Until we meet again.
I must say I never thought I'd have to make a post like this. Many was the time through my adolescence when I was scared by the very thought of doing what I've decided I must now do, but I think by this point my news will come as a surprise to very few: I haven't exactly been active in fandom since August, after all.
This is my cliched Farewell to Fandom post. In hindsight, I can see that this has been coming for quite some time now. It's a hard thing, however, to let go.
I entered fandom when I was thirteen, and kept quiet about my age for a while. I was known to be a mature writer in any case; it always came as a shock for people to hear how old I was. I have fandom to thank for teaching me to expand my borders, for teaching me to explore new worlds and to aim, always, for self-improvement. Fandom gave me a means of learning how to endure peer critique, and it gave me the means to hone (albeit after quite some time) a style of my own. I think I've accomplished a few decent things in both of my major fandoms, Gundam Wing and Harry Potter, and, more importantly, my experiences, especially with Harry Potter, have shaped me as a writer and as a person.
Ironically, however, it's precisely because the Harry Potter fandom has helped shape me as a person that I've come to realise that fandom affects me in a lot of negative ways. There are elements of jealousy, of petty wank, of unintended pretention, and, ultimately, of tremendous feelings of inadequacy that this fandom has brought out in me. Though I haven't involved myself in any scandals I feel the person I am in fandom, at least internally, is an ugly, possessive, pushy, judgmental and bitter person, and I don't like her one bit. I don't like being late on everything, and reneging on promises, on deadlines -- that's not me; I know it's not, but I can't understand why that's who I've become in fandom, and I don't think I can fix it.
Moreover, there is a sense of competitiveness, a constant hype in fandom - as there is in media in general - that has always made me almost physically ill. The concept of a "must see" movie, or a book with rave reviews, or a fic, a picture, a game, a flash-clip, or a secret spot on JKR's site, quite honestly overwhelms me; I get sick with the feelings of competitiveness it seems to evoke, of the sort of mentality that you need to have seen or read or done these things to be "with it." I've come to despise the time leading up to a new book or movie release, just because of the competitiveness it seems to provoke. It's a mentality that makes people strive to be the first to read something, or see something, or find something -- or at least it makes me feel I should be striving to be the first with the big news -- and that only furthers feelings of inadequacy for me. It's so easy to feel cut out of things; miss a day and you're out of the headspace. It's surreal, and that scares me. This sort of frantic consumer mentality spooks me. I'm the same way with icons/logos/anything of that kind. It's pretty weird, and I can't entirely explain it, so I hope you can forgive me if I don't try any further.
Ultimately, though, I started falling out of fandom in August because that was when I started to think in earnest about the novel project I've been working on this past while. I've always been an avid writer, but in the last year or so I've come to feel that the time I spend RPing or writing for fanfiction is detracting from time I'd actually like to be spending on my stories. Being pulled back into fandom for a stint in late November threw me off course for the novel writing; HP characters started taking up space in my head instead, and I became wholly wrapped up in their goings on. Reading fics affects me greatly, to the detriment of all my writing efforts in original fiction, and to my great frustration.
Writing means a lot to me. Quite frankly, writing is my life. I want more time to work on my short stories again, more time to make my novel what I want it to be. I want to have time to focus on my poetry and plays. I want my worlds back. And, as much as I dearly love and always will love the world of Harry Potter, I feel it's standing in my way. During the course of writing my Smutmas fic this year, I came to realise it could well be the last piece of HP fanfiction I've finished; that, and the process of writing it really clinched my desire to leave fandom entirely, as it made me realise that fandom has, in many ways, become a chore for me. I am loathe to say so, but that's pretty much the truth. That's what it seems to me, at least, when I'm asked to RP, or when I think of the RPing roles I have, or when I remember all the fics I have waiting, half-finished -- all the promises I haven't been able to keep. It's become a chore for me, and a burden. It's not fun anymore. So I think it's to my benefit to bow out.
