Twilight vs. Everyone Else
OK, maybe not everyone else, but there are some glaring differences between the Twilight fandom and, for example, the Harry Potter fandom. For the purposes of this blog, I’m going to try to stick mostly to the differences in the actual fics themselves. I’m also going to compare mainly to Harry Potter, because that’s the other fandom that I’m the most familiar with.
In many of the other fandoms out there, there exists a little thing called the ‘Drabble’. This is a short fic, 500 words or less, that is just a tiny glimpse into one moment in time. It often covers one single conversation, or a character’s thoughts at a pivotal point in their lives. These are extremely uncommon in TwiFic. I myself have written four, and while I’m sure that others exist, I don’t know of any.
Another huge difference is the ratio of one-shots to multi-chapter stories. Novel length stories are not uncommon in PotterFic, but they’re not quite the norm either. There are literally thousands of one-shot stories, at least as many as there are multi-chapter fics. In TwiFic, the trend is definitely towards longer, multi-chapter fics. Novel length stories rule the roost. They also require a lot of commitment from a beta, which has many betas reluctant to take on multiple authors.
A HUGE portion of TwiFics are Alternate Universe or All Human. In PotterFic, the All Human aspect doesn’t quite apply, as witches and wizards are still humans. Alternate universe, on the other hand, is everywhere. The stories abound, but they still cling to the main theme of Harry Potter. The boy who lived defeated Voldemort and saved the wizarding world. PotterFic authors tend to keep as much of canon as they change in an AU fic; the story they create is still entirely recognizable as PotterFic. In TwiFic, as most of you have likely noticed, anything goes. The Cullens can be vampires, human, or nonexistent. Bella can become a vampire, a mountain lion shape shifter, or a lesbian. They can live in any city in the world, work any profession, in any time period.
Trends in TwiFic are different from trends in other fandoms, too. In TwiFic, we get trends like Tattward and Inkella or Nerdward and Geekella. Our trends center around general themes and types of characters. In PotterFic, there are trends like Pre-Canon (James and Lily meet at the welcome feast and can’t stand each other) and The Second Generation (Rose and Scorpius reconnect in college and fall in love). They expand in completely different directions than in TwiFic. PotterFic also tends to have trends that relate to specific couplings. Hermione and Draco, Harry and Luna, Ginny and Luna.
In TwiFic, authors twist and turn the characters and the story lines until they resemble the originals in name alone – and even then, the names are sometimes different. Edward has been everything from a computer geek, to a Doctor, a lawyer, an advertising mogul and a billionaire bum. Bella is the preschool teacher, the devout catholic, the 108 year-old virgin vampire. In PotterFic, the characters stay mostly in character. Hermione is a strong, smart girl who falls in love hard and stays there. Harry has a ‘Saving People Thing’, unruly black hair and his mother’s eyes.
Okay, seeing as how this is a vampire website, I did do a little more research into the other vampire series out there. I’ve read some True Blood, House of Night, Vampire Academy and Blue Bloods. I think the only series on our site that I’ve never read is Buffy, and I never will… The biggest difference between those series and TwiFic is the sheer volume.
I used fanfic.net for my numbers, only because they’ve been established longer than we have at MVF. There are 180 Blue Bloods fics, 1,504 Vampire Academy fics, 698 House of Night fics, 2,250 Southern Vampire Mysteries/True Blood Fics, 1043 Vampire Diaries fics. The winner? Buffy, with 38, 083 fics. And with more than triple all of those put together is Twilight. 135,931 TwiFics. Kind of puts thing in perspective, doesn’t it.
Of the roughly 42,000 non-Twilight, vampire based fics, I have no way of knowing how many are drabbles, because on ff.net, you can’t search for stories with less than 500 words. On MVF, we are slowly but surely garnering interest from other communities. We’re slowly expanding into those other series. Many of the True Blood fics we have are AU, but I still haven’t found one that’s All Human. I’m sure someone has written one, but I don’t know where they’re keeping it.
So, why the differences? I have no idea. Do you guys care? I don’t know that either. :)
♥SB
I m having my spring break right now so I probably just stay up until it comes out. I can’t wait for the movie to premier
Sarahbella,
If I could offer some suggestions over at FFn – Fardareismai2 (Oh my gosh… her writing is orgasmic!), Zigster, s_meadows, Suki59, Tradermare, Sunkisz… I could go on and on!
If you check out the Sookieverse community’s Fanfic recommendations at FFn, you’ll find heaps of great fics.
Happy hunting!
♥mm
Thanks MM! I’ll have to do some more digging for some SVM fic!!!
I tend to agree with the Harry Potter comments.
I think a lot of it has to do with the difference in the fandoms. The Harry Potters BNF’s were all (with the exception of the GTers) interconnected and from the same Yahoo Group so it was more tightly controlled by a smaller group of people.
In the Twilight world, with such a huge number of fics being written – I think people HAVE to write a vast variety of content just to stand out from the crowd. Besides the “control” over the Twilight fandom is not maintained by three or four sites but by a larger and more diverse group of people who don’t necessarily have an agenda.
I really enjoyed this post Sarah! I don’t know why, but I get off on statistics. Go ahead and label me Nerdules. OR not…I was just trying out the name-combo thing with me. Doesn’t work as well as with Edward/Bella/Jasper, etc.
I like the comparison between Potter fic vs. Twi fic; the differences clearly stand out.
I liken the Twilight characters and their popularity as muses in the fan fic world to the dolls you want to play with all the time. Sometimes you might go back to your Jem dolls (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) or your “My Little Ponies” (Southern Vampire Mysteries) but eventually you’re just going to end up letting Barbie (Twilight) own the majority of your time.
And don’t hide mischeviousmaya! You are welcome in this world with open arms!
Sarahbella, you’re spot on with the Twi fics – there are loads and it’s definitely anything goes. I’m not a huge twi fan *hides from the pitchforks*, but I love some SVM (Southern Vampire Mysteries). There’s a thriving community of SVM authors with stories ranging from A/H to canon. Eric has been an executive, a professor, a soldier, a playwright, a teenage surfer. We’ve dressed him up and dressed him down. Sookie has been written a number of ways as well – a hippie, a student, a thousand year old vamp. We mostly like our Sookie/Eric pairings, but I’m sure there are others out there too. The TB stories aren’t as plentiful, and speaking only for myself, I tend to just read SVM stories (unless one of my favourite authors has written a TB fic).
There is a huge difference (for me, at least) between the TB world and the SVM world. TB is all Alan Ball, and while the first season stuck pretty close to the first book…well, the second season totally veered off course. I know many of the authors in the Sookieverse didn’t like much of the second season and have stuck to using the books as inspiration.
Hope that ramble made sense! ♥