#a rare instance of someone actually engaging with my fic stuff

[mishy-mashy]

You're right in that Nana actually WAS reminded of her son and had to step away. Yoichi did also sing America's anthem because she was crying, and it was the only thing he could think of so she would stop.

The baby Factor belongs to a living baby. They didn't know how she got there, but definitely know the owner through Midoriya's eyes. She's literally just a baby.

So Kudo wanted her out and back to her living owner that was evidently, a baby that didn't belong. Bruce had to stop Kudo from going on that it could be AFO's doing she was there, because why would he send a baby? He wasn't even around.

It was genuinely a Factor mishap that stems from the awakening of this brand new Factor in her owner. They never figure out why or how until Midoriya almost kills someone that wore the baby's shoes in this scenario.

A few things that did happen:

Not knowing her sex. Silence ensues.

"........Who's gonna check?"

"Not it," Bruce put in immediately, even touching the tip of his nose for good measure.

"Oh god no," En muttered, ducking out too.

"Isn't she a girl?" Yoichi tilted his head, remembering Ninth's few interactions with her. Specifically, with her parents, with her in the background, but still. "Her father referred to her as his daughter."

Yoichi's eyes scaring her into a wheezing bout of tears. It's genuinely an Oh shit moment when her face crumples

The eyes in question:

En has no idea how to deal with kids and apparently, he looks like someone she recognizes. She thinks he's that person. He bungles it so badly Shinomori becomes her new best friend. Shinomori just blepped for her and she was sold.

(These were trying times for her. She'll take what she can get at this point)

The baby almost falls off the edge completely on her own because her head is too heavy for her. Kudo purposely ignores her and lets this happen. Banjo sees her in time to catch her

"If she can show up here, it means she has a Factor" -Bruce. Cue a bluescreen as they think they have another Glowing Baby on their hands

They know her father's Quirk, as they've seen it through Midoriya's eyes. But they don't know her mother's Quirk, which she evidently has: and it's infinitely much worse to deal with than her father's normal construct Quirk.

They don't know what this kid's Quirk is. They're trying to figure it out. She clearly can't explain it for them. While they're all representations of Factors, she's the representative of a baby's Factor, and is at the same phase as her owner.

She's floated off, blown En off the edge when she cried and got upset with him, and according to Kudo, has kicked out her foot once and trilled her lips. (Kudo's input on what her Quirk is is ignored. "Those are just baby actions, aren't they?" Nana)

Banjo is swearing up and down that she looks like En. Specifically, really only, when she cries.

The others don't see it. She and En look nothing alike. They've seen her mother, who is very much alive, through Midoriya's eyes. She looks more like her, and at best, her father had black hair like En.

Kudo refuses to think the baby is cute when she gets excited. She flaps her hands and gets so happy. Yoichi proceeds to almost let her fly off like a helium balloon when she accidentally starts floating off

Yoichi's eyes widened. "Oh no."

"Gagagagaga!"

"Ah, fuck-"

Technically an OC fic that's not Resistance-based-

Involves:

Yoichi singing the American anthem to make a baby sleep. It's the only song he ever heard on the radio, and it actually works

Kudo throwing a baby Factor over the edge to kick them out of the void because Bruce wouldn't do it

Bruce felt himself wither and die a bit more at what was expected of him.

Kudo rolled his eyes. "If you're not going to do it-"

"Second, don't you dare-"

"Kudo," Yoichi tried.

"I will," he finished, heaving her up by the back of her onesie like she were a trash bag. Raising her up to eye level, he did a brief three-finger salute.

Her head was too heavy, and neck too weak, for her to look anywhere but at his feet, biting her gums onto her little knuckles. She had no idea what this man was about to do to her.

"Hasta la Vista, kiddo. Enjoy your last seconds of life."

"KUDO!!!"

En speedrunning the marriage process because his friend wanted to (both ace, it's a QP relationship)

"Sorahiko-senpai, give me the marriage certificate," En nearly hissed over their burgers.

Sorahiko chewed slowly. "Why?"

"I'm about to set the world record for fastest divorce—!!!"

Quirk bullcrap where the story focuses on what happens if a Quirk Singularity can't adjust, and how Factors are their own personality.

AKA, when a Quirk Singularity is in a normal person, and not like OFA or AFO.

Gran Torino is bad at relationship advice

"In my experience, which is none—"

Aizawa has problem children (definitely plural) acting out on day 1

Aizawa slammed the door open.

"Hi, Shouta!" she waved, a raging blonde stuck to the classroom wall and screaming up a storm. The first day had barely started, too. "Fancy seeing you here-!"

Aizawa slammed the door shut.

Setting up a Monopoly game for the vestiges to play

"I want the doggy."

"I want the doggy!"

Kudo didn't even blink. "Shut up, Fifth, Yoichi gets the dog."

###

She looked at Midoriya, who suddenly went quiet. His expression was a bit cowed, staring blankly at the tiny player pieces.

"What?"

"Ah..." His head jolted, called to attention. His head immediately fell down a bit as he admitted, a bit awkwardly, "They're, fighting over the doggy..."

###

"Yoichi grew up with nothing. Are you really going to deprive this orphan of even a playing piece?"

"Are you seriously playing the pity card right now?!"

"I'll play any card to let Yoichi have what little he never got when he was alive,” Kudo sniffed, arms crossed. “I may have been a murderer, but wow. I never took you for a heartless monster, Fifth."

"Guys," Shinomori spoke up quietly, completely ignored and otherwise unheard underneath their spreading bickering, "it's just a board game..."

[wifelinkmtg]

you guys i’m starting to think magic story might not be that good

I’m really really happy the Phyrexia essay found its intended audience, and i’m glad it resonated so deeply with so many of you! People have asked me if they can quote it or lift concepts from it, and the answer is yes, absolutely! Please attribute it to me if you do, and if you want to send me whatever you’re using it in I would love to read it, though that’s optional. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is, man, was March of the Machine story a wet dud or what? I try to set my expectations low with official WotC stuff, but I did not have them set anywhere near low enough. Consequently, it’s been difficult to muster the energy lately to do things on this blog because, like, jeez, what an unceremonious and largely consequence-free waste of potential all of that was (except for the Ixalan story. The Ixalan story had everything: amazing kaiju fights [sorry Ikoria] and Magic’s best lesbian couple [sorry Gruulfriends, also congrats Gruulfriends.] “But what about the Ravnica story?” you, an incorrect person, say, “I thought the Ravnica story was really good,” you continue, incorrectly. The Ravnica story was very bad! It had really good ideas in it, but it was exceedingly-poorly written. My most charitable interpretation is that there was a miscommunication, and the author expected there would be a thorough editorial pass, and instead they just published it as-is. Sad! I would have really enjoyed a well-written version of that story. </hater>) But also it’s been difficult to muster enthusiasm to do Magic stuff lately because of WotC’s extracurriculars (increasingly-predatory attempts to more thoroughly monetize D&D, the fucking thing with the fucking Pinkertons.) But today I took an Adderall because it’s one of the rare days I actually have to focus on a task at work, and I’m using the residual focus to post an overdue update here, hello!

And I’m not done with this blog! Far from it. I’m going to keep posting dumb horny card art reviews here, for sure, but here’s some other stuff you can expect to see in the next few months or so:

1. a follow-up to the Phyrexia essay digging into the question of what a “fascist aesthetic” is, what it’s for in fiction, what it means to enjoy things that contain those elements. I think this is a really interesting topic with a lot of depth and hopefully nuance to it, and I really only skirted it in the original essay, and oh man did people have things to say about that (most of them polite). I addressed a similar topic previously on this blog when I talked about the conquistador vampires in Ixalan, but I don’t think I’m satisfied with that post. I think we can also talk about how we engage with a text, and how we engage with a text like Magic: the Gathering specifically. This is a lot to cover, and it may end up getting trimmed down, or I may succumb entirely to the seduction of scope creep. Who can say!

2. an essay on chivalry in its historical contexts, how it’s been used, what purposes it serves in a society (its role, for instance, in sustaining white supremacy in America), and what it means when we encounter it in “sword lesbian” media (the Locked Tomb books, Revolutionary Girl Utena, etc.) This is going to require a great deal of research and I have no idea what my ultimate conclusion will be, but it’s a topic I’m personally very invested in for a whole host of reasons.

3, maybe. I’ve been toying with the idea of writing MtG fic for a while, because they keep wasting potential and I think I could do a better job. If I do, I’ll post it here, but no promises. Fiction isn’t my main genre, and fanfic isn’t something I’ve gotten seriously into before, despite being on tumblr since 2011. But someone needs to do Avacyn justice, so we’ll see.

4. other writing. I’m a lightly-published poet in real life, and I’m currently working on my first chapbook, so maybe I’ll try putting some of it on tumblr, and since this blog’s readership has surpassed my personal, I guess? I’d put it here? Or, possibly, the short horror stories I infrequently write. Again, we’ll see.

5. Obviously I’m going to keep doing the horny Magic card art reviews. I’m not feeling the new stuff right now, but there’s a lot of older sets I haven’t done yet. The Tarkir block is next - and in fact, I think that will be the next post on this blog. I think it’s time we started appreciating Monastery Swiftspear for more than her brutal efficiency in aggro decks, because frankly she’s a snack and this should be acknowledged.

Anyway, thank you all for reading, hit me up if you wanna play some Commander, and I’ll see y’all in the next one!

[foxghost]

can you tell me more about langjun TT I really like him even though there is very little information about him, or his past. I hope someone writes fics about langjun please.

