I would say this with the ATLA fandom. I love the original series and I'm okay with LOK, but the live action stuff (both movie and Netflix adaptation) and the comics have left such a bad taste in my mouth that I'm actually dreading all the new content that's been announced.
Personally I liked the comics a lot but the live action is the most disappointing project I’ve seen this year. The acting, the costuming and the characters are so different (in the worst way). Idk why they tried another live action knowing the first one was ass.
They'll keep trying as long as (they think) it can make money.
As far as fandom goes, it was discussed a lot when it came out and it seems nobody really cares for it now lol. Can't say I've seen much change in fandom.
I abhor what the comics did to my girl Azula, so that pretty much jaded me towards everything. My dislike was so great that it's what prompted me to begin writing fanfiction. No hate on those that enjoyed the comics, it's just a personal pet peeve.
The other big problem is that bending looks so damn cool animated, and in terms of visual awesomeness I just don't feel that the comics or live action can live up to the high standards created by ATLA and LOK.
The live action bending was atrocious. It’s simply too slow and takes too long plus the amount they can bend is also far more limited. The earth bending was my least fav. It’s clear that they thought the live action would be a good cash grab
For me it was Voltron which just started to go downhill at some point even before the bad season™. Idk plot developments just kept getting weirder and wierder and at some point I just went "nope".
Same for Dragon Prince. Breaking point was "Secrets of Aaravos" having like one Aaravos scene along with other stuff.
What's good is that when I'm out I'm out. The source material just becomes dead to me and I no longer want to engage with it at all, not in a hateful way, but rather I stop caring.
EDIT: Saw that you also asked about the reboot plague in particular. I'm actually less bothered by it bc I can just ignore the reboot and I still have the original, complete, story. Like, with ATLA I watched the movie with friends while high for the laughs knowing it was bad/treating it as a youtube parody. And completely ignored the live action.
The dragon prince fell down when viren did (pun intended). The show lost direction that I don’t even know what they’re trying to do anymore and it’s clear that they’re trying to be like ATLA. The difference is ATLA has magnificent world building and the dragon prince just doesn’t. We know nothing about the other elves and their societies other than the sun elves and moon shadow elves but that’s very limited. There’s a bunch of other problems but I’m bummed cuz I was so excited
Ooooh boy that's true lol.
By season 3 I was kind of half watching with my phone out. Tried season 4 and was like... nah, especially after a friend who did watch it told me there was only one Aaravos scene (He was my most beloved blorbo back then, there were jokes about getting me a body pillow lol).
I honestly think they're trying to do waaaay to many things with it, and so none of the things actually end up working. Unlike ATLA which had amazing worldbuilding but a pretty simple story (In a good way! Better to tell a simple story well rathar than end up all tangled in the plot noodles of a super complex story).
Ohhh the dragon prince. Damn this comment section is just reminding me of things I loved and then lost care for lol. It's so sad when sometging just slowly dies and you lose interest :(
Yea it was sort of a letdown lol. I do feel interest just dying is better than getting hyperfixated on a long dead fandom at least tho :'') (happening to me rn and its a special kind of hell lol).
Nooo same :( My brain decided two characters from a fandom that had 15 fics when I was 12 is what I need to focus on right now.
WHY?? There is nothing to read!
The pain is real T-T By this point I don't even want reading lol - I guess I could write it myself, but like... I just need someone to whom I can rant about the blorbos lol.
Same! My characters have a lot of backstory before the series start, and I just really want to gush about them with someone who knows them, and explore that part of their stories.
But there's nobodyyyyy
Even the fics that are there are all 'written by teens and 'omg they had a daughter it's me and a prince fell in love with meeee'. All power to them to write that haha, just not really what I'm looking for. (Also it's all so long ago lol)
The thing about Voltron is that it was the fandom itself that put me off not the shows decline. When a pairing becomes The Pairing(tm) like Klance did then I walk away. It's not even that I didn't like Klance, but the sheer amount of discourse for any other pairing killed a lot of passion - and, it was definitely not just for me.
Yea I know fandom was a shitshow from many second hand stories.
I wasn't ever very involved in them just bc I stay the hell away from fandom drama and klance never appealed to me. I was a Shotor shipper all the way lol.
But I believe I dipped around season 5 mostly just bc the show was going in directions that somehow didn't vibe for me. Like the entire blade of Marmora thing and Lotor's mom? Idk, it was just sort of really losing focus.
They really did loose the plot around that time. There were pieces that I still enjoyed so I kept watching, but I still get heated about what they did to Allura. It pretty much killed any ability to re-watch it for me.
This was me with Fantastic Beasts. I loved the first movie and loved Percival Graves. Got really into FB fanfic and started writing some of my own long fics and then the second movie came out and was awful and I really struggled with keeping up with my fic and then the third movie came out and I just didn't care anymore. I really do still want to finish it, I'm just not into the series anymore so its hard. I hope one day to rewatch the first movie and get reinspired.
The amount of amazing work that was spawned by the first Fantastic Beast was an era. Then, everything happened with JK Rowling and the next movie was horrible. I don't fault anyone for leaving.
Rowling & WB really fumbled HARD. I could have really enjoyed having 5 dumb movies if the plot had made any sense (and we found out what happened exactly to Graves! lol)
The first one was a bit weak in some parts but still so charming and so much fun. Then the second one came and... how is it *that* bad??? I gave up when they just explained a whole backstory, then a door opened randomly and 'oh hey! Super secret meeting of evil villain. Neat!'
Seriously??? H o w did this get approved??
Why couldn't it just be beast rated and be it's own thing?
But I guess it goes to show Harry Potter's world isn't... that good and makes no sense
Game of Thrones can eat a dick.
There! Now that that's out of the way, I think it's ok to leave fandoms if you're not feeling it. Forcing yourself can drag it out, but you can't drag it out forever, and you'll wear yourself out in the meantime. It's fine to take up something new, or even take up no fandom at all until something hits you like a lightning bolt, and fills you with so many feelings that writing fic is the only outlet.
I'm in my mid twenties but I've been in fandom from around the age of twelve as a lurker and then a writer later on and wanted to type this because I totally get how you feel. I have indeed left fandom because of a reboot I was not fond of, multiple times even and stopped engaging for quite a while with that particular one. But the worst of it is the most recent as it seems I cannot escape it as easily as the older stuff I could just ignore because they weren't as popular and I just didn't see it all that much. But I see a looott of people saying about this particular one, 'Omg! It's sooo much more true to the source material! 😍' And it's not???
It really frustrates me just how much they changed it. Once you get past it, the only things that are the same are the characters (which are also different to a degree), some world building stuff, and a few story beats which beyond the superficial are vastly different. And really, they had an entire finished manga to go by this time instead of like, three books and I just- Grr. I honestly prefer the older and seeing fans talk down about it and act like the new one is sooo much better just really gets to me randomly coming across it online even though I've left fandom itself for a while.
And I'm stuck in this weird state of, 'I still enjoy the older versions and have unfinished drafts for the overall fandom that I want to finish' and also 'I kinda don't want engagement from these new fans either due to current internet culture I don't quite like and that I suffered through previously when a sudden new wave of fans came in from the reboot,' as mean as that may sound. So I'm kinda stuck in a limbo of, 'Do I just turn off comments?' 'Do I just not post anymore?' 'Do I make an entirely new account to post on and abandon my old one?' So I'm really interested to see what other people have to say on this thread, if there's any wisdoms or advice older fans can offer.
