Posts Tagged ‘Supernatural’

The fever has finally broken on this thing! I hope!

Meanwhile, I’m listening to this song as I write in here because this is one of the few things from the Supernatural franchise that I like… fandom drama turned me off to nearly the entire thing, and I’m still not watching The Winchesters. I still feel a bit weak from the actual COVID infection, but some of the worst side effects of it and the Paxlovid that I was put on for it are finally going away… we hope! I hope they stay away, for one. And I hope never to get COVID again or, worse, long COVID. I know that long COVID is now a risk…

I can’t say that I did not see this coming either.

People are finally realizing that I am probably not going to watch The Winchesters — the actors seem nice, don’t get me wrong, but John and Mary’s backstory was never something that I was interested in getting to know more about, and I don’t develop brand loyalty to franchises just to say that I’m “a real fan” of something — and I’ve been making jokes on my Twitter timeline about… not wanting to re-watch Supernatural again, even going so far as not to recommend that others do the same with some of these suggestions being tongue-in-cheek and others being more serious depending on the circumstance. At any rate, one that erred on the side of being more serious (I just like the show less now, what can I say?) got me unfollowed by prominent members of the fandom that I’d been friends with on Twitter, although this does not bother me given that we hold different views on the curation of media and the participation in fandom.

I just feel like people want to curate their media experiences depending on what they expect out of other people, and depending on what other people want or would want from them… not what they themselves want to get out of those media experiences, and that seems like it’s a lot of the problem with media experiences that involve groupthink (such as fandom). One of the multiple reasons that I chose to extricate myself from active fandom participation and have been all the happier for it was the fact that I did not feel like I had to conform my thoughts on the curation of that media, or media in general, based on how other people perceived them, even if I would — worst case — be regarded as “having the wrong idea” for having those thoughts. For people that… don’t participate in fandom, and to me now, this may just sound zany, but it’s the best way that I can put it. Even if you surrounded yourself with people who thought similar things as you did, or thought you did (think shipping), this could still happen. You could only “be a real fan” if you liked certain things a certain way, especially in a lot of more prominent, popular fandoms, and that was something else that I was just… over. It got to the point where I curtailed fandom participation to making it next to none, then made it none, and was happy with that level of involvement. I had other hobbies and interests that I wanted to pursue more that made me much happier that didn’t have these arcane rules.

This bears repeating again because it’s still true.

It’s been… I don’t even know how many weeks at this point since I quit the Discord “reunion” servers that I was invited to, the ones with people that I had grown up with, and I continue to be happy that no attempts have been made to invite me back to already existing servers or new ones (matters might have been helped out by the fact that I deleted people from my friends’ list on Discord, making it more difficult to contact me, having done so for this reason). But I continue not to miss being in any of them, and I can’t realistically see myself wanting to join them again for any reason. This doesn’t seem like something that’s going to change, even though I’ve heard it said in situations like these — and when it comes to fandoms — that you “can’t leave” groups like these. And then, when I don’t want to be a part of these groups any longer, I do, and some people are actually surprised that I’ve done it, committed to it, and doubled down on it. (But why? Seriously?)

And like I’ve said, I’ve done it with fandoms as well, although for slightly different reasons (although my willingness to commit not to participate in fandom activities as they are more or less known to be is the same, and is something that I am continuing to be willing to commit to). I dislike the whole “you can never leave fandom once you join it” phrase that is almost a catchphrase at this point, seeing it more like a jeer than anything else, and I really dislike the expectation that you have to agree with “your people” on all issues 100% of the time or you are Not Doing It Good Enough and Should Be Blocked — for instance, I’m still not watching The Winchesters (the prequel to Supernatural), simply because it doesn’t address anything that I’m particularly interested in watching a television show about. I’m not jeering at or making fun of the people who are interested in watching it, though. It’s just… not my thing, although if I wind up tuning in at a later date I wind up tuning in at a later date. I’ve also fallen out of the habit of reading fanfiction at this point, simply because my time has become occupied by other things and the only times I’ve actually taken the time to think about it have been times when I’ve noticed that I just haven’t read it in a really long time. Truth be told, when I had to reload our gaming PC I didn’t even log back into Archive Of Our Own, and it’s been almost a year since I have. It’s not out of malice or anything, either. I just want to spend my time doing other things and there is only so much time in a day, and I burn out if I have to talk about things for hours, days, weeks, or months on end. I need to be able to walk away from them under even the best of circumstances.

1 2 3 4 5 20