#because this is a thing I want theses written on

[ailithnight]

*Whoops. Forgot to title and link previous chapters. Fight me, I just woke up.

A King in Arkham

Chapter 3

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

"Tim. Tim you have to get me copies of this footage." Tim is not surprised by the request. In fact, the 'Sure' is already on his tongue when he pauses, a thought creeping into his head, seeded by the notification Tim really hopes Jason isn't paying attention to in the bottom corner of the computer.

"One condition."

"Fuck you, I knew you'd want something. What? You want my cookies? Coffee? For Red Hood to go on camera singing praises for Red Robin? I'll fuckin do it. Just send me the god damn clips."

"Nope, nope, and tempting, but no."

"Name your price, Replacement. I'll pay it."

"Swear you aren't going to go rush in and extract the kid until we're done investigating him."

"What!? Fuck that! I told you was pulling him out next chance I get!" Tim lets himself groan in annoyance.

"Look, anyone that could do that-" Tim gestures to the part of the screen where they'd pulled up The Joker's medical reports following the incidents, showing pictures and descriptions of just how thoroughly Daniel had beat his ass 3 weeks in a row, "without getting so much as a scratch or fucking bruise in return, has got something going on. There may well be a reason they sent him to Arkham!"

Jason's eyes narrow at Tim as he all but growls, "No reason is good enough to put-"

"A fifteen year old in Arkham. I fucking know that, Hood. But we still need to know exactly who we're dealing with when we get him out. What his deal is. If his dangerous. What the hell was so wrong with him that someone thought it was a good idea to stick him in there to begin with."

"He could get hurt while we're sitting on our asses trying to satisfy fuckin Bat paranoia!"

"He took down the Joker! Clearly he can take care of himself."

"Then who has been hurting him!?"

"Maybe him fucking self!" Tim knew he was pushing it. The green growing stronger in Jason's eyes was proof. But he needed to buy them some time before Jason made thing exponentially harder by storming the castle. Still, now he needed to calm Jason down before he went into a full rage. So Tim held up his hands placatingly.

"A few days, Jay. Just give us a few more days. I'm already almost through the Arkham reports, and there are only a handful from Chicago and Oracle is probably going to announce any minute now that she got through the communications blackout around his home town. We just need a bit more time to sort out intel so that we actually know how to help him once we get him out."

Finally, after a tense 34 seconds, green fades back into blue and Jason let's out a heavy sigh.

"Fine. But I get to tell the Bat about Daniel's discipline slips. Wanna see his fuckin face when I do."

"Deal." Tim hurriedly puts a comm in as Jason watches with narrowed eyes.

Batman.

Red Robin. Ready to fill me in?

Not yet, you're about to be busy. I isolated a pattern earlier. Exactly 15 minutes before the locks malfunction, there's been a strange power surge. Always written off. But the surge doesn't seem to be coming from the grid. And like I said, exactly 15 minutes later is when the locks malfunction.

Jason huffs as he catches on. Apparently he hadn't thought to question why Tim was so desperate to buy time before.

Robin responds, since he's on stakeout with Bruce. Mostly because Bruce won't let him watch the asylum alone. Much as the kid hates it, the rest of the family agrees. It's only a matter of time before someone in max security manages to take advantage of theses malfunctions. So far Croc is the only one who had, though thankfully he's not one to start shit on his own. But with Joker, Scarecrow, and TwoFace all inside; any one of them, or god forbid all three, could make for a real bad situation.

Tt. So you can tell before a malfunction happens.

Think so. Last power surge was 8 minutes ago.

And you are only telling us now, why Drake?

Codenames.

Cause he spent those 8 convincing me not to go get our kid out yet.

6 minutes. See if you can stop things before they start.

I'm not far out. Want me to join you?

Tt. I doubt we'll need your assistance, Signal. We shall be done before you get here.

No wait. Signal, head in. See if you can get a read on 26B.

You think he might be meta?

Hood?

Jason glares at Tim betrayed.

"I wanted to see his fuckin face."

Tim just waves him off.

"They need to know. You tell them or I do."

Boys

Jason scowls, but relents.

He put the Joker in the infirmary on his 1st, 7th, and 15th days there. All 3 times took no damage himself. Feral child had to be pulled off and still didn't stop struggling till the clown was out of sight.

All 3 assaults followed by panic attacks, though whether about the Joker himself or what Daniel had done to him, we don't know yet.

The comms were silent for a moment.

A 15 year old...

Did what you've never had the balls to old man.

...I've fought the Joker.

Daniel hits first.

Hnn

I will admit, it is impressive that he can take the Joker down alone. Perhaps he will make for a worthy brother after all.

4 minutes.

We're moving in. Thank you Red Robin, Hood.

The fuck are you thanking me for?

For helping. And giving us time to work this out.

ETA 7 minutes out. Be with you shortly.

.

The advanced warning proved invaluable for Batman and Robin. After alerting the chief of security of their supposed pattern, he had guards already in motion when the doors swung open. Batman took a perch to watch for max security escapees while Robin assisted the guards in keeping inmates corralled. Many didn't even bother to leave their designated areas, having already seen the Bats in the building.

No sign of any max security inmates. Normally, Batman would find this concerning. And while he did file it away to ponder later why no one from max security ever seemed to make it out of that wing, for today he counted the blessing that he would not have to try to keep Robin safe while dealing with someone like the Joker.

Batman tracked motion through the crowds, watching as a black mop of hair moved, seemingly otherwise unnoticed, through the sea of people. He thought to move in to direct the person back towards where people were being herded to, but the small figure merely walked towards the B wing and entered one of the far cells. That gave Bruce a sneaking suspicion of which patient that was. He moved to get a closer look as Signal swooped in.

"Where is he?"

"I believe he just went into his cell. This way." Batman led Signal to the cell he'd seen that tiny person enter. It was indeed 26B and there was indeed a small, too small, frail looking boy lying on the bed there. A red blotch had appeared under his left eye even though Bruce was certain there had been no injury there as the boy had crossed the hall.

Signal froze beside him, breath stuttering. The boy briefly glanced at them through the corner of his eye, mouth twitching into a brief frown. Then his eyes turned back to the ceiling and his face smoothed out. Bruce couldn't help but reach out.

"Hello." The boy said nothing. Signal opened and closed his mouth, seeming to try to say something, but unable to get words out. Batman wondered what he must be seeing. "You seem hurt. Do you need help?" Eyes flickered back to him and away just as quickly.

"Nothing you can help with Mr. Batman." And oh, how Bruce hated the kid's voice. So quiet and so so hollow. Bruce's mind flashed to his children, imagining any them speaking with such emptiness. His heart clenched, wondering what could have happened to this boy to have snuffed the life out of him so young.

Duke found his voice again, just as the doors buzzed and swung shut again.

"What are you?" Bruce frowned, looking at his latest. Who was looking, as Bruce tracked his gaze, not at Daniel but at the space just above him. Daniel himself seemed to take interest all of a sudden, breaking away his upward gaze to roll his head and look at them. Confusion plain on his face, the first hint of life shining dimly in his eyes.

"Signal? Signal, what do you see?" Batman asked. Robin materialized beside them. The daytime hero stepped forward, then back, light sparking and fizzling around his fingertips.

"There's something in there with him."

Daniel looked back up, where Signal still had his gazed trained on something Batman couldn't see. Even Robin seemed confused, though he no doubt trusted Signal's meta sight.

"Don't worry," Daniel murmured, "S'just a ghost. She can't hurt you."

This 'ghost' seemed unhappy either with the teen's words or this turn of events. Daniel's head snapped back to the side again, causing Batman and Signal to wince while Robin watched stoically. 4 red scratches appeared on Daniel's right cheek, as though he had been backhanded by someone with clawlike nails. A light chill brushed through him and Signal tensed, then relaxed, his gaze finally turning from the emptiness above Daniel to the boy himself. Batman took that as a sign that the... entity, was gone.

Daniel did not react to the obvious abuse from an invisible assailant. He mechanically turned his head back, once more dead and glazed eyes returning to the cracks in the ceiling of his cell. "You should go now. The guards will come around soon to make sure I'm still here."

Bruce wanted so badly to say 'Don't worry, we'll get you out of here.' But Batman was more restrained than that. He would get the child out. But he would have a plan first. For now, Bruce placed a hand each on the shoulders of Duke and Damien, guiding them away. Only when they were back outside did Bruce let them go. Only when they were perched on a rooftop half a block away did Batman pause.

"Robin, report."

"No escaped inmates and no sign of any from maximum security."

"Good. Signal, any information on what you saw in there." Duke rubbed at his eyes.

"A ghost, I guess? I don't know. It was weird. She didn't really have an aura. It was more like, an absence of aura. Like she was a black hole, drawing all the light in."

Even behind the domino, Bruce could tell Damien rolled his eyes.

"And what of the patient, Thomas? Was he not the one you were sent to look at?" Batman bit back the reprimand for codenames, more interested in Signal's response. Signal seemed to think for a moment, then shook his head.

"He definitely had a pretty distinct aura. It... felt powerful. But it looked weak. Dim. When the ghost... struck him, it flared up a bit, but died back down almost instantly. I... I get the feeling he was holding it back. Almost like he was afraid of it. Of himself."

"Hnn. Good job Signal. Robin. You two are welcome to head back to the cave. I'll take the rest of this Arkham shift."

At that moment, the comms crackled to life.

Actually B, you may want to come in, also. Arkham should be fine. And I found why they sent the kid there.

[imagination-mess]

I love theses headcanons about Demon!Deku, I recently finished an anime called "Kinsou No Vermeil", if I could give you an idea based on what I saw, (You had mentioned something that he could breed any humans) an idea got out of me about what happens if Demon!Deku runs out of Familiar energy as a demon and because to a rumor from the Academy, about the power of the soul can increase through affection/physical contact? (I recommend you to watch the mentioned serie, maybe it can give you an idea of ​​how things are going, it's very lascivious but it has funny moments xD)

I believe you are referring to this post by @viburnt with mentions of breeding. I watched a few clips of the anime. I wasn't sure how you wanted it to go. I can do another version of Demon! Izuku dating his witch and more details of that relationship of that nature. Here are my headcanons. I hope you like them.

WC: 700+

Warnings: Implied Sexual Activities

Demon! Izuku

He kept hearing these rumors going around campus. It is combined with the rumors of witches sleeping with their familiars or others' familiars. There are love affairs going on secretly.

He was curious about it, as much as he wanted to trust his friends. He has his doubts about it, to the point that he went to the library to reread the books on demon physiology, etc. It was softly implied but never brought up again. He knows it is possible for either demons or witches to give their power permanently, but at the cost of their souls. It kills the user who is giving their soul to the other.

He wanted to bring up this rumor to you, but he wanted to see if he could get an answer from books, and he didn’t want to ask around. If it was basic knowledge, he already knows he is late to find out these relate to being a demon and much more.

He knows you won’t judge him, despite being so patient with him. He has asked you numerous questions over time, and you have answered each one to the best of your ability. You would go out of your way to find out if you didn’t know the answer, which he appreciates.

It took awhile for you to answer him, "Yes, those rumors are true. There are a few demons around who actually need it in order to survive, such as Dabi. He has a special case for it. It is necessary for him."

You took the time to explain it to him for those who truly need it, like special cases such as Dabi; the others who don’t really need it just do it out of pleasure or intimacy. It won't cost their soul, but more of their aura's raw power. There is a technique that transfers the soul and power to whomever, at the cost of the user. You could already feel the question that was written all over his face. ‘Why haven’t I gotten that from you’

“Before you think negatively, I never offered it to you because your powers were latent. I didn’t want to suddenly trigger them when your body wouldn’t be able to handle it. It can be beneficial, but it can go wrong super fast if not done correctly."

Later on, he went around, asking his friends who had done it to explain to him how to do it correctly. That’s when he found out that it could be both ways. A witch can take or give energy from their familiar. The familiar can give or take energy from their witch.

When he worked up the courage to ask you if you could do it with him, you started off with the simplest affection, such as a hug. He already knew what to expect but didn’t expect that. You just laughed at him because his eyes were wide open. The energy he didn’t have for the past couple days was suddenly there. It was small, but noticeable.

When you move to kiss his freckled cheek, the energy starts to increase a bit more. It felt extremely nice. It felt cool, but it also had a warm sensation. It was as if he was dehydrated and was now getting the hydration he needed. You were putting more kisses on his skin, transmitting more energy to him, and keeping an eye on his expression to make sure everything was okay. He hugged you with a tighter grip subconsciously.

