#fandom reflection

(Or how our emotions blind us to what is right in front of us)

So, I'm still here, I might never leave, whatever.

This is kind of a second part to my Truman Show post on how conformitygate is holding a mirror to the audience with this very elaborate stunt the team behind ST is trying to pull out (I hope they manage). I'll be mixing some generalities with personal stuff that I think useful to explain my points. If you'd like to read a more objective view on this I recommend reading this amazing post by @mymusingss

Okay, first of all, I won't claim I haven't fallen victim to many of the baits that they threw our way. I've repeated the cycle at least 4 times since the release of Vol 1, but proudly, every time I've managed to come to my senses and I course correct when presented with new evidence. This is me at the end of every stage of this very long journey.

Tbh honest, I didn't realize what they were doing until I boarded the conformitygate bus and now I can't believe the actual scale of this. Let's go back to the beginning

The Excitement

It might be a shock to many that I didn't actually enjoy my first watch of Vol. 1, which many point out as the last good portion of the show. I'll be very frank here, I think that notion comes from the fact that we were given Byler crumbs to distract us. Don't get me wrong, I was happy with those too, smiled every time Mike and Will were together for the smallest amount of time, got so excited at the end of Sorcerer, but there are also important inconsistencies there, which only make sense if they serve a bigger purpose (conformitygate, if the clarification was needed).

The biggest one for me is that they are even allowed to do the crawls. The government has been looking for Jane, and they know she has a relationship with the Byers, they sent soldiers to their house in Lenora while looking for her. Isn't the easiest way to get to her to capture them and use them as bait? Food for thought. Also, are we meant to believe the government didn't know about the tunnels at all? Something is missing.

I also felt like there were too many unnecessary sequences. First, as much as I came to like Holly and Derek, I felt like way too much time was spent on the kids. It took an eternity for Holly to meet Max. Why even include a full dozen of new characters and try to make them relevant when you have already so much to cover?

Last about Vol 1. is the radio sequence in the beginning. Cool way to deliver a secret message? Yes, except it makes no sense when they still meet at the radio station for a debrief! It would have been smart if they weren't able to communicate before taking their respective positions. Again, useless, unless the message was meant for the audience instead of the characters. Someone already analyzed that message with conformitygate lenses but as I'm always rushing I didn't take notes. If anyone knows the author of that post, please give credit.

So, Vol 1. was already weird for me, but I suspended my disbelief and boarded the hype ship for Byler scenes to happen in Vol 2

The Disappointment

Aside from Byler Nation receiving the first hit of this plot, the one complaint among the GA, the bigoted section at least, seemed to be the coming out scene, but I think they were still satisfied in general. This was a mystery to me because everything seemed to be going wrong; i even made a very pessimistic prediction of where things were going following that path (I got the most devastating part right, mind you). Then, wearing conformitygate lenses, I realized, that once again they gave enough crumbs to keep the audience mostly pacified. Lumax reunited, Dustin and Steve making up, Steve being the one to come out with the plan, even that scene of Karen killing the demodogs, which is very cool on a first watch but makes absolutely no sense. Have you ever tried carrying one of those tanks on your best days?

The Sadness

The first watch of Vol. 3 was actually painful. I was just begging for a small bit of hope for Byler because the rest was awful, sprinkled with intense emotion induced moments to distract us (Steve falling, Nancy playing Ellen Ripley, Joyce saying her badass words). There was a point in which I was just begging for it to end and there was still one hour to go.

I wasn't as angry as I was sad, for Mike's character specially, but I had been blinded by my desperation for Byler and this time actually overlooked the enormous inconsistencies. Fortunately, after shedding some tears and filtering my emotions through written words (never attacks on anyone thank you very much), I found a post about the WSQK still transmitting, boarded this bus, and here I am after all the false starts. In conclusion

What I'm meaning to say here is that we've been repeating the cycle time and time again, affected in different ways, but we really need to take a breathe, one step back and try to look at stuff with more objectivity. All these evidence has to mean something.