An opportunity to go off about Lang Junxia! Thank you, anon! =3=

When Feitian wrote our Langjun he left us a lot of blank spots — which means you're free to headcanon a lot of stuff. Here's what I am sure of (spoiler alert! and all that):

He was Prince Wuluohou Mu, of the Empire of Wuluohou, before it fell. (although Feitian seems to have made it more than a nomadic empire), which means he's probably one of the Shiwei people.

They fled into the Xianbei Mountains, and when he was 8 years old, a great battle (War of Chang Forest) between Yuan and Chen, and he was adopted by Li Xin of Tempered Sword Terrace (Li Xin was working for the general who led the attack in the Xianbei Mountains) as a disciple, and that's probably the man who named him "Lang Junxia".

BTW, according to the last book in the series, one half of the jade arc went to the Prince of Xianbei, to be kept for perpetuity and for there to always be peace between the two empires. So it may be possible that Langjun had that one half of the jade arc — which explains how Li Jianhong ended up with both of them. (It wouldn't make sense otherwise --- either Li Yanqiu or his dad should have been holding the other one) That's my headcanon anyway. It's unconfirmed.

He probably doesn't remember being a prince at all. He's a sentimental person, and his memories of being loved come from living in the Xianbei mountains.

He was engaged to someone before he was 8 years old, and she died during the Battle of Chang Forest; she was Mrs Feilian's daughter. Whenever he passes by the area, he would leave flowers on her grave, and they would be the rare kind of flowers that grow on a side of a cliff that is hard to get to without climbing.

Somewhere between the age of 8 and 18, Lang Junxia killed his adoptive father and his entire martial arts school and took the Qingfengjian to avenge his family.

His first meeting with Li Jianhong was likely an assassination attempt.

Somewhere around this time period, he saved Duan Xiaowan's life. They're very close, but it was only platonic. There's some fanon floating around that he was in love with her, but later extra hints that the one he was in love with was Li Jianhong.

The guy is TOUGH. Recall the Battle of Shangjing, for instance — after getting wounded during his fight with Xunchun, he chased down Helan Jie and chopped off his arm, and then searched all over the place killing Mongolian soldiers the whole way tracking down Duan Ling. During the battle of Tongguan, he was heavily wounded, poisoned, and then days later he's hopping all over the battlefield.

His love for Duan Ling has always been a combination of ruler/subject and father/son.

He's 19 years older than Duan Ling.

All four houses of White Tiger Hall was given a pill that can bring someone back from the verge of death. He gave his pill to Duan Ling the minute they met.

He lies often and expertly. This is a man who lived with an adoptive family for years and killed them overnight, probably in their sleep. He probably walked out of this not feeling like vengeance mean anything either, because for someone who's supposed to be a cold-blooded killer he gets attached real easily.

He can paint very well, and he has wonderful handwriting. He was educated like royalty.

He is very good with kids and can be very charming — notably, Yao Zheng would much rather go play with Lang Junxia than Wu Du.

He's also a very good flautist and this is def not just about being royal, bc Li Jianhong is AWFUL at it.

You can name more people Lang Junxia failed to kill than successfully killed in the book, see: Li Jianhong (3 attempts), Fei Hongde (1 attempt), Ding Zhi (almost slit her throat), Duan Ling ... (actually none at all but I'm sure you guessed that already)

So, traditionally, the two halves of the Li family jade arcs were kept by 1) the ruler 2) his guard. A tradition passed down from before the founding of the previous dynasty. In the case of Yingnu's Li Qingcheng and Zhang Mu, they were also lovers.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER alert: Lang Junxia will spend the last years of his life painting a fresco of Li Jianhong as the White Tiger constellation god with his hand outstretched, a jade arc in his palm. Make of that what you will.

[nicco-needs-love]

Oh boy. I did it. I wrote this damn thing. It's kinda long (5k) so I'm splitting it into three parts because that's how I wrote this fic. The full thing will be up on ao3 tomorrow because it's 6am :,) my ao3 is HoliGAY if you wanna see the whole thing because I'm gonna edit it and make it look pretty on there! :,,)))

TW//quick desc of gore, and romanticizing of marriage! The gore isn't in this chapter so no worries! I would say this chapter would be rated G!

This is only chapter one! I'm gonna post the other's tomorrow! Sorry for any errors! I didn't read it over!

(1/3) White Proposal

"Is it normal? Y'know… To fall in love with one of our Eves?"

"Do you really think that's a good question to ask me?! Hell, I've fallen in love with every damn one of them!"

Ildio shrugs, realizing that asking Hyde was not the smartest idea.

"Well? There's a reason you asked that. Catching feelings for your Eve?"

"Yeah, I wanna propose."

Hyde inhales his water, coughing everywhere; caught very off guard at Ildio's sentence. 

"Huh?!"

"It isn't that strange. Mother married one of her old eves. Double Doubt and his eve are engaged. You and yours?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But it's normal for us to fall for our eves! You, however, haven't done that once!"

"Well… Nicco's different."

Ildio looks away, thinking about the long haired guy he'd hopelessly fallen for. Ildio isn't sure about even asking Niccolò to marry him. They're dating, been dating for a few years. It's just there has never been a good instance of Servamps marrying their Eves. It's just a sad thing to think about. Servamps are immortal, they'll never die. Their Eves aren't. Ildio was never close to any of his previous Eves, he was one of the very few Servamps who has never fallen in love. Of course, that was until he met Niccolò. It was a curse until Ildio eventually gave up fighting off those butterflies he'd get when Nicco would smile. 

"Uh-huh… Okay. Do you actually wanna do it? Propose I mean. Think about it, would it work?  Sometimes I wanna propose to Licht but there's so many reasons I can't. Our schedules, his job, he's popular with "everyone" so I can't imagine the problems he would get if people found out he was married. Hell,I'm not sure Licht would even say yes."

"I'm just thinking about it, if I was gonna do it, it wouldn't be extravagant, we wouldn't even have to wear rings."

"Then what's the point? Could be the romanticism in me but, that's such a beautiful thing about marriage. Wearing rings? It's so romantic, the glimmer of each other's face reflecting on their wedding rings! Being able to see your love in a metal band on someone's finger is just a beautiful thing! I've been married a few times and wedding days are some of the best days of my life."

Ildio sighs, definitely regretting his decision of talking to Hyde about this. He definitely should have talked to Kuro instead, none of the theatrics or excessive romantic details. Honestly any of his siblings would have been better to talk to about this; except for Hugh. Hugh has always been against Servamps falling in love. Especially ever since the incident with Hyde many centuries ago. Then Jeje's past with the Alicen family. There have been many, many times Servamps have fallen in love. Every time they had talked about those things to Hugh, there would be a very long conversation about the problems with a romance like that. That's one of the reasons that Ildio has always been weary of the idea of love. In fact, he thought he would never fall for anyone. All his previous Eves were asses who would break Ildio's rules almost immediately. Yet again, Niccolò changed his mind on that.

"I'm gonna go, Law. I'm gonna think more about it."

"Mkay! Invite me to the wedding! I wanna see it!"

Ildio laughs aloud once, closing the door behind him. 

The thing is, Ildio already bought a ring for the proposal. It was an impulse buy, he was shopping for snacks and a bright ring caught his eye in a window. The ring is one of a kind, a gorgeous onyx black band, with a shining silver inlay. Apparently there was a second ring similar to that one, however it sold a while ago. Ildio knew immediately the ring would fit Nicco. Don't ask how he would know that, many hours watching Niccolò's hands move would certainly not be Ildio's answer. The ring, inside a white velvet box, feels heavy inside his pocket. He could propose, just give Nicco the ring and walk away. Although he knows there's no way he could do that. After all, the worst thing Niccolò could say is no, right?

"He's been gone for hours… Not so far that the distance effect would take in, but far enough that I can't find him."

Niccolò sighs, sinking down against the vinyl chair he's sitting in. A few hours ago, Ildio told him to meet him at this diner. Nicco didn't expect to be waiting for hours. It's not like he has anything to do today anyway. Besides the piles of phone calls he has to make with other bosses of families because there have been many issues in the workplace. Nicco puts his head down on the table, considering giving Ildio a call. Not because he's impatient, but starting to get worried.

"Hey, Nicco."

Niccolò opens his eyes and looks up, seeing Ildio. Nicco isn't sure when he took a nap, but he certainly did. Ildio looks nervous? Niccolò isn't sure why he would be, but he sits up, tapping the spot next to him on the seat for Ildio to sit down. 

"Hey… Sorry I fell asleep, I meant to call but, I fell asleep…"

Ildio doesn't say anything, just nods. It isn't rare for Ildio to not say anything. However, it is rare for Ildio to look this nervous. Or nervous at all. Nicco notices Ildio has his hand inside his jacket pocket, it looks like he's fidgeting with something? Or, it could just be Niccolò projecting. You see, something has been weighing on his mind for months; marriage. Niccolò knows that's the very last thing he should be thinking about. First of all, he's a mafia boss with many people who rely and count on him, he still has to prove he can be just as good as his father one day. Secondly, he would be married to a vampire, a Servamp. If Niccolò proposed, would Ildio even have a choice to say no? If that's the case, Nicco would never want to propose. Still, he bought a ring, specifically for Ildio. He was just window shopping for rings when he saw it. The ring is a shining silver that shines beautifully in the sun. Inside the ring is a deep black inlay, the ring is gorgeous. He sighed a sigh of relief looking closely at the ring, he knew it would fit Ildio perfectly.  Niccolò being the hopeless romantic he is, he got an engraving into the ring's inlay. 'Mio dio'. Translating to 'My God' in italian. It's a very cheesy thing that Niccolò thinks about a lot, he thinks of Ildio as his God. 

