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indigozealI'm not really fond of the word "fandom," since it connotes a lot of bickering and cliquish politics. I had, though, an encounter this weekend that got me thinking about how the environments & communities differ in various fandoms.
- I've mentioned this before, but Phantasy Star had a lot of creative & industrious fans in its heyday. There was a great deal of socialization, with a few healthy gathering spots, but everyone was off doing their own thing, with their own websites & projects. It's dwindled considerably from that apex, naturally - there've been no new releases in the classic series since the Genesis days, and the PS2 remakes of the first couple games didn't make it over here - but there're still a number of people maintaining good sites, and still projects ongoing. It comes to me in writing this that my early experiences with Phantasy Star fans were the basis for my idea of what a good fandom should be: a good main community and a few good healthy sub-communities, but everyone can participate in their own way.
- I've also gone through the contrast between the Lunar fandom and the PS fandom before, despite the big crossover of fans between the two back in the day. There's one community, the one at LunarNET; you're either in their circle or not in the fandom at all. You can't be doing your own thing on the outskirts. There's a clear hierarchy of fans, with a certain few's opinions dictating how others should follow, and...ahhhh, I don't want to be in the muck here. I'll just say that I really don't like this arrangement; I hate the idea that my ability to be a fan of something is limited by my ability to negotiate the politics of an insular group.
- Baten Kaitos folks are great. They're very welcoming and supportive, genuinely enthusiastic about new content that comes into their community. They've chalked this up to the relatively small size of their fanbase - which actually is relatively big & active compared to what I'm used to; I guess they're comparing themselves to the fanbases of other sixth-gen RPGs, which I imagine are utterly huge compared to what I'm used to. It might also be due to the nature of the game, which is a very friendly & optimistic title. Whatever the case, it's pleasant to have discovered such a community of nice folks.
- Final Fantasy IV is kind of ruined for me. Part of it is that everything is contaminated with After Years stuff, and it's not my place to tell people not to be a fan of something, but the game's so obviously bad that when I come across After Years material in the "final fantasy iv" tag on Tumblr, I feel actively resentful that people aren't warning for it, like with certain porn fetishes in fanfic. Part of it is that it's very much a faux pas to be a fan of my two favorite characters, Kain & Rydia. With the former, you attract a lot of trolls complaining about the character's "entitlement issues" and demands that you acknowledge that he's responsible for everything short of the Sixth Extinction, and with the latter, you get a good deal of passive-aggressive comparisons to Rosa, and - well, I understand why folks feel the need to champion Rosa, because there really aren't a lot of heroic moms out there in RPGs, but the problem is that she's still Rosa, a character notable for a) having her dialogue consist mostly of crying out her husband's name and b) passive-aggressive mean-girl snubs at Rydia. Rosa is a vapid jerk. Rosa ain't worth it. Anyhow, as you've gathered, my discontent is based on rather individualized issues, but the fandom as it stands aggressively runs counter to my own tastes, so it ain't got much for me.
- Chrono Trigger is so big that there really isn't a fandom, just a heck of a lot of people who love the game. It's one of those games that's crossed over into the mainstream consciousness, and you have a lot of big talents, particularly artists, producing a lot of great stuff for it. You can wander through tags and whatnot for it at any given time and find a number of great new pieces with no problem.
- Angelique is small due to some knowledge of Japanese being almost a prerequisite for being familiar with the franchise. It's very scattered, but I know some great folks through it. It unfortunately sparks in a number of people this kind of backbitey...mean streak; I don't know how else to put it. I don't know if this is a dating-sim thing in general, spurred by possessiveness over the characters, or what, but I've seen people get really snide over other people's projects - there seems to be a sense that no one should touch this franchise but them, even though the malcontents themselves are usually not doing anything with it. (And, good Lord, the fandom in Japan hates the fandom overseas. Just utter despise. I've seen fan artists - multiple artists! - actually take down their webpages because a foreign fan linked to them.)
