There are a couple things in here not les-mis-related.
1. I posted a fanmixy thing for the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
asexual_fandom mini meta fest that's ongoing. So, you know, you should all go look at the post? And also write and comment on other things for the mini meta fest.
(Things I learned from doing that post: a) the a_f crowd seems to lean really heavily toward semi-obscure folk music. Somehow not too surprised?; b) the version of Windows Media Player that comes with Windows 8 is the most terrible thing ever for making fanfixes on; c) no really there needs to be a Les Mis vid to 99 Problems. Or a 99 Problems vid to Les Mis, I'm not picky.)
2. The difference in experiences between tag wrangling several dozen small/quiet fandoms and tag wrangling one very active and vocal fandom is so different that it doesn't feel like the same job at all. I suspect this difference is a major and largely invisible factor in some of the issues with wrangling culture and communication.
(Things I did not expect as a result of being in Les Mis fandom: that I would be inspired to brush up on my Spanish. Cheers and kudos to the small cadre of Spanish-Language Les Mis authors on AO3! I am enjoying translating all of your chatty freeforms and learning about the recent European student political movements you're writing about, even if my Spanish is still too terrible to actually enjoy your fic. ...no, nobody is posting Les Mis fic on AO3 in French, that would just be silly.)
3. Also I accidentally the Brick? I started writing a fanfic that was not intended to be crack, but then it started trying to be ALL ABOUT MARIUS, so in order to prevent that terrible fate I had to let it become a Javert & Courfeyrac mismatched buddycop casefile where they bond over how very Pontmercy Pontmercy is, and while there are a lot of things I can try to write without knowing canon, casefile is not one of them.
So anyway, Brick. I wanted to be good and read it straight through but so far I am just reading the Javert-relevant parts and the political digressions completely out of order. But, okay. So. I started this fic as a Javert/Valjean-ish story? But I was trying to follow the characterization I'd picked up from highly-rec'd bookverse stories, where Javert isn't nearly as obsessed with Valjean as he often is in musical canon. But now that I have read some scenes from the brick. I am going to have to go put some obsession-with-Valjean back in. Apparently the slashfic has misled me in the wrong direction about how slashy canon is, yet again...
(Thing I have learned from this adventure: Apparently, even though I have never even read this book before, I can open to approximately the right page to find any scene I want, if I know where it falls in the plot, just by feel. Book superpowers: Activate! Now I know why I was determined to wait for a paper copy. Can't navigate by feel in ebooks. Also, why was I worried about having to do extra history & politics research to write bookverse fic? ANY HISTORY HUGO WANTS HIS FANS TO KNOW HUGO WILL TELL THEM HIMSELF.)
4. Also reading the Brick has made me figure out where Valjean fits into the Discworld crossover, which has suddenly given me something like a plot. (Really the Brick in person is way, way more like a Discworld novel than I expected, right down to narrative voice and hilariously random non sequitur history digressions. Though I should have expected that, I just hadn't made the connections.)
Although putting Valjean (and probably Patron-Minette, because Thieves' Guild intrigue) in during Snapcase-era means I really can't get away with leaving out Javert. Figuring out Javert is hard (even when not writing cracky crossovers). (Hey,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
carmarthen, would you feel terribly betrayed if I had Javert raised in the same Genua brothel where Vetinari was raised? I know it's just fanon but! Javert and Vetinari raised in the same brothel! And nobody ever seems to write I-am-from-the-gutter-too Vetinari even though it's more canon than any other backstory we've got for him. Probably because he doesn't shout at people about it.)
4. Also: WAISTCOATS. PEOPLE I NEED WAISTCOATS. 19th-CENTURY-STYLED WAISTCOATS.
I know some of the people reading this are waistcoat-people! Anybody have recommendations for how to acquire sturdy, fitted waistcoasts worthy of a Victorian dandy that are sized for a small-bosomed yet still lady-shaped person? Historical sewing patterns preferred, but I would enjoy anything, up to and including just pretty pictures...
asexual_fandom mini meta fest that's ongoing. So, you know, you should all go look at the post? And also write and comment on other things for the mini meta fest.(Things I learned from doing that post: a) the a_f crowd seems to lean really heavily toward semi-obscure folk music. Somehow not too surprised?; b) the version of Windows Media Player that comes with Windows 8 is the most terrible thing ever for making fanfixes on; c) no really there needs to be a Les Mis vid to 99 Problems. Or a 99 Problems vid to Les Mis, I'm not picky.)
