(((Digimon Is Forever)))

Not people saying “Fandom has always been like this” in that vent post I made. No. It hasn’t always been like this. Fandom has NEVER been like this until recently and if you were in fandom pre-tumblr purge, pre-twitter, pre-netflix boom, pre-tiktok….then you would fucking know it was nothing like this.

We still had the drive to create. We still sold prints and charms and made zines…but it was never like this.

The introduction of streaming, binge shows that drop all at once, tiktok and vine RIP i still love u vine but you were the beginning of a particularly ugly era) creating this bite sized, quick paced ‘content’ era of creation and it bled out into fucking everything else.

Fandoms didn’t die down when the show ended or the season was over. You didn’t mass unfollow artist, writers or moots just because they changed fandoms. There wasn’t this need to please the algorithm in order for your posts to get seen by people and enjoyed.

Fandoms used to last YEARS. Star Trek is literally the oldest running fandom out there and you got people in there that could care less about the new stuff and still have been happily prancing through their fucking fifty year old fandom today. Hell, even SPN after all it’s fuckups and shitshows has a dedicated fanbase STILL creating tons of art and fic.

There is no patience anymore. No calm feeling of taking in fandom and friends at a pace that which doesn’t make you stressed and is still fun.

Do I blame fandom for this? Of course not, but people are complacent with it and start changing their vocab to accommodate and end up making the situation so deep it cant be fixed.

We call Art & Fic Content now, completely stripping the value of what it is to a level of consumerism instead of personal entertainment & community bonding.

I think the place I see this most is how often people expect updates to happen.

I see writers apologizing for taking a month to post a new chapter, and I’m like, “no! That’s amazing!!”

I see people asking if a story is still going after it’s not been updated for a month or two when that didn’t used to ever be all that abnormal! Like, no one used to assume by default that small of a gap meant something was dead in the water.

And I see it when engagement drops off when there IS a big gap between updates. Whereas, I remember it used to be the opposite. I updated for the first time in a year? OMG! The comment section was going to explode with excitement!

And yeah, it’s still weird to me that a fandom will ebb and surge when new seasons/episodes/sequels are released. It used to feel way more even and stable.

Unlike in the anime, Taichi is telling the entire backstory without flashbacks, so he even imitates Hikari’s voice saying “I’m sorry I couldn’t kick the ball properly, Onii-chan”, it’s really heartbreaking. And since there’s no visual aid, Koushirou actually gets to comment on it too. It’s bittersweet that he kinda gets to reassure him here - just as Taichi did for him in previous scenes.

Meltdowns are involuntary; they're not just "losing your temper." If they become rarer in adults, that's because we learned coping skills we didn't have as kids, and often have the agency to remove ourselves from the overwhelming stimulus before we get overloaded.

Fellow autistics, please add your own thoughts if you like. NTs, you can reblog and comment if you want, but don't talk over us.

friendly reminder that people you consider rays of sunshine can: