dolorosa_12 | December talking meme

schneefink asked me to talk about fandoms I wished were bigger. For me — someone whose fannish feelings always seem to direct themselves at tiny book fandoms that, if not fandoms-of-one, are usually fandoms-of-two (where all tagged posts on Tumblr are written by me, the now-dead LJ comm was set up by me, and any fic that exists is written by me, and the second fan's activities are usually confined to passively liking my posts) — the glib answer to this is 'all of them!'

I talked quite a bit yesterday about my favourite authors, and there's a large degree of overlap between the books of the authors mentioned yesterday, and the fandoms that I wish were more active. In the case of some — Kate Elliott, Sophia McDougall — there is some discussion out there, but it seems to be of different works to those I'd like to discuss. (So Elliott's Cold Magic series and Black Wolves, and McDougall's Mars Evacuees series. All are fabulous books and I love them a lot, but I wish others felt as affectionate towards Elliott's Crossroads series — it's even set in the same world as Black Wolves! — or McDougall's Romanitas trilogy.)

Apart from the works I mentioned in yesterday's post, there are a handful of other fandoms I wish were bigger: The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir, and The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan. (In the case of all three, there is a bit of fannish discussion on Tumblr, but — and this is such a small fandom problem — everyone else seems to like different characters to me!) My other intense fandom-of-one is Jo Walton's Tir Tanagiri Saga, where I've been lucky enough to meet pretty much the only other fan,

sulienapgwien, who turned out to be awesome.

That being said, for all my whining about my small fandoms, I've been lucky in all of them to avoid some of the problems that plague mega- or even medium-sized fandoms. There is remarkably little drama in any of the fannish communities that have sprung up around these works — there are so few of us that I think everyone collectively decided to be generous, supportive, and positive about any fannish activity, even if it's not focused on our preferred characters. When you're in a tiny fandom, any fanwork is welcome, and all discussion is a pleasant surprise. I'm not sure I'd trade page after page of fanworks on Ao3 for my calm, if inactive, little fannish oases.