rionaleonhart | I Lied. That's What I Do.

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I Lied. That's What I Do.

Here's my final instalment of questions from this fandom question meme!

Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Being a weird fandom person, I tend to get along well with other weird fandom people, so Charlie Bradbury of Supernatural or an older Futaba Sakura of Persona 5 would probably fit comfortably into my social circle.

I think I could get along with Elena Fisher of Uncharted. I don't know if we'd be close friends, necessarily; we might not have enough in common to find a foothold! But I can see us talking whenever we happen to cross paths at events held by mutual friends. I'd probably be troubled if I ever learnt how many people she and her partner have killed, though.

Your rarest fandoms.

I've been in a lot of tiny fandoms over the years! Exit/Corners, Forgotton Anne, Zanki Zero: Last Beginning, Derren Brown RPF, that weird time I became fixated on the idea of RPF for The Real Hustle.

I think the most impressive and puzzling example was the time I wrote over forty ficlets for the BBC ShakespeaRe-Told modern-day adaptation of Macbeth, set in a restaurant and tragically not called MacChef. Literally nobody else was in this fandom. But I was going to write forty ficlets for it anyway.

A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

I loved the Harry Potter books. I grew up alongside them. That fondness for the characters and the world is still there, but I don't really talk about Harry Potter any more, because the author has dedicated herself to hurting people in a way that's given the canon painful associations.

Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

I don't know if I've quite interpreted 'headcanon' correctly, but here are some character interpretations I will stand by with complete certainty, even if they may not be outright stated in the text.

Danganronpa V3: Shuichi 'I shouldn't be talking about another boy like that' Saihara is bisexual and I will fight anyone who tries to claim otherwise. I'm looking at you, Reddit.

Death Note: Light genuinely loves his family. He doesn't have a lot of room in his heart for other people, I'll admit! And he likes to pretend he's above being swayed by emotion, so he tells himself that the choices he makes to protect his family are motivated by practicality, rather than love. But he does love his family.

On a related note: Light is constantly lying to himself about his own motivations. A lot of the fandom just takes his claims at face value! 'Oh, Light makes a smart and considered decision to let L know he has access to police information, so L will get closer to him and therefore become easier to kill.' No! Light makes an impulsive decision to give that information away as a 'fuck you' to L, and then he persuades himself that it was a very smart move in their chess game.

To be fair to the fandom, Light is very persuasive! But he cannot be trusted, even in his internal monologue.

A trope which you are virtually certain to love in any fandom.

Weird memory bullshit. Characters being unable to trust their own perception of reality. Characters being trapped or otherwise isolated together. It's no wonder I took so strongly to Lost and Severance.

A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

I like kids well enough in real life, but I tend not to enjoy fanfiction about characters having children, or being deaged to children. One of my cowriters on the Visitorverse really enjoyed writing about kids, so we ended up arranging trades: I'd get to throw in my weird ships she wasn't a big fan of if she got to write about the resulting offspring.

Have you ever tried to write for a fandom or ship, and found you couldn’t?

Jeff/Annie from Community is one of my favourite pairings, but I find it really challenging to write for. Their chemistry is off the charts! But I struggle to envision either of them actually making a move.

I enjoyed Homestuck, but I've never written for it because, let's be honest, it is far too confusing to get a foothold. Umineko is tricky for similar reasons.

Name three things you wish you saw more or in your fandoms.

More people who are openly willing to ship things that are kind of messed up! In recent years, I've noticed that shippers of controversial pairings often end up being driven into private Discords (sometimes with definitions of 'controversial' as mild as 'there's an age gap' or 'this character is seventeen and would therefore be under the age of consent if they were Californian, which they aren't'), which is a shame. We should be out there in the world; it's good for the ecosystem! I know it's easier said than done, though, especially for younger fans who run the risk of being ostracised by their peers or even their friends, whereas older fans are much less likely to feel that depicting unhealthy relationships in fiction is somehow an immoral act.

I would love to see more Dreamwidth/LJ-style commentfic promptfests in pretty much every fandom. I love low-pressure events with no obligations or signups; all you do is show up, look around and see whether any of the prompts inspire you.

