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Hello to my future self, have you forgotten how to smile?
(It's a line from a song and it's been stuck in my head on repeat, leave me alone.)
I didn't finish this last year because of coworkers catching Covid which meant working a very stressful job fifteen+ days in a row while ~4 months pregnant. It fell to the wayside despite me having every intention of finishing it.
I think it's important to touch on what I have done, where I have been and what I want to do. Especially as we move into a new year.
I've spent 20+ years in fandom, I've seen the rise and fall of several sites, the birth of AO3 and will probably last through several more. I go where the fanfic is, fandom itself is not important to me.
It's also been an exciting year for me. I successfully gave birth, I had my first major surgery and had an organ removed. I've grown and changed as a person. My outlook on life has changed entirely thanks to my sprog.
So I am going to restart and finish what I began last year.
I am doing multiple fandoms per entry, just fyi.
I discovered fanfic at 12 and immediately dove in the hardest yaoi I could find rationalizing it as I can read it because I can't participate in it. Which didn't stop my mother from banning from the internet for almost two years. I don't agree with the way my mother handled it, then and now for entirely different reasons. That I will save for a future discussion with my daughter.
Gundam Wing was the first fandom I read in. My first 'Big Girl' fandom as it were. I learned about rare pairs, I learned how to google-fu my way into finding what I wanted (the codes used in GW fic were especially easy to understand, what with the pilots being numbered and all). I learned I liked mpreg and boys in dresses. I learned a lot about myself and while I have very little interest in actively reading it any more, I do think back on it fondly.
95% if not 99% of the fic sites I used to read on are completely gone. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. I mentioned in my last attempt that 6x1 was my favorite because my younger self rationalized the age difference away because at 15 Heero was practically an adult anyway. My adult self is rightly horrified. I still like the rival dynamic, I still like some of the fics I read way back when. It's just not something that I as an adult would seek out and read anymore.
Honestly if I had gotten into the fandom now, I'm not sure what character would be my favorite. Probably either Quatre, Zechs or Relena. I don't think I'd like any of them enough to fanfic. Which is sad because of all the great fic that's out there.
Actually, I lied. There's one specific fic genre I still read for Gundam Wing: crossovers. Specifically the family reconstruction act ones, but I love any au. There was the centaur isekai like one I read 20 years ago and haven't been able to find since.
I got into DBZ before Gundam Wing, obviously, but my first forays into fandom were way more explicit than I was comfortable with. In fact, even as an adult I would nope right out of the sites I found at that time. This was my first encounter with porn ads and while it intrigued me, it squicked me more.
I don't like GokuVegeta. Gohan and Raditz are my boys when it comes to dbz. Finding decent fic with those two specifically is... still a challenge.
DBZ fanfic as a whole is not as high quality as I am used to. Also the DBZ fandom seems to skew more... skeevy. (I would say that I am the skeez, but even on ff.n and AO3 I run into fic that has a high squick value.) That's not counting the fandom specific sites. I miss the old BoxerxRice.
I didn't really learn anything specific about myself from DBZ aside from I really like alien cultures and world building. I knew that already.
Since I feel I haven't covered enough in this entry, I'm also going to touch upon another fandom: Ronin Warriors. Also a favorite that predates Gundam Wing.
Baby me was scared to wander in the fandom when I first started. It seemed to skew slightly older and that made me anxious. Also most of the sites I found proudly proclaimed they were adult without any of the nonsense that people used to do to hide their sites from people's gazes.
However, what few fanfics I did read stuck with me for a long while.
Ryo is my <3. I like Sage/Ryo the best, but I could really go for any of the boys except for Kenju(?). It's been ages since I actually read in it.
From Ronin Warriors I discovered I really liked the team as family dynamic (and from there pack dynamics). I honestly didn't need a pairing in Ronin Warrior fic, which is why I still like genfic.
There's a big fanfic site/author in this fandom I never really got into, but it brings me joy to see that they're still around. Especially since 90% of the sites I used to read on are down. P.L Nunn's site might be up, I haven't checked in a while. (It was my first site with actual drawn dicks, I remember that).
