Living Two Lives – A Story of Bilingual Fan-dom

[rodo]

The topic of this post is one that has been on my mind for years, and this certainly isn’t the first attempt to write it all down. This post is about my very subjective experience in fandom, which, I believe, is not quite normal. I suppose all of you who are multifannish know at least to some degree what I am talking about, because essentially, I am talking about being in two fandoms at once. But while most people experience two fandoms as two different things they’re interested in, for me, it is the same thing, in two languages.

So I suppose this is where I should introduce myself: I am a German and German is my first language. I didn’t really start learning English until I was ten (so I am not really bilingual). I started writing fanfiction when I was seven. I discovered fandom when I started reading the AnimaniA when I was fourteen. I doubt more than a few of you ever touched that magazine, but I loved it. Buying the new issue was more fun than Christmas. I discovered online fandom when I was nineteen, googling Harry Potter and finding Animexx. A few months later, somebody posted the translation of this really great Harry Potter fanfic (or so I thought at the time – it was the Draco Trilogy), and I started reading it in English.

That was five years ago, and since then, I spent time in English and in German fandom. Many people would, I think, think it enlightening to be able to participate in discussions in two languages. And to a degree, it is. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to change it, because now that I know what the English fandom is like, I really wouldn’t want to leave. In fact, if I had to choose, I would chose the English and not the German one. But: Being a bilingual fan certainly has its disadvantages. I am living in two places at once, I have to be two different persons at times, and that does not feel nice at all.

The English fandom, for example, has meta. Lots of it. They even have a name for it. But while the topic is certainly not unknown in German fandom (as a look at ff.de’s pages on columns and essays shows, which occasionally includes discussions on slash and writing tips), the name is only used by those who are part of the English fandom as well (see: ff.de’s forum). I love meta. I certainly miss meta when I am in German fandom, especially the sort that people really thought about. And the really intellectual meta. I sometimes feel as if the German fandom is unable to follow me when I start talking in that direction (and I know that is a shitty thing to say, but that’s how I feel).

Another problem with German meta discussions is the different background. I learned to deal with meta-y things via metafandom, which I suppose is true for most of us who haven’t been in fandom long enough to remember a time when there was no metafandom. And following metafandom established a background we use when we talk, a background that is missing in discussion with the German fandom altogether.

I feel the same when it comes to various other fandom related communities, especially fanficrants and fandom_wank, both of which shaped the mind of the English fandom enough to establish phrases like “thoughts on yaoi”. Mocking other fans is considered horrible in most of the German fandom. The only community with that specific purpose was deleted a while ago. It was a sporking community on LJ called loesch_dich and I don’t quite remember why the mods deleted it, but I do remember that I thought it a pity and unnecessary. And I loved the sporking of BlackBolt's “novels”. Big scandals like those around Cassandra Claire and MsScribe couldn’t happen in German fandom. Even the mention of gugi28’s bad behaviour and her accusing unsuspecting new fans of plagiarism when all they did was invent an OC who was slightly similar to hers was deleted (and I forgot to take screencaps), despite being neutral and totally unwanky (at least compared to what ends up on fandom_wank). I know of no place where German fandom can be properly criticized, apart from English fandom, that is. And I think fandom_wank and similar communities are good for a fandom, because on the one hand they serve as an outlet for all the negative feelings, and on the other they establish some sort of rules for community interaction. German fandom needs a place where young fans can learn not to tell others that liking slash/incest stories is OMG SO SICK and that wanky behaviour should be avoided.

German fandom also needs to learn that comments aren’t everything. I know, English fandom has its own fair share of comment whoring and stories that are held hostage. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about the fact that in discussions with German authors, I am often told that a good reader writes a comment, because the author has to be paid for a story. The story is seen as a service to the fans that has to be paid for, not as something the author does because s/he likes it or as something the author does as a thank you. There is a hierarchy in fandom, and it places the reader on the bottom. Readers who don’t review are bad readers; I sometimes even get the feeling that they are considered worse than the people who don’t read the story at all. 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.

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.

