As I was writing my report, I reflected back to the feedbacks from previous units. One specific detail of my assessment feedback from Unit 3 really stood out to me: I was encouraged to shift away from presenting a dichotomous stance on fan fiction, and considering the spectrum of opportunities in between.

I was pinpointing how people view fandom as something linear: either they were completely against creating fanfiction in general, or they were completely aligned with the sexual parts of fanfiction.

This was exactly what Steve said during Comic Con a month later. For some frustrating reason I didn’t completely understand what “the spectrum of opportunities in between” and “the stories in the middle” really meant, I simply had a vague idea that this was the area of fiction that encouraged, rather than suppress, people to tell more stories.

Currently my interventions still stuck to the 2 sides of the spectrum. I found it quite hard to measure what is the “stories in the middle”, apart from people’s subjective viewpoint of it.