Scales and Tales

A few days ago rushlight75 posted about revisiting Phantom Menace fandom and asked for Q/O recs.

TPM was a huge fannish milestone for me - my first popular live-action media fandom, and the first one I got into as a slash fan, since my fandoms before had slowly converted me. :D

It's been years since I read anything in TPM, so these recs are brought to you by past!Krait who bookmarked them. (It has been a decade and more since I last read these fics, and I cannot vouch for past!Krait's taste; fandom in the early 2000s was a different place, and Krait in the early 2000s was a different Krait.) :D Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy them, rushlight75!

( Fics below the cut! )

More recs from past!Krait to come. :)

Her prompt:
Has Fandom changed since you joined it? Do you have the same feelings about Fandom now as then?

Wow, all right, I think the real answer to this -- after meditating on it for a day and a half -- is: my fandom experience has shifted so much that I can't possibly compare then and now in a relevant way.

( Three Points on my Fannish Timeline, For Reference )

To me, my fandom experience(s) have been so disparate from fandom to fandom that I don't really think of them as a progression, where change might be observed and attributed to Fandom rather than to quirks of a particular fandom. For one, I seem to zigzag across the book/film and anime/Western animation lines quite a lot, making it very hard to tell cultural differences from progressive changes; Gundam Wing and TPM weren't all that far apart in my personal timeline, but the "culture" of each fandom was quite different, which I attribute more to the community (and perhaps the greater connexion and the medium than to evolution of fandom itself.

I feel pretty lucky about the breadth of my fandom experience! I have been to a SF/F con, an anime con, and HP midnight book releases (in costume); I have met fandom friends ranging from teenagers to grandmothers; I have a basic comprehension of a number of fannish cultures, from the mainstream (HP, Star Wars) to the obscure (Lois Bujold, Eroica) to the obscure-within-the-mainstream (HP/SS in Harry Potter). I know how to read a manga page and where to find fic for a tiny novel-based fandom. I can compare slash and yaoi, have friends in both camps, and enjoy both styles, as well as where they overlap.

Now, post-HP, I'm in that odd limbo of "looking for a fandom," which is interesting and aggravating. (I got entangled in Loveless for a while, but the author's lack of updates means the fandom is evaporating.) I worry that I'll never find another huge and thriving and engrossing fandom like HP; and I'm not sure what will happen then. Can I go back to small, disorganised fandoms? Can I manage without a steady stream of fic to rec? If so, I clearly can't be "a reccer" -- so what will I become? Will I ever be more than a lurker again, even if being an unknown reccer is only a slight step up? :D

Another TPM sonnet, finished today but still in need of revising. It doesn't even have a real title, yet, and it's rather rough.

Sonnet to a Fallen Master

Now I must go along without your face,
Your gentle words, your ever-bearing strength,
To keep me running straight the weary race,
Turn after turn down the expanding length
Of days that stretch ahead, a whole life long,
Abandoned to my own unsure device.
Oh, Master, did I ever do you wrong?
How was it my own love could not suffice
To hold you in this world, here at my side?
Why did you run ahead, the Sith engage?
Were you with my love so unsatisfied?
Master, I failed you; in subsequent rage
I slew the Sith, heart open to attack,
But not even the Dark could bring you back.