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Jun. 3rd, 2023 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
People saying that Hetalia is a small fandom make me feel absolutely insane. Tell me you’ve never been in an actually small fandom without telling me. Something with over 100 Ao3 uploads in the past week and tons of new fanart on tumblr every single day is by no means small.
Thing is, it’s decently-sized, but it’s heavily fragmented. A lot of people silo off into circles related to characters/pairings that they like, and sometimes there’s not much interaction with people who like completely different character groups - and this can make it all feel a lot smaller than it actually is. You get into a less-common character, you pal around with the people who like that one, and it starts to feel kind of claustrophobic and slow. You encounter a lot of the same people whether you like it or not, and the only fanwork about such-and-such secondary/tertiary character that you see is the stuff you and the people you know make. But there's stuff going on that you'll never know about.
Do I have any idea what the FRUK and AmeCan fans are up to? No! Do I care? Also no!
As a point of comparison, some small fandoms I’ve been in: English side of Nirvana in Fire fandom, 1900 Ao3 works. SSSS, 2100 Ao3 works. Vatican Miracle Examiner, 153 works. aRTD, 141 on Ao3 and I’ve written 25% of them. Etc. Hetalia, at over 50k Ao3 uploads and (as I mentioned) over 100 in the past week, is downright chonky in comparison.
Sure, it's not like the glory days of the LJ, when I had to take the comm off my flist because I couldn't keep up, not to mention the huge amount of activity on the kink meme (and the anon meme...), but... damn, dude. No, this fandom is not small.
Thing is, it’s decently-sized, but it’s heavily fragmented. A lot of people silo off into circles related to characters/pairings that they like, and sometimes there’s not much interaction with people who like completely different character groups - and this can make it all feel a lot smaller than it actually is. You get into a less-common character, you pal around with the people who like that one, and it starts to feel kind of claustrophobic and slow. You encounter a lot of the same people whether you like it or not, and the only fanwork about such-and-such secondary/tertiary character that you see is the stuff you and the people you know make. But there's stuff going on that you'll never know about.
Do I have any idea what the FRUK and AmeCan fans are up to? No! Do I care? Also no!
As a point of comparison, some small fandoms I’ve been in: English side of Nirvana in Fire fandom, 1900 Ao3 works. SSSS, 2100 Ao3 works. Vatican Miracle Examiner, 153 works. aRTD, 141 on Ao3 and I’ve written 25% of them. Etc. Hetalia, at over 50k Ao3 uploads and (as I mentioned) over 100 in the past week, is downright chonky in comparison.
Sure, it's not like the glory days of the LJ, when I had to take the comm off my flist because I couldn't keep up, not to mention the huge amount of activity on the kink meme (and the anon meme...), but... damn, dude. No, this fandom is not small.
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Date: 2023-06-04 12:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-04 01:56 pm (UTC)But still!! xD
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Date: 2023-06-04 02:04 pm (UTC)Maybe it's smaller, these days, compared to what they remember? Or maybe they are just stuck in their own little circle, haha, but wow, that's kinda wild. :'D
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Date: 2023-06-04 02:07 pm (UTC)Maybe it's all of the above. xD
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Date: 2023-06-04 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-05 02:18 am (UTC)I'm with you though - I never have anything to read, really. Hell, I won't even read nationverse fic if it uses the human names. So, I'm stuck cooking my own food most of the time. Which is frustrating, buuuuut doesn't mean that this's a small fandom, just means I'm picky. ;)
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Date: 2023-06-05 02:40 am (UTC)It's easy to get a skewed idea of a fandom's size, I guess, but - 50k fics! How is that small??
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Date: 2023-06-05 02:43 am (UTC)Weellll I guess I can see how one might get the impression if they're only checking their fave's tags - if I narrow it down to just the pairings I like, yeah, it'll seem kind of sleepy. But that doesn't mean there ain't a whole world of stuff going on outside my little rarepair circle!
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Date: 2023-06-05 03:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-05 04:01 am (UTC)It could be that SSSS is more fic-centric. Plus, the SSSS world gives a lot of opportunities to explore outside the main cast, OCs, worldbuilding, etc; NiF doesn't have that in the same way (aside from having a cool extended cast.)
Another possibility is that NiF is one of those canons that's challenging to write fic for because it's so satisfying in itself. There are of course definitely places to explore, canon-divergent possibilities and so on, but personally, one of the reasons I've had a difficult time getting prose ideas for it is because I'm so fulfilled with the canon as it is.
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Date: 2023-06-05 07:55 pm (UTC)Just who has been saying Hetalia is a small fandom???
I know people joke about Hetalia being a "senior living home" because most Hetalia fans are now on the older side (per internet definition of old) but it's not small. Works and events are out there, it's just hard to find many that suit my taste.
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Date: 2023-06-06 02:22 am (UTC)A bunch of chuckleheads, clearly.
Most of the ones I've seen saying it's small are on the young side. Maybe they're comparing it to Mega Huge currently-active stuff.
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Date: 2024-12-03 11:21 pm (UTC)