dceu_kinkmeme | Discussion/Writing Post

AYRT

Love using tumblr as a place for inspiration & resources too. There's just an amazing treasure trove of material there. It's one of the reasons I can't tear myself away from it, even as I've come to appreciate dreamwidth & twitter more as fandom spaces. No other fandom space is as visually oriented as tumblr, and I appreciate that.

AND YAY FOR DCEU-MOD! We probably shouldn't exclude other live-action canon, it's true. I know that Arrow has a thriving fanfic community, but Gotham's kinkmeme was tumbleweeds-through-the-streets level of deserted (for fillers; it seems you can get people prompting on even the oldest of posts). All I know is that I have a handful of comics-related prompts and I can't wait to show them off.

Because kinkmeme/anon memes are more than just enjoying a universe, right? It's about being so deep in a universe that there are things that you just *need*. I'm okay with the CW fic I've read. It's good, i liked it. The end. (This may be because there's no live-action TV configuration of superbat that I'm interested in. I'm still bitter that Smallville never got to use Bruce, and despair of Bruce and Clark ever meeting (or punching each other) (or angstily repeatedly breaking-up like in the 80s comics) on the small screen.)

Ayrt

I'm kind of bummed that my fannish time is mostly spent lurking, ever since the decline of LJ. None of the fandoms I'm into migrated to Dreamwidth (at least, that was the case since I last checked a few years ago. This meme is the first time I've been on DW in years). And like I said above, tumblr just doesn't suit my fannish needs. Twitter is great for livetweeting, but not much else I find.

I'm surprised Gotham's kinkmeme would be so dead! I mean, if there's anything that lends itself well to kink, it's Gotham Cuty and all its characters, right?

I guess I have the same problem of no OTPs in the CW verse. Not counting Dinah/Oliver, because Arrow's versions of them are so drastically different from previous canon. And everyone on The Flash and Supergirl just feel so *young* that I can't ship anyone in more than a general, fairy-tale romance kind of thing. I'd like to see some people together, the end.

I spend about 90% of my fandom time lurking as well. I just don't have the energy to write fic or meta all of the time. When I do have energy, I prefer to chat/squee/complain with fellow fans about my favorite fictional characters/whatever fandom I am in at the moment.

I think Gotham's kinkmeme might be dead because Bruce is so young, as he's typically the most popular DC character for shipping.

For CW-verse, I like the canon pairings for Flash and Supergirl. But as to why I don't write fic for those shows...dunno. There are certain movies/shows I like to fic for and some that I don't, although it doesn't mean I like those shows less.

DA

Yeah, I definitely agree with the energy part. Tumblr's a high-energy kind of investment. And I'm not always in that kind of mood. I haven't connected with many DC fans through tumblr as I have fans for other fandoms. Maybe in part because the DCEU fandom is so very small compared to the huge crushing wave of Marvel fandom that always seems to roll into the superbat tag (when people tag for multiple ships).

I like Marvel just fine, but I'm looking for my DCU/DCEU peeps. I think this kinkmeme is the best fannish space I've found to squee & love & share about this fandom. Granted I'd love to do all of those things off anon, but I feel that would be against the spirit of this whole community.

...Only downside for me is that when I come here, I have the hugest itch to go off and fill another prompt.

Not the ayrt, but the one above that

Ugh yessss. The high energy thing describes tumblr so perfectly. I find a huge chubk of tumblr fans to be constantly super-dramatic and emotional. Maybe some of it's exagerration? But it's just draining to me. I hve to be in the right mood for it.

I'm actually happy to be a part of smaller fandoms, as it feels like I don't get lost in the wave of new stuff, and my experience in smaller fandoms is that they tend to be less cliquey and more welcoming. But I guess time will tell as the DCEU forges ahead!

I feel you, anon.

Tumblr is very Marvel-oriented, and it's difficult for anything DC-related to gain traction there. Tumblr is basically set up for rapid-fire soap-boxing, so it's hard to get a word in edgewise. What I do like about this dreamwidth and this meme is that things move at a slower pace, so it gives me more time to process prompts and discuss ideas more thoroughly with others.

