Micro-fandoms FTW!

[sholio]

You know, I'd almost forgotten what it's like to poke around for fic and meta in a really tiny fandom. Prior to SGA, *most* of my fandoms were really tiny; every once in a while I'd luck into something like Invisible Man where there was a nice pile of fic catering to my particular needs, but for the most part, it was a matter of wandering down little Internet bunny trails and searching Google cache, clinging to every scrap of fic that I could find, reading gen and slash and het regardless of whether the pairing appealed to me, just because it was something. (And that's just the fandoms I could find any fic for; I remember one in which the only fic I could find AT ALL was four chapters of an unfinished gang-rape fic salvaged from Google cache, and the sad thing was, I downloaded it anyway and I probably still have it in my fic folder somewhere ...)

Don't get me wrong, being part of a big fandom and being able to cherry-pick from a smorgasbord of fic is really, really awesome; SGA fandom blew me away when I first encountered it, and has probably spoiled me utterly, in some ways, for future fannish experiences -- I've never had the experience of riding a fandom's popularity wave before. But ferreting out Wiseguy fic is reminding me that there's something really fun about the search for rarefic, too. It's a whole different kind of fanning from the thrill and energy of being in a big fandom -- but it's got its own kind of energy, its own kind of high when an evening of quality time with Google and linksurfing yields up a gem or two. SGA is almost an embarrassment of riches; there's never time to read everything, to look at all the art. The really little fandoms make you cherish every good story you find, makes you want to read it over and over again, and then go lavish love on the writer. It's ... well, it's Yuletide, basically; a very minimalist fanning experience, where finding just one other person who loves canon as much as you do, who sees in canon what you do, is a squee-worthy event.

Comments

[ratcreature]

If this is about Wiseguy, I remember Russet McMillan wrote Wiseguy stories, and I reallyliked her Sentinel fic. I just looked at her page and it's only two stories, but maybe they are good and you haven't seen them yet?
http://users.apo.nmsu.edu/~mcmillan/stories/wg.html

[sholio]

Eeeeee! Thank you! This looks fantastic -- just what I've been searching for. :D

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

... Hey, ah, could you point me to some good I-Man fic? Cause I never seemed to have any luck finding a good stash. I have, like 10 fics from that whole fandom. :( Help, por favor?

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you need the I-man Master List (http://trickster.org/arduinna/imanlist.html)! (which I'm not reccing because I have the very first story on it, really! ^^ ...Actually I didn't realize the first story was mine 'til I just went to it. There's advantages to titling a story 101, I see!)

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

Oooooh. Thanks so much!

[ratcreature]

You probably already know this, but if not Arduinna maintained a fairly comprehensive list of links to I-Man fanworks (it hasn't been updatedin a while but is still very useful):
http://trickster.org/arduinna/imanlist.html
she has recs too
http://www.trickster.org/arduinna/recs/iman.html

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

Ah, and recs are even better, thanks!

[sholio]

Looks like other people have got you fixed up. :D My favorite author in the fandom back then (other than xparrot -- actually, I think that's when I started reading her fic!) was Lucy Hale, who writes both gen and slash. Her story Flowers was, I think, the story that sold me on I-Man as a fandom.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

--Wait, really, it was my I-man? heee~ (this is especially funny because I'm pretty sure I started reading your fic at about the same time - I think your DBZ was the first of yours I read, though I enjoyed your Trigun epic, too...)

[sholio]

oh help, now I'm looking up Wiseguy fanzines on ebay, HELP MEEEEEE~

Yeah, I'd have to look back at your XMagicalX story index to get to the bottom of it, but thinking about it, I'm pretty sure that was it! I know that I read your stories in at least a couple of fandoms before I started getting to know you as, well, *you*, but the one I remember most clearly from that era was your long I-Man one. It seems like I was reading your DBZ and then it hit me that you were the same person who'd written that I-Man fic I really liked, and I think I left a comment along those lines ... though possibly it was the other way 'round, hmmm. Anyway, I know we were wandering in and out of a lot of the same fandoms at about the same time.

You know, I don't think I was ever sure if you'd read the Trigun one! I need to get my old story archive back online ... I think the Trigun one actually *is* online somewhere in the labrynthine depths of my website, but I don't know if it's linked anywhere. Looking for fic in yet another teeny fandom is reminding me of how frustrating it is when old small-fandom fic moves or vanishes; I should get mine back up...

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

Yay! See, this is the great thing about fandom. After years of floundering about on my own, here I suddenly have tons of fic! And thanks for the author rec, that site looks ... promising. ;)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Hee, I know what you mean! I haven't been in many really tiny fandoms (though now that I think about it, I recall searching for Twin Peaks fic and finding all of 10 or so online, and a couple summaries of print zines I'd have killed for, if they'd been available anywhere I could find...) but some of my anime fandoms have been small, and I was the only one writing h/c, often enough. SGA is great fun, but there is something terrifically rewarding in the search for fic and fellow fans...