When it was his turn to try and practice with you, he was anxious. He was never taught to transfer energy, so he is learning, and you were his guinea pig. He is a quick learner. He was trying to follow your lead and going off his friend's advice. It was a lot of trial and error. Either he put too much at once or too little to none.

It became a weekly occurrence. He wanted to learn how to do it for emergencies.

Ever since, you have been openly affectionate with him outside of transferring energy. He also became affectionate with you.

Does he want to kiss you on the lips? Of course, he does.

He also knows there is a chance of you finding someone romantically involved. It is very painful to think about, since he has already earned feelings for you for a while. He would rather not cross that line because he thought of someone touching your lips if it wasn’t his once he got a taste of it. It wouldn't go well.

Now he understands why familiars fall in love with their witches at some point in their lifetime. It's evitable.

Demon Izuku (Three Parts)

Demon Katsuki (Three Parts)

[chairofchaos]

A Brief Commentary on Fandom History, Fandom Weeks, and How to Keep Moving Forward

Before you decide to read this, please go read this thing I wrote earlier. You need the context. Done reading? No? Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, and definitely don't engage with this post. Go read it. You're done? Excellent! Please remember that I said absolutely nothing in the aforementioned post about commenting on current events. Also, this contains some swearing, in case that bugs you. Any text written in this font I'm using below the break is liable to be sarcastic (if you want clarification about something like that let me know!). Word count is about 3.8k. Shoutout to @/olderthannetfic, who wrote back to that anon who was talking about the clergy-class of Big Name Fans and said,

"Nail your theses to the door."

I think that sentiment applies here.  Kudos to you, wise fandom elder. You rock.

About the Author

To reiterate how I began my last post (linked above and for the love of all fandom, go read it), I have been involved in fandom spaces for 12 years, almost to the day. I had wonderful mentors who knew that were I left unchecked, I would fumble my way through a lot of very bad ideas about what fandom should be like. They decided out of love that if I was going to be in fandom, they were going to make me into the best little fandom child I could be.

If you do the math, I was 11 when I started getting involved. What can I say? It was a different decade and I had unrestricted internet access. Nobody was keeping me from my Harry Potter and Percy Jackson fanfics. All of this to say: I was raised here, and I'm going to scream in the living room while this house burns down around me because I'd rather be a ghost in fandom than not be in fandom at all.

I am going to say a lot of things in this post. Am I perfect? NO! Will this post hold errors? Undoubtedly. Will this post be tarnished by the inaccuracies of the resources and the biases of events recorded in secondary sources? Who knows. I'm sure some of you lived through the events I am referencing here. Your context and commentary is more than welcome. Will this help give us, the ACOTAR fandom, some context for why we all care so much? I hope so.

No, I don't actually. I have no faith in anyone, not even myself.

Thanks for that, Editorial Chaos. You're one pessimistic bitch. Oh, you're going to keep showing up in this post to annoy me, aren't you...

Yep. Back to it, Chaos.

Alright, then. Anyways, I have opinions. You have opinions. There's a 100% chance that we disagree on something. That's cool with me. So let's get to it.

Why Are We Talking About This?

Elaingate. We are here because of Elaingate, and I will not lie to you about that. You will briefly hear my thoughts on that specific issue further down the line.

To those of you who would suggest that Elaingate is over? I must disagree. 

You see, this one instance may be over, but the underlying debate continues. What should fandom look like? Who can participate, and with what content? What is allowed, and who gets to decide?

These questions have not been addressed. I am not, by any means, going to pretend to be an authority on this. I do, however, wish to contribute my many thoughts, and present some events from the history of fandom.

My hope in sharing this brief summary of notable events which shaped broader fan culture will help people newer to fandom (of all kinds) understand why something like an event which bans certain types of content, or content involving specific characters, as something to be concerned, or even angry, about.

Please consider this, my contribution to the discussion, as a form of academic inquiry with an opinion thread throughout. This is something I am throwing to the fandom for consideration. Do I get preachy? Absolutely I do. Do I stand by my thoughts? Yes. 

If you want to respond and tell me I’m dead wrong, by all means, do so. I welcome a reblog or a post in response. Let’s go back and forth, citing our sources like two exhausted researchers from different university departments, fighting over faerie smut books. I’ll eat up every second of it.

No, you won’t. You’re exhausted.

Really? Please stop.

Noooooooooooooooooo.

Are these old issues, or is this a new problem?

Welcome to the party! It's both as old as fandom itself, and as new as yesterday. ("Chaos, those can't both be true, can they?" Yes, they can!)

You see, there have always been issues within fandoms. People have disagreed about whether character A should end up with character B or character C for longer than any of us have been alive. Seriously. The Ancient Greeks were arguing about this stuff thousands and thousands of years ago. 

Source: my Greek Tragedy professor. And if you want to argue that point, you can take it up with him. He’s an ornery old German man who looked at me and told me I needed to do better on my tests in front of the entire class. I had a 98 overall, and the only grades we got were the tests.

Moving on: Dare I say, we are not special?

The real difference now is that the previously separate communities of fandom are coming together on platforms where systems for separating those branches of fandom do not exist in automatically available formats.

We face new issues because the wonderful world-wide web continues to grow wider and wider. We have more people on the internet than ever before. You interact with more people by participating in online fandom than a person would have 5-10 years ago, let alone before the internet, and that comes with new challenges.

So what, Chaos?

I'm glad you asked! On LiveJournal, you could join Communities. You can envision them as a Discord server centered around a specific ship or character. You could be automatically entered into a group of like-minded people, and never really have to interact with people who shipped Character A with Character B, if you wanted.

Another form of fanfic from the pre-internet through the early internet years of fandom days were Zines (In depth "what's that?" from Purdue University). In fandom, zines were edited, curated fanworks. They were numerous. Some were public, some were private. Some Zine editors stood up to Lucasfilm. Regardless, there was content moderation, whether by community members or by corporations themselves. We'll come back to this.

Does that mean I would never have had to interact with those evil A/B shippers when I ship B/C?

Hahahahahhahaha.

No. It doesn't. You still encountered people who disagreed with you. 

And there were slurs and threats involved. It could get real ugly.

Yeah. Be thankful we have good community guideline things on Tumblr, and a reporting process on AO3. I don't think anyone is going to try to hack your computer to get your IP address and dox you for shipping the "wrong" characters (and good grief: if you care that much or truly think that is an appropriate action, please stay far, far away from me).

You looked for the community where you fit best, and that's where you started following, and finding, and interacting. It's not all that different to what you can do here once you curate your individual experience.

Chaos, why does any of this matter? Why aren't you talking about current events?

Well, in the grand scheme of things, does anything matter?

Yes, newly-nihilistic Editorial Chaos. It really does matter.

It matters because it's our history. It's how we got here. Be grateful. As for current events, I’m not really here to give you an in-depth analysis of those, as there are other posts which do that. 

I’m here to talk about the underlying issue. To do that, we need some background. I promise you need all of this context for my proposal at the end. Feel free to skip what you already know, but please take this opportunity to learn something new today!

Why did Archive of Our Own come into being?

For my sources on this, I direct you to the original livejournal post which started it all (thank you @/astolat! You can find her on tumblr and AO3. She’s responsible for so many great things and I thank her for all of them) and the more in-depth Fanlore page on the original proposal for AO3, where you can find links to relevant issues surrounding the proposal’s creation and the result of the proposal. See? Not a nihilist, Chaos. I'm helping. Like I'm "supposed to." Ugh.

The long and short of this is that internet fanfiction communities were facing censorship from the hosting sites. LiveJournal and Fanfiction.net were getting worried about the legality and perceived morality of different kinds of fanfiction, and a new site was being created specifically to profit off of fanfiction. 

For the sake of this discussion, we are going to use the word "curation". LJ, FF.net, and others were intentionally curating the kind of content they would allow and would allow users to see and interact with, partly out of fear of lawsuits, and partly out of a desire to police morality. The cleaning processes they used to get rid of things they did not like were referred to as "purges."

In the purges, many sexually explicit fics were lost. We aren’t talking about something the average 2020s romantasy reader (that’s you, ACOTAR fan!) would necessarily shy away from. We’re largely talking about a level of explicit nature that mirrors the general content of ACOTAR. There were of course fics that were less explicit, and fics that were considerably more explicit. By my understanding, the bulk were things we now see in published work.

Many fics with LGBT natures were lost, because the crackdown on “morality” I mentioned? Yeah. That had a lot to do with LGBT issues. Others have written a lot more extensively and a lot more eloquently than I can on this subject, so I am going to leave it at that. Just know it was a very large issue, and if you want more on this feel free to do some research of your own!

So the problems were numerous. The solution was created. Now we have Archive of Our Own (AO3). (Am I saying that AO3 is perfect? No. That, like most things, is a whole other post.)

AO3 is an archive. It is a hosting site, but it went about it differently than fanfiction.net or livejournal, or most of the niche, fandom-specific sites. Very few of those actually exist anymore, but they were cool.

As an archive, AO3's role was to be a place where the fics that could not be on the other sites because of curation would go to be. Notable fics that were posted in the early days of Archive of Our Own were fics with incest (wincest started here! And don’t tell me AO3 didn’t want it because, well, the creators were the ones writing it, and yes, I have sources for that), brutal violence, and explicit sexual content, among other, much more SFW G-rated type fics. 

They all had a home on AO3, because AO3 was designed primarily for authors (see sources linked above for more). It is notably not a social media, because it is intended to store works (regardless of their content*) and not share them. (*This is mostly true. There have been some problems because of this, often in the realm of Real Person Fics, or RPF. Again, it's a whole other post, but bears repeating.)

Chaos, what on earth does that have to do with fandom [Character/Ship] Week(s)?

I'm overjoyed that you would ask me such a question! It has everything to do with it.

Since the internet has taken over as the primary fandom connector, we have seen a democratization of fandom. We no longer have Zine editors telling us what we can and cannot write. We are protected by AO3's careful non-profit model, ensuring that no one is profiting off of characters owned by other people or franchises.

It has been said that "every rule and regulation you work to enforce has been written in the blood of others." 

That is... overly dramatic.

You do remember we’re called ‘Chaos’ here, right?

Fair. Why do you insist on being so damn cheerful when you’re talking about rules written in blood?

I’m trying to keep it light, Editorial Chaos. Please just… shut up.

Fine.

AO3 exists largely because certain types of fanfiction were being excluded from fandom. People were upset at the purges. People were upset that they weren't being allowed to write work with characters being in LGBT relationships. People were upset that an LGBT fic automatically got a more severe rating than its heterosexual counterpart, just on the basis of containing LGBT content. The little purges were numerous, and there were multiple large purges as platforms decided what they would be willing to accept and what they would leave by the wayside.

Archive of Our Own changed the model. Instead of platforms moderating what they would allow, AO3 implemented a tagging system which would allow readers looking for works in the archive to filter out content they did not want, or to filter for content they did want. Instead of the filter being run by the governing body, the archive was just there. It was up to the user to decide what they would read. The user moderated for their individual preferences, instead of the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW is the governing body of AO3) deciding for an entire, diverse body of fans what they would be allowed to consume. OTW’s creators saw the blood spilled. And they used it to write new rules.

This became the standard of fandom because of its equal opportunity approach. Fandoms have the ability to self-govern, and one of the easiest and safest ways to do that is through comprehensive tagging systems.

Tumblr has an incredible tagging system. Could it be better? Sure. But you can block tags for things you don't like. You, the individual. You, the solitary person, with your own lens through which you view the world. You, who are different to anybody who has ever been, and different from anyone who will be, because no one will ever share your exact set of thoughts, words, feelings, and actions. YOU.

Essentials so far:

Hosting sites began for all fanfiction

A few hosting sites became Curated sites

Curated sites led to the creation of One Hosting Site to Rule Them All (no matter what issues that may create) AO3

The one hosting site is now the primary archive for thousands of fandoms, open to all kinds of work as long as you tag correctly

The democratization of fandom gives space for all works, and allows users to consume what they will (and avoid what they wish) via comprehensive tagging systems

So... where does that leave us?

ACOTAR is a relatively new fandom. It's boomed in the last couple of years, and that's fine. That's good. It is driven on platforms like TikTok and tumblr.

Do not tell me that the TikTok fans are worse. The grass is not burning any more on the other side of the fence than it is under your feet. And yes, the grass under your feet is burning. Look around! And this is the hellsite, after all.

Tumblr and TikTok, paired with the insane (and awesome!) number of ACOTAR fans, largely keep us apart from previously existing general fandom spaces due to algorithms driving engagement. Many ACOTAR fans are new to fandom culture. I don’t think this is a bad thing. I do think it can create problems where fans with previous fandom experience who are a part of the ACOTAR fandom will clash with fans who are new to fandom.

