Rambling on fandom wishes/hopes for 2011
I’d do one of those Fandom Year in Reviews type things but everything I did is posted at larks_still_fly, so, you know, that’s sorted.
Instead I shall do my Fandom "Wish List" of 2011. This is mostly just a wish for fics/ideas etc I’d love to see fandom produce because we are legion and full of very creative people and we all have so many thoughts and feelings.
I’m just going to focus on the HBO War Mini-Series fandoms because that’s where most of my thinky thoughts are these days and because well, they are collectively a small fandom with tons of awesome people. (Not to say my friends from other fandoms are not equally awesome, you so are! But the War Fandoms, minus Gen Kill, are teeny-tiny and one’s ten-years-old, and what we produce in a year combined pretty much equals what a fandom like Bandom produces in a week or one like Inception produces in a day.)
So, here we go:
*I want Spina icons. I’ve searched the internet and the closest I’ve come is one where he’s in the background with Babe and another when he’s in the foxhole of angst, chocolate, and cuddles.
All I’m saying is that if you want to know what to get me for my birthday, or my un-birthday, a Spina icon will do. And I seriously mean one. Just one. One is all I want and I have zero graphics skills or I’ve done this on my own long ago. So, you know, pretty please and batty eyes over here for a Spina icon. And if anyone is feeling generous a few more of Skinny and one of Vest. And if you’re feeling VERY generous, I’ll also ‘please sir, I’d like some more’ for some of my buddy and yours, J.P.
EDIT: Thanks to uniformly we can count this one as done. The power of fandom, people. There are amazing people who will give you what you want in less than 12 hours. I feel so spoiled right now.
*The Pacific re-watch, which I know will happen. And that we will all need boxes of tissues and comfort food and prayer circles to get through. I know there are tentative plans for it, but I’m still putting it here b/c I can.
EDIT: Done and done and on the schedule to be done again.
*A Gen. Kill re-watch for people not big into the Gen. Kill fandom. As the HBO War Fandoms go, Gen. Kill is very much the largest and most active. It’s an awesome fandom, with cool people and great book rec lists and so much talent. For those of us on the outside and used to our war fandoms being a little more pre-Vietnam, the massive Gen. Kill re-watches can be kind of intimidating. OTOH, Gen. Kill re-watches can be difficult for people like me, because I always get distracted by the conversations going on in the background and off-screen. I love that they used this technique in the mini-series, it’s also in the first M*A*S*H movie and really does lend a sense of authenticity to the overall work. I could go on and on about the little things which make Gen. Kill feel more like a documentary as opposed to a mini-series (lack of a real “soundtrack” for me, random sense of story-telling, no real plot etc etc) but those are again why I’m the awkward kid in the back during re-watches talking about the lighting and camera angles.
*More crossover between the fandoms. I completely get and understand why people who love BoB don’t like The Pacific or Gen Kill and vice-versa. The Pacific in general is the new kid on the block (‘sup, Donnie) and it’s not as easy to get into story-wise as BoB or as “relevant” to our modern sensibilities as Gen. Kill. And of the three, honestly, The Pacific is more brutal. It is difficult to get through, not necessarily because of story-telling, but because it was so well acted and well directed that you start feeling some sort of sickness and fatigue while watching it. Emotionally wrenching does not even begin to describe it. Gen Kill fandom might not get what it’s like to have a favorite character die on screen, but BoB fans know it all too well and Pacific fans not only see some fav characters die, they see many break the fuck down past the point of anything we see in BoB. The Pacific, upon re-watch and reflection, really deserves all the props in the world for showing just how rough it was for the people on the front lines. War is never easy and every person who participates suffers, but The Pacific doesn’t pull any punches or romanticize anything about the PTO, how it was fought and who fought it.
Ahem, anyway, I still want to see all the crossovers in the land. Anyone who has seen my own modern-au knows I think Doc Roe and Snafu are the most epic bros to have ever bromanced. Did they know each other in real life? Probably not. However, they’re both somewhat Cajun boys from Central/South Louisiana and that’s a pretty tight-knit community, even more so during WWII where the Cajun students were being beaten in Louisiana schools for daring to speak French and the whole of Louisianan society viewing Cajuns as something sub-human. I mean, I’m just saying, there’s some historical background there for them to at least have some sort of connection.
Above is just an example, but I mean, I want Webster and Leckie to have a Literature Off. (Leckie’d win of course, but Web would put up a good fight.)
