Happiness/Sadness
Happiness:
Reconnecting with fandom friends has been AMAZING. I've only been able to find and get in contact with a subset of folks, but I'm thoroughly reminded of how much I love fandom. People excitedly recommending their favorites! Throwing headcanons back and forth!! It's been everything I could have hoped for. The lack of a wider community and of long meta is a little sad, but the people are still around.
Also, in the intervening decade, people have done some amazing things! There are so many published authors amongst the people I looked up that my list of books to read has grown substantially longer. After all, I once loved their fic, so their pro work must be even better?!
Sadness:
A decade out of touch meant that it is only now that I learned that sunhawk16 has passed away and kracken is very ill. I didn't know either well, but I remember reading their Gundam Wing fic as a teen. I cried when I saw Sunhawk's farewell twelve days of Christmas 1x2 posts.
Of course, learning this made me only fear what could have happened to all the other folks I couldn't get in touch with, but in the absence of data I will just pretend really hard that everyone else is well!
Reconnecting with fandom friends has been AMAZING. I've only been able to find and get in contact with a subset of folks, but I'm thoroughly reminded of how much I love fandom. People excitedly recommending their favorites! Throwing headcanons back and forth!! It's been everything I could have hoped for. The lack of a wider community and of long meta is a little sad, but the people are still around.
Also, in the intervening decade, people have done some amazing things! There are so many published authors amongst the people I looked up that my list of books to read has grown substantially longer. After all, I once loved their fic, so their pro work must be even better?!
Sadness:
A decade out of touch meant that it is only now that I learned that sunhawk16 has passed away and kracken is very ill. I didn't know either well, but I remember reading their Gundam Wing fic as a teen. I cried when I saw Sunhawk's farewell twelve days of Christmas 1x2 posts.
Of course, learning this made me only fear what could have happened to all the other folks I couldn't get in touch with, but in the absence of data I will just pretend really hard that everyone else is well!