And, finally, more discussion on Dreamwidth! It's always such a thrill when I see a post on my reading page about something I enjoy.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's a bit sad that fandom has got so judgemental. It's fiction! Writing or thinking something doesn't make it happen!

It feels so weird and limiting to consider anything so off-limits that it can't even be explored in fiction. Fiction, among other things, is a way to explore concepts safely and understand reality in new ways. It seems to me like that's a better way of coming to understand the darkness in the world than just locking that darkness in a box and going 'nobody can even think about this; let's all just pretend it isn't there.'

Plus, have they never heard that The Internet is for porn"? We can't allow it to be driven back in the closet!

Light is constantly lying to himself about his own motivations.

Oh yes! He is young and impulsive and has an ego and is much more emotionally reactive than he wants to acknowledge. He internally monologues at himself about how he's perfectly in control of everything and is constantly scrambling to fix his mistakes!

More people who are openly willing to ship things that are kind of messed up! In recent years, I've noticed that shippers of controversial pairings often end up being driven into private Discords (sometimes with definitions of 'controversial' as mild as 'there's an age gap' or 'this character is seventeen and would therefore be under the age of consent if they were Californian, which they aren't'), which is a shame.

Yeah, it's hard, because being publicly accused of pedophilia for like "What if this character who is twenty two slept with someone ten years older?" scares people off. (A friend of mine likes a "These characters are alternate versions of each other from a different timeline" ship and has seen so much weird Discourse about how shipping them is the same as shipping incest, which is the same as being in favor of sexual abuse within families, and it's this whole ludicrous leap, but it ends in people screaming "This person supports raping children!" at the entire internet, which is some scary slander to deal with.)

He is young and impulsive and has an ego and is much more emotionally reactive than he wants to acknowledge. He internally monologues at himself about how he's perfectly in control of everything and is constantly scrambling to fix his mistakes!

I'm just quoting this because it's all so true and beautiful. I love him ♥

It's tricky! I don't like that people are being scared into dark corners for writing about what has been deemed the Wrong Thing, because burying writing about difficult topics reinforces the idea that it should be buried, that it has no right to exist openly in the world. But, at the same time, I can't blame people for being scared, because the vitriol they're facing is genuinely scary! I get anxious myself these days when posting fanfiction for pairings that have been deemed Bad, and I'm in a much better position than a lot of people; I know my friends aren't going to judge me, and the online platforms where I spend the most time aren't platforms where it's easy to stir up a mob.

It's so perplexing to me when people don't understand that fictional characters can self-deceive. It can really derail fandom discussions when you get people quoting characters' dialogue like it's scripture to prove their interpretation and can't seem to understand that not everything characters say, even to themselves, is true.

I feel lucky to have mostly been in old/weird fandoms that antis generally don't care about. I am in one discord for darkfic writers, and when the mods invited me I was like oh, I haven't really written darkfic in years though... But if you've been in fandom spaces that have an utterly mental concept of what's dark or controversial, like alternate universe selfcest = PEDO and two 17-year-olds having sex = PEDO and two adults doing kinky roleplay = PEDO, well, then I can understand why they thought I might want to be in the secret protected discord.

I also have a lot of older fandoms that don't have much anti traction, so it's always a little startling when I wander into a fandom that's really ferocious about assigning moral values to fiction! The first time I tried to join a Discord for a 'problematic' ship, I had to answer a handful of questions about my attitude to the ship and to fiction before I was cleared to join, which really brought home how unsafe the shippers felt in that fandom.

One thing I found interesting: the ship in question (Keiji/Sara from Your Turn to Die) wasn't even anything that shocking. She's seventeen; he's some unspecified age in his twenties; it's in 'this relationship is kind of suspect' territory rather than 'this relationship is inherently horrifying'. But a lot of the fanworks for it went really dark (which was great, as far as I'm concerned!), and I wonder if that's because the fans were going, 'Well, we're going to be hated for writing this either way, so we might as well go all in.'

So many good thoughts! I've really enjoyed your answers to these questions, I want to get around to posting my own answers sometime c:

My notes, lol:

- Shuichi Saihara is the most bisexual bottom I've ever seen I love him so much go baby go!!

