Fandoms that might have been
Sep. 9th, 2010 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gryphonseggI've been playing with DW's Random Community feature, and now I'm wondering just how many Supernatural comms this place has.
What do you wish had a bigger fandom . . . or any active online fandom at all? Is it an old book whose popularity peaked before internet communities or even before fan conventions got started, or something that has been simply overlooked? What do you think would happen in the fandom if it existed or were much bigger? What would be the popular ships, the main controversies, the sources of wank? Was that question redundant? Is there anything you like but are glad it doesn't have much of a fandom?
Personally, I wish 9 had a stronger presence in the journal-oriented side of fandom. I want more fic for it, and the character designs might as well have been made with amateur arts and crafts in mind. Even I can draw something that looks sort of like the characters! There are more works up on DA, but I'm not much of an artist myself, and I wouldn't feel quite right about joining a site where there's a general expectation of drawing something other than stick figures and rag doll robots. On the other hand, I would cringe at 9 ship wank. And if I found any wank about gendering the twins, I just might do what Surrealist Dreamer-Kansan Entrails and I sometimes joke about and bite someone's face.
What do you wish had a bigger fandom . . . or any active online fandom at all? Is it an old book whose popularity peaked before internet communities or even before fan conventions got started, or something that has been simply overlooked? What do you think would happen in the fandom if it existed or were much bigger? What would be the popular ships, the main controversies, the sources of wank? Was that question redundant? Is there anything you like but are glad it doesn't have much of a fandom?
Personally, I wish 9 had a stronger presence in the journal-oriented side of fandom. I want more fic for it, and the character designs might as well have been made with amateur arts and crafts in mind. Even I can draw something that looks sort of like the characters! There are more works up on DA, but I'm not much of an artist myself, and I wouldn't feel quite right about joining a site where there's a general expectation of drawing something other than stick figures and rag doll robots. On the other hand, I would cringe at 9 ship wank. And if I found any wank about gendering the twins, I just might do what Surrealist Dreamer-Kansan Entrails and I sometimes joke about and bite someone's face.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 06:01 pm (UTC)Anyway, these are essentially all musical or musical/book fandoms. This is, I think, because musical fandoms tend to be small (with the notably and decidedly strange exception of Phantom of the Opera fandom).
1. Notre-Dame de Paris. One of my very first fandoms, and I still wish it were bigger. There's some stuff out there (mostly crap) for the Disney version; I'm thinking more book and musical. I don't think it could get a LOT bigger--it's a small canon that's much more tied to time and place than POTO fandom (a huge chunk of the fic there is different-setting AUs)--but there are all kinds of neat possibilities for exploration. I think there would be a Frollo/Esmeralda contingent, because Frollo is a Tragic Villain (I adore Frollo, okay, but not with Esmeralda because that would require them both to be utterly different people), a Frollo/Mary Sue fix-it contingent, possibly an Esmeralda/Quasimodo contingent (but not based on the books), an Esmeralda/Gringoire contingent, and possibly some really clueless Esmeralda/Phoebus shippers. There would be tiny, desperate slash contingents for Frollo/Gringoire and Esmeralda/Fleur-de-Lys hatesex. Personally, I'd be in it mostly for the gen, and I badly want Fleur-de-Lys fic of any strip.
2. Jekyll & Hyde, the musical (not really book-compatible). The main ships would be Jekyll/Lucy and Hyde/Lucy; I think poor Emma would get short shrift although there might be Jekyll/Hyde/Emma AUs from the really kinky folks (is it a threesome when Jekyll & Hyde are the same person?). There would be a lot of romanticizing of Hyde. I honestly don't know why this isn't more popular as a fandom when POTO is.
3. MOST IMPORTANTLY, Chess! Which should be the biggest fandom ever; it's a lot more open-ended than the others, and there's tons of potential for pulling in ideas from the real chess shenanigans during the Cold War. And it has spies! Popular pairings: everyone! But I suspect Freddie/Anatoly, Freddie/Florence, and Anatoly/Florence would be the most popular. Controversies would probably be over whether everyone's a jerk (answer: yes) or whether Anatoly/Freddie/Molokov/Walter/whoever is really misunderstood.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-11 01:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-11 01:31 am (UTC)But yeah, Frollo is one of my favorite characters, but I don't think I could take apologism and woobiefication. The fic I wrote in high school is bad enough (perhaps I shall one day reconsider my policy of not taking down old embarrassing fic). So I am of two minds: I'd like more fic, but I'm fairly sure a larger fandom would not produce the fic I want to read.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-11 01:48 am (UTC)I'd like more fic, but I'm fairly sure a larger fandom would not produce the fic I want to read.
Yes, this pretty much sums up my feelings.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-11 02:29 am (UTC)I think Frollo woobiefication would be even failier than the woobiefication of Spike and the Malfoys, since he comes loaded with so much RL historical context.
Yeah, definitely.
Book!Frollo is more complicated than musical!Frollo, but he's undeniably not a good person, and his actions are the catalyst for basically everything that goes wrong (Phoebus does some pretty bad shit, too, and Phoebus doesn't have any redeeming qualities as far as I can tell, but I think Phoebus is less likely to be woobiefied by fandom. I could be wrong on that).
Hope you feel better soon!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-12 03:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-12 03:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-12 03:29 am (UTC)