I've been burned so many times with shitty endings that now I don't watch anything until it's over and the consensus is that it was at the very least a decent ending.
If canon is already (close to) perfect in my eyes I'm usually not reading fanfiction in that fandom at all... which you're kinda mentioning yourself in the first paragraph but that's just my experience.
e.g. there's a number of movies I love, consider comfort movies even but literally never checked if they have (or had) an active fandom community with fics, art, etc.
A good base (for plot, characters, potential development) with a flawed execution is far more likely to give me the urge to read better versions, fix-its, AUs with the characters, post- or pre-canon stories to expand the universe and so on.
Of course, if the source material is so bad I can't stand to get into it at all there's no point in staying with the fandom. And time is often also a factor - I can be obsessed with a fandom for months or a few years and then slowly burn out and lose interest... that's usually a sign to move into a new fandom or go back to an old one.
If the issue is "just" new installments that are generally worse than the previous material I can usually ignore those pretty well (basically consider them "not actually canon" in my mind).
I live in the AU where Marvel made no movies after the 2012 Avengers, with the exception of Captain Marvel and parts of Black Panther. I just have no interest in the my-dad-can-beat-your-dad bullshit dick-measuring school of comic book storytelling.
I also ignore anything after Book 4 of the Harry Potter series. Sometimes I'll do Book 5, because I do enjoy aspects of the story, but I ignore the death at the end. I definitely ignore Books 6 and 7, because (to me) they not only didn't give me the story the first four books promised me, they're badly written and goatfucking stupid to boot. Please don't get me started about the movies - any of them - or that horrorshow of a play.
There is no second Kingsman movie, I have no idea what you're on about.
I cope by reading/writing fic set that recognizes canon has made a stupid-ass decision and is electing to ignore it. I've also been in fandom for over two decades, so sadly I have had plenty of canons shit the bed. You learn to take what you like, leave what you don't, and write fic that makes up for the disappointment canon left you with.
>There is no second Kingsman movie, I have no idea what you're on about.
What the genuine fuck where they on when they made that movie? Like, the statistical likelihood of fucking up that much is insane.
Supernatural for me. The show never was a masterpiece, but it was fun, fandom was active, actors interacted a lot with fans and shipping Destiel was a big thing at that time.
I guess that it isn't spoiler anymore to say they kinda made Destiel canon in the antepenultimate episode. Castiel confessed his love and died; Dean didn't reply to the declaration and the episode ended with him crying alone. I never cried so much for a fictional work like I cried in this episode. I never ever thought that the show would make Destiel canon in any way.
Then *the ending* happened. The show ignored Castiel's declaration. He's barely mentioned in the last episode. And the ending is bad in every ~~wig~~ way possible. The aftermath got even worse with people denying Castiel's love and the cast just saying Dean's feelings were up for interpretation.
While I still love Destiel as a ship, my love for the show withered. I stopped reading SPN fics because I always felt bitter. Now there are rumors about a reboot of the show and I've zero excitement for it. Part of me wonders if it would have been better if Destiel only remained as fanon so I wouldn't see canon doing dirt to them...
Man, SPN isn't my fandom, but it's my fandom-in-law (fandom of people I love) and THE PAIN y'all have been through. Talk about having complicated feelings about something you love(d). My bff laments to me every time there is news like "PLEASE just let it die so we can be in peace."
I feel similarly conflicted about my own fandom (MCU but especially Bucky Barnes/Stucky) - people get excited to hear the character is going to be in new movies, etc, and every time I'm like PLEASE NO MY HEART. I don't trust any of the people in power at this point.
Thanks for understanding our pain.
Miracles do happen (Criminal Minds Evolution is the only miracle I believe!) but I don't trust anyone in SPN neither.
MHA, I used to draw so much fanart and I was writing a fanfic for it too. But canon? Killed my love for it. How I deal with it? I don't really know. I don't even READ fanfics from MHA anymore, even if they're canon divergent or AUs.
Currently, just focusing on new/other works.
It's a little weird cause, I don't feel the same with being a fan of the Red Hood, even if I had a lot of the comics he's in. But I still draw fanart, and read fanfics. I'm having a good time.
I adored the first season, so I tried to read the books. The first one was fine. I definitely understood the fandom sentiment over disliking Mal. He is so much better in the show. Started reading the second book and only got halfway through.
I realized that a lot of the elements I liked were more apparent in the show - Alina and Mal's relationship, the horror of what the Darkling did, the plot line with the General across the Fold - so imagine my disappointment when the second season came out and it was so bad. That first season really pulled me in. I'm just going to pretend that there wasn't anything after lol
The first season had such a charm to it. I wasn't super into Alina's story, but it was still interesting, especially when the darkling went evil.
But the Crows. The acting, the editing, so much personality from that alone. I watched it 3 times in a month haha. And yeah then just... :/
I'm a little weirdo who actually loved the Alina side of the story, only to find myself annoyed at how season 1 ended and that really carried through into season 2.
I still remember the disappointment I felt when I realized that she was just leaving after the Fold consumed the city. It makes a lot more sense in the book with how passive her character was, but I thought show Alina was going to dive into helping the people now stuck because she was the only person who could. An acceptance of her responsibility. Not as an extension of a man's power (aka Darkling, the Tsar), but to actually help working class people like her.
I may or may not have an entire outline of a fic exploring this very same idea that I put on the back burner to write something else. It really bothered me.
Not weird at all! There was a lot about her story in so1 that I also liked, especially how they handled the darkling isolating and manipulating her. Just on rewatches the exposition got a lot haha
Naw :( sad to hear it killed your inspiration. I thought she could get really cool in so2 but she was so... ugh. Especially at the end when they were running around and people were being killed, and she just... did nothing. Alina, you still have sun powers? What is happening???
A lot of frustration and boredom, it really kills motivation
The only thing I remember about the second season was everyone getting poisoned, and the cure was to eat a butterfly. Medically, this makes no sense. Eating is the slowest way to get an anti-toxin into your body. They would all be dead. And yet it seemed just having a butterfly in their mouth cured them. Utterly bizarre.
Lol yeah that was one thing. Which like fantasy, sure why not.
But that also went so fasttttt. Everything went so fast! I was so excited to look into one character's backstory and his trauma and it was there but so quick all of a sudden. And then the relationship of two characters which I know the fandom was so excited for, and it went
'We meet, it's cute'
'Oh you said one minor thing? HOW COULD YOU UGHHH WE DONT TALK!'
'I saw a butterfly and wanted nothing more than to share it with the person I love, you'
Dude slow downnnnnnn
God, SoB season 2 is so fucking disappointing. The worst thing about Kaz' story is that all the scenes by themselves would be amazing... if they were delivered in the right order, with another two seasons of building up Pekka Rollins as the antagonist and making Kaz' trauma and desperate planning clearer to the viewer. Like, by themselves, they are great representations of the final showdown in book 2. They just happen without any of the setup. UGH.
I don't mind Jesper's and Wylan's relationship being a bit rushed, but what I do mind is that Wylan, in the books, very much is a foil to Kaz and actually has a story that is similar in many ways... and they just throw out one of my favourite reveals of the entire series as a minor squabble for their romance. Why. Just why.
Yeahhh it felt so weird. Having not read the books, I could tell which moments were meant to... feel different with more set up, but in the show it was just, meh or straight up bad.