Nicco can't help but idly roll the black velvet box between his fingers. He bought the ring about two weeks ago, he's been thinking about the moment over and over. The imaginary proposal in his head. Niccolò honestly is far too shy to do something so forward. It's completely different to hold hands or soft kisses, this is marriage. 

"S-so uh...Why were you out for so long, Il? I was getting worried…"

"Just thinkin' about stuff."

Silence. Niccolò shifts in his seat uncomfortably, not too sure what to say. Ildio is thinking the exact same, he isn't sure which way to go about this.

"So uh-"

They both start talking at the same time. Meeting each other's eyes, Niccolò looks down first, a blush dusting his face. Ildio obviously takes notice of this, realizing that Nicco is more nervous than usual; which is hard to be. 

Ildio stands up, grabbing Nicco's hand and taking him out of the diner. In the corner of his eye, he can see many of the Carpe Diem members giving him a look of suspicion. 

Outside the diner, around seven feet away from the entrance, Ildio can't stop fiddling with the box in his pocket. Nicco isn't touching the box in his pocket, however, it feels like one-hundred tons weighing in on him.

Ildio inhales, getting a grip on the wedding ring. He's doing it; he's going to ask Niccolò to marry him.

Looking at Ildio, Nicco can see a look of determination? Seeing that makes Nicco want to propose. He reaches within his coat pocket, grabbing the white box.

"Niccolò."

Nicco stops in his tracks, the severe tone in Ildio's voice making him stop. Has he done something wrong? Does Ildio suddenly just want to turn their relationship into business only? Does he want to leave the business and have nothing to do with Nicco anymore? His hands turn clammy, swallowing down a lump of anxiety. 

"Y-yes?"

"I uh… Listen, augh- dammit."

Ildio's stuttering just makes Niccolò feel much more nervous. Thousands of different things race through Nicco's head. Thousands of negative things. He tries to brace himself for whatever words Ildio is going to say. Unfortunately, Nicco knows that if Ildio says anything negative, it will most likely break him.

"...I wanna marry you."

Ildio pulls out the white velvet box, opening it up to show the ring to Nicco. Part of him doesn't want to see Niccolò's reaction. He doesn't want him to say yes because Ildio doesn't want to get any closer to this anomaly. He also doesn't want Nicco to say no, because honestly… Ildio wants to marry Nicco. If Ildio's being completely honest with himself, he's hopelessly in love with the man before him.

Nicco gasps, audibly gasps, a… a proposal? He can't believe his eyes. The ring is absolutely stunning, it looks uncannily similar to the ring that Nicco bought for Ildio. He looks up to meet Ildio's eyes from the ring; it feels like hundreds of butterflies fly from his heart. Ildio's eyes are warm, soft. The breath leaves Nicco in a rush. Niccolò is sure Ildio is a literal god, not a vampire. 

"I- the funny thing is…uh…"

Niccolò pulls the open black velvet box from his coat, showing the ring to Ildio. Nicco turns his head away from Ildio, not wanting to see his expression.

Ildio blinks a few times, looking at the gorgeous ring in Nicco's hands. He can tell immediately that it's the opposite version of the ring he purchased a few nights ago. Looking closer, Ildio can see some italian engraved into the ring. Since Niccolò knows italian, Ildio was able to know it immediately when they made their contract. "Mio Dio". It's a term that Nicco would use very affectionately towards Ildio. A term that Ildio doesn't agree with, but hearing those words from Nicco is, ironically, heavenly. 

"Jesus Nicco… This is beautiful. So, I'm guessing it's a yes?"

Niccolò laughs, nodding. He pulls the ring out of it's black box, gently sliding it onto Ildio's finger. Ildio mimics the action, both of them wearing the ring the other chose.

Ildio grabs Niccolò's tie, tugging him into a gentle, loving kiss.

[sailormoonandme]

Why I think Sailor Moon lends itself so well to fanfiction

It’s no secret that there is a very active Sailor Moon fanficiton community.*

Whilst every fandom has its fanfic authors in my experience Sailor Moon fanfiction proportionally forms a far larger part of the fandom than in many other fandoms, the only exception I’ve encountered would be say Harry Potter. I do not for example find as many people posting or discussing fanfiction within Power Rangers, Lord of the Rings, Marvel, DC or Doctor Who circles.

Oh, there are plenty of people who talk about ideas and concepts they have. But there seem to be far fewer actually making stories themselves, or at least willing to post/share them, nor even discuss making them.

Why is this?

Well, I’m sure there is a discussion to be had regarding fanfiction, female authors, female audiences and obviously that’d tie into how Sailor Moon is primarily aimed at (and enjoyed by) a female audience.  

But I’ve not really researched that so I don’t feel confident enough to dive into it.

To me though, when we break down the nature of Sailor Moon’s story, I very much feel it practically encourages fanfiction and taps very directly into the sort of things fanfiction writers and readers seem to like.

One stereotype of fanfiction that, in my observations, is absolutely true is that there is A LOT of romantic and/or sexual content. In fact it’s an open secret that professional erotic fiction pales in comparison to the breadth, quantity and quality of fanfiction ‘smut’.**  

One might argue ANY story that features romance in it is therefore ‘encouraging’ such fanfiction. But the situation with Sailor Moon is a little different as romance is utterly baked into its foundation. The first story arc, initially intended as the entire story, revolves around Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask’s relationship. Between the manga and the anime the love life’s of almost every single major character is touched upon one way or the other. Minako’s affections for Allan. Rei’s disdain for men in the manga and romances with Mamoru and Yuichiro in the anime. Makoto’s sempai and her tragic string of men even vaguely similar to him. Ami and Ryo’s relationship in season 1 and her shyness about anything romantic thereafter. Even side characters like Reika, Motoki, Unazuki, Umino, Naru, Nephrite, Zoisite and Kunzite make their love lives at least discussed.  

Then of course you have Haruka and Michiru, who’s relationship also clearly hints that they’ve become physically intimate.  

Often with more sexually explicit fanfiction the authors are diving into parts of the characters’ lives rarely even discussed (if at all) in the original canon. Whilst Sailor Moon’s focus upon romance made sex a logical leap, the show plays a Hell of a lot with innuendo, symbolism and subtle hints to the point where it was giving fic authors plenty of ‘ammo’ to work with already.  

This of course extends into the realm of queer pairings. Another stereotype of fanfiction (and again, I’ve not really researched this so I dunno how true it is) is that they engage in romantic or sexual stories where the characters have a different sexualities from their (apparent) canon ones. Perhaps the most famous (infamous?) example is Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Between Haruka and Michiru, Mamoru and Fiore, Zoisite and Kunzite and implications a plenty in the manga and anime (especially under Ikuhara’s rule) writing the characters as interested in people other  than the opposite sex was a relatively easy and believable leap, hardly even breaking the verisimilitude of the canon.

Speaking of verisimilitude, Sailor Moon…didn’t make sense. I love it and adore it but we all know this is true. Even beyond the mindblowing miraculous magic it employed there was more than several instances where characters did not behave realistically or even consistently. Contradictions in the anime especially were rife.  

Regardless of what that does or doesn’t say about the canon, for the purposes of fanfiction, this is something of a boon. It enables all sorts of wacky riffs and directions that aren’t going to create too large of a cognitive dissonance for the writer nor the reader.  

Want to write a story that wouldn’t be realistic? So what? This was the story where the world almost ends but society is never fundamentally changed.  

Want to write a story with elements that’d be anachronistic So what? Our heroes were named after planets that didn’t get those names until thousands of years later.  

Want to do a story that unfortunately would contradict a canon fact or canon characterization?...Have you watched SuperS…?

The flipside to the messier parts of the canon is that it equally encouraged some authors to engage in fix fics, to address what they felt were problems with the characters and narratives.***

It’s very much a getting your cake and getting to eat it too situation!

Additionally, the ‘monster of the week’ format for the show enables all sorts of wacky riffs and spins to be imposed on the characters and narrative since these monsters each had their own gimmicks. Body swap characters? Make them shrink? Make them evil? Alternate Universe? Space travel?  

Ostensibly anything and everything is on the table for fic authors to work with, just as it was for the official creators of Sailor Moon.

Alongside the ‘monster of the week’ format, the innate concept for Sailor Moon encourages the creation of original characters. There is no end of stories about ‘Sailor Sun’ and ‘Sailor Earth’ of course. But since any planetoid, celestial body or what have you in theory could have a Guardian authors could go nuts, drawing upon real list astrology or simply invent their own planets for whatever story they are doing. So the story is ripe for world building and expansion!

However, things need not go to that scale. Sailor Moon, especially the anime, revolves around the everyday lives of teenaged characters. Their ages means authors have the opportunity to write the characters growing up or having grown up and take them in any direction they like and again not create too much of a cognitive dissonance with the canon. And they can do that by drawing upon their own life experiences fairly easily without having to consider what the first day of college might’ve been like for someone on Middle Earth or whatever.

Furthermore, because romance was baked into the story, there was a greater focus in the stories upon the characters internal thoughts and feelings. This wasn’t strictly about their romantic feelings, but my point is a good 2/3 of your average Sailor Moon episode will be taken up with slice of life stuff before the Senshi go into action.  

Why is this relevant? Because that kind of internal exploration lends itself far better to the prose format than action set pieces, especially action set pieces trying to emulate those of a visual format like a manga or an anime.  

All the above actively encourages the creation of fanfics but there is aso something deeper going on.  

