Poll: Distraction Is Good

[thefourthvine]

I'm kind of - not too bright sometimes. For example, when I grabbed an oven rack to move it around without, um, checking to see if it was hot? That was a "not so bright" moment in my life, right there.

Also, ow.

So I want distraction, with a minimum of typing involved. It's time for a poll! With, ideally, lots of comments! Come on, people - please. Distract me.

(I do actually have a place I'm going with this, by the way - except for the last question, which is there solely because LJ is crazed tonight. I'm trying to find out what fans do and how they do it. Assuming the ice does its job, I'll have a meta post on this sometime in the distant, murky future. Probably.)

[Poll #830222]

Comments

[sinsense.livejournal.com]

My description of my fannish style got a little wordy, which I apologize for. I hope you actually find this sort of thing interesting!

I clicked gorilla, though it's something more complicated than that. I shift main fandoms about twice a year or so, depending on whether or not the group goes on hiatus (NSync), or I get really sick of the fans (Gundam Wing, Weiss Kreuz, and Harry Potter), or I realize I'm not very good at watching the canon (SGA). I'll be very devoted and single-minded in my attention to my main fandom, but once the honeymoon is over it moves back into the harem to make room for a new principal fandom.

I'm really good at inferring canon from fanfiction, so I'll read my favorite authors (or favorite recommenders) in any fandom, and sometimes will go on reading sprees in a single fandom. For example, I recently zipped through all of the House fiction I could find, since I was recommended one House/Wilson fic that got me hankering for more, but since then I haven't read anything. I have about five or six fandoms I consider myself a solid fan in -- aware of canon, main authors, kerfuffles, etc. -- but only one or two main fandoms that I'm truly obsessive about.

I clicked five years, since that's how long I've been on LJ, and I think 2001 is around the time I googled "nsync slash" and found helenish's website. Let me state for the record, however, that I am still the most rabid Nat/Dan (Little Men, by Louisa May Alcott) shipper ever, and have been since I was eight years old. I wrote a long, elaborate story about their Big Gay Love at eight, actually. It was AWESOME. And full of h/c.

Fun poll! Thank you. And sorry about the comment babble, again.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I hope you actually find this sort of thing interesting!

'Deed I do. In fact, I made this poll because of conversations just like this with people like thete1 and labellementeuse. Thank you for the long and detailed response; it was both interesting and distracting.

I get really sick of the fans (Gundam Wing, Weiss Kreuz, and Harry Potter)

This made me laugh like a drain. And then I imagined being active in all three of those fandoms at once (which I sincerely hope you were not), and I stopped laughing and starting shivering in pure horror.

I realize I'm not very good at watching the canon (SGA)

I'm a charter member of Fans of SGA Who Have Only Seen Half of Season One and Nothing Else, so I see nothing wrong with being bad at watching the canon. (I have a very low tolerance of/interest in most visual media.)

I'll be very devoted and single-minded in my attention to my main fandom, but once the honeymoon is over it moves back into the harem to make room for a new principal fandom.

*nods*

Yes; I'm like that, too, except that my harem is, at this point, huge. Which is what makes me a magpie (zoologist)!

I'm really good at inferring canon from fanfiction

Yay! Someone else who enjoys one of my favorite hobbies, which is reverse-engineering the canon. SG1 was perhaps the ultimate thrill in this regard; I had to reverse-engineer eight seasons of complex canon when I got in there. It was so much fun. (I'm saving X-Files, since there aren't that many complex, long-running shows to reverse-engineer. And now that I'm in fandom, I'm more likely to know what's going on just via spoilers and whatever. The supply of challenging, unknown fandoms is thus very limited.)

And dS was fun, too, just because I got to the point where I could transcribe chunks of episodes before I'd ever seen any of it.

I think 2001 is around the time I googled "nsync slash" and found helenish's website.

*blinks*

You started with the good stuff, you did. I'm impressed. My own first encounters were with LotR open archives. And ff.net. In retrospect, I'm surprised I soldiered on long enough to find the good stuff.

I am still the most rabid Nat/Dan (Little Men, by Louisa May Alcott) shipper ever, and have been since I was eight years old.

Huh. Is there any FF for that? Or is it more of a Fandom That Should Be?

I wrote a long, elaborate story about their Big Gay Love at eight, actually. It was AWESOME. And full of h/c.

I...I would pay money to read that. It does indeed sound awesome. (Although I'm profoundly thankful that my own childhood stabs at fan fiction are decently buried. And decayed into their component atoms, I hope.)