There are, of course, things the German fandom has that the English fandom doesn’t. For one, it allows me to use my dearly beloved first language. Something that I rather like about the German fandom on principle, despite not finding much use for it myself, is the amount of translated fic. Some people aren’t talented when it comes to writing their own stories, some of them lack the ideas, but quite a few of these people can still use their talent to translate stories. I only know of a handful of stories that are translated into English, often by the German authors themselves, but there are a lot of fanfictions in German archives that are translations. Ff.de has threads in which people ask for help translating a certain phrase, threads in which the merits and difficulties of translations are discussed and even those in which potential readers ask other people to translate a fic for them.

And of course there is Animexx, which I don’t like for a lot of reasons (too strict, too focussed on anime and manga), which is an archive maintained by a non-profit organisation that hosts fanfiction, dōjinshi, fanart, cosplay, fic contests and a myriad of other things. It was founded in 2000. Sound familiar? Well, at least that’s what I thought when I first heard of the OTW’s archive. I sincerely hope that the OTW’s archive won’t develop the way Animexx did in terms of focus on visual art and policy, but in terms of functionality, I think Animexx is rather more than English archive users are used to. At least as far as I know. (You can check out the very reduced English version here.) So to me, at least, the idea of the OTW was not a new one. A good one, yes (I’m a volunteer, after all), but not a radically new one.

A difference between the two fandoms, the way I see it, is the fact that a lot of the English fandom culture seems to be based on the traditions of media fandom, while the German fandom seems to be more focussed on anime/manga fandom. That might just be my impression because I started out on Animexx, but I still get that impression when I’m on ff.de now, despite the main fandoms being Harry Potter and Twilight.

Now all this means one thing for me: I am two people. When I am my English fandom person, I can’t talk to anybody about what happened to yaoi.de without having to start with a lengthy explanation on the German laws for the protection of minors. (The end result is this: adult fanfiction on German websites can only be accessed during the night and/or after you sent the maintainers your identification card number so that they verify that you’re an adult. And for God's sake, don't ever call it porn.) I can’t talk about racefail with Germans. I have to separate knowledge and behaviour in my head so that I don’t accidentally think English fandom hates readers. I can’t use the same platforms. I have to watch out for spoilers (both ways – we got the final Pushing Daisies episodes last month). I have to keep track of air dates and publication details. I have to remember that musings on translating fic should be written in German rather than in English. But nobody will read it anyway there since it’s meta and Germans don’t read meta. The latest post on fandom_wank? Nobody’s read it and the fandom isn’t big in German anyway. A “yes, but” would probably not be the best way to react to the enthusiasm for the idea behind the OTW because the people I’m talking to have never even heard of Animexx.

The two fandoms are not entirely separated, though. I do meet quite a few Germans on fanficrants, and many people on my flist are Germans (writing in English, but they will at least heard of some of the things I’m talking about) and there are a number of people in German fandom who are in English fandom as well. But the topics that are discussed are often separate. While the English fandom talked about racefail, ff.de was told to delete the fanfictions for a certain book series by the author’s lawyers. Something that hasn’t happened in German fandom before, at least to my knowledge. While people in the German fandom argued about the new rating system on ff.de, English fandom squeed about Dreamwidth. And I do both, but almost never with the same people or in the same space.

Dreamwidth will make it harder for me to have one place for both of my personas. The Archive of Our Own and the OTW might make it easier, but I doubt I’ll ever be able to have just one fan personality.

Comments

[lian]

Oy, how could I miss this post??? Thanks to frogspace I did still find it, phew. This is super-fascinating, and the thing is -- I'm fascinated by how similar our Sozialisation (see! another beautiful word without a decent translation ;P) is -- I totally would understand you if you talked about yaoi.de/animexx (I got on both around 2001, and every now and then I realize of deeply I am still influenced by that -- e.g. in arguing definitions or naming conventions with English fen!), even though I branched off into English fandom exclusively around...phew, 2004 2005 or so?

And it strikes me, and fascinates me, how there are these seemingly somewhat discrete traditions in German fandom -- apart from individual developments, I mean. Pre-yaoi-crowd maybe? Closer to old-school slash. frogspace, for example, seems to be from that crowd, even though that is of course grossly simplified -- she does write about having submitted a boy x boy story one time, after all. (I commented to her entry here).

