#fandom avatar

[princeandykumush]

Allison(oc my friend) x Ziko.

[saijito-sl]

note about karasu

Koujaku means "red sparrow", so as a homage i renamed this avatar to Karasu ("crow"). karasu is more visual-kei, & gothic fashion-wise so the name fits. This was avatar was originally inspired by koujaku from Dmmd. but it was a struggle being accurate, so i deviated from the official design. only one outfit remains that resembles the official design. because of this i eventually began viewing this avatar as it's own thing, not koujaku. regardless aspects of koujaku still exist in karasu (well maybe if you're squinting hard enough / hj). Possibly one day karasu will completely separate from koujaku, but for now karasu's still loosely tied to him.

[stellarvisionary]

So, after reading that post about fandom avatar characters, I had the urge to write about fan representation in media...

This might get long, so I'm gonna put it behind a Read More...

So, fandom avatar characters. They aren't common, but they do come up on occasion. Control Freak in the Teen Titans cartoon, Calliope/Caliborn in Homestuck, Becky in Supernatural, Jimmy in Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, and Piros/Piros the Third in .hack//. I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. They're meant to represent the best and worst parts of fandom, as seen from the perspective of the creators.

We may not always like them, as they reflect upon us as fans, often uncomfortably, because they make us see in ourselves what the creators of our favorite series' see in the fandom as a whole.

Some women may not like the Becky character in Supernatural, because they believe that she's a inaccurate representation of female fans as a whole, when compared to the male fans presented in the episode Becky is featured in. I can understand and sympathize with that, I really can. Male fans have been receiving this treatment for years, and not always in the form of fandom avatar characters, but often in the form of exaggerated stereotypes used in comparison to more "normal" masculine activities of boys or men our age.

It isn't fair, is it? Now you know how geeks as a whole have felt, both male and female, under the eye of the rest of society for a long time. Even as geek subculture gains a wider audience and more acceptance in the mainstream, there's always going to be a certain amount of that stigma that's going to follow us for the rest of our lives.

As I said before, don't disdain characters like Becky for being inaccurate, because they're not. Instead, examine characters like Becky as a deconstruction of what makes a Bad Fan, and try to encourage both old and new fans to avoid that behavior, for the benefit of fandom in general, and geek culture as a whole. The more we try to work against the stereotypes, the closer we get to being accepted as something other than what the rest of the world thinks we are.