#icedpigrice

[mysticdragon3md3]

🐔...

Got kind of spooked, delving into some blogs from my previous fandom, for fun.

It reminded me why it was such a toxic space and why I was so eager to jump onto my next fixation.

Feels really sad though. I loved shipping in that fandom. It's just so much of the rest of the fandom was too volatile.

And now I find out that some of the blogs whose analysis insights I had been enjoying, just blanketly assume all people who hold a certain ship (from another fandom) are bad. _I_ shipped that ship years ago. It's still precious to me. Even if the fandom for that ship too, ended up to also be volatile, toxic, and incentivized me to cut almost all ties with its fandom (if not the ship). Now I feel afraid of who will find out I ship that ship, and what they'll do about it.

Maybe I've had too many reminders today of how toxic fandom can be. I wish for a break. But fandom/shipping was the thing I filled my thoughts with, to make me happy. I can't just not do it anymore. I do need some kind of break though.

I miss, just yesterday, when I was blissfully unaware, fixating on my current, new ship, in a fandom that is refreshingly toxic-free (in my experience so far). It's been amazing these past couple of months, being reminded that fandom doesn't have to be a thing where I'm constantly afraid of posting because the fandom at large might attack for any reason I didn't catch about my post, no matter how frivolous I thought my posted sentiments were. I mean, I still am afraid. I've already had 2+ previous fandoms prove how unsafe it is to let your guard down. I still hide my opinion posts in unique tags, even in this new (not yet proven volatile) fandom I'm in now. But every once in a while, I take a chance, use common tags, and they've proven to not be volatile towards me. I had forgotten that fandom can be that way. ...It's nice.

[mysticdragon3md3]

Yeah, seriously!  You can’t analyze---or heaven forbid, criticize!---Victuri’s portrayal in YOI without someone calling you a homophobe.  That’s why I got out of that fandom.  And I’m a Victuri shipper!  ;O;

People: You’re a homophobe for not liking Sormik/Viktuuri

Me, a bi person:

Lmao, okay. If you wanna be wrong, then call me homophobic.

[mysticdragon3md3]

[mysticdragon3md3]

twitter.com/E_Aria_Eia/status/1408291844786688005

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So now, once again, I have to have that worry in my head: "Am I fetishizing gay men for being a fan of BL manga/anime/OTPs/fanon ships?????

At times like this, I completely forget what "fetishize" means. I always seem to know what it means when it comes to female objectification, but when I worry about being a fujoshi and if I'm a bad person towards gay people, then I suddenly forget what "fetish" means and if there's something I didn't realize I had to change about myself---and *what* is it that I have to change?! How can I change if I can't pinpoint what it is?!

I don't want to just give up my gay OTPs! ;o;! They bring me such joy! They are my literal mental/emotional safe spaces! Whenever I'm in danger of some bad thought spirals, I chant their names like mantras! I daydream them being happy to keep my mental state happy! But is doing all that, is being a fan of gay ships making me a bad person?

I know I reblogged Tumblr posts about this. So I tried searching my blog for the tag "fujoshi".