- Clock Tower doesn't really have a fandom. It has a board and a wiki that are kinda-sorta active - or that have a few people who work or post on them kind of frequently - but not really anything I'd call a community. (The difficulty with tagging franchise stuff on Tumblr contributes to this; several of the games have varying names, and you can imagine the "clock tower" tag is crammed with photos that aren't related to Scissorman. I am now sick to death of people who tag WeHeartIt photos of Big Ben with the "clock tower" tag: "Hey, do you like clock towers?! Well, I might be going a little obscure for you here, but have you heard of this 'Big Ben' one?!")
- Ib has a huge artist fanbase, particularly in Japan. I'm shocked by the number and quality of the pieces that come out for this little inspired title. (I still think that the kids' movie I proposed a while back would be an excellent venture for this property done right. Clearly, the support the game has demands something more.)
- Illbleed also has a fairly active fandom, probably due to a couple high-profile LPs of the game (supergreatfriend & Game Informer) that have brought its craziness to a wider audience. (There are also some Sonic people who have unironically glommed onto that Zodick parody OC.)
- Ultima has some enthusiastic, welcoming folks, but it also has, due to the age in which the franchise had its heyday, a good number of PC Master Race people who never got out of that late-'80's RTFM mindset: the idea that the world begins and ends with comp-sci, that mastery of it represents mastery over the known universe, and that any other subjects must by necessity be trivial and any issues or questions dealing with said subjects can be instantly dealt & dispensed with by comp-sci majors, who, of course, know everything, or at least everything worth knowing. (I was working with another fan in putting together an Ultima manga scanlation once, and the maintainer of the board where we were discussing the project - who was in no other way involved with it - interjected to say that he'd have to investigate this "scanlating" thing himself and get back to us on it, as it was obviously an arcane subject and he'd have to inform us on what we were getting into, because we wouldn't understand otherwise.)
- I'm sure Silent Hill has a very healthy fanbase, but I find participating in it to be daunting, since utter mastery over this huge lore seems to be a prerequisite for joining.
(Fandoms that ain't got nothin' that I wish had more: The 7th Saga; Mystic Ark; Spy Fiction; King's Quest.)
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- I've mentioned this before, but Phantasy Star had a lot of creative & industrious fans in its heyday. There was a great deal of socialization, with a few healthy gathering spots, but everyone was off doing their own thing, with their own websites & projects. It's dwindled considerably from that apex, naturally - there've been no new releases in the classic series since the Genesis days, and the PS2 remakes of the first couple games didn't make it over here - but there're still a number of people maintaining good sites, and still projects ongoing. It comes to me in writing this that my early experiences with Phantasy Star fans were the basis for my idea of what a good fandom should be: a good main community and a few good healthy sub-communities, but everyone can participate in their own way.
- I've also gone through the contrast between the Lunar fandom and the PS fandom before, despite the big crossover of fans between the two back in the day. There's one community, the one at LunarNET; you're either in their circle or not in the fandom at all. You can't be doing your own thing on the outskirts. There's a clear hierarchy of fans, with a certain few's opinions dictating how others should follow, and...ahhhh, I don't want to be in the muck here. I'll just say that I really don't like this arrangement; I hate the idea that my ability to be a fan of something is limited by my ability to negotiate the politics of an insular group.
- Baten Kaitos folks are great. They're very welcoming and supportive, genuinely enthusiastic about new content that comes into their community. They've chalked this up to the relatively small size of their fanbase - which actually is relatively big & active compared to what I'm used to; I guess they're comparing themselves to the fanbases of other sixth-gen RPGs, which I imagine are utterly huge compared to what I'm used to. It might also be due to the nature of the game, which is a very friendly & optimistic title. Whatever the case, it's pleasant to have discovered such a community of nice folks.
