From Stargate: Atlantis to Arashi, or a chronicle of my descent into Jpop bandom
This is sort of for my personal log (since my memory sucks sometimes) and for the amusement and edification of all bystanders watching this car wreck. XD Written sort of in flowchart/bulletpoint style, because I'm trying to wean myself from writing humongous endless paragraphs. :P Also a note: I'm not that stalkery, really! I'm just trying to be complete in my links, and to see if I can lure anyone of you darlings into my fandoms. XDDDDD
~*~ So I'm somewhere between a fandom butterfly and a fandom wolf; I'll change fandoms every so often but I'll keep them for a long time and go back to them from time to time. For my purposes, I'm tracing this as far back as when I got into Stargate: Atlantis fandom two and a half years ago (fall 2005) which I blame entirely on yaviasad. It's adventuring! In Space! With Pseudoscience and Gay Gay Subtext! That and the strong sense of Team feeling completely pulled me in.
~*~> And what do I do in a fandom? Search out the good fanfic, of course. The marvelous thing about SGA fandom is that writers and artists have flocked to it from lots of other fandoms, so there's almost a surfeit of riches in terms of amazing stuff to read, great art to giggle or sigh over, podfic, and so forth. In my bouncing around, I landed on the lj of thefourthvine, a hilarious person who recommends fics, fanvids, manga series, lots of things. Her recs are so fun (and funny) to read! About the middle post of this tag in July or August 2006 was at the top when I found her in September, which launched me into another fandom.
~*~> Hikaru no Go! (erjika will tell you that I'm always the last to get into a fandom, because when I found this one I remembered some of the art I'd seen as the header on her blog. About, oh, six or seven years ago. ^^;;; It's a series about a boy who is possessed by a thousand-year-old ghost so he can play Go, an ancient strategy game. But really, it's about how this boy Hikaru meets a Go-obsessed twelve-year-old named Akira, gets him as a rival, develops passion for something, and grows up. (It's neat the way this manga covers time, by the time it's over they're about sixteen/seventeen). There's heated rivalry! Silly ghosts! Angst! Did I mention rivalry to the point that they're practically married?
~*~> Through this fandom I found mousapelli, whose Hikaru no Go fic, among other fandoms, can be found here and also on her lj. You know how there are some authors whose writing you'll read no matter what, regardless of fandom, because their writing is just that good/entertaining/captivating/alive? From her HnG fic I started browsing her other stuff, and the top couple of posts on her lj include You Can't Help But Grow Hot, fic of Arashi + concert high. I had no idea who these people were, but the immediacy of the writing, the way they felt concrete and real, the nakamaship and team feeling all just pulled me in.
\/\/-> And here's where I take a little detour and talk about a parallel fandom journey. Getting into Hikaru no Go reminded me of why I really enjoyed manga (which was how I entered fandom back in high school), so I started browsing and rereading old series and checking out new ones. I reread some Naruto, and went hunting for non-fanfiction.net fic, and asked erjika to recommend me some, which led to maldoror_gw. Her characterization is brilliant, and she's good at action scenes, quite contemplative vignettes, has hilarious comic timing, yeah. I followed her into One Piece fandom when she started writing in it, and read all the manga to date between October and November 2006. Pirates! Teamwork! Awesome awesome characters crazy powers and character development and plotting...♥
\/\/-> I was also (re)reading a series called Hana Yori Dango, or Boys Over Flowers in US translation. Feisty, practical girl vs. four spoiled rich boys at an elite high school. The title is a pun on a phrase that means to choose the practical over the decorative. There's Makino struggling like a tough weed to overcome any obstacles, usually in a funny and obstinate way, sweet and sour romance, and it's a fun series. I'd watched part of the anime adaptation in college, which was kinda hilarious awful and overdramatic and old school.