2. The difference in experiences between tag wrangling several dozen small/quiet fandoms and tag wrangling one very active and vocal fandom is so different that it doesn't feel like the same job at all. I suspect this difference is a major and largely invisible factor in some of the issues with wrangling culture and communication.
(Things I did not expect as a result of being in Les Mis fandom: that I would be inspired to brush up on my Spanish. Cheers and kudos to the small cadre of Spanish-Language Les Mis authors on AO3! I am enjoying translating all of your chatty freeforms and learning about the recent European student political movements you're writing about, even if my Spanish is still too terrible to actually enjoy your fic. ...no, nobody is posting Les Mis fic on AO3 in French, that would just be silly.)
3. Also I accidentally the Brick? I started writing a fanfic that was not intended to be crack, but then it started trying to be ALL ABOUT MARIUS, so in order to prevent that terrible fate I had to let it become a Javert & Courfeyrac mismatched buddycop casefile where they bond over how very Pontmercy Pontmercy is, and while there are a lot of things I can try to write without knowing canon, casefile is not one of them.
So anyway, Brick. I wanted to be good and read it straight through but so far I am just reading the Javert-relevant parts and the political digressions completely out of order. But, okay. So. I started this fic as a Javert/Valjean-ish story? But I was trying to follow the characterization I'd picked up from highly-rec'd bookverse stories, where Javert isn't nearly as obsessed with Valjean as he often is in musical canon. But now that I have read some scenes from the brick. I am going to have to go put some obsession-with-Valjean back in. Apparently the slashfic has misled me in the wrong direction about how slashy canon is, yet again...
(Thing I have learned from this adventure: Apparently, even though I have never even read this book before, I can open to approximately the right page to find any scene I want, if I know where it falls in the plot, just by feel. Book superpowers: Activate! Now I know why I was determined to wait for a paper copy. Can't navigate by feel in ebooks. Also, why was I worried about having to do extra history & politics research to write bookverse fic? ANY HISTORY HUGO WANTS HIS FANS TO KNOW HUGO WILL TELL THEM HIMSELF.)
4. Also reading the Brick has made me figure out where Valjean fits into the Discworld crossover, which has suddenly given me something like a plot. (Really the Brick in person is way, way more like a Discworld novel than I expected, right down to narrative voice and hilariously random non sequitur history digressions. Though I should have expected that, I just hadn't made the connections.)
Although putting Valjean (and probably Patron-Minette, because Thieves' Guild intrigue) in during Snapcase-era means I really can't get away with leaving out Javert. Figuring out Javert is hard (even when not writing cracky crossovers). (Hey,
carmarthen, would you feel terribly betrayed if I had Javert raised in the same Genua brothel where Vetinari was raised? I know it's just fanon but! Javert and Vetinari raised in the same brothel! And nobody ever seems to write I-am-from-the-gutter-too Vetinari even though it's more canon than any other backstory we've got for him. Probably because he doesn't shout at people about it.)4. Also: WAISTCOATS. PEOPLE I NEED WAISTCOATS. 19th-CENTURY-STYLED WAISTCOATS.
I know some of the people reading this are waistcoat-people! Anybody have recommendations for how to acquire sturdy, fitted waistcoasts worthy of a Victorian dandy that are sized for a small-bosomed yet still lady-shaped person? Historical sewing patterns preferred, but I would enjoy anything, up to and including just pretty pictures...
no subject
Plus stuff that's specific to modding, like the need to decide between constant, active, frequently ruthless modding and letting wank take over the meme. But again, qualitative differences, because there's a near-zero probability that one inflammatory comment will make a low-volume comm go off like a bomb in the time it takes me to write up a mod note. Small-fandom mods can be pretty hands-off and still intervene in time to keep things from getting ugly; megafandoms are tinderboxes, and there is an explicit choice between maintaining a reasonably civil and pleasant space and allowing people the freedom to walk around with open cans of gasoline. (Or maybe that's just Les Mis fandom? LM fandom doesn't seem to grok cheerfully abrasive disagreement at all; it's divided between over-earnest "you're oppressing me by having an opinion" and people blatantly trolling the over-earnest types.)
So yes, in conclusion, herding megafandom cats = brain-breakingly different, and not just in terms of volume.