something that was subtly established throughout his entire time as New Moon. Not something that was planned from the start. Just a change in direction. That holds literally no moral weight - that’s not something to hate each other over. The writers are allowed to do that - it also needs to be understood as being a writing decision that, although it was retroactively woven into the narrative to some degree, was made on a whim.

It could’ve more or less been any character this happened to. It still could happen to basically any of them. They’re made up, they don’t make their own choices, they don’t get to fight against what the writers want, they don’t get to make appeals on narrative decisions. You’re not watching a documentary of a fictional world where in-story choices aren’t made for a meta narrative reason - sometimes writing decisions are made on the fly due to the nature of the medium. And when the characters’ choices don’t fit within the established narrative aside from to be a change for the sake of change (literally the meta reason given for Nexus going evil) and the in-story reason that has been repeatedly established for the entire villain arc is literally psychosis plus ingesting a substance that made the character in question quite literally lose his mind as demonstrated and explained by multiple other characters - both mitigating factors that didn’t need to be included if they weren’t supposed to be taken into account when considering how this character got to where he got - when his villain arc alone required a mastermind interloper character to step in and manipulate his every step into villainy, his decisions can’t be reasonably treated as 100% informed or as part of his established in-story disordered “personality”, because we already know they happened because they needed to happen for the story to progress the way the writers wanted it to, and yet still effort was put into heavily mitigating his ability to make good choices, which shouldn’t just be written off or ignored because you want to bash the character or make his fans feel bad for liking him.

More food for thought: Nexus isn’t blameless or a good guy. He’s done bad things. Despite Dark Sun’s involvement, despite the nsp, despite the grief, despite the psychosis. You don’t have to like him, pretend to find him good or interesting, or give him a pass. You can hate his guts. But you know who else was unequivocally considered a bad guy who didn’t deserve a pass at the time he died (twice, maybe three times in fact)? Eclipse. You know who accomplished more damaging acts of villainy and had just as bad or worse intentions than Nexus at the time of his death(s)? Eclipse.

And the difference between the two - the thing that sees Nexus written off as an irredeemable “psychopath” (respectfully, both this and “narcissist” are misappropriated terms for stigmatised disorders so it’s best not to use them in this circumstance btw) while Eclipse is now praised for taking all these steps in the right direction - is that the writers chose to give Eclipse a redemption arc and they didn’t choose to go down that route with Nexus. Nexus was not more uniquely “deserving” of being the narrative unfavourite or the scapegoat. He just wasn’t chosen to get better - he wasn’t allowed to do better. That could have been Eclipse. That could have been Ruin. In this case it was Nexus. Like it or not, that’s just simply how it happened.

I’m allowed to care about that and imagine more possibilities. You’re allowed to not care about that and dislike him. You don’t get a pass for bullying people over it.

There is literally no good reason to demonise Nexus or his fans more than any other character or keep telling them what he is or isn’t “capable of” or “correct” them and laugh at them for imagining alternative outcomes they might like better. The canonical answer is: he’s not capable of anything anymore, he’s not in the story. The non-canonical answer is: let people use their own imaginations, especially when the writers have decided they don’t want to or have chosen not to use this character anymore. That’s not a diss on them. It is what it is.

Have you seen the DCA fandom? The DCA isn’t canonically a mermaid or a spy or a god or anyone’s love interest. The DCA doesn’t get adopted in canon. No one let that stop them from having fun, and honestly power to them for their creativity and acceptance even when they disagree. Imagination isn’t cringe - it’s a good thing. It’s great that people enjoy this character that much actually. We all have stuff we like and dislike and don’t care about and that’s a-okay. There’s a difference between that and constantly derailing people’s fun to say rude insulting things about the thing they like while they’re trying to talk about it. You’re not hurting Nexus - Nexus isn’t real, he isn’t capable of being hurt. You’re hurting real people for the crime of liking a made up character in a way you don’t like or agree with. Say what you like about things being cringe - that’s worse than cringe. I don’t care how badly you want to find someone or a group of people you can say it’s acceptable to bully for some reason. You’re not being cute and sassy, you’re just being mean. People are allowed to harmlessly enjoy themselves (especially if their fave happened to draw the short end of the stick in canon) even if you don’t like it or find it annoying - please give other people that level of consideration at least.