\/\/-> Then a friend turned me on to www.crunchyroll.com, which is a streaming site for Asian dramas, movies, anime, music videos, etc. if you register. I was watching One Piece anime, and decided to see if there was any Hana Yori Dango anime on it. There was, and furthermore, someone had posted up a *Live Action* version of it. I was curious to see how much of a trainwreck it could potentially be, watched an episode, and got completely sucked in. Ended up watching, with my brother, both Hana Yori Dango and Hana Yori Dango Returns during the month of May 2007. I really liked Makino (the girl), and the guy who played Domyouji (rich boy) was rather entertaining. He had the best expressions. XD
\/\/-> So in June when mousapelli's fic intrigued me, I browsed crunchyroll for Arashi to see what I could find. First thing I hit was a music video (the little preview looked like there were puppets) for a song called Wish. (Go search for Wish PV on youtube, if you don't want to register for crunchyroll) Thought 1: Whoa hey this is the opening theme song for Hana Yori Dango! Thought 1a: Aww cute, puppets! I have this weakness for puppetry, muppets, and claymation. Thought 2: Hey whoa alfkjaoirn that guy with the hair is the guy who plays Domyouji in HanaDan! He sings! He has a band! Crazy....
~*~> I ended up watching a whole bunch of music videos, performance clips, and excerpts from their tv shows. Why yes, I do in fact have a weakness to pop when it's not US pop, I'm not sure why. Maybe because often the melody lines and rhythms are catchy and stick in my head and they're ones I end up having a lot of fun singing along to. And I'm so grateful that early tv clips that I watched came with helpful name labels appearing on the screen so I could match faces and names. XD Found more fic such as this one about horrific concert costumes which prompted me to download parts of one of their concerts from the wonderful lady_gemma here just to see for myself. XDDD They're....special. T^Tb
~*~> So yes, that there's the path of my doom. These five guys are hilarious, dorky, really care about each other even (especially) when whacking each other for saying dumb/pervy/ridiculous things, smoking hot, and even though they're definitely not the most talented singers and dancers of the talent agency, for sure they've got a lot of heart. (And are very, very entertaining. XD)
Maybe if I'm bored I'll insert a helpful flowchart. ^_^ I hope you loves were entertained and possibly intrigued, but I'll settle for amused at my expense while I flail over boys dancing over rainbows. With sparkles and shiny.
~*~ So I'm somewhere between a fandom butterfly and a fandom wolf; I'll change fandoms every so often but I'll keep them for a long time and go back to them from time to time. For my purposes, I'm tracing this as far back as when I got into Stargate: Atlantis fandom two and a half years ago (fall 2005) which I blame entirely on yaviasad. It's adventuring! In Space! With Pseudoscience and Gay Gay Subtext! That and the strong sense of Team feeling completely pulled me in.
~*~> And what do I do in a fandom? Search out the good fanfic, of course. The marvelous thing about SGA fandom is that writers and artists have flocked to it from lots of other fandoms, so there's almost a surfeit of riches in terms of amazing stuff to read, great art to giggle or sigh over, podfic, and so forth. In my bouncing around, I landed on the lj of thefourthvine, a hilarious person who recommends fics, fanvids, manga series, lots of things. Her recs are so fun (and funny) to read! About the middle post of this tag in July or August 2006 was at the top when I found her in September, which launched me into another fandom.
~*~> Hikaru no Go! (erjika will tell you that I'm always the last to get into a fandom, because when I found this one I remembered some of the art I'd seen as the header on her blog. About, oh, six or seven years ago. ^^;;; It's a series about a boy who is possessed by a thousand-year-old ghost so he can play Go, an ancient strategy game. But really, it's about how this boy Hikaru meets a Go-obsessed twelve-year-old named Akira, gets him as a rival, develops passion for something, and grows up. (It's neat the way this manga covers time, by the time it's over they're about sixteen/seventeen). There's heated rivalry! Silly ghosts! Angst! Did I mention rivalry to the point that they're practically married?