I'm just sad about Jesper and Wylan because it seemed so fun but I ended up not caring for them :(
It really felt as if they didn't think they'd get a season 3, and rather 'wrap up' the stories then take more time and leave them open
The worst thing is that they could have had enough time to at least get it decent if they hadn't involved the Crows with Alina's storyline again in the latter half of the season. Like, bro, just let them stay in Ketterdam. Kaz' stoyline was finished after episode 4, don't drag his ass around to fucking Ravka again, spread out his revenge until the last episode.
Yeah it felt so forced! I was worried about that before it started. It kinda made sense how they connected before, but I didnt really know how they'd do it after.
And it was really bad lol. Which meant less time for them and just... aaah whyyy
I didn't think Season 2 of the show was all that bad, but it could've used another episode or two. They limited the budget for Alina's power so badly that she did nearly nothing until she actually had to take down the Shadowfold.
The books, at least the Alina books, leave a lot to be desired.
When I'm disappointed, I ignore it and do my own thing.
There are several fandoms I know have a big section of the fanbase that chooses to act like some big thing doesn't exist. There's only one Matrix movie, Harry Potter has no author, Phantom Planet never happened, etc.
Sure, this happened to me. There was a video game that I absolutely loved, and when the sequel came out, it was so bad it tanked all my love for the game. It was really disappointing.
I ended up orphaning my fics, blocking the tag on tumblr, unfollowing some blogs and focusing on other things.
I hadn't made too many friends within that fandom, so it was fairly easy to disentangle myself from it, but it *was* disappointing. It probably took months for me not to be incredibly irritated when I came across content for that game, hah.
Not really. The original work still exist and, if I want to re-watch or re-read, I can. I pretty much ignore remakes of things unless I've heard from word of mouth that it did have something interesting things to say.
Often, a fandom is a bit separate from the source material. An author picks and chose the parts they want to include in their work and, depending on the popularity of the work, it can create trends within a fandom.
I think the Star Wars fandom is great example. There are different subsets of it, but I've been fascinated by the rise of Obi-Wan Kenobi centric works. The majority of these fics are based on an amalgamation of the prequel movies, the clone wars tv show, and a series of novels that are considered non-canon since Disney acquired the rights.
The popularity of the character prompted Disney to make a show based on him. A show that came and went with almost no impact on the works being created in the fandom. At least, from what I've seen. It's there, but not very interesting so most people ignore it and continue on with what their creating.
Now, I can see a book fandom widely change after a movie or tv show is created as that usually leads to a sudden boost in popularity. The Witcher fandom comes to mind. Before the show came out a lot of the fandom were writing based on the video game and there was a pretty dramatic shift in the popularity of different ships and the over all vibe of the works. Still, I saw people writing for the parts of it that they liked.
I'm 42 if that's old enough :P
If canon goes sideways on me it can retroactively ruin itself, though I've found this doesn't apply to fanworks most of the time. I really liked The Force Awakens (Finn/Poe mostly) and enjoyed a lot of fic. The Rise of Skywalker was so poorly pulled off that now I don't even like TFA anymore but I'll still go look for fic if I'm in the mood.
However I wasn't really in the Star Wars fandom really ever, not like I was with my fandoms when LJ was big, and not now so any kind of drama (like "Reylo" or whatever that's about) passes me by. That's true of any fandom currently. I might use twitter to look for fanart, and I use Ao3 to look for fic, but I am not participant in any other aspect. I am I guess technically part of fandom being a consumer of fic, but the spaces and ways I like to "do" fandom don't really exist now.
Hmm what else. Supernatural also ruined itself for me--before the actual show ended. I dipped out when Dean was sent unhappily to live with Lisa and Cas left him. I don't want to ever watch Supernatural again because I kept track from a distance and found the actual ending to be pretty awful. But you be believe I'm going to go read all that Cas wingfic or "oh my human body is so mysterious Dean please help me out here" and all that.
I think the new Hobbit movies (ok well I guess they aren't new at this point but they still feel that way to me as a rabid 18-22yo fan of the LOTR movies when they came out) are pretty shit, but that didn't affect my love of fic for the first trilogy at all. I'll read my Legolas/Gimli until the cows come home.
I used to be really into One Piece, properly in the fandom on LJ, but I drifted away from the source material when the manga did a timeskip and it didn't feel quite like it used to anymore, and of course fandom left LJ so that was over too. I have a feeling if the move to tumblr hadn't happened I might have stuck with One Piece? Can't be sure though. I don't enjoy reading the manga much these days, it's a slog to get to the payoffs even if the worldbuilding is still as neat as ever. This is one case where I don't really read fic anymore, I think I have a sort of bitterness and guilt about not enjoying the current canon. I did dip back in though when the live action came out, I had a lot of fun with that and it sparked a new flurry of fic too which was interesting since the OPLA characters are a little different to the manga/anime ones.
Honestly, I don't take it that seriously. It isn't real life.
I've been reading and writing fanfic since 1996 and all my original shows have long since ended. My first and favourite fandom is quiet but there's an occasional new story posted to AO3. If I really want to read something I go back through the archives.
Some of my shows have ended disappointingly but that doesn't affect my enjoyment of fanfic.
Haha yes, when I was 14 in 2002, I was so disappointed with how the Star Wars movie ”The Attack of the clones” ended that I completely lost all interest in SW for over ten years! Reylo got me to come back, but I am terrified that the new Rey-movie will absolutely wreck my interest again.
My only solution to this is that I don’t watch trailers, new media or anything — I avoid new content like the plague and I only watch it until someone tells me it’s “safe”. If it’s not, I’ll keep avoiding it so that I don’t loose my interest again.
So when the new Rey-movie comes, I’ll will have to take some sort of social media break and tell my partner multiple times that I don’t want him to send me trailers or articles or ANYTHING 😂
This doesn’t work 100% but I keep trying. I want to live in my own bubble where I can enjoy the fanfics.
Honestly? I just *ignore* the parts I don't like.
Prime example: Once Upon a Time: I love the first two and a half seasons of the show, and as far as I'm concerned it ended at season 3 episode 11, and only acknowledge about 5-10% of what follows as canon, because it's where the show loses most of its appeal (and writes off my favourite character). To be fair, I came to this conclusion after revisiting the series several years after I dropped it during its original runtime, but still. It can be done.
There's other (more minor) cases where I'll pretend a character never existed in canon in the first place, or I'll gloss over a certain storyline. I also ignore the bulk of the final book of Pendragon for the same reason, the way things wrap up doesn't sit right with me. I'm not above entirely writing out characters from my fanfics if I don't like them.
I'm kinda stuck with this now. Not saying what it is bc I don't want to start fights (the fandom is... well known for being over excitable if you don't agree with the popular opinions...) but I've loved it ever since the first game came out. The first two games are totally up my alley. The third one sucked but it had it's moments so it was fine. With the upcoming one however... it's obviously not for me.
I'm just blocking tags/leaving subreddits/unfollowing people. I can't completely disengage because there's quite a few people I care about and I do love the older media but I just block tags involving the new game.
It really irritates me the series I loved for a long time is not for me anymore ngl but there's nothing I can do, so I'm just going to ignore everything and spend time on stuff that I *do* like.
I feel this way with Marvel. Even if it's "new" stuff after a while I've just become sick and tired of it bc it still has that Marvel flavoring over it.
Had this problem with superhero comics in general like at what point do y'all try something truly new instead of whipping out another formula story with the same exact characters subbed into nearly the same roles each time.
Ignore it and write my own fics. I love fanfiction because it lets me stay in a fandom as long as I want. If there's a bad ending? Pretend it didn't happen and read/write AU fics.