[rodo]

(Don't worry, almost nobody on my flist was interested in this entry.)

umm ... "socialisation"?

Yes, 2004/2005 was also the time when I largely left German fandom as a reader (I do still read in German sometimes, but it's really hard to find decent stories without rec-lists). Didn't Animexx used to have a rec function? I could have sword it did, but I can't find it anymore.

The pre-yaoi(oh how I hate that term, it's shounen-ai, goddammit)-crowd also seems to be rooted in a pre-internet culture. Maybe they are old-school media fen while most of the German internet fandom is at least influenced by anime/manga fandom? I know I had to work quite hard on overcoming the naming conventions where the name before the / was the seme, and I still can't read some characters as ukes. (And I use seme/uke quite frequently.)

I also think most of the old school media fen migrated to LJ (unlike the rest of German fandom), but I can't say that I met many of them in archives or forums.

[lian]

*swirls cape* yeah, but now I am part of your f-list! Ha-haaa! ...;P

(socialisation? really? Somneone once told me it ws not quite the same, but maybe they were lying! hah.)

I actually asked frogspace about that, because I just...don't know anything about the development of German media fandom (as opposed to German yaoi fandom. Sorry. It's shorter ^^;) Oh, yeah, the use of 'shounen ai' in itself is a German peculiarity -- most international fandoms now use BL. (ONE day I need to finish writing that Fanlore article on the usage of 'yaoi'!)

*points to last line* I used to use the Japanese smilies exclusively until a few years back -- I abandoned the habit once I'd been thoroughly absorbed by English media-fandom. Heh.

I suppose because I'm a reader, not a writer, leaving my native language behind was easier. But speaking of which, I talked to xavie a while back, about what we really loved about the ficathon_de challenge -- rediscovering to write fannishly in your own language. She's never been in yaoi fandom, as far as I know. It's just, most people are just... *better at it*. And like you, I dislike the idea of seeing German as inferior -- it's just that there's hasn't been all that much ground covered, so sure it's harder to write, say, sex scenes in German at first. *shrugs*

Open up yet another strand, this time German people assimilated into English media-fandom re-discovering their own language, and trying to find an audience? I'm not sure if there are enough re-patriates for this to succeed...but I'd sure like to try.

I think this idea of giving native (=Germans socialised into) media fans a place to pool their writing, and through this, hey, maybe pool the scattered audiences -- this is what I would LOVE to see to come out of the OTW Archive translation. There is certainly enough infrastructure in place for native yaoi fen. Though, of course, I'd argue that our infrastructure is better ;P

(My committee is trying to badger coders into writing a 'translation of...' feature into the Archive that links back to the original story and vice versa. That would be so.fucking.awesome.)

edited to fix code

[rodo]

Oh, yeah, the use of 'shounen ai' in itself is a German peculiarity -- most international fandoms now use BL.

Still, I don't like it. Even though the Japanese now use BL themselves. And yes, it definitely is peculiar to German fandom (And I thought about editing the fanlore article about ten times already as well.)

But speaking of which, I talked to xavie a while back, about what we really loved about the ficathon_de challenge -- rediscovering to write fannishly in your own language.

Me too, but since they're on LJ and I'm not a big porn writer (no matter the language), I generally miss out on the fun. I did participate in the Wünsche Wochen last Christmas, though.

And I agree, certain things like sex scenes seem harder to write in German. I think it's because on the one hand we lack a certain emotional distance to words like "Schwanz" and on the other most of us are simply so much more used to reading English smut.

Open up yet another strand, this time German people assimilated into English media-fandom re-discovering their own language, and trying to find an audience? I'm not sure if there are enough re-patriates for this to succeed...but I'd sure like to try.

I'm not even sure how many actually left German fandom and how many are sort of ... split. I'm always in favour of German goodfic. And something I would really like is a Yuletide-like fic exchange in German, but I wouldn't know the first thing about how to start and promote something like that.

(My committee is trying to badger coders into writing a 'translation of...' feature into the Archive that links back to the original story and vice versa. That would be so.fucking.awesome.)

OMG that would be super doubleplus awesome! Like on the OTW website with "this content is also available in German/English/Swahili". And what committee are you talking about now *iz confused*?

