[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 :))

[toujourspret.livejournal.com]

Haha, GW was my first fandom, too. I made a half-assed attempt at Sailor Moon before that, but it was GW was really the place where I first cut my teeth on the whole concept of fandom. I wrote a whole bunch of crappy songfics and was generally pleased with myself. Some of it's still up, even, through I'd never send people to read it. I eventually moved on to a different anime fandom with the same initials (Here is Greenwood or Koko wa Greenwood, shortened to just "Greenwood" because that was the only part of the title the dubbies and purists could agree on). I was very active there--at any given point, there were perhaps two of us writing, with maybe four writers being a good month. I still remember being horribly flattered when the BNF of that fandom--you see, it could only sustain one at a time--called me her rival. Some of the best fic I've ever read was in that fandom, but it's dead now. The canon is twenty years old now, and though the manga recently came out in English and the OAV was recently put on DVD, it's just not the kind of story modern anime fandom wants to watch anymore (Kazuya falls in love with Sumire, who marries his older brother Kazuhiro. Kazuya gets stress-related ulcers because of trying to hide his love for her, misses the first month of class, almost gets hit by a bus, and finds out that his new roommate at the all-male academy Ryokuto Gakuen is a girl pretending to be a guy pretending to be a girl pretending to be a guy. Well, actually, this is all a joke being put on by his mishievous upperclassmen neighbors who are running a betting pool over how long it will tke Kazuya to find out that his roommate really is male...). It's still one of my favorite manga ever written, though. It's right up there with Tokyo Babylon.

It was right around here that I left anime behind and got involved with Harry Potter fandom. It didn't stick, mostly because I was used to small fandoms where the concept of BNF was out of the question, but also perhaps because LJ hadn't yet become as vital a part of fandom yet and I was too lazy to actually look up all of those sites for fic.

But yes, you should try Greenwood. We'd love you forever, and the fic that there is is good, even if the grand sum of it is about what HP fandom produces in, um, four hours. There's something to be said for the familiarity of a fandom with five people in it ;)

[toujourspret.livejournal.com]

Also? I was totally all for the 3x4. We were all so vanilla back then, appalled by the (in)famous Quatre and the Camel fic, whereas now we don't bat an eye at Dobby/Giant Squid. And remember when people refused to touch 3xCathy because of the barest possibility of incest? Bwah! GW was the perfect fandom to cut your teeth on as a preteen (as long as you never got too close to Madam Hydra, whose stuff still hits all my kinks): sweet, loving sex; romantic relationships; practically canon pairings (you know that surrender scene was a euphemism!); and loads of interesting themes discussed without the need to tempt in the dramallama.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, I also read some uh, Fruits Basket & even het Hana Yori Dango fics (ahahah, there were actually a few good ones! all by like, one author), but GW was the first time I found quantity and quality, and got sucked in making link-lists (on pitas.com!) and trying my hand at fanfic and having some awareness of 'fanon', etc, though I wasn't aware of anything about 'fandom' (like, this was before lj fandom for me-- or for most people, so I basically knew nothing about the 'dramallama', ahahah).

I really loved Here is Greenwood like, what, ten years ago when it first came out in the US on tape?? Haha. For me it's just those two really cool tapes I once got. It sort of shocks me to hear it mentioned by people every few months, but it's true I really liked it (ages ago). Hahaha, omg, I totally started out with the dark and dirty of GW (vampire!Heero, S&M!priest!Duo, pretty much the works), but then I was already 24, sad to say -.- Omg I AM SO OLD :(( I don't think I ever really 'got over' anime, I just started reading yaoi manga more than watching... pretty much anything at all ^^;;

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

I love you.

Also I really want to be in the GW fandom, but I haven't seen a ruddy one of it.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

<333333333333333333 *loves back!* *____*
...actually I... don't know how to 'find' a fandom. In a way perhaps I still haven't 'found' any fandom but HP 'cause I don't know anyone in it?? One just goes to archive/rec sites like gwyaoi.org & gwaddiction.com & raygunworks.net and... reads tons of stuff & finds out what one likes and uh... writes really bad fic that shall never be spoken of again! At least... that's what I do. See, that's why I wonder! Whether I've actually done anything! :))

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Oh, ha, no, I didn't mean that! Finding fic is easy -- I mean, I foudn it by googling 'Harry Potter' back in the (very first) day. I mean I haven't got any manga or anime and it doesn't look likely that I will for a loooong time.