Found a link to this Twitter thread (https://twitter.com/shipperinjapan/status/1375857732608262144) that got me ranting again about Yuri on Ice. Am I a bad person for not immediately jumping on board the gay interpretation? Don't get me wrong, I believe Victuri is the central romantic canon ship of the series, and I'm rooting for them. But as an asexual who highly values emotionally intense platonic relationships, I don't like to immediately jump on the "they're dating now" train. First, I don't like the implication that only people who are romantically/sexually involved can have intense emotional bonds and interactions. Second, I'm a sucker for a "slow burn". I want to see a couple build up their emotional bonds and relationship to a point where they act like they're in love, then retroactively realize "Hey, I think I'm in love with this person as more than just a friend; let's confess our feelings then consensually date". I don't want to hear this BS about how friends can't love each other! That's very important to me as, not just an asexual, but as a human being with valuable platonic relationships. I don't need anymore of that toxic mid-1900's propaganda about only romantic relationships being allowed to care deeply about each other and share each other's emotional vulnerabilities. It's invalidating to so many important platonic relationships! But I also believe that the same type of intense emotional bonds is the best foundation for romantic relationships. So I want to see one build upon the precedent of the other. And "SEE" is the big issue for me and Yuri on Ice. I wanted to SEE Victuri's relationship build ON SCREEN. Yes, I know there are censorship obstacles in Japan/anime. But when so many other sports anime can get away with intense emotional bonding of their male characters, I don't see why Yuri on Ice had to put that off-screen for their couple. Sure, the first few episodes had Victuri have that intense emotional bonding happen on-screen. But I took that as a sign of how the series would continue to progress. I expected the same types of scenes to repeat on-screen, but ramping up in emotional bonding, each time, until it culminated in a romantic revelation/relationship. The first few episodes of YOI proved that the series was perfectly capable of telling such a story on-screen. But then the main couple, containing the TITULAR character, got that major emotional development sidelined to off-scren, so that a bunch of secondary/supporting characters could have all their character arcs take up screen time. ~.~;;;; I understand that some directors are afraid of not getting a second season to complete their story. But you have a manga-ka as your character designer that you hired specifically because they said they weren't busy with any projects at the time! It's not unheard of for anime to continue in manga, then later that manga sequel gets anime adaptation! YOI could have kept the focus on Victuri, told their secondary characters' stories in manga, that could have been used to pitch a later second season! But, no. x_x; Gotta give those secondary characters' arcs the limited screentime. I'm not even talking about Yuri Plisetsky. Keeping Yuri P.'s character arcs on-screen is a good foil to Yuri Katsuki, provides good B plot, and keeps the story varied, allowing breaks from the intensity of Yuri Katsuki's plotlines, when needed. Even adding the whole subplot introducing Otabek wouldn't have been a waste of the limited screentime. What I'm complaining about is giving up screentime for ALL the character arcs of ALL the other competitors in the competitions that Yuri Katsuki entered. I mean, Haikyuu was able to present the stakes of the other teams alongside the protagonist team's progression. But they weren't also juggling a romance plot FOR THE TITULAR CHARACTER at the same time! Though all the KageHina shippers prove to me that a story can include the main pair's intense emotional bonding scenes, alongside screentime for the secondary teams' stakes/backgrounds/struggles, there's

still a reason that Romance gets its own genre and has a reputation for being extremely hard to write. Victuri should have been given more screentime. Instead, Victuri have a few episodes of emotional bonding, baiting me into thinking this series would be a well-developed romance, that I was sticking around to watch (alongside Yuri Katsuki's personal emotional development within the frame of his sport), then their relationship gets relegated to shorthand like exchanging rings and Victuri finishing a shower in Yuri's hotel room. No better than a cliche rom-com movie that expected tropes to carry all the weight of an actually developed on-screen relationship, but in reality, feels empty by short-cutting and jumping over all the emotional bonding, vulnerability sharing, and shared emotional Growth, that should have happened ON-SCREEN. Victuri deserved better. They deserved better than empty tropes with only the first few episodes of the series, then audience headcanons, to fill-in the gaps. I didn't enjoy YOI because it used empty tropes. I enjoyed YOI because those first few episodes showed me that this series was capable of using the same emotional Growth intensity of a sports anime, and also funnel it into a romance couple, built on genuinely believable emotional bonding scenes. But after those first few episodes, the series chucked that all way, to use short-hand and cliche tropes instead---right down to the "running to meet at an airport scene"!---just to make time for a bunch of secondary characters that should have waited for a second season or manga sequel. If tropes alone were enough to make me believe in a romance, I wouldn't have disliked the entire Romance movie genre for most of my life, feeling like their relationships felt empty and their confessions of love happening "for no reason". If tropes alone didn't feel so empty to me, I wouldn't be getting most of my favorite OTP couples from other genres outside of the Romance genre, even if I had to get aboard non-canon ships. But after the first few episodes, YOI made the same mistakes. For a couple that I was rooting for! And you can't just stick-in 1 or 2 sports-related emotionally intense scenes between Victuri to make up for that empty leap to romantic cliches for their interpersonal relationship. (At least, that's what I remember. It's been years since I watched YOI and my memory is notoriously bad.) I want romance scenes that are undeniably not really about the sport or the same bonding in an emotionally intense platonic love. Not necessarily sexual, but I don't want to be able to have any room for misinterpretation that they're no longer talking about the sport and helping each other through the mental challenges of that sport, but are now talking about their interpersonal emotional connection and how dear they are to each other through their emotional bonds and shared Growth. The scene should be undeniably about their interpersonal relationship and shared vulnerabilities enabling each other's emotional growth. And I want to see them have so many interpersonal emotional connection scenes ON-SCREEN, until their relationship naturally ramps up and progresses into a meaningful romance. If I wasn't this picky about Romance, I'd be into the Romance genre. But here we are. I have criticisms of YOI, according to *my* experiences and *my* personal, picky tastes. And yet the YOI fandom is such that if you have ANY criticisms of the series, especially the presentation of Victuri, then you'll get called a "homophobe" and "in denial" about a canon gay relationship. I am on the Victuri train, goddamnit! I just think a big chunk of it could have been presented better than OFF SCREEN! How can I get emotionally invested, when a big chunk of the emotional bonding, that we're expected to read into the later cliches, happen OFF SCREEN?!???? ...Anyway, my experience of the YOI fandom has been toxic and it's made me regret getting into the series...Even though I really like how relatable Yuri is and Victor is one of my favorite dere archetypes. ;_; Every

