(no subject)

[olivermoss]

* Bodies on Netflix is really, really good so far

* I still have no idea how to find people or be seen on bluesky.

* I am so used to following creators who say they are pro-LGBTQIA+, but then are all 'c'mon, don't be silly' when it comes to trans stuff. Like I've done the whole 'yay this author / showrunner / singer / etc supports the .... oh wait, they support everyone but me' mental cycle a lot.

So, it's really nice that a lot of the BG3 actors and writers are so openly pro-trans. Halsin's actor just retweeted a fundraiser. Astarion's actor is very careful of pronouns and corrects people and is also generally careful of gendered language, Samantha Beart is enby, etc. It's nice and I am not used to this? I am used to the opposite of this?

* My take on BG3 fandom remains that the main drama is still that people are too discourse damaged from Bioware fandoms to even have proper drama yet. I've seen people having meltdowns over posts with no notes and it's like... how did you even find this? And then I go elsewhere and other people are melting down over the the same post... (there is a tweet with 2 likes and no rts that I've seen people have meltdowns over on 4 separate platforms. Calm the f down, yo)

BG3 is huge. It will get it's own discourse and drama and the sides will calcify and be terrible. But still most of what I see is absolute freaking mountains out of molehills or people trying to start wank because they don't know how to function in a CRPG fandom if it's not defending a side/take.

Make hay while the sun is shining people. Or like find a way to process your Bioware discourse damage that doesn't involve using BG3 characters as puppets.

Comments

[profiterole_reads]

Good to know about Bodies, because I want to watch it, but I haven't had the time to start it yet.

[olivermoss]

I just finished it. I was really impressed!

[mistressofmuses]

That's very heartening to hear regarding the BG3 actors and writers! It sucks when "yes, we love the LGBTQIA+ community!" comes with a "some restrictions my apply" asterisk, and it's very nice to discover somewhere that seems so genuine in their support.

I hate when people are in such a rush for wank and discourse that they seem desperate to manufacture it. You're right - it's a mega-fandom, the wank will appear, and it will suck. There's no need to rush it, or try to copy-paste the drama of yesteryear onto this new fandom just because you can't get over old wank!

[olivermoss]

It's so nice to not have a 'ha ha except you' experience for once.

Yeah, it's worrying how many people don't even know how to function in fandom without drama to be for or against. They are reaching hard to find unhinged stuff so they can be brave and controversial by saying 'this thing bad'. Like, some people pretended comments about Stranger Things fandom tattoos were actually about BG3 fandom tattoos. People need to chill and enjoy the fanart.

[mistressofmuses]

Right? I realize that there's no wrong way to fandom or whatnot, but this feels like it's pretty close to "doing it wrong." I just do not GET the desire for there to be drama, particularly to the extent of trying to manufacture it. I feel like it's all the same sort of outrage click bait clout chasing, and the idea of just... enjoying something, or even just *not* enjoying it, but without some "brave moral stance" behind it is utterly alien to some of these people. It's really offputting and honestly sounds like a miserable way to live.

But... wtf, I did not see anything about the Stranger Things tattoos/BG3 fandom anything. What? Why are people like that?

[olivermoss]

After I posted about this, the comments to the top posts on the BG3 subreddit become 100% Bioware drama and I saw people fishing for bad takes on the Steam Forums. The Steam Forums. Like, I can't even express how bottom-barrel that is.

In Stranger Things fandom, some people have gotten tattoos of El's serial number on their wrists, which looks like the tattoos put on people in concentration camps. Especially if someone is wearing long sleeves so you can't see that it's a short number, it looks like a reference to Real World Shit. There is... you've probably seen fan art of Astarion's markings by now. Some people have gotten tattoos of that. Those aren't a reference to any Real World Bad Shit. But, some people are so desperate for drama that some tweets about Stranger Things tattoos got posted to the BG3 sub like they were about BG3. (Personally, I'd be put off by someone having Astarion's markings, especially as a full back piece. But it's not bad, amoral, insensitive to real people, etc. But some people thinking it's cool and some people thinking it's a bit odd considering the full context isn't enough drama. So, people have been fishing so hard for bad takes they wound up pulling ones from the wrong fandom)

Honestly, it's starting to creep me out how thirsty people are for the drama. And again, how they seem to not know how to function without it.