After all, plenty of movies leave room for characters to be expanded. Plenty of manga offer opportunities for world building. Plenty of TV shows make the creation of original characters a synch. Plenty of comic books have contradictory continuity that warrants patching up. And romantic elements are present in the overwhelming majority of fiction, even fiction that isn’t predominantly about that.

What makes Sailor Moon a particular strong candidate for fanfiction though is that it has all those things whilst also having strong concepts, endearing characters and a rich mythology to hook people in the first place.

In other words, the fact that Sailor Moon was good made people love it. And that love I think is the essence of why they wanted to read and produce more  of it.

*For the purposes of this post you should understand that by ‘fanfiction’ I’m specifically referring to prose fanfiction, i.e. the stuff you’d find on FFN and predmonantly on Ao3. Obviously audio plays, comics, art, cosplay performances can all fall under the label of fanfiction to one extent or another. And in some cases these are far more prevalent than prose fanfiction.  

E.g. there is plenty of fan art in the Marvel fandom and there is a frightening amount of audio based Dr. Who fanfiction.

**Even I know that and I do not typically care for that type of stuff myself.  

***Or expand upon characters they felt there was more to do with. I know many people who feel that way about the manga versions of the villains and the Senshi (sans Usagi), the anime version of Mamoru and the supporting cast like Usagi parents.

[whenrockwasyoung19]

It’s Time to Talk about a Bespectacled Elephant in the Room

I’ve been in the Beatles fandom for 8 and a half years. I have had a Beatles blog for the entirety of those 8 and a half years, and I have watched as discourse about these four men evolve. The discourse inside and outside the fandom has become so toxic that I don’t think I can engage with it in the same way that I could before. Let me explain. 

When I entered this fandom 8 and a half years ago, it was in 2012, quite an infamous year in tumblr history. That was the pique of “”cringey”” fandom culture. The Beatles fandom was as steeped in fandom culture as any other fandom. I know this because I was part of two of the top of fandoms at the time, Doctor Who and Sherlock. Believe me, I have seen cringe. 

The fandom at the time was totally aware of the John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s flaws as individuals, but most fans tended to simply enjoy Beatles fandom as if it were the 60s. Some might call it ignorant bliss. If you asked me at the time, I’d have said it was self-aware ignorant bliss--if that even makes sense. At the time, there wasn’t a person with a Beatles icon who hadn’t heard the line “John Lennon beat his wife.” Everyone knew it, but everyone also knew the real story, and so everyone just made peace with it. As a result, people didn’t think about every bad thing the Beatles ever did on a daily basis. It was more like a once-a-month kind of thing. Otherwise, fandom discourse was quite fun and relaxed. There were no shipping wars, no one fought over who was the best Beatle, everyone gushed over the Beatles wives, and we all just had fun with fics and fan art. 

Of course, in this period, people engaged in conversations about one bespectacled Beatles problematic behavior. These conversations usually came from outside of the fandom. It was usually randos coming into the tags or into someone’s ask box and ranting about John Lennon’s violent behavior. Some of it came from within the fandom. Some people really didn’t like John and gave others shit if they listed John as their favorite Beatle. A lot of the discourse boiled down to: ‘hey, I see you like John Lennon. You should know that he beat his wife. And now that you know that, you should feel bad about ever liking him in the first place.’ And the response was often, ‘Actually, John Lennon didn’t beat his wife. They weren’t even married at the time. And also he didn’t beat her, he slapped her once in the face, and then never did it again.’ No one’s minds were changed. The fans had made their peace, and the antis came off as cynical and pretentious. 

When Dashcon happened, and Tumblr took a hard look at its cringey fandom culture, the Beatles fandom evolved as well. The fandom became, frankly, less fun. It no longer felt like a group of people who found the Beatles decades after the 60s and were fangirling like it was 1965. There was still some of that left, but a lot of it kind of faded. So, most fandom interactions were reblogging pictures of the Beatles from the 60s and various interview clips and quotes. But the barrage of antis never really went away, and the response didn’t evolve. 

Then, the advent of cancel culture came on. I always waited for the Beatles to get, like, officially canceled, but I also felt they were uncancel-able at the same time. Let me explain. I have been a Beatles fan primarily in an online space, rarely engaging with fans in real life. But I have met fans who are life-long Beatles fans, people who are a lot older than us and who’s fandom isn’t tied to the internet. They don’t give a shit about any of our discourse. They may or may not have heard it before, but they seem totally indifferent to all of it. I’m sure most of them have never heard ‘Mclennon’ before. These are the people that flock to see Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in concert (and pay astronomical prices for it). These are the people who go to record shops and buy vinyl. These are the people I run into at flea markets who buy up all the Beatles merch before I can even arrive (true story). So, the Beatles will never be canceled because there will always be people who love the Beatles and don’t engage with online discourse. Rarely said, but thank god for Gen-X. 

As cancel culture took over the internet, fandoms changed. It’s not as noticeable in fandoms without problematic favs. For instance, I’m also steeped in the Tom Holland fandom, and that boy is a little angel who has done no wrong. No one has discourse about the unproblematic boy who plays an equally unproblematic character. But in fandoms with ‘problematic favs’ the mood has shifted. I’m also in the Taron Egerton fandom. Taron Egerton, for those who only follow me for my Beatles stuff, is a genuinely sweet and kind person who has had zero scandals in his six year career. There were some rumblings when he was cast as Elton John, and some people took issue with the fact that he’s a straight man playing a gay man. This discourse seemed to die quickly as a whole lot of straight people played gay people in that same year (Olivia Coleman as queer Queen Anne, Emma Stone as her queer lover, Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury). Why jump on this boy who at the time was still technically on the rise. He’s not exactly the same target as someone like Scarlett Johansson who has her pick of roles. Taron doesn’t have quite that some power in Hollywood, and I think most people made peace with the fact that this was a big role for him, and it’s not really fair to take that away from him. So, all in all, the closest thing to a scandal was something that died pretty much on arrival. 

That was until this summer when everything changed. When George Floyd was murdered, celebrities flocked to social media to mourn his loss. Taron’s social media account was silent. For weeks, Taron said nothing about Black Lives Matter or Floyd’s death. This caused outrage in the fandom. Many raced to defend him, starting a hashtage #IstandwithTaron. Others sought to tear him down and anyone who supported him. The kind of mania this one incident caused tore through an otherwise peaceful fandom. What I saw was two sides in a total panic. The antis were people who once had faith that Taron was a good person and were now questioning that. Andthe defenders were people who desperately wanted him to be a good person and were afraid that he wasn’t. In essence, both sides could feel Taron about to get canceled. The defenders wanted to stop it, the antis wanted to ride that wave. 

What this long drawn out Taron example is meant to convey: is that cancel culture has put fandoms on edge. One’s fav has to be perfect, otherwise it can jeopardize the existence of the entire fandom. I’ll admit, I was afraid that I’d be some kind of pariah for standing by Taron through all of this. My actions were to basically reason with the antis but still defend Taron. I defend him mostly because I felt that his silence was the result of a needed social media absence and that trying to shame him back onto social media was an invasion of privacy. But I was genuinely afraid that he would get canceled, and the fun of the Taron fandom would be lost. 

In the Beatles fandom, it often feels like the Beatles, mainly John, have already been canceled. I see this coming from two different sources: antis from outside of the fandom and antis within the fandom. The outside antis are just the same as the ones from 2012. These are people who like to drop in that John Lennon beat his wife, posting this in the tag (which violates an ancient tumblr real by the way--no hate in the tags). 

The antis outside the fandom speak to a larger anti-John Lennon sentiment online. I see references to John Lennon ‘beating his wife’  on Tiktok and twitter. The tone of anti-John Lennon posts has shifted. Before, it felt like the antis were being smug but also argumentative. They wanted to have a conversation about this bit of info they read on Reddit with no context. Now, “John Lennon beating his wife” is practically a meme. It’s a running joke online that John Lennon was a wife beater. I can’t look on my instagram explore page because every so often a John Lennon beats his wife meme will pop up amongst the other, normal, memes.

This change in discourse suggests that the internet has just accepted this as fact now. I should note that back in 2012, it seemed as if few people knew this fact. The fandom knew it, and these random antis knew it, but few others did. Now, because of how common these memes are, it seems to be widespread knowledge.

Consequently, the Beatles fandom, who used to ward off attacks from antis, seems to have given in. I recently saw a post from a Beatles blog (had the URL and icon and everything) that confessed they felt guilty for listening to the Beatles, and I’ve seen similar sentiments expressed in the fandom. People tend to put disclaimers in posts about John or even all four that John is an ‘awful man.’ It seems like the self-aware ignorant bliss has completely gone away. Occasionally, I still see posts joyously talking about Mclennon or reblogs of old photos from the 60s. But the culture has shifted. 

Online, it no longer feels comfortable to be a Beatles fan. It feels like you have to own up to 8 decades of mistakes by four men you’ve never met. And, I should note, this is kind of how it feels to be a fan of anything right now. Taron is not canceled today, but he could be tomorrow. It’s this pervasive feeling of guilt that the person you’re supporting may or definitely has or is doing something wrong.

I’ll admit this uncomfortable feeling has expanded into other parts of my fandom life. I listen to their music, and I feel elated--the way I always have. Then, I get these intrusive thoughts which sound like all the worst parts of Twitter combined. It wasn’t always like this. Back in 2012, when I knew almost nothing about them, I saw them as four young men who were full of happiness, love for another, and talent. Back then, listening to their music was exciting and joyous. Sometimes, I fear that I can never feel that way again. Next year, when I finally go to Liverpool, will I be filled with excitement or guilt? 