time I remember YOI, I go into one of these defensive rants. And whenever I'm worried if I or fujoshi in general fetishize BL, I remember YOI.

(I should make a tag for my YOI posts that normal YOI fans won't search for. Someone once posted that they hate how people treat Tumblr as their private journal. Well, f**k you, because there are few enough people on Tumblr that it may as well be a private journal sometimes. And if the people here were as prone to immediately reacting/responding/commenting on Tumblr posts, as they are on Twitter, then I wouldn't be posting my thoughts on Tumblr at all, just like how I treat Twitter. No one is going to read this. And if they do, no one is going to comment something to start an argument. And if I ignore an argument-inciter, I won't be in danger of getting doxxed or them returning with a posse of cyberbullies. And that's how I like my social media. Because searching my Tumblr archive is a lot easier than searching my journal files with Windows Explorer. What the hell happened to that program? Its search function used to work so well on my journal files...)

Found the Tumblr reblog explaining how fujoshi and BL aren't fetishizing real life gay men.

https://mysticdragon3md3.tumblr.com/post/156361456117/retrolizard-i-hate-fujoshi-if-youre-female

Only just today did I see a Reply on this post "Maybe that’s how u feel but it makes gay men feel unsafe". But I still agree with the OP that being a fujoshi doesn't automatically mean that you're going to do something to gay men to make them feel unsafe. Though, again, if gay men feel unsafe because of BL and its fans, then there must be *someone* who is making them feel unsafe, and I don't want to invalidate that that's happening. Fujoshi, if you're a fan of BL, that's not permission to make gay men or anyone feel unsafe! Goddamnit, this is why I hate how the fujoshi in Genshiken's 2nd(?) season are portrayed with no consideration for other people's boundaries! Sure, it's a comedy (drama-dy) anime, where bad behavior is exaggerated for "comedy", but goddamn, stop treating people like your objects to oggle and stop telling them to their face that you involve them in your sexual fantasies! Even as fiction, it's uncomfortable to watch!!! And I hate to imagine, but I have to consider that at least some of it must have been inspired by some reality. I am reminded of a TED Talk, where a gay man recounted how a random woman came up to tell him and his boyfriend, who were just walking through their college campus, that they were "soooooooo cute!". Like, are you oggling them? Involving them in your weird fantasies? Please don't do that! They're real life people! This is what fictional characters are for! Write fanfic about the romance of your gay ships instead! But even in regards to fictional characters, portraying women/people as treating other people like your objects to oggle and telling them to their faces that you involve them in your sexual fantasies, normalizes such behavior, and I'm sure has emboldened some people to act that way. Look no further than the fujoshi who used to randomly slap strangers with a yaoi paddle. One time I was at a Hetalia cosplay gathering, and I think someone randomly came up to another cosplayer and started humping them. Some people, don't know how to be decent human beings. But I don't think that means I shouldn't be allowed to enjoy a mlm romance story. Those 2 things aren't inextricably correlated. I'm going to be honest: I will get aboard a hetero ship if it's good, but the hetero romance genre is STEEPED in centuries of toxic cliches and toxic gender politics! And yeah, some of those same toxic cliches have made their way into the BL genre too. But not all its titles. Even less so into non-canon ships from non-Romance genres. And I agree with this post (https://satans-tiddies.tumblr.com/post/174413663441/bl-okama-and-gay-stereotypes-in-animanga) that it's better to criticize and weed out the toxic, unsafe parts of BL, than to throw away the genre altogether ("I don’t think BL should be immune to critique. ...However, trying to ban a whole genre solely because of the gender of its creators and readers won’t help anything.")