Like, I am super opinionated about Dragon Age stuff, but I noped out of several discourses and just enjoyed art and fic. My opinion on Anders has not and never will change. I have 0 interest in discussing it with people who have the opposite opinion from me. Some people really just moved into the discourse and decided to live there, huh? I'd heard people had but I thought it was a handful of die hards. I was wrong.

[mistressofmuses]

Fucking hell. Fishing for drama on the steam forums? That seems pretty desperate. WHY?

Ah, yeah, I do remember the stuff about El's tattoos, and how that can be a bit... eesh. But yes, I have seen Asterion's markings. Seems like a sort of questionable choice if someone wanted to get it tattooed, but also you do you. Agreed: it's not like, a moral transgression to get offputting fandom stuff. (The thing with El's tattoos does have a much more questionable layer to it.) But fucking christ, just trying to transplant wank from one fandom entirely into another? Again: WHY?

It is frankly a little creepy. I don't understand why someone would WANT that sort of drama, particularly to seek it out, but it IS honestly beyond creepy that they'll go so far as to try and invent things to enrage people or start problems or turn people against other parts of fandom or whatnot. What the shit.

That seems to be the way everyone feels about Dragon Age, haha. It definitely inspired some STRONG feelings, and my understanding was that it did a very poor job of really exploring the implications of what it introduced, steeped other things in just infinite *unfortunate* implications, etc. It's no wonder that a lot of people still have some unprocessed shit from it... but dragging other fandoms into it is not the way to deal! Stop projecting!
It is discouraging to discover that *way* too many people have just... never moved on from the DA drama.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, exactly. They are very different situations. But we simply don't have enough drama, you see?

If people have so much energy, they should go spelunking in the tags and make some recc lists because the tags are a pipping hot mess. Or, anything idk.

I don't know how much of the Dragon Age discourse was them doing things poorly and how much was it just hitting when tumblr was in a very certain era. Some of the X is a metaphor for Y metas didn't make sense and some people decided that X was a metaphor for many thing so they could just pick and choose whatever felt like the best source for talking points.

Honestly, considering what a discoursey mess Dragon Age became and also a Baldur's Gate DLC being a major flashpoint in Gamer Gate, man I am surprised anyone wanted to tackle more Baldur's Gate. But I am very glad they did!

[mistressofmuses]

Right? Put that energy to a good and productive use for a change! Can you imagine how much better fandom as a whole would be if people used their free time and energy for finding and sharing good shit instead of delving for drama and inventing it if they can't find it?

See - my knowledge of Dragon Age mostly comes from the second- and third-hand discourse! Though it wouldn't surprise me to find out the "this is a metaphor for X" type things were people trying to find 1:1 comparisons that weren't there or intended to be there. (I know that oppression narratives in fantasy can be extremely difficult to navigate well because there is so much real-world horror and baggage tied up in those themes, but "eh, think it was handled poorly" does not have to be "THIS IS LITERALLY THE WORST THING", either.)

I'm extremely glad that there was more Baldur's Gate made! I'd forgotten the GamerGate thing about BG, but yeah, I could see how that would have pushed developers away from wanting to do more. Also especially considering the DA drama and how long-standing its been.

[olivermoss]

There is fic, there is art, lots to enjoy and share. Lots of kudos and reblogs and likes they could be doing.

The world building of Dragon Age comes from the basic seed of 'what if Joan of Arc was the basis for the religion instead of Jesus?' Andraste is Joan of Arc. So, there are some parallels but a lot of people miss the actual ones. Some of the metas made me want to explain basical world history to people. And honestly, there was stuff they did that wasn't great but man, fandom took things in weird directions. Also, a lot of people played DA2 without playing DA: Awakenings but the die hards had played Awakenings. So, different people had drastically different contexts on Anders.