[lian]

Go and edit that article!!! Chances are that I, uh, wrote/started it, and I suck :> it'd be awesome if you did!

I chatted about that with lenija when I met her, about the porn theme being exhausted for now. But really, what about teaming up with the people doing ficathon_de, suggesting that kind of challenge? I know it's hard to establish something like that on one's own, so why not synergize and use existing ressources? Might be worth looking into, though I know lenija really deosn't have much time atm.


I'm not even sure how many actually left German fandom and how many are sort of ... split.

...There seem to be quite a few who 'left' (or rather, just drifted out of German fandom, into the beautiful plenty of English-speaking fandom.) Just my very subjective impression, though, from randomly talking to people here and there.


OMG that would be super doubleplus awesome! Like on the OTW website with "this content is also available in German/English/Swahili". And what committee are you talking about now *iz confused*?

Translation committee, sorry! hl is our brand-new member, btw :> she brought it up again in our meeting yesterday. And it's so good to hear so much support for the feature request, it makes it a lot easier for us to argue for it to coders if we can show how excited people are!

[rodo]

Go and edit that article!!! Chances are that I, uh, wrote/started it, and I suck :>

So do I. And I've wanted to edit the Boldthrough article for ages as well because it basically doesn't exist, but I feel insecure about writing in English. If I didn't, I would edit like crazy.

But really, what about teaming up with the people doing ficathon_de, suggesting that kind of challenge? I know it's hard to establish something like that on one's own, so why not synergize and use existing ressources?

I don't know them well enough and I am kind of shy. I mean, I do know lenija, but I haven't talked to khana in over two years and I don't know the third one at all. I know I liked the Wünsche Wochen a lot, but that was rather short notice and not really as organised (and would haven been more fun on DW with the higher character limit).

...There seem to be quite a few who 'left' (or rather, just drifted out of German fandom, into the beautiful plenty of English-speaking fandom.) Just my very subjective impression, though, from randomly talking to people here and there.

I think a survey would probably be interesting. I know I sometimes meet people on ff.de or LJ who are active in both fandoms, but I have no idea how many are active in what way in which fandom.

she brought it up again in our meeting yesterday. And it's so good to hear so much support for the feature request, it makes it a lot easier for us to argue for it to coders if we can show how excited people are!

I didn't miss a meeting again, did I? And I think most translation volunteers would be excited. All we would need to celebrate this is a challenge to translate fic.

[lian]

Oooh interesting idea! A survey linked from metafandom and German language comms would probably even get some responses. Which language do you use for participating in fandom? what do you mainly use for writing fic? meta? etc. (of course, it'd have to be in both English and German ;P)

Maybe also like, 'where did you start out at' (i.e. yaoi-based, media fandom, science fiction fandom, other...)

also, no, no worries, I mean our weekly committee meeting -- this is independent from the individual language team work :)

Aw man, you are such an awesome font of suggestions! Promote this feature by a translation challenge!!! * &hearts madly*

...we'd need to wait for the archive to go into open beta for that, though ^^;

[rodo]

And French, Japanese, Spanish, Italian and whatever other language you can fit in.

...we'd need to wait for the archive to go into open beta for that, though ^^;

Yup, and it might work best if author's volunteered their work so that the translators don't have to work up the nerve and ask, that has always been my problem.

[khana]

oh, we're absolutely up for stuff other than porn at ficathon_de, and would be happy for topic ideas and stuff. (I'm still all for a fluff challenge, but haven't managed to convince anyone else, yet...)
lenija is still busy with finishing uni and all that, but peaches and me shoudl be available for cooperation. :)


that said, what you wrote about the double-fandom ness seems familiar. I read MangaSzene rather than Animania (it was probably just later...), discovered fandom via animexx, and then delved into the depths of originalbishounen.de, as yaoi.de was for anime/manga at that point and I was never really into the fandom aspects of any manga/anime.

by now, i hardly read any german fanfics, unless they turn up on my flist, or someone recs them. I haven't really written fic in a while, but even though i usually loved writing in German, and did so often enough in the Potter-fandom, I don't think it's something I'll keep up now that I'm in a largely english-speaking fandom. (bandom) Plus, hearing all the interviews in english, the one or two times I tried writing a bit in German with the characters just wouldn't work. The dialogue was all wrong...