I say all this for a few reasons. One, I love John Lennon. I appreciate all the good he did for the world not just as a musician and an artist but also his advocacy and charity work. I love him, and a part of me will always love him, but observing the change in discourse has enlightened me as a historian. Part of my job is to observe people’s legacies, and John’s is perhaps the most interesting legacy I’ve ever observed. When he died, he was hailed as a saint. But tall poppy syndrome set in, and the antis started. This culture grew and grew to the point where it seems to, at least among the younger generation, taken over the sainthood. 

But as a historian and a fan, I have never seen the saint or the devil. I’ve only seen the man, the incredibly flawed man. The thing that these antis never understand is that John Lennon was painfully aware of his own flaws to the point where it made him all the more self-destructive. In essence, his past mistakes caused him to make additional mistakes. But John, aware of his own flaws, always tried to change and was often successful. I’ve talked about this before, but John demonstrated that he was capable of being a good person, like properly so, again and again. After he struck Cynthia, he never hit her again. His shortcomings as a father to Julian weren’t repeated with Sean. He worked on his drinking, his drug addiction, and his anger, trying to overcome those demons till the day he died. By all accounts, the John Lennon that died in 1980 is not the John Lennon who struck Cynthia Powell at school. That John Lennon was living a cleaner, healthier life. He was a better father to both his sons by that point, and was trying to repair his relationship with Julian. He was a good husband to Yoko and saw himself living a long and happy life. 

John Lennon cannot and should not be boiled down to just his flaws. It’s one thing as a fan to acknowledge that John is a flawed human being (news flash: they all are), but he is also much bigger than that. 

So once again, why am I writing this long, rambling post, once again talking about John Lennon’s virtues? Because if I can’t engage with healthy discourse about the Beatles and John Lennon, then I can’t engage with discourse on the topic at all. So, I probably will post less Beatles stuff because I find it hard to go through the tags or even my dash (well, I can’t really go through my dash anymore for other reasons I’m not going to get into right now). If any of my followers have noticed a lot of Taron posts lately, it’s not just because I love Taron, it’s because Taron’s  tag is pretty much the only location on tumblr I feel 100% comfortable in. Any foray into John or the Beatles tags becomes uncomfortable and guilt-ridden quickly. 

So, I probably will post less about the Beatles until I can find a blog or a tag that doesn’t give me bad vibes. My fandom will likely outgrow tumblr and the internet. I have a ton of Beatles books; maybe I’ll rely on those. I am doing official scholarly research on them now. Maybe that will be my outlet. I’m sorry if I post less about them now, but it’s really for my own well-being. 

[a-charm-of-witches]

Andromeda, Aries and Lupus, please.

Andromeda - Describe your main characters

HMMMMMmmm well. I wanna save the big descriptions for the RO profiles, so let’s go with short descriptions this time.

RIVER: A punk rocker with a heart of gold who’s done a lot of work on their anger management issues.

VALENTINE: A cheerleader who tries really hard to pretend that nothing matters to make themselves feel better about the fact that they don’t matter. 

NATSUKI: A garden punk who learned a long time ago to stab first, question never, and always, always shield their heart.

HENRY: A older sibling (of way too damn many) who wears their heart on their sleeve because maybe then someone will acknowledge that there’s more to them than being their parents’ enforcer, or their siblings keeper. 

Aries - Share a line that you’re proud of!

This is already in the demo, but honestly, this moment:

"Werewolves?" I yelp, jerking backward and looking around immediately. "Don't worry, Kiddo," Alice says as she scoops up my bag and drags it inside for me. "They only bite if you ask real nice."

Lupus - Have you abandoned other WIPs? Tell us about some and why you abandoned them?

Oh lord. Well... that depends? Or maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better by pulling hairs. So here’s the thing. 

Do I have any abandoned IF WIPs? No. This is my first solo game attempt. I actually have a pretty decent track record for games, though part of that was writing for an actual game studio. Deadlines, producers, and paycheques make finishing a thing a lot easier. You aren’t allowed to “baby” the story as much as you might otherwise. 

That said... My WIP list is long when it comes to fanfiction, including more than a few abandoned WIPs, and I technically have two novels I keep pulling on and off the backburner. There was also one spectacularly failed web graphic novel from... holy crap, was that a decade ago? Maybe. So let’s talk about them.

(And I’m going to put everything past here under a cut because it’s long)

The graphic novel is probably the one I regret the most, and also the hardest to talk about so it’ll go first. It was called Wind Spirits, and if you google it (and actually manage to find it) be prepared for blood and nudity. While nothing in the comic itself was sexualized, it was a fantasy world based in a climate similar to African savannahs and the majority of the cast didn’t really do clothing. This turned out to be a mistake, to some degree. 

I briefly mentioned this in another ask, but along with the whole “I don’t know what attraction means to most people” thing, I also don’t and have never understood the concept of nudity as something that’s inherently sexual. People’s bodies don’t bother me one way or the other, and my training as an artist only emphasized this. So it never occurred to me that simply depicting characters in the nude, in a way that was clearly meant as naturalistic and non-sexualized, would garner a fair amount of “omg this is adult!!” reactions, as well as a LOT of unwanted sexual comments from viewers. Not until I started receiving intimate details of my viewers, uh, fantasy lives that I was in no way comfortable with. It wasn’t just comments, either, but seeing people sort the pages of my comic into “spank bank” folders on DeviantArt, submitting them to fetish groups, etc. 

Now, if I had been choosing to write something erotic, this wouldn’t have bothered me. I have since written soft core porn for a living, and have seen comments made about said writing without taking it in the same way. But context matters, right?

And for a little more context, it especially made me feel A Way because, well, the larger reason why I ultimately walked myself back from the project: 99.9% of the cast were black. Which isn’t a problem, in and of itself of course. It’s just that... 

I’m a white woman from the Southern USA. And while I deeply enjoy and love the world that I built for Wind Spirits (one that I’d been designing since I was about fourteen), well, mistakes were made. It wasn’t just the weird optics of being a white woman drawing a bunch of naked black characters, which I only really became aware of during the process, but also some deeply rooted racist beliefs I’d been holding onto that I hadn’t worked through, and hadn’t begun to even recognize as a problem until I was partway into the thing.

It was when I started learning about and unpacking these things that I realized I couldn’t keep moving forward with Wind Spirits as it was. Keep in mind, this was around ten years ago. I didn’t know about, and hadn’t worked through, even half as much as I have now, and couldn’t begin to fathom how to fix the problem. So while I don’t believe I publicly posted anything that was terribly racist on the face of things (at least, no one has ever called me out on it, if I did,) I knew the direction the project was heading at the time, and that it was a message I no longer agreed with, or felt comfortable putting out into the world. 

There’s a tiny possibility that I could salvage it one day, rework it into something better. In fact, I’ve toyed with quite a few outlines of story directions that would do that, but I’m not sure it’s actually going to happen. There’s just too much history there, for me.

... 

OK, so on a less heavy note, the other big issue with abandoned WIPs are fanfiction stuff. Those are my biggest downfall by far, but a lot of it has to do with... I tend to write really heavy AUs that don’t get a lot of traction in the fandoms they’re for, probably because they’re heavy AUs. (or just not that good.) I might hyperfixate on a fic for months, but ultimately drop the ball because life threw too much at me at once and, hell, it’s not like there was anyone engaging with the fic, anyway. 

Or, in the incredibly rare instance there were people commenting regularly, it just has to do with time and with the feeling that I’d rather be making this into something that’s mine, and mine alone. That I’m wasting really great original fic ideas by making them AUs of a property they don’t resemble in the least anymore (another reason why they don’t get much traction.) 

So yeah. If y’all’d like to hear more about the two original novels I have on the burner I can also go into that. This just seems like it’s really long already, and I kind of feel like I just wrote a callout post for myself, so. Yeah. 

[bigskydreaming]

I was about to say, I can't see Jason letting his guard down as much as intoxication would. I CAN see Jason drinking apple juice and pretending to be drunk. (Funny how I can remember Dick drinking, never more than one or two drinks, and Jason refusing wine, but the fanfic writers get it al wrong.)

Yeah, tbh, I don’t really see any of the Batkids ever being or becoming even casual drinkers. They all value control too much, and have too much experience with mind and mood-altering substances for it to be appealing to them in my personal opinion. 

Just my personal headcanon is like, they tend to treat drinking as like, another skill to acquire. They try it to maybe just have enough experience with it that they can fake it undercover and know what they’re doing, or that if they end up in a situation where they have to take at least a quick drink to sell their cover like, they’re not going to be totally blind-sided by the taste or sensation, especially because most of their reputations don’t or aren’t likely to lend themselves to being completely unfamiliar with alcohol. And maybe they occasionally make an point to build up a tolerance in case for some reason they need it, but I honestly can’t really ever buy any of them as casual drinkers.

I mean, I focus a lot on Dick’s times brainwashed or under someone else’s control, and also his rigid insistence on self-determination in his life, and I just can’t honestly see any mindset where he’s like yes, lowering my inhibitions and lessening my ability to be in control of myself is exactly what I’m looking for. Its kinda like how I drastically disagree with takes on him as submissive in any kind of dom/sub fic, lol. Its not about the partner, its about the fact that Dick isn’t the kind of control freak who looks for opportunities to take a break from the stresses of holding such an iron control over his self.....rather, IMO, Dick is that way BECAUSE of how often he’s had virtually NO control of himself or what happens to him, and how much that always....sucks for him. 