Yeah, and BioWare's original claim to fame was the OG Baldur's Gate games. So, it's all very intertwined. (See also people claiming BG3 is ripping off Dragon Age when like... it's Dragon Age having BG 1 DNA and yadda yadda)

[mistressofmuses]

BG3 seems to really have a thriving fandom, judging by the art I'm seeing on my tumblr dash and how many of the people I follow are engaging happily with it. In a fandom with so much stuff to enjoy, why focus on issues that seem to mostly be nonexistent, considering how hard people are fishing?

That's also very interesting, because while I knew religion was a big theme and plotline of the game, I did NOT know that the idea stemmed from Joan of Arc as inspiration.
It doesn't surprise me that there could be issues that weren't handled well, because complex topics ARE difficult to handle without missteps of some kind... but it surprises me even less that fandom would be weird about it.
(And let's be real; I'd rather that games TRY to handle complex shit and not fully succeed, instead of just refusing to explore anything deeper than a puddle. Though the best is certainly when games [or any other media] take on those more serious metaphors and themes and do it WELL.)

Ah, that does make it make more sense as to why so MANY people are trying to port BioWare DA drama into BG3. Like, yes, they're both choice-based fantasy RPGs with active fandom, but other fantasy RPGs haven't had people trying to make it about DA like this.
Though still big headdesking at the "BG3 is ripping off [stock fantasy tropes that definitely did not originate in the property they're claiming it's ripping off.] Especially especially when the things in question are more of a D&D thing than anything else!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, that was the basic seed and then they added magic and dragons, etc. But that's the starting point for everything. The Chantry is a variation on The Catholic Church. Playing with abrahamic religion and religious history... like I love the idea but hooo boy are you going to run into tricky topics and upset some people. It's really not in question what some of the parallels are, and yet...

After enough iteration and change things stop being parallels. You can want to do something supernatural based, start thinking about the TV show Supernatural, and vary and iterate into something wholly original. But if you go and start telling people what the starting point is, you can't blame them for seeing it through that lens.

Yeah, this game and Bioware were always going to be deeply intertwined. And the person in change of the romance system used to be a Mass Effect ficcer I guess? Fortunately, the game doesn't feel like a response to the DA games outside of a few things about the way the romance arc work and what they specifically don't do. And trying to port DA2 Anders drama into the game seems to have fizzled out mostly because it just doesn't work (which is why some are reaching so hard to find things to chew on)

[mistressofmuses]

Definitely a very fraught topic to tackle, and it's hard (impossible) to do it in a way that will please everyone and not upset anyone.

It's weird when people insist on "obvious" parallels that... aren't. (And obviously there WAS a starting point with DA that had to do with real-world inspiration, but like you said, enough iterations and it isn't exactly that anymore.) Any oppression narrative has people trying to map it 1:1 to a real-world group of their choice, and then they treat anything that *doesn't* fit exactly as some sort of flaw/failure/plothole/oversight/deliberate attempt to downplay/etc. When... actually, it's just not necessarily intended to BE a 1:1 for anything.

(And I love the way that you can go through various iterations of something to get to something wholly different. I've gotten bits of inspiration from truly WEIRD sources before. Like... *I* may know that a whole-ass project was inspired by a five second bit in an AMV I watched at a con when I was 17, but it's probably not terribly obvious to anyone else, lol.)

I'm glad that the game itself doesn't seem to be hung up on history with DA. Learning from things that went poorly there makes sense, but I'm glad the whole thing doesn't feel like it's responding to a different franchise/trying overhard either to be a "better" version OR trying to aggressively be anything but.

I hope the REST of the drama attempts similarly fizzle. It's all such a reach! Stop reaching, you're all going to sprain something!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, you put it out there that the canon is based on a variation of abrahamic religion and people are going to become insistent on what the parallels are, even if it's wrong or it's iterated past that. And some things just got messy when you've also got art and other departments making choices and they aren't in sync or they decide to use certain things as inspiration. Bioware has always been messy when it comes to coordinating departments.