- You are the first person I've seen talk about Zanki Zero, I loved that game. It was so wild and bizarre and it ticks off all my fucked up tropes you can fit in a Spike Chunsoft game lmfao. Have you played Zero Escape or anything from Nitro+Chiral? I feel like the crossover interest is pretty strong!

I'm glad you've enjoyed these! Looking forward to seeing your answers.

- Shuichi Saihara is the most bisexual bottom I've ever seen I love him so much go baby go!!

Shuichi is, I think, the second most bisexual bottom I've ever seen; he gets narrowly beaten out by Yuma, the protagonist of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. But Shuichi is an extremely strong contender.

(Have you played Rain Code? If you enjoyed Danganronpa, Zero Escape and Zanki Zero, I think you'd probably have a great time with it!)

Zanki Zero is such an interesting game! I loved the unique concept, and how intense the relationship between the clones became. Here's my tag for it, if you're interested in my thoughts on it.

I've never played any Nitro+Chiral titles, but I've definitely played Zero Escape! (Again, if you're curious, here's the tag.) I went 'this is enjoyable, but I'm not that invested' for the first two games, and then I played Zero Time Dilemma, lost my mind and wrote seven fics in three weeks.

Whoa, someone into Zanki Zero? That's rare indeed, I think; my husband and I are replaying the game right now and it's a really fun time! Glad to see someone who was in the fandom. Any favorite characters?

It's such an unusual, interesting game! I struggled a little with the gameplay, but I enjoyed the concept and characters enough to persevere.

My favourites are Ryo (he's endearing!), Minamo (I like her attitude) and Haruto (he's a nicely grounded person who interacts well with everyone else, and it both fascinates me and breaks my heart that he seems so much happier and more at ease after the apocalypse than he was before it). I love all of these traumatised bisexual clones, though! How about you?

Oh, such good choices! Ryo is my favorite too, followed by Zen; I think Zen is a really interesting character and you don't usually see a salt-of-the-earth farmer type as his particular kind of "antagonistic." Usually it's someone like Byakuya Togami from Danganronpa who pushes back against the group, you know what I mean?

My husband is actually playing on the hardest difficulty right now, which is crazy to me, but once you adapt to the controls and the timing, I guess it's pretty doable! I wish the combat was more finely tuned, but what can you do...

I took a while to warm up to Zen, but he really won me over! By the end I was as fond of him as I was of anyone else. You make a good point; he does feel like a slightly unusual take on the 'refuses to cooperate' character role.

My husband is actually playing on the hardest difficulty right now

Oh, wow, rather your husband than me! I think I played on the second-lowest difficulty for most of the game, and eventually turned it down to the 'there are literally no enemies' super-easy difficulty when even that became a struggle. I'm impressed!

(There had been earlier points when I'd glanced longingly at the 'no enemies' difficulty, but, to be honest, I was determined to get enough materials to upgrade the hotel so that everyone could bang.)

I'd be interested in subscribing to you, if you'd be up for that! There'd be no obligation to reciprocate or grant me access at all, of course, but I'm always looking out for other videogame fans on here, and I'm delighted to encounter someone who likes Zanki Zero and Danganronpa.

That'd be great, I would be really flattered if you subscribed! I'll subscribe to you too :^) Always happy to help out a fellow videogame fan!

(There had been earlier points when I'd glanced longingly at the 'no enemies' difficulty, but, to be honest, I was determined to get enough materials to upgrade the hotel so that everyone could bang.)

BIG SAME LMAO. The moment I got the mats I needed I hit the No Enemies mode for late game and never looked back.

Light genuinely loves his family.

He really does! It's such an interesting facet of his character, as is his self delusion on the subject. He adores Sayu, he looks up to his father (and is genuinely cut up when bad things happen to the both of them)... He's a normal guy there, as much as he really wants to believe otherwise.

Light makes an impulsive decision to give that information away as a 'fuck you' to L, and then he persuades himself that it was a very smart move in their chess game.

I love how often Light does stuff along those lines. He makes so many impulsive, asshole choices and then is a world champion at justifying how they're really smart actually and the perfect choice to help him win the ongoing war. Which isn't to say that he's stupid at all, he IS a very smart character, but he acts in the heat of the moment a lot more than he'd ever admit.