But, on that note, I would like to say that it has been a tremendous journey, being in the Harry Potter fandom. I'd also like to say that I don't want you to think I look back with bitterness on any of this; this is one of the saddest decisions I've ever had to make in my life. It's hard, because I've made a lot of friends here, and had a lot of good times. Shared and read a lot of good fic! It's been wonderful. YOU have been wonderful. I thank you all for reading my work, for friending me, or for just existing in the fandom.
In particular, I'd like to thank imochan, who brought me into Gundam Wing in grade nine, and who has since then been my closest and most inspirational fanfiction buddy. The sheer number of hours we spent RPing in high school is beyond measurement, and her writing has played a tremendous part in helping me define my writing style. Even now I have only to read something of hers to feel supremely inadequate about my own writing; witnessing and envying her development as a writer has been an honour. I hope she never abandons her writing, because I do indeed expect great things from her on that front. :D
Also, I'd like to thank soothsayer87 for putting up with me for so many years! Truly, she made the Gundam Wing fandom worthwhile for me. When no one would read my fics, as I was a newbie, she was a big fan, just as I was of her. We talked back and forth on GW forums all the time, passing praises and detailed MSTs on a regular basis. Now I'm honoured to have her assess my original fiction; she's just about the only person I will let edit my work, because I've got such tremendous respect for her nitpicking. More than that, Lyssira was the first person who made me realise that, yes, you CAN maintain strong relationships with people you meet in fandom. She used to write me emails when she worried about how I was doing, and sometimes all it took was a note from her to make my day. Lyssira, it is a pleasure to know you. Thank you for making my first fandom so enjoyable.
si_ta, I'm so glad to see you taking part in HP now, and I must say I think your writing continues to blossom all the time. I look back very fondly on our times together in GW and other RPGs. You're a wonderful individual who really deserves the best; another person who really made GW a friendly environment for me. Keep up the great work and the phenomenal attitude; much love.
Along the very same lines, I'd like to thank rosesanguina for being such a warm, kindhearted, and enthusiastic member of the HP fandom. What Lyssira was for me in GW, Jules has been for me in HP. It's been an honour to get to know you, and to share good times and bad alike. I've enjoyed watching your writing style change throughout the time I've known you, and I thank you for being the energy behind so many wonderful projects and fics. Truly, I hope to be able to continue correspondence with you outside of fandom; you're a beautiful person inside and out, and you've always made HP a pleasure for me. Much love.
Beyond that, the list of "thank you"s is a huge one. There are so many people I've run into in the HP fandom who've shared my interests and passions for various pairings or styles or stories; so many writers I've admired. You're all truly astounding people, and I do hope wankery will not again run through you. What I've always loved about this fandom is how exceptionally talented everyone is. Truly, HPers on livejournal have done tremendous things to maintain a level of excellence in HP fiction, and you all have my long-standing respect for that achievement. I wish I could take the time to laud all of you, but I'm just going to have to sit tight instead, and hope the natural course of fandom events will put each and every one of you in the spotlight you deserve when the time comes. :D
In closing, I'd like to again thank everyone who's been following this journal, everyone who ever responded or just read a fic I've posted here. I'm not going to take down this journal; I'd like my fiction to remain open to the public. In regards to RPs that I'm a member of, I will maintain my journals as needed until replacements can be found. I'm sorry I couldn't offer the longterm commitment some of these stunning RPGs most definitely require. And I am also handing over the queerditch_pub torch; it was a great deal of fun putting together, and a lot of brilliant work has come out of it, but here, too, I think it's time for me to move on. However, I'd just like to say that I think the Queerditchers are, and will always remain, a fine and beautiful group of people. Happy drabbling, all of you!
Furthermore, it doesn't look like I'll be finishing a lot of the fics I have sitting on my computer - Sleep Wake Hope and Then, especially - but, surprise surprise, some personal disappointments are necessary in life. I still think I'm making the choice that's right for me, and for my goals. If any of you would like to follow up on me in my original writing / real life, my main journal, which is oftentimes more a source of extreme punditry than anything else, is blue_lightning. I'd be honoured to have your readership.
That said, I wish you all the best of luck, regardless of ship, or fandom, or Real Life pursuit. May the sun keep on shining over you, may your words keep on flowing, and may there never be a shortage of puppy!smut in this world.