He tries to maintain self-control and control stuff in his life wherever and whenever he can because he’s not about to lose any of the basically rare opportunities to not HAVE to push back against someone else’s will or expectations for him, where he can just be uncontested in being in charge of his autonomy and own destiny. And I honestly have never seen anything in his character that suggests he’d ever remotely be looking for or welcome to opportunities to basically just....willingly hand over the control of himself that he fights soooo damn hard to obtain and maintain....because when has that EVER ended well for him, you know? So I just....don’t buy sub Dick and never have, and I don’t buy Dick as a casual drinker even, for pretty much the same exact reasons.

Jason I see as a bit more complicated, because of a couple factors. First, there’s the presence of drugs and alcohol in his early life and how much that affected his life as just a bystander, essentially. And its not like every child of an alcoholic parent grows up to be hostile to alcohol, etc. But in Jason’s case I feel that he would be, like he’d almost personify drugs and alcohols as an actual antagonist in his life that have made him suffer, been the actual enemy that prevented him from having a real go at a family with his first parents. And thus he’d just be viciously opposed to them in their entirety, like even as a expansive, nebulous concept of them and everything related to them. Which would also play into things like his insistence that drug dealers in Gotham not sell to kids, etc.

Also, there’s the fact that Jason kinda ended up with....gap years in his development, where the normal linear timeline of developing as a teenager was derailed by his death and then supplanted by a very unorthodox later development that was guided by assassins and influenced by an external-turned-internal force that had a definite influence on his emotions and thought patterns at times. So Jason kinda missed out on a number of years where he could have potentially worked through a lot of his childhood issues with abuse, his parents and drugs and alcohol to a degree further than he did in canon, but just......never got the opportunity to. So it was like....hitting pause on all of that and then unpause when he actually came back to Gotham and rejoined society in his own way, as that put him around these kinds of things again and forced an internal confrontation with how he felt about them now.

And then there’s also the matter of the Pit itself.....much like Dick, but in entirely different ways, Jason has been extremely impacted by things that are not his fault or choosing, that originate OUTSIDE of him and end up controlling or influencing him internally, again through no choice of his own.....and thus, same as Dick, I don’t see how any substance that lessened his control over himself during the times he actually HAS it, would like....remotely appeal to him.

But then again on the other hand, I do think Jason is very self-destructive at times, not more so than Dick, as he can be very self-destructive as well, but just in different ways. Like, Dick IMO is someone who self-destructs quietly and over time. Suffering in silence, not availing himself of any of the opportunities he has to get help from others in various matters because he either doesn’t trust that they’ll prioritize him or he doesn’t feel that he deserves to be, or a combination of both. Jason, IMO, is neither innately more self-destructive or less, its just that....his tendency towards self-destruction manifests pretty explosively, like, in singular burning bright kind of instances that flare up, are just colossally bad decisions that he very quickly regrets, but then die back down and leave him cleaning up the aftermath, but at least having gotten whatever caused that particular turn towards self-destruction like, kinda out of his system.

So his means of self-destruction tend to just be LOUDER, and more.....in your face...but they also come and go more quickly, IMO. And one of those are pretty much the only time or reason I can see for him ever engaging in drinking or voluntarily giving up control.....like, the appeal specifically is a kind of self-punishment, and thus makes for an ideal weapon of choice at least once.....BUT again, the caveat there is like I said, I view Jason as someone who cycles through periods of self-destruction, but then he like...moves past it (or at least on a surface level, like, he FEELS like he has, though the initial problem often stil remains under the surface). But the point is, I think he regrets these instances of self-destruction soon after they happen....and I also think he’s someone who believes very strongly in not making the same mistakes twice. 

Like, he knows not to take things for granted better than anyone. Shit doesn’t go according to plan, my personal headcanon for him is his ideal followup is the immediate realization well, that didn’t work, time for something completely different....and then he does something completely different in the hopes of getting closer to his actual desired result. So I could see him doing something like getting black out drunk, etc, as one of these bouts of self-destruction....but the key in my mind, is I could only see him doing that ONCE. Once he’d done it and regretted it, it’d be crystallized in his mind as a Mistake and like, nope, not doing that again. Even when having another tendency towards self-destruction at a later date....I think he’d do it in a different way.

Also, I’ve never bought Jason as a smoker, like, I could see him faking it for The Mood or whatever, lol, but like.......this is a kid who grew up malnourished and thus had to take on criminals as a very under-sized Robin. He comes back after the Pit like, over six feet tall and well-oiled muscle that makes it SO much easier to kick ass as a vigilante? Why the FUCK would he ever screw that up by messing with his lungs or anything else, you know? If anything, I see Jason as being like, as much a ‘my body is my temple’ kind of guy as Dick is, just for different reasons.

I’ve always said I see Dick and Jason having a lot more in common than they’re usually credited with, and all of this is a huge part of why. They both just have HUGE issues with control in regards to themselves and their lives, and just being able to HAVE it and to take advantage of it, do what THEY want to do rather than constantly being moved about by the whims of others and having to always adjust or adapt to whatever everyone else was doing or the box they were being forced in by situations, etc. They’ve BEEN without control, self-autonomy, in ways and to degrees most people couldn’t imagine, so, like....its IMO more likely to be that much more precious and valuable to them than it is even to most people? Like, these are two men who I don’t see ever giving it up without a fight, and thus, they’re just like.....I’m gonna hard pass on the alcohol, etc.

And its got nothing to do with judgment on their part, I don’t think, like, other than the fact that they can’t personally relate to seeing the appeal. Its just the end result of lowered inhibitions/loss of self control or autonomy that they’re like...yeah, that’s what we’re not on board with, thanks but no thanks. Not for us.

I don’t have as strong of headcanons about the other kids just because they’re either too young or it just doesn’t come up as much, such as with Cass (though you can probably guess my headcanon for Cass there given that I talk about the similarities ALL three of the eldest Wayne kids share in a lot of ways, lol) but honestly I think it’d be more of the same with all of them, even if not always for quite the same reasons or quite as strong of reasons. Like, they’ve all been raised with too much reason to value self-control and too little cause to see lowered inhibitions as appealing, so the Batfam as a whole I personally headcanon as being nah, we get our highs from adrenaline and being weird as fuck, thanks though.

[andyouknowitis]

“The Fandom Funundrum” in other words you don’t want to feel guilty for every advantage Harry’s been given. Noted! Keep pretending to care about Louis, you’re doing great sweetie!

This arrived in my inbox a week or so ago at the end of a very long, shitty fourteen hour day. 

Right then I was already dealing with the sudden loss of my uncle, who I’d just handmade a wreath for, as well as coming to terms with the fact that while I love my job, I will soon haveto leave it, and move, as all manner of things that have served to make it impossible for me to survive as a freelancer in this economic climate. 

I’ve discussed here, in painful detail, some of the otherthings I’ve had to work through in recent years, ever a work inprogress. I don’t know if I’m a good or bad person. 

But I’m a person. A real person. And I deserve better than this at the end of a really bad day, not least when I come to one of the places where I find comfort in small things and bright people that interest me and make me smile.

Louis is one of those people. 

One of the most important to me, as it happens.

I am not the blog for you. And certainly not with an action such as this one.

My crime, apparently was to post this, a reblog of something that I wrote a while ago as a general nod to being chastised for daring to enjoy one thing when another very bad thing was happening. 

It was not fully specific to any fandom or person when I wrote it, other than suffice to say, after many years online I’ve learned that fandom gatekeeping is a form of bullying and I have little patience left for it.

A cursory glance around my mess of a blog will show anyone who cares to look that while I do blog very much a lot about 1D, I am actually a multi-fandom blog. 

More specifically I am a ME blog. 

Hell my url is a Snow Patrol lyric and no-one ever gets it. Here I lay things I like, love, find interesting, think important, and want to share. 

A wallpaper made up of my mind, a patchwork comprised of things that for me, helps me make art and help people. 

In this instance anotherfandom I’m part of (shout out to my Emmerdale sheepy peeps) were arguing heatedly about something, which essentially boiled down to how can you enjoy x when y is happening etc. etc. While I do have a sideblog for in-depth stuff, mostpeople follow me on my main so I posted it here too.

And yes, after several years here, and online in general, I do get tired of seeing discourse after discourse that I’ve probably already discussed in detail in the past, as well as fandom infighting that only serves the money men and none of us. 

And certainly not Louis, or any of the 1D boys (they will be the boys to me even when they’re in their 80s shush). Something Iactually wrote about here, as relates to the 1D fandom, in the early summer of 2015, unknowing that the worst was yet to come, but knowing even then that I was tired of all the ways we had been fractured and used. 

People will forever be divided and conquered. I haveno wish to be another perpetual pawn in this tired game.

I very rarely publish asks I receive, either because I speak with people via message if something bears further discussion if they’re off anon, or because some things are just not worth the time and energy it takes to answer them. 

Some people don’t want to listen, only to be heard. Time is aprecious commodity that I have little of. 

When I do have free fandom time I like to spend it responding to interesting asks, writing fic when I’m able, making fan edits (mostly of Louis as it happens), working my way through the Womens and Equalities Committee findings on NDAs which I think may be pertinent (the inquiry is still ongoing), live blogging, and curating a peaceful space for when I need it.

And sometimes like this time, I engage.

The last time I took the time to answer something like this was actually also about Louis. I stood accused of infantilising Louis because I wrote a single tagline on a post I had made about wanting to give him a hug.

The time before that I was, conversely to the latest offering, apparently the devil for daring to hope that Louis would soon have more visible and tangible support from people in the industry. 

For a post I wrote THREE years ago almost to the day, and still stand by. 

I support him. I don’t have to meet anyone else’s standards of how to do that.