Sun is over enthusiastic - he does it a lot more than Moon. He does it when he’s annoyed too for emphasis - don’t know quite what it emphasises but it’s something and that’s what matters.

Okay so we’ve seen a lot of lonely/socially awkward/new DCA fans looking for a place to talk to others and me and @flinxypie who kindly helped build this server are hoping this could be a fun place where we can coax each other out of our shells or at least spend a little while going pssppssppssssp with cat treats in an attempt to lure each other out from under the fandom sofa. The chat’s name is as of yet undecided (to be confirmed once poll results are in) but don’t let that stop you from joining along if you’re interested!

Here’s the link: https://discord.gg/4SYgUdW7Qc

This is a place to make friends where we embrace our awkwardness, our loneliness, and maybe we do it scared but we do it anyway (don’t worry, you’re in good company!). We don’t want to put anyone up on a pedestal out of other people’s reach or have fandom in general be a big competition or grind to get “famous” or stay “relevant”, just a fun space where we’re all equally silly little guys and get to talk about fun things we collectively like and have fun doing it at our own pace.

We plan on doing throwback days for older art, we have channels where you can adopt or be adopted by new friends (a little attention seeking is good and fine actually if you’re willing to give as good as you get) or if all words are failing you you can talk in meows or pictures or one word sentences in one of our quiet channels if you wish (fun fact: there are a surprising number of house cats and cryptids in the DCA fandom). Be a part of some silly fun art/writing trades, magmas or themed art/reblog chains and let’s all draw ourselves with our AU versions or do picrews (We also want to bring back the DCA sleepovers and interaction chains because those looked fun!) along with a bunch more stuff we likely haven’t thought of yet!

Follow up from this post where we collaboratively selected a bunch of songs with DCA vibes as part of a fandom wide playlist, the response so far has been amazing (thanks so much everyone!) and I’ve managed to add (hopefully) what should be all of our suggested DCA Vibe songs so far (currently sitting at 385 songs) to this playlist right here so anyone looking for new music, you’re in luck!

(I haven’t listened to every song on the list yet but I hope to do so in time, pls use your own discretion when listening and enjoy!)

@lenillustration had the great suggestion of making this something we can all add to collectively as a fandom so here’s a link in case anyone wants to join in the fun and add some more songs themselves! It’s never too late to add more if you don’t have an account either, just let me know in a tag/reblog/reply if there are any other songs that make you think of the DCA and I’ll get them added (as long as they’re available on Spotify)!

No but seriously I thought he was only okay before but when I saw you started drawing him (I actually knew you before because of your DCA art that popped up sometimes when I scratched for some drawings of them) I was surprised because I never knew you would ever watch it, because unfortunately many people who draw Sun and Moon hate it, I mean I understand why, but it's kinda sad. I didn't have a Tumblr account before because I thought I didn't need it, and I just followed your art like this, but later on I decided I actually want it, and later later on I decided I'm not aby anymore and I want to show myself

So you could say I got obsessed with Nexus because of fanarts, but also of how people depicted him and I started to see how much I missed (mostly because of how the show was treating him). I got more invested in his character and also in his relationship with his family but mainly Sun and Solar because they had the most interactions with him and because they were technically the the closest ones to him out of the whole family (I also realized how extremely close Solar was to Nexus before BECAUSE of the fans. I knew Sun was but never knew Solar was too, at least THAT much, no one showed me that before, how much I missed??? Or I just didn't pay attention and I'm stupid😭). I even re-watched some episodes to consume the contect with my new knowledge of Nexus lol, and met some friends in the fandom who were also big fans of Nexus. I made my own Nexus design with some of them actually! Because I didn't want the stolen model to be the main one, BUT THAT ASIDE

