(no subject)

[labellementeuse]

ethrosdemon is hosting Sunday meta to encourage people who don't write meta much but want to, as a way to create a safe place for, um, first time meta-ers, I guess. I read more meta than I let on and I often sort of want to comment and splurge, and this was going to be for that, but it actually doesn't fit as the kind of pan-fannish experience thing they've got going over there, so, uh... it's not. Anyway, that's where this came from, it's totally a brainfart about me and my favourite fandom and why I am the way I am about it. caveat lector.


Awhile ago, thefourthvine did a series of polls on what she described as "fannish archetypes", trying to define how much time fen spend in different fandoms, and how many we have going at a time. Maybe she was planning on doing some meta to follow it up, or maybe she already did so and I missed it, or perhaps it was just for her own amusement, and we all danced like little monkeys in a cage. Anyway, they were pretty entertaining and a lot of people got to being thinky in her comments, which can be very entertaining: part one, part two and part three (although the latter part's only really interesting if you read TFV regularly.)

The fun part, of course, was the animal metaphors for fannish 'archetypes' - from the baaaaaby animal who's brand-new to fandom, to the camels - we all know one - who wander from fannish oasis to oasis with looong hiatuses (hiati? what's that root, anyway?). It's fun to speculate about why, for example, the magpie - constantly picking up new fandoms, but still considering themselves part of their former fandoms - and the gorilla, who maintains a small group of 3-6 fandoms - were significantly the most popular. It might relate to the context - TFV is a multi-fandom reccer. But it might also be considered a fairly reasonable sample. However, I don't wanna speculate about that - I want to talk about the behaviour of the teeny-tiny, 2.2% of poll takers who described themselves as a "lone wolf" - one teeny tiny fandom that is too small to support their reading and/or writing habits, so they read/write in others.

I consider myself a lone wolf, which won't shock any of you. Young Wizards is the fandom of my heart. It's not the first fandom I ever wrote a fic in, but it's the first fandom I ever needed to write a fic in. It's not the first fandom I ever read in, but it's the first fandom I ever left concrit in. It's the first fandom I ever read a fic that had multiple spelling or grammar errors in the header - and I'm glad I did. It's the first fandom I created a community for. It's the only fandom in which I have ever run a fic challenge, let alone run it twice, let alone modded two communities for, let alone begged and bribed people into writing fic for, let alone looked at fanart for.

But it's small. A month where one fic is posted on LJ is a really busy month for this fandom. Icons are few and far between. Approximately 95% of all fannish discussion takes place off-LJ on a messageboard run by the author herself, Diane Duane. For obvious reasons, fanfic does not happen in those boards. On the other hand, fan chats with DD do. But there's only so much this kind of fannish activity can do for me. At the end of the day, we all just wanna read some porn, you know? And to my knowledge there has never been a piece of NC-17 rated fanfiction written in this fandom. Nope, never. So I do what, I guess, many people in my position do - I look around. In the past three or so years, especially since Harry Potter fandom imploded, (previously a reliable source of porn in a storm) I've read voraciously in Smallville and in SGA; more recently, and with more commitment, in the DCU and, of course, Supernatural, which is definitely my most passionate extramarital affair.

In their non-dominant fandoms, lone wolves like me - I guess; I have nothing really to go on - can be truly parasitic fans. I don't like to think of myself as a leech, but let's face it - I read, and read, and read, and read. I probably spend about three hours a day reading fanfiction in fandoms I will never write fanfiction in, I will probably never write meta about, I rarely if ever review in and quite often I don't even bother to talk about the source (although Supernatural has changed that.) I'm not invested in them. I couldn't care less about Smallville, I only watched a bit of SGA because I wanted to be able to read the fic. I'm about to investigate SG1 because one person on my flist, and another person very dear to me IRL, have just gone through it like a hot knife through butter and are being very convincing about how much fun it is. I don't expect to be any more invested in it, though.

That was all a very long introduction to my real question: where does a lone wolf fan come from and what does a very small fandom do when it rains?

Mostly, I believe, small fandoms endure. They get written in Yuletide year after patient year - although the thing about Yuletide is that it attracts a lot of people who aren't in the fandom, and consequently the fic generated there is somehow divorced from the fandom. You get a lot of Nita/Kit and Tom/Carl, perennial fandom favourites, but you don't see much Nita/LP, a favoured pairing only within active fandom. (To give context: think of Nita/Kit as Ron/Hermione (or Harry/Hermione, if that's your slice); Tom/Carl as Remus/Sirius; and Nita/LP as, um, Harry/Voldemort, only more like Harry/Draco.) But, at least on livejournal, YW is a fandom made up entirely of people who also see other fandoms. We're quiet - but we stick around and we keep coming back, because we're either magpies or we're lone wolves and we know how to keep multiple fandoms on the go. Another example of this kind of fandom is, say, Gordon Korman fandom, which is possibly even more teensy-tiny than YW. There are a couple of authors who keep coming back, even though they're writing and reading in other fandoms probably a whole lot more - and the fun thing about this is that, even as those other fandoms change, they keep coming back to the smaller fandoms.