I want Snafu, Ray and Poke giving Brad “Iceman” Colbert the annoyance migraine of his life.
I want Shifty, Burgin, Jay, with like, their knitting circle.
Smokey and Rudy, the most bad-ass baristas to ever live.
Speirs, Rudy, Colbert and Basilone. You don’t get more badass than that.
Debate over what’s worse: Norman Dike, a man who thanks to combat fatigue froze when he was really needed or Captain America, a man so eager to fight he shot down a mini-van?
Harry Welsh and Team Leckie as drinking buddies.
Winters, Lipton, Haldane and Jones, more competence than any of us know what to do with.
EDIT: Lots of crossovers in fandom in 2011. Still not as much as I'd like to see, but heck, it's a start.
*More fics focused on the ladies of our fandom. Gen Kill sort of gets a pass on this. No wives or girlfriends are mentioned by name and the only picture we see is of Reporter’s girlfriend. Now, BoB, we only really know of Renée and Anna. We hear mention of Kitty, Doris and Cathy, of Johnny Martin’s wife. And Marlene Dietrich. We see a picture of Buck’s girlfriend. We all know of Luz and his failure and Janovec and his success. None of them, outside of Renée get any sort of speaking line or character development. The Pacific however, is a different matter entirely. We have Lena, Vera, Stella, and Gwen. Heck, we’ll throw in fake-Michelle-Williams too, if only b/c the poor girl had to have gone home and cried after getting the Sledgehammer Staredown.
We also meet the boys’ families, we meet their mothers. Don’t ask me why, but the war at home is one of those things that’s always interested me from the perspective of a cultural historian. And it’s their families. We don’t get to see that in the other mini-series and it’s something which, to me, makes The Pacific resonate a hell of a lot more by bringing the story back full circle.
*A Minor-Character/Rare Pair Lovefest. Organized, a month or a week-long. Challenges. Fic prompts, vids, picspams, fanmixes, whatever. Part of this is my Spina-love and my Grant-love. A good portion of it is wanting more Burgin and Leyden in fic. And because we all need more Luz, Toye, Skip, Muck, Malark, Skinny, Shifty, Popeye, Garcia etc etc etc in our lives. The War Fandoms have such large casts and everyone loves someone, but because of the sheer number of characters, someone isn’t going to get the fic-focus. Fandom can also be funny in the way we can make minor-characters in a series major characters in fandom. A perfect example of this is all the Webster/Liebgott in BoB and the Ack-Ack/Hillbilly in The Pacific. This is all very good but it’s a little quirk that always made me smile. And, of course, when viewing something your ideas and projected otps change. I started off The Pacific shipping Sid/Sledge and Snafu/Burgin. Both of these changed as the mini-series went on.
*More bromance. Look, I’m a shipper like you wouldn’t believe, but there are times when I just really want bro-fic. It’s probably why I write so much of it. In fandom it can often feel like Gen doesn’t have a place, but it does, especially in these fandoms when so much of what the characters go through happens with the support and strength of the men around them. You can read every memoir out there and they will tell you it wasn’t the flag or the sense of patriotism that kept them fighting and in those foxholes. It was for their buddies, the guy next to them, and no one wanted to be the one left behind if their buddies were going back into the shit.
*AUs. I love alternative universes. Obviously. Part of this is my whole “lalalala everyone lives (except Julian)” way of life. While I can and do love to read canon-based fic, there are times when I want fluffy-bunny-domestic fic, okay? I’d love a Greaser-AU. Or something like White Collar or Ocean’s Eleven. (I’ve got a thing for well-written white collar crime.) As augustbird knows, I fully support the odd-au-fusion thing where Speirs and Rufus from Gossip Girl fuse into some modern-au person who meets Lipton/I Used To Be A Massive Teenage PopStar DDubs RPF fusion land. You just know Rufus-Speirs owned a set of those marbles with DDubs-Lipton’s face on them. Look, every fandom needs a Robin Sparkles-like-AU. And lastly, for now, the massive au fusion where Southland/Life/Justified/ER/Rubicon/Castle/The Black Donnellys/Blue Bloods meet.
*Finally, just wishing for more good luck and great people in the fandom. I have met some of the sweetest, kindest, most supportive and intelligent folks here. Of all the fandoms I’ve been in, it’s the most civil and the least full of wank. I can’t wait to be there when more people discover these shows and stumble across these fandoms. I hope the experience will be as good for them as it’s been, thus far, for me.