More people who are openly willing to ship things that are kind of messed up! In recent years, I've noticed that shippers of controversial pairings often end up being driven into private Discords (sometimes with definitions of 'controversial' as mild as 'there's an age gap' or 'this character is seventeen and would therefore be under the age of consent if they were Californian, which they aren't'), which is a shame.

I absolutely agree with you on this, and it makes me really sad. I'm not sure if the internet was ever that live and let live, or if it's just my nostalgia glasses colouring everything, but I definitely remember there being far less of a moral element to it in the past. And it's always about the dumbest things! Such as two seventeen year olds kissing, or a fully grown man being child-coded or something. And in the dumbest fandoms! Like where literal war crimes are being committed, or where everybody is a murderer. I love messed up pairings and weird leaps of fantasy, I wish they were more common.

I would love to see more Dreamwidth/LJ-style commentfic promptfests in pretty much every fandom. I love low-pressure events with no obligations or signups; all you do is show up, look around and see whether any of the prompts inspire you.

Agreed on this too! I had SO MUCH fun with 3sentenceficathon, and am definitely planning to do it again next year. I wish there were more things out there like it.

It's interesting that Light is simultaneously so determined to deny his own monstrosity and his own compassion! It's an unusual blend of self-delusion.

he acts in the heat of the moment a lot more than he'd ever admit.

He really does! It makes him much more fun to watch than he would be if he really were the perfectly calculated person he likes to think he is.

I'm not sure if the internet was ever that live and let live, or if it's just my nostalgia glasses colouring everything, but I definitely remember there being far less of a moral element to it in the past.

People have always been weird about what other people ship, but in the past the arguments tended to be 'my ship is objectively better than your ship because my ship has more canon support' rather than 'only BAD PEOPLE ship your ship and therefore you should be punished by Kira'. Both ridiculous arguments, but at least the first one causes less harm!

And in the dumbest fandoms! Like where literal war crimes are being committed, or where everybody is a murderer.

Danganronpa was the first one of my fandoms where I noticed a large amount of 'you can't ship this or like this character, it's morally wrong' discourse, and... really, guys? You're going to set up your 'DEPICTING IMMORAL ACTS IS ITSELF AN IMMORAL ACT' signs in the child murder canon about children murdering each other?

I had SO MUCH fun with 3sentenceficathon, and am definitely planning to do it again next year.

It was such a blast! I'm delighted that it could introduce us to each other, too.

Edited 2024-10-02 17:01 (UTC)

People have always been weird about what other people ship, but in the past the arguments tended to be 'my ship is objectively better than your ship because my ship has more canon support' rather than 'only BAD PEOPLE ship your ship and therefore you should be punished by Kira'. Both ridiculous arguments, but at least the first one causes less harm!

Oh, definitely. Ship wars were very silly too, don't get me wrong, but for the most part they don't seem to have done as much damage. The morality wars, which are still usually ship wars but now disguised, really have tainted fandom in a lot of ways. Like, in the vast majority of cases every single ship involved is fictional. No actual harm can be done to anybody besides the people creating stuff! And if somebody wants to call a real life person appalling things because they DARE to hurt a fiction who can't even actually be hurt, then they really aren't that moral a person in the end.

Danganronpa was the first one of my fandoms where I noticed a large amount of 'you can't ship this or like this character, it's morally wrong' discourse, and... really, guys? You're going to set up your 'DEPICTING IMMORAL ACTS IS ITSELF AN IMMORAL ACT' signs in the child murder canon about children murdering each other?

That depresses me, but somehow does not surprise me. Perhaps that explains the truly baffling amount of non!despair AUs? It's a murder canon, it's not FUN without a bit of immorality.

It was such a blast! I'm delighted that it could introduce us to each other, too.

So am I! :D It is very fun to discuss various murder canons together!

It's still wild to me that I'm so old that I remember a time when fic comments were usually just on the person's LJ or maybe that one obscure fandom archive! As much as I appreciate having a larger archive, it feels sometimes a little too public where someone might be scoping out tags/pairings just for the purpose of leaving asshole comments. :/

Although I totally get the appeal of private Discords, it sometimes worries me that it fragments fandom into even more faraway places when the fun is having fannish discussion on DW. Yet at the same time, maybe that's just a part of the ecosystem that is growing bigger fan bases and more excitement about a fandom/media then that's good too? But for me personally, I like consolidating my fannish stuff on DW because it is all helpfully in one place.