[rodo]

Hmm, I'll work on a concept (if I don't forget it again, that is).

I don't think it's something I'll keep up now that I'm in a largely english-speaking fandom. (bandom) Plus, hearing all the interviews in english, the one or two times I tried writing a bit in German with the characters just wouldn't work. The dialogue was all wrong...

I understand that. Seriously, I do. Writing the Pushing Daisies fanfic for Wünsche Wochen was hard enough because while I had watched the German dub, I had just finished re-watching the first season in English and that was confusing. And the Merlin fic I'm working on is in English, because I had a hard time thinking it in German.

[khana]

It's just so strange, because I never really had a problem with writing Potter in German, or Tamora Pierce-fic. Okay, so I started out reading the German translations of both, but it's still strange that I could adapt when it was written dialogue, and apparently can't when it's dialogue I heard, and the characters have distinct voices. And it is a bit annoying, because I do like writing in German...

If you come up with several concept or something, we can just make a poll again. By now we know quite well how to organize these things without too much work for us, so I think we'd manage fine, once we have ideas again. Just, the last one had so few people actually writing that we lack a bit of motivation to come up with another challenge...

[rodo]

I can switch languages sometimes and sometimes I can't. It's weird.

The last challenge was porn, wasn't it? And I hardly ever spend time on LJ and maybe lenija forgot to advertise properly (I know she forgot to tell me about your Christmas drabble thing until it was too late).

I also liked the fic exchange aspect of Wünsche Wochen a lot, because I got something in return. And the wishes were all over the place, fandom- and topic-wise. You could write porn if you liked, or fluff.

[khana]

yes, the last one was porn, in celebration of the first oen, which was also porn, exactly a year before. inbetween, we had the KINK vs GEN battle (ecause readers couldn't decide what they rather wanted. not that everything was really kinks or really just gen. most was somewhere inbetween, really.), then we had the christmas exchange thing, which was fun, but probably had not quite enough participants. and you're right, wishes are usually quite diverse, fandom-wise.
we probably should think about advertising outside of lj and the comms where everyone knows that it's coming up, anyway. will see about that next time.

(the christmas drabble thing had way too many participants as it is, without advertising all over the place. a few more won't matter, but as long as I don't figure out how to script something that does the sorting of wisher and writer for me, I don't think I can manage many more people...)

[rodo]

we probably should think about advertising outside of lj and the comms where everyone knows that it's coming up, anyway. will see about that next time.

Definitely. The ff.de forums might be a good choice, if they allow such a thing, and I don't know about Animexx, haven't been there in ages.

[lenija]

I'm available for cooperation, too! If I don't fail the exam, and I don't intend to, I will have finished uni in two weeks, so...
I'm also all for starting something bigger at ficathon_de. How about we meet in a chat in two weeks and exchange ideas? (I mean we, the three community mods, and everyone here in this discussion who wants to contribute ideas?)

[rodo]

Sounds like a plan.

Good luck, btw, in case you submerge yourself in your studies from now on.

[solesakuma]

And it's so good to hear so much support for the feature request, it makes it a lot easier for us to argue for it to coders if we can show how excited people are!
Please! Another voice adding to the request for the
Ever since I knew there was a translating team I've been hoping someone had thought of that.

[lian]

Thanks for letting me know! :)

[lian]

Sure, I would assume they're still active, but -- seriously, how would I know?

I wonder if someone would be up for writing a Short Histors of German Media Fandom (lol) for Fanlore (in German, in English, doesn't matter...I could always translate it.) But, while I am somewhat in love with this idea, I am currently in no position to run around and solicit help/writers, heh (I have procrastinated on settung y'all up as transaltors at the archive as it is...*cough*) Maybe another time...and then I shall use the ressources you linked :3

[lian]

I lost count how many times I went "wait! That person is a native German speaker?", really. *g*

[lian]

Okay, maybe I ought to....podfic it and hand it in at amplificathon

*is amazed about her beautifully dastardly plan*


the only flaw being, of course, that I'd need your consent. It was a good plan while it lasted, though! ;P