I think this knowledge gives us a choice. There are two types of hosting sites. Why not create two types of events? This is already happening. If we can label events as one of the two types, then it will help people find their spaces where they are the most comfortable. If we create events that are labeled as either "curated" (large amounts of moderation, limits on ships allowed, etc) or "hosted" (anything goes), then we can ensure that everybody is happy. 

She means that, by the way. She works for "peace". Ha. Imagine that. But seriously, girl…

Okay, well…

My Perspective (And Why Do People Care So Much?)

Am I truly happy with this? No.

It actually really pisses her off, actually. She won’t admit it, but I will.

I think, Editorial Chaos, that fandom benefits from Archive of Our Own type approaches, where anything goes, but you must tag comprehensively. It encourages appropriate reporting of triggering material and content not safe for minors/work. This goes for fandom spaces, but most especially fandom events, which should accept things which under the umbrella of the theme they are celebrating, regardless of the perceived morality of their content.

Maybe we can't expect all spaces to be ready for anything. We don't expect that of all people. However, saying that you are hosting an event which is open to all fans that prevents people from considering a character in a new view, such as considering a morally gray character, who is presented in canon as a protagonist, as an antagonist during their character week, or issuing guidelines which would limit an author's interpretation of characters that fit within an archetype, is not truly hosting a fandom-wide event. That's a curated event. And calling it "curated" here is not a judgment.

She seriously means that, too. In case you actually care. The Suriel knows I don’t.

An event that does not allow for truly transformative fanworks within the bounds of its established purpose (a specific ship for a ship week, or including a certain character for a character week) is not an event that is open. It is curated.

An event that is curated is not open to all fans, and should not be presented as such. I’m not going to make a judgment call and say that it is wrong. Get together with your friends and host your own week. I don’t care if you do that! I encourage it! Call it a fic trade, call it something else, but it isn’t an “open” event. It is curated.

However, I want you to keep something in mind as you curate public-facing events: Stop policing for morality. That’s going to end very poorly for us. Keep in mind that the things you are reading in ACOTAR now would have been, and are, in some places, being pulled from library shelves (if they’re getting published at all!) because of the same kinds of arguments you are making about morality. 

If you truly want more ACOTAR books, consider that, were your thoughts and opinions transposed to the real-life debate about book censorship (which isn’t really different from curation/moderation except that its issued by a corporation or government, which is an added level of intensity) by people who thought explicit sexual content didn’t belong in published books, you wouldn’t have ACOTAR at all.

An event presented as open to all fans when it is not actually open to all fans is in fact censorship, defined in the New Oxford American Dictionary (accessed via Apple) as “the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.” 

Despite that, if this move to identifying events as either “open” or “curated” is what we need to get through this, then so be it. So be it. I'll be disappointed, and I'll be frustrated. And, so help me, I'll be angry. I will. I will not lie to you about that, but I will deal with it.

I love the “don’t like, don’t read” aspect of fandom. I like extensive, comprehensive, and sometimes-even-silly tagging. I like exploring things that I may not like, and then deciding “this just isn’t for me.” I like blocking tags!

More than that, though? I am tired of the fighting. I am so damn tired of it, guys. We have to do better. We seriously do. 

(Under 18s, and frankly, even 18-25s like myself, I’m just going to say one thing to directly to you, in case you are here. If you only take one point away from this post: Please learn to be nice to each other when you disagree. You, me, and our generations are notoriously bad at that. These people can be some of your best friends. Read that post I linked at the top for more details on good old human decency on public facing platforms. Complain to each other in DMs here or on Discord. Go outside and scream when you are frustrated, if you must. You’ll thank yourself one day, I promise.)

We are not treating each other with basic human dignity. We are not treating people like people. We also are not doing a good job of simply moving away from things that upset us at an individual level. We cannot expect to only see things we agree with. What we can do is acknowledge that our emotions are our responsibility. 

Community spaces do not need to be moderated for your enjoyment. If you are a part of a community space intended to be enjoyed with moderation like Reddit or some Facebook groups, great! If you are a part of a large group of people on a public platform like Tumblr, or in some type of semi-open community space like an open Facebook group or Discord server with a ton of people and expect to only see things you agree with or never encounter criticism, tough. 

Learn to accept criticisms of ideas you agree with. You don’t have to accept the criticism itself. You do have to accept that people are going to have thoughts you may not agree with, and that you will see them from time to time no matter how well you think you have blocked and closed off your experience to fit your tastes. (There is a big difference between appropriate criticism in the general environment and direct vitriolic hatred, which I decried in the post you should have read before starting. Which is why Editorial Chaos insisted you started there, to be clear.)

It’s exhausting to pretend like things are fine.

The grass is burning, remember? We’re all on this hellsite together.

So take from this post what you will. Consider my proposal for two kinds of fandom events. Ask questions, if you wish. Send me your thoughts. 

Just remember I’ll be the one answering cruel ones. Keep it together, folks. I was raised well, but I’ve got Nesta’s tongue and years of therapy to prove it.

I wish you all well. I truly do. I hope you learned something, or were able to consider something in a new light. I hope you find it helpful. 

All my best,

Chaos

Hey. Can I go, too?

Yeah, dude. Go to bed. It’s like… 3 AM and you’ve been obsessively working on this for days. How many research papers on censorship in fan controlled spaces did you-

Shut up, Chaos. At least we’re done now. Finally. Peace, y’all. <3 (not really), Editorial Chaos

xxx

One final note from my last editing round of this piece: I truly did spend days researching these topics, and reading thoughts from various points of view here on tumblr. I hope having the back and forth from "Chaos" to "Editorial Chaos" was entertaining rather than distracting. I hope some part of you enjoyed reading this. I truly do.

The first draft of this post was written not long after the Elaingate hashtag was created. It was a lot shorter. It was a lot meaner. It was a lot more discombobulated. I hope, despite the length and the occasional rudeness, that you have been able to learn something new, or consider a new perspective.

This subject matters a lot to me. In my state, we are fighting book bans left and right, and have been for a few years now. I recognize a lot of the statements I have seen here on tumblr from that very fight, and it makes it incredibly personal to me.

Thank you for understanding that for me, and many others around the globe who face much stricter regulations than those proposed in my district, this is more than a debate about morality and censorship in fanfiction. It is about addressing a pattern of thought that has real world consequences in our neighborhoods.

Thank you for reading this. Thank you for your kindness. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

And in case anyone is curious? Editorial Chaos is the bitch who edits all my fanfictions. Yes, really. She has her own brain (/kidding!). And she's so mean to me. All the time. (/true.)

[its-all-papaya]

hands on your keyboard cowboy i want to hear about the rest of your directors commentary pls !!! i LOVE the last landoscar convo in AN i absolutely need to hear more about it

likely place for you to be !!

(me, frothing at the mouth waiting for someone to ask me about this convo after I told you I was staying off tumblr for the rest of today)

ask me anything about my writing and read anybody, nowhere

OKAY. so. the LAST last scene of AN (fan stage) was like one of the very first things I wrote for that fic. I think the paragraph that starts "Lando's not online much these days" was first, followed by the Silverstone podium thing I used in the blurb, then it was fan stage. (Not to keep russian doll nesting asks, but the fan stage scene is a WHOLE other topic I could ramble about, I won't get into it too much here.) Anyway, other than those little anchors, I essentially just typed everything in chronological order and included what felt right when. So it was building in Lando's brain and building with Oscar and I KNEW I wanted it to end with the fan stage, so I KNEW I had to give some mental and emotional like... break? payoff? for Lando before then so that the fan stage would read like I wanted it to.

(break bc this got disguuuuusting long)

The other thing though is that I originally fucked up the Austria sprint finish order? So like 2/3 of the way through I realized I had to switch Lando and Oscar and that obviously like REALLY changed the entire tone of that passage and the bits right after, because the whole thing NOW is Lando getting beat by his teammate, but that super didn't exist until after I'd written all of Austria and started Silverstone. So I added the stuff about Lando battling Oscar and losing, and I loved it bc I think it gives the whole thing more depth, but then I was like... I need to write Lando out of this. I can't finish the fic without resolving the "Lando resents Oscar for beating him" plot-line. And I hadn't actually drafted anything for the last scene, but I had vague ideas of how it was gonna go that changed drastically when I started thinking about how to include some resolution for the on-track stuff.

SO. I'm done with the whole fic minus the conversation scene. We've had the Lewis Silverstone podium (probably my favorite part of the whole fic, and again, one of the original theses of it) and we're trying to get to the fan stage (probably my other favorite part) and I just like... sent Oscar to Lando's room with him? I didn't plan on all of their relationship development being in that one room, but I liked that it ended up that way because it felt really safe and contained for Lando, so I wanted them to get their payoff there, too. I don't really have anything to tell you about the first bit because it REALLY wrote itself. Like I was IN Lando's brain while writing this fic, all of his stuff was kind of me blind reacting to my own lead-up and then polishing it. Oscar was a bit harder to write, and this scene is the first time I felt like I had to actually make him like... do anything. Other than passively react to what Lando was doing. But even his dialogue just sat really right with me, and once I started the conversation it just felt really true to how they'd been all fic.

PAUSE for me to say I was so paranoid all fic too that I wasn't letting Oscar be enough of a real person with real emotions? I was like... some of these races sucked for Oscar too... ESPECIALLY silverstone... am I just going to make him Fix Lando anyway and not address his race? But THAT felt kind of true to Oscar too. Like he's not burdened the way Lando is and he at least seems to let things roll off easier, so I don't think it's OOC for him to not bring it up or be especially affected by it when Lando was a more pressing issue for him at the time.

Okay anyway. I really really loved the weird fight/not fight energy where Lando was fighting Oscar but Oscar just was not fighting back at all, like the one-sided argument was exactly what I wanted. I got through the part where Lando's like "I'm just not winning because I'm not" and then I got. So motherfucking stuck. Because at this point I'm like... okay. Lando has to give something back. We have to address Oscar's races. And I wrote the end of the convo no less than five times and it took probably three hours. I actually have a draft that I liked (I'll include it at the end) where they did address the Lando-hates-Oscar-beating-him thing, but then I had NO IDEA how to get them out of that. Like Lando admits that he hates losing to Oscar, but then wtf is Oscar supposed to say to that? Like... okay? Yeah? And I tried a bunch of stuff and hated it all, so I literally started a new word doc, dumped everything after "I'm just not winning because I'm not" in there, and started completely over from there in my actual WIP doc.

And from THERE I was like. You know what? We actually don't have to fix this for them? Like LANDO thinks this is a huge deal and makes him a horrible person, but does Oscar give a shit? Obviously they all hate losing to each other, that's like... the whole thing. Their whole goal is to beat everyone. So I was like "I'll indulge myself and just let them not deal with it right away" and I'd already written the "oscar's hand is out, palm up" paragraph for that original draft I liked, so I slotted her back in instead. And again, I am IN LANDO'S BRAIN, and I was like if EYE am thinking too much about how this conversation "should" go in a perfect world, Lando is DEFINITELY thinking about it. And I was like oh I need to stop thinking? Lando needs to stop thinking. And it sounds insane now because when I re-read the fic now, the through-line of Oscar calming Lando's thoughts is so so so obvious, but I promise that until writing "I need to stop thinking" it had never ever occurred to me that that's what Lando and Oscar's building relationship was doing for Lando the whole time.

Oh ALSO, in my original concept, they were never going to kiss because I felt like it would be forced bc I hadn't built to it enough. But once I hit on "I need to stop thinking" I was like OBVIOUSLY Oscar will kiss him to shut his silly brain up. Which, fun fact, is where "Lando isn’t even surprised. At any of it, really. It was always going to end up here" came from. It was just me, Soph, being like... oh. OBVIOUSLY THEY WERE ALWAYS GOING TO KISS.