I'm kind of new to DC Fandom, so I'm not ready to come off anon yet, but I wouldn't be opposed to a group chatroom or such.

...ok, I'm curious now. Which prompt are you itching to fill? :)

AYRT

SO MANY, NONNY, SO MANY. The ones that are bumping up in the brain's to-fill queue are this one (http://dceu-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1491.html?thread=267219#cmt267219), this one (http://dceu-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1491.html?thread=269011#cmt269011), and this one (http://dceu-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1491.html?thread=174291#cmt174291) that I've been gathering reference for half of forever, but get nervous whenever I think about rendering drape-y fabric.

I have a textfile of prompts that I absolutely want to fill. It's about 20 entries long already. @u@

I think Gotham's kinkmeme might be dead because Bruce is so young, as he's typically the most popular DC character for shipping.

*sad crying from anon who ships Bruce/Alfred on Gotham so hard it hurts*

*hugs* Oh nonny, I feel that pain on a fundamental level. I ship a ship that has 2 fics for it on Ao3. Not even casually ship it. It's one of my three OTPs. Sometimes... sometimes... we just gotta be hopeful, right? Maybe there might be a Gotham filler here on the kinkmeme. Never know, right?

*whispers*

I ship Bruce Wayne/Lt. Gordon in Beware the Batman. There are no fics for that at all. The pain is real. D:

ayrt Yeah, you never know. I am stubbornly requesting Bruce/Alfred in every other exchange I do, but so far no luck. It's not even like I want porn about 12-year-old Bruce, age him up a little, that's fine, just give me fiiiic. Ah well. Maybe some day. ;)

AYRT

I'm sorry to hear that you've faded back into lurking since the slow heat-death of lj. I only stepped back into fandom in 2014 after a very long time away from it, and the fandom I got immediately attached to was SPRAWLING and active, and it's everywhere, on nearly every platform (except dreamwidth, it's pretty much crickets). Twitter turned out to be great for that fandom because there's a critical mass of fans sharing & chatting.

But what I love twitter for, is its absolutely MASSIVE DMs. I'm a part of a 45-person fannish DM for a fanfic series of all things, and we basically use it like an IRC channel that only invite peeps can show up to. I appreciate the... out-of-the-public-eye space that gives me. My online persona and my professional persona aren't well-separated. I'd prefer not to spam all of my acquaintances with my love of fic, if I can absolutely avoid it. xD

In all of these different pockets of fandom I've found, the uniting feature is I've found them through fic challenges. (I'm kind of a big bang addict. O:) Even if I wasn't participating in them directly, in some of the best fic challenges, there's a wonderful sense of community that can get created. One challenge that I ran, we had a chatzy chatroom, and the writers, artists, and other fandom people who were just interested in talking could all hang out. It was massively fun. I'm not sure if I'm trying to pitch participating in a bang or not. (Especially since there's only one currently running DC one. I've been thinking on that too. Hmm. xD)

I was surprised by Gotham's lack of traffic too! But I think another nonny in the thread nailed it when they said it's probably due to an underage Bruce. He does seem to be one of the lightning rods for shipping in dc fandom (as well as Dick Grayson and Clark Kent).

So far, in the CW universe, there's been a bit of sweet romance, but no pairing or shipping dynamic that just clicks with me. And I can understand that. I generally don't ship easily. When I do, I fall into that fandom hard and never want to claw my way back out again.

Ayrt

Intersting about the twitter DMs! I'm an artist, not a writer, so I didn't realize people used DMs for that! I definitely understand the desire to keep some fannish things private. That's what's so great about th LJ/DW format, was the members-only communities and such. IIRC tumblr has an invite-only feature for side blogs now or something? Never got around to playing with it, but I wonder if it could be used to replicate an LJ style community?

And not that there's anything wrong with lurking, but I miss the connections and collaboration that comes from being a participant in a fannish community. I love big bangs and other challeneges! I wish the Superbat big bang was still running... I have modded big bangs and challenges before on LJ, and I've been considering starting one for DC, but I honestly wouldn't know how to go about doing it now on tumblr.

