gone off lotrips

[lobelia321]

Hm. So it's finally happened. I've gone off Lotrps.

I hardly read anything. I have to make myself read Lotrps, even by favourite authors. I am gravitating towards problematic and weird and shiny new and frighteningly old other fandoms in order to fill the void and get away from lotrps. I am slowly eroding my lotr-icon stash. I am writing HP, for fuck's sake!

So. I've got two WIPs on the burner so I'm continuing them. And then there's a humorous Dom/Karl (oh, how that pairing has dogged me for these past 1 1/2 years!) which I do want to finish at some point because it's funny. But new fics? Hm. Nah. Looked at some pics of Jed today: didn't even download. Saw some of Dom'n'Orli: did not download. This means something.

Now if it would only mean origfic, that would be fun. But instead it seems to mean self-torture with absurd HP fic and even absurder HP-fic-pairing getting out of hand.

Comments

[lovewithapathy.livejournal.com]

Aw, I'm sorry to see you go. I really enjoyed your work, especially The Desert Prince. But I can understand losing interest in a fandom. Lotrips is my third writing fandom, and I seem to rarely stay in any of them for much more than a year.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I barely classify Desert Prince as lotrips so DP stays. *g*

And what were your three fandoms??? And why do you get sick of them? Is it the same reason every time?

[lovewithapathy.livejournal.com]

Well, my first fandom was for visual rock, a Japanese underground music scene a lot of androgynous and beautiful boys. I used to be a writer on a jrock-fic list, but I lost interest when the list got dominated by groupies and I felt like I was in this competition to see who could collect the rarest stuff by the coolest artists. There were also some nasty/nutty people. It was only until I got involved with writers of more established fandoms did I realize that the jrock fic list broke and abused every rule of fandom/writer etiquette going and I was guilty of some of those abuses myself. The fandom was a good place to get all my biggest fuck-ups out, but in the end, it turned me off the music and the scene for over a year. Since then, I've tried to avoid as much fan-based stuff on jrock as possible.

My second fandom was Nsync/popslash. There were some great writers and I follow some of htem into lotrips. But I lost interest for two reasons. One was that I tried to become too involved in the "cliques" that were formulating, and it felt fake. Plus, I was friends with some disliked people in the fandom and saw too much cruelty of what authors could do to bully each other. People satirizing other authors' work, it just got meanspirited. The other reason was that, like you, I just got bored and frustrated with most of the stories. After a while, the storylines just got repetitive, and one person's creativity became the whole fandom's trend. I think my desire to write in the fandom officially died when I saw the theme of one of my series, the one I cared the most about, get co-opted by at least one other author. It ended the series for me, and I don't think I was inspired to write much more than that afterwards.

And the third fandom is lotrips. I'm trying to hold onto my interest and I see a lot that I like to keep me going. I just worry that I'll try to get too friendly with people or try to write "for" other people too much and lose my desire to write. It would be nice to stay with a fandom for more than a year. Especially since most of the writing i"ve been doing for this fandom really can't be easily changed into original fic.

So...yeah. :) Sorry if that was kinda rambly. I think in general, it was similar reasons for why I left both fandoms, but it was definitely a combination of people and writing that turned me off. I generally abandoned ship after I saw enough of my favorite authors/friends leave first.

But I'm glad that DP is staying. It's a beautiful piece and really raises the standard for what quality writing is.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Eep, you just posted a huge long comment which I found really interesting and now it's gone. Anyway, thank you for that long reply; it was fascinating. And thank you for your kind comment about DP, too. And I am also very intrigued by your origfic or converted-slash, and did you really publish it?

[lovewithapathy.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I saw how long it was, and edited it a bit before reposing. Also thought I should make it seem slightly less bitter. :-P

Well, I work on campus for a literary journal and I finally screwed up the courage to submit one of my pieces to the editing board (we're picky and cruel bastards, hence the fear). We do our editing choices anonymously, so it was nice to get it accepted on its own merits to a journal I'm proud to work for.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Origfic: did you get fb?

Campus: are you student or staff?

[lovewithapathy.livejournal.com]

from the other staff members...we usually have a large stack of submissions so unless there's particular disagreement on something, we usually just give our numerical gradings on the material (which we've read anonymously ahead of time), and that takes care of whether it's dumped, definite, or a maybe. I was lucky enough that people really liked my story and just generally said that they really wanted it in the journal. So not much feedback except an overall positive review, which was nice to hear.

I'm a student. The journal is student-run, though I'll no longer be on the board as I'm graduating.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this!

Hm, any chance of reading that origfic?

[lovewithapathy.livejournal.com]

unfortunately, our new webmaster needs to catch up on our archive, but I can email you the story if you want. What's your email address?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

lobelia40ATyahoo.com

[lovewithapathy.livejournal.com]

sent!

[giglet.livejournal.com]

Yup. Sounds like you are ripe for a new fandom.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Gads, everyone else is so blase and worldweary and 'oh yeah, been there, done that'. So what fandom do you recommend?

[giglet.livejournal.com]

What would I recommend to you?

Dunno. I could spout about my favorites, but I suspect that a woman who writes about arthropods may have unusual
tastes. I'll spout some of my favorites anyway.