It definitely saddens me when a fan feels they can't write the fic (or the relationship) that they love to write about. I suppose I've been lucky to only get the random "I wish X had been paired with Y instead of Z." If the pairing tag is Y/Z, why would that person even read the fic?? Boggles my mind to no end.

I'm also a big fan of low-pressure events and fannish discussion! Glad to see a bit more of it these days.

It's still wild to me that I'm so old that I remember a time when fic comments were usually just on the person's LJ or maybe that one obscure fandom archive!

It was sort of fascinating to see comments shifting from the big multifandom archive of fanfiction.net to the personal space of someone's LJ, and now they're on a different big multifandom archive. I'm glad AO3 has comment threading; it makes commenting feel a lot more social than it did on fanfiction.net! But, as you say, the fact that it's so huge and public has its downsides.

I suppose I've been lucky to only get the random "I wish X had been paired with Y instead of Z." If the pairing tag is Y/Z, why would that person even read the fic?? Boggles my mind to no end.

Mystifying! People mostly haven't given me trouble in my comments, but one of my fics did get multiple comments from people who hated the polyamory, in which case... why did you click on the fic that made it clear in the tags, category and summary that it was about polyamory?

Maybe it's because I grew up in the UK and I'm used to the age of consent being 16, but it always seems weird to me that anyone even cares about characters like Emma Swan and Buffy Summers having sex at 17. Over here, that was just Tuesday.

I saw a fic once where someone had put in the author notes something about "not wanting to glorify the Martha/Jonas relationship" (aunt and nephew who initially have no clue they're related; they're related due to time travel) - okay, you can not ship that pairing if you want, but seriously, please, no judgement for anyone who does choose to ship it and write it! (Even leaving aside that that pairing's canon and in that particular fandom the family tree's so complicated that it's very difficult to find a pairing with no blood relation).

Maybe it's because I grew up in the UK and I'm used to the age of consent being 16, but it always seems weird to me that anyone even cares about characters like Emma Swan and Buffy Summers having sex at 17. Over here, that was just Tuesday.

I also grew up in the UK and find the 'gasp, seventeen-year-olds having sex' attitude puzzling! Teenagers have sex; it's just a fact of life. If it's so terrible that fans who write about it should be ostracised, you'd think people would be out campaigning against the fact that I, an actual living person, could legally have banged my way through the British Isles when I was seventeen.

It also feels strange to me that 'minor' is so frequently used in fandom spaces to imply 'incapable of consent', when they're usually not the same thing. A British sixteen-year-old is a minor, i.e. not yet an adult, but they're still able to consent to sex. The age of majority and the age of consent are distinct things; they just happen to be the same age in a small handful of places.

The moralization of fandom has really put me off. Not that it wasn't there before, but I've been around long enough that I'm just tired of it all. I can see why people get driven to private discords. But then the discord gets more and more insular as a group and that puts off new people and everything cycles.

For a while I was in a discord for rpf in a specific fandom but the things I was interested in didn't match what most of everyone else was interested in, so eventially I just gave up.

It feels strange that so much of fandom is in small private communities these days! I can see why it appeals to people, but I've always found instant messaging a little intimidating, particularly as (from my experience of it, at least) Discord's userbase tends to skew a fair bit younger than me.

[But I struggle to envision either of them actually making a move.]

I feel like there's a diverse and thriving ecosystem of fiction tropes dedicated to solving this exact issue...

[I enjoyed Homestuck, but I've never written for it because, let's be honest, it is far too confusing to get a foothold. Umineko is tricky for similar reasons.]

I watched and vastly enjoyed 镇魂 / Guardian, and once attempted to write a fic for it, and then got approximately one paragraph in before realizing that I did not understand any of the worldbuilding like basically at all.

(This is also a show that at one point devoted three(?) episodes to exploring the backstory of a supporting character, and at the end of those three(?) episodes, I still could not have explained this character's backstory. It was a fun ride, though.)

