Somebody above mentioned AWZ, I'm kinda on the other side of it, I'm predominantly in the Verbotene Liebe fandom. It's actually a very odd situation.
Verbotene Liebe is a soap opera and it currently has both a cute guy gay storyline and a lesbian triangle storyline. Both the gay story and the lesbian story are subtitled on youtube. So it can get pretty fascinating that the German fans (who usually watch the entire 25 minutes show) and the non-German fans (who often know/understand the show only by these slices they get on youtube) often have very different perspectives.
For example, currently the gay storyline is in a bit of a storyline lull and the international fans take it a lot harder because this storyline is really their ony accesspoint while the German fans are often much more positive and zen because if there is no story or scene with the couple in an episode they knew why because they have seen the rest of the show.
The interesting thing to me is that at the moment the gay storyline part of the fandom is much more English than German (and especially was so in the beginning) and so the infrastructure is mostly English at this point. (the current situation is that the main message board is English but has a very active German All-In-One thread). Compared to that the lesbian storyline fandom at the moment is much more German focused (probably because the story is currently slow so there is again a bigger reward for people who watch the entire show while it's harder to follow for people who don't get the whole picture). There are some allowances made for English infrastructure (the board is in German but offers rarely used English subforums which were created recently).
One thing I found interesting is that in lesbian forums, the English side is so underdeveloped that the English speaking fans rather than talking amongst themselves hang out in the Spoiler or Episode Diskussion threads of the Germans and either post their thoughts in broken German or in English and repeatedly ask for clarification if they didn't understand something properly.
It might actualy slowly be happening in the gay couple part of the fandom too because at the moment with less storyline the German thread becomes almost more active than the general English area of the board and I know some people lurk just to see the pictures and try to follow the discussion. Sometimes they too like in the lesbian board post in there in English (especially Dutch fans who can read the German of the rest of the thread but don't feel secure enough to write it themselves).
Languagewise, I know when the storyline first took off a lot of people started learning German just because they liked the storyline/show so much and there were a lot of questions about German grammar. I know of at least some English/American fans who are at least fluent enough that they can grasp roughly what is going on even without subtitles and some do try to watch the entire episodes (and there is often a lot of pleading to subtitle entire episodes, but nobody is that loyal ;)). Ficwise I have gotten a few requests mostly for short phrases or terms of endearments people want to strew into the story.
Fictionwise so far all the lesbian fic has been written in German, none in English except one of the German authors translating some of her stories. Meanwhile most of the gay couple fic is written in English, though there has been more German fic recently. But I have made the experience that the German fans are very reluctant to cross post their stories to the General archive (even though it has a German skin available so at least part of the links are in German) even when asked directly whether they wouldn't like to join.
My experience in the AWZ fandom is not that deep, but from what I can tell the German community is actually larger than the English livejournal based one but the two parts rarely interact with each other and both of their own communities and archives. :/
Another thing the German fandom lacks, at least in my opinion, is the presence on journaling platforms. The English fandom on LJ and its clones is enormous. The German part, at least as I remember it, is tiny. I know quite a few people are from Germany, but they don’t participate in anything German. Their journal entries are in English, so that they can communicate with their English speaking friends. After a while, many start writing fanfic in English as well. I am one of those people who really like journaling platforms, because they allow me more freedom than most archives (my main issues with them is generally linked to the fact that I am not free to do as I like), and I generally like reading other peoples’ journals and the flist makes it so much easier to find all the new fic you’re interested in than combing through all the pages of an archive. I like the sense of community as well.
This is an intensely fascinating point and it would be very interesting to see if there was a German only (or rather German in infrastructure, buttons etc) journalling system.
There even is a word for readers like that: “Schwarzleser”. It’s a term that has its origin in the term “Schwarzfahrer” (literally black passenger – meaning someone who takes a train or bus without paying) and “Leser”, the German word for reader. I don’t think the English fandom has developed a term for that yet.
Well, there is "lurker" but it seems a lot more affectionate term and people seem to have sympathy for lurker behavior in the English/livejournal fandom.
