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Fandom Archaeology
Mar. 22nd, 2012 05:59 pmSo. You love Fire Emblem, and you're particularly attached to a pairing. The happy couple doesn't technically have a paired ending, but it's obvious they feel for one another and the epilogue is hinting that one sweet day they'll be getting it on. And they evoke a canon couple from a previous game, so it must be destined. Yay.
Then the next game in the franchise comes out, and it's set on the same continent. And the way it handles your favorite characters makes you feel like IS made this game just to slam your beloved pairing into the ground. Boo, hiss, snarl. And write fanfiction to correct it.
Welcome to the melancholy of Arion/Altenna shippers circa Thracia 776. Thanks to the little miracles of Google Translate and the Wayback Machine, I've been dumpster-diving through Jugdral fandom. Japanese Jugdral fandom, that is. And while the translations are, uh, interesting (do I even want to know why the subject of "pet treats" came up in a thread about the merits of a princess/knight pairing?) the fanart and site layouts and such just brought up a wonderful wave of nostalgia. Japanese fandom from ten years ago looks like home to me-- the pastel texts, the shipper manifestos and headcanon dreams.
Things I have learned!
( There's no place like home. )
In summary: Japanese FE fandom for the SNES games looks like a perfectly normal fandom to me. It feels normal to me in many ways that English-speaking fandom feels aberrant. It's perfectly familiar territory, even if the fanfic is rendered into tenseless, genderless word salad most of the time.
PS: BeoLache vs FinnLache shipping wank is every bit as bad in Japanese fandom. Guess the translation wasn't entirely to blame.
Then the next game in the franchise comes out, and it's set on the same continent. And the way it handles your favorite characters makes you feel like IS made this game just to slam your beloved pairing into the ground. Boo, hiss, snarl. And write fanfiction to correct it.
Welcome to the melancholy of Arion/Altenna shippers circa Thracia 776. Thanks to the little miracles of Google Translate and the Wayback Machine, I've been dumpster-diving through Jugdral fandom. Japanese Jugdral fandom, that is. And while the translations are, uh, interesting (do I even want to know why the subject of "pet treats" came up in a thread about the merits of a princess/knight pairing?) the fanart and site layouts and such just brought up a wonderful wave of nostalgia. Japanese fandom from ten years ago looks like home to me-- the pastel texts, the shipper manifestos and headcanon dreams.
Things I have learned!
( There's no place like home. )
In summary: Japanese FE fandom for the SNES games looks like a perfectly normal fandom to me. It feels normal to me in many ways that English-speaking fandom feels aberrant. It's perfectly familiar territory, even if the fanfic is rendered into tenseless, genderless word salad most of the time.
PS: BeoLache vs FinnLache shipping wank is every bit as bad in Japanese fandom. Guess the translation wasn't entirely to blame.