So then I finished the kissing part and I was like... how will we get to fan stage for REAL. And I was still kind of worried about not resolving the on-track tension thing, so I was like... Lando is probably worried about that too! And the last "No, babe. That's your job." came to me straight from heaven or something, idk, but it was so perfect for ending the scene. Like I had spent HOURS AND HOURS worried about how to make them authentically address this and still stay soft and warm with each other and Lando's been panicking about it for eight straight days and we finally get the nerve to bring it up and Oscar is like "you silly silly goose, of course you hate losing to me!"

hahahahaha okay final notes then scene draft: as I said in the answered ask after I first decided to write AN2, I feel like I ended up with a version of this scene that was.... SO accidentally foreshadow-y of Hungary?? I was watching the team orders situation play out during that race and I felt like that dodgeball "the gift of prophecy" meme because I was like... holy fuck, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing that AN Lando was afraid of. The other note is that the line "we don't have to fix it right now, Lando" in the hollow hereafter is a direct result of my fight with this scene in AN and the topics of it. AN2 was destined, it's literally the only thing I can think of with the amount of weird pre-work I'd already done for a situation I didn't know was going to exist ever when I published AN????

oKAY THANKS FOR ASKING CLEARLY I HAD THOUGHTS!! Here are your demos/deleted drafts !!

this is how the austria sprint scene finished when I thought it was Lando P2, Oscar P3:

As he clasps Oscar’s gloved hand in parc fermé, he wishes for a blind second that it was a grand prix so he could remember how Oscar’s eyes looked squeezed against champagne spray up close. Then he remembers that place in the back of his mind and the ugly, twisted relief he felt passing his teammate for the final time, and he shoves the idea away. He doesn’t deserve that, either.

And this is how the final convo went when I was trying to make them discuss things (picks up after "It’s just me. I’m just not winning because I’m not.” and the rest of that paragraph didn't exist yet):

“We drive the same car,” Oscar says and Lando already knows he’s not going to like the rest, “and I’ve been qualifying like shit the whole month, too. It’s not just us out there. You know that. You’re being really hard on yourself.”

Lando remembers then that Oscar’d had his race ruined too. Worse, probably. Without a choice in the matter. And instead of wallowing he’s here comforting Lando, who should know better by now. Who should be better by now.

“I’ve been here three times as long as you,” he’s teetering on that precipice, deciding between anger and the other thing. “And I’m still making stupid mistakes. It’s worse because I should be better by now, and-” he stops. Considers.

“And?” Oscar prompts and Lando still can’t look at him.

“And you beat me. In Austria.” He says, quieter than anything since they’ve entered his room.

Oscar takes a breath so deep Lando can hear it. When he finally glances up, Oscar is already looking at him. His eyes still have that stupid warm, fond look in them and Lando’s afraid he’s going to do something dumb, like apologize, but instead what he says is “I beat you in Monaco.”

Lando scoffs, eyes back on his feet. “That wasn’t the same.”

“Why?” and he’s still asking like he doesn’t know the answers.

“Because it wasn’t, Oscar, people weren’t saying things in Monaco.” He’s losing the thread of the conversation a little bit, brain wrung dry from hours of thinking these things over, and it feels ten times harder to do it all out loud.

“Is this about what people are saying?” Oscar asks, then, and maybe they’ve both talked themselves in a bit of a knot.

“It’s not about anything.

“Lando,” Oscar says. “C’mere.”

His hand is out, palm up, and he’s taken his cap off at some point so his hair is messy and ruffled and he looks soft even though he’s got his damn polo neatly tucked in like always. He should be mad. Lando’s selfish, he’s so… he’s always taking what he shouldn’t from Oscar, but he goes anyway, puts his hand in Oscar’s and lets his teammate pull him down next to him on the bed.

“Are you upset about Austria?” he asks gently. He’d let go of Lando’s hand as soon as he was sitting, so his arm is free to curl around Lando’s waist, drag his palm up. Hip to ribs.

Lando sucks on the side of his thumb where it’s started to bleed. When he brings his hand to his face, it’s shaking a little. “Not…” he pauses, concedes, “Kind of. But not at you, I don’t think. I like when you do well.”

Oscar laughs a little and Lando’s eyebrows pull together, but it doesn’t feel mean. Lando’s not sure Oscar has a mean bone in his body when it comes to him, and that should be an issue, probably.

Oscar’s palm slides back down, ribs to hip.

“At what, then?”

And that’s the question, isn’t it.

And then I couldn't get them out of it so all that went to the graveyard! But I like the way it ended up, so I'm really really not mad about it.

KAY THX CHARLIE love u <3 if anybody else made it this far, ask about other scenes, I dare you >:)

[s0up1ta]

OKAY FJRST. THE LITTLE DETAILS FROM THEIR CANON DESIGNS/YOUR PERSONAL DESIGNS BECAUSE THEY ARE CANON TO ME TO THE AU

not to be the chip guy but of course he comes first. chibos little beanie instead of the captains hat is SUCH a great touch !! the fact he still has his necklace and his long coat in a different more cover-up-slut approach makes me insaneeeee god he's so. Just like me frfr. you just drew me but if i had long hair and more bastard swagger that's so coolio bro what the freaksauce... ALSO keeping his belt and piercings make me to happy forever and ever but swagever ! Im normal ^_^ WAITTT also the "coverupslut" tits thing is really funny to me obviously he couldn't be walking around like that in the Real World because it's lame and doesn't support his transgender swagger but I really love how you kept his midriff and the teensiest tiniest little bit of a happy trail because he fucking WOULD wouldn't he. he WOULD fucking look like that. and !! speaking of speaking of that his black crop top thing works really well with both his style and his style of dancing which I think is so awesome sauce broski AND THE BLACK NAILS. THATS IMPORTANT can i get you to make something canon for me from one guy to another you're such a good friend and this isn't me buttering you up at all but on a totally separate note did you know you're hot and cool and all your art is amazing and you're talented and smart. could you make it so jay was the one to paint his nails and he complained forever and ever about it he wad so annoyed but he only complained more when the paint started chipping and he forced her to fix it. staring at you with autism eyes Btw

gillion design is so real forever and ever and I'm totally okay about it bro trust. absolutely LOVE the fact he kept his necklace too but instead it's framed as a gift from pretzel and made as a Kandi necklace :〕 it's so sick ANDDD THE WAY HE DRESSES !!! his baggy black tank-top and belt with the pants bro you Get It he fucking. Would look like that humanized wouldn't he. the bracelets and the also black nails (that. And Again, looking at you with begging and pleading autism eyes. jay probably had to act like she was just SO down to do and felt like it for funsies so she could teach pretzel when in reality chibo just begged her because he's a little bitch and really wanted to bond with gillion because he's an idiot and couldn't think of a better way. Also his paint was chipping and he was mildly annoyed) AND !! THE HAIRRRRR holy shit my friend tumblr user and mutual soup s0up1ta im losing my actual goddamn ever-loving mind over the way you drew his dyed hair it's so fucking pretty dude THE COLORRRRSSSSSS THE COLORS IM BEING POSSESED AND TAKEN AWAY. THE VIBRANCY SNATCHED MY SOUL AND GOT ME VAPORIZED LIKE IT WAS DAYBRINGER SOLOMON SAVE THE WORLD AND SUCK EACH OTHER VAMP4VAMP STYLE MY FINAL MESSAGE

Oh my god. And pretzel. soup im losing my fucking MINDDDDD over pretzel i know when you showed me the (theses aren't posted yet. i get to be in the Cool Exclusive Friend Club for. Asecond >:DDD) drawings of her with the biker helmet i lost my shit then but I need to lose it again. i lose that very frequently. The little patches in her jeans and clips in her messy hair and home-made bracelets covering every part of her body that they can and her big fluffy skirts that mimic her frogtopus arms that spread out and her overalls QND THAT ONE DRAWING. WHERE AHE IS PAINTING GILLIONS EYELINER ON IM. SOUP IM SHAKING YOU IM LOSING OT and also. Of course she would like bluey <3

Now onto the actual writing for just a second because I need to ramble on how well you fucking Captured the way it was written so perfectly because like. Holy fuck dude

Tigers being paired with you Definitely is the best possible outcome because you have created something for me to be Insane about. I could picture everything so vividly and i heard that one line where it was him going "I want you. I want you baby" and i just completely saw your drawing of them arms linked and extended and I lost my MINDD soup. spinning in circles and shimmying like a deep sea isopod ruffling up dirt on the seafloor look at me in my dead ass eye holes because i cannot express enough how much I love that. everything in this fic was pictured entirely in your style and I'm so fucking normal about that I promise. i LOVE seeing the little details you move from both cannon jrwi and your designs into the way they're drawing because, and I cannot stress this enough that this is a good thing, they all look like Them. normally with au's it's them slightly off or that's Them just in a different outfit but NOOO dude you got it so perfect. yeah that IS what they would look like that IS how they would dress and act and look and fucking DANCE bro 🗣🗣‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

and finally just wanted to say the writing is sosososo good forever and ever but that's exactly what I would expect from Tigers101 the fnc guy and chip kisser themself alright not surprised in the least. and with the art being as amazing at going with it not nearly surprised it's sof uckign awesome seeing you grow and get more talented as an artist because DUDE !!!!!! HOLY SHIT YOU HAVE GROWNNNN its so awesome man

anyway leave you with this image

because i saw the part where chibo blushed and I pictured him in your style and i nearly whisper-screamed faggot out loud before catching myself because I'm tired <3 thank you for being you and so rad and sweet forever and ever and making the sick ass cool ass shit that you do im sohyped and so happy everytime I get. A message or a tag from you because I KNOWWWWW it means I get something to feast apon and i love it so much. already said it once but it's so nice i say it twice suck each other vamp4vamp style and save da world. my final message

I AM FRAMING THIS AND HANGING IT ON MY WALL FOREVER THANK YOU SO MUCH DUDE AUDHJSJSJDKFBJS 😭😭💕💕💕

[smallearthboundfindings]

You might have known that EarthBound Beginnings' end credits theme, Eight Melodies, has official lyrics, but did you know that EarthBound's, Smiles and Tears (attached above), has lyrics too? Written in Ness's POV, I think theses lyrics are really sweet (and also reveals that A: he owns a guitar! And B: his shoes are canonically raggedy!). Give them a read under the cut and follow along! Credit to WikiBound for this one; it's the cleanest translation we got!

Grown-ups have done so much more stuff than me There's many things that I still want to see Now I take my backpack to the world and fill it with memories

My favorite baseball cap rests on my head My worn out sneakers, faded white and red My own guitar pick, shiny and clear Safe in my pocket, right here

Though sometimes I got sad and almost cried You were right there with me, by my side I knew we were friends to the core But maybe it was something more

Together, we walked that road for so long We laughed, we played, we got hurt, we grew strong When taking short-cuts, and getting lost I learned what I’d known all along

That even if you can’t put faith in those Who you meet, and lose, and love, and hug Overall, you just can't give up Believing in your friends And just by being there, you've woken me Just by being who you’d always be Now I see, you helped me to know The stronger, happier me Because Like a gentle breeze, through the grass and the pine trees You always wore a smile

Now we, who shared our Smiles and Tears... ...I miss you... We two are now far apart...

[mydarlingbat]

Do you think Batman loves Joker?

Yes, Batman does in fact love the JOKER in his own twisted way. He really does though. Yes! Batman and Joker relationship is very complicated. It's so hopeless but it's also so engrossing, and i mean that in the best way, but their relationship is a hopeless romance. It's a story that never truly can have a happy ending. It's a relationship that they're always going to go back to each other because it's destined. They're always going to find each other again, even if they're normal. I just been thinking a lot lately, and this ship i always come back to it. I left so many ships for good, though I always come back to this one, and it's because there's so much coming from this one relationship. Batman and Joker got so much going for them. There's hate, love, anger, masochism, a longing, sexual tension. A need for one another. A bond that they can't even explain. It's lovely. It's bewildering. It's engrossing. It's all i love in a ship. I just want to expound on the touches. I can honestly say that no villain besides from Catwoman has touch Batman in the ways Joker has. No villain has touch Batman so many times with him being okay with it. And let's not get started on the nose touching, chin touching, chest touching, bodies touching, soft touches between the two. The soft pulls Batman does with the Joker's hair. It's so inmate. It's sexual tension hidden in plan sight. It's sexual tension in their fights. This feels like a form of sex with theses two. Joker loves this as much as Bruce, only he would never admit to such a thing, but that doesn't make it not true. Can we talk about the everyone seeing that Batman cares about the Joker but him? It's so obvious now.

I feel there will always be some extreme level of hate with theses two. It's also written in Arkham City wiki that Batman shares a love and hate relationship with the Joker. Everything about their interactions depict a love and hate relationship.

So yes, i do believe that Batman shares a love and hate relationship with the joker. Batman hate might be much more stronger, but yes, there's love somewhere in there, and Bruce hates it. Just my opinion though. Thank you so much for asking me.

