Fandom is so obsessed with contrasts in ships that they force them onto hollanov, a couple who are FAMOUSLY supposed to be similar. There is no slutty one and prudish one. They both love sex. There is no smart one and dumb one. They both excel at the same career where traditional metrics of academic intelligence don't apply. There is no jock and nerd. They are both professional athletes. There is no neatfreak and slob. They both pay other people to clean their houses. Please release yourself from the need to manufacture an opposites attract dynamic in every facet of their relationship, ESPECIALLY when the central conceit of hollanov as a couple is that they're more alike than everyone else seems to think.
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Dancepardner itself I believe is fine, great even! Their contrasting personalities are meant to compliment each otherātheyāre a packaged deal! The problem derives from the fact whatās there in terms of fan content currently leans into being Yellow-centric more often than not, which is a shame because thereās something to be said about Blueās emotions too, how he dreams to feel love in every step. I hope this is rectified as time passes.
one thing i hate about the soc fandom is the amount of people who act like jesper and his father have a healthy relationship; i know a lot of these posts are joke posts but it just irks me so bad.
colm fahey was NOT a good father and he did not have a healthy relationship with his son whatsoever. in fact it's literally stated that the primary cause of jesper's gambling addiction stems from his father because he instilled fear and shame within jepser just for being grisha. even in his childhood, aditi had to teach jesper to use his powers as a fabrikator in secret. a father who fears his son cannot have a healthy relationship with his child because no matter how much he hides it, that fear will always be apparent through his actions.
what primarily makes colm a better father than most is that he's trying, he listened to jesper's outburst and he's trying to remedy his relationship with his son even if it's so late.
something i think about a lot is how so much of the conversation about fandom racism is just about trying to get white fans to stop avoiding the issue of racism in fandom because āfandom is for fun!ā that we never really get to the second step of āok, now how do you participate in the conversation in a way that is productive?ā (like how the convo abt cultural appropriation went from āwhite ppl pick and choose pieces of racialized cultures to commercialize and profit off of without giving due credit to the people who created that culture, and often the real cultural significance gets watered down into a toothless marketable palatable shell of itselfā into just āif youāre white and you ever acknowledge or interact with a different culture youāre a bad personā)
and like āhow to talk about fandom racism in a productive wayā is not something i am going to pretend to be an expert on, but i will say that maybe treating stuff like āsmall fandom event for a messy, toxic, non-canonical polycule shipā or ātwo or three fics where a canon gay couple has a threesome with a womenā as equally as harmful as āhuge chunks of the fandom misinterpreting a character of color as significantly more violent and abusive than the character is in canonā is sort of a great way to get people to dismiss what youāre saying even if what youāre saying is correct and important.
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Like please could have at least had the decency to make Monty a butch lesbian or something??
im sorry if this doesnāt make much sense, itās midnight and Iāve barely slept and Iām kinda super pissed at this whole thing ://
Hi, Iām a long time fan of the Nevermore webcomic, stuck around since the beginning. I have always been more of a lurker, ātis where Iām comfortable at. However, that means Iāve been keeping an eye on the fandom from a distance for a while. And what Iāve been seeing has slowly broken down my enjoyment of visiting these fandom spaces. Which is a shame, because it used to be one of my favourite aspects.
Now, let me get one thing straight: I donāt think that this is a unique problem for this fandom. Far from it! I do think itās a broader trend in media consumption that warrants addressing. Nevermore is simply my medium of choice to do so.
I know that a lot of people are going to disagree with me here, and that is so incredibly fine by me! I just hope, that there might be some of you out there who agree, and that I may provide a voice for you. And finally, fair warning: I am only speaking of the tumblr fandom. Iāve never been on the discord, and I probably never will be.
Over the last couple of years, criticism of the comic has become more and more widespread. Another disclaimer here (and there will be more, because media literacy is at an all time low, and anything not outright stated might be disregarded), criticism is a fair way to engage with media. Youāre free to criticise. Iām here, because it has slowly taken over a huge chunk of the fandom in a way that gives me some reason for concern.
Letās rip the bandaid of the big one off first: the racism issue and accusations. Iām not going to pretend that this hasnāt been the proverbial final straw that caused me to write āall thatā. I really wish it hadnāt been. Racism and its depictions, alongside depictions of race and ethnicity are hugely important topics that deserve scrutiny and nuanced discussions. A look at how Nevermore engages and also does *not* engage with racism is warranted and sparked some truly interesting talking points. This is not what this is about. From the fair question of how and *if* the comic will address historically accurate depictions of discrimination based on race grew a whole other thing: the way the authors are going about it is unequivocally racist. There have been old screenshots posted from the discord, which are supposed to show that point. I got so tired reading them. There is one thing I can address right away: I also often disagree with the way Red communicates with the fandom. I think she can come off as brash and mean spirited, even though I hardly think that is actually the intention. And in all fairness, let me also state that I donāt think that posting those screenshots was done with malicious intent to misconstrue the situation. What this shows, however is a deep disconnect between author and some parts of the audience, that in certain circles seems to almost be elevated to a sport. Red may come off as pushy in those screenshots, but letās be so real, her stance and explanations arenāt racist. The critical discussion about more representation and the kind of representation in the story still can be had, but navigating a complex issue as best as they can should not be decried as outright racist. Red says it within these screenshots: there is no fair solution to the problem. White authors have been *rightfully* criticised for profiting off of narratives that depict struggles they havenāt experienced themselves. Making racism a central issue, *the* issue of the plot of Nevermore would take away from the story the creators wanted to tell. One they have far more personal experience with. Nevermore has always been billed as a story that wants to centre a queer, gothic relationship. That is the story these creators want to tell.
