Snupin meta & a poll
I've been following aubrem's very interesting lattest discussion about decentralisation with attention (LJ's tracking device rocks mightily, I cannot say that too many times ♥). Being both a Snape/Lupin OTPist and a very big fan of dark fictions, I feel, of course, concerned.
I've seen at least several people complain that the Snupin ship has seen a decrease in non fluffy fics in general or that the community as a structure has been less welcoming about dark fics, which, to me, means it's a real problem.
I'm not a big fan of decentralisation for fandom, though. While it might be efficient to fight off power related issues within fandom, it's got also a whole lot of disadvantage with it, the main one being redundancy.
In the other side of the fandom I like, Black family fics, there's a lot of decentralisation : there's blackcest, blackaholics and black_family and there's cissa_centric, bella_centric, andromedabt, regulations and regulus_centric, andsbrb_blackcest, blackcest100 and regulus_100. And that's only for the ones I've personally joined, I'm sure there's plenty others.
So when a Black big writer like, for example spessartine or xylodemon post a fic, the fic will often appear is as many as 5 or 6 communities which it's relevant for. Which, IMO, is somewhat annoying (takes room on the flist and all). But if I unfriend some of these coms I'll probably miss fics which will only appear in some of these communities - because not everyone is aware there's so many, and because none of the comm is THE center of Black family and Blackcest fics.
Do these many communities succeed in creating a thriving, active, diverse community of Black fics, at least? Well, not really. Blackcest ships and Black centered fics is still, at most, a mid level area. It's got regular activity overall, sure, but not a whole lot of it. Many of these communities haven't seen any activity in weeks, or months. Lately one of them was destroyed after a long period of nothing (regulusreport). And if I compare the reception of my average length Blackcest fic (Their Game) posted in several of these to the plot-less, context-less non fluffy very short Snupin fic (Rotten Love), there's no doubt I received much more comments to the Snupin fic. Actually I had more comments on the Blackcest fic by people who were already my friends and who weren't active Blackcest shippers than I had by true blue Blackcest writers and readers!
Okay, there's absolutely no proofs that the decentralisation of the Black fandom is tied to its lack of activity, and this isn't a fair comparison. Most Black characters are relatively minor in canon, whereas Snape and Lupin are major characters. Of course they're more popular. (Not to mention the potential the squick potential of incest and chan)
Certainly the other big, popular slash pairings (Snape/Harry, Harry/Draco and Sirius/Remus) support several big communities without losing momentum, right? No reason Snape/Lupin couldn't do the same.
Mind you, if there's such a thing currently in existence as a non fluffy H/D, Snarry or puppy com, please, link away, because I'd probably love to read these fics!! (reason #1 I loved the first Snarry Games : a whole Team angst in existence focused onto the creation of exactly the kind of Snarry fics I love, yay!)
But yes, I'm a bit afraid that decentralisation will hurt the Snupin community. That all the growing, thriving activity of recent months and years will dissolve into a puddle of wank (or should that be splooge?). So far so good, if there's any wank happening it's behind closed door and I'm not seeing it :D
Still I'm operating under the assumption that Diversity = Good, that there's no reason for fluff or angst (or crack, or plot, or any other genre of fics) to be objectively better than the others, but that some people have taste running to one or the other, and that they should all be welcomed and find room to read and write what they like.
If non fluffy Snupin is currently being less welcome in the main ships coms as it seems it's the case, then Something Soul Be Done to renew enthusiasm about it.
So people over at aubrem's post have suggested that the creation of a "ssrl_nonfluffy" community would be a good idea, and already changingfacades about Second War and Beyond Snape/Lupin has been created. While this new com looks cool and spiffy and has a particularly pretty layout, I don't really thing second war & beyond = non fluffy, nor that non fluffy = second war & beyond, therefore I do not think the problem is really addressed yet.
Given my fears about building up several redundant communities, I'm wondering what other alternatives exist :
I think these could exist either for non fluffy Remus/Severus fics, either if we wanted to be more global for dark Remus or dark Severus fics in general.
Here comes the poll :
(For the purpose of being as un-wanky as possible, the poll results - what individual people vote - will be only visible to myself, so if you don't want to be perceived as criticizing the current status quo, it's all right. I will of course not reveal any of the names to others)
Poll
ETA : I've screened all comments because at this point I was having the feeling I would only be bringing out more bad feelings and wanks. Call me a hypocrite if you want.
I'm sorry I posted this. I'm leaving the poll as it is, though it doesn't seem to have encountered much popularity. For whatever it's worth at this point I really don't feel like this is related to dark vs fluff fics. And I really don't think any parallel structures will help. I think that there's just some personnal inimities, and I or anyone not directly involved can't really do anything about that.
