[babybaby, that's what love is for...]

[reenka]

I dunno if any of you actually know this about me, but, uh, GW was my very first fandom, not HP. I actually don't know what an officially claimable 'fandom' is, though, like, whether you have to participate in it and if you do, do you have to publish publically ('cause I did write some horrid AU fic that I never put up anywhere, way back in '02). Man.

I keep reading little tidbits like granate's latest and just getting my love for it back full-force; even though I flirt with other fandoms and still read the occasional Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan and Buffy/Spike and K/S fic, it's just-- nothing makes me happy in quite the same way 1x2 does. It's just so uncomplicated yet spicy! It's a bit like Sirius/Remus in that way, except without the, um, you know, eventual death and Tonks. ><;;; Just snark, war, comraderie and a sort of complicated-yet-not friendship I just love to sink my teeth into. Mmmm.

I don't think I could like, read angsty conflict-ridden inner-angst pairings all the time without coming home to my beautiful friendship pairings (well, basically just 1x2, 'cause ain't no one writing those novella-length S/R AUs, are they) with those long meaty fics full of slow build-up and teamwork and adventure and smut. Ahhhhh.

I keep seeing people saying they're apathetic about their main fandom (HP, generally) after a year or two or even more, and it makes me feel sort of funny 'cause I get these long periods where I don't read a single fic or write a single word, and with GW the periods are even longer 'cause that's how long it takes for the slow trickle of good 1x2 fic to build up, but-- I always come back to all my favorite universes. I mean, they're my favorites, why would I leave them for good? I'll always love a story or 5, though my standards do rise exponentially the longer I spend reading fic for that 'verse. I just can't read as much GW or HP crackfic as I used to, and the very idea of reading anything less than absolutely stellar Star Trek fic makes me laugh.

But yeah. I've heard people talk of being fandom monogamists or fandom serial monogamists or bigamists or basically fandom butterflies-- and I'm none of those, I guess. Because like, what's the label for someone who loves many different things to different extents at different times? What's the term for being unable to stop being enthusiastic about anything you've loved before, even if you take breaks that last months and even years (which I have)?
    I dunno, it just seems normal to me. I don't need to have anything 'new' left to explore about Heero and Duo, I guess-- I don't need to discuss them, and I don't need to read fic to show me anything I hadn't seen a million times, but. That's not why I read it anyway. I read it to see old friends, to remember how it felt to love them, to hold their hand along the way to them loving each other one more time and wish them well.

One more time into the breach, Duo. And then another, and another, stretching into the horizon. Let your story never end.

Itsudemo. Zutto. Always.
~~

EDIT - Browsing through the outer_hogsmeade lj for HP fanartists doing nonfannish stuff, I've just found fushiafishes's Delirium!Luna fanart and it's all sorts of EUREKA! and WHY DIDN'T I SEE THIS BEFORE??! etc. Now I know why I like her. D'oh!
    Also, her painting of the Trio is So Good. Sort of the way earthworms crawling over the skin of a beautiful corpse is good.

Comments

yes, yes, yes!

[skrawl.livejournal.com]

GW was my first fandom too (well, there was Ronin Warriors before that but I didn't even know *what* I was reading then.) And yeah, same with me - I go and check raygunworks.net every few months to see what's new.
-- by the way, OMG!!! Granate's on LJ!!?!!! I've seriously reread her stuff about 10 times, and that's just in the past year. Ah, going to check that out right after this.
HP fandom sort of took me by storm and I was completely into it for about six months and then... nothing. It wasn't even moving on to something else, I just lost interest, I guess. Though today I read a really awesome story by Catrinella. So maybe I'll come back and visit... :-)
My current fandom is Stargate Atlantis. And oh my gosh, the fanfic is amazing. I *never* read schlocky SGA stories because there's absolutely no need to. There is no dearth of really, really good fic. And I think it might be the fandom to actually get me to finish something and put it out there...
What's the term for being unable to stop being enthusiastic about anything you've loved before, even if you take breaks that last months and even years (which I have)?
Normal? *Shrugs* I feel like that about a lot of (non-fandom) things. And actually, a lot of people too. I kind of feel like anyone I've ever loved - that part of me still loves them, even if I never see them.
Or you could call yourself a fandom slut. Nothing wrong with that. ;-)
I don't need to have anything 'new' left to explore about Heero and Duo, I guess-- I don't need to discuss them, and I don't need to read fic to show me anything I hadn't seen a million times, but. That's not why I read it anyway. I read it to see old friends, to remember how it felt to love them, to hold their hand along the way to them loving each other one more time and wish them well.
Yeah. That was beautifully said.
Though amazingly, people *do* write new things. Actually one of the things I find most interesting about GW is the AUs. At a guess, I'd say that maybe 1/2, and at least 1/3, of GW fanfic is AU or a take-off from the end.

Re: yes, yes, yes!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Haha, there's actually many people I know in HP whose first fandom was anime, and if it's anime it's likely GW, right, 'cause omg GW fandom used to be (? still is!) HUGE. And if it's GW, most likely even if you don't like to read 1x2, you've read it anyway 'cause yeay, it's everywhere! haha. And yes! Granate's on lj! And so are Sunhawk and Kracken and Becca Abbott and of course Ponderosa *___* But I've actually gotten pretty sick of reading the same-old-same-old with Kracken. Woe.

I just always come back to any fandom I was really into-- though it's been a -really- long time since I've read Highlander fic, I'd prolly read it if I stumbled across a good rec or something. Most people do say similar things about actual exes, but generally not fandoms :> Like, I know it's not uncommon to have one fandom you keep coming back to, but I come back to all of them, just-- uh, GW especially much 'cause I just love them so much and they always make me happy and omg there's more goodfic now than ever, which is just weird!

I know there's lots of AUs and wacky new plotlines, but by 'new' I meant characterization-wise, I guess, and romance-development-wise (like the general, 'how they got together' type). I love GW AUs, they're tons better & more inventive than AUs in like, any other fandom I've seen-- Buffy has good ones, but not nearly the variety. Wah. I adore fantasy 1x2 AUs when done really well. *___* And of course post-War Preventers fics agogo. If you haven't, and you want good fic of that sort, read the longer novellas from the recent gwyaoi.org challenge (http://gwyaoi.org). Especially Jei, omg she's so good *___*

I keep thinking I should dip into SGA 'cause clearly that's where the goodfic is, but I haven't even seen one episode 'cause I'm sooo very lazy about not watching any tv. I can get myself to download a few anime eps and watch them, but I keep planning to see an ep or two of Rome and Veronica Mars and I still haven't, and the pics of the actors alone aren't enough to get me excited. Wah. Not that canon generally -ever- is what gets me into a fandom, 'tis true :))

*pimps the sga*

[skrawl.livejournal.com]

I do think there's a few authors who are working on new characterizations... Sol 1056 in "Drums of Heaven", Maldoror's "Freeport", Karan Seraph's "Another Version of Events"... Jei too, come to think of it. But yeah, I agree that for the most part the different characterization has been explored to its limit. And there's nothing wrong with ol' safehouse-cuddling-for-warmth scenario, right?

If you're interested in SGA at all, I'd recommend starting with Intersections (http://anyroad.org/kaneko/intersections.html) (that's what sucked me in) or pretty much anything by Shalott (http://www.intimations.org/fanfic/#Stargate:%20Atlantis), especially Transcendental or Time in a Bottle (totally unabashed McShepper here.) Resonant (http://trickster.org/res/) writes some wonderful SGA fic too. I'm guessing since we have similar taste in GW authors... My preferences tend towards the long, plotty, and eventually very NC17.