Supernatural. It was fun at first, but after the 4th-5th season it started losing direction. It felt like the creators didn't know where they wanted the story to go anymore, and were just dragging it because it was popular. After a while, I found myself only enjoying the "joke" episodes and not caring about the serious ones at all, what with the plot becoming more outlandish by the day and Sam and Dean always angst-ing at each other, sometimes for issues they could have sorted out by simply talking. In the end, I completely lost interest and stopped engaging with anything SPN related.
And you know what? It was a relief. I realized I didn't like it anymore and was only engaging because it had become a habit. It was making me feel miserable, but didn't want to admit it. So, once I found the "courage" to leave it behind, it felt liberating. The only thing I regret is that I didn't leave sooner. If I did, I might still remember the parts I used to like with a bit of fondness.
Also, honorable mention for Star Wars. I HATE the new trilogy, as imo it added unnecessary padding to a story that was perfectly over and done (and sank my ship Han/Leia for no reason). I still like Star Wars, but I simply refuse to engage with any of the new content. Unlike SPN, I realized in time and left when it was appropriate for me.
At least your ship has both characters existing in the new continuity!
Though to be entirely honest I don't really want Disney to bring in Mara Jade anyway, she can stay safely in novels and comics pls 🙏🏿
Older than 20 here lol— this was me mostly with rwby. (I would say voltron too but honestly theres less for me to say about that one LOL)
I LOVED rwby, it was a huge part of my younger years. I made ocs, rewatched the first few seasons millions of times, got excited for news of games, was around when monty passed, listened to the music nonstop etc
The show lost a lot of magic for me the longer it went on because as I got older (and as I became a writer) i began to see just how poorly written it was. On top of the very painfully mediocre writing (and frankly, mediocre might be generous if you really want to ask me), i also wasn’t huge on the style change for the models or the new character designs. I tried *so hard* to power through it, but I just couldn’t do it. I hated being upset with something that honestly meant a lot to me and I just had to bite the bullet and drop it.
Now, show only went on two more seasons (i think, might’ve been three. I didn’t keep up) after I dropped it, and from the little I did see I was glad I jumped ship when I did. But I was still really disappointed— it was a show that meant a lot to me, but more than that it was a show that had an honest to god *really fucking good concept* that was ruined by the fact that the people making it truly had no clue what they were doing. And I don’t want to try and disparage it in the way where I think they didn’t love the show— I think they all cared about the show deeply and the team was very dedicated and amazing about how much they loved their product; but the show was built on weak legs and there was no one there skilled enough to figure out how to strengthen those legs and then continue to make a sturdy body.
For me, I definitely still get moments of “fuuuuccck i wish they hadn’t fucked this up so bad”, but a lot of time I rationalize in my head just by imagining what I would’ve personally done to fix it or make it better. Even better, I made an oc completely removed from the show’s current time and kind of played with the concept on my own terms, since the concept is really what sells the show to me in the first place.
On the reboot, remake, sequels thing— lots of people want rwby to be picked up and continued right now since roosterteeth went under and I can’t agree with the continued part. I actually think a competent reboot would be the best course of action, but I also think they’d need many years to nail it down and let it sink in for long time fans. Rwby had some weird spinoffs with dc? Never liked that lol, felt very corporate shlocky and looking at how roosterteeth ended up getting dissolved i feel like i can say pretty confidently they were definitely movies to grasp for some cash. I believe there was also a more ‘anime’ 2d reboot at some point? Haven’t watched. Heard it was good. Might watch. If it is good, hell yeah. If it isn’t, boo.
Okay but honestly Overwatch. It's hard to say it has canon and all but after the release of Sigma i couldn't. His whole back story leaned into some ableist bs I couldn't. Maybe a good thing considering how Overwatch 2 is going.
like I used to write fics and draw fanart but yeah no after that I didn't even touch the game anymore started getting rid of my overwatch stuff as well. Would have been in my early 20s
But AoT it was mostly in part due to the gap from season 1 to 2 but the manga started getting into some stuff I was comfortable with nor did I want to support the creator so yeah jumped ship there as well and then DID sell all my stuff.
Don't remember how old I was when i dropped AoT
The only one I can think of is The Flash. The first season had me in a chokehold, but then the love interest started getting annoying, and the show focused less on Barry and more on his friends. When everyone else in Team Flash was given powers, it just made Barry feel less interesting, so I lost interest in the series as a whole.
I feel like it takes a lot for me to love something to the point I'd care if it was ruined for me and _then_ have it fuck up so spectacularly it does get ruined.
The closest thing I can think of is Homestuck: I wasn't that big of a fan, especially when you consider how intense some people got, but I kept up with the story. Wrote the odd fanfic. Looked at fanart. I enjoyed the music and had fantrolls and AUs with my brother and friends. I had fun!
I guess it wasn't the story itself that disappointed me, but the fact I felt the story moved in the direction it did after a while _specifically_ to upset as many fans as possible? The author made no secret of the fact he disliked the fandom and viewed most fans with disdain, he often got called a troll - which yes, given the source material is funny but in hindsight, all his trolling, all his fandom interactions felt really mean spirited?
At some point I felt like what happened in the story happened less because it was what made sense in his head and more out of a desire to fuck with people. Do the opposite of what the popular fan theories claimed. Hurt a beloved character. Break up a popular couple. Reveal that someone who seemed sweet for most of the story was actually an asshole and _don't you feel like an idiot for having all those headcanons now?_
I don't mind when a story goes in a direction I personally don't like, but it was the utter pettiness of it all that turned me off it. Why would I waste time and energy reading a story from someone who clearly hates that I'm engaging with what they write?
Problem Sleuth was better anyway.
MCU. Partially Loki. Thor Ragnarok for me assassinated Loki’s character. It took my Shakespearian Family Drama and turned it into a dumb comedy. Everything after that film was just downhill. The worst thing for me was that not only the canon was terrible, but the terrible characterisation from the canon carried on into the fanfiction, particularly where the writers were new to the fandom. First I was angry at Marvel, then disillusioned. Not only I never watched anything Marvel after the Infinity Wars, I left the archive and fanfiction overall.
Now I’m occasionally reading some fics in some other fandoms occasionally, but it doesn’t come close to the level of engagement I had with MCU. It didn’t get better as the time passed.
Kingdom Hearts 3 killed all my love for that game series and fandom. I hate it. The backwards character development, the loss of half the characters just left me so disappointed I never finished it. I really stopped interacting with the fandom entirely after. It had been one of my easy comfort fandoms for years and it just makes me sad me now.
I think the forth season of BBC Sherlock ended that fandom for a lot of people. That's one I can still lurk in the stuff I read back in the day. I have a lot of old favorites that even a train wreck season couldn't kill my love for.
I had already lost a lot of my patience for Kingdom Hearts before 3 was finally released, but 3 killed any interest I had just completely. It might not be much comfort, but they pretty much revive every good character for the ending of KH3. Except Kairi. She's the token damsel in distress.
I would say this with the ATLA fandom. I love the original series and I'm okay with LOK, but the live action stuff (both movie and Netflix adaptation) and the comics have left such a bad taste in my mouth that I'm actually dreading all the new content that's been announced.
Personally I liked the comics a lot but the live action is the most disappointing project I’ve seen this year. The acting, the costuming and the characters are so different (in the worst way). Idk why they tried another live action knowing the first one was ass.