So, thank you for adopting Nexus ^^

I don't watch tsams anymore. I'm still a fan of it and I will watch a video if it's interesting enough but meh.. I started loosing interest a long time ago actually but being obsessed with Nexus is what made me stay much longer. So I guess if I'll ever abandon tsams, I'm DEFINITELY taking Nexus with me

The show can go, but NEXUS??? I'm going to have a tea party with him for the rest of my life

Have fun reading this long ask lmao. Maybe I shouldn't be writing this late at night BUT WHATEVER🌹

Woahhh hearing this makes me so happyyy, I’m really glad to have helped inspire your love of Nexus :D <3

To me SAMS was one of those things that I didn’t really get into for a long time because for me, purely out of personal preference, the less creature the DCA are the less I tend to get invested - but Nexus in particular his arc had a lot to chew on simply because he and the main fam had all that history, he’s skrunkly and fun and did a lot of things wrong which is very fun when you enjoy villains (butttt imo when you compare him to like the average member of the main cast those wrongs barely register. Which is not to say “he did nothing wrong” but more like “I support his wrongs because everybody in this damn thing is wrong tbh”)

I’ve always enjoyed the tragedy of DCA Moon as a character, the overlap between him playing into the “villain” role and not quite knowing where he ends and his impulse to get the player begins. While Nexus and Moon in SB don’t really act a thing alike, I think that tragic aspect of his character hooked me early on in his villain arc because similar to Moon his mind and intentions are a mess, he just goes about over justifying it to himself and doing himself damage which …I can’t begin to tell you how much I love self destructive characters.

The family bonds that came before too, so much juicy angst to be found there and because it was mainly explored as a linearly destructive path in canon that leaves a lot of room for AUs to play around with and imagine it playing out in different ways. Sun and Nexus is free angst and fun character exploration forever not only because of how that villain arc went but because of all that history they shared, all the dramatic/day to day moments they spent together and how close they could’ve been if the trauma between Sun and OG Moon hadn’t messed them both up from the start.

Solar and Nexus is free angst and fun character dynamic fuel forever too because aaa their identity issues as two variants of different characters that generally have a bad name (Eclipses and Moons) and how they helped each other form a more stable base to work on those before it all went sideways for them. Because despite their past experiences they sought each other out. They were brave. They focused on what they had in common instead of their differences. The little moments where they got to play around and mess with each other and just have fun despite all the stresses in their lives too. So much good stuff! (I won’t get into how fun his dynamics are with a bunch of the other characters too but there are so many, too many to list here without just going on all day but you get the point jsdgkjds)

And then yeahhh you hit the nail on the head with his design too. There are a million Nexus designs and all of them are really good, I love how much thought went into different people’s visions of how he reconstructed himself because while the canon story focused more on that aspect of him digging himself deeper the fanon designs focused also on what he could’ve been if he’d actively chosen to be anything but Moon without just being enabled to spiral and crash (and most of us agree he still wouldn’t have ventured too far from being Moonlike because he’s still attached to that old aspect of his identity even if it’s just ragebait fuel for himself at this point lol). While the model was officially purchased I think for use in the show itself, me and @flinxypie made some mods to our AU design last summer because people were being not so nice about his model even though it wasn’t designed to be Nexus (it is in fact based on Hikase’s Moon design) and it affected many people who used and worked on the design and model :( so like you we wanted to veer away from that design a lil bit while keeping his vibe! (If you have a design for him on your page I’ll happily check that out, I love seeing more Nex designs!)

What a cool character tho I love him he can stay :3 <3

Shaking your hand as part of the watches SAMS infrequently now brigade, if a video sounds interesting I’ll check it out but I don’t really actively follow the story anymore, while I liked a bunch of the characters the ones I was most invested in (mainly Nexus) aren’t really in it anymore so I’m not really keeping up with what’s going on.