Fandom Meme 18

[osprey_archer]

18. How many fandoms have you written for? How many have you been in, and how many are you still in?

Hahaha *weeps quietly* I ended up copying the fandoms list from AO3, and discovered that I’ve written for over sixty fandoms, give or take a few on account of fandom overlap. (Does Agents of SHIELD count as a fandom I’ve written for when it’s all crossovers with Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Etc. etc.)

Many of these were written for Yuletide or other fic exchanges. There are also a few where I had a flowering of interest in a particular book, but there wasn’t what you might call a “fandom” aside from myself. The American Girl fics are all like this.

I realize that being in a fandom means different things to different people. For me, it means actively writing in a fandom where I also interact with people, so I’m not really in a fandom right now, although I do still kind of hang out in the edges of Captain America fandom. There’s just so much pretty fanart…

There are three main fandoms that I’ve been a part of, in chronological order: Torchwood, Sutcliff fandom (mainly Eagle of the Ninth, although I did write number of Frontier Wolf fics too), and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. (Honorary mention goes to Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Lost Prince, an unlikely minifandom that flourished in the latter half of 2013. I was in it only briefly, but boy I lived that fic while I was writing it, and it was very well-received.)

There are also a number of fandoms that I tried to break into, but never really made it past the gate: Pushing Daisies (this is where I learned that loving a canon does not necessarily mean that you personally have the skillset to write fic for it), Les Miserables (the 2012 movie), Hetalia, and Downton Abbey. Except for Pushing Daisies, all of these were fandoms where I was writing rarepairs (Eponine/Cosette, RusAme, and Sybil/Branson, respectively), which probably contributed to my difficulties… Although I was writing Owen/Ianto in Torchwood, which was definitely a niche interest, so perhaps I shouldn’t generalize.

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

all of these were fandoms where I was writing rarepairs (Eponine/Cosette, RusAme, and Sybil/Branson, respectively)

...RusAme was a rarepair?

[osprey_archer]

Shhhhhh let me comfort myself with my delusions. (It definitely wasn't the juggernaut - IIRC that was USUK - but rarepair is probably an exaggeration.)

Upon reflection, maybe the difficulty with Hetalia fic was that the fandom was SO big that it was difficult to make a mark? When there are huge numbers of fics appearing every day, it's easy for things to fall through the cracks.

[sovay]

Although I was writing Owen/Ianto in Torchwood, which was definitely a niche interest, so perhaps I shouldn’t generalize.

I don't know when you were writing, but I believe it has exceeded niche interest since; at the point where I fell into the show last year, there was quite a lot of those two, including stuff being written as I watched. (Also, I shall have to read your Torchwood.)

[osprey_archer]

I was writing Torchwood fic in 2008, when Jack/Ianto was the big thing. Did people sour on it after the show did Ianto dirty?

Anyway, all my Torchwood fic is under the television: torchwood tag, but fair warning, the fic is 13 years old at this point and I make no promises as to its quality.

[sovay]

Did people sour on it after the show did Ianto dirty?

I think it's more like people's tastes expanded—I'm informed there's a lot less Gwen-bashing than in the first generation of the fandom, for example. I see a lot of combinations in the tags now.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, Gwen-bashing was definitely a thing in the first generation of fandom, and although I haven't kept up with Torchwood fandom I'm not surprised to hear there's less now. I think fandom as a whole is less hospitable to bashing female characters these days, although certainly fandom has other problems.