Is it because there's still more to say in the smaller fandoms? Maybe - I think the bigger a fandom is, while you do get a lot of recycling, you also get more to say because you can say a lot in the context of the fandom rather than in the context of just the canon. For example, were YW just a tiny bit smaller, I don't think we'd see any Nita/LP because I think it's very divorced from the text - I think the genesis for Nita/LP comes from conversations fen have on Livejournal and even at fanfiction.net - I can't get away from ffn.net when I'm bringing this up because the "seminal" (cough cough) Nita/LP work is on ffn.net - yes, its quality is uneven, nevertheless, IMO it was groundbreaking and I'm glad it's out there. But smaller fandoms do have less to work from from this perspective - the obvious counterexample is Harry Potter, which I'm going to continue to use as an example even though it breaks all kinds of rules because I know the fandom - but in HP everything is written, absolutely everything, and in a way there's nothing left to say. So it sort of stagnates and we have that advantage too - I think smaller fandoms can be very fertile in that sense.

But mostly I just think smaller fandoms command more loyalty and more love because if you're here, you're here all the way - even if you wouldn't describe yourself as a lone wolf, just being in the small fandom says that you love it, because you're willing to wait months for a fic, you're willing to read fic that's maybe of a slightly lower quality than what you might get elsewhere just because you love it - and also, I believe in smaller fandoms a higher proportion of fans are really active. More of us are writing fanfic, more of us are making icons, more of us are participating. Maybe that's an illusion I have because that's true for me, that I am most active in this one fandom; but I don't think so.

In a week or so I think I might write something about Nita/Kit, Tom/Carl, Nita/Ronan, Nita/LP and Dairine/Roshaun and Why They Get Written - especially the Tom/Carl phenomenon which I really think is interesting. I may actually post that one to myriadwords and use that to get another round of YW meta started up - I remember we did one about canonical het pairings and one about ratings (er, why fic in this fandom tends towards the lower ratings, not the whole oral-rates-r-penetration-is-NC-17 insanity) and they were both kind of fun. Um. Okay. Goodnight now.

Comments

[kitsunerei88]

Mary should reread her YW books again and get caught up on it. . . >< Because you know, like four years later, I still haven't read past Dilemma. I should also revisit YW.net, sometime. . . Is PM still on there? I keep MEANING to, but let's just say I thought it would be BRILLIANT to overload my classes this year (i.e., we're only allowed 5 classes per term but I have 6) and am now. . . drowning in mathematics. At least the practice midterms for the midterm I have at the end of this week are easy. . . "Find the dot product! Find the cross product!"

Most of my fandom lies in anime and related. . . ^^ Which must be rather different because I don't recognize the term "meta" (though I think it stands for meta-analysis, I can't be sure). I have difficulty reading fanfiction though, even in my favourite fandoms - The biggest source of fanfiction on the net is FF.net, but (especially in larger fandoms) it's hard to find something quality and I really don't have a the patience to trawl through everything.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

I still haven't read past Dilemma.

WHAT. OH MY GOD, WOMAN. Dooo eeeet!

yeah, I guess it does stand for meta analysis - the idea is that you examine fandom from outside fandom, instead of looking at the intimate details of why Nita chooses not to take the LP's deal in Dilemma, you look at why fans do this and that. It's awfully entertaining especially when smrt people (ie, not me) do it, but it's also fun to do.

[kheha.livejournal.com]

So very interesting! I've been thinking on this all day, because my computer sorta kinda decided to DIE this morning as I was typing up a response, and when I got it working again by attaching it to a new monitor, it decided to DIE again. And then it worked again. And then it DIED, for reals. *sigh* So now, using another computer, and committed to responding like I wanted to. Which may not indeed be all that interesting, compared to how much effort went into being able to type this. ;-)

At the end of the day, we all just wanna read some porn, you know? And to my knowledge there has never been a piece of NC-17 rated fanfiction written in this fandom.

I sort of figured I just hadn't been looking in the right places -- I mean, seriously, there must be at least 1 thing?? But apparently not, and that makes sense too, and I trust you on that.

I blame the absolute strangeness of writing porn for a fandom when you know that 95% of the people reading are under the age of 15. Okay, maybe not 95%. But if I were to write something, I would want it to be password protected and on my own site somewhere, where I could have complete control over it... because we can't even begin to fool ourselves that we're writing for other adult women, like we can in HP (um, royal "we"), and that the random youngsters are just that: random. The main audience would be the youngsters. And that kinda makes me uncomfortable (though for that reason, I also kinda want to write graphic Kit/Tom. Hell, while we're at it, graphic Kit/Ponch. Just to be that shocking.)

