Thinking about Alan's in-universe fandom makes me go insane

[u/zoey1bm]

This man was a crime thriller writer.

Putting the Casey/Payne thing aside for now, the real world equivalent to Casey would probably be the likes of Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole. Gritty, depressed cops trying to make sense of complex narratives. Arguably the biggest difference between the Casey books and actual modern Scandinavian crime literature is the fan response to them. Both of them gather high praise from critics, but Stieg Larsson sure as shit didn't get interviewed for magazines aimed at teenage girls. Alan did.

And it's just so wild to me because he does not fit the image of someone who irl would be beloved on tumblr at all. While the "complicated bad boy" act was something that celebrities utilized as part of their public persona, the success of it was kinda exclusive to like boys band musicians, or actors. Not writers of hardboiled detective stories 😭😭 Rose's fansite might not actually have won awards for "best fansite ever", but with the way the reception around him is framed, Im certain that micro communities around Wake and Casey formed.

Which makes the lack of a riot over Sudden Stop so weird?? Like if you know anything about fandom history, you probably know that the first instance of modern fandom having an unhinged moment is usually credited to sherlockians harassing and sending death threats to ACD for killing Holmes. And yet everyone is mostly fine with Casey dying in Alan's last regular novel? In a fandom that apparently skews towards parasocial behaviors??

All that to ask, how in the world did we even arrive at officially licensed Alex Casey lunchboxes????

disclaimer: I know this mainly done in order to have Rose be an actual character with contributions. But let me gnaw at the implications of it lol.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Nerve83]

Didn’t the lunch boxes come out after the movie adaptations? Would make it more credible rather than it just being from books. And I would relate the popularity of Alan Wake novels in their world to our worlds’ Witcher or Game of Thrones level of popularity based on the response. Those got TV show and game adaptations. It’s more believable for those for us because they are complex fantasy worlds. It just so happens that in Alan’s world, his crime thrillers have a similar popularity. Barry is constantly talking about being hounded by producers wanting video game and movie adaptations too. Movie already happened, games were being discussed.

Now imagine that if their authors were way younger and handsome, I think you can easily accept that Alan had the level of fan response he does in his world. Tumblr fans would absolutely go crazy. Rose would be either running a popular (within fan circles) blog or be an active moderator of fan communities.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Nerve83 → u/Puzzleheaded_Nerve83]

Actually on second thought, maybe it’s more niche than that and that gives Rose the chance to be more known in the fan circles.