Garhdo Goes Geek

Hello my friends, and welcome back to my blog. Today I wanted to talk about several topics that have been on my mind for several months now, but have all kind of come to head and coalesced after an article from Variety last year that seems to have highlighted just how prevalent these issues have become, and how long they have been an issue.  The article published by Variety in October 2024, titled " Toxic Fandom: How Hollywood Is Battling Fans Who Are ‘Just Out for Blood’", and available  here , starts by discussing some prominent examples of recent toxicity levelled by fans towards some high profile shows, before exploring several steps that studios are taking in order to prevent these vitriolic pushbacks, with one idea specifically cited being that of special "superfan" focus groups to assess marketing materials for major franchise projects, in addition to standard focus testing groups.  Now focus group testing is a important part of any film and television pro...

Hello my friends. Welcome back to my blog. Today I wanted to talk a bit about one of my favourite fandoms, and also one of my biggest annoyances, which is Warhammer and its fandom. For those who aren't aware, Warhammer is the name of a series of settings used for games created and published by Games Workshop, a British model-making company based in Nottingham. Warhammer Fantasy Battle was the first game, published in 1983. Inspired by their previous work with Dungeons & Dragons, which Games Workshop got started by publishing content for (including creating the Githyanki, who recently appeared in Baldur's Gate 3 ), but an evolution, designed to use the miniatures Games Workshop had been making in combination with more traditional tabletop RPG mechanics to create a tabletop battle game.  The Warhammer World, as the setting became known, was a fantasy world of heroes and magic, featuring wizards, knights, elves, dwarves, dragons, undead, and orcs in a world full of all the usu...