Other FANDOM: How does it influence your RP when the directors screw up?

[MechanicalSnake]

I know this may look like a silly topic, but here is an issue I have had about three times in history (last time being pretty recent):

Imagine the following situation: you have this fandom you love and a character you enjoy roleplaying. You've been invested in the fandom for years, writing about it for ages too and you feel like it resonates with you and you know it in and out.

Then the writer suddenly, after like 8 books, suddenly changes their style, produces crap and goes against anything they've been building.
Or the director changes your favorite TV character from a multilayered, intriguing genius to a pretty flat evildoer.
Or someone else takes over and changes literally everything you liked.
Or, I don't know, the author turns christian and buries their entire work under fanfiction about Jesus. (Yes, that happened, Anne Rice.)

You get the gist, right?

So I wonder, how would that influence your ongoing RPs in that universe/with that character?
Would you accept the new reality of him being asshole/the universe now being crap and lose interest?
Would you stubbornly insist on the way it was when you loved it and ignore the massive fuck up?
Plainly, would you be able to keep an RP you love and still enjoy it the same, or would it now be tainted for you?

 

[rae2nerdy]

No. Fandom roleplays aren't about rehashing the canon storyline. They are about giving alternative perspectives on everything from the characters to the setting. Thus canon is unimportant to roleplays for the same reason it's largely unimportant to fanfiction. Yes it creates the foundation but a good fanwork takes that foundation and reimagines it in a way that is new and interesting.

 

[Idea]

Frankly, as a player that even in fandoms uses OCs exclusively, the only way for this kind of hting to affect me is:
A) to make me loose interest in the fandom

In which case I will simply not RP that fandom because I am not interested.

or
B) Make a huge overhaul to how the setting operates.
That being the case, I'll continue with things operating as was the prior standard if I'm currently running the roleplay, but in any future roleplays I will apply the new rules.

Edit: alternatively, I might have my players vote about it, if its' feasible to make such a massive change.

 

[MechanicalSnake]

I sort of feel torn about it, because what I find horrible is sitting on the fence between losing intest and not minding. Basically I just want it to be how it used to be and Im frustrated its not So Im simiarly torn between just burning RPs in flames of Hell or writing the heck out of it my own way.

 

[Idea]

I sort of feel torn about it, because what I find horrible is sitting on the fence between losing intest and not minding. Basically I just want it to be how it used to be and Im frustrated its not So Im simiarly torn between just burning RPs in flames of Hell or writing the heck out of it my own way.

Well, here's the thing. In the end of the day, the point is to have fun. If writing the previous version is making you have enough fun regardless, you might as well keep at it while it lasts, no?

 

[MechanicalSnake]

Well, here's the thing. In the end of the day, the point is to have fun. If writing the previous version is making you have enough fun regardless, you might as well keep at it while it lasts, no?

I know But somewhere in my head I feel like an idiot for enjoying something that no longer exists if that makes sense Which it does not because none of the things we write ACTUALLY exist. A weird hang up I guess.

 

[Idea]

I know But somewhere in my head I feel like an idiot for enjoying something that no longer exists if that makes sense Which it does not because none of the things we write ACTUALLY exist. A weird hang up I guess.

Well, nothing I or for that matter anyone can say will make you not feel that way. People tend to more strongly cling to feelings when they are denied after all... So all I can do is say to really make some introspection about it, and come to your own, more solid conclusions. Research, take time to think, until you feel confident one way or the other.

 

[MechanicalSnake]

Well at least it is not as bad as it was in Anne Rice now, because she started actively threatening fanfiction writers and closing sites left and right, so in that case it was an easy decision back then

 

[Onmyoji]

it really depends on the fandom and what exactly was done to it, because if the changes are too drastic it may make me lose interest in fandom.

But to be honest, when these things happened to a few of my fandoms and didn't make me lose interest completely, I just kept enjoying that part that I liked while disregarding the changes. It became sort of two fandoms to me: 'fandom before' and 'fandom after' and if I had to rp or write fanfiction for the fandom, I only touched the 'fandom before' part.

So if I was to rp a fandom like that I would tell my partner that I'd like to roleplay within certain time period, for example. Or do a canon-divergent AU. The rest would depend on whether partners accept the suggestion or not , but that's another story.


To me fandom rp is almost the same as writing fanfiction. I write fanfiction because I either enjoy what's going on in the fandom and want to make a side-story involving my favourite characters, or I don't enjoy what is happening and want to make changes / AU. The same applies to rp.

 

[PhoenixMire]

I don't think it would be very difficult to ignore. If I'm doing some kind of RP for a currently ongoing fandom (which basically never happens; the majority of fandom RPs I've done have been for already-finished series), then it would most likely be canon-divergent. So if the RP is already canon-divergent then I don't care about what direction the source material goes.

However... If the series went in a direction I completely loathed, I'd probably lose interest in it, and subsequently lose interest in any RPs based on it. So that would probably mess things up lol. I can't say I've ever had that experience though.