This is also a show that at one point devoted three(?) episodes to exploring the backstory of a supporting character, and at the end of those three(?) episodes, I still could not have explained this character's backstory.

Ah, the Kingdom Hearts experience.

Come to think of it, Kingdom Hearts is also a canon I've written surprisingly little for, considering how much and how long I've loved it. 'Incomprehensible worldbuilding' really is a hard challenge to overcome. To be honest, though, because it's you, I half expected the Guardian anecdote to end with 'so I spent two million words building my own world for it'.

I want to run more commentfic promptfests, and see more of them pop up as well! I've currently been running one for the overall tokusatsu fandom on my journal and it's been a delight seeing what people have made for it. Definetly doing another round of it.

(Sometime early next year though, since it's about to become the holiday season soon and this time of year is going to get rather busy for folks. Fandom wise and irl wise.)

I hope more people can feel free to create what they want too, and explore all sorts of themes. I have noticed over the past few years more folks have been pushing back against the puritanical mindset one can see in fandom, which is good. I hope younger fans can find spaces and folks where they don't have to worry about judgment.

I'm delighted to hear your tokusatsu promptfest has been fun, even if it's not my fandom field! Good work keeping the promptfest tradition alive.

I have noticed over the past few years more folks have been pushing back against the puritanical mindset one can see in fandom, which is good.

I'm glad to hear other people have picked up on this too! I've been thinking 'has fandom puritanism been losing traction lately, or am I imagining things?'; it's reassuring to know I'm not the only one getting that impression.

Name three things you wish you saw more or in your fandoms.

Hear, hear on all three of these!

I'm glad to have your support!

And, finally, more discussion on Dreamwidth! It's always such a thrill when I see a post on my reading page about something I enjoy.

My kingdom for a widespread return to LJ-style fandom discussions and communities! I miss reading meta and ship squee about my fandoms on blogging platforms... Tumblr and discord just don't do it for me. :/

I'm glad there are still a handful of people doggedly sticking to the world of long-form fandom blogging! I can see why some people prefer microblogging or Discord or more image-based platforms, but nothing else works for me in quite the same way as the Livejournal style.

More people who are openly willing to ship things that are kind of messed up! In recent years, I've noticed that shippers of controversial pairings often end up being driven into private Discords (sometimes with definitions of 'controversial' as mild as 'there's an age gap' or 'this character is seventeen and would therefore be under the age of consent if they were Californian, which they aren't'), which is a shame.

Hear, hear!

Thank you! I'm glad to find such enthusiastic agreement on here.

"I would love to see more Dreamwidth/LJ-style commentfic promptfests in pretty much every fandom. I love low-pressure events with no obligations or signups; all you do is show up, look around and see whether any of the prompts inspire you."

I found your post when I was doing one of my periodic, desperate, almost invariably futile searches for a commentfic fest. So yes.

They're such fun events! I'm already looking forward longingly to next year's

threesentenceficathon.

Yes!

I think the most impressive and puzzling example was the time I wrote over forty ficlets for the BBC ShakespeaRe-Told modern-day adaptation of Macbeth, set in a restaurant and tragically not called MacChef.

First of all I laughed so hard at MacChef, I'm mad it wasn't called that!! But more importantly I love that you wrote so many fics for it, that's real dedication. I hope--if you did post them somewhere--some lone fan eventually stumbled across them and had a field day.

I miss commentfic promptfests too, especially kink memes and such. Granted, I could be more proactive with the ones that do exist now, but still, a gal can dream...

I hope--if you did post them somewhere--some lone fan eventually stumbled across them and had a field day.

This actually happened! Fourteen years after I originally lost my mind over MacChef, I stumbled across a fic about it on AO3 and left an enthusiastic comment, mentioning my solitary fannish history with the adaptation. The author's response:

I just have to say something because this is so amazing to me that it's almost hilarious - I'm pretty sure I've read all forty-one of the ficlets you posted back-to-back-to-back and I loved them! They were the reason I figured it wouldn't be so out of nowhere for me to post this fic online, so I'm really really ridiculously happy that you found this and you enjoyed my writing. Thank you so much!!

