On Mollymauk
Dec. 7th, 2018 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabinetzinSo this is a post about why I'm not active in CR campaign 2 fandom. This was hard to write and probably won't win me any friends, but I needed to get it out. Spoilers, but you probably worked that out from the title.
I was a few eps behind when Molly died; I stay behind, because I don't like watching live (tbh I don't really like having to sit down and watch a 4 hour ep at all, the podcast has been really good for me). At the time I treated it kind of intellectually, disappointed but not thrown. I wasn't really ever deep in the campaign 2 fandom (because I don't like Molly/Caleb) so I could sit back and sort of be above the wailing and rending of garments.
And then fandom didn't let it go.
Fandom sunk its teeth into Molly's corpse and dared anyone to pull it from them. It never stopped and it never tapered off and everywhere I looked it was Molly, Molly, Molly. I felt like I couldn't breathe; I tried to push back a little in my limited way and cling to Caduceus, and the fandom wasn't having it. The AO3 tag never changed its composition, staying 75% Molly/Caleb, only this time with fixits in and on top of that number.
I couldn't handle it. At all.
I don't know why my reaction to Molly was the polar opposite of my reaction to Phil. I am the quite literal poster child (it's still rolled up under my bed) for not giving up on a dead character, and the fact that history proved me right does not change the fact that I probably made MCU fandom as toxic for some people as I felt CR fandom to be. Feeling chagrined about that doesn't change anything, but it is a thing I do know.
I'm just now sort of realizing that my reaction is partly because I couldn't take fandom beating a dead tiefling, and partly because I was using that to insulate myself from the fact of his death. I never dealt with it, and part of that is because I don't do well with character deaths (full stop) that I can't sit down and absorb before moving on. I never had that moment alone to get my shit back together, but also shoving it under my annoyance with the fandom was easier than dealing with it.
So I have no idea what the way forward is. I might come back and I might not. I miss the show; I don't know if I miss the fandom, precisely, because I had the same kind of unilateral relationship with it that I do most fandoms: I show up, I drop off my fic/costume photos, I go back to my hole. It's hard to miss a relationship you never really had.
But I miss Molly.
I was a few eps behind when Molly died; I stay behind, because I don't like watching live (tbh I don't really like having to sit down and watch a 4 hour ep at all, the podcast has been really good for me). At the time I treated it kind of intellectually, disappointed but not thrown. I wasn't really ever deep in the campaign 2 fandom (because I don't like Molly/Caleb) so I could sit back and sort of be above the wailing and rending of garments.
And then fandom didn't let it go.
Fandom sunk its teeth into Molly's corpse and dared anyone to pull it from them. It never stopped and it never tapered off and everywhere I looked it was Molly, Molly, Molly. I felt like I couldn't breathe; I tried to push back a little in my limited way and cling to Caduceus, and the fandom wasn't having it. The AO3 tag never changed its composition, staying 75% Molly/Caleb, only this time with fixits in and on top of that number.
I couldn't handle it. At all.
I don't know why my reaction to Molly was the polar opposite of my reaction to Phil. I am the quite literal poster child (it's still rolled up under my bed) for not giving up on a dead character, and the fact that history proved me right does not change the fact that I probably made MCU fandom as toxic for some people as I felt CR fandom to be. Feeling chagrined about that doesn't change anything, but it is a thing I do know.
I'm just now sort of realizing that my reaction is partly because I couldn't take fandom beating a dead tiefling, and partly because I was using that to insulate myself from the fact of his death. I never dealt with it, and part of that is because I don't do well with character deaths (full stop) that I can't sit down and absorb before moving on. I never had that moment alone to get my shit back together, but also shoving it under my annoyance with the fandom was easier than dealing with it.
So I have no idea what the way forward is. I might come back and I might not. I miss the show; I don't know if I miss the fandom, precisely, because I had the same kind of unilateral relationship with it that I do most fandoms: I show up, I drop off my fic/costume photos, I go back to my hole. It's hard to miss a relationship you never really had.
But I miss Molly.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-12-08 12:43 pm (UTC)