Anway, I started venting all this, because this Tweet (https://twitter.com/E_Aria_Eia/status/1408291844786688005) said of the "Seme" and "Uke" faceplates from Good Smile Company's Nendoroid "Face Swap Design Poll" results, "Not a fan of mlm fetishization". I'll admit that there are a lot of toxic cliches in the "seme" and "uke" tropes and archetypes within the BL genre. But those "Seme" and "Uke" faceplates could have just as easily been titled "smug, cheeky bastard" face and "embarrassed, frustrated with teasing" face. In fact, I was planning to vote for the "uke" face in the poll (if I hadn't have forgotten before the survey's deadline), because one can't have too many blushing facial expressions for Nendoroids. But back to the "seme/uke" tropes... No, I don't like a lot of the cliches in those tropes, and I think a bunch of toxic relationship dynamics and expected situations are being repeated in the BL genre through some of the cliches expected from those tropes. For example, I know that manga-ka have explained that their editors often want them to push their sex scenes to near the beginning of a story, to hook potential readers flipping through the book at a store. But does the most expedient way to rush to that scene always have to be rape? And what's with all the possessive, vindictive jealousy? Haven't we already learned from decades of hetero Romance genre movies that those cliches are still shit, no matter what the couple's genders are? And the emotional abuse of some of these couples...! Goddamn, I know that conflict is what most writers consider "drama" and the basis for "good story", but did the constant arguing from hetero rom-coms have to evolve into the constant belittling, "teasing", and dismissiveness (of boundaries and partner's comfort levels) from so-called couples like Gravitation's and Junjo Romantica's? Yes, there are harmful tropes being perpetuated and normalized in BL, and they can make gay men feel just as unsafe as women, in regards to the similarly harmful tropes from hetero Romance/Rom-Com genres (and most of media). But I do believe that both the BL genre and Romance genre can be refined, have their toxic parts weeded out, instead of just demonizing the whole genre as toxic "fetishization". And shipping material produced by fanworks, especially from non-canon ships, has even less obligation to adhere to mainstream toxic cliches, just because marketers think they're "popular". In fact, that's what I'm looking for in both the BL and Romance genres.

[mysticdragon3md3]

Apparently, studio MAPPA happens to be having a 10th anniversary event right now.

I didn't know Ushio & Tora was animated by MAPPA! *o*

https://twitter.com/LordAgoz/status/1409049545888075777 That comment seems unnecessarily negative, but after the long ranting I just posted before this one, I sadly can't completely disagree. ;_;

[mysticdragon3md3]

The more I understand my asexuality (and maybe being aroace), the more I begin to see that all those times I criticized series/movies/stories for jumping into romance before I thought they had earned it, that at least half the time, that was just my ace butt being unable to understand how allosexuals work. I'm sorry. You guys weren't the problem. I was the problem.

Though I still think society's hyperfixation on putting romance into everything is a bit extreme in how it's taken as a given too often (especially in a heteronormative way). And coming from a shipping fangirl fujoshi like me, that's saying something.

Well, I'm going to stick to my slow burns and shipping archetypes that already personally and symbolically speak to me. But I'm glad I can now start to be more understanding of everyone else squee'ing for romantic plots that I thought were "moving too fast".

[mysticdragon3md3]

This reminds me of a YouTuber that noted that when a fandom has very little for their niche, they will defend it blindly and even react over-zealously about it, in hostile or irrationally malicious ways.

The example they gave was that at the time, the only generally well reviewed DCEU movie was Wonder Woman, so DC movie fans defended all the DCEU movies to the death, even becoming overly hostile towards other real life people over anything bad said about the few DCEU movies that were released at the time. Whereas, MCU fans could easily dismiss some disappointing MCU movies and roll with criticisms of Thor the Dark World or The Incredible Hulk, because they had so many more other movies with good reviews and gave good experiences. When you have less, you defend it more desperately.

It kind of echoed something I heard Crispin Freeman mention in an interview, where he explained that academics act in the same way. When a field is so varied and long-spanning, like Civil War history, scholars are much more willing to be tolerant of many different points of view on the topic. But in academic fields with very little source material to study, people defend their turf over-zealously.

When there is a lot of queer media, then people will be more forgiving of specific queer Intellectual Properties(IPs) that do not meet their every exacting standard. They will be able to admit that maybe a specific story isn't for them, and they'll just go consume some other queer media IP instead. But because we don't have that saturation in the market right now, there's too much pressure on the few queer media that emerges. Every single character has to be exemplary "good" representation, because there are so few queer voices allowed to speak up, you never know if this will be the IP that hits mainstream and influences general audiences' perceptions of queer people. Every single story theme or narrative discussion has to be safe and only represent all the good things in the subculture. Because you never know what single element will be taken out of context and used to perpetuate one misperception or another, rather than be taken as the idiosyncratic discussion it was meant to be.