Still, I can save it, I suppose. Although I heard anime fans are supposed to be even more batshit than HP ones, is that true?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Oh dude, most of the fun of GW is NOT the canon, trust me~:)) Though it might help to watch at least the (Endless Waltz) post-series movie which... sort of introduces one to the characters (which is what I did), but I don't think even that is necessary (you could look up info online, and uh, anyway, most stuff is pretty OOC... except the stuff that isn't). I've actually still not seen anything but maybe 2 and a half eps of GW (and that movie), AHAHAHAHAH. *coughs* I'm... not so good with the canon in... er... all my fandoms. I mean, with HP things are better than everywhere else but they're still not... utterly 100%. Um. -.-;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

WHAT I MEAN TO SAY IS. The fic is fun~:)) If you... like that sort of thing. I can never really rec fandoms to anyone, 'cause like, people go for different things! Like, the reason I like X pairing could be something vaguely different than for fan Y or Z, so they'd end up not being attracted to a similar-but-slightly-different pairing in another fandom. Or something. I say this to excuse the people who like Evil Pairings of Doom in other fandoms :))

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Also, I have like, no awareness of how other fandoms' fans are like o_0 This is why I'm a bit iffy on whether I have -any- other 'fandoms' but HP 'cause I've never gotten to know any of them except through very light lurking (generally not on lj). I follow like...... one lj in GW, maybe sometimes visit one in Buffy (twice a year? does that count?). Basically, it's really freaky to me, still, that I got to know actual people in HP 'cause I got a presence on lj. o_0

That's what I meant with 'can you be a fan if you don't participate' (and are basically a lurker). I think most anime/manga fans are younger/more high on... something or other (....life??) but you can select your niche anywhere, I think :> Though I mean... there's like, one meta community for all of manga fandom and it's not very busy, so not so much with the deep thoughts, yeah :))

[malafede.livejournal.com]

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

Is this like a prayer?

ps: Heero was a bottom.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hahah, it's sort of... um, random, but I dunno about a prayer. *shudder*

...*shudder again*

[malafede.livejournal.com]

He was! Especially to Relena.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

........................THE NEXT TIME YOU DOUBT ME, REMEMBER ME AND MY SAINT-LIKE RESTRAINT RIGHT NOW!!! >:O!



nooooo, not the Relena-mention when I was being all cutely in love with my OTHER FAVORITE PAIRING :((.... -.-;
...heh

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Especially when she had a pink limo!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

YOU HAVE NO SENSE OF DECENCY DO YOU!! >:O

YOU JUST DON'T.




...I agree he's bottomish with Relena, but SINCE I HATE THAT PAIRING WHAT DOES IT REALLY MATTER??! ahahah.

[malafede.livejournal.com]

well it's the pairing that's gonna be so... DELUSIONAL!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I'M HAPPY WITH MY AUs THANK YOU.

[malafede.livejournal.com]

BUT HOW CAN PEOPLE IGNORE CANON LIKE THIS, LIKE FOR EXAMPLE SAYING I DUNNO, THAT HARRY IS GAY???

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

MY GOD YEAH I WAS WRITING SOME HOT HARRY/GINNY SEX JUST EARLIER TO SHOW THEM THE ERROR OF THEIR WAYS!!



I really was, too. It was sorta incesty/Lily-like. *__*

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Oh, God.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

payback is SWEET. :9

[malafede.livejournal.com]

Mostly, I worry about your slow degradation into less and less dimensional writing.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Haha, oh, is that what it is >:)
...That fic is still H/D, btw :))

[malafede.livejournal.com]

There's hope for you yet.

Draco always adds dimensions.

[triestine.livejournal.com]

Aww! Sherlock Holmes was my first fandom, in 1987. *blushes* It still goes strong!

[skrawl.livejournal.com]

my first GW fic was "Dangerous Liasons" by Christine (it's on gwaddiction.) So, then I was all like "Wait, 13x2 is squicky? But, nooo..." Though DL isn't that dark, just all her other stuff.

*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.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hee! Well, see, I was reallyreallyreally into the Sherlock Holmes stories when I was like, 8/9, but even though I was a -fan-, that probably doesn't count as a 'fandom'. :-?
And I was really into Star Trek novels and I even subscribed to one of those penpal mailing lists that assigned you penpals and I wrote to like, 2-3 of them, but, er-- is that 'fandom'?? *confused* :))