Now, I donāt want to make it seem like the argument has been made, that the focus of the story should shift entirely. I donāt think anyone has made such a demand and it would be absolutely in bad faith to present the argument as such. There obviously is a middle ground here. This complaint isnāt about the people who asked for that. Criticism is about voicing concerns about the inclusion of poc characters and how to improve their portrayal and not to erase the struggles they historically would have faced. Itās not calling the authors āracistā and ālazyā and āgiving every excuse in the bookā for clearly unintentionally missing a mark they were trying to hit.
And mind I remind you, that this is the same fandom that also complained about the bloated cast and everything taking forever. Please, tell me that we wouldnāt be getting complaints about the side characters stealing too much spotlight and a lack of focus on the main story if we were to introduce a whole lot more story beats that need to be treated with the care they deserve.
I also find it hard to disagree with another thing Red brought up in these screenshots: that there would always be criticism and accusations of insensitivity, even when they had written the story including all of the requested things from the very beginning. Because the goalpost wouldāve shifted. Because itās been shifted a lot. I do see a world in which period accurate racism is included in this story. In that world we would be discussing if it is alright for our main characters to adhere to bigoted views. Weād be discussing, if racism is something we can have our main characters āgrow out ofā or if it makes them too unlikeable from the start. There would be a discussion about the suffering of poc being used as plot devices. We would be having these discussions with the same legitimacy as the one weāre having now. The screenshots only show that the creators are aware of that and have been thinking about how to go about the inclusion of representation in a way that takes this into account.
Another ādramaā concerned Lenoreās spectre. Disclaimer: Iām also lukewarm on her design. But some of the takes have been baffling. There have been accusations of the creators not understanding their own characters and their trauma. Lenore is too feminine. Her design is butch-phobic actually. Itās missing the fire element. She shouldāve been a phoenix/headless horseman/groom. There is no design on this planet that wouldāve satisfied the crowd. Her design not checking every box on everyoneās wish list is once more made into a moral failing of the creators. Itās cool to be disappointed. But acting as if the creators are bad people for making a design thatās not what you expected is not.
Iāve seen recurring complaints about pacing, about getting more unanswered mysteries in a mystery comic that has barely reached its first third and is therefore still squarely situated in its rising action. About villains doing villainous things. About incest being a possible topic in a gothic horror tale. About our main characters somehow being both too flawed and unlikeable and too perfect at the same time. About twists being badly implemented, despite them being the topic of major fandom theories for years.
What this all boils down to is that visiting this tag has become an exercise in patience for me. I find myself reading more and more posts claiming to be critical of a comic they love, and then going in with the most uncharitable, bad faith interpretation of the work one could come up with. It reads as if hating the comic has become the main form of enjoyment for some. Once more, if you had issues with the comic in the past and have voiced them in a constructive way, this post isnāt about you. Itās about going into the tag after every update and finding complaints about every tiny little detail and then *immediately* jumping in to make it a moral issue on the grandest scale possible. Itās racist. Itās sexist. The creators are bad people, actually and they are bad on purpose. That is not criticising. Itās been hate without an alternative. Personal dislike made moral issue. Every little grievance a failing of the creators. Itās exhausting to go into the tag that was once mostly theories and fan works and to find the moral failing of the week. If Nevermore disappointed you, because it didnāt go into the direction you expected, that is fine. That does not mean the direction it is going in is necessarily bad. It might just not be for you. Post about it! Get inspired to write your own thing, that does all of the cool things you are envisioning! Be creative in turn! Maybe drop the comic if you find that it leaves you exhausted and dissatisfied all the time.
Are you sure you love this comic? Itās okay if you donāt.
I'm just gonna say that I think hiatuses are good for fandom.
Broadcast TV was built around those pauses: big fall premieres, holiday breaks, sweeps weeks, midseason returns, May finales, summer reruns (god summer reruns where you discovered new shows you didn't even know existed and got invested in and got to start a new season in the fall). The rhythm of watching TV was never just episode-episode-episode until you collapsed. There were gaps. And those gaps mattered.
I think watching a TV series week by week is important. Not because binge watching is wrong or never fun (I love to couch rot with the best of them), but because weekly viewing gives a story time to become part of your actual life. You spend the week thinking about an episode. You talk about it with other fans. You post about it. You rewatch scenes over and over and over. You notice things (things that aren't even meant to be noticed). You build theories. You sit with character choices before the show tells you what they mean (and maybe you disagree with the showrunners and you call them out on those choices).
A hiatus gives an episode time to breathe. The hiatus is the oxygen for the creative fire. It gives the viewers time to rewatch, argue, gif, write fic (so much fic), build and rewire theories, notice parallels, change their minds, and actually sit with what happened before canon moves on.
Sure, a hiatus can be frustrating because it makes us wait, especially when it feels like the rhythm of the show keeps getting interrupted by less important things like basketball and election coverage and the Olympics. But waiting is also where delicious, delicious anticipation lives. It is where fandom turns a show from something we watched into something we are collectively thinking about, chewing on, clamoring for.
Binge culture can be fun because you gulp down the content you crave, but it often turns watching into consumption: finish the episode, finish the season, post the reaction, post the gif, post the coda, move on. Broadcast hiatuses interrupt that pace. They force you to slow down. They make room for anticipation. They let the fandom breathe.
The breaks are not just empty space. The breaks are where the fandom happens.