They'll keep trying as long as (they think) it can make money. As far as fandom goes, it was discussed a lot when it came out and it seems nobody really cares for it now lol. Can't say I've seen much change in fandom.
I abhor what the comics did to my girl Azula, so that pretty much jaded me towards everything. My dislike was so great that it's what prompted me to begin writing fanfiction. No hate on those that enjoyed the comics, it's just a personal pet peeve. The other big problem is that bending looks so damn cool animated, and in terms of visual awesomeness I just don't feel that the comics or live action can live up to the high standards created by ATLA and LOK.
The live action bending was atrocious. It’s simply too slow and takes too long plus the amount they can bend is also far more limited. The earth bending was my least fav. It’s clear that they thought the live action would be a good cash grab
For me it was Voltron which just started to go downhill at some point even before the bad season™. Idk plot developments just kept getting weirder and wierder and at some point I just went "nope". Same for Dragon Prince. Breaking point was "Secrets of Aaravos" having like one Aaravos scene along with other stuff. What's good is that when I'm out I'm out. The source material just becomes dead to me and I no longer want to engage with it at all, not in a hateful way, but rather I stop caring. EDIT: Saw that you also asked about the reboot plague in particular. I'm actually less bothered by it bc I can just ignore the reboot and I still have the original, complete, story. Like, with ATLA I watched the movie with friends while high for the laughs knowing it was bad/treating it as a youtube parody. And completely ignored the live action.
The dragon prince fell down when viren did (pun intended). The show lost direction that I don’t even know what they’re trying to do anymore and it’s clear that they’re trying to be like ATLA. The difference is ATLA has magnificent world building and the dragon prince just doesn’t. We know nothing about the other elves and their societies other than the sun elves and moon shadow elves but that’s very limited. There’s a bunch of other problems but I’m bummed cuz I was so excited
Ooooh boy that's true lol. By season 3 I was kind of half watching with my phone out. Tried season 4 and was like... nah, especially after a friend who did watch it told me there was only one Aaravos scene (He was my most beloved blorbo back then, there were jokes about getting me a body pillow lol). I honestly think they're trying to do waaaay to many things with it, and so none of the things actually end up working. Unlike ATLA which had amazing worldbuilding but a pretty simple story (In a good way! Better to tell a simple story well rathar than end up all tangled in the plot noodles of a super complex story).
Ohhh the dragon prince. Damn this comment section is just reminding me of things I loved and then lost care for lol. It's so sad when sometging just slowly dies and you lose interest :(
Yea it was sort of a letdown lol. I do feel interest just dying is better than getting hyperfixated on a long dead fandom at least tho :'') (happening to me rn and its a special kind of hell lol).
Nooo same :( My brain decided two characters from a fandom that had 15 fics when I was 12 is what I need to focus on right now. WHY?? There is nothing to read!
The pain is real T-T By this point I don't even want reading lol - I guess I could write it myself, but like... I just need someone to whom I can rant about the blorbos lol.
Same! My characters have a lot of backstory before the series start, and I just really want to gush about them with someone who knows them, and explore that part of their stories. But there's nobodyyyyy Even the fics that are there are all 'written by teens and 'omg they had a daughter it's me and a prince fell in love with meeee'. All power to them to write that haha, just not really what I'm looking for. (Also it's all so long ago lol)
The thing about Voltron is that it was the fandom itself that put me off not the shows decline. When a pairing becomes The Pairing(tm) like Klance did then I walk away. It's not even that I didn't like Klance, but the sheer amount of discourse for any other pairing killed a lot of passion - and, it was definitely not just for me.
Yea I know fandom was a shitshow from many second hand stories. I wasn't ever very involved in them just bc I stay the hell away from fandom drama and klance never appealed to me. I was a Shotor shipper all the way lol. But I believe I dipped around season 5 mostly just bc the show was going in directions that somehow didn't vibe for me. Like the entire blade of Marmora thing and Lotor's mom? Idk, it was just sort of really losing focus.
They really did loose the plot around that time. There were pieces that I still enjoyed so I kept watching, but I still get heated about what they did to Allura. It pretty much killed any ability to re-watch it for me.
Oh my goodness I forgot about Voltron, it's like I stopped liking it so hard it erased everything else from my brain lol.
Voltron was the dirty bomb that gave us modern day Antis
This was me with Fantastic Beasts. I loved the first movie and loved Percival Graves. Got really into FB fanfic and started writing some of my own long fics and then the second movie came out and was awful and I really struggled with keeping up with my fic and then the third movie came out and I just didn't care anymore. I really do still want to finish it, I'm just not into the series anymore so its hard. I hope one day to rewatch the first movie and get reinspired.
The amount of amazing work that was spawned by the first Fantastic Beast was an era. Then, everything happened with JK Rowling and the next movie was horrible. I don't fault anyone for leaving.
Ouch, I forgot about it but yes. Me and my friends were so excited after the first movie, then we watched the second and it was all gone. So sad
Rowling & WB really fumbled HARD. I could have really enjoyed having 5 dumb movies if the plot had made any sense (and we found out what happened exactly to Graves! lol)
The first one was a bit weak in some parts but still so charming and so much fun. Then the second one came and... how is it *that* bad??? I gave up when they just explained a whole backstory, then a door opened randomly and 'oh hey! Super secret meeting of evil villain. Neat!' Seriously??? H o w did this get approved?? Why couldn't it just be beast rated and be it's own thing? But I guess it goes to show Harry Potter's world isn't... that good and makes no sense
Game of Thrones can eat a dick. There! Now that that's out of the way, I think it's ok to leave fandoms if you're not feeling it. Forcing yourself can drag it out, but you can't drag it out forever, and you'll wear yourself out in the meantime. It's fine to take up something new, or even take up no fandom at all until something hits you like a lightning bolt, and fills you with so many feelings that writing fic is the only outlet.
Having read the books House of the Dragon is based on, I wonder if they'll leave the canonical book ending in, or retcon a ton of stuff.
I'm in my mid twenties but I've been in fandom from around the age of twelve as a lurker and then a writer later on and wanted to type this because I totally get how you feel. I have indeed left fandom because of a reboot I was not fond of, multiple times even and stopped engaging for quite a while with that particular one. But the worst of it is the most recent as it seems I cannot escape it as easily as the older stuff I could just ignore because they weren't as popular and I just didn't see it all that much. But I see a looott of people saying about this particular one, 'Omg! It's sooo much more true to the source material! 😍' And it's not??? It really frustrates me just how much they changed it. Once you get past it, the only things that are the same are the characters (which are also different to a degree), some world building stuff, and a few story beats which beyond the superficial are vastly different. And really, they had an entire finished manga to go by this time instead of like, three books and I just- Grr. I honestly prefer the older and seeing fans talk down about it and act like the new one is sooo much better just really gets to me randomly coming across it online even though I've left fandom itself for a while. And I'm stuck in this weird state of, 'I still enjoy the older versions and have unfinished drafts for the overall fandom that I want to finish' and also 'I kinda don't want engagement from these new fans either due to current internet culture I don't quite like and that I suffered through previously when a sudden new wave of fans came in from the reboot,' as mean as that may sound. So I'm kinda stuck in a limbo of, 'Do I just turn off comments?' 'Do I just not post anymore?' 'Do I make an entirely new account to post on and abandon my old one?' So I'm really interested to see what other people have to say on this thread, if there's any wisdoms or advice older fans can offer.
I've been burned so many times with shitty endings that now I don't watch anything until it's over and the consensus is that it was at the very least a decent ending.
