#b5 fandom

[vyrenrolar]

So one of my friends, who's been on tumblr for over a year, only has like 60 some followers. I have over 100. We were talking about how that happened, why that happened, how weird it was, etc.

But honestly with me it's due mainly to the b5 and star trek fandoms. Like, we follow back a lot, we do The Thing, and we reblog the shit outta each other.

So, to my b5 and star trek fandom followers, thank you. You have helped me feel loved and important.

[amatara]

Hear, hear. I've been more on the fringes of the fandom than I used to be (for no reasons having to do with the fandom itself) but watching you all interact and find each other and squee over each other's favorite aspects of the show has been 200% a complete delight. (Whoops, this was meant as a reblog of Neroon's "you are a class act" post, but my phone app is acting weird.)

[truegryffindorforever]

Does every fandom have a "This Is War" video?

[truegryffindorforever]

Babylon 5's Marcus Cole.

[amatara]

Gauging interest in a B5 (friend- and romantic) ship manifesto blog

The recent shipping discussion and talk of kinkmemes and such made me think of something: back on Livejournal, there was something called ship_manifesto, a place for people to post essays on their favorite ships and the reasons they loved them. It used to be a thing spanning all fandoms, and while B5 wasn't all that well represented (manifestos were written for Susan/Talia and Londo/G'Kar, the latter by none other than our own hobsonphile) I've always loved the idea behind it.

I haven't seen anything similar here yet (though maybe it exists for certain fandoms) but I'm thinking tumblr could be a great medium for something like this, with its possibility to add gifs, movies and so on.

Basically, I thought it might be fun to make a ship manifesto tumblr blog specifically for B5 - would anyone be interested in this? Not everyone is into romantic ships, of course, so I was thinking we could go a step beyond that and make it a relationship blog in general, leaving room for posts focusing on friendships, platonic, and romantic ships, and tagging these separately. (Is there a fannish word that incorporates all of these? If not, there should be.)

I'm still mulling over the details, so please, if you have any thoughts on this, do share them. On LJ the intent was to have one essay, written by a single person, per pairing, but I'm thinking that's too restrictive in this instance, and everyone should be allowed to submit. On the other hand, we'd want to have as many ships as possible, highlighting the lesser-known ones especially, so we'd need to find a way, either through modding the submissions and spacing posts out evenly in time, or by agreeing on a set of rules (like, for instance, promoting one specific more obscure ship each week?) to make sure that there isn't a huge imbalance in number of posts between the more and less obscure relationships. Not sure how to do this yet, but I'd be very invested in sticking to that principle. The blog would also, quite obviously I think, be explicitly squee-only. Realistically, I don't think I'd be able to run something like this alone, but maybe something could be worked out in terms of co-modding, depending on what tumblr allows.

Anyway, all of this is really just a wild idea I had today, and I'm only just starting to think about the practicalities, but ... well. I've been thinking of finding something fun to do for the fandom for some time, and, depending of course on people's interest, this might be an option.

Please reply, reblog or message me to let me know what you think.

(Obligatory question mark to allow replies by everyone: ?)

[amatara]

About the recent fandom Londo/G’Kar discussion and the points a few people raised today (and thank you for that, I know it can’t have been easy and I appreciate both the honesty and the way in which you raised those points): I’d been planning to wait to respond properly till I was back from vacation, but I feel I should say something now because this is too important. Posting this from my phone so I can’t put it behind a cut, I’m sorry.

We’ve had a bumpy ride recently - there were a few tough discussions, some of which didn’t end very well, and rifts got formed that I don’t know are fixable. I got involved too; some might say I got in over my head. I hadn’t planned to, but it happened. I’ve been… on edge because of it. I think the same is true for many of us. And because I’ve been on edge, I’ve been responding very strongly to things. Some discussions, whenever they come up again these days, evoke a response in me that is pure fight-or-flight reflex: they make me flail, and panic, and feel defensive. I know it’s not rational. I’ve been trying to work through my feelings, but I tend to forget that even the privacy of one’s own blog on tumblr is not truly private and more people see my ramblings and are affected by them than I think. I apologize for that. If the feelings I have and the way I deal with them have the effect that others are hurt and feel like their opinions are unwelcome, then that is not OK and I need to stop. I want to say I never intended to raise drama or do anything other than work through my own complicated feelings. I’d also like to think that those feelings in themselves are not something to feel guilty about. But the way in which I’ve expressed them has apparently made others feel uncomfortable and upset, and for that I do, truly and sincerely, apologize.

I also want to say that, while I only caught glimpses of the discussion, I didn’t see anything in the fandom tag that was about dismissing other opinions in favor of one’s own. I did not see anyone get personal or nasty in their responses. I did see people get passionate; we’re all passionate about this fandom because we’re so invested in it. And sometimes we cross a line. I’m not sure where that line is and what constitutes “crossing it”; it’s hard to answer that question when you’re invested in something, and when we all have different answers. I’d still like to think it’s OK to make mistakes here and learn from them. Yes, there was venting in untagged posts on people’s own blogs, but I’m not sure where else people should vent if not there, and again I didn’t see nastiness, I saw people working through their feelings and defending their preferences. I think everyone was trying to do so respectfully, at least as far as I saw. But I’ll grant that tumblr is a very public space, and words said in relative privacy may still be seen by many and have an effect on many that wasn’t planned.

As I said, I will try to guard myself more carefully in the future, but I’m not sure what to do about this in the long run. Tumblr is a very public forum. It’s hard to find a balance, especially as the fandom grows; we want open discussion, but we don’t want people to feel like their opinions are unwelcome because others disagree with them. I’ve been struggling with this a lot recently, and I think many if us have. I also don’t have an answer right now. But I do want this fandom to be a safe place again. I want to try to help fix what went wrong, for everyone’s sake as well as my own. I know we can’t just start over, too much has happened for that, but believe me when I say I care deeply about all of you and I respect all of your opinions. I’d like to believe we can make this work again. I promise I will work hard to help make it happen. That is all I can do.

[amatara]

So I suppose it’s something to celebrate that this fandom has finally become big enough again that people are no longer just happy that fic and art are being made for it at all, but rather it’s become about *what* fic and *which* art, and popular vs obscure pairings, and so on. Knowing that a “popular” character or pairing in this fandom has about 5 people creating fanworks for it at any given time, if that, and many of those people are creating stuff for each other (I haven’t written anything lately that wasn’t to fill some prompt or other) it strikes me as somewhat ironic to hear phrases like “having to wade through heaps of stuff you don’t like…” So by “heaps”, do people really mean a dozen stories? And the fanart remains as rare as ever, I'd say. Tumblr B5 fandom has all grown up and I’m longing for the good old days already…

[amatara]

I've noticed that whenever I'm sad or having a hard time, I tend to compensate for that by aggressively seeking out and trying to help and/or comfort other people who seem sad too. And then I remember that B5 quote from the reverend in "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place":

"Cleaning up your place helps me to forget what a mess I've made of mine, and... when I sweep my floor, all I've done is sweep my floor. But when I help you clean up your place, I am helping you."

and I realize it's still true. For me, at least. So I just wanted to say to all of you: please never hold back from coming to me if you feel bad and need a friend and would like to talk, not even when I'm having a hard time too. I'll do what I can and it's no burden. I promise. I may not always be able to do enough, but I'll always try. And helping someone else feel better really does make me feel better too.

(PS: I'll be away for the weekend and without Internet until some time on Sunday. Take care, love you all.)