There is a noticeable trend within audiences, made exceptionally more prominent by the rise of social media, in how fan artists and fandoms depict their favorite characters from particular media. In the case of anime like My Hero Academia and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, hypermasculine characters often emulate intense energy and toxic traits that viewers should normally recognize as problematic. However, there has been a growing movement within fandom culture to depict these hyper violent male characters in increasingly peaceful ways, often softening the character or surrounding them with flowers in a “flower child” vibe. This begs the question of why fandom has been attracted to this archetype in such a different way than before, and what attributes of traditional hypermasculinity lead to this level of admiration. Trends of romanticizing masculine energy is not new to fandom but while many focused on the admirable friendship and bonds between characters, this new trend seems to either idolize toxic and damaging behavior, or ignore it entirely. This research paper studies on notable case of this transformation process in the character of Katsuki Bakugo from My Hero Academia, demonstrating how an aggressive and violent character can be depicted in soft and gentle settings through fan created artworks.

This paper is a study on the portrayals of seven main Moomins characters across five revivals of Tove Jansson's Moomins. This study also examines popular fanon of the current Moomins fandom as well as a historical analysis of how each revival work was adapted to fit in the culture and time-period of their creation.

This research examines the similarities and differences between relationships developed through interpersonal interactions within online fandom communities and those relationships developed through traditional in-person interactions such as those found within education or the workplace. Beyond the similarities and differences between the two forms of relationships, I discover phenomenologically what happens in the moment that two online friends meet in-person. To be precise, I analyze how individuals within fandoms categorize their relationships in terms of their willingness to confide in each other, their perceived honesty of themselves, and their mental image of one another and how it may have changed over the course of their relationship. We might expect that individuals maintaining a relationship through interactions within online fandom may maintain idealized images of their respective partners due to the aspect of self-censorship that is derived from asynchronous communication. Additionally, we might expect that while trust may be built upon this exaggerated image of one’s partner, a disruption in this image formed through an in-person interaction could potentially result in said trust crumbling. Using a qualitative analysis of three individuals participating within various fandom communities. Thus, we predict that individuals within online relationships take steps to build an idealized version of oneself that might not fully reflect an individual’s actual physical or mental character.