Hugs and love, peace, and goodbye, fandom.
This is my cliched Farewell to Fandom post. In hindsight, I can see that this has been coming for quite some time now. It's a hard thing, however, to let go.
I entered fandom when I was thirteen, and kept quiet about my age for a while. I was known to be a mature writer in any case; it always came as a shock for people to hear how old I was. I have fandom to thank for teaching me to expand my borders, for teaching me to explore new worlds and to aim, always, for self-improvement. Fandom gave me a means of learning how to endure peer critique, and it gave me the means to hone (albeit after quite some time) a style of my own. I think I've accomplished a few decent things in both of my major fandoms, Gundam Wing and Harry Potter, and, more importantly, my experiences, especially with Harry Potter, have shaped me as a writer and as a person.
Ironically, however, it's precisely because the Harry Potter fandom has helped shape me as a person that I've come to realise that fandom affects me in a lot of negative ways. There are elements of jealousy, of petty wank, of unintended pretention, and, ultimately, of tremendous feelings of inadequacy that this fandom has brought out in me. Though I haven't involved myself in any scandals I feel the person I am in fandom, at least internally, is an ugly, possessive, pushy, judgmental and bitter person, and I don't like her one bit. I don't like being late on everything, and reneging on promises, on deadlines -- that's not me; I know it's not, but I can't understand why that's who I've become in fandom, and I don't think I can fix it.
Moreover, there is a sense of competitiveness, a constant hype in fandom - as there is in media in general - that has always made me almost physically ill. The concept of a "must see" movie, or a book with rave reviews, or a fic, a picture, a game, a flash-clip, or a secret spot on JKR's site, quite honestly overwhelms me; I get sick with the feelings of competitiveness it seems to evoke, of the sort of mentality that you need to have seen or read or done these things to be "with it." I've come to despise the time leading up to a new book or movie release, just because of the competitiveness it seems to provoke. It's a mentality that makes people strive to be the first to read something, or see something, or find something -- or at least it makes me feel I should be striving to be the first with the big news -- and that only furthers feelings of inadequacy for me. It's so easy to feel cut out of things; miss a day and you're out of the headspace. It's surreal, and that scares me. This sort of frantic consumer mentality spooks me. I'm the same way with icons/logos/anything of that kind. It's pretty weird, and I can't entirely explain it, so I hope you can forgive me if I don't try any further.
Ultimately, though, I started falling out of fandom in August because that was when I started to think in earnest about the novel project I've been working on this past while. I've always been an avid writer, but in the last year or so I've come to feel that the time I spend RPing or writing for fanfiction is detracting from time I'd actually like to be spending on my stories. Being pulled back into fandom for a stint in late November threw me off course for the novel writing; HP characters started taking up space in my head instead, and I became wholly wrapped up in their goings on. Reading fics affects me greatly, to the detriment of all my writing efforts in original fiction, and to my great frustration.
Writing means a lot to me. Quite frankly, writing is my life. I want more time to work on my short stories again, more time to make my novel what I want it to be. I want to have time to focus on my poetry and plays. I want my worlds back. And, as much as I dearly love and always will love the world of Harry Potter, I feel it's standing in my way. During the course of writing my Smutmas fic this year, I came to realise it could well be the last piece of HP fanfiction I've finished; that, and the process of writing it really clinched my desire to leave fandom entirely, as it made me realise that fandom has, in many ways, become a chore for me. I am loathe to say so, but that's pretty much the truth. That's what it seems to me, at least, when I'm asked to RP, or when I think of the RPing roles I have, or when I remember all the fics I have waiting, half-finished -- all the promises I haven't been able to keep. It's become a chore for me, and a burden. It's not fun anymore. So I think it's to my benefit to bow out.
But, on that note, I would like to say that it has been a tremendous journey, being in the Harry Potter fandom. I'd also like to say that I don't want you to think I look back with bitterness on any of this; this is one of the saddest decisions I've ever had to make in my life. It's hard, because I've made a lot of friends here, and had a lot of good times. Shared and read a lot of good fic! It's been wonderful. YOU have been wonderful. I thank you all for reading my work, for friending me, or for just existing in the fandom.