[zahri-melitor]

as someone who isn't into zdarsky's run, i mostly agree with your points about why people don't care for it, and i think that the comparison with ram v's current run holds a lot of insight into why i feel it falls flat on a lot of points. ram v's run has also sidelined most of the batfamily, it's also drawing on Batman R.I.P. with its use of Dr. Hurt, its choice of cast and use of b-plots feels very NML… but i like what ram v's run has to say about batman through the lens of cassbats vs azbats, and the prose + artwork + pacing is excellent so i enjoy reading it even when i think it's getting a little caught up in morrison thoughts. meanwhile zdarsky's run is tripped up by a lot of weird event pacing in a way i think is very similar to fear state and keeps overtly reminding me of other stories with art styles and theses about batman that i like more.

I have no problem with people liking one run more than another: honestly I think it's healthy and good marketing to have runs catering to different segments of the fandom. There are occasional glorious periods where it feels like everyone is getting fed, but most of the time, what most fans realistically want is to pick up a title that they are enjoying and not want to throw it across the room.

I...don't expect every run I read to be glorious. I hope it's steady, competent writing with something for me to enjoy in it. And that's what I'm largely getting from Zdarsky. I do think it's a run that helps to have a fair amount of back history on, in that Zdarsky loves a reference, but one of the things I actually really enjoy in comics is the way stories layer on top of each other and become more interesting and complex via those layers, even if any one story may not be 'brilliant', or it might seem derivative pointing to a better written earlier story.

Zdarsky's use of ZEA feels so much clearer in terms of shaping how the concept works than say Batman RIP. And I've got a soft spot for all the Brother-Eye and OMAC references going on, and for Bruce being a freak with a memory palace who's inflicted all sorts of experimental psychological experiments on himself over the years in the pursuit of being BETTER. ZEA as a concept is about things Bruce has done to himself, while Barbatos is something external that is fascinated with Bruce.

I suspect I'm really going to enjoy Ram V's 'Tec run, especially as from all accounts he's got a very structured plot and is being allowed the space to tell it (something I'm fond of), but given I'm currently also on my long range read of Batbooks in order I'm actually trying not to be across current Bat books too much so I can keep everything organised in my head. I'm reading Batman partly because it's Tim's current book and partly because it's where the narrative is revolving at the moment, meaning I can discuss it with other people.

[pteren]

the number 5. thoughts?

in the context of my "threes in writing" post: five is slightly better than three, but only just. that post is written humorously but it is rooted in a seriously held belief that primes have become too cliche.

ever noticed that almost all life on this planet has an even number of legs? ever thought it might be cool to see more creatures with three or five legs? thats how i feel about writing. i want to see more four-legged theses, more hexagonal paragraphs, more sets of nine perfectly balanced ideas. im bored of reading 5-book series just because we've all quietly agreed that 5 is a cool number of books to write. no! you can tell a story in any number of acts, and it can actually be very harmful to try to divide a narrative into the wrong number of pieces. the biggest example of this is Portal 2, which absolutely does not need another sequel- Chell's story was completed in two acts. there is absolutely nothing else to talk about. and yet Valve is continually ridiculed for "not being able to count to 3"- when that's never what they set out to do in the first place!*

sometimes i'll be listing things, come up with two, and have an irrational urge to add a third thing. i'll actively wrack my brain for a third item to "fill" the list, even if there is none, and have even been tempted to use a subpar specimen as filler. this does the number two a disservice and compromises my integrity as a writer. why should anyone listen to what i have to say when i care more about how many things i'm saying than about what i'm saying?

and there can be benefits to using less conventional numbers in writing! divisible numbers (especially multiples of two) give you way more stylistic opportunities, because the elements of a set can be paired up or compared to each other in a variety of ways. for example, in a recent post i wrote "my hubris is stronger than tooth or hoof or sucker or stinger" - a list of four items grouped in pairs of similar-sounding words. i made a masterpost a while back expressing my distaste for five-paragraph essays (which have three body paragraphs). in practice i've found it's often more more powerful to write four body paragraphs and use them to play off of one other.

i don't really hate the numbers 5 and 3, and i will write in groups of three if that's what my goal requires. this response actually ended up being a five paragraph essay (um. sorry). but i think there are some other cool numbers out there that deserve more rep- and as a sworn enemy of convention it is my charge never to do things just because everyone else does them.

*don't get me wrong i would love to see more portal games, but "portal 3" is nooooot the right way to go. chell has been through enough shit. i want a six-part ratman story dammit.** **also this is not about half-life. i have not played half-life. do not yell at me about half-life.

[ti-girl1226]

yet another ask for people to write for me.

— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3

So… I just remembered more prompts I have mainly just platonic because that’s how I feel today. Also same thing as last prompt do tag me if you did something. Or link/comment title and website if you write a longer fic— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —

Batfam x reader (any gender)

so this is more of a fic idea but whatever. Also goes off of young justice time line for what happened to Jason Todd because I don’t like the whole Jason and Talia thing. Anyway the reader is a kid when the were put into the league of assassins to protect Damian and was trained alongside newly resurrected Jason Todd. During this time they grew close to Jason considered them to be like a dad and Jason considered them to be like his kid. When Jason left thought they left them behind with Damian this really affected him and made him feel extremely guilty for leaving but always thought that the reader would be fine with Damian. The thing is when Damian came to Gotham it really worried him so he tried looking for them and asked Damian about the reader but Damian didn’t know anything either. Around this time me members of the bat family start getting this feeling that there being watched But whenever they look around the can’t see anyone. What is this figure and why does it not seem to bother either Jason or Damian. Why does it almost feel familiar? (Ps if you don’t get it the figure is the reader also if you do this please don’t do any romance it’s not what it’s really intended for)

— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —

141 from cod x reader

I can’t put into words how happy I would be for any thing to be written where it’s just platonic for all of them but anyway I have more than one idea for this. — ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° — One: although I love price as a dad I want one where price kinda ignored the reader as a kid because of the military and now both of them aren’t on speaking terms and haven’t for a while but on one mission the 141 teams up with another unit and there stands the reader at like 20 one of the higher officers of the unit. The thing is the reader changed their last name to be their mothers maiden name so no one knows that they’re related and the reader pretends that they don’t even know Price.

— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° — Two: the opposite basically of the last one where the reader was raised by price as he was a single dad. Reader was a chaotic child and was for many years undiagnosed with adhd. The reader still is somewhat wild but isn’t when it comes down to the military work they do. One day price and the readers unit get teamed together for a mission and they have to work together, hopefully it’s not to chaotic for price.

— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° —— ° — Thirdly: I’m aroace for the few people who are out there who want to know but I really want one where the reader is just oblivious to someone flirting and/or is really paranoid that someone is flirting with them because they couldn’t reciprocate their feelings. That it really I just really want a reader who is aroace with theses people. — <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —— <3 —

Last but not least, a weird request to many but I want any fanfic where its omegavers and the reader is either a teen who has yet to present or one where the reader has a condition where they just never present and are forever a pup. I keep seeing omegavers where it’s about the reader being an omega and stuff like that but I want just one where there a forever pup and try and hide it because they don’t want to be babied but it just makes them sick and sad, but they pretend that it doesn’t. They get fond out when one omega goes into heat but they keep babying and calling them pup. Also I don’t want it to be sexualized heat but more of I need everyone in the pack in my nest type heat. I really really want to say this again that if you do write something like this do not make it sexual please.

[radioaf-a]

{Little vent post just to get this out of my head}

{I feel like I'm not good enough to be writing Alastor anymore. When I started there use to be a lot more interest but when I first made this blog I also had Rosie as muse but people seems to like al more so I stuck just writing him because that what people wanted. I also had a rough start with this blog with someone trying to force a ship on me and who stole me headcanons and ideas for their own writing of alastor they made me feel just horrible my anxiety got so bad that I felt like I couldn't write now I do now without fear of backlash or getting yet another idea I had stolen and the words written like I was so scared to upset this person cause drama this I jsut let them treat me like nothing less then dirt on their shoes at times. Like I struggle a lot now with like this feeling of I'm always doing something wrong that's why I keep losing people interest cause at the start I use to get sent ask memes and asks and had people wanting to plot things with me but now I get next to nothing I have few amazing mutuals/friends who with out them I would just delete this blog and move on. That's okay that there not lot of interest anymore but still it kind hurts since I feel like I'm not doing Alastor at justice anymore but at the same time I also know that my mental health talking and I shouldn't listen to it. I works hard on this blog, my headcanons, my verses and all the writing I do but I just feel like I'm slowly losing a battle I didn't even know I was fighting in. I don't know I just feel like I'm disappoint I don't know maybe this just silly 11:45pm thoughts but I can't shake theses feeling anymore}

[yurisorcerer]

Trying to decide if this is one of the worst episodes of Metallic Rouge or the best.

Here's the thing, okay? On the one hand; it still sucks that this show has a beautiful silver-haired butch who's a revolutionary and they made her both straight and the bad guy. (Said butch, Jill / Silvia, would probably be my favorite character if she had more screentime. I wish she was developed beyond being Metallic Rouge's version of Magneto.) It sucks that The Joker, Baybey has continued to be an important character and that they're now having him nominally switch sides because he's such a little heehoo rascal.

In general this show's writing is just really bad, and it seems like what we're building up to is a Nakashima Kazuki-style endgame twist where the last episode or so turns into the various rival factions uniting against an outside threat, which seems to be the Usurpers in this case. Now, most of the shows Nakashima has written scripts for can get away with this because they're so heavily vibes-based. No one but the extremely deluded think of Kill la Kill or Promare as sophisticated theses on important issues. For Metallic Rouge...I don't know. To draw a comparison to yet another Nakashima show I feel like I'm reacting to this a way not wholly dissimilar to how people reacted to Brand New Animal in terms of its writing just absolutely not working in the slightest.

On the other hand; this episode was gay as shit and I really loved the fight scenes. I don't want to just wave every criticism I just wrote off with "so who can say if it's bad or not?" but Metallic Rouge really does work better when it's focusing on character writing as opposed to trying to make all these la-di-da sociopolitical statements where it clearly has no fucking idea where it's talking about. So yeah, the bit where Naomi quite literally rips her own heart out to give it to the dying Rouge to keep her alive did work on me, I'm gonna give them that, it was a pretty great scene. Do that and the several other scenes I liked, most notably Silvia's confrontation with Rouge, make up for the show's broader writing deficiencies? I wouldn't go that far, but I think if this does end Nakashima style with everyone setting aside their differences to fight the ooh scary aliens (IDEALLY WITH THE NEANS BEING LIBERATED AS A SIDE EFFECT? JUST A THOUGHT) that wouldn't be the worst thing, it might be the *best* possible way for the show to end at this point.

I guess we'll find out next week, given that that the final confrontation is right on the horizon.

[popculturebuffet]

Pride Month: The Pride Season 1 Review: Their Here, There Queer, Get Used To It (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people. It's pride month and once again i'm late to the party as things have been hectic, in this case catching up on stuff and then just having my body and mood crash entirely for a week. But we're back and once again Kev has some rainbow flavored treats he wants me to hand out. Also some stuff to review.

This time we're kicking things off with a look at 2011 comic The Pride, starting with it's first mini series later renamed The Pride Season 1 after coming to comixology.

The Pride comes from gay comic writer and gay rights advocate Joe Glass. Glass has written a ton of queer comics i'm curious to check out, with the pride being one of his first and most notable works and one that he still dives into ocasionally, writing a sequel for Comixology in 2017, a spinoff series the Pride Adventures, with a summer special and new mini series, Agenda Dysphoria, coming this year.

The Pride follows it's universe's first, and possibly comics first all queer superhero team after openly queer superhero Fabman feels the community isn't getting nearly enough representation on the bigger team, with this universe's justice league stand in being outright homophobic at best. So he gathers all the queer superheroes he knows and together they fight for truth, justice and acceptance, while dealing with a mad preacher who plans to turn people with the superhero gene into his servants to take over the world, as you do and be a homophobic jackass, as the church often do.

The Pride seemed to be a modest success, and is something I was curious to check out: I read the first issue years ago when season 2 was announced.. and wasn't impressed, but when Kev pitched it I figured it'd be a neat thing to look at. See if I was wrong about the book and it was better than I expected or if it was just meh. So join me under the cut for pride as their here, their queer, and they've got a bear, their the pride.

The pride is drawn by Gavin Mitchell, who does a decent job, having a cartoony style with sketchy lines I feel fits the book's old school tone with modern values approach well. The weird thing is.. Mitchell only draws HALF the series, drawing thesee first two issuea nd then issue 5, so the series does suffer a bit from the art being consitant, some is good, some is not, so keep that in mind as you see panels.

We open to a news report as some jerky reporters report on various other superheroes, including Crabman and Lobster boy, a mustached crabman.