I really don't think acting on negative emotions does good to anyone. I already expressed my opinion on some of the anticonformitygate arguments that keep resonating in this reblog, and I'll add something very harsh here: The Duffers don't give a shit about the hate thrown at them. Either conformitygate is real and we've played a part in this huge meta analysis of the fandom (but we at least get a satisfying conclusion) or it's not real and they still have their millions and a series of projects lined up. Remember there is no such thing as bad publicity.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but lately I’ve been reading a lot of fanfics and crossovers, and as I go through the chapters, I can’t help but notice that many of them have an AI-like narrative style.😔

Okay, you might ask, “But how do you know it’s AI-style writing?” Let’s be honest—many of us have seen or even used AI to search for information or ask about new ideas , and after a while, you start to recognize the tone and structure it tends to use.

But for the past two weeks, I’ve been reading fanfics that genuinely feel like someone gave the AI a prompt and said, “Write me a full chapter,” then just copy-pasted the result and lightly edited two or three lines. And I don’t know… maybe it’s just me, but I can definitely feel the difference.

Yes, I love reading YiZhan fanfics , but that’s solely because I enjoy reading BL stories . I don’t project the same dynamics onto the real Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo 🙅‍♀️.

I've analyzed, criticized, and explained why the relationship between Hua Yong and Shao You in ABO Desire is fundamentally broken. But today, I want to approach it from a different angle. My problem was never just with the couple, the writer, or even the Omegaverse — it's with the act of romanticizing the toxicity.

Here’s the core of it: you’re allowed to like toxic pairings. The problem begins when you start believing that kind of dynamic isn’t just compelling, but actually romantic.

Let me use myself as an example: I love characters with pathological jealousy. That chaotic, obsessive, possessive dynamic? It absolutely enthralls me. But the key is, I see it for what it is — toxic behavior. I enjoy it consciously, without ever pretending it’s a blueprint for a healthy relationship.

To illustrate this crucial difference, let’s take a more dramatic example — Queen Mantis. Both main suspects were saved by the same serial killer, who liberated them from abusive situations. Both admire her as a mother figure. But here’s where they diverge radically:

Suspect A (The Admirer): He reveres her, even building altars with her crime scene photos. He became a private detective — a morally gray profession, but one that still stays within the bounds of the law. He’s also the childhood friend of the killer’s biological son, who despises his mother, creating a stark moral contrast. Despite his devotion, he knows she’s a murderer and has never crossed that line himself.

Suspect B (The Disciple): He didn’t just admire her; he internalized her worldview. After being freed by her, he adopted her ideology entirely — changing his identity, mirroring her crimes, and killing anyone who stood in his way. What began as admiration became imitation.

See the difference?

One understands the darkness from a critical distance. The other embodies it. That’s the same line that exists in fandom.

You can be thrilled by a toxic dynamic — whether it’s in ABO Desire or anywhere else — while being fully aware that it’s wrong, destructive, and not something to idealize. Enjoying darkness in fiction shouldn’t make you feel guilty; fiction is a safe space to explore, confront, and process what would be unacceptable in real life.

The danger lies in doing what Suspect B did: blurring the line until toxicity becomes normalized, justified, or — worse — romanticized.

I was watching @teambyler's new "lawyer's evidence" video yesterday morning, and a few things struck me. As I got to the chapter addressing potential backlash should Byler be confirmed in Season 5, I was interested to see a sort of response to my own words. Whether or not this was intentional — or simply a coincidence — it was fascinating hearing Ronald’s perspective. 

When I posted my Roll for Empathy series introduction, I already had drafts of the 4 parts completed. I’ve been deliberately spacing them out to give myself time to reread with fresh eyes, but I knew doing so meant delaying the full context of the argument I’m building towards. Funnily enough, Ronald’s comments represented the kind of reaction I anticipated — although I certainly didn’t expect it to surface in this particular context. 

I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me question, for a moment, the point of posting this series. When someone with more influence and reach expresses ideas that brush close to your own — even if the approach is from a different angle — it’s easy to wonder if you’re still adding anything meaningful to the conversation. But upon reflection, I realised that’s precisely why dialogue like this is important. We’re part of the same ongoing conversation, each trying to make sense of the same emotional landscape: how we process hostility, how we respond to it, how the online space distorts our perspective, and how empathy is affected.