[sholio]

I seem to have a knack for fanning on the oddball stuff ... either something that is just so obscure that no one else has heard of it, or latching onto characters and genres that NO ONE ELSE in the fandom writes about (getting hooked on a male friendship in an all-het fandom --*cough*Ranma*cough*-- or getting fannish about obscure characters in a fandom with a huge, multi-work canon). I could never find anything for CJ Cherryh's Hellburner, for example, not even one story, until someone wrote me a long, plotty story in Yuletide (and I love them forever for it). Have you ever tried to find good "Xanth" fic? OH GOD THE HORRORS I'VE SEEN. XD

I'm a little surprised that Wiseguy is as small and obscure a fandom as it is, given that it's got all the usual buddycop ingredients and a decent amount of h/c in canon (certainly on a par with something like "Sentinel" in places). I think it's just a matter of having missed the Internet boat; I've fanned on less well-known or shorter-lived shows from slightly past Wiseguy's time that just managed to get aboard the Internet bandwagon, so most of the fic is online and archived somewhere. There probably *are* quite a few zines out there -- I've come across reference to a few -- but the heyday of the fandom predated the rise of Internet fan culture.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Okay, in Ranma, was it Ranma-Ryouga friendship, or something else? Because that was what I went to the fandom looking for, and ended up reading all the crazy epics for the fragments I could get of that (which is all coming back to me, since I just did a page on Ranma for Fanloe ^^;)

Xanth - like, Piers Anthony? Heh - I was into Xanth years before I got online, it never occurred to me to look for a fandom, and now I don't remember the chars (loved the magician Murphy - I think that was his name, sort-of villain-turned-friend in the first book? Oh man, it's been a while...)
(and has anyone ever written Haplo & Alfred smarm? Since we're on the topic of obscure bookdom ^^)

Yeah, the fandoms that just missed the internet are tough - that was the same problem I had with Twin Peaks. Quantum Leap just squeaked by - there was a lot of QL fic on newsgroups and FTP - but Wiseguy was a couple years before that (hey, have you checked Google's newsgroups for Wiseguy? A lot of fic was there, mid-90s...)

[sholio]

haha, yep to the Ranma/Ryouga, and I did the exact same thing -- I don't know how many long Ranma/Akane and other fics I read in order to scrounge for bits of Ranma/Ryouga friendship!

Xanth - like, Piers Anthony? Heh - I was into Xanth years before I got online, it never occurred to me to look for a fandom, and now I don't remember the chars (loved the magician Murphy - I think that was his name, sort-of villain-turned-friend in the first book? Oh man, it's been a while...)

Mmm-hmm. His name was Trent. Yeah, the books, beyond the first one, are kind of awful (descending into execrably horrible as he JUST. KEPT. WRITING. THEM.) but that didn't stop me from searching for fic. This was back in the mists of Internet time, late 90s, probably; it was re-reading the first book that made me want fic for it ...

Haplo & Alfred - yeah, that's another really good example of something I've scrounged the Internet for without being able to find. I actually started writing one a loooong time ago (2000-ish?) but it's languishing in the forever-unfinished slush heap. In fact, maybe I'll ask for that one in Yuletide next year, if I do it, because it's one of those perennial fic-searches that I never lose hope for. *uses Death Gate icon*

Quantum Leap just squeaked by - there was a lot of QL fic on newsgroups and FTP - but Wiseguy was a couple years before that (hey, have you checked Google's newsgroups for Wiseguy? A lot of fic was there, mid-90s...)

Oh, I didn't think of that! See, I've gotten so used to being able to find everything I want on LJ, ff.net or delicious that I've forgotten all the old tricks ... XD

I went through a big QL-reading period a few years ago, and you're right, it's fairly well represented online, in newsgroup archives and websites and so forth. Not much new stuff, though. It's interesting how some fandoms seem to maintain their momentum over time (Star Trek, Sentinel) and others are so heavily cyclical.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I think my two smallest fandoms were X-Men Movieverse and Queer as Folk, and QaF had not very damn much. Which is when I embraced RPS, because apparently lack of fic does change ones view on the subject immensely.

Then again, QaF was very schismed between the recent-fen-ljers and the non-ljer older fen, too. Not a lot of interaction for a while.

[sholio]

One definitely gets *much* less choosy when there isn't much to read. :D

I seem to be drawn to micro-fandoms; my reading and viewing tastes are kind of odd and eclectic, though of course sometimes I happen to hit the popular stuff too (SGA being a major case in point). SGA has taken over my fannish life to the point where I haven't done much searching for small-fandom stuff, book fic, things like that over the last few years. I'd almost forgotten what it was like!

[winter-elf.livejournal.com]

I'm hitting a fan con in May that there's always people selling old fanzines at. There's usually this lady with like a room full of them! If you want me to search for Wiseguy I could.

[sholio]

Oh, yes, please! That would be completely awesome! :D :D :D I'm not at all picky as far as pairing and such; anything you could find would be totally awesome. (Well, okay, if there are *options*, my preference would be gen or Vinnie/Frank -- in that order, basically -- but given the dearth of fic in this fandom, I'll be totally squee'd if you can find anything at all.)

I will be happy to write you an SGA fic snippet to thank you for searching for zines for me; just let me know what you want. :) And I can remind you a little closer to the con and we can settle payment and such.

[winter-elf.livejournal.com]

okay! It's the end of May, but I'll print this off to remind myself with the flight details. I'll have my laptop too. When you come across reference to zine names or such, make a list of them. Things are usually sorted by fandom, but there are multi-fandom zines as well.

And actually my fun with this con is the reverse- almost all SGA is online, and hardly any zines!