I love smart oddball characters and magic realism, and I have a soft spot for outlaws and pirates. The pretty is nice, but not at all necessary to me. So I read:

"Due South" (which has Fraser and wonderful writing in canon -- "Gift of the Wheelman" is one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen.)

"Robin of Sherwood" and "PotC" both have outlaws and weird (in many senses of the word) reality. Plus PotC has Johnny Depp with gold teeth and braids.

"Magnificent Seven" has a cowboy for every taste, plus the whole dusty outlaw thing. The fandom is remarkably prolific at creating AUs and remarkably generous in sharing them. It's the only fandom I've ever seen where the creator of an AU will write a "canon" timeline to help other authors consistent stories within the AU.

"Buried on Sunday" (obscure Canadian film, also marketed under the name "Northern Extremes") is a quiet film about a fishing village, nukes, revolution, and the dangers of PDAs. Gus Knickel (the pretty with a clerical collar) is sort of like Steve Martin's character in "Roxanne" -- only Canadian. No magic realism, but definitely oddball.

"Buckaroo Banzai" is a teenager's dream of glory -- but with enough weirdness and unexplained characters and funky costumes that you can do nearly anything with it. It's a prime template for unabashed, geeky fantasies of saving the world from alien invasion during working hours and then relaxing by playing rockstar in New Jersey.

I like some of the more surreal popslash stories -- the genderbenders, the wings stories, Kaneko's "Vacation", the stories where they turn into animals. (Why hasn't anyone rewritten "Jonathon Livingstone Seagull" as Nsync slash? Is it because we're trying to forget we ever read JLS?)

Any of those fandoms would be improved by your presence.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

omg, these are even more obscure than what I go hunting for! But am strangely intrigued by popboys bending genders. And pirates, bien sur.

Thanks for this!

[giglet.livejournal.com]

Here's a whole page of popboys bending genders:
http://www.waxjism.org/pussycat.html

And if I can find it, I'll send you, "Walk Like a Cameliad"

[bunnysquee.livejournal.com]

oh dear ... are you doing to stop writing 'desert prince' then?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

No. Desert Prince barely classifies as lotrips, anyway. And Boring!Orli *will* be finished!!! (One of these days....)

Haven't I mentioned that I had a dream about DP when I was 16 years old? That was the bunny. How could I abandon it??

[bunnysquee.livejournal.com]

oh yay! i was thinking i might want to go read what's there ...

oh, and more Brad and Eric on mtv.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

oh, thanks for that link!!!

[bunnysquee.livejournal.com]

well, do these make your bits tingle?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

No.

I'm getting bored with his tongue-between-lips and look-at-my-knuckles and hey-i'm-cute-but-i-don't-care attitude.

[bunnysquee.livejournal.com]

oh ... how about these pictures of Karl?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

gnnhguh

*guh*

[bunnysquee.livejournal.com]

oh come back ... please come back ... i'll miss you so much. on the other hand, maybe i'll see you here: banalando?

[(Anonymous)]

Boring Orli *will* be finished
That is wonderful news. Of all your fics that one is my favourite.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, whoever you are!

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I'm one of those people who never completely leave a fandom. I can still go browsing some archives I haven't visited for years, pick a random story and start reading. True, my main interest remains on the foreground but I still take these little "side trips".

I'm sorry to see you go from LotR fandom (you're not removing your story archive, are you? If you are, give us a warning so THIS time I can save the stories I want before they disappear.) but I'm also happy to "gain" you in HP fandom! What is this odd couple -pairing you have?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Good lord no, I'm not deleting anything. I never did (did I?) so am not sure what you mean by giving warning because I've always had that geocities site. And I will continue my wips, Desert Prince and, er one of these days, boring!Orli. And the idea of side trips appeals.

I mean, it's not as if I'm officially saying: that's it, good bye. I was just feeling blah about lotrips and thought why not announce it to the world. *g* And if there's a fantastic fic out there, I'll read it.

And HP pairing: heh, no am not divulging. *gg* Thanks for those HP recs a while back there, btw.

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

Oh I wasn't referring to you, exactly, when I mentioned deleting stories. It's just happened to me before: someone gets bored in a fandom, moves on and... gets rid of the evidence or something. Very annoying. Also, the big BTF archive going belly up didn't boost my confidence (what do you mean, internet isn't eternal?). For some people leaving fandom seems to also mean leaving the people behind, too. I can understand it's boring to follow a discussion about something you're not interested anymore but it still feels like an abandonment for me.

Side trips are refreshing; even when I'm more or less completely immersed in a fandom, I sometimes need a break. I can go and re-read old favourites or see if my then favourite writers have anything new. In fact, I've been lead to discover new fandoms simply because of someone writes stories in several fandoms. It's like "Ooh, I like her writing style, let's try this one though I don't know the fandom!"

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. And the BTF fracas was disconcerting and disappointing. The site still exists somewhere, as a mirror archive or something. Hm, I think lazlet has the url.

[jayest.livejournal.com]

I guess the time comes for everyone. Maybe you'll rediscover it again someday...

PS. I'm in London! *waves*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Interesting how the time comes for everyone. There was a time when I couldn't imagine giving up lotrips. I threw away a Karl picture yesterday! What's become of me?

*waves*