I was absolutely delighted.

I'm so glad!! The fated meeting of the only two MacChef fans in the world...

The puriteens and their insistence on sanitized perfect Absolutely Moral ships are exhausting. Their refusal to simply curate their own experience instead of burning fandom down around them is such a fucking problem.

It's such a bizarre, frustrating crusade against creativity and imagination!

I don't know if I've quite interpreted 'headcanon' correctly, but here are some character interpretations I will stand by with complete certainty, even if they may not be outright stated in the text.

I'm never sure re: headcanon - I was having this conversation with a few friends recently, actually. I think I use to it to mean 'adding/imagining/etc more than an interpretation usually would, but definitely something that isn't outright contradicted by canon' but then that's also hard to define. My usual example is 'Noct is autistic (and doesn't know)' - like, it's definitely not something that's unimpeachably there in the canon, but there is stuff that makes it plausible imo, and it's part of his character when I write him unless there's a reason not to.

SUCH a strong agree on Light, btw! He's so much more emotional then he likes to admit. He's a rational god!!! No family feeling or being pissed off when L challenges him!

Also very strong agree on what you wish you see more! Especially the first one. Like, this is such a 'me me me!' complaint haha, but I remember playing Episode Ardyn (and watching the prequel anime thing) and being like 'wow, they gave him a woobie backstory and a nasty brother. I look forward to reading all the incest in various shades of consent.' and then NOTHING??? Like, I wasn't expecting it to necessarily be good but I was expecting it to be there. Especially given Noctdyn is a decent-size ship! And we know what fandom likes!

So like even aside from it being my sort of thing I genuinely see the total absence of Somnus/Ardyn on AO3 as kind of a canary in the coal mine. Be free, shippers! Put it out there!

I know it's easier said than done, though, especially for younger fans who run the risk of being ostracised by their peers or even their friends, whereas older fans are much less likely to feel that depicting unhealthy relationships in fiction is somehow an immoral act.

This is true as well though, ofc. I mean, we're both people in our 30s with a ton of real-life fandom friends and housemates - in my case, I met several of them through darkfic comms on LJ.

'adding/imagining/etc more than an interpretation usually would, but definitely something that isn't outright contradicted by canon'

This interpretation makes sense; it definitely fits with the way I usually see 'headcanon' being used! It's hard to pin down the boundaries of 'adding more than an interpretation usually would', but Noct being autistic is a good example. It makes complete sense for the character, but it's not something you could outright say is canonical, and I also can't confidently go 'I think the creators intended Noct to be autistic,' whereas I do think Death Note was written with the understanding that Light loves his family.

It's hard to think of headcanons I have, by that definition! I'm sure they exist, but it's a struggle to bring them to mind when I'm not actively writing the character I have headcanons for.

OH, WAIT: Patrick Jane of The Mentalist is in love with his entire team! That's a firm belief I have, neither explicitly supported nor contradicted by canon.

I suppose there are a number of characters I headcanon as being in love with a specific other character, come to think of it. Riku of Kingdom Hearts is in love with Sora, Gilbert of Pandora Hearts is in love with Oz, Satoshi of DN Angel is in love with Daisuke, Shawn of Psych is in love with Gus; I don't know how to interpret these characters through any other lens. To be honest, though, I think Satoshi and Gilbert are probably canonically intended.

and being like 'wow, they gave him a woobie backstory and a nasty brother. I look forward to reading all the incest in various shades of consent.' and then NOTHING???

Huh! I haven't played Episode Ardyn, so I've never really looked for Ardyn/Somnus, but I'm sort of surprised to hear this. Final Fantasy XV fandom seemed very nonjudgemental to me, as modern fandoms go, possibly because the longstanding success of the series brought in a lot of older fans. I'm sorry the fandom failed you on this occasion!

I mean, we're both people in our 30s with a ton of real-life fandom friends and housemates - in my case, I met several of them through darkfic comms on LJ.

Yeah, I know my housemates would laugh in the face of anyone who tried to go 'hey, you should break ties with Riona; she writes about unhealthy relationships!', but not all fans have the luxury of knowing their friends aren't going to judge them. It's tough!

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I Lied. That's What I Do.

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