In particular, I'd like to thank imochan, who brought me into Gundam Wing in grade nine, and who has since then been my closest and most inspirational fanfiction buddy. The sheer number of hours we spent RPing in high school is beyond measurement, and her writing has played a tremendous part in helping me define my writing style. Even now I have only to read something of hers to feel supremely inadequate about my own writing; witnessing and envying her development as a writer has been an honour. I hope she never abandons her writing, because I do indeed expect great things from her on that front. :D
Also, I'd like to thank soothsayer87 for putting up with me for so many years! Truly, she made the Gundam Wing fandom worthwhile for me. When no one would read my fics, as I was a newbie, she was a big fan, just as I was of her. We talked back and forth on GW forums all the time, passing praises and detailed MSTs on a regular basis. Now I'm honoured to have her assess my original fiction; she's just about the only person I will let edit my work, because I've got such tremendous respect for her nitpicking. More than that, Lyssira was the first person who made me realise that, yes, you CAN maintain strong relationships with people you meet in fandom. She used to write me emails when she worried about how I was doing, and sometimes all it took was a note from her to make my day. Lyssira, it is a pleasure to know you. Thank you for making my first fandom so enjoyable.
si_ta, I'm so glad to see you taking part in HP now, and I must say I think your writing continues to blossom all the time. I look back very fondly on our times together in GW and other RPGs. You're a wonderful individual who really deserves the best; another person who really made GW a friendly environment for me. Keep up the great work and the phenomenal attitude; much love.
Along the very same lines, I'd like to thank rosesanguina for being such a warm, kindhearted, and enthusiastic member of the HP fandom. What Lyssira was for me in GW, Jules has been for me in HP. It's been an honour to get to know you, and to share good times and bad alike. I've enjoyed watching your writing style change throughout the time I've known you, and I thank you for being the energy behind so many wonderful projects and fics. Truly, I hope to be able to continue correspondence with you outside of fandom; you're a beautiful person inside and out, and you've always made HP a pleasure for me. Much love.
Beyond that, the list of "thank you"s is a huge one. There are so many people I've run into in the HP fandom who've shared my interests and passions for various pairings or styles or stories; so many writers I've admired. You're all truly astounding people, and I do hope wankery will not again run through you. What I've always loved about this fandom is how exceptionally talented everyone is. Truly, HPers on livejournal have done tremendous things to maintain a level of excellence in HP fiction, and you all have my long-standing respect for that achievement. I wish I could take the time to laud all of you, but I'm just going to have to sit tight instead, and hope the natural course of fandom events will put each and every one of you in the spotlight you deserve when the time comes. :D
In closing, I'd like to again thank everyone who's been following this journal, everyone who ever responded or just read a fic I've posted here. I'm not going to take down this journal; I'd like my fiction to remain open to the public. In regards to RPs that I'm a member of, I will maintain my journals as needed until replacements can be found. I'm sorry I couldn't offer the longterm commitment some of these stunning RPGs most definitely require. And I am also handing over the queerditch_pub torch; it was a great deal of fun putting together, and a lot of brilliant work has come out of it, but here, too, I think it's time for me to move on. However, I'd just like to say that I think the Queerditchers are, and will always remain, a fine and beautiful group of people. Happy drabbling, all of you!
Furthermore, it doesn't look like I'll be finishing a lot of the fics I have sitting on my computer - Sleep Wake Hope and Then, especially - but, surprise surprise, some personal disappointments are necessary in life. I still think I'm making the choice that's right for me, and for my goals. If any of you would like to follow up on me in my original writing / real life, my main journal, which is oftentimes more a source of extreme punditry than anything else, is blue_lightning. I'd be honoured to have your readership.
That said, I wish you all the best of luck, regardless of ship, or fandom, or Real Life pursuit. May the sun keep on shining over you, may your words keep on flowing, and may there never be a shortage of puppy!smut in this world.
Hugs and love, peace, and goodbye, fandom.