I don't think it's safe for fans in such fandom either. I was a fan of a queer IP that I will not name. But to me, it wasn't a perfect story. I had problems with some of the storytelling techniques, leaning too much on cliches to represent a queer romance. I had generally avoided the heterosexual Hollywood Romance genre, for most of my life, for the same reason. And if I wasn't going to take it from hetero fictional couples, why was I going to take it from queer fictional couples? Because there's such a small pool of queer couples to become a fan of? Listen, I remember going through that phase where I grasped for any little scrap of queer storytelling that floated by. I stuck around with horribly annoying characters, just because they were queer and queer representation was a rare thing. But then I realized, I don't have to put up with this. I can---and did, find better. There are better characters and stories out there. We don't have to settle, even if the pool to draw from is small. It's better to wait for the next, better queer IP, than waste so much time in a fandom for characters I didn't even like, just because I was desperate for a genre(?) that marginally catered to me. So when I walked out on a newer queer fandom, explaining my criticisms, but still enjoying the characters, but believing the storytelling could have done them better justice, the whole rest of the fandom turned on me. How *dare* I even criticize that series! "If you're not on board this ship, then you're a homophobe!" I didn't matter that I was completely behind that ship and thought those characters deserved better. The fandom only heard that I had a critique that made me personally not want to settle. I was off to find another series that maybe better suited my personal tastes. I never said the series was trash or that no one else was valid for continuing to like it, or any other such nonsense. But the whole rest of the fandom was so busy over-zealously defending their small piece of turf out of the desperation of finally being catered to, that they were accusing a real life person of being something reprehensible. People get crazy, defending that tiny bit of turf. It's not pretty. And I don't know how to fix it, other than for the market share to catch up to satiating a niche audience until they stop being blindly over-zealous.

[mysticdragon3md3]

5:20 AM 11/27/2016 After 8 episodes of Yuri on Ice aired, I feel like the YOI fandom comes down to 2 types: 1)  The people starved for romance, desperate to jump at it, and reading it into every little thing. 2)  Those of us who want to see and are willing to wait for Victuri written with a proper development, realization, and actualization, just as good as the characterization development the story has already proven it can do with Yuri's portrayal and character growth.  It better goddamn well not be off-screen, damn it!  Victuri would be the epitome of Yuri's character growth, and it deserves to be portrayed onscreen, concretely, and well!  >o<  

Yesterday, I read a fan-comic about Victor and Yuri reading media coverage of their kiss in ep7, like headlines and internet posts/articles, that keep insisting they're platonic.  All while Victuri go to bed together.  

But Yuri is the archetypal inexperienced, pure-hearted, anime virgin!  Ryo MacClean, Sawako Kuronuma, etc.  They all go deep into their feelings and even allowances for physical contact, with their future boyfriends, without even realizing that they themselves are in love!  It takes *forever* for them to realize they're in love!  Maybe it's like those rom-com movies where 90% of the time, they don't realize they're in love; the movie is about the chasing.  The rom-com protagonists may go around being jealous and chasing each other, but they won't realize then admit they're in love until near the very end of the movie.  You can't tell me there isn't a precedent for Katsuki Yuri, in both anime/manga and the entire Romance genre.  So, yes, I believe that Yuri let Victor kiss him and wasn't upset about it---and even accepted that as a show of affection!  But how is an inexperienced, "not looking for love" virgin supposed to differentiate Victor's handsy-ness from actual love?   Time and time again, that archetype has proven that the leading man can chase after them, get jealous, give them special attention, even kiss them all he wants, and the inexperienced, unromantic, virgin archetype will STILL not truly understand that he loves them, let alone, that they are in love with him---and should officially be in a relationship!  (I'm looking at you, Ryo McClean!  6 of 7 volumes of letting Dee kiss you, and it wasn't until the last volume when you realized you were in love with him!  And only because Diana kept pushing the question!)  And even if Yuri actually saw through Victor's continuously flippant personality to see Victor as being serious for once, at least in terms of his romantic feelings for Yuri, Yuri would still have to sort out his own feelings.  And he's got a big obstacle of admitting to himself that his admiration for his skating idol, extends beyond the distant image of his skating "god", and starts to include a realistic image of Victor himself as an actual person.  There were some good hints of that in ep7, when Yuri was able to call Victor stupid and complain about his personality, during his mental narration.  The sooner Yuri gets Victor off that pedestal and starts seeing him as an equal person, the sooner his feelings towards him can start being more personal than distant.  