And his young soon to be dead ward. I... badly want a spinoff with this guy I mean look at him

He's a crab man with a mustache, a human hand for some reason, and a sucession of lobster boys who died horribly but don't seem to be his fault. I also like how Fabman smiles at this. Like he just loves how rediculous the world of superheroics is. But seriously if a crab dealing with severe losses on a regular basis who dresses like Freddy Mercury isn't a spinoff pitch you want to hear, I don't know what I can possibly offer you as you clearly lost lost the abliity to feel joy long ago. Now if your against it because he MIGHT have murdered a teenager.. fair point. I don't think he did on purpose justding by his OH CRAP face, but still fair.

Fabman's in his civies.. kinda dealing with the fact the hosts of the newscast casually throw out homophobic shit about him rescuing "a hunk" and outright use the term trick. You know Kent Brockman may sell out to our ant overlords but he never pulled that shit.

This unease from the broadcast compounds when we cut to some kids playing with their toys.. and one brings out a fabman figure. The two other kids turn into homophobic shit lords... only for Fabman to show up and scare the crap out of them. They super run away and the kid, Billy talks to his faviorit hero, admitting he didn't choose to be diffrent, and wondering why people suck, hoping one day they can see how great fabman is. Fabman wonders that too.. and the gears turn in his head

We get a one page interlude as we meet our villians, the reverend and basher. The reverend has basher kill a guy for complaning about exploding a little, how dare he before rambling ominously about "Ma plans".

Fabman starts to round up the heroes who will be thwartin "ma plans". We first meet Frost, An english heroine, transwoman and lesbian into punishing "Naughty Boys". She's as cold as her power set, but game for whatever her friend has plan. She was beating up some assholes in an ally who made the mistake of trying to accost her. She's the best.

Next is White Trash, A tatooed white man with super tough skin who runs some gang bangers off a basketball court but has one of the kids he saved used the f slur. I do like this bit, with Fabman saying "it ruins the good feeling every time dosen't it".. that even rescuing someone as a queer person.. can have the person still be homophobic. White Trash brushes it off as while it does indeed suck, he's a kid: Kids can change... and is honored to meet fabman and hear him out.

We next meet my faviorites out of the pride as some homophic assholes are mid hate crime when one of them ups and hits another and we meet Angel, pansexual drag queen with the powers of a confusion field that messes up the brain pans for those nearbye and makes them attack their foes and Bear, hard gay man who can turn into a literal bear. While having a Bear turn into a bear is the most on the nose thing imaginable I can't help but love it for it's sheer audacity and the bear gets fleshed out so much over the series he's hard not to love. The two are close friends and a duo and Angel mentions Fabs offer.

The final initial member of our party is Queen Sapphire, an amazon whose black gay wonder woman, Nubia before she got to be that, and whose stopping an asshole throwing a brick at someone working at planned parenthood and who runs straight into fabman's abs. Lucky asshole. Fabman invites his new friend Sapphire to the meeting.

Th group meet at the gay bar, gay bar, gay bar Fabulosa, Fabman's hq. Fabman gets into it briefly with Angel over not including T in calling this a SLBG meetup.. this was long before non binary and asexual were as known or accepted, something I have heard the sequel corrects and is forgiviable given when this came out. I also like this as it shows queer people can mistakes in their own community. And having seen the massive dumptrucks of biphobia int eh owl house fandom (Though most of us are awesome) over Huntlow.. can confirm.

Speaking of which at least for this arc the team has none which does bother me a bit as there's a B in the term.. but no actually bi members of the team. I do respect Glass not adding one just to have one and going with the characters he had, so it dosen't ruin the book for me, but it is something I hope later mini series course corrects as the team DOES expand in season 2.

Fabman gives his full pitch

And it's sad that most of the speech still holds. The first part.. never really felt like a thing in comics: Sure homophobic jackasses exist and always have, but most queer heroes were taken seriously in universe. The problem was, and still is, that a lot of queer heroes are lower profiled, either due to being introduced later or being firmly established as straight. There's exceptions like Iceman and Wonder Woman, but both came out AFTER this series was published, and even now while there are more queer heroes than ever before, it tends to be a dice roll if any actually get pushed. As Fabman later points out, teams might have a queer member or two, but they generally tend to just hav eone. And when you look at the major super teams right now their pretty bone dry in terms of queer members: The Avengers, as good as the current roster is, has exactly zero queer members. The Justice League when last around had two (Black Canary and Hipolita). The Titans, dc's current main team has zero. I"m not knocking the writers, I get ediotrial has a say, but it gets to the heart of the issue: most of the biggest heroes were throughly established as straight. Jonathan Kent, Superman, is one of the few exceptoins and even then DC has no idea what the fuck to do with him after his initial push wasn't the roaring sucess they hoped for. While Queer Rep, IS way better these days, the lack of visablity is still an issue. For all this mini's issues i'm glad the pride exist for that reason alone: why NOT have an almost entirely queer superteam? one that welcomes the straights sure, but is mostly queer people being who they are and fighting for the world like any other team, while also repping the community. If the big two can't make superman gay, make your own superman who is. Who has all the ideals of the character, but just happens to like guys and wear even tighter fitting pants. Seriously I may not be into fabman but I respect his giant crotch bulge in the panel above. Size isn't evertyhing but it's still fucking impressive.

As for media rep while sexless is slowly being weeded out, he wasn't wrong at the time nad even now having the gay character be a joke machine is still a common device.

At any rate the team soon gets an audition: Twink.. who starts by taking his shirt off

I do love everyone's reaction to him stripping down and worry when he says he dosen't want to ruin his close. He dosen't have a super dong like fabman though, his power is instead.. basically colossus. This is Twink, a younger member.

And now as Fabman goes to recurit the team's final member with everyone on board, let's take a moment to adress the elephant in the room. Some of the cast falls into typical LBGTQS+ niches to the point it COULD feel sterotypical. I mean fabman runs a gay bar, gay bar, gay bar, and is camp as hell, and well.. do I really have to outline where guys named the Bear and the Twink fit into the gay community. And that's just what I do know as while being bi, I don't know how say Angel reads to a drag audience or Frost to a trans one.

From my limited perspective though it mostly works: The most overt refrences.. are coming from a gay man himself and feel firmly tounge in cheek, while the characters themselves are well fleshed out, something I missed on first read as I only made it one issue. As the series goes on they get depth to them that really helps them stand out.

With that they have a team.. but they need one last member. Naturally it's down to Fabman to go to a seedy bar to recurit him. Which may be an uphill battle as someone else in the community already tried.

Yeah our final member wolf.. is wolverine combined with batman but gay. Granted Marvel would have a gay wolverine soon after this, but props to Glass he did it first and Logan does have a lot of hairy gay man energy in him, so it makes sense. He has logan's gruff nature, love of bars and denim off duty, and batman's millions, detective skills and lack of powers. I love their back and forth: The two feel like old pals which is something hard to pull off sometimes in fiction, to make it feel that lived in without sounding force but the two trade barbs, Fabs treis to drink whisky and spits it out and eventually a barfight happens as a homophobic asshole makes a deal of it. Twink steps in to help and Fabs reveals WHY he needs Wolf for the team: Training. The team is good.. but haven't trained as a team and twink in paticular, while good for a rookie with his self training, hasn't had proper training yet. Wolf decides what the hell and our team is complete and so's issue 1.

We then get a few origin storys, something sprinkled thorughout the first few issues: First up is white trash, a kid in a poor community whose dad abused him, heavily implied to be because he was gay, and who eventually had enough, kicked the man's homophobic ass and became a force for good in his community. Then we have Wolf, who in a flashback is being considered by the justice division. Wolf is buisnessman thomas everett, who inherted a company when his parents died in a carcrash and had already been training to be a vigilinate. His massive success gets him the spot.. and we'll find out why he lost it later.

Next issue opens with Wolf in their danger room thing, having just cleaned up and showed off for a very impressed rest of the team. Fabman reveals he didn't just get wolf as a trainer: Wolf will be co-leader: while Fabs is the groups overall head, Wolf will be in charge in the field and of training the team.

Twink is super smitten by wolf and a big fan, having seen him in the justice division and wondering why he quit. As I alluded to earlier though.. he didn't. The bastards fired him and he's not ashamed to share why: Brian was closted as a hero as first, getting his big call to the majors, but teamed up with Fabs. While the two were never a thing, it was nice to have someone to confide in.

Unfortuantley the tabolids being the dicks they were caugh ton to the tow's friendship and glommed onto it. The Division.. were less than sympathetic, and asked if he was gay. When he said yes.. they dropped him. Mostly Superdude, the lead, who was concerned about their "family friendly image", which can go straight to hell and is also eerily accurate of how hard it was to get queer characters into children's media. Wolf's over it, though he also figures they weren't All on board with this shit, the Venusian in paticular being uncomfortable as their species has no concept of gender. It's nice nod to nonbinary folks and judging from tv tropes, this gets dug into a bit more next series. I do grant this is with the issue that most nonbinary characters tend to be aliens , but it dosen't feel like the cheat it usually is here, just a nod to a community just starting to pop out and the fact they explore what that means next time. I also wouldn't mind if mainstream jonnn was nonbinary, even if he still used masculine pronouns.

The next day the crew heads for their first training session, with Angel making sure Bear's up to this healthwise. We'll find out why soon enough, for now though he flirts a bit with white trash as the trio and frost head up to find Queen Sapphire and Twink duking it out. Turns out this is his plan: Have them spar so they can find out each other's weaknesses. They were also supposed to be here way sooner and he admits he's going to ride them hard. He dosen't use that exact phrasing because of the book we're in, but they need to be ready. They've worked indvidually but they haven't really worked with teams. It's something i've seen in superhero comics before, it was an issue when the x-men roster was cut in half by the mutant massacre and had to restock with people who either only had worked solo or with one othe rperson (Psylocke and Dazzler) or never done proper superhero work let alone team work (Longshot). The team is good, it's why Fabman recurited them but I like that they don't function as a team out of a box and don't have that team experince most superheroes have. In a mainstream comics universe 9/10 heroes have been on a team at some point and thus even if theirs synergy issues, the team can still work effectively enough.

Fabman interrupts as a fire has happened at another gay bar and they need to go save that shit as they really couldn't ask for a better debut. He's a bit TOO jazzed about that part, but still, even untrained, it's a simple search and rescue. Even if a villian is there, they don't need to be in top shape yet.

At the fire Wolf has Angel work crowd control and twink wisely points out he'll be more of a danger as a metal man inside a raging furance, so he's given back door duty. I swear to god these innuendos are not intentional.. they are fun though.

As frost uses her powers to cool things down a bit, they find the culprit holding some surviviors hostage:" Firebomb, a guy with charred skin, cool googles and a love of hate crimes. Seriously the guy throws the F slur around casually. The villians in this book.. are about as subtle in thier bigotry as a captain planet villian is at looting the enviromrment. And their bigotry.

Thankfully for our heroes Frost easily cancels out his powers while his attempt to flee gets interupted by a metal fist to the face. Our heroes first outing, I swear to fucking god they won't stop, is a rousing success. The pride then make their grand debut to the press, with Fabman even expertly fielding the slightly insenstive question of "Are you only going to rescue gay people" Of course not. This is simply about standing out and letting queer heroes shine. Their the pride and their here to stay.. and unforutantely for them the reverned is watching and one of them is now key to his plans.

Secret origins next. Angels is just a fun monologue of her other half explaning who she is and why she does this: Someone has to keep her "babies" in the community safe. Muscle Mary gets a more proper one, a nice twist on Wondy's origin: Like the amazons of theymiscera, they had man visit for the first time in forever but it was less plesant with one killing her mom. Showing ultimate compassion she choose to take them back instead, going herself to find the good in the world and protect it, debuting at a pride parade, hence the muscle mary moniker.

So next issue opens with the news. They even called april o neil the star reporter, who took a break from turtles business to do a man on the street. That also implies some form of ninja turtles exist in this universe. Crossover when IDW?

There's a mix of genuine support, your usual bigoted idiots, and one oprah knockoff questoning if they need yet another super team. The short answer yes, the long answer go fuck yourself. The worst of it though is that one journalist outs that the bear has HIV. Be sure that you see that he has HIV but it's not aids. He dosen't got the AIDS.