I'm the same way with shipping. OTPs for life <3

AYRT

I've hosted/modded three big bangs on tumblr now, so if you want to do a superbat big bang (or a different kind of challenge), nonny, I'd be thrilled to co-mod it with you (probably after October. My two currently-running bangs finish in the september/october timespace).

I've gotten pretty handy with setting up tumblrs & all of that jazz. The only trouble would be prying the superbat fans out of their little hidey-holes. Luring them in with fun and kinkmeme cookies. Building their sense of anticipation. (See if there's any actual interest in the superbat writers participating in such a thing!)

I'm with you: connections and collaboration are why I love fandom communities best of all. Challenges are fantastic. <3

Ayrt

I'll have to get back to you on that! I'm not sure if I have the time for it this year. Maybe a smaller type challenge?

And yeah, IDK if there would be enough interest? Not to mention, with DC there's so many different canons, how would we ensure we get enough artists who are familiar with them all? I never understood how mods run multi-fandom bug bangs (eg. Rarepairs, femmeslash, etc). Unless a writer/artist duo signs up together (which I feel defeats the purpose of a challenge, tbh. If you know you want to work together with someone, just do a collab?), how can the mods make sure everyone's going to get paired up?

AYRT

I'd definitely be interested in running a smaller type challenge! I've got some thoughts on smaller challenges that could be run. There are a lot of options. Mini-bangs with word count minimums at 8-10k. Reverse-bangs where artists submit art, and writers pick art pieces and use those as prompts to write fics of 3k+ words. A trope fest with submitted prompts (like the kinkmeme) that then get paired up with artists for extra awesome!

(Of course that's if there's any interest in it; I could hit up a few of the bigger-name authors on tumblr to see what they might think about the interest-level in a superbat challenge.)

I ran a pairing-specific challenge like our current hypothetical superbat challenge, the T'hy'la Big Bang. That's Kirk/Spock if you're unfamiliar. Our problem wasn't having enough artists--it was having enough writers. We had teams of up to four people (one writer, two artists, one fanmixer) because we had something like 12 drafts, and 30+ artists/fanmixers, with people excited to work on multiple stories.

It turned out fine, everyone was really excited to collaborate in teams. I know superbat is way smaller than K/S, with a different set of issues... but they're not too different in their core issues. There's just a difference in degree (star trek has mirrorverse, dc has justice lords/injustice; star trek had an animated series, dc has several; trek has reboots, dc has a LOT of reboots; everyone has Specific Feelings about the reboots which leads to wank behind closed doors).

Just judging superbat by the amount of art versus the amount of fic that's produced, I have no idea which way the sign-up imbalance might be for a hypothetical challenge. My gut tells me, based on past experience, that artists that sign up for bangs are generally willing to tackle stories in canons they might not be 100% familiar with. Because the fun's in the collaboration.

*ponders question some more, as it is a good one*

OHH So here's an idea.

Whatever our hypothetical challenge is, we could do something like yuletide. Yuletide has a fandom nominating period, based on what people want to prompt for/write/get written. Maybe we could have a nominating period for superbat, so people could chime in about what *areas* of superbat they'd like to write in. And then, god help us, we could have a more complete picture to sell artists on. Instead of just going 'shoulder shrug' when artists ask what people are writing, we could point them to the fandoms that have been nominated. For example, if people nominate Young Justice, Batman v Superman (or the DCEU in general), Nolanverse/Superman Returns crossovers, but don't nominate Smallville or the 90s Batman movies, or Lois & Clark... that would help us focus on pitching to artists who are interested in those fandoms.

Yep okay this comment ran away from me for a challenge that doesn't even exist yet. Suffice to say, I spend a lot of time thinking about fandom challenge logistics. xD

Not a big bang or challenge, but I know that someone is planning a DCEU fic (and art?) exchange some time in August, if that's relevant to anyone's interests.

oh my god anon this is TOTALLY relevant to my interests. Do you know any more details?