- Final Fantasy IV is kind of ruined for me. Part of it is that everything is contaminated with After Years stuff, and it's not my place to tell people not to be a fan of something, but the game's so obviously bad that when I come across After Years material in the "final fantasy iv" tag on Tumblr, I feel actively resentful that people aren't warning for it, like with certain porn fetishes in fanfic. Part of it is that it's very much a faux pas to be a fan of my two favorite characters, Kain & Rydia. With the former, you attract a lot of trolls complaining about the character's "entitlement issues" and demands that you acknowledge that he's responsible for everything short of the Sixth Extinction, and with the latter, you get a good deal of passive-aggressive comparisons to Rosa, and - well, I understand why folks feel the need to champion Rosa, because there really aren't a lot of heroic moms out there in RPGs, but the problem is that she's still Rosa, a character notable for a) having her dialogue consist mostly of crying out her husband's name and b) passive-aggressive mean-girl snubs at Rydia. Rosa is a vapid jerk. Rosa ain't worth it. Anyhow, as you've gathered, my discontent is based on rather individualized issues, but the fandom as it stands aggressively runs counter to my own tastes, so it ain't got much for me.
- Chrono Trigger is so big that there really isn't a fandom, just a heck of a lot of people who love the game. It's one of those games that's crossed over into the mainstream consciousness, and you have a lot of big talents, particularly artists, producing a lot of great stuff for it. You can wander through tags and whatnot for it at any given time and find a number of great new pieces with no problem.
- Angelique is small due to some knowledge of Japanese being almost a prerequisite for being familiar with the franchise. It's very scattered, but I know some great folks through it. It unfortunately sparks in a number of people this kind of backbitey...mean streak; I don't know how else to put it. I don't know if this is a dating-sim thing in general, spurred by possessiveness over the characters, or what, but I've seen people get really snide over other people's projects - there seems to be a sense that no one should touch this franchise but them, even though the malcontents themselves are usually not doing anything with it. (And, good Lord, the fandom in Japan hates the fandom overseas. Just utter despise. I've seen fan artists - multiple artists! - actually take down their webpages because a foreign fan linked to them.)
- Clock Tower doesn't really have a fandom. It has a board and a wiki that are kinda-sorta active - or that have a few people who work or post on them kind of frequently - but not really anything I'd call a community. (The difficulty with tagging franchise stuff on Tumblr contributes to this; several of the games have varying names, and you can imagine the "clock tower" tag is crammed with photos that aren't related to Scissorman. I am now sick to death of people who tag WeHeartIt photos of Big Ben with the "clock tower" tag: "Hey, do you like clock towers?! Well, I might be going a little obscure for you here, but have you heard of this 'Big Ben' one?!")
- Ib has a huge artist fanbase, particularly in Japan. I'm shocked by the number and quality of the pieces that come out for this little inspired title. (I still think that the kids' movie I proposed a while back would be an excellent venture for this property done right. Clearly, the support the game has demands something more.)
- Illbleed also has a fairly active fandom, probably due to a couple high-profile LPs of the game (supergreatfriend & Game Informer) that have brought its craziness to a wider audience. (There are also some Sonic people who have unironically glommed onto that Zodick parody OC.)
- Ultima has some enthusiastic, welcoming folks, but it also has, due to the age in which the franchise had its heyday, a good number of PC Master Race people who never got out of that late-'80's RTFM mindset: the idea that the world begins and ends with comp-sci, that mastery of it represents mastery over the known universe, and that any other subjects must by necessity be trivial and any issues or questions dealing with said subjects can be instantly dealt & dispensed with by comp-sci majors, who, of course, know everything, or at least everything worth knowing. (I was working with another fan in putting together an Ultima manga scanlation once, and the maintainer of the board where we were discussing the project - who was in no other way involved with it - interjected to say that he'd have to investigate this "scanlating" thing himself and get back to us on it, as it was obviously an arcane subject and he'd have to inform us on what we were getting into, because we wouldn't understand otherwise.)
- I'm sure Silent Hill has a very healthy fanbase, but I find participating in it to be daunting, since utter mastery over this huge lore seems to be a prerequisite for joining.
(Fandoms that ain't got nothin' that I wish had more: The 7th Saga; Mystic Ark; Spy Fiction; King's Quest.)
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