I'm sure I'll add more to this as I start thinking about it more, but it will be great to go back at the end of 2011 and see if any of the above happens.
Instead I shall do my Fandom "Wish List" of 2011. This is mostly just a wish for fics/ideas etc I’d love to see fandom produce because we are legion and full of very creative people and we all have so many thoughts and feelings.
I’m just going to focus on the HBO War Mini-Series fandoms because that’s where most of my thinky thoughts are these days and because well, they are collectively a small fandom with tons of awesome people. (Not to say my friends from other fandoms are not equally awesome, you so are! But the War Fandoms, minus Gen Kill, are teeny-tiny and one’s ten-years-old, and what we produce in a year combined pretty much equals what a fandom like Bandom produces in a week or one like Inception produces in a day.)
So, here we go:
*I want Spina icons. I’ve searched the internet and the closest I’ve come is one where he’s in the background with Babe and another when he’s in the foxhole of angst, chocolate, and cuddles.
All I’m saying is that if you want to know what to get me for my birthday, or my un-birthday, a Spina icon will do. And I seriously mean one. Just one. One is all I want and I have zero graphics skills or I’ve done this on my own long ago. So, you know, pretty please and batty eyes over here for a Spina icon. And if anyone is feeling generous a few more of Skinny and one of Vest. And if you’re feeling VERY generous, I’ll also ‘please sir, I’d like some more’ for some of my buddy and yours, J.P.
EDIT: Thanks to uniformly we can count this one as done. The power of fandom, people. There are amazing people who will give you what you want in less than 12 hours. I feel so spoiled right now.
*The Pacific re-watch, which I know will happen. And that we will all need boxes of tissues and comfort food and prayer circles to get through. I know there are tentative plans for it, but I’m still putting it here b/c I can.
EDIT: Done and done and on the schedule to be done again.
*A Gen. Kill re-watch for people not big into the Gen. Kill fandom. As the HBO War Fandoms go, Gen. Kill is very much the largest and most active. It’s an awesome fandom, with cool people and great book rec lists and so much talent. For those of us on the outside and used to our war fandoms being a little more pre-Vietnam, the massive Gen. Kill re-watches can be kind of intimidating. OTOH, Gen. Kill re-watches can be difficult for people like me, because I always get distracted by the conversations going on in the background and off-screen. I love that they used this technique in the mini-series, it’s also in the first M*A*S*H movie and really does lend a sense of authenticity to the overall work. I could go on and on about the little things which make Gen. Kill feel more like a documentary as opposed to a mini-series (lack of a real “soundtrack” for me, random sense of story-telling, no real plot etc etc) but those are again why I’m the awkward kid in the back during re-watches talking about the lighting and camera angles.
*More crossover between the fandoms. I completely get and understand why people who love BoB don’t like The Pacific or Gen Kill and vice-versa. The Pacific in general is the new kid on the block (‘sup, Donnie) and it’s not as easy to get into story-wise as BoB or as “relevant” to our modern sensibilities as Gen. Kill. And of the three, honestly, The Pacific is more brutal. It is difficult to get through, not necessarily because of story-telling, but because it was so well acted and well directed that you start feeling some sort of sickness and fatigue while watching it. Emotionally wrenching does not even begin to describe it. Gen Kill fandom might not get what it’s like to have a favorite character die on screen, but BoB fans know it all too well and Pacific fans not only see some fav characters die, they see many break the fuck down past the point of anything we see in BoB. The Pacific, upon re-watch and reflection, really deserves all the props in the world for showing just how rough it was for the people on the front lines. War is never easy and every person who participates suffers, but The Pacific doesn’t pull any punches or romanticize anything about the PTO, how it was fought and who fought it.
Ahem, anyway, I still want to see all the crossovers in the land. Anyone who has seen my own modern-au knows I think Doc Roe and Snafu are the most epic bros to have ever bromanced. Did they know each other in real life? Probably not. However, they’re both somewhat Cajun boys from Central/South Louisiana and that’s a pretty tight-knit community, even more so during WWII where the Cajun students were being beaten in Louisiana schools for daring to speak French and the whole of Louisianan society viewing Cajuns as something sub-human. I mean, I’m just saying, there’s some historical background there for them to at least have some sort of connection.
Above is just an example, but I mean, I want Webster and Leckie to have a Literature Off. (Leckie’d win of course, but Web would put up a good fight.)
I want Snafu, Ray and Poke giving Brad “Iceman” Colbert the annoyance migraine of his life.