Twink is shocked by this and leaves for some air. Bear follows him and the following scene.. is one of my faviorites. While Twink is nervous and dosen't know much about AIDS, worrying it might be an issue in their line of work, Bear assures him it's fine: it's only transmitable fluid to fluid and he takes goo denough care of himself that it transfering by blood, imprable enough given he has super endurance meaning the only person who could bust him open is someone likely invunerable, is VERY unlikely and already is as it'd take a lot to get there. The two are good and with a ton of calls coming in the team answer them.. badly.

Twink gets the worst of it though as his parents called. They hadn't contacted him since they sent him to a camp to cure his powers.

We cut back to the reverend plotting ominously. Yeah this happens.. a LOT over the series and is most of what he does. You'd THINK this would be a way to flesh him out, figure out who this guy is as a villian and why he's sucha homophobic piece of shit. I'm not asking for a tragic backstory, but i'm asking for more characters than "BLER RELIGION GAYS BAD BLEGH". While, especially on diving in closer for this review, the main cast is good, the antagonists are just.. pahtetically one note. The Reverend is just a hateful old man who wants to take over the world. There's nothing to it.

Compare this to X-Men, because that's my baseline and it always will be: This comparison is a little left field as they had their own evil reverend, reverend stryker. Striker was also an evil old man plotting genocide and who hated a minority, in this case mutants, a stand in for real live evangelicals.. but the diffrence is the reverend.. was smart. Instead of Doing his evil work out in the open or relying on a convoluted scheme like this rev, he simply pedaled his ministries on tv. And given this rev has mind control powers, you wonder why he didn't just think to do that in the first place and work on broadcasting it before he got excomjmunicated. Striker is both more intresting and more dangeorus because like far too many bigots, he THINKS he's right, and tries to use respectablity politics. This guy.. is juts one lunatic with magic knowledge of genetics and a hulk literally named basher.

Back with our heroes they have isssues as Angel and Frost are refusing to train figuring their experinced enough, not getting their good ALONE not as a team. Even Bear sides with Wolf on this one. Unfortunately this argument about training.. comes just as someone else wants to argue with the team: The Justice Divsion ar ehere. Turns out the scanner for HQ hadn't been setup which Wolf is rightfully miffed by.

The JD are led by Superdued, the guy at the forfront of the "Kick wolf out for being gay" charge and head of the team. Think worst timeline shaggy rogers but with super powers. They've come to tell the team to stop.

I do like this bit as it riffs on a common trope in comics that frustrates the hell out of me and i'm glad to see it torn apart here with a much less sympathetic team to boot. See DC has a VERY bad habit of having the Justice League act like judgmental asses and try to put a stop to a super team. The Avengers have done this on occasion too, see the New Warriors series from marvel now, but it's very much a league thing. They've done it to Young Justice, the 2003 Version of the Teen Titans, the rebirth Titans, the rebirth Teen Titans, and just casually flipping through the redhood and the outlaws graphic novel from web toon while at barnes and noble, those versions do it to the outlaws. There's likely more I have no idea about. And that's not getting into Bruce's uber dickish habbit of trying to run any vigilante he dosen't like out of gotham. Sometimes the instinct is right like with Savant, most of the time he just dosent like not having control. The League is the big name in the land sure, I can respect that, but their not god. They shouldn't have a right to judge other teams unless said teams are say edgelord harmful asshats like the elitie or outright super villians. Yes the titans and YJ were their sidekicks, but they were also overseen by one of their own in the case of young justice, and experinced heroes in the case of The Teen Titans.

So it's very satisfying to see the pride. stonewall their wish.com counterparts, especially since Superdued talking over everyone.. actually stops the venusian from making actual progress as they make the valid point they might not be ready and may of got them to agree to simply not go out in the field for a bit instead of Earth 3 Spicoli and his bird friend trying to convience them to "stand down" or "Join other teams', both options they clearly don't want nor asked for. It's a nice exercise in false allyship: how most of the division just wants to shut them down.. when if they REALLY cared about them not dying: offer to train them. No reallly. Wolf is doing it and he got his tactics from them, if your that concerned about them dyign and not about them being openly queer if inexperinced as a team on this level, offer team training. They'd still likely refuse.. but the fact they jump right to disbanding instead of helping them be better unmasks how they simply don't want to deal with a superteam that's both this gay and clearly wont' just bend the knee because the big 7 showed up.

So naturally a fight insues. and our team do hold well.. till Angel makes a mistake and uses her powers. Problem is.. Venusean is a telepath so it broadcasts it to EVERYONE and destroys the place. The Justice Assholes leave.. but proved a point: They may not be ready. And wolf agrees.. not that they shoudln't be a team, fuck those guys, but that they weren't ready and Angel now gets why train as a team: because you don't know how your powers might interact in a fight. In good situations you can create a circut and do a super teamwork combo. In bad... it trips up your allies and you. Still Wolf's calling a break and while Fabman is worried this might've been a bad idea, wolf assures him no, he did what had to be done and this willw ork promise.

The two have a longer talk, and Wolf makes a valid point, and a meta point about why this team exists: The big teams often have maybe ONE person of color or two women and the women rarely lead. A team that's diverse stands out. And he's sadly not wrong. Marvel IS having Captain Marvel lead the avengers right now, but previously leaders were Cap, Sam Wilson Cap, and Cap again bitches. Sam is black, so that helps a little, but in general marvel tends to default to cap, while DC defaults to supes. John Kent wasn't even in the league in his time as head superman. These aren't bad characters, I love Supes and Cap a lot, but it's tied to my point earlier: There aren't a ton of a-list, big powerful queer characters in marvel or dc. Plenty of queer characters but for DC"s biggest it's just harely and wondy (And Ivy when she's on the good guys side), with Alan Scott for the JSA and for Marvel it's Teddy, Wiccan and Hercules for the avengers, no one for the fantastic four, and Iceman, Magik, Captain Britan, and Kitty Pryde out of the major x-men (Though to the x-men's credit there is a lot more queer characters than most comics stables) and Magik and Kitty haven't really gotten to explore their bi sides yet, both being confirmed bisexual in a one off joke and a panel that went nowhere repsectively. The PRide has it's faults.. but it is very nice for the core of a superhero universe to be it's queer characters. Hopefully they get more poc, but it's still more gay than most teams have.

Meanwhile Basher kills a bussload of people and kidnaps one. This turns out to be Bear's son with Bear getting the whole we have your kid speil after coming back from a night out with White Trash, who he also brought home. So a bit of a wash all things considered.

Origins again: This time it's , Da Bear, and his origin is one of my faviorites: he was a closted gay man who didn't realize he was gay till he became a bear man one day. In this verse, some people get their powers from the "X-Cel Virus" basically their verison of the x gene mixed with the viral nature of generator rex's nanites. He found out he was gay, got a divorce , and soon got HIV but soldiers on anyway.

We then get Fabmans one I honestly love. He's Stephen Wainwright: he always knew he was gay and not only did his parents catch on before he came out, but they were fully supportive, being nothing but proud of their son. Stephen, like the hero he's modeld after, is a kind hearted soul who only wants to help, helping consule those in his community and offer support. He later opened his bar simply to give his community a place to relax and be safe. It's this kind, open nature and pride in who he is that attracted some aliens, who had been watching him.. which would be creepy if they weren't clearly looking for a pargon of virtue to bestow powers on. Okay i'ts still a little creepy but hey they gave him powers for being a good person who isn't remotely ashamed of who he is and who always wanted to help people. I'm not going to judge too harshly. So like his parents and Stephen himself they coudln't be prouder.

The next issue opens with the team all meeting early in the morning, most not in costume. Angel had a show already so their the only one ready besides the Bear. We also get details on his relationship with his son and heartwarmingly.. it's really good. While The Bear and his ex wife naturally weren't on the best terms after the breakup, she never hid his son from him nor kept him. So while Jacob didn't grow up near his dad, the two did know each other and Bear couldn't be prouder

While the Bear wants to go after basher NOW, Wolf tells him to ease up a bit: not because he dosen't care.. but because it's an obvious trap. Bear naturally can't wait for common sense and rushes off. Thankfully.. Wolf saw this coming and his assuring shoulder pat included a tracer. He's going to have Angel fill him in, try to figure out who the hell basher is and hopefully fast enough to get there before this guy can really hurt bear.

Bear meets basher and Basher is naturally a dick, using the f slur, calling bear "Riddled with diseas" and generally being punchable. He wants bear though, and easily wrecks our poor ursine pal. Luckily our pal has pals of his own and a fight begins. The fight takes up most of the issue and is nicely tense with Basher essentially being a homophobic juggernaught. And while as a character his characterization begins and ends with "I don't like the gays", he is a decent threat at least. OUr heroes try EVERYTHING.. and come up short. They do dent the guy a bit.. but not enough and while Bear's son , Jake, chimes in, Bear's rage after Basher punts him gives the asshole the opening he needs to knock out or pal and run off with him.

Origins time again. This time frost is first as she has an interview with a reporter.. and freezes his research as she's worked hard to hide her past pre transition. She's not ashamed of being trans, and it seems Fabman knows, but her family disowning her fo rbeing who she always was is clearly a sore spot.

Next is twink who writes to his parents. It tells us mostly what the text has: he's a big superhero fanboy who always was one. Getting powers was the happiest day of his life.. but his parents instead feared this and sent him to madman to try an dcure him. Given the gay conversion therapy parallels you can probably guess WHO they sent him to. I certainly did. He's happy with who he is though and his freedom.

Issue 5 opens with the pride having a wake. Naturally assholes are protesting it. It's a weird thing.. but I respect the comic for using the f slur. It's not for shock value, it's simply being realistic, and it's something queer people face every day. It's something a lot of comics would censor but glass knows is necessary.

The pride haven't given up... but have a good justifcation for doing this: as Fabman points out superheroes have learned to "hope for the best, expect the worst". Given how many heroes end up dead but come back or were never dead, fair point. It's also been a few weeks, giving the team time offscreen to train. Speaking of which.. wolf asks Owen, aka Cub, to join the team. While Cub is straight.. Wolf genuinely dosen't care. It's not about exclusion, i'ts about family and right now Cub coudl use one. He tearfully accepts.

We also get introduced to Angel OUT of costume, Kele Amos and his wife. Everyone's happy to meet her and finds out Angel is pansexual. There's four absences though: Fab Man is taking the loss personally, even more than Angel and Owen who vow revenge, so White Trash went to find him, while Frost... seemingly didn't care to show up. Sapphire was absent.. because she went to go confront her at the gay bar gay bar, but not the gay bar gay bar gay bar in front of their HQ.

Frost is seemingly not effected.. but Sapphire sees through it: she's afraid to cry and be vunerable and while Frost is offended for a second.. she breaks down. The two end up embrasing and while Frost tries to come out at trans, Sapphire assures her she knows all she needs to know.

Their not the only hookup either as WOlf and Twink have a training session, with Twink frustrated they have no leads an daccidently bodying Wolf across the room. He kisses him in the heat of it, Wolf kisses him back. Another couple paired off.

Finally we get to White Trash and Fabman. Fabs naturally blames himself, but White Trash shuts that shit down: Harvey knew the risks, was out there every day in spite of them, and was proud of who he is and this team. He makes a cabaret refrence, for a drag queen he once knew and life is a cabaret: sometims it's good, sometimes it sucks balls. But you'll never get the good if you don't live it.. and making this team.. is living. So White Trash gets him ready to go out.. they don't kiss thoguh. Not his type. Also can Fabman mystically sense when other people ar ebanging or are the others hooking up that much of a forgone conclusion he just assumes it's happening.

After all this hooking up, Wolf gets a spooky spirit message from Bear, whose alive... Basher's using him for his evil mind control plot, revealing it's an evil mind control plot. Seriously is there anything about this guy that isn't a cliche wrapped in hate speech?

At any rate we get a brief scene showing the team's been training hard, leveling up.. and after Cub takes on the highest level of training bot himself, beheading it.

We end the issue on Bassher making a grand announcment to the world as he holds up Bear's bloody body hooked to the machine.

Final issue. As basher makes his announcment Cub, White Trash and Angel and Twink wonder why nothing's happening to them. Their all x-cel positive while the rest of the team has diffrent means. Since it's the only one I forgot to mention, frost got hers via surgery.

Taking an art break the art this issue is decent. Not as good as the other issues but fine. The other issue.s. minus the last one which swapped artists constantly including weirdly ending on Mark ellerby's art. And I fucking love mark ellerby's art but it's more cartoony and din't fit the ominous ending at all.