I've seen at least several people complain that the Snupin ship has seen a decrease in non fluffy fics in general or that the community as a structure has been less welcoming about dark fics, which, to me, means it's a real problem.
I'm not a big fan of decentralisation for fandom, though. While it might be efficient to fight off power related issues within fandom, it's got also a whole lot of disadvantage with it, the main one being redundancy.
In the other side of the fandom I like, Black family fics, there's a lot of decentralisation : there's blackcest, blackaholics and black_family and there's cissa_centric, bella_centric, andromedabt, regulations and regulus_centric, andsbrb_blackcest, blackcest100 and regulus_100. And that's only for the ones I've personally joined, I'm sure there's plenty others.
So when a Black big writer like, for example spessartine or xylodemon post a fic, the fic will often appear is as many as 5 or 6 communities which it's relevant for. Which, IMO, is somewhat annoying (takes room on the flist and all). But if I unfriend some of these coms I'll probably miss fics which will only appear in some of these communities - because not everyone is aware there's so many, and because none of the comm is THE center of Black family and Blackcest fics.
Do these many communities succeed in creating a thriving, active, diverse community of Black fics, at least? Well, not really. Blackcest ships and Black centered fics is still, at most, a mid level area. It's got regular activity overall, sure, but not a whole lot of it. Many of these communities haven't seen any activity in weeks, or months. Lately one of them was destroyed after a long period of nothing (regulusreport). And if I compare the reception of my average length Blackcest fic (Their Game) posted in several of these to the plot-less, context-less non fluffy very short Snupin fic (Rotten Love), there's no doubt I received much more comments to the Snupin fic. Actually I had more comments on the Blackcest fic by people who were already my friends and who weren't active Blackcest shippers than I had by true blue Blackcest writers and readers!
Okay, there's absolutely no proofs that the decentralisation of the Black fandom is tied to its lack of activity, and this isn't a fair comparison. Most Black characters are relatively minor in canon, whereas Snape and Lupin are major characters. Of course they're more popular. (Not to mention the potential the squick potential of incest and chan)
Certainly the other big, popular slash pairings (Snape/Harry, Harry/Draco and Sirius/Remus) support several big communities without losing momentum, right? No reason Snape/Lupin couldn't do the same.
Mind you, if there's such a thing currently in existence as a non fluffy H/D, Snarry or puppy com, please, link away, because I'd probably love to read these fics!! (reason #1 I loved the first Snarry Games : a whole Team angst in existence focused onto the creation of exactly the kind of Snarry fics I love, yay!)
But yes, I'm a bit afraid that decentralisation will hurt the Snupin community. That all the growing, thriving activity of recent months and years will dissolve into a puddle of wank (or should that be splooge?). So far so good, if there's any wank happening it's behind closed door and I'm not seeing it :D
Still I'm operating under the assumption that Diversity = Good, that there's no reason for fluff or angst (or crack, or plot, or any other genre of fics) to be objectively better than the others, but that some people have taste running to one or the other, and that they should all be welcomed and find room to read and write what they like.
If non fluffy Snupin is currently being less welcome in the main ships coms as it seems it's the case, then Something Soul Be Done to renew enthusiasm about it.
So people over at aubrem's post have suggested that the creation of a "ssrl_nonfluffy" community would be a good idea, and already changingfacades about Second War and Beyond Snape/Lupin has been created. While this new com looks cool and spiffy and has a particularly pretty layout, I don't really thing second war & beyond = non fluffy, nor that non fluffy = second war & beyond, therefore I do not think the problem is really addressed yet.
Given my fears about building up several redundant communities, I'm wondering what other alternatives exist :
- A reccing list : with frequent enough updates linking to non fluffy works (something like crack_broom)
- A newsletter : linking to all or to the best recent non fluffy works
- A ficathon event, either a one time or yearly event like a fic exchange or something like the snarry_games
- A regular challenge community/web page with different challenges every months like daily_deviant
I think these could exist either for non fluffy Remus/Severus fics, either if we wanted to be more global for dark Remus or dark Severus fics in general.
Here comes the poll :
(For the purpose of being as un-wanky as possible, the poll results - what individual people vote - will be only visible to myself, so if you don't want to be perceived as criticizing the current status quo, it's all right. I will of course not reveal any of the names to others)
Poll
ETA : I've screened all comments because at this point I was having the feeling I would only be bringing out more bad feelings and wanks. Call me a hypocrite if you want.
I'm sorry I posted this. I'm leaving the poll as it is, though it doesn't seem to have encountered much popularity. For whatever it's worth at this point I really don't feel like this is related to dark vs fluff fics. And I really don't think any parallel structures will help. I think that there's just some personnal inimities, and I or anyone not directly involved can't really do anything about that.