I want Shifty, Burgin, Jay, with like, their knitting circle.
Smokey and Rudy, the most bad-ass baristas to ever live.
Speirs, Rudy, Colbert and Basilone. You don’t get more badass than that.
Debate over what’s worse: Norman Dike, a man who thanks to combat fatigue froze when he was really needed or Captain America, a man so eager to fight he shot down a mini-van?
Harry Welsh and Team Leckie as drinking buddies.
Winters, Lipton, Haldane and Jones, more competence than any of us know what to do with.
EDIT: Lots of crossovers in fandom in 2011. Still not as much as I'd like to see, but heck, it's a start.
*More fics focused on the ladies of our fandom. Gen Kill sort of gets a pass on this. No wives or girlfriends are mentioned by name and the only picture we see is of Reporter’s girlfriend. Now, BoB, we only really know of Renée and Anna. We hear mention of Kitty, Doris and Cathy, of Johnny Martin’s wife. And Marlene Dietrich. We see a picture of Buck’s girlfriend. We all know of Luz and his failure and Janovec and his success. None of them, outside of Renée get any sort of speaking line or character development. The Pacific however, is a different matter entirely. We have Lena, Vera, Stella, and Gwen. Heck, we’ll throw in fake-Michelle-Williams too, if only b/c the poor girl had to have gone home and cried after getting the Sledgehammer Staredown.
We also meet the boys’ families, we meet their mothers. Don’t ask me why, but the war at home is one of those things that’s always interested me from the perspective of a cultural historian. And it’s their families. We don’t get to see that in the other mini-series and it’s something which, to me, makes The Pacific resonate a hell of a lot more by bringing the story back full circle.
*A Minor-Character/Rare Pair Lovefest. Organized, a month or a week-long. Challenges. Fic prompts, vids, picspams, fanmixes, whatever. Part of this is my Spina-love and my Grant-love. A good portion of it is wanting more Burgin and Leyden in fic. And because we all need more Luz, Toye, Skip, Muck, Malark, Skinny, Shifty, Popeye, Garcia etc etc etc in our lives. The War Fandoms have such large casts and everyone loves someone, but because of the sheer number of characters, someone isn’t going to get the fic-focus. Fandom can also be funny in the way we can make minor-characters in a series major characters in fandom. A perfect example of this is all the Webster/Liebgott in BoB and the Ack-Ack/Hillbilly in The Pacific. This is all very good but it’s a little quirk that always made me smile. And, of course, when viewing something your ideas and projected otps change. I started off The Pacific shipping Sid/Sledge and Snafu/Burgin. Both of these changed as the mini-series went on.
*More bromance. Look, I’m a shipper like you wouldn’t believe, but there are times when I just really want bro-fic. It’s probably why I write so much of it. In fandom it can often feel like Gen doesn’t have a place, but it does, especially in these fandoms when so much of what the characters go through happens with the support and strength of the men around them. You can read every memoir out there and they will tell you it wasn’t the flag or the sense of patriotism that kept them fighting and in those foxholes. It was for their buddies, the guy next to them, and no one wanted to be the one left behind if their buddies were going back into the shit.
*AUs. I love alternative universes. Obviously. Part of this is my whole “lalalala everyone lives (except Julian)” way of life. While I can and do love to read canon-based fic, there are times when I want fluffy-bunny-domestic fic, okay? I’d love a Greaser-AU. Or something like White Collar or Ocean’s Eleven. (I’ve got a thing for well-written white collar crime.) As augustbird knows, I fully support the odd-au-fusion thing where Speirs and Rufus from Gossip Girl fuse into some modern-au person who meets Lipton/I Used To Be A Massive Teenage PopStar DDubs RPF fusion land. You just know Rufus-Speirs owned a set of those marbles with DDubs-Lipton’s face on them. Look, every fandom needs a Robin Sparkles-like-AU. And lastly, for now, the massive au fusion where Southland/Life/Justified/ER/Rubicon/Castle/The Black Donnellys/Blue Bloods meet.
*Finally, just wishing for more good luck and great people in the fandom. I have met some of the sweetest, kindest, most supportive and intelligent folks here. Of all the fandoms I’ve been in, it’s the most civil and the least full of wank. I can’t wait to be there when more people discover these shows and stumble across these fandoms. I hope the experience will be as good for them as it’s been, thus far, for me.
I'm sure I'll add more to this as I start thinking about it more, but it will be great to go back at the end of 2011 and see if any of the above happens.