Our heroes have bigger issues as it turns out most of Justice Division is X-Positive, and thus only Morningstar (the bird asshole form before ) and the Venusian are left as they crash into Pride HQ. Luckily our heroes have been training for this.. both combat and specifically kicking the Justice Divisions assholes which give no homo zonker harris just suantered in trying to shut them down and a fight broke out rather easily, fair point. It pays off as the Pride easily take them down, with Angel in particular getting a nice subtle bit of redemption for botching the last fight, narrowing her focus to just superdude and sending him to the moon. After finishing up with a ncie combo attack, using fabs and morningstar's light powers on Twink's shiny skin to drive the last Divison Member left, a midnighter knockoff who also can move through shadows, down. Wolf also bluntly tells the Venusian and Morningstar to stay put for two reasons despite their insitance that, as the big team they should do it: One, they just koed most of their team, and two, they need someone to protect the city while they hopefully handle this. On this reread for transcribing this review as it's a perfect contrast to the first fight: The first time out most of the team squared up against someone, fighting one on one, a subtle detail I didn't notice but highlights how while they are a team, their not WORKING as one. While tw oget taken out solo, frost targeting bluebird's vocal cords and Sapphire/Muscle Mary easily handeling Mighty Miss (Their wonder woman at home), the first is a strategy they worked out just in case wolf prompts her for, and the rest are all taken out with team work. While it disapointing all the actual training happend off screen, it's an excellent way to show how it's paid off. I would've liked to see them come together as a team, no comment, but I also understand Glass likely could only get the six issues and judging from the fill in artists and especailly issue 5 being a whole GAGLE of various artists and clearly not being intended for that kind of setup, self publishing was a nightmare. It's no wonder the second volume had comixology's help and the third was funded with Kickstarter, to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. So it's that Hazbin Hotel issue of having to cram EVERYTHING they can into 6 issues as they may not get more. It hurts the story a little, but I understand the impulse and thus i'm a bit more forgiving if the story still mostly works.

Thankfully said dream earlier allowed Wolf to track them. As he explains when they get into their dope jet the crusier, there was some sand at the scene that was diffrent, coming from a former nuclear test site. Luckily for our heroes the radiation has gone down enough that the radiation isn't an issue.. but allowed them to track the Reverend down. We also get his backstory: the Reverend is Reverend William Franklin, who was kicked out after he was caught using his powers to brainwash his congregation. I like to think bibleman did it. At any rate his powers didn't work on X-Cels, hence his need for bear.

The team split up: Most of the team stays out front, with Angel taking out most of the brainwashed heroes the rev's summoned, while the team as a whole minus fabman, wolf, twink and frost fight basher. Wolf, Twink and Frost take on the rev's forces.. and it turns out.. they were also a distraction as Fabman cleans house. Outside the res tof the team has an excellent rematch with basher another nice reflection; Before each member fought him one at a time, this time they all work together and angel uses her powers to allow the others to sucker him. It's something I wished i'd noticed on first read as this book is REALLY good at having the team.. work as an actual team once their good and pumped in this last issue. Most team books tend to have them hit em one at a time, but if you have a team.. why not have them do a circuit. I'm not against the group fighting alone, but this and x-men 97 show why a good super circuit is awesome.

White Trash ALMOST kills basher but backs away.. unfortunately though.. cub does not and slits his throat. WEll I mean Basher did deserve it but i'ts not good for the kid himself to murder a guy ya know? As he sobs to his dad as he's freed though Fabman.. is also close, ready to go full red eyes superman on the homophobe.. but being the bigger man dosen't. He destroys the reverends book so he can't channel his powers again, which was just directly pulled out of his perfectly toned ass but whatever. The day is saved.

Their greeted by the entire superhero community they just saved.. who all cheer them. The Pride proved themselves and it while basher's about as complicated as a piece of cardboard, I give the comic credit for having an organic way for them to earn the superhero communites respect.

With that there's just one last bit of buisness, an epilogue finishing up where we began: two months later the Pride are now one of the world's most popular superteam, with both of the anchors no longer being homophobic jackasses.. I doubt they've actually changed, they just recognize they can't make snide queer jokes about the world's saviors. The pride are getting medals of valor while, fair play to them, the justice division not only admitted they had a don't ask don't tell policy but have removed it. The latters the bear minimum and never should've been a thing. The formers.. the part they get more credit for: it's rare for a public figure not forced into it by overwhelming evidence to admit they did something awful, so the divison not only admitting what they likely did to wolf, but likely apologizing for it is big.

Fabman meets with billy and the bullies have also changed their tune finding him awesome. Fabman is here because Billy.. is the one that inspired him to do this. The world wouldn't of been saved and he wouldn't have his new family without them. Billy returns the favor giving fabman his old action figure after fabs gives him a new one, wanting to give fabs a token of where this started.. and his thanks. The why.. brings a tear to our heroes eyes. He fought hard.. and now the world sees Fabman the way billy did, sees all of the pride that way and we end on fabs proudly flying away with the kids telling him to go change the world. Cheesy but it works.

The Pride... is pretty damn good. When I started writing this review, I found it okay. But as often happens my opinon changed the more I engaged with the work. Sometimes that goes the other way: I liked temple of Doom and Lion King II less the more I had to think about them. But here seeing all the little touches, how it has a decently fleshed out cast in such a short time span (With only Sapphire feeling underdeveloped by the end and even she's still decently fleshed out), and how the team slowly grow. It's not perfect: A LOT of the commentary is on the nose with all the villians being one not ebigots. I'm not asking them to be likeable, i'm asking for their to be layers to thier bigotry and hatred, how they operate. The book is not subtle and while it hurts it in the antagonist department, and the rev himself is dispatched cartoonishly easy, it helps everywhere else: As I thought about it the book does raise some really valid points about the big two. it'd be nice if the justice divisoin weren't cardboard cutouts themselves, but it's still a nice commentary on how superhero books tend to have one or two queer people on a team if at all. The Pride isn't subtle, is a tad messy at times.. but i'ts a lot of fun an da concept i'm shocked took this long to happen. An all queer super team is a brilliant concept and I can't wait to see what happens with them next time, next year. I'm all for making the Pride a permenant pride month fixture if this does well enough. For now it was a fun ride and I hope you enjoyed me jawing about it. Thanks for reading.

[teamoon7]

Which episodes from canon are you removing from your AU?

Well... I have 2 main lists of episodes I want to remove:

Episodes I'm pretty sure (by now) I'm going to remove: Robustus (the implications of AIs being able to be akumatized is not something I want to work on), Gigantitan, Animaestro, Chris Master, Oblivio, Gamer 2.0 (I really like the akuma dynamic but I don't want to use the same akuma again for most cases), Stormy Weather 2, Time Tagger (definitely no time travel here), Puppeteer 2, Party Crasher, Oblivio, Efemeral, Chat Blanc (I also don't want to do what if episodes. But I really like chat blanc's concept, so I'm still unsure about adding him somewhere else or not), Sole crusher, queen banana, hack-san, simpleman, dearest family, penalteam, Evolution, determination and revolution (And basically every special like NY etc)

Episodes I'm still unsure about removing or not: Copycat, Animam (I'll likely remove these 2), the pharaoh, horrificator, guitar villain, pixelator, princess fragrance, glaciator (I just hate Andre too much...), frozer, bakerix, reflekdoll, startrain, kwami buster, feast, ladybug, heart hunter and miracle queen, Mr pigeon 72, furious Fu, mega leech, guiltrip, crocoduel, glaciator 2, qilin, juro neko, and most of season 3 (except for destruction, passion, exaltation, kwamis choice and emotion)

BUT, tbh, not only those lists can change VERY much, but that also doesn't mean that I'm going to delete the whole plot of those episodes. The thing is:

1- There are many episodes that I'm going to keep the basic premise, but change most of the stuff that happens in them (for example: I plan to keep the episode "Kung food", but only the premise of "marinette's uncle gets akumatized because of a chef competition". Everything else that happens- such as Chloe being the judge- will likely change to a different plot). That means that many episodes that I plan to "remove" are just going to be given new plotlines to their basic premises. The opposite is also true- maybe there's a specific plot that happens in the episode (that isn't necessarily part of the "main plot"- or at least of what occupies most part of the episode, like the akuma) that I want to keep, BUT since the rest is either not interesting to me or simply wouldn't work in the AU, I'll just change the episode where this plotline happens (Example: though I'm removing Sole crusher, I'm not removing Zoe as a character- I'm just putting her introduction somewhere else) to other episode.

And 2- Originally, I wanted to remove as many episodes as I could so I wouldn't have to work with episodes that I considered to be "filler", that didn't have many events that progressed the narrative or the character growth. But, at this point, I've written so many stuff (and specially stuff that deviates from canon) that I honestly need to have episodes to include theses plots LOL, so I'll probably use some basic stuff of the episodes I was planning to remove (like some akumatized villains) to add these plots (and the AU is probably gonna be way bigger than I originally wanted to, lol).

Anyways, in summary, removing an episode does not mean removing a storyline (and vice versa). For every episode I want to remove, I have a list with the plots I want to keep and things that could give me new ideas (even from medias that mostly don't affect canon like the special episodes, even the PS5 game has stuff that I want to either keep or adapt lmao).

So, although those are the episodes I plan to remove at the moment, I think asking if I'm going to keep or remove a specific storyline would give a more precise answer in general.

[alrightbuckaroo]

Nice Ask Week! Ada, I have 2 questions for you. First, you’re given an all-expenses paid week long vacation to the location of your choice. The only catch is that you have to spend it with one of the Lone Star characters. Who do you take on vacation with you and where do you go?

Second, you are given three wishes from a very specialized genie…this genie only grants wishes related to Lone Star season 5. What three wishes do you make?

Hello Anne! Oh, how I love both of theses questions!

For one, Nancy and I are going to become a problem in Cancún. It might be due to my head-canon, but I've written Nancy as a bubbly drunk who's a little giggly so I think we'd have a blast just hanging out and drinking mai-tais.

For two, I don't know where to start.

I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion; but I'd love for conflict to remain a constant between Carlos and TK. Not because I like seeing them "fight" or "argue" but I think it's such a good vehicle to show growth for both of them. Maybe it's over something like house hunting, or if they want to add another pet into the mix.

Second thing I'd like to see is another game night, but maybe have it be more plot point. I don't know, I'd love to see another episode where, for some reason, Paul is trying to solve a murder and the realization spawns during a game of Clue.

He'll say something like, "Oh my gosh, it was Mr. Kettering in the Plant Nursery."

and everyone trying to find where the Plant Nursery is on the board or when a character caller Mr. Kettering was introduced to the game.

Third and final thing, and I say this to myself all the time; but I'd love to see if not all, if not some, maybe just one character go to therapy throughout the course of the season.

In a perfect life, I'd love an episode that's just all of them going to therapy after a harrowing emergency.

Kind of like a bottle episode, but with everyone just in a therapist's office. Maybe a great episode that could explore everyone's trials and tribulations with grief since everyone's lost someone in some way.

[discworldbooksbracket]



I am sincerely sorry that was meant with meant with an air of humour. Not seriousness.

I really did not mean to insult you at all, I meant it in a joking way andvery much missed the mark.

(If an excuse could be given, I had about 2 hours of sleep stretched across 3 days, and that was written at the tail end)

I really am sorry, and re-reading what I wrote with less sleep deprived eyes I can honestly say I am emberassed as well.

No worries, we all flub.

I did have "least favorite character" and "least favorite book" on my list of potential future polls, but one reason I ultimately decided I probably won't do that is because I know that, no matter how hard I stress "less favorite, not worst", it will turn into a worst bracket, and that will turn into a huge garbage fire.

I support being a hater, and I like chaos. But ultimately I want these polls to be a celebration of Discworld; as much as I would also like to open up the floor to depedestalize Discworld and Pratchett in general, I don't think a worst or even less favorite bracket is the way to do it. I think that invites people to get nasty, and there's a difference between "I like this less" and "I think this fell short" and "I think this betrays biases", and "This Is Bad And Here's Why".

I would like to, at some point, do polls that do open up the floor to those conversations, but I think that 1, those will have to be done after I have a better community established over here, and 2, they will have to be built extremely carefully. I have already once been in a situation where "was anyone else bothered by this thing in this Discworld book or was it just me?" went from being a discussion of "yeah, they're not perfect, and sometimes they could even be hurtful" or "as long as we're dragging him through the mud--" and I would like to avoid that in future.

Flaws and all, Discworld are some of my favorite books, and a big influence on the way I think about stories. I want to have fun with them with other people who love them, not nail our 95 theses to the Patrician's door.

tl;dr, a worst bracket or even less favorite bracket makes it really easy for people to get their back up and hurt everyone's feelings, and that's not fun for me to host on a blog that seeks to celebrate Discworld with other people who love it.