The following are excerpts from Ronald’s discussion that stood out to me:

“…we would be justified in reveling in their anger and tears because they get to finally experience what LGBT people have had to endure for decades of queer baiting.”

“Shippers obviously are not the majority of viewers of Stranger Things and homophobes and bullies are not the majority of shippers.”

“The recent video where Finn Wolfhard reacted to the scene where Mike is reunited with El […] caused a very loud ruckus online among some anti-Bylers, some of whom harassed Finn…” 

“Feeling misunderstood, it’s natural to feel a little tribal and a bit egotistic towards the general audience…”

These sections mirror the ideas I raised about the way hostility and moral certainty can crowd out compassion. Whether or not he saw my post, it felt like the fandom thinking aloud through multiple voices at once.

By the end of my Roll for Empathy series, I think my point will be clearer. For now — and without giving too much away — I want to make it clear that I do not, for a single second, blame anyone who responds to harassment, dismissal, and disrespect with defensiveness or anger. Nor could I look down on anyone for celebrating their triumphs while feeling a bit of what I described as “smug superiority”. These reactions are justified and completely human. 

As a final note, if something I write ever comes across as offensive or trivialising, I assure you it’s never intentional, and I will always appreciate feedback. I’m a perfectionist, but alas, I am not perfect.

If you had told me 6 years ago that I’d wake up this morning like any other day--feed my cats, smoke a bowl, grab a Red Bull, then go to work--it would have gone something like this: “What traumatic fandom event could have possibly happened for this to NOT be a MOMENTOUS, NEAR APOCALYPTIC DAY??? Also, how has my daily routine not changed in 6 years?”

Hi, everyone!

It just struck twelve for me, so it is currently January 1, 2026 for me as I'm posting this. And I just gotta say, it's been a crazy year, huh? A crazy 5 years, in fact. It's crazy to think that I've been writing on AO3 for Ace Attorney (mostly) for 5 years now. So much has changed in these past 5 years that I've been writing. I mean, 5 years ago I was still in senior high school, a newly budding (and horrible lol) writer finding her way. Now? I'm a creative writing major in her 3rd year, with 266 fics on AO3 and with 1,528,979 words published.

It still doesn't feel real to me. I don't think it'll ever feel real, lol. I've grown so much these past 5 years, I'm definitely not the same person, writer or otherwise, from when I started writing 5 years ago. But that's good, isn't it? People change a lot in 5 years, and I like to think I changed for the better XD I've said it before, but I only really expected to write my Maya DA AU (which I need to update, seriously T^T) and a few one-shots here and there, maybe a multichapter or two if I liked the idea enough. But everything spiraled out of control in the best way possible...and well, I'm still here now!

I wouldn't be here with y'all, really. I will never understand why y'all have welcomed me so enthusiastically. If you told 2021 Momo she got this much support, she'd never believe you, and tbh the Momo of today still doesn't believe it even to this day. The support has been insane, seriously. It's enough to make a grown (wo)man cry, which I definitely didn't do when I finished multichapter fics XD. But back on topic, y'all are the reason I love writing on AO3 so much, well aside from writing itself which I also love dearly XD

Also, sorry if this feels like a goodbye message lol. It is NOT. I am still gonna be writing fanfic, you can't get rid of me THAT easily, Ace Attorney fandom!

Seriously...thank you. Thank you for everything. I love this fandom and community, and I'm forever grateful y'all welcomed me with open arms.

I actually went back through the wayback machine to try to find the initial Season Four spoilers. Back in the day it was Sora-Mito on deviantart (who is from Poland, so I was remembering that right) who posted a journal about it with one sentence for each episode, but it doesn’t seem that the journal was saved. All I remember, aside from Golden Age, was ‘Valeena’s parents’ for Secret Society and ‘Gibson eats a bug’ for Invasion of the Vreen.