Fandom Insanity!

One has only to look in the general direction of the Supernatural fandom to see the glowing embers of the infamous “ship wars”, something to do with Destiel, Castiel… hmmm. Sadly, I haven’t watched Supernatural, so I don’t fully get it, but what I DO get is the utter vitriol which fans of the show heaved at each other online and occasionally in person.  If Twitter tracked blocking, I’m sure it reached its peak (prior to this campaign season) during the last couple of seasons or so of Supernatural.

I would have found this amazing, but for the experience of the Sleepy Hollow fandom AND show. Prior to the advent of social media, if you had a strong opinion about what was happening with the plot of a show, or its imminent cancellation, you’d fire off a VERY STRONGLY WORDED letter telling the network just what you thought. Perhaps more than one of you might do this.  Well, now that we have Facebook and Twitter (primarily) hordes of fans can virtually gather at the gates of the network.

Season 1 of Sleepy Hollow was very special – a truly quirky show with amazing rapport between the two stars. Well, you know where rapport gets you.  As the season progressed and, well, Ichabbie didn’t… slowly flames began to erupt, gathering intensity by the end of the season.  The joy of a second season quickly soured for many fans, who HATED Ichabod’s wife (even though from their perspective, somewhere between zero and two years had elapsed in their marriage). They wanted “Icky” to instantly drop Kat and became vehement in demanding her death and expunging from the show. The introduction of a love interest for Abbie and the rekindling of the marriage of IchKat infuriated fans – who were extremely vocal to the showpeeps on social media (and everywhere else). This appears to have literally altered the trajectory of the planned story arc, perhaps to the detriment of the show (worse, what fans wanted never actually came about…).  But, it’s an object lesson that shows do pay attention to what fans say.

So, flash forward to Season 2 of 12 Monkeys. For those of us avid folks who sucked every drop of this show dry and who bellowed at the screen at the end of the last episode of Season 1, because there was no kiss between the two main protagonists…there was a danger of becoming that pitchfork mob.  But, surprisingly, THAT wasn’t what has caused a schism in the audience.

What really has caused a schism is character arcs. And, how passionately fans become attached to their favorite characters. And, how those passionate fans respond to criticism of those characters.

It will surprise no one who pays attention to my 12 Monkeys tweets that I am a dedicated fan of Cole. In fact, I wrote a Tumblr response regarding whose life was more wretched, Cassie’s or Cole’s.  It turns out, amazingly, that people are quite defensive and protective of their favorite character!! (I know, what a shock).

So, I found that I was (and continue to be) very aggravated when people complained that Cole “destroyed Cassie’s life.”  But, what has really torn up the fandom (leading to actual Twitter blockage…) is the reaction to Cassie’s story arc. Many fans were unhappy with how bitter and hard Cassie has been portrayed to be, so they took to Twitter and Tumblr to complain. This, in turn, ENRAGED die hard Cassie fans. Things got ugly:

“Cassie’s a bitch (and she’s being mean to Cole)!” “How dare you call her a bitch? Don’t you know what she’s gone through?” “You don’t get to comment on Cassie!” “None of you understand story arcs, you’re all shallow!” Just the tip of the vehement social media iceberg.

So, here are my thoughts. I like Cole a lot, so Cassie’s coldness towards him was very hard to witness. I totally get that she’s gone through a LOT. It’s likely that her behavior is somewhat justified. BUT, by the same token, I feel that it is entirely OK for me to not particularly like this aspect of her character. AND, I think it is OK for me to actually say, “Hey, I don’t like how Cassie is behaving” or maybe even “I think Cassie’s being kind of a bitch” (the same way that I more or less have to accept that Cassie fans feel angry at Cole).  I complained bitterly about Aaron’s behavior last year, even though I understood exactly his justification for the behavior.

But, here’s the deal. If I did not give a shit about the characters in the show, then I would feel like I do towards Fear the Walking Dead.  Pretty much didn’t care about any of them and I was annoyed by every single choice they made in Season 1.  Guess what? I’m not watching Season 2. But, I’m glued to every single episode of 12 Monkeys BECAUSE the characters are complex and make imperfect choices. They can be petulant and sublime in the same episode, because they have depth.

So. Trust the writers. Let the characters grow, feel free to criticize them and their choices because you care. Don’t complain that people don’t feel exactly the same towards your favorite character. Shows would be pretty damn lame if all the characters were the same, drawn to match some phantom demographic. So, just “let it go” if someone else doesn’t like something and horror of horrors, disses your favorite character! We are generally a great fandom and it’s depressing to see infighting.  If you disagree, try to at least be polite. 

A word about “reverse fan ships.” I mentioned this on Twitter. What I mean is that people seem to have become more about “I’m team Cole” or “I’m team Cassie” and less about “we want Cole and Cassie to get together and kiss.”  In fact, it’s gotten so strong that the various “teams” are beginning to dislike the other team character AND fans!  If fans are so polarized, they may get to where they don’t want to ever see them as a couple. An odd turn of events indeed considering how much most fans actually shipped Casserole in Season 1!! (Secretly, I kinda ship DeaCass). Maybe we've forgotten that there's a bigger mystery and objective!

As Hubby says, get off the merry-go-round, the horses are fighting. ;-}