Thread:Trigger009/@comment-995426-20160523033145/@comment-995426-20160703004856

What's to dread? When I de-stress, and things go back to normal, and I'm discussing things like I usually do, and then I'm caught off-guard all over again.

Besides, this issue always hits a nerve with me. There have been plenty of fans like me who already have a great deal of negative baggage associated with the 1987 TV series. A lot of fans came to loathe it, and resent the effect it had on both the TMNT they wanted to keep reading and how much harder it became to publicly identify as fans and socialize with other fans, and even the stigma created whereby an adult liking "kid stuff" was automatically suspected of being a sexual danger to children. It's an old fandom wound that never quite healed. For there to be an entire segment of the TMNT fandom that had a very low opinion of the 1987 TV series&mdash;and for there to be TMNT media that poked fun at that series&mdash;is a completely natural and understandable part of what the TMNT landscape became over the past few decades.

That's why it's so much more fraught when a 1987 series fan goes nuclear over this kind of recurring criticism. I can sort of handle it when it's one na&iuml;ve fan, every now and then, who doesn't know the history and doesn't know any better, especially if they can be made to understand that this is absolutely nothing new to the TMNT fandom. But when the same user repeatedly goes nuclear because they simply can't accept that literary criticism isn't always an indirect personal attack? I don't know if I'd call that trolling, but it certainly is needling.

I told him how many of my other Mirage friends don't want to be active at Turtlepedia. Why? Reasons like how there aren't enough fans like themselves, and how many of the kids' cartoon fans are too irritating to be around. The reason I'm here is because of my editorial and critical ethic. My desire to be here is stronger than potential annoyances. I told him, in bold, "Fans cannot afford to be offended by criticism of a work of fiction they like, even in their presence." But then, he emphasized that it is still indirectly personally insulting to him and other fans, and it was clear to me that he would continue to feel personally insulted by it, and the only solution he would accept would be for me to never mock the 1987 TV series again. And the reason it was crystal clear, was because he said it and then locked the thread to prevent further discussion of it.

I could never give him his demand. It's never really been possible in a grouping that includes fans of the entire TMNT multiverse. When disagreeing fans repeatedly resort to personal attacks and attempts to silence each other, what you get is a toxic environment that fans don't want to be in. The only way fans can continue to coexist and survive this, is to agree to disagree and not take literary criticism personally.