[Issues...?? Discussion?]

[bottleprince.livejournal.com]

Hello, I'm not posting from my primary account mainly because I don't know how sensitive the fandom is right now and do not wish to start a flame war of a sort regarding the subject I will be writing about in this entry. I just want to begin with the fact that I'm a huge Hetalia fan and I light up everytime I meet someone else who share these feelings so you and I are the same. I respect and love all of you in this community, for your entertaining contributions and for your creativity in general and for just being loyal fans with interesting things to say. The translators are doing a great job too and we've all got to respect them and appreciate them more. Without them, it wouldn't be possible for a lot of non-japanese speaking fans to follow the progress of Hetalia in the first place. I don't mean for you to kiss their feet, but just remember they're humans too.

This isn't what I wanted to talk about however, lately I've noticed other issues.



As the community is growing larger and the fandom is spreading, a lot more entries are posted everyday and this isn't primarily a bad thing, it's great that we're all supporters and that we want to show it, however. The posting willl only get more frequent in the future as we keep on growing and don't get me wrong because I appreciate that you're all taking an active interest in the fandom and it's a joy to see but sometimes I just can't drag myself over to the community to look at every single new post because there's just so much of it lately. Especially fanart entries, sometimes there are even more than one post by the same authors within tighter time frames and I find that a little strange. In the beginning I didn't mind but now that we're starting to get so many artists bundled up in one community, I'm wondering if we should have a time rule or fanart rule of a sort for posting? To avoid double posts and similar issues I mean. I know that you're all eager to show your next new work and share your (wonderful wonderful) creativity but to respect people who feel a little or the same as I do, I think it would be an idea to maybe think of what I'm about to propose as a choice?

To keep posting to a minimum, why don't all the artists, instead of making several small entries, gather up their fanarts and dump them all in one big entry for the sake of being more organized instead? I just can't seem to keep up anymore and that may be because I'm growing old and gray but I hope you can see my point... I'm not very good at english as it isn't my native language so I hope I didn't make a cultural mistake to offend anyone.


Another issue is the fact that we seem to be deriving from canon now, in this community. I love looking at all your "original fancharacters of hetalia" but that's it, they're mainly original fancharacters and as much as they have Hetalia next to their names, they're still original and not canon. It's fun to read about them and look at your designs, I respect your creativity full out so I'm not entirely sure how to adress this whole situation in the first place, I guess I don't really want to call it an issue but more than that just want to alert you guys that we're about to go somewhere else with this. It's a little bit confusing even if it's loads of fun.

Maybe we could make another community for the fancharacters? That way you can talk and discuss about them as much as you want and without confusing new hetalia fans that weren't there from the start and might get confused about the canonity if you post original characters to a fan community.

I'm always a little clumsy in my writing please bear with it, if I offend anyone, please point out what you thought was offensive and I'll try to make it clearer. I'm not a linguist, just a clumsy and silly fan who needed to vent some of their thoughts. Maybe see this as feedback and points that could be improved?



Thanks for reading and please ask me if you don't understand something I was saying.

Comments

[ekmisao.livejournal.com]

No, I understood. I'm also concerned about that first issue you raised. I mostly just scroll now, and wait for the scanlations or mod posts. Sad but true.

[kazahayakudou.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I think that you explained your point very well and I think that it's very nice of you wanting to help organize the comm ^^ I'm one of those who made a character to my own country but I still think that the main subject of this comm should be about the canon characters. I would love if we could create an au_hetalia comm and post about non-official characters there and post about the canon here.

About the fanarts... I don't know... it would be only possible if we created a rule like: 'the fanarts should be sent to the mod and will be posted every week in 'xxxx' day of the week'.... dunno... You can always talk to the mod or owner of this comm and see what can be done about it. I think that the issue about the fanarts is a little bit more complicated...

[ormery.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think it might be a good idea to have one comm just for translations and stuff, and then another one for fanworks. That way, if people don't want fanart on their flists, they can just not watch the fanworks comm.

[synatri.livejournal.com]

I understand all your points, but don't you think this should have been brought up to the moderator privately, though? IMHO.

[bottleprince.livejournal.com]

I think it might be a little sad to divide the community up in several pieces when it was mainly made for all the fans to come together to communicate and share, but as much as I wouldn't want to see that it's just like how a nation has to divided into regions as it grows larger and in USA's situation, even states. @_@

[bottleprince.livejournal.com]

I was going to at first as I know the moderator personally and I probably should have mailed her about this but in the end I decided I wanted to hear the communities voice too.

[bottleprince.livejournal.com]

Yes, an AU_hetalia comm would be excellent. It would give a lot more freedom to discuss the original fancharacters.

I'm not sure what should be done about the fanart issue, all I can really think of is adding some rules to regulate the fanart entries or make a fanworks community as squeakyorm suggested.

[gokunobaka.livejournal.com]

I dont think that mod would have time for ALL these fanarts XD;;;
A lot of people actually draw so yeah...
I think best would be make rules about fanarts > No less than 5 pictures per post (this definately will give some people time to gather stuff ).

It would be best to AVOID posting ONE art with DA linkage.

As for scanlations - they dont come out as often plus they are linked with top page so i dont think they would "die" so easily among other stuff.

Also i think its a good idea to create "sibling" community with those hetalia characters ^^ Altho there must be someone who might do this too. Its a good idea IMHO.