Way too much navel gazing and rambling...
Verbotene Liebe is a soap opera and it currently has both a cute guy gay storyline and a lesbian triangle storyline. Both the gay story and the lesbian story are subtitled on youtube. So it can get pretty fascinating that the German fans (who usually watch the entire 25 minutes show) and the non-German fans (who often know/understand the show only by these slices they get on youtube) often have very different perspectives.
For example, currently the gay storyline is in a bit of a storyline lull and the international fans take it a lot harder because this storyline is really their ony accesspoint while the German fans are often much more positive and zen because if there is no story or scene with the couple in an episode they knew why because they have seen the rest of the show.
The interesting thing to me is that at the moment the gay storyline part of the fandom is much more English than German (and especially was so in the beginning) and so the infrastructure is mostly English at this point. (the current situation is that the main message board is English but has a very active German All-In-One thread). Compared to that the lesbian storyline fandom at the moment is much more German focused (probably because the story is currently slow so there is again a bigger reward for people who watch the entire show while it's harder to follow for people who don't get the whole picture). There are some allowances made for English infrastructure (the board is in German but offers rarely used English subforums which were created recently).
One thing I found interesting is that in lesbian forums, the English side is so underdeveloped that the English speaking fans rather than talking amongst themselves hang out in the Spoiler or Episode Diskussion threads of the Germans and either post their thoughts in broken German or in English and repeatedly ask for clarification if they didn't understand something properly.
It might actualy slowly be happening in the gay couple part of the fandom too because at the moment with less storyline the German thread becomes almost more active than the general English area of the board and I know some people lurk just to see the pictures and try to follow the discussion. Sometimes they too like in the lesbian board post in there in English (especially Dutch fans who can read the German of the rest of the thread but don't feel secure enough to write it themselves).
Languagewise, I know when the storyline first took off a lot of people started learning German just because they liked the storyline/show so much and there were a lot of questions about German grammar. I know of at least some English/American fans who are at least fluent enough that they can grasp roughly what is going on even without subtitles and some do try to watch the entire episodes (and there is often a lot of pleading to subtitle entire episodes, but nobody is that loyal ;)). Ficwise I have gotten a few requests mostly for short phrases or terms of endearments people want to strew into the story.
Fictionwise so far all the lesbian fic has been written in German, none in English except one of the German authors translating some of her stories. Meanwhile most of the gay couple fic is written in English, though there has been more German fic recently. But I have made the experience that the German fans are very reluctant to cross post their stories to the General archive (even though it has a German skin available so at least part of the links are in German) even when asked directly whether they wouldn't like to join.
My experience in the AWZ fandom is not that deep, but from what I can tell the German community is actually larger than the English livejournal based one but the two parts rarely interact with each other and both of their own communities and archives. :/
Another thing the German fandom lacks, at least in my opinion, is the presence on journaling platforms. The English fandom on LJ and its clones is enormous. The German part, at least as I remember it, is tiny. I know quite a few people are from Germany, but they don’t participate in anything German. Their journal entries are in English, so that they can communicate with their English speaking friends. After a while, many start writing fanfic in English as well. I am one of those people who really like journaling platforms, because they allow me more freedom than most archives (my main issues with them is generally linked to the fact that I am not free to do as I like), and I generally like reading other peoples’ journals and the flist makes it so much easier to find all the new fic you’re interested in than combing through all the pages of an archive. I like the sense of community as well.
This is an intensely fascinating point and it would be very interesting to see if there was a German only (or rather German in infrastructure, buttons etc) journalling system.
There even is a word for readers like that: “Schwarzleser”. It’s a term that has its origin in the term “Schwarzfahrer” (literally black passenger – meaning someone who takes a train or bus without paying) and “Leser”, the German word for reader. I don’t think the English fandom has developed a term for that yet.
Well, there is "lurker" but it seems a lot more affectionate term and people seem to have sympathy for lurker behavior in the English/livejournal fandom.