WORLD OF TEXT FINAL FANTASY FANDOM EXPERIMENT: ANATOMY OF A FANDOM

[auronlu]

 So, over the past two days, I've watched the classic Who world of text graffiti wall explode into an incredible outpouring of the entire collective mind of a fandom, often with many different people writing simultaneously, and it was hilarious and awesome and eye-rolling and amazing. Every in-joke is there (often in triplicate.) Every meme. Every point of canon contention and discontinuity. Subfandoms. Amazing ascii art. Drabbles. Shipping discussions. Meta discussions. Discussions of the production team and trivia and mistakes. Vile puns. Jokes. Pranks. Touchy-feely comments about fellow fans. People posting their fandom blog URLs and ages and networking and chitchatting about this and that. Polls. More in-jokes. It's just...

• HERE IS YOUR BRAIN
• HERE IS YOUR BRAIN ON OUR FANDOM
• ANY QUESTIONS?

Now, Final Fantasy fandom is a good deal smaller than classic Who fandom — they've got a good 30 years headstart on us, after all. We're all scattered to the winds and busy with real life and work and other things. So I don't expect anything on that scale. But I'd love to see what happens if we put our minds to it. Sort of like capslock_ff in the old days but with meta discussions and everything else thrown in, too.

Are you with me? 

Then enough expository banter; GO TO THE FINALFANTASY WORLD OF TEXT and start posting. Stream of consciousness. Anything Final Fantasy. ANYTHING.

Comments

[cumuluscastle]

It's fun. Thanks for starting it.

[auronlu]

Are you the one making the gorgeous ascii art.?


You don't have to answer that -- part of the fun of this is that we can go back to the early days of web anonymity and have CONTENT without identity being attached to it -- but I can't help wondering who's the patient artist in the bunch.

[cumuluscastle]

Not I! I was impressed by it myself. I think I could do it, but I have never done it before and didn't even think to try. I don't even mind if I am not anonymous. I am just enjoying reconnecting with people more directly. Tumblr makes one feel a bit isolated.

[nan]

Oh man, this is so much fun. :D

[mintywolf]

This is the best thing! I just wish we could draw on it too. (I don't know how to do ASCII art.)

[auronlu]

It's just a matter of drawing using letters and numbers as the cross-hatching, and if you know how to get some of the fancy characters that aren't on the keyboard, you have a wider range of brush tips, so to speak.

But it's hard. It's sloooooooooow. And lack of copy/paste or insertion point means it's very tedious, sort of virtual cross-stitch.

The easiest way to do it is to use an online ASCII generator to examine a graphic and convert it to the characters that most closely approximate the picture in grayscale. But since copy/paste doesn't work with the World of Text javascript that's remembering what everyone's typing and where, any would-be ASCII artist has to open the ASCII art in one window and then TYPE IT ALL IN BY HAND, making sure not to miss a pixel.

Which is why I haven't done it. I was actually going to do an ASCII Sassyflan to get things rolling (with proper credit, of course), but I am laaaazy.

Someone is NOT lazy and has given us a few lovely ASCII arts. I admire, but wouldn't have the patience.

They're a throwback to my youth, since ASCII art was an art form in the early days of email and computers, before actual graphics capabilities had gotten past limited colors and piss-poor resolution.

[cumuluscastle]

Yes, it would take very long! Also, I have found that occasionally some of my letters get dropped when I am typing. Whoever is doing it is certainly dedicated!

[mintywolf]

I wanted to do a Sassy Flan too haha but it seems like a daunting task. But some of the other art there has been very impressive!

I love that one of the first things I saw was Waffles. <3

[stealth_noodle]

I've barely had time to add anything yet but it is AMAZING. I just wish there were a better way to look around than awkwardly clicking and dragging with my trackpad (or maybe there is, and I haven't discovered it yet).

[pete_thomas]

Hm. For some reason, the cursor isn't showing up for me to type in, and all I'm seeing is a blank page. Thoughts?

This discovery is most wonderful, however.

-EDIT- NVM. It worked after some loading. I feel like I'll write more here than I'll ever write in NaNo in my life.