re: toxic fanbases. I'm not good at telling what fanbases are toxic. I'm both a doormat ("that rando who started yelling at me all of a sudden probably has a good reason and I'm dumb for not seeing it 👍") and a weirdo who tends to stay within very small circles. With Danganronpa, I feel like there's *something* that makes it a little jarring compared to other communities, although it's by far not the worst community I've personally interacted with.
Its popularity definitely plays a massive role; it's actually impressive to see how active Danganronpa circles remain after all this time, but the downside is that there's a lot of brainrot, distant memories, and most importantly people who've been involved with it for WAY too long. I myself have definitely grown horribly bored of having the same tired debates be brought up time and time again - I can imagine people with a different personality from mine getting very upset over that.
Though I don't feel a connection to that aspect at this time, the prevalent young fanbase also comes with its qualities and flaws.
I could go on, because this community is so large and so old that it's genuinely, like I already mentioned, jarring at times. I'll turn my back from being told DRAE is irredeemable media because it uses dark humour to see someone draw a Komaru with giant tits requesting coitus. There are times when interacting with Danganronpa fans has made me wish I'd just never known about Danganronpa at all, so all things considered, even if I can't put words on it, there's a strong negative aspect to it.
At the same time, I don't know how it being Danganronpa specifically relates to some negative experiences I had - was some of the abuse I endured as a Wiki admin related to the way the DR fandom is? Or did it have to do with Wikis more than it did with DR, with French users more than it did DR? Maybe the problem is that this series has given so many of us such intense brainrot and we can't stop getting involved with it.
Sorry if this long ask is annoying in any way - I figured you might be interested in exploring the conversation around how the DR fandom might come across as toxic, objectively or subjectively OTL
One thing I remember for sure is that when I posted Akudama Drive LGBTQ headcanons, I felt perfectly fine and happy about it - but when I decided to post my Danganronpa headcanons too, I had a strong feeling that I was taking a risk, however small. That's not a very nice feeling to get as an adult who's just trying to be a little happy and silly with PNGs.
Oh, I don't mind a long ask at all! I'm grateful for the detailed thought you put into this, honestly. :) I'm a pretty wordy person myself — you may have noticed.
I think a lot of what you're describing as negatives within the DR community are unfortunate constants with fandoms of ANY popular media these days. Not ALL of it, but....
Every piece of media is gonna be declared irredeemable/offensive/problematic by some parties now if it delves into any kind of darkness or deals with any kind of major crimes, it seems like I've seen more than one person online state — with a straight face, mind you — stuff like "Danganronpa is toxic AF, many of those characters are LITERALLY murderers" and I'm just over here thinking are you fucking serious? I don't remember seeing people say stuff like this in my fandom circles before 2019 or so, but I see it everywhere now. It seems to have grown more prevalent since the 2020s hit? There are people who just can't stand to deal with any moral grayness, any dark theming, etc — and they don't think anyone else should allowed to enjoy that stuff either. (Now I'm wondering whether there are people similarly dismissing Akudama Drive. Much smaller fandom, so maybe you don't see that. But I can imagine someone grumbling "These characters are LITERALLY criminals, wtf." LOL)
We all know Internet Rule 34, but I feel like there are certain built-in multipliers to it that increase how widespread it is. Animated media? That's a multiplier that will cause even MORE porn to exist. Japanese media? That's another multiplier. Which means there's tons of porn of DR characters — even for the teen characters that're underage in most countries like Komaru. At least I've never stumbled across porn of the small children like the Warriors of Hope, THANK FUCKING GOD. I sadly don't doubt that it exists, but I hope to god it remains in a dark corner, out of my goddamn sight.
And I definitely feel much, MUCH more afraid to say anything about LGBTQ headcanons for popular media than I do for relatively small fandoms. Maybe that's partly symptomatic of being American in an era where tolerance and acceptance of LGBTQ people is sliding horiffically backwards? At least I think I'm safter to share such things on Tumblr than I would be on Reddit. I'd be afraid to talk about my personal DR LGBTQ headcanons, too. I've even drafted a post about that once and then been like "You know what? No. I'm not opening myself up to abuse for this," leading me to delete it. I've done similarly for the Madoka Magica fandom as well... too active, too big = too likely to result in blowback. I believe Akudama Drive is a pretty small fandom, though, so it makes sense to me why that'd feel like a more comfortable place to talk LGBTQ concepts.
But with all of that said, I can't claim that the infighting over interpretations of characters and events that I see on the DR Wiki is something that every fandom deals with. Maybe some of them do; honestly, Fandom Wikis weren't really so huge a thing before I got deep into DR in the back half of the 2010s, and I haven't really gotten involved with any of the Fandom Wikis I've come across afterwards either. So I don't know for sure! But it seems like that could be uniquely unpleasant about the DR fandom — the way people define "canon" as a matter of personal interpretation.
Since I'm stuck on the English side of the DR Wiki, I'm not certain whether you deal with the same stuff in the French incarnation. Characters like Komaeda and Ouma are especially difficult to police — they have so many fans who think they are pure of heart, and so many fans who find them loathesomely manipulate, and you can't necessarily be certain what about them is true or false. Put all that together, and it's hard to keep things to "Just The Facts" when people fundamentally disagree on what the facts ARE, which can lead to a lot of infighting among the people editing the thing! God... even deciphering the truth about what's going on in V3 and determining how we should or shouldn't explain that haziness is an awfully sticky wicket all by itself.