Hmm, and how did HP implode? I feel like the HP porn is quite definitely still there...

In their non-dominant fandoms, lone wolves like me - I guess; I have nothing really to go on - can be truly parasitic fans.

I, on the other hand, am a leech. Worse than a normal parasite, I read and I comment infrequently. And I don't write. So, I don't even rank a symbiotic parasite. *is sad* But maybe, one day, I will be reincarnated into something that is not so parasitic, and that writes. I certainly feel like YW would be the place to start, since the environment is so darn supportive. *looks at you*

Your points about Nita/LP are very, very interesting. I'm not sure how to respond to it, except to say, hmm.

I should perhaps try to sit down and do some meta, too, because I feel like I might possibly be able to contribute that way and stop being such a leech. Hmm. Maybe only after you break the silence over in the community, though. ;-) I've been wondering what effect having those official forums has on us, actually, plus the fact that the author herself is so incredibly involved online. When I say things and she pops up in my journal, that is strange. It's positive and it's negative, I think, but it's certainly very different from what I see other fandoms going through.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

lady, I appreciate your committment to the cause! and sympathies in re: computer troubles. :(

I mean, seriously, there must be at least 1 thing??

You would think. But if it's out there, I've never seen it, and while I haven't read everything in the fandom I think I read enough, certainly on LJ, which is the place I would expect to find it (since you no longer get teh pron on the pit of voles.)

I blame the absolute strangeness of writing porn for a fandom when you know that 95% of the people reading are under the age of 15.

Yeah, I remember you bringing this up in this discussion (http://community.livejournal.com/myriadwords/23004.html) and I think you're right that it is a massively inhibiting factor. Along with the fact that just like most of the readers, most of the writers also fall in that age bracket.

Kit/Tom would actually have a fabulously creepy adult/child vibe - it could really be a fascinating exploration.

re: HP implosion: sure, the porn's still there, but nobody visits it anymore. :P Or I don't, anyway.

You are not a leech, because you entertain me and you participate in YW meta discussions which is completely a contribution, mm-hmmm.

I certainly feel like YW would be the place to start, since the environment is so darn supportive. *looks at you*

*squeaks and hugs you* You saying that actually means more than I can say, because that's certainly what I try to do and it's so nice to know it seems I succeed. <3

The things I think about the effect DD has had on her fandom by being involved... well. it's certainly something I think about, a lot, but I'm not confident about exploring it out loud, so to speak. I think it could definitely be argued that it can have a repressing effect on fandom though. I mean, I've never had the experience of DD commenting on one of my LJ entries, which frankly relieves me because if I thought she was actually watching...!

[kheha.livejournal.com]

Kit/Tom -- I'd absolutely love to write this. But then as soon as I think a bit more and realize it must necessarily be teh chan, *is creeped out*. I think I could manage it if Tom were an abuser, except that seems rather out-of-character... (Or, perhaps, not. Ergh, now I'm cogitating. :-p)

In any case -- here's another meta topic. Did you see the post from melannen on slash goggles (http://melannen.livejournal.com/185788.html)? I am trying to apply it to YW, and I'm thinking that part of the reason YW slash doesn't work so well is because of what she's talking about -- there isn't a slasher's gaze in the books (naturally, because um, maybe they're kids books?), which leaves only Tom/Carl. Which, again, is practically canon and so doesn't really count fannishly. Or something.

(Well, I've come to the decision that she must google herself, and thus that if I stay away from using her full name or linking to her site and stop having my entries indexed by Google, then I can go under the radar screen. Though I haven't tested this theory yet. Also, I think she necessarily avoids the communities because of the possibility of fic, so those might be a bit "safer". Though the metaphors I am using betray something intriguing on their own... Hmm.)

[senri.livejournal.com]

What, exactly, is fen? I hear the phrase but never quite know what to make of it.

And oh, oh, I would be so excited to see you do some essay-writing on the distribution of pairings in the YW fic-verse. I promise to actually participate in the discussion this time! And I followed the other one with interest, ahaha!

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Fen is the pretentious oldtimer plural of fan - c.f. fans, which is more intuitive. I use both interchangeably depending basically on my mood and my audience, so.

:D Well, with that kind of enthusiastic endorsement, I might just have to do something. Lordy knows it's entertaining for me too. :P

[avendya.livejournal.com]

Friending you, if you don't mind - I know this post is quite a ways back, but I'm a fellow YW fan, and there seems to a distinct lack of those around.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I can always do with more YW fans about the place, because yeah, I don't see enough of them either.