I want to start writing fanfiction again

My thoughts on the Winx Club Reboot and why its failure is a sign of the global decline of the Arts as a whole

Lately I've been inspired to make my own rendition of the show Winx Club: The Magic is Back because as a long-time fan of the original show...let's just say the reboot leaves much to be desired...

Initially, after watching the reboot on Netflix (bleh 🤮), I rated the series a 6/10. Now, after having comiserated with my fellow long-time fans by watching a series of hour-long reviews on YouTube, I would rate the series a 3/10.

That's a steep downgrade considering only HALF of the first season has come out. The rest is to be released in the Spring, according to the word on the street.

That's not good.

So, naturally, a lot of us fans have been discussing ways the reboot could be done better. Many across the net have proposed ideas on what they would do differently, and, honestly, it's not really that hard to come up with something even marginally more creative than the reboot. That's how bad it is. Thanks, AI.

Now, generally speaking, my views on AI are pretty nuanced. I'll probably go into detail regarding it another time, but suffice it to say, I'm not against AI use if a person's material circumstances (read: material from a Marxist standpoint) necessitate they use AI to help alleviate said circumstance, whether that be through poverty or disability, or what-have-you. I give others the benefit of the doubt and trust that they know themselves and their situation better than anyone else to act in good faith with their use of AI.

HOWEVER...

when it comes to big corporations, who have ample resources (read: money/capital) that make their material circumstances privileged enough to nullify AI usage...I am very critical of that.

Rainbow s.p.A, the owner of the Winx Club brand, falls into this category.

They had and continue to have ample monetary resources to not resort to AI to cut corners with their, let's face it, cash-cow, Winx Club.

And, yet instead of using this opportunity to do right by us fans this time, cause the other attempts went to shit (looking at you World of Winx, Fate: The Winx Saga, and post-season 4 original series retcon/soft reboot seasons), they doubled down on meeting their bottom-line and decided to fall for the AI grift, hoping that they could make a decent product while winning fans back.

Boy, were they wrong.

So wrong.

My theory is that general rise of conservatism/fascism has contributed to the decline of the arts as whole and big corporations, like Rainbow and Disney, in an attempt to maintain their monopoly on artistic capital have submitted to this fascistic, technocratic paradigm and said paradigm has resulted in a noticeable dip in quality that in my opinion, is not redeemable at this point in history.

Our best bet as a global society, if we want to save the arts, is to decentralize big corporations' monopoly on works of art and to move towards independent (independent in the sense of non-aligned with corporate structures), collective (collective in the sense of shared, mutual pooling of resources and talents) efforts.

This can look like fans taking things back into their own hands and deciding to come together as a collective to make a beloved IP actually in alignment with what the fans desire.

Why wait for the big honchos to cater to our needs? Iginio has obviously lost sight of his vision for Winx Club for good. We can no longer rely on him to cater to our tastes. He's far too gone and compromised.

At this point, its best that we the fans do it.

For me, I'm personally doing my own project of sketching out my own potential vision for the reboot that has come out.

I invite others to do the same on their own time.

Make fanart. Write fanfics (as I will be doing).

Hell, maybe even a few of us fans can band together and make our own version of the reboot!

The world is our oyster and its not too late to try again and make something better.

Will you do the same?

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