Something I really had to learn in therapy a couple of years ago was that it’s okay to get angry. It’s something I struggle with and fear somewhat. But I have learned. Sometimes it’s okay to get angry. 

And this is one of those times.

I am angry that a stranger, or perhaps even worse, someone who otherwise follows/followed me and should know at least a modicum of my character, would fucking dare to tell me, after all I’ve said and done, that I don’t care about Louis. 

Louis, who I care about most of all in this entire shitshow. 

Louis, who I care about so much, that the top thing my fandom friends will attest I whine about most is having to see Harry blogs on my dash that I know have said incredibly vile things about him.

I don’t know Louis. Nor may I hazard, do you, coward in my inbox. I’ll likely never meet him and I acknowledge that my perceptions of him are coloured by time, life experience, and an understanding of parasocial relationships. 

But I would hope I know of him well enough to feel that he’d agree if you’ve got something to say then a) have the balls tosay it to someone’s face (privately if not in public), and b) theprecise opposite of ‘let’s make someone happy today’ (his ownpractice when he has a shit day like the one I had), is to makesomeone unhappy like you have set out to do here.

I don’t know Louis. But I know enough to know that he’s important to me and why. 

Why above and beyond anything else he’s the reason why eight years ago I kept watching a show I had long before lost interest in. 

Why I voted every single week. 

Why he was the first person I took a photo of on TMH tour when I could finally afford to see them. 

Why I waited hours in relentless sun in a different country just so I could be at the barrier when he sang Moments right in front of me during WWA. 

Why I kept coming back after grief and loss in mypersonal life turned me inside out, time and time again. 

Why I stood in Sheffield on the final night of OTRA tour when my heart was numb to almost anything that could reach it. 

Why I met people who changed my life just by being in it.

The music is important to me, OT5 is important to me, but Louis, above all Louis is important to me. Louis is why I stayed when I wanted to go. Louis. Louis and friends that I’ve made here, who know me better than you ever will.

So please, if you haven’t already, please block me and neverinteract with me again. I don’t want to know. 

If anyone else reading this happens to feel the same about me, unfollow me now. 

I follow and sometimes interact with some people I don’t necessarily agree with, primarily because I like to be open to different aspects of discussion, and to not exist within a fandom vacuum. 

But I don’t tolerate vitriolic bad mouthing of any of the boys. And I will not interact with people who try to hurt me. 

Much less with someone who attempts to do it anonymously. The sad thing is you’re so very, very visible for what you are.

I am not the blog for you. 

You know why? 

Because I’m the blog for me. And you will not makeme feel bad about that, or about myself. Least of all about caring for Louis. Not now, not ever.

Oh and Sweetie? All the links are clickable. I have been here. I will be here. I am here. And there’s nothing you can do to change it. Knock yourself out. 

[destinationtoast]

Some notes on my fandom stats.

I sometimes get questions or criticism regarding my fandom stats.  (I welcome both.)  Sometimes critics have missed something that I clearly stated in the post, but often, criticism indicates that I could be doing a better job explaining something.  So this is an attempt to explain what fandom data can and can’t show, where I’m personally coming from, and what I’m intending my analyses to do.

This is a v1 attempt -- please give feedback about where I can further clarify! I'll be continuing to revise and update based on responses, so please click through to the original post.  

The most common critiques I get fall into a few broad categories:

Incorrect or misleading. Some of my methods/stats/visualizations are wrong, misleading, or don’t match up with someone’s personal experience.  (See “My goals,” “The limitations of my ability to issue corrections,” and “How you can help with limitations in existing analyses”)

Wrong focus. I don’t do enough stats about some important topics -- e.g., race. (See “The limitations of my methods” and “How you can help with limitations in existing analyses”)

Not representative. I’m overgeneralizing about fandom and misrepresenting fans by only looking at certain fanworks or by failing to give important context.  (See “The limitations of focusing primarily on AO3”)

Overly authoritative. I’m speaking as an authority on fandom and acting as if my stats are The Truth. (See “My goals” and “What fandom stats can and can’t tell us”)

Agenda-driven. I’m using stats to try to justify fandom practices that some people disagree with, such as creating fanworks primarily about men or white characters -- or else I’m using stats to harangue fans into behaving differently, e.g. leaving more comments on fic. (See “The Toast agenda”)

I’ll try to explain where I’m coming from and address some of the most common criticisms here, but if you have more questions or concerns, please pass them along.

My goals

My fandom analysis posts are intended as fanworks -- by a fan, for other fans.  Meaning that:

I’m assuming the audience has personal experience in fandom and goodwill toward fans.  

While I sometimes have beta readers, these are imperfect works, put together in my spare time.

These are shared out of love for fandom and other fans, and because I think other fans will be interested, rather than to further my career.

As some possibly useful context, I didn’t even mean to end up making a bunch of fandom stats posts in the first place. But when I was curious about fanworks and made a few graphs mostly for myself, other fans turned out to be really interested.  So I’ve kept on sharing what I’ve learned as I’ve continued to be curious.  And I started a dedicated stats sideblog because some fans who aren't interested in the other content on my main blog asked me to.

I do the best I can to be accurate and clear in my fandom stats posts.  But I sometimes make errors in analysis, gather unrepresentative data, fail to give context, present something unclearly, etc.  I really appreciate feedback from people who want to engage in thoughtful critique or ask questions when they spot issues with my work. It’s my goal to always update & correct/clarify my posts as I continue to learn more.

I don’t have plans to publish any of my work for a broader audience, or an academic audience. I have a separate career that doesn’t have to do with fan studies, and I do this for fun in my spare time… I think trying to rewrite for a different audience and publish things via official channels would sap a lot of my desire to do it.  When I’ve shared things at cons, they’ve been fan conventions, not academic conferences, and I’ve been there because fans expressed interest in hearing me talk about some of my stuff.

(Note: this doesn’t mean I don’t think fandom analysis can be worth publishing, or worth having a career in!  And I’m happy to share data and methodology with academics or other interested parties, and to have them redo the analyses/do similar analyses & present the results to other audiences.)

It’s possible I sometimes sound like I’m writing/speaking as An Authority On Fandom, but that’s not my intent. In fact, in fandom I rarely feel like an expert -- because I haven’t actually been active in the online fannish community for all that long, and I only have personal experience with a pretty narrow range of fandoms, fannish platforms, and fannish experiences.  I strongly value hearing the experiences and opinions of other fans.  

The limitations of my methods

I tend to do analyses of fanworks only, and I analyze aggregate metadata (e.g., number of uses of tags) about large amounts of fanworks at once (thousands or millions of works).  That means I’m not looking at any individual works.  Those are good techniques for answering questions like:

Which ratings are most common on AO3?

Which are the most common fandoms, characters, or ships?

How has that changed over time?

How many kudos do different AO3 tags get?

What are the most popular genres on Fanfiction.net?

Sometimes I also compare data between archives (AO3, FFN, Wattpad), or look at fandom tagging activity on sites like Tumblr or DeviantART.  And occasionally I get access to a bunch of data taken from a site like IMDB and incorporate that, as well.

These methods/data sets have limitations:

I haven’t hand-categorized the data.  There may be errors.

I’m relying on other people to tell me what’s in their fanworks, so anything that’s not in the tags, my methods don’t catch.  

Different people sometimes use the same tags differently, and I usually can’t detect that, either.  I assume that this usually just adds noise to my large data sets, but I also try to think about any systematic biases that might be introduced and to highlight them in my writeups.

I can’t add new information, like a character’s race, country of origin, canonical (a)sexuality when known, etc.  Neither AO3 nor FFN specify these attributes (although fans can and do sometimes create tags like “Canon Character of Color” or “Canon Asexual Character,” so to the extent that fans widely use these tags, I can do analyses).  I would really love to have data about race and other factors not in the tags; if you have ideas how to get it, I'd be grateful.

I can’t answer anything about the creators of the fanworks (e.g., demographics).

These are the methods that I am personally best equipped to do (in terms of tools, skills, experience).  I’ve enjoyed learning some new methods as part of doing these posts, but I’m definitely not good at everything.  So when my methods can’t provide the right data for someone’s question, it doesn’t mean the question is unanswerable, but I might not be the best person to answer the question.  See “How you can help with limitations in existing analyses” for more information.

The limitations of focusing mostly on AO3

I use AO3 a lot because:

it has the most flexible and best organized tagging system

it's easiest to search, sort, and filter

it already gives you a bunch of stats in the Sort & Filter sidebar, whenever you select a particular tag or combination of tags

I have now written a bunch of scripts to help me quickly get data from AO3

I have the best intuitions about AO3, because I use it the most, so I can do a better job catching errors in my work there

That doesn’t mean I think AO3 contains all fanworks or is representative of all fandom/fanworks.  It’s only one home of many for fanworks, and it’s got a lot of unusual characteristics.  For instance, because it was founded to provide a home to works that were considered sensitive or banned on other archives (explicit works, RPF, slash, etc.), it tends to have more of these kinds of works than many archives.  Initially, I didn’t tend to point this out and overgeneralized about fanworks from AO3.  These days I try to point out the limitations in generalizing.  (Though I do still find it interesting to learn about AO3 as an archive!)

The limitations of my ability to issue corrections

One good aspect of Tumblr is the way that it can reach broad audiences beyond one’s immediate followers.  However, the same easy reblogging that leads to this broad circulation comes with frustrations.  Even if I update the original post with corrections or clarifications, the old version of the post often continues to circulate.  Another difficulty is that not everyone sees the same conversation thread, so I often end up responding to the same concerns from a whole bunch of different people who aren’t seeing my response to others in different reblog branches.

