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Update on Guardian Six Degrees suggestion
Oct. 29th, 2019 06:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glymrI put up a poll and invited discussion a couple of days ago with the question "What would be a good tag for non-Guardian fics featuring Guardian actors?" Specifically, I was thinking of something like the C6D (Canadian 6 Degrees) or Hannibal Extended Universe tags, which are used for Due South and Hannibal, respectively.
naye suggested "衍生", which means "derivative", and I'm afraid I jumped to conclusions at this point and assumed that "Guardian Derivative" was already in use in Chinese fandom, along the lines of: "镇魂衍生 : Guardian Derivative". A lot of people expressed support for this option, but it's not currently widely used.
What is being used (thank you tolannamichaels and others for pointing it out) is "WeiLan Derivative", also known as "Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong Character Combinations". According to AO3: "巍澜衍生 - Freeform has been made a synonym of Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong Character Combinations. Works and bookmarks tagged with 巍澜衍生 - Freeform will show up in Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong Character Combinations's filter" (and vice versa). Click that link for a list of the parent tags and other synonyms, most of which are some variation of "WeiLan Derivative". The parent tags don't currently include Time Engraver or Detective L, but I'm sure that can be remedied.
As you can see, there are already 496 works tagged "Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong Character Combinations", most of which are in Chinese.
My initial, knee-jerk reaction to this tag was, "But that's not quite what I meant!" I was envisioning something broader, something that could be used for all those silly KFC and L'Oreal commercials, even if they didn't necessarily pair ZYL and BY. I love the idea of growing an even wider mythology surrounding Guardian, with all of these other characters becoming part of a fandom multiverse.
But let's be real. If we're writing crossovers/fusions/etc between properties that Bai Yu and Zhu Yilong have been in, mostly we're going to be pairing them with each other.
As much as I love the idea of a more general "Guardian Wider Universe" type tag, the more I think about it, the more I feel like the existing Character Combinations tag fits the bill in a lot of ways. Also, if we feel like that English tag is too long, we can start using a shorter version and ask AO3 to make it another synonym - ie if we wanted to standardize the use of "WeiLan Derivative" in English, we could do that. BUT, it would obviously have to be used ONLY on stories with some kind of pairing between a Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu character. That's the main drawback I can see, and it's not a small one. You couldn't use it to tag, for example, a character played by Zhu Yilong crossed over with a non-Bai Yu character.
It would, of course, still be possible to see about making our own freeform, or even fandom!, tag for a Guardian Wider Universe. Unless we start coming out with a LOT more microfandom crossover stories, though, I'm not sure it's worth it. I'd like to get others' input. I'm not going to put up another poll, but I'd like to invite comments one more time. What do you think of making the "Character Combinations" tag something that the English speaking community uses as a standard? Do you feel like we need a broader tag or a fandom tag to cover these types of crossovers/microfandom stories that might be of interest to the Guardian community?
naye suggested "衍生", which means "derivative", and I'm afraid I jumped to conclusions at this point and assumed that "Guardian Derivative" was already in use in Chinese fandom, along the lines of: "镇魂衍生 : Guardian Derivative". A lot of people expressed support for this option, but it's not currently widely used.What is being used (thank you to
lannamichaels and others for pointing it out) is "WeiLan Derivative", also known as "Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong Character Combinations". According to AO3: "巍澜衍生 - Freeform has been made a synonym of Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong Character Combinations. Works and bookmarks tagged with 巍澜衍生 - Freeform will show up in Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong Character Combinations's filter" (and vice versa). Click that link for a list of the parent tags and other synonyms, most of which are some variation of "WeiLan Derivative". The parent tags don't currently include Time Engraver or Detective L, but I'm sure that can be remedied. As you can see, there are already 496 works tagged "Bai Yu/Zhu Yilong Character Combinations", most of which are in Chinese.
My initial, knee-jerk reaction to this tag was, "But that's not quite what I meant!" I was envisioning something broader, something that could be used for all those silly KFC and L'Oreal commercials, even if they didn't necessarily pair ZYL and BY. I love the idea of growing an even wider mythology surrounding Guardian, with all of these other characters becoming part of a fandom multiverse.
But let's be real. If we're writing crossovers/fusions/etc between properties that Bai Yu and Zhu Yilong have been in, mostly we're going to be pairing them with each other.
As much as I love the idea of a more general "Guardian Wider Universe" type tag, the more I think about it, the more I feel like the existing Character Combinations tag fits the bill in a lot of ways. Also, if we feel like that English tag is too long, we can start using a shorter version and ask AO3 to make it another synonym - ie if we wanted to standardize the use of "WeiLan Derivative" in English, we could do that. BUT, it would obviously have to be used ONLY on stories with some kind of pairing between a Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu character. That's the main drawback I can see, and it's not a small one. You couldn't use it to tag, for example, a character played by Zhu Yilong crossed over with a non-Bai Yu character.
It would, of course, still be possible to see about making our own freeform, or even fandom!, tag for a Guardian Wider Universe. Unless we start coming out with a LOT more microfandom crossover stories, though, I'm not sure it's worth it. I'd like to get others' input. I'm not going to put up another poll, but I'd like to invite comments one more time. What do you think of making the "Character Combinations" tag something that the English speaking community uses as a standard? Do you feel like we need a broader tag or a fandom tag to cover these types of crossovers/microfandom stories that might be of interest to the Guardian community?