~*~> Through this fandom I found mousapelli, whose Hikaru no Go fic, among other fandoms, can be found here and also on her lj. You know how there are some authors whose writing you'll read no matter what, regardless of fandom, because their writing is just that good/entertaining/captivating/alive? From her HnG fic I started browsing her other stuff, and the top couple of posts on her lj include You Can't Help But Grow Hot, fic of Arashi + concert high. I had no idea who these people were, but the immediacy of the writing, the way they felt concrete and real, the nakamaship and team feeling all just pulled me in.
\/\/-> And here's where I take a little detour and talk about a parallel fandom journey. Getting into Hikaru no Go reminded me of why I really enjoyed manga (which was how I entered fandom back in high school), so I started browsing and rereading old series and checking out new ones. I reread some Naruto, and went hunting for non-fanfiction.net fic, and asked erjika to recommend me some, which led to maldoror_gw. Her characterization is brilliant, and she's good at action scenes, quite contemplative vignettes, has hilarious comic timing, yeah. I followed her into One Piece fandom when she started writing in it, and read all the manga to date between October and November 2006. Pirates! Teamwork! Awesome awesome characters crazy powers and character development and plotting...♥
\/\/-> I was also (re)reading a series called Hana Yori Dango, or Boys Over Flowers in US translation. Feisty, practical girl vs. four spoiled rich boys at an elite high school. The title is a pun on a phrase that means to choose the practical over the decorative. There's Makino struggling like a tough weed to overcome any obstacles, usually in a funny and obstinate way, sweet and sour romance, and it's a fun series. I'd watched part of the anime adaptation in college, which was kinda hilarious awful and overdramatic and old school.
\/\/-> Then a friend turned me on to www.crunchyroll.com, which is a streaming site for Asian dramas, movies, anime, music videos, etc. if you register. I was watching One Piece anime, and decided to see if there was any Hana Yori Dango anime on it. There was, and furthermore, someone had posted up a *Live Action* version of it. I was curious to see how much of a trainwreck it could potentially be, watched an episode, and got completely sucked in. Ended up watching, with my brother, both Hana Yori Dango and Hana Yori Dango Returns during the month of May 2007. I really liked Makino (the girl), and the guy who played Domyouji (rich boy) was rather entertaining. He had the best expressions. XD
\/\/-> So in June when mousapelli's fic intrigued me, I browsed crunchyroll for Arashi to see what I could find. First thing I hit was a music video (the little preview looked like there were puppets) for a song called Wish. (Go search for Wish PV on youtube, if you don't want to register for crunchyroll) Thought 1: Whoa hey this is the opening theme song for Hana Yori Dango! Thought 1a: Aww cute, puppets! I have this weakness for puppetry, muppets, and claymation. Thought 2: Hey whoa alfkjaoirn that guy with the hair is the guy who plays Domyouji in HanaDan! He sings! He has a band! Crazy....
~*~> I ended up watching a whole bunch of music videos, performance clips, and excerpts from their tv shows. Why yes, I do in fact have a weakness to pop when it's not US pop, I'm not sure why. Maybe because often the melody lines and rhythms are catchy and stick in my head and they're ones I end up having a lot of fun singing along to. And I'm so grateful that early tv clips that I watched came with helpful name labels appearing on the screen so I could match faces and names. XD Found more fic such as this one about horrific concert costumes which prompted me to download parts of one of their concerts from the wonderful lady_gemma here just to see for myself. XDDD They're....special. T^Tb
~*~> So yes, that there's the path of my doom. These five guys are hilarious, dorky, really care about each other even (especially) when whacking each other for saying dumb/pervy/ridiculous things, smoking hot, and even though they're definitely not the most talented singers and dancers of the talent agency, for sure they've got a lot of heart. (And are very, very entertaining. XD)
Maybe if I'm bored I'll insert a helpful flowchart. ^_^ I hope you loves were entertained and possibly intrigued, but I'll settle for amused at my expense while I flail over boys dancing over rainbows. With sparkles and shiny.