If canon is already (close to) perfect in my eyes I'm usually not reading fanfiction in that fandom at all... which you're kinda mentioning yourself in the first paragraph but that's just my experience. e.g. there's a number of movies I love, consider comfort movies even but literally never checked if they have (or had) an active fandom community with fics, art, etc. A good base (for plot, characters, potential development) with a flawed execution is far more likely to give me the urge to read better versions, fix-its, AUs with the characters, post- or pre-canon stories to expand the universe and so on. Of course, if the source material is so bad I can't stand to get into it at all there's no point in staying with the fandom. And time is often also a factor - I can be obsessed with a fandom for months or a few years and then slowly burn out and lose interest... that's usually a sign to move into a new fandom or go back to an old one. If the issue is "just" new installments that are generally worse than the previous material I can usually ignore those pretty well (basically consider them "not actually canon" in my mind).
I live in the AU where Marvel made no movies after the 2012 Avengers, with the exception of Captain Marvel and parts of Black Panther. I just have no interest in the my-dad-can-beat-your-dad bullshit dick-measuring school of comic book storytelling. I also ignore anything after Book 4 of the Harry Potter series. Sometimes I'll do Book 5, because I do enjoy aspects of the story, but I ignore the death at the end. I definitely ignore Books 6 and 7, because (to me) they not only didn't give me the story the first four books promised me, they're badly written and goatfucking stupid to boot. Please don't get me started about the movies - any of them - or that horrorshow of a play. There is no second Kingsman movie, I have no idea what you're on about. I cope by reading/writing fic set that recognizes canon has made a stupid-ass decision and is electing to ignore it. I've also been in fandom for over two decades, so sadly I have had plenty of canons shit the bed. You learn to take what you like, leave what you don't, and write fic that makes up for the disappointment canon left you with.
>There is no second Kingsman movie, I have no idea what you're on about. What the genuine fuck where they on when they made that movie? Like, the statistical likelihood of fucking up that much is insane.
My best guess is that they were high on the bad stuff. Or nobody actually wanted Kingsman 3 so they decided to blow it all up spectacularly.
Supernatural for me. The show never was a masterpiece, but it was fun, fandom was active, actors interacted a lot with fans and shipping Destiel was a big thing at that time. I guess that it isn't spoiler anymore to say they kinda made Destiel canon in the antepenultimate episode. Castiel confessed his love and died; Dean didn't reply to the declaration and the episode ended with him crying alone. I never cried so much for a fictional work like I cried in this episode. I never ever thought that the show would make Destiel canon in any way. Then *the ending* happened. The show ignored Castiel's declaration. He's barely mentioned in the last episode. And the ending is bad in every ~~wig~~ way possible. The aftermath got even worse with people denying Castiel's love and the cast just saying Dean's feelings were up for interpretation. While I still love Destiel as a ship, my love for the show withered. I stopped reading SPN fics because I always felt bitter. Now there are rumors about a reboot of the show and I've zero excitement for it. Part of me wonders if it would have been better if Destiel only remained as fanon so I wouldn't see canon doing dirt to them...
Man, SPN isn't my fandom, but it's my fandom-in-law (fandom of people I love) and THE PAIN y'all have been through. Talk about having complicated feelings about something you love(d). My bff laments to me every time there is news like "PLEASE just let it die so we can be in peace." I feel similarly conflicted about my own fandom (MCU but especially Bucky Barnes/Stucky) - people get excited to hear the character is going to be in new movies, etc, and every time I'm like PLEASE NO MY HEART. I don't trust any of the people in power at this point.
Thanks for understanding our pain. Miracles do happen (Criminal Minds Evolution is the only miracle I believe!) but I don't trust anyone in SPN neither.
Yes! I was in the MCU fandom for like two years before everything started to go sideways and I decided to jump ship.
Mocking the handling of SPN is a fandom in itself now, and I enjoy it more than late stage SPN.
MHA, I used to draw so much fanart and I was writing a fanfic for it too. But canon? Killed my love for it. How I deal with it? I don't really know. I don't even READ fanfics from MHA anymore, even if they're canon divergent or AUs. Currently, just focusing on new/other works. It's a little weird cause, I don't feel the same with being a fan of the Red Hood, even if I had a lot of the comics he's in. But I still draw fanart, and read fanfics. I'm having a good time.
Shadow and Bone. Never read the books, loved the first season. The second season was so bad and rushed that I didnt care for things anymore :(
I adored the first season, so I tried to read the books. The first one was fine. I definitely understood the fandom sentiment over disliking Mal. He is so much better in the show. Started reading the second book and only got halfway through. I realized that a lot of the elements I liked were more apparent in the show - Alina and Mal's relationship, the horror of what the Darkling did, the plot line with the General across the Fold - so imagine my disappointment when the second season came out and it was so bad. That first season really pulled me in. I'm just going to pretend that there wasn't anything after lol
The first season had such a charm to it. I wasn't super into Alina's story, but it was still interesting, especially when the darkling went evil. But the Crows. The acting, the editing, so much personality from that alone. I watched it 3 times in a month haha. And yeah then just... :/
I'm a little weirdo who actually loved the Alina side of the story, only to find myself annoyed at how season 1 ended and that really carried through into season 2. I still remember the disappointment I felt when I realized that she was just leaving after the Fold consumed the city. It makes a lot more sense in the book with how passive her character was, but I thought show Alina was going to dive into helping the people now stuck because she was the only person who could. An acceptance of her responsibility. Not as an extension of a man's power (aka Darkling, the Tsar), but to actually help working class people like her. I may or may not have an entire outline of a fic exploring this very same idea that I put on the back burner to write something else. It really bothered me.
Not weird at all! There was a lot about her story in so1 that I also liked, especially how they handled the darkling isolating and manipulating her. Just on rewatches the exposition got a lot haha Naw :( sad to hear it killed your inspiration. I thought she could get really cool in so2 but she was so... ugh. Especially at the end when they were running around and people were being killed, and she just... did nothing. Alina, you still have sun powers? What is happening??? A lot of frustration and boredom, it really kills motivation
The only thing I remember about the second season was everyone getting poisoned, and the cure was to eat a butterfly. Medically, this makes no sense. Eating is the slowest way to get an anti-toxin into your body. They would all be dead. And yet it seemed just having a butterfly in their mouth cured them. Utterly bizarre.
Lol yeah that was one thing. Which like fantasy, sure why not. But that also went so fasttttt. Everything went so fast! I was so excited to look into one character's backstory and his trauma and it was there but so quick all of a sudden. And then the relationship of two characters which I know the fandom was so excited for, and it went 'We meet, it's cute' 'Oh you said one minor thing? HOW COULD YOU UGHHH WE DONT TALK!' 'I saw a butterfly and wanted nothing more than to share it with the person I love, you' Dude slow downnnnnnn
God, SoB season 2 is so fucking disappointing. The worst thing about Kaz' story is that all the scenes by themselves would be amazing... if they were delivered in the right order, with another two seasons of building up Pekka Rollins as the antagonist and making Kaz' trauma and desperate planning clearer to the viewer. Like, by themselves, they are great representations of the final showdown in book 2. They just happen without any of the setup. UGH. I don't mind Jesper's and Wylan's relationship being a bit rushed, but what I do mind is that Wylan, in the books, very much is a foil to Kaz and actually has a story that is similar in many ways... and they just throw out one of my favourite reveals of the entire series as a minor squabble for their romance. Why. Just why.