Re: Other DC Kinkmemes?

(Anonymous) - 2016-07-15 16:43 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Other DC Kinkmemes?

(Anonymous) - 2016-07-15 18:06 (UTC) - Expand

Da

Details please! XD

Ayrt

Maybe we could start small with a tropefest! It would be less of a comittment (for participants, and maybe less of a timesink for mods too?), and there are SO MANY tropes in comics, it would give people a chance to play around with those.

But any modding stuff for me would have to be mid-Sept at the earliest.

AYRT

Yes, that sounds absolutely great! And yeah, mid-September to end-of-September is when I'd be able to start modding for the event. *rubs hands together gleefully*

Re: Other DC Kinkmemes?

(Anonymous) - 2016-07-15 18:45 (UTC) - Expand

I think tumblr is excellent for resources as well - there's some amazing DC art I've been exposed to on that website. It's terrible, unfortunately, for community building. I've found anon kinkmemes quite a bit better because the responses don't get lost in the constant reblogs, etc.

And god the comics...the superbat slash seriously writes itself. I've read some of Loeb's Superman/Batman series and although I know it's not the author's intent to make it homoerotic, it's very easy to look at the material from a slashy perspective.

It's odd - there are certain shows that are very easy to write fic for and others that are not. I think Arrow is a bit easier for fans write for because there is a good bit of romance in the show; and let's face it, fandom loves shipping.

I never really got into Smallville, although I found a lovely Smallville!Clark/DCU!Bruce fic if you're interested: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5912137/chapters/13614802

One thing I do like about DC fandom is how many different universes we can pull characters from. It allows the writers to create many different types of stories/interpretations of the same character. It keeps reading and writing fic fresh and fun.

AYRT

Superbat-slash is so self-writing, it's hilarious. The Loeb-era stuff is a gift (Absolute Power, anyone?) Except I find writing for comics canon a little daunting. I always feel that I don't know enough about comics canon, or my canons are just too smushed together. Conversely, if you try to basic a fic off of a very particular storyline, it quickly is forgotten by the fandom-at-large a year or two down the line.

(I've experience some of that confusion with mithen's fic for example. I adore everything she's written, but sometimes I'm really confused by what canon she's referring to. Thankfully she usually provides a good guide in her author notes, and then my comics collection grows by that many more issues...Shogun of Steel and Superman 710 come to mind. xD)

I enjoy the clarity that the DCEU has with its much smaller, more well-defined canon.

(OH MY GOOD COFFIOCAKE. THAT'S MY FAVORITE SMALLVILLE FIC. NONNY, I MAY JUST HAVE TO RUN OFF TO READ THIS AGAIN.)

I whole-heartedly second your comment about how many different universes we have to pull from. Live action tv. Movies. Animated film. Animated series. Games. Comics. Plays. Lego, for Rao's sake. I've never experienced a fandom that is this pleasantly large, with such a sprawling number and types of worlds--all of the possibilities that contain. And I come out of the Star Trek fandom.

The DC Lego verse is actually kind of amazing. I love how OTT everyone is, especially Bruce's paranoia and Clark's super boy scout-ness. I swear it's like Bruce is so annoyed by Clark because he finds Clark super-attractive and just can't admit it to himself! XD

It's pretty awesome how the Lego Movies play on popular tropes of the characters (Batman is always grumpy, Clark is super perky).

I've only ever watched the Lego Movie, so that's all I know of Lego Batman. I am excited for the Lego Batman movie coming out next year, as it looks to be super cute and funny.

Ahahahahahah, yes, I'm willing to buy the idea that Bruce is a grumpy boy because he has a huge crush on an oblivious Clark.

Da

I picked up some issues of the classic World's Finest series during a sale on Comixology, and whoo boy, is it ever slashy! I get that things were different back then, but wow. Sooooo homoerotic!

And I am all about the AUs (well, more canon divergence) in all my fandoms, so it shouldn't be a surprise that I also love the concept of the multiverse!