(It's a line from a song and it's been stuck in my head on repeat, leave me alone.)
I didn't finish this last year because of coworkers catching Covid which meant working a very stressful job fifteen+ days in a row while ~4 months pregnant. It fell to the wayside despite me having every intention of finishing it.
I think it's important to touch on what I have done, where I have been and what I want to do. Especially as we move into a new year.
I've spent 20+ years in fandom, I've seen the rise and fall of several sites, the birth of AO3 and will probably last through several more. I go where the fanfic is, fandom itself is not important to me.
It's also been an exciting year for me. I successfully gave birth, I had my first major surgery and had an organ removed. I've grown and changed as a person. My outlook on life has changed entirely thanks to my sprog.
So I am going to restart and finish what I began last year.
I am doing multiple fandoms per entry, just fyi.
I discovered fanfic at 12 and immediately dove in the hardest yaoi I could find rationalizing it as I can read it because I can't participate in it. Which didn't stop my mother from banning from the internet for almost two years. I don't agree with the way my mother handled it, then and now for entirely different reasons. That I will save for a future discussion with my daughter.
Gundam Wing was the first fandom I read in. My first 'Big Girl' fandom as it were. I learned about rare pairs, I learned how to google-fu my way into finding what I wanted (the codes used in GW fic were especially easy to understand, what with the pilots being numbered and all). I learned I liked mpreg and boys in dresses. I learned a lot about myself and while I have very little interest in actively reading it any more, I do think back on it fondly.
95% if not 99% of the fic sites I used to read on are completely gone. I'm not sure that's a bad thing. I mentioned in my last attempt that 6x1 was my favorite because my younger self rationalized the age difference away because at 15 Heero was practically an adult anyway. My adult self is rightly horrified. I still like the rival dynamic, I still like some of the fics I read way back when. It's just not something that I as an adult would seek out and read anymore.
Honestly if I had gotten into the fandom now, I'm not sure what character would be my favorite. Probably either Quatre, Zechs or Relena. I don't think I'd like any of them enough to fanfic. Which is sad because of all the great fic that's out there.
Actually, I lied. There's one specific fic genre I still read for Gundam Wing: crossovers. Specifically the family reconstruction act ones, but I love any au. There was the centaur isekai like one I read 20 years ago and haven't been able to find since.
I got into DBZ before Gundam Wing, obviously, but my first forays into fandom were way more explicit than I was comfortable with. In fact, even as an adult I would nope right out of the sites I found at that time. This was my first encounter with porn ads and while it intrigued me, it squicked me more.
I don't like GokuVegeta. Gohan and Raditz are my boys when it comes to dbz. Finding decent fic with those two specifically is... still a challenge.
DBZ fanfic as a whole is not as high quality as I am used to. Also the DBZ fandom seems to skew more... skeevy. (I would say that I am the skeez, but even on ff.n and AO3 I run into fic that has a high squick value.) That's not counting the fandom specific sites. I miss the old BoxerxRice.
I didn't really learn anything specific about myself from DBZ aside from I really like alien cultures and world building. I knew that already.
Since I feel I haven't covered enough in this entry, I'm also going to touch upon another fandom: Ronin Warriors. Also a favorite that predates Gundam Wing.
Baby me was scared to wander in the fandom when I first started. It seemed to skew slightly older and that made me anxious. Also most of the sites I found proudly proclaimed they were adult without any of the nonsense that people used to do to hide their sites from people's gazes.
However, what few fanfics I did read stuck with me for a long while.
Ryo is my <3. I like Sage/Ryo the best, but I could really go for any of the boys except for Kenju(?). It's been ages since I actually read in it.
From Ronin Warriors I discovered I really liked the team as family dynamic (and from there pack dynamics). I honestly didn't need a pairing in Ronin Warrior fic, which is why I still like genfic.
There's a big fanfic site/author in this fandom I never really got into, but it brings me joy to see that they're still around. Especially since 90% of the sites I used to read on are down. P.L Nunn's site might be up, I haven't checked in a while. (It was my first site with actual drawn dicks, I remember that).
