Fandom meme

[sophinisba]

Here is a meme about the fandoms we love!

The meme and questions: RULES: Comment and I'll LJ stalk you to find THREE FANDOMS you apparently love. And then you answer these questions about them!

01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?

Here are my answers for the fandoms rubynye gave me:


Lotrips

1. I started reading Lotrips a few months after I started reading LotR fpf and a few months before I started writing any fanfic. I resisted it for a while because of Strong Moral Objections but then I followed some links, I think from lotr_fic_recs, and once I'd found shaenie's fics I was totally sold.
2. I've never really thought of myself as being in this fandom because I don't write it, and I think Lotrips culture is a little less friendly toward non-writers than LotR fandom. Anyway, I've mostly moved on already in that I don't read it much these days or have strong feelings about the actors the way I once did, but there are Lotrips people that I like and that I've followed to other places, and I still have affection for the fandom and want it to continue.
3. Hee, not really. The DVD commentaries, I guess.
4. I used to participate by commenting on fics I read and occasionally linking. I'm still co-modding lotr_fic_recs which includes Lotrips fic, but very few other people participate there these days.
5. I think it would be hard to get excited about it these days, what with the actors themselves and so many other writers and readers having moved on, but I'm sure some people could have fun with it, and there certainly is a lot of good stuff out there to read.



The Faculty

1. I saw and liked the movie in between when I saw the LotR movies and when I started reading fanfic. Then I followed some authors who wrote both – I think the first Faculty fic I read was by mirabellawotr.
2. I think I'm mostly done with it now, might write a drabble now and then.
3. :)
4. It's the fandom I've written in most, after LotR, and I used to read and comment and rec.
5. Sure, it's a lovely fandom with lots of good fic, and it's very easygoing and welcoming, or at least it was at the time I started writing.

Two Faculty fandom-related confessions that are not part of the meme:
1. A couple years ago I asked angstslashhope if she'd let me fic some of the broken links at her fansite Decoy, and she said if I wanted to take over she'd turn it over to me as well as the big old archive Tweaked, and I said sure. However after that I could never figure out how to edit the website, and since I don't know Hope well (and she didn't always answer my e-mails) I felt funny about asking her for help, so for all this time the site's just been sitting there hosting old Faculty fic in a very disorganized way.
2. I am responsible for The Faculty getting taken off the list of Yuletide fandoms last year. Thus I may have prevented some Faculty fic from being written. I just, it seems a little insulting to call it a rare fandom, you know?



Merlin

1. I'd seen a few people talking about it and figured I would ignore it, and then I was hanging out in the Yuletide chatroom in December and everyone there was also talking about it, and I decided to check out the show and didn't love it, and then I started reading fic.
2. I'm sure I'll move on some day but for now I'm thrilled with this fandom. I haven't been as excited about anything fannish in a long time. I'm a little concerned that some of the writers I like may be moving on already, with Star Trek replacing Merlin as the New Shiny, but maybe they'll come back once season 2 starts airing.
3. Episode 10, The Moment of Truth is my favorite. I'm also very fond of 4, 5, 12, and 13.
4. I mostly just read and comment and sometimes help out at merlinfinders. I sometimes rec and have drabbled. I would like to rec and write more – I have started several longer fics but haven't managed to finish any. I listed it as my first choice for remixredux09.
5. WHY YES, YES I DO.

Comments

[sophinisba]

Sure! I'm so relieved you're familiar with the FTP stuff. That was really difficult for me.

Like I said, I really wanted to have the author listing as the main page. The previous maintainer had site updates as the main page you got when you went to tweaked.oscillating.net, and I thought that wasn't nearly as useful as an author listing, so I moved that to the updates page. However, I didn't manage to get the authors page put in its place, so now if you go to the main site url (http://tweaked.oscillating.net/updates.html) you get a file directory, which is not what you want, and the index page is a 404 error, which is even worse. :(

The other thing was the sidebar. See, the old version of the sidebar that's on most of the pages (example has a mailto the previous maintainer as webmistress, and it has links to these pages for betas and bunnies which I don't think are relevant anymore. On a few of the pages (example) I put in a simpler sidebar and on a few more of them I put in my e-mail as the webmistress (which, you now, now I'd want taken off) but I couldn't figure out how to change it across the board. And really what is the point of a sidebar being on every page if you can't edit it?

Okay, apart from that there are broken links. Most of the fic that was hosted there in the first place is still there but for example the links to Hope's fics go to another old website of hers that no longer exists. The first 15 chapters of Borderlines are on the site but it would make more sense to replace that with a link to the Borderlines website itself (which is also hosted by Hope).

If you were to get through all that and want to do a stylistic thing I think it would be nice to distinguish between links that take you to other parts of the site and links that open a new window on another site, or possibly separate the lists (for example take fics that are not hosted on the site off the titles list and put them on the links list instead).

And after all that start adding new fic?

(Edited for htmlfail.)

[aliensouldream.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a lot! But all great ideas. Sounds like a really interesting project. It could be a really nice thing for the fandom to have it active. Thanks so much for explaining it all and sharing your ideas. I'll wait to hear from you about the codes.

And I hope we'll still be able to count on you for a Fac drabble or two now and then?

*is jealous of Merlin*

*hugs*

Merlin!

[sophinisba]

Eh, I'm pretty much just writing occasional drabbles for Merlin too, but God, there is so much fic to read there, it's fantastic. I meant to tell you about Merlin. The show itself I like a lot and in some ways love even though I recognize that it's not great quality TV. The episodes are very episodic and kind of repetitive and the plots are kind of predictable and don't always make sense. The writing is sometimes kind of silly. Many things about it are kind of silly. However I have great affection for all the characters and I like that they show so much affection for each other (almost hobbit-like levels of it) and I find some of them really attractive. The fandom's got me interested in slash again when I'd been sort of wavering for a while (like since I got over my first blush with HP a couple years ago) about whether slash was really my thing. The thing is, Merlin and Arthur are destined to be together. The other thing is, Merlin has a secret that he can't tell Arthur even though he LOVES Arthur and Arthur loves him and even though their destinies are entwined. If Arthur knew that Merlin is a sorcerer he'd be obligated to tell his father who has a fanatical hatred for sorcerers and might well have Merlin killed. So between Arthur and Merlin's epic love and the fact that Merlin is constantly struggling with whether to tell Arthur the truth about what he is, the show is pretty much the gayest thing in the world. Also there's a master/servant dynamic that turns me on, and there are female characters who are friends with each other and whose lives aren't completely oriented around the men's. I love it so damn much.

And then the fandom, you know, like any fandom there's a lot of bad stuff there, but this one has just been really active the last few months and it's brought in a lot of authors who are really terrific, including people I'd been aware of before but hadn't ever read because they wrote fandoms or pairings I wasn't into like SGA or Harry/Draco. So to be a reader who feels like reading in the middle of this big fandom that's just finding itself has been really awesome. On the other hand it seems like a lot of people fell for it really hard but are already starting to get interested in other things like American Idol or Star Trek or whatever. :( But there's a new season coming soon and also a Merlin Big Bang challenge with a bunch of stories that I think will go up in another month or two and also the show's going to be on NBC this month so maybe some more US stragglers will come in then. I'm hopeful. I'm slightly less hopeful that I'll ever end up writing substantial fic for it.

[aliensouldream.livejournal.com]

Correction, I've contacted angstslashhope as suggested and I'll wait to hear from her about the codes. Thanks for your help!