What fandoms have you been a part of, and what were they like? Now of course, I’m talking about overall patterns, not individuals.
So far, my favorites has to be the Disney, Pixar, My Little Pony and Rifftrax fandoms. They’re just so chill! Rifftrax may be the most fun due to how close Bill, Kevin and Mike are to their fans and the fact that they don’t really have anything to fight about. I love that the Disney fandom has virtually no ship wars (its kinda pointless to speculate over who ends up with who. Its like, dude? The wedding scene was in the trailer) which removes a lot of fandom conflict. MLP is a rare fandom that actually preaches love and tolerance over proving yourself right, and Pixar…well, duh!
House MD was probably my least favorite. By the time I started watching, many of the people were either kinda crazy shipping fangirls that wouldn’t stop fighting, or mean snobs that thought that they were smarter than everyone else. I’m avoiding the Doctor Who fandom for the most part for this reason, because from what I can tell from TVTropes they tend to be quite divided, especially over some of my favorite characters. I’ve come to the conclusion that the more laid-back and casual the work is, the nicer the fans.
The only fandoms I’ve really been in besides Pixar overall were for How to Train Your Dragon and most recently, Homestuck.
For the most part, HtTYD fans are pretty mild, though I’ve seen really obnoxious shipping wars take place there from time to time. I only really associated with the fandom via dA and got fed up with them after a while. I really drew away from them after a really idiotic group contest where I and many, many other artists were basically humiliated “unintentionally”. It’s a bit of a long story, and I won’t get into it.
Homestuck is really hit or miss. Some people happen to have run-ins with the really rabid fans and are therefore scarred for life, or they have an opportunity to interact with super nice, level-headed fans. At first I was annoyed with the fandom because first of all, Homestuck is super confusing to start with, yet all the fans run around like it’s no big deal and it all makes sense. Newcomers or people who don’t know about Homestuck are literally left feeling completely confused and alienated and I only saw one fan I followed on Tumblr who reached out and explained it better, and gave a link to the site where you can start reading it.
Personally, I really hate some of the ships the fandom has. There’s so many characters (and so many TYPES of shipping, which I also won’t get into - you’d have to read to understand) that serious shippers see it as a huge opportunity to mess around and most of the ships don’t even make sense. One thing I absolutely love about the fandom as a whole is how ridiculously talented they are. Art for Homestuck is a bloated field but you don’t have to do much digging to find some really well-made art, not to mention crafts, cosplays, fan-made music, you name it.
So as far as the fans go - it’s really 50/50. Many are really nice, many are really obnoxious. (I’ve had experiences with both!) My biggest gripe is that no one, from my observation, really explains what Homestuck IS to newcomers, they’re just kind of like “It’s a really really great webcomic and it’s amazing and you just have to read it!!!” >:I
Apart from Pixar, I’m involved in Pony and Sims-related fandoms.
Bronies are awesome, they’re by far the kindest and most accepting sub-culture I’ve ever been involved with on the internet. As far as some of the more extreme parts of the fandom go, I try to stay away from those. Shipping characters from a kids cartoon (to me) is just plain stupid. Especially when the two characters have never been on screen at the same time and had an average screentime of about 4 seconds each overall. OctaviaxVinyl Scratch will forever puzzle me… The only couple I’m slightly comfortable with is Lyra and Bon Bon. Not in an OMG LOL LESBIAN PONIES way, more of a “Hey, they’re on screen together a lot. They must be good friends”. Rainbow Dash shippings are the worst though. I’ve read shipfics featuring Rainbow Dash that vary from Spitfire to Madame Laflour.
Fanfics don’t really interest me either. Of the small amount of them I’ve read, (which included Cupcakes, Sweet Apple Massacre, Bubbles, Forever and Always, The Spiderses, My Little Dashie and Past Sins) I’ve only really liked Past Sins, which itself seems to be hated a lot among the fandom. I’ve read stuff on facebook about how My Little Dashie changed peoples lives and that they were bawling their eyes out when they finished it, but I didn’t feel that way at all. I was more focused on the author’s weird similes and sentence structure than feeling emotional about a real-life RBD having to go back to Equestria.
Sims on the other hand… wow. Of the entire fandom, I’d say only about 15% of Simmers have the ability to type properly. I stay well away from the ‘official’ forums because most of the time they’re overrun with pre-teenage girls asking stupid questions like “Y ISNT MY TEEN SIM HAV A BABBY???/??”. I stick mainly to the Snooty Sims forum, where the majority of regular posters have the necessary brain capacity to use a computer properly. I’ve ventured a couple of times into the More Awesome Than You forum (think 4chan but with sims), but those guys over there are horrible to ‘newbies’ so all I do there is lurk.
Of the 3 fandoms I’ve regularly involved with, the Pony one would be the nicest, followed closely by Pixar (seriously, for a forum this size with this many active members, I have no idea how everyone stays so nice to each other!) with the Sims trailing behind.
Other then Pixar, I’m a fan of Pokemon. Also like 90’s cartoons. I have really never done cosplay. I do like to write fanfictions or draw characters from show I like.
Pokémon was one of my first. Pretty friendly community, but I don’t remember a lot of it.
Mario was another one. The fans I’ve met are a hit and a miss, really. There’s some really nice people around, but there’s also those with obnoxious Mary-Sues, rabid shippers, and girls who claim they’re Luigi’s wife. Ugh…
My most recent and longest yet is Donkey Kong. Very small fandom and almost everyone in it is quite friendly, but this one has a LOT of fetish art for some reason, and especially my favourite characters are often the victims. Nuuu…
And I still can’t believe how it’s possible for the Pixar fandom to be so friendly! Thumbs up for this forum!
The Incredibles and the X-Men, mostly. I have some others, but I can’t remember them right now . I used to be really into Kim Possible, and my buddy is still Henry the Lizard, from Amazing Animals .
Yes, and as much as it pains me to admit it, especially on a Pixar forum, it was Up.
Amazing movie, still is, but my obsession with it from way back was nothing short of embarrassing. It’s so bad to the point that I can’t watch the movie anymore.
I’m a fan of dozens of things, and I mean a HUGE fan, but sometimes I let one of my fandoms rest for a while.
Three out of the top of my head right now:
1- Harry Potter. The real deal, not the films. This is probably my biggest fandom, in the sense I know EVERYTHING about it’s fictional universe, and I mean it.
2- Star Wars. People can say what they want about some installments, but this series is simply IT for me. Yes, I visit Wookieepedia on a daily basis.
3- Indiana Jones. The embodiment of my love for adventure.
Avatar the Last Airbender: Often scene as the last good show to air on Nivk by 90s kids. This show is great from animation, to story, to music, to the voice acting. It was a great series. Sokka was my favorite chracter.
. I used to be really into Kim Possible, and my buddy is still Henry the Lizard, from 
.