Though maybe some people are okay with Victor forever being this "god" to Yuri, forever separated from his scrutiny as an equal.  But I believe in mutuality in relationships.  I don't watch most of the Romance genre, because of the many ways it gets relationships wrong (at least in my opinion, for my tastes), including forever placing the "love interest" as a separate, impersonal entity, who can then only cater to or dominate over the main protagonist, because they can't relate to each other as equals.  (Examples include the kohai who can't believe they were chosen by their unbelievably cool senpai; the demure girl pursued by the rich tycoon for no reason; etc.)  That's not my idea of a good relationship, and I won't get fully behind Victuri until it reaches beyond that "idolizing" stage, AND moves onto the equal-peers-mutuality stage.  

Besides, you gotta admit, Victuri is way cuter when Yuri is dealing with Victor's human faults and Victor is being totally casual and right-at-home in Yuri's domestic life.  I welcome more "Victor no baka" and Victor eating dinner with Yuri.  We also need more of Victor "meeting half-way" with Yuri, as he did in the beach scene in ep4, as that was emotionally dramatic and gives the strongest sense of Victuri building a sincere, deep rapport with each other. And most of all, I'd like Victor to show some serious-for-once, character defining motives for being drawn to Yuri, on a *personal* level---and all onscreen!  

Not some 2nd-hand narration or exposition dump!  I need that scene with Victor's serious face, watching Yuri's viral video of copying Victor's routine, but with dialogue (with Yuri) and more screentime!  And I know this is a sports anime and a character study, in addition to being a romance story, but I swear, if Yuri on Ice does Yuri's realization of his romantic feelings for Victor *off screen*, I will throw a fit.  They can't do that to us, after all the on-screen character building they've done for Yuri alone.  If something as significant as Romance is going to happen in Yuri's character growth, then it better goddamn well be onscreen, given time, and the proper weight it deserves.  Because Yuri started this series as a character under the delusion that he was fighting alone; accepting a romantic relationship would be the culmination of all his growth, away from those low points, and the epitome of his change in character development.  It better goddamn well be given proper onscreen portrayal.  

[mysticdragon3md3]

Why is it so hard to drop a series? There’s so much anime, I can AFFORD to be picky!

So, I'm starting to have a problem.  I think I just can't get into all the currently popular series.  Which, wouldn't be such a big deal, except for the fact, that these series are objectively well made.  

Welcome to the Ballroom My Hero Academia Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid Yuri on Ice

I mean, I've tried.  And I do like the majority of each of these series.  They each have nice characters, or beautiful animation, my favorite anime studios, or themes I like.  But then they also have regular cast member(s) that hit my specific pet peeves, or they fall flat on convincing me to become invested in the stakes, or there's just something wrong about the story structure(s), etc.  

I've kept telling myself that with around 30 series released every anime season, and 4 seasons per calendar year, I can afford to be picky.  I can find the niche series that speak specifically to me, without offending any of my weird tastes.  I don't have to settle anymore for a Sailormoon, when there's Devil Hunter Yohko out there, and I don't have to settle for Devil Hunter Yohko anymore now that there's established, broad, and affordable anime distribution in North America.  But it's so hard when my favorite anime studios have made these series beautiful, when the protagonists are likeable or even lovable---yet the supporting cast or story or something is just below that same established standard...  

I've decided to no longer force myself to watch a series for artist alley.  I should no longer force myself to stick to series either.  

I think I went through this same things with Princess Jellyfish.  Lovable, relatable protagonist, appropriate tone, well-made anime,....But that hussy seducing the brother subplot... ~_~; That did NOT need to be pursued.  I understand they did that to remove the obstruction of the leading man and protagonist from becoming a couple, but the brother and the protagonist were a much more fitting couple.  I almost bought that series.  I was resigned to put up with the parts I hated, for the parts I liked.  ...Even though the parts I hated were taking over 50% of the series...  x_x;  Nope, nope.  I was not going to waste money on that!  

And I should stop wasting time on anime that isn't COMPLETELY enjoyable to my specific tastes.  There's too much anime to catch up on, to get hung up on only partially-satisfying series.  

I think I heard there's some scientific research about regretting missed opportunities more than "buyer's remorse".  Is this that "sunk cost fallacy"?  Maybe this is similar to my hoarding problem.  ---Oh wait.  It's "Loss Aversion".  (https://youtu.be/dqxQ3E1bubI?t=8m8s)  "Losses are more painful than gains are pleasurable."  Maybe that's why it's so hard to drop a series.  @_@?