[bottleprince.livejournal.com]

Maybe what squeakyorm suggested would be most relevant?
I guess maybe I shouldn't have written this post without going through my thoughts with the moderator first.

[need-scissors61.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree that people uploading fan-made characters should post on separate entries. Although it's nice that people are exercising their creativity, I'm not as excited about it.

Personally, I'm more worried about people making entries where I can barely read what they're typing. You know, "lol i leik seme/uke guys oWo;;; moar translators!!1" But that's because I have a short temper and hate chatspeak.

[need-scissors61.livejournal.com]

And by separate entries I mean on the same entry. Goddamn.

[bottleprince.livejournal.com]

And yeah, there's only one mod to add to it... XD;;

That's a good rule to ponder about actually and I agree with you about the DA linkage.

and yeah Scanlations, as long as there are tags, won't disappear among the entries, that's for sure so there aren't much problems there.

Someone should go ahead and create that sibling community and maybe then take it up with the moderator. I could probably talk to her though she's probably busy with work, we'll see. T_T I'm so sorry for the rushed answer, I really gotta go now. orzz

[alexander-rowe.livejournal.com]

I see what ya mean about the fanart and such...I only wait for the scanlations and mod notices myself. The whole idea about an au_hetalia community isn't a bad one, I'm very sure lots of ppl have ideas for countries that weren't put into the series and want to show off their designs....plus it'll make it less confusing for newbies to the fandom. I'm all for that.
I'm happy that you didn't go to the mod first; it's always best to hear what both sides have to say instead of just one.

[gokunobaka.livejournal.com]

I only use chatspeak when im excited @w@ XD
No no but srsly sorry if that annoys you, thats something i can not help (too much online gamesORZ)
Btw lovely phoenix <3

[frappetique.livejournal.com]

I think OCs is fitting in nationslash instead of here.. but that's just me. Anyway, I can see your point, I hope the mod will take a quick action over this matter &hearts

[gokunobaka.livejournal.com]

With that amount of fans, its IMPOSIBLE for one mod to smoothly check on fanarts. I mean only super-no-life-mod would do that...

In other words some CLEAR rules must be posted about submiting fanarts.
Its up to mod to decide on the rules but i think 5 pics per post would be good.
Same for other stuff like Hetalia related Youtube movies or (in near future)AMVs.

As for scanlations of the Dojinshies and such .. i wonder is it allowed here?
Since im going to have some DJs from hetalia soon i wanted to share but not all communities allow to post DJ's so Im asking first :P
Since you know MOd would be nice if you asked her XD

[cherryfruit.livejournal.com]

I like that idea...

[ekmisao.livejournal.com]

It was well-articulated, anyway, the issues.

For one, youkofujima seriously needs to get another mod or two, which is what the large comms do. One mod for each major timeframe (when Asia is awake, when the Americas are awake, when Europe is awake). That should free her to do more fanart, for one thing, and to keep her un-worried about the comm being her sole responsibility.

[ormery.livejournal.com]

I think a minimum of five pictures per post is a bit ridiculous, really, considering the enormous variation in how long a picture can take to draw and that sort of thing, you know? I mean, it's all very well to wait until you've got a few pictures together if you draw a lot of little Hetalia fanart doodles, but it would be kind of obnoxious to demand the same thing from someone who'd just drawn one big, detailed picture and doesn't do it that regularly.

[ormery.livejournal.com]

I don't think that would really be dividing the community up, per se – it'd just be making it easier for people to navigate through what's canon and what's not. It'd definitely be a lot easier, and trouble for the mods, than implementing rules about how much fanart can be posted.

If you've watched a comm where fanworks are posted, then you can expect fanworks to be posted. If they're not the kind of fanworks you wanted to see, well ... is it really that much trouble to scroll past it? I think one comm for fanworks and one comm for translations of official stuff would be the fairest, easiest and least complicated division.

[zephyr-design.livejournal.com]

Some of the bigger fandoms have sites only for fanworks - maybe that should be the case here? To reserve a site for discussion, scans - maybe graphics too - and other for arts and fics?

I agree with nationslash to post fan characters, though. Hetalia_au should totally be resered for a RP community XD

[braisinhussy.livejournal.com]

Agreed (unfortunately).

[lady-gyrfalcon.livejournal.com]

In my case, I think that once I have enough fanart proper drawn, I'd probably make a post, and just throw in any AU characters I have as an afterthought; so although it'd be there, the main content is still more related to the actual characters featured in hetalia. I wouldn't even think that a single image I had drawn on its own would warrent a post; I'm just not good enough, and grouping things together makes sense.
That's just what course of action I'd take in posting at the moment, so as not to take up the comm with things almost, but not quite, related to the community.

I don't actually have anything really drawn right now; bearing what you've said in mind, it's probably more appropriate to post original fancharacters to nation_slash, instead of just tacking them on to any normal fanwork dumps I might end up posting.

[frappetique.livejournal.com]

It won't be so effective with so may cross-posting IMO, I guess it is okay to post fanart / fics / etc like usual with bulletin community which will be updated each week.

[xxrosenredxx.livejournal.com]

A new community for fanworks and fancharacters seems necessary, IMO.
This community is completely taking over my F-list. We should leave this one to scans, news, and discussions.

Also, I'm guilty of nearly everything you've mentioned. I'm terribly sorry. ):