There’s not that much to be done about this, but readers might want to keep in mind that what they see cross their dash is often not the latest version.   You can usually find my latest updates by clicking through to the original post.

How you can help with limitations in existing analyses

I wish I could do more stats about understudied topics like race in fanworks using my methods, and I wish others were studying these topics more, too. Fortunately, my methods are not the only methods, and I am not the only one doing analyses.  As one great example, if you are interested in how race factors into fandom demographics or into shipping, I strongly recommend @centrumlumina​ . They’ve done a demographics survey of 10K AO3 users and annual stats about the most common ships on AO3 (with hand-categorization of race).

There are many other great fandom stats folks as well (I’ve amassed an incomplete list).  If none of us have answered the questions you are interested in, I encourage you to try to answer questions yourself!  A lot of what I do is not actually very complicated (seriously, a lot of it is just doing a search on AO3 and writing down the number of results, or clicking on a tag and writing down the number of results) -- and there are some fan-made tools to help.

As one starting point, I recommend taking a look at the tools at fandomstats.org. I collaborated with @annathecrow​ and @esgibter​ to help fans do some types of quick stats -- right now only on AO3, but we welcome help broadening that!  I’ve also written some tutorials on gathering data, and as part of my fandom stats posts I generally share my raw data, which you are free to use to dig into my work further/continue the effort.

Time permitting, I am also happy to answer questions and help you brainstorm how to do your own analyses.  

What fandom stats can and can’t tell us

I don't think my fandom stats tell deep truths about fandom. They can provide some insights into some aspects of fanworks: what kinds of fanworks exist on different platforms; how fans are using metadata (tags, etc.); how reader/consumer response to fanworks; etc. But trying to figure out what exactly that data means, and why fans are producing/consuming the things they are, is beyond the scope of the numbers.  So is determining the direction of cause and effect between variables that seem related (and ascertaining whether there are hidden underlying causes).

It’s additionally important to keep in mind that the results of fandom stats depend on the questions asked and the types of analyses done. There isn't any one right way to analyze data (there are sometimes bad ways to do it, but often several good ways). Different ways of looking at data tell you different things.  Even a good analyst can only see part of the story, depending on what they think to ask, and how.  My goals are to clearly explain my thought processes and methods in gathering data, doing analyses, and presenting the results -- in large part so other people can spot potential issues with my assumptions and methods.  I always welcome suggestions for follow up work or clarifications, when people think there is more to the story.

A final point: I don’t ascribe any moral judgments to my fandom stats -- that is, I don't intend to imply any opinions about whether fans are doing good or bad things. You can form your own opinions from the numbers, or use them to support arguments.  But I try to keep any opinions or judgments out of my stats posts (though I may sometimes share them in other meta).

The Toast agenda

I’m not setting out to prove anything when I do an analysis -- I’m motivated by curiosity (or sometimes a desire to help other fans answer questions or find rarer fanworks).  I’m also never setting out to justify (or argue against) any fan behaviors.  As I said above, I don’t think fandom stats data can answer questions like “Is it right/good for fans to do [X]?”

A few of my personal tenets regarding data and its role in discourse:

The answer to almost every interesting question about fandom (or any complex system) is “It’s complicated/nuanced, and the answer depends on the details of how you ask the question.”  I try to explain my starting assumptions and to map out some of the complexity of the data, where I can. There’s always more to the story, though.

There are many reasons that groups of people do things.  We shouldn’t ever look for just one reason.  I don’t like questions like, “Is there so much fanfic written about white cis men because of bias in media or bias in fandom?” -- I don’t think it’s an either/or, nor are those the only possible factors.  My own data gathering is not an attempt to support either side of such arguments.

For example, there are strong systemic biases in my society (US) based on race, gender, sexuality, class, size, ability, and other factors.  This leads to, among other things, a lack of balanced representation in media, and a tendency to privilege certain kinds of storytelling narratives over others.  Both media creators and fan creators (and fan consumers) exist in this same stew of biases, and we're all affected by them. This makes it unlikely that only one of these groups is responsible for phenomena like lack of representation in fanworks.

Data is good food for thought and discussion fodder, but can't tell us what to do.

It’s also the case that I have opinions about lots of things.  Nobody is truly impartial.  When I set out to gather data and test hypotheses, I try not to let my own beliefs or assumptions bias my conclusions, and I am often surprised by what I find in the data -- but it’s unavoidable that my own worldview influences the questions I think to ask and other factors in the analyses I do.  

A few facts that may affect my methods, assumptions, and blind spots:

I’m white.

I’m a cis woman.

I’m queer, and I have identified as queer/bisexual for my entire adult life (~20 years).

I’m poly, and I have been in poly relationships for almost my entire adult life.

I live in the US.

I’ve always lived in suburbs or cities.

I’ve always been financially secure.

I’m not religious or spiritual.

I’m liberal to extremely liberal on most political issues.

I have academic background in science.

I work in tech.

As an adult, I’ve mostly been active in the Sherlock fandom, since 2013.  I previously read some fanfic in the Harry Potter fandom in ~2005-2008.  When I was a teen (mostly pre-internet), I was producing fanfic and fanart (for just me and my friends) in the Star Trek and Peter Gabriel/Genesis fandoms.

I write queer fiction of many stripes -- fanfic (mostly M/M and/or queer poly) and original (mostly F/F and/or queer poly).  A lot of it is mature or explicit, and occasionally kinky.

I write het.

I write gen.

I’ve written RPF and self-insert stories.

I love a lot of problematic media.  I’m happy both loving it and critiquing it.

I’m in favor of more people (and more diverse people) writing stories, and I’m fine with people writing any kind of fiction that they want to.  I’m also in favor of having critical discussions about storytelling, and getting creators to think critically about the kinds of stories they are and are not contributing to the world.

Whew -- thanks for reading! :)  Another fact about me is that I’m strongly in favor of self-examination and self-improvement.  I’m always striving to do better, and I welcome feedback on my fandom stats, on these notes, or on anything else.

Edit: Thanks to @flourish and @fffinnagain for some insightful feedback on earlier drafts of some sections of this post.  All errors and issues are mine!

[bigskydreaming]

What defects do you like dick have I mean, i think this kind of things make characthers more enjoyable, more human, and i'm pretty tired of people saying "oh but dc makes Dick perfect, we don't like him" he has a lot of bad behaviors that are interesting, which one do you like/enjoy the most?

Eh, to be honest, I think fandom tends to go overboard in seeking out Dick’s flaws, and despite the claims of him being too perfect, IMO he often ends up harpooned for a lot of shit nobody thinks twice about other characters doing, so I’m not really looking for reasons to go raising character flaws, lol. Tbh most of my meta is about pointing out where I personally feel there are a lot of double standards applied to him, etc..

Like, the thing is, yes every character should have flaws, be well-rounded, nobody’s perfect.....but to me, its always been kinda bizarre that people go searching for Dick’s defects in order to kinda, justify liking him, when....who else does anyone do that for, you know? I mean, I can’t remember the last time I heard of someone making a point to raise the things they think are flaws of Tim’s, before writing a Tim-centric story, same with Jason, pretty much anyone else. 

Its not that they don’t necessarily ever have flaws even in stories that are primarily focused on them, its that in my experience, most fans don’t really take that approach to writing stuff about their favorite characters? Like, “what is the most imperfect behavior of my fave character” isn’t typically most peoples’ starting point with a fic. If it ends up in their writing of the character, it often does so just....in an organic way, its natural to the character or it isn’t, I’ve rarely seen a ton of people focus on things from the angle of being like....okay, let me go make a point to track down a flaw and shove it in there.

Personally, I don’t think I write Dick as being perfect or inhumanly flawless, but I don’t make any real effort to write him as being flawed either, he’s just.....human, the same as I approach any character. He gets angry, he can be bitter or resentful about being taken for granted, he can hold a grudge about something someone did and never apologized to him for, or be insulting to someone or irritated about being insulted......and all of that makes him like, not an unreal, heaven-sent angel of perfect harmony and bliss, lol, but at the same time, there’s nothing there that I would actually call a flaw, you know? Its just.....someone being human and having normal human emotions same as anyone else. If he were doing those things all the time, then yes, certainly, a lot of that becomes an actual flaw pretty quickly if its 24/7 behavior, but I don’t feel any of it really is, none of that I think describes him in ways or to degrees that don’t describe other characters more accurately.

So yeah, I just can’t think of having ever felt a need or desire to focus on his flaws or defects. *Shrugs* Its just....not really the approach I take to any character I prioritize. Its not like I do it any differently with Jason, etc.....I like characters because of the good qualities about them that appeal to me. I’m not like, opposed to them having flaws, I just.....flaws just don’t....cross my mind as a thing to celebrate any of my faves for, y’know? They’re not a reason for me  to not to like them, obviously, given that they’re still faves, but they’re not what I’m seeking them out and following their adventures for either.

LOL idk, sorry, this just isn’t a question I find myself needing to ask or answer, ultimately. Focusing on Dick’s flaws or worse traits in order to find him compelling, its kinda just a counter-intuitive idea to me. Obviously there’s always got to be a balance, like its not any better IMO to ignore instances of flawed behavior that’s relevant to a story, but unless there’s a specific reason to be focused on a flawed behavior or the result of it, examining that in detail, then its not exactly what draws my attention to him or anything he’s doing. 

I like him because he’s a hero that inspires me. Yeah, he’s still human and relatable, the way I perceive him and read and write him, but its his positive attributes and characteristics that are the reason I seek him out, the things about him that are actually compelling and engaging to me.