New-to-You Fandoms

[moetushie]

Hi! I thought I'd jump in here with a question. Are you currently into a fandom that's new to you (even if it's been around for a while?) What fandom is it? How do you feel about being a little late to the party, as it were? Let's get into it!

I'm going through this right now with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which has been around as long as I have (we're both a product of the late eighties) but I'd never thought about watching or reading until now. (I thought of it as a weird posing manga/anime with fighting robots? I was right about the posing, wrong about the robots and also like Steve Rogers, I get that reference!)

Right now, I'm very much enjoying consuming the canon, but as for producing fanwork... It's kind of hard to imagine producing anything that hasn't been done many times before. It's an old-new fandom conundrum, I think.

How about you?

Comments

[sixbeforelunch]

I've recently gotten into old movies, especially stuff from the early 30s (pre-codes) and noir from the 40s and early 50s.

So I'm definitely late to the party, but at this point most of the people who were watching these movies when they first came out are, well, dead. We've basically cycled into a new fandom of people discussing the movies both as art and as historical artifacts.

There's a decent amount of discussion and picspam out there to enjoy. Not so much other fanworks. I wish there were more vids.

[moetushie]

Nice! I've asked for a few noirs for Yuletide and some of them have been filled -- most recently for Gun Crazy in 2016, if I'm remembering it right,

[alias_sqbr]

Steven Universe! I've just watched the season 1-3 dvds and am waiting for access to the later episodes, so I'm still holding myself back a little from the fandom. I think being warned ahead of time of the things that commonly piss people off has let those aspects roll over me, but having been surrounded by so much discussion of it already (since I move in circles where anything Animated Femslash Scifi is going to be everywhere) means every key scene has played out in front of me in gifset so many times it doesn't feel very fresh once I watch it in context. I'm still enjoying it though.

[moetushie]

I've seen a few episodes and it seems like a very cute show. :)

I've noticed that too -- when you hear that there's a Big Moment coming up (in my case, it's character deaths -- always with the character deaths) -- the impact is definitely less shocking than it would be otherwise. But I'm a devoted spoiler hound so I wouldn't have it any other way.

[alias_sqbr]

Character deaths are less of an issue with Steven Universe, since it's a kids show, but there were a few twists it might have been fun to be surprised by.

[mommy]

I got into Star Trek TOS last year. It's shiny and new to me with a side-bonus of having lots of fanworks to enjoy.

[moetushie]

Gosh, TOS must be right up there with Tolkien and Stars Wars as fandoms that are constantly being discovered by new generations. It's really inspiring that some fandoms can go on forever. :)

[mommy]

My Star Wars years were way back in my teens when I devoured every novel I could find. I was super into sci-fi back then, so I'm not sure how I skipped over TOS.

[mekare]

OOOh nice, enjoy the episodes! There's some that haven't aged well and some that are absolutely timeless.

[mommy]

The main draw for me is how the characters like and respect one another during their wacky space exploration mission. I forgot how much I enjoy that dynamic.

[tamsin]

I've been getting into Overwatch fandom lately and am feeling a bit lost. It doesn't seem to have a presence at lj/dw, so I've mostly been hanging out at Ao3.

[moetushie]

I feel like I see a lot of Overwatch fanart that crosses my Tumblr dash?? But it is Tumblr, so..

[melannen]

I think I'm where you are, only with Dragon Ball. I have almost finished reading the manga, and I want fic! Especially I want fic for the older fandom! But I'm so far behind everyone else that I don't even know where to go for it, and when I do go looking, all the tropes and norms and stuff from the 90s fandom are so different I can't get my footing.

I think there is actually a place for new fanfic for old fandoms (especially ones like Dragonball and JoJo that a lot of fans have a nostalgia for) because there's stories we tell now that are different from what people were telling twenty (or thirty, or forty) years ago; even if it's the same story, we tell it differently now - TOS Kirk/Spock hasn't run out of things to say yet - but my problem is I can never get the voice right to write fic without reading other fiction with the characters first, and I can't find the voices I want for Dragon Ball.

(I have JoJo on my very long list of old manga to read! I'm not sure if I could handle the art style or not, but it always sounded interesting.)

[moetushie]

Oh man, I think we're in the same place, definitely.

The thing about Jojo is that there is fic still being written for it -- it helps that it's still on-going, and the anime covered parts 1-4 came out a few years ago (and hopefully part 5 will be animated soon?) But most of the fannish activity is concentrated on part 3, which makes sense, it is pretty iconic, but a lot of it is, uh, not to my taste. I want the late eighties/early nineties aesthetic, darn it, not modern AUs everywhere. Also the punch ghosts! Use the punch ghosts!

I think there is actually a place for new fanfic for old fandoms (especially ones like Dragonball and JoJo that a lot of fans have a nostalgia for) because there's stories we tell now that are different from what people were telling twenty (or thirty, or forty) years ago; even if it's the same story, we tell it differently now - TOS Kirk/Spock hasn't run out of things to say yet

That is such a good point -- and equally true for fandoms that have been around forever, like Tolkien or Sherlock Holmes.

(Do check it out if you have the time! The anime covers a lot of ground, but the style is also ... not without its challenges. It's such a wild ride though, I don't know if I'd straight up recommend it (it has a lot of eighties shounen manga sexism) but I'd encourage it if you like the weird, posing, vampires and literal fighting spirits?)

[beatrice_otter]

I absolutely fell in love with A Wrinkle In Time, but there is very little fic for it, alas. :(

[moetushie]

Oooh, for the book or the new movie? I've never checked out L'engle fic, but now I kind of want to. (My favorite book is Many Waters and I absolutely need a fixit.)

[beatrice_otter]

The movie, mostly, because I've never read the book, but there are (obviously) a lot more book fics.

[ruuger]

I've been in the fandom for almost a year now, so it's not really new-new anymore, but last spring I very unexpectebly became a Doctor Who fan. I'd been watching the show since Eccleston (sometimes liking it, but mostly not) but then suddenly *DING* I was a fan. And by suddenly, I mean I went from a casual watcher to have-read-all-fic-about-my-fave-on-AO3 in less than a week.

It is a bit strange to find oneself in the middle of a megafandom again, since the last several years my main fandom had been The Mentalist...

[moetushie]

This happened to me too! I dutifully watched the first two seasons and actually fell in love during the third. I blame Martha Jones/Freema Agyeman's lovely face. My interest waned after Donna though, and now I'm hopelessly behind.

But really that sudden love is pretty wild, isn't it? 😊

[ruuger]

I always wanted Martha to come back during Twelve's reign so that the Doctor could apologise to her for being a jerk :D

Have you watched Sense8, btw? Freema is fantastic in it.

[moetushie]

It's on my to-watch list, which is .... uh, years-long at this point. Haha.

[mekare]

Oh great! There's so much excellent fic...Was tehre a specific episode or season when you got obsessed?

[ruuger]

Well, it happened somewhere between "Thin Ice" and "Knock, Knock", that much I know :D Capaldi was always the Doctor I'd liked most (before him, the Doctor was usually my least favourite character in any given season), "Heaven Sent" made him into my favourite character, and I enjoyed S10 and Bill and Twelve's relationship from the start, but I don't know what happened in "Thin Ice" to suddenly make me fannish

[mekare]

I haven’t seen him with Bill yet but I’m looking foreard to it.