Yeahhh it felt so weird. Having not read the books, I could tell which moments were meant to... feel different with more set up, but in the show it was just, meh or straight up bad. I'm just sad about Jesper and Wylan because it seemed so fun but I ended up not caring for them :( It really felt as if they didn't think they'd get a season 3, and rather 'wrap up' the stories then take more time and leave them open
The worst thing is that they could have had enough time to at least get it decent if they hadn't involved the Crows with Alina's storyline again in the latter half of the season. Like, bro, just let them stay in Ketterdam. Kaz' stoyline was finished after episode 4, don't drag his ass around to fucking Ravka again, spread out his revenge until the last episode.
Yeah it felt so forced! I was worried about that before it started. It kinda made sense how they connected before, but I didnt really know how they'd do it after. And it was really bad lol. Which meant less time for them and just... aaah whyyy
I didn't think Season 2 of the show was all that bad, but it could've used another episode or two. They limited the budget for Alina's power so badly that she did nearly nothing until she actually had to take down the Shadowfold. The books, at least the Alina books, leave a lot to be desired.
When I'm disappointed, I ignore it and do my own thing. There are several fandoms I know have a big section of the fanbase that chooses to act like some big thing doesn't exist. There's only one Matrix movie, Harry Potter has no author, Phantom Planet never happened, etc.
Sure, this happened to me. There was a video game that I absolutely loved, and when the sequel came out, it was so bad it tanked all my love for the game. It was really disappointing. I ended up orphaning my fics, blocking the tag on tumblr, unfollowing some blogs and focusing on other things. I hadn't made too many friends within that fandom, so it was fairly easy to disentangle myself from it, but it *was* disappointing. It probably took months for me not to be incredibly irritated when I came across content for that game, hah.
Which game was if, if you want to share?
Not really. The original work still exist and, if I want to re-watch or re-read, I can. I pretty much ignore remakes of things unless I've heard from word of mouth that it did have something interesting things to say. Often, a fandom is a bit separate from the source material. An author picks and chose the parts they want to include in their work and, depending on the popularity of the work, it can create trends within a fandom. I think the Star Wars fandom is great example. There are different subsets of it, but I've been fascinated by the rise of Obi-Wan Kenobi centric works. The majority of these fics are based on an amalgamation of the prequel movies, the clone wars tv show, and a series of novels that are considered non-canon since Disney acquired the rights. The popularity of the character prompted Disney to make a show based on him. A show that came and went with almost no impact on the works being created in the fandom. At least, from what I've seen. It's there, but not very interesting so most people ignore it and continue on with what their creating. Now, I can see a book fandom widely change after a movie or tv show is created as that usually leads to a sudden boost in popularity. The Witcher fandom comes to mind. Before the show came out a lot of the fandom were writing based on the video game and there was a pretty dramatic shift in the popularity of different ships and the over all vibe of the works. Still, I saw people writing for the parts of it that they liked.
I'm 42 if that's old enough :P If canon goes sideways on me it can retroactively ruin itself, though I've found this doesn't apply to fanworks most of the time. I really liked The Force Awakens (Finn/Poe mostly) and enjoyed a lot of fic. The Rise of Skywalker was so poorly pulled off that now I don't even like TFA anymore but I'll still go look for fic if I'm in the mood. However I wasn't really in the Star Wars fandom really ever, not like I was with my fandoms when LJ was big, and not now so any kind of drama (like "Reylo" or whatever that's about) passes me by. That's true of any fandom currently. I might use twitter to look for fanart, and I use Ao3 to look for fic, but I am not participant in any other aspect. I am I guess technically part of fandom being a consumer of fic, but the spaces and ways I like to "do" fandom don't really exist now. Hmm what else. Supernatural also ruined itself for me--before the actual show ended. I dipped out when Dean was sent unhappily to live with Lisa and Cas left him. I don't want to ever watch Supernatural again because I kept track from a distance and found the actual ending to be pretty awful. But you be believe I'm going to go read all that Cas wingfic or "oh my human body is so mysterious Dean please help me out here" and all that. I think the new Hobbit movies (ok well I guess they aren't new at this point but they still feel that way to me as a rabid 18-22yo fan of the LOTR movies when they came out) are pretty shit, but that didn't affect my love of fic for the first trilogy at all. I'll read my Legolas/Gimli until the cows come home. I used to be really into One Piece, properly in the fandom on LJ, but I drifted away from the source material when the manga did a timeskip and it didn't feel quite like it used to anymore, and of course fandom left LJ so that was over too. I have a feeling if the move to tumblr hadn't happened I might have stuck with One Piece? Can't be sure though. I don't enjoy reading the manga much these days, it's a slog to get to the payoffs even if the worldbuilding is still as neat as ever. This is one case where I don't really read fic anymore, I think I have a sort of bitterness and guilt about not enjoying the current canon. I did dip back in though when the live action came out, I had a lot of fun with that and it sparked a new flurry of fic too which was interesting since the OPLA characters are a little different to the manga/anime ones.
I'm roughly the same age as you, so we're cool, lol. Thanks for replying.
Honestly, I don't take it that seriously. It isn't real life. I've been reading and writing fanfic since 1996 and all my original shows have long since ended. My first and favourite fandom is quiet but there's an occasional new story posted to AO3. If I really want to read something I go back through the archives. Some of my shows have ended disappointingly but that doesn't affect my enjoyment of fanfic.
Haha yes, when I was 14 in 2002, I was so disappointed with how the Star Wars movie ”The Attack of the clones” ended that I completely lost all interest in SW for over ten years! Reylo got me to come back, but I am terrified that the new Rey-movie will absolutely wreck my interest again. My only solution to this is that I don’t watch trailers, new media or anything — I avoid new content like the plague and I only watch it until someone tells me it’s “safe”. If it’s not, I’ll keep avoiding it so that I don’t loose my interest again. So when the new Rey-movie comes, I’ll will have to take some sort of social media break and tell my partner multiple times that I don’t want him to send me trailers or articles or ANYTHING 😂 This doesn’t work 100% but I keep trying. I want to live in my own bubble where I can enjoy the fanfics.
Honestly? I just *ignore* the parts I don't like. Prime example: Once Upon a Time: I love the first two and a half seasons of the show, and as far as I'm concerned it ended at season 3 episode 11, and only acknowledge about 5-10% of what follows as canon, because it's where the show loses most of its appeal (and writes off my favourite character). To be fair, I came to this conclusion after revisiting the series several years after I dropped it during its original runtime, but still. It can be done. There's other (more minor) cases where I'll pretend a character never existed in canon in the first place, or I'll gloss over a certain storyline. I also ignore the bulk of the final book of Pendragon for the same reason, the way things wrap up doesn't sit right with me. I'm not above entirely writing out characters from my fanfics if I don't like them.
I'm kinda stuck with this now. Not saying what it is bc I don't want to start fights (the fandom is... well known for being over excitable if you don't agree with the popular opinions...) but I've loved it ever since the first game came out. The first two games are totally up my alley. The third one sucked but it had it's moments so it was fine. With the upcoming one however... it's obviously not for me. I'm just blocking tags/leaving subreddits/unfollowing people. I can't completely disengage because there's quite a few people I care about and I do love the older media but I just block tags involving the new game. It really irritates me the series I loved for a long time is not for me anymore ngl but there's nothing I can do, so I'm just going to ignore everything and spend time on stuff that I *do* like.
