Let’s Talk About Fandom Negativity, By a Wiki Moderator
I owned the KotLC wiki from 2017-2020, so I think that I’m quite qualified to speak on the differences between eras.
And TL;DR? The Flashback era is where everything went to heck.
In the Nightfall era, we had ship debates. But they were light-hearted and based on “which ship do you think will be canon?” And almost everyone loved the series. Sure, we had ship bashers still, but they were much scarcer and more manageable.
Fast forward to the Flashback era.
Fans are angry. They think that the book was boring, but most of all, they are angry about ships. The bashing becomes a BIG issue. Ship debates are no longer “which ship do you think will be canon?” Ship debates are “your ship is horrible and problematic.”
I finished Flashback, and I loved it. I was floating on a cloud. I skipped over to the wiki to talk about it, and…
There everyone was, being angry and sad and complaining about how boring it was and how they hated the romance, and, and, and…
Unfortunately, there’s no going back at this point. Once Shannon started focusing more on the romance, everything got infinitely more complicated. Fans from every side had strong emotions about it, and tensions rose.
So I would just urge you… Try to remember what it’s like to love the series. Try to remember that you don’t have to go with the herd. If you loved Flashback, if you love a side character, anything, you are allowed to. Try to remember the way you laughed at Keefe’s jokes, the way you squealed at that ship moment, the way you sighed at that cliffhanger.
Try to remember that you love this series, and that that’s okay.
Try to remember that this series is… good. And that’s why you’re here. And if you read it again for the first time, I bet you would be laughing and crying and cheering for the characters all over again.
It’s okay to love something. You don’t have to analyze it constantly. It’s okay to just… love it. It took you to another world, and that’s a beautiful thing. And your opinions about the world are beautiful too. Everything you love about it is beautiful because you love it. Loving something fictional is magical, and you should be able to.