Ugh, it's been a while. I used to know so many details in and out. These days, not so much. Also, I have zero interest in the next Dragon Age for about a dozen reasons.

Yeah, iterating is a great way to create things and it can be totally removed from the source. I know I've done it for projects, but I tend to look track of what the initial spark is.

Yeah, BG3 is really just trying to be itself. Larian really made a lot of very smart decisions with the game and I'm glad of it. We'll just never keep the DA fandom wank bleed away

[mistressofmuses]

"Poorly integrated departments," that perennial problem! That's certainly a complicating factor, when you have different groups of people putting forward things don't quite mesh, or even seem counter to what someone else is saying... that can muddle things and make the deliberate parallels less clear, or give ammo to people who are willfully misunderstanding them.

Iterating things through a few different variations and reworks can be very cool! I'm sure there are projects that I HAVE lost track of the original inspiration for, ha. Eventually I started writing down the initial inspirations when I had them, because sometimes it's useful for me to roll an iteration back a bit. At times it feels like I eventually lose whatever *thing* I initially wanted to work with, and going back to what sparked it sometimes helps me figure out what needs to be reintroduced.

I'm very glad - it seems that they made a LOT of really good decisions about the game. The enthusiasm for it at least far outweighs the wank, even if the imported wank can't be fully left behind.

[olivermoss]

The fancy word for a game's narrative and mechanics being in conflict is ludonarrative dissonance. Bioaware hit a high water mark with DA:I for reasons it would take a long time to explain. The short version is that per the game's lore they made the gay guy, a very rare example of a specifically gay character at the time, Darth Vader levels of evil rather than redo the combat system.

Yeah, BG3 is so big that horrible, calcified wank and other stuff is coming. But hopefully I can just ignore most of it like I did with Dragon Age.

[mistressofmuses]

Ah, I've heard the "ludonarrative" term, so that makes sense. I'm glad it has a term for it!
And... oof, yeah, that IS a rough one. I get not wanting to redo your combat system, but eeeesh does that look bad.

Oh, I'm sure. There'll be *miserable* wank eventually, and I'm sure it'll refuse utterly to ever die down as long as people remain into BG3 (and considering how MUCH game there is, and the replayability it seems to have, it'll hopefully be a long and active fandom!)
I've found myself fairly pleasantly immune to wank, but only because I'm so disconnected from the social aspects of fandom at all. I *like* that it leaves me in peace in my corner of the sandbox, but that's not always a perfect solution. Hopefully the wankery will be reasonably avoidable with good fandom curation!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I am glad that I noped out of DA fandom when I did. I wanted to stay in, but man, seeing just... the everything going on I am glad I didn't. The sheer amount of people who are discourse damaged is insane.

Though, I wonder if I do internetting wrong sometimes. When I come up against viewpoints so contrary to my own I just leave. I don't fight and lead crusades and engagement grind. But no, seriously, I just don't even see the point of engaging with some people or trying to keyboard warrior. I'd rather find like minded people and not obsess over the others.

[mistressofmuses]

There are some fandoms that really are just... completely toxic. Unfortunately, DA definitely sounds like one of them. The discourse damage is too damn real, and it's really upsetting to see how many people carry that into *every* fandom they interact with.

Hahaha. For real though... I don't have the energy to fight about someone being wrong on the internet. That just... isn't fun, and isn't what I want my time or energy going toward. I'm a a way bigger fan of ignore/unfollow/block when it comes to shitty takes and annoying people. Apparently that is doing modern fandom wrong, lol. Can you even say you're a fan if you aren't delving for drama and lashing out and crusading against everyone who doesn't like the thing/likes the thing too much/likes it wrong?

[misbegotten]

I've done the whole 'yay this author / showrunner / singer / etc supports the .... oh wait, they support everyone but me' mental cycle a lot

That is thoroughly depressing. I'm sorry you have been put in that position.

[olivermoss]

Thank you, it's something I've probably gotten all too used to.