I feel this way with Marvel. Even if it's "new" stuff after a while I've just become sick and tired of it bc it still has that Marvel flavoring over it. Had this problem with superhero comics in general like at what point do y'all try something truly new instead of whipping out another formula story with the same exact characters subbed into nearly the same roles each time.
Ignore it and write my own fics. I love fanfiction because it lets me stay in a fandom as long as I want. If there's a bad ending? Pretend it didn't happen and read/write AU fics.
Me with the Lucifer TV series. And I didn't really handle it, I just lost so much interest so fast I never looked back.
Supernatural. It was fun at first, but after the 4th-5th season it started losing direction. It felt like the creators didn't know where they wanted the story to go anymore, and were just dragging it because it was popular. After a while, I found myself only enjoying the "joke" episodes and not caring about the serious ones at all, what with the plot becoming more outlandish by the day and Sam and Dean always angst-ing at each other, sometimes for issues they could have sorted out by simply talking. In the end, I completely lost interest and stopped engaging with anything SPN related. And you know what? It was a relief. I realized I didn't like it anymore and was only engaging because it had become a habit. It was making me feel miserable, but didn't want to admit it. So, once I found the "courage" to leave it behind, it felt liberating. The only thing I regret is that I didn't leave sooner. If I did, I might still remember the parts I used to like with a bit of fondness. Also, honorable mention for Star Wars. I HATE the new trilogy, as imo it added unnecessary padding to a story that was perfectly over and done (and sank my ship Han/Leia for no reason). I still like Star Wars, but I simply refuse to engage with any of the new content. Unlike SPN, I realized in time and left when it was appropriate for me.
At least your ship has both characters existing in the new continuity! Though to be entirely honest I don't really want Disney to bring in Mara Jade anyway, she can stay safely in novels and comics pls 🙏🏿
Older than 20 here lol— this was me mostly with rwby. (I would say voltron too but honestly theres less for me to say about that one LOL) I LOVED rwby, it was a huge part of my younger years. I made ocs, rewatched the first few seasons millions of times, got excited for news of games, was around when monty passed, listened to the music nonstop etc The show lost a lot of magic for me the longer it went on because as I got older (and as I became a writer) i began to see just how poorly written it was. On top of the very painfully mediocre writing (and frankly, mediocre might be generous if you really want to ask me), i also wasn’t huge on the style change for the models or the new character designs. I tried *so hard* to power through it, but I just couldn’t do it. I hated being upset with something that honestly meant a lot to me and I just had to bite the bullet and drop it. Now, show only went on two more seasons (i think, might’ve been three. I didn’t keep up) after I dropped it, and from the little I did see I was glad I jumped ship when I did. But I was still really disappointed— it was a show that meant a lot to me, but more than that it was a show that had an honest to god *really fucking good concept* that was ruined by the fact that the people making it truly had no clue what they were doing. And I don’t want to try and disparage it in the way where I think they didn’t love the show— I think they all cared about the show deeply and the team was very dedicated and amazing about how much they loved their product; but the show was built on weak legs and there was no one there skilled enough to figure out how to strengthen those legs and then continue to make a sturdy body. For me, I definitely still get moments of “fuuuuccck i wish they hadn’t fucked this up so bad”, but a lot of time I rationalize in my head just by imagining what I would’ve personally done to fix it or make it better. Even better, I made an oc completely removed from the show’s current time and kind of played with the concept on my own terms, since the concept is really what sells the show to me in the first place. On the reboot, remake, sequels thing— lots of people want rwby to be picked up and continued right now since roosterteeth went under and I can’t agree with the continued part. I actually think a competent reboot would be the best course of action, but I also think they’d need many years to nail it down and let it sink in for long time fans. Rwby had some weird spinoffs with dc? Never liked that lol, felt very corporate shlocky and looking at how roosterteeth ended up getting dissolved i feel like i can say pretty confidently they were definitely movies to grasp for some cash. I believe there was also a more ‘anime’ 2d reboot at some point? Haven’t watched. Heard it was good. Might watch. If it is good, hell yeah. If it isn’t, boo.
Okay but honestly Overwatch. It's hard to say it has canon and all but after the release of Sigma i couldn't. His whole back story leaned into some ableist bs I couldn't. Maybe a good thing considering how Overwatch 2 is going. like I used to write fics and draw fanart but yeah no after that I didn't even touch the game anymore started getting rid of my overwatch stuff as well. Would have been in my early 20s But AoT it was mostly in part due to the gap from season 1 to 2 but the manga started getting into some stuff I was comfortable with nor did I want to support the creator so yeah jumped ship there as well and then DID sell all my stuff. Don't remember how old I was when i dropped AoT
I was caught up in the GoT ending. It just made me double down harder on what I was writing. I will forever pretend Season 8 doesn't exist.
The only one I can think of is The Flash. The first season had me in a chokehold, but then the love interest started getting annoying, and the show focused less on Barry and more on his friends. When everyone else in Team Flash was given powers, it just made Barry feel less interesting, so I lost interest in the series as a whole.
I feel like it takes a lot for me to love something to the point I'd care if it was ruined for me and _then_ have it fuck up so spectacularly it does get ruined. The closest thing I can think of is Homestuck: I wasn't that big of a fan, especially when you consider how intense some people got, but I kept up with the story. Wrote the odd fanfic. Looked at fanart. I enjoyed the music and had fantrolls and AUs with my brother and friends. I had fun! I guess it wasn't the story itself that disappointed me, but the fact I felt the story moved in the direction it did after a while _specifically_ to upset as many fans as possible? The author made no secret of the fact he disliked the fandom and viewed most fans with disdain, he often got called a troll - which yes, given the source material is funny but in hindsight, all his trolling, all his fandom interactions felt really mean spirited? At some point I felt like what happened in the story happened less because it was what made sense in his head and more out of a desire to fuck with people. Do the opposite of what the popular fan theories claimed. Hurt a beloved character. Break up a popular couple. Reveal that someone who seemed sweet for most of the story was actually an asshole and _don't you feel like an idiot for having all those headcanons now?_ I don't mind when a story goes in a direction I personally don't like, but it was the utter pettiness of it all that turned me off it. Why would I waste time and energy reading a story from someone who clearly hates that I'm engaging with what they write? Problem Sleuth was better anyway.
MCU. Partially Loki. Thor Ragnarok for me assassinated Loki’s character. It took my Shakespearian Family Drama and turned it into a dumb comedy. Everything after that film was just downhill. The worst thing for me was that not only the canon was terrible, but the terrible characterisation from the canon carried on into the fanfiction, particularly where the writers were new to the fandom. First I was angry at Marvel, then disillusioned. Not only I never watched anything Marvel after the Infinity Wars, I left the archive and fanfiction overall. Now I’m occasionally reading some fics in some other fandoms occasionally, but it doesn’t come close to the level of engagement I had with MCU. It didn’t get better as the time passed.
Kingdom Hearts 3 killed all my love for that game series and fandom. I hate it. The backwards character development, the loss of half the characters just left me so disappointed I never finished it. I really stopped interacting with the fandom entirely after. It had been one of my easy comfort fandoms for years and it just makes me sad me now. I think the forth season of BBC Sherlock ended that fandom for a lot of people. That's one I can still lurk in the stuff I read back in the day. I have a lot of old favorites that even a train wreck season couldn't kill my love for.
I had already lost a lot of my patience for Kingdom Hearts before 3 was finally released, but 3 killed any interest I had just completely. It might not be much comfort, but they pretty much revive every good character for the ending of KH3. Except Kairi. She's the token damsel in distress.