So, what does one do when one has no work?

[amelialourdes]

Work on her Queer as Folk nostalgia post of course.

I think it's kind of a big deal. *nod* url_girl Ms. Reeface already got the ball rolling this morning with her memories of Maps and Legends and I recall how awesome teacher!fic was. If only I'd commented more back in 2003-2004 I probably would've ended up with more fandom friends. As it is, I was usually on the phone with my one fandom friend and we talked about everyone in fandom but didn't participate. Woe.

So, you know what else comes to mind when one thinks of QaF nostalgia? Wank. Lots and lots of wank. I don't know about you but I'm pretty knee deep in wanktastic memories. My QaF nostalgia post is going to offer up (searchable) wank because I'm pretty sure no one on my flist now was an active participant. (I'm wrong and as commented, just because some people aren't actively around doesn't mean that they aren't watching. I don't wish to rehash anything. As far as I'm concerned, those topics are done and closed, just not forgotten.)

Personal fan wank is different. I think that we know the people involved in that ... which I like to call the Great Schism of 2005. But um, you know, like the stuff on Fandom Wank. It's mostly B/M vs. B/J stuff because when has this fandom not been about that argument? Things of that sort.

What else does one want to see in a nostalgia post other than the usual fic, vids, etc? I am curious.

Also: leaving this post unlocked so everyone can feel free to contribute.

Comments

[darksylvia.livejournal.com]

Aw, man, I should post my last and largest WIP and release it into the wild so I stop staring sadly at it. It has a beginning! It has an END. But the middle is kind of jumbled and incomplete and I don't think I will ever have the will to fix it.

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

I really think that you should and then I'll get ridiculously giddy over it. I say the same thing about stuff I'm writing. I'll get there, I'll get there, I'll --- ... maybe I'll get there.

[reeface.livejournal.com]

B/M vs. B/J

Good times, good times.

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

UM, PIMP AWAY MY FRIEND.

(Should I unlock this?)

[ayesakara.livejournal.com]

"which I like to call the Great Schism of 2005"

Oh man, I remember that one. I think I came into the fandom too late to see any B/M vs. B/J wank --- I started watched QAF in 2004 just when season 4 had ended, so I didn't really witness the B/Mers at work. But the Great Schism of 2005. Yep, I remember that. :D

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

You mean you missed Austria/Poland wank? Oh, you will be informed my friend. I still think that the fight is constant between the B/M vs. B/Jers. We're all just fiesty like that. :X

Am also glad that other people remember the "event". I will not mention by name but I'm sure we all remember what it was called.

[rhiannonhero.livejournal.com]

Great Schism of 2005. Ugh. What a crappy year for QaF fandom. What crappy behavior from QaF fans (and some might include me and my behavior in that statement -- and some days I'm one of those people, and some days I still think my crazy-post was part and parcel for the behavior of the individuals it addressed). What a crappy, crappy memory. Bleh.

[rhiannonhero.livejournal.com]

Oh, but I look forward to reading about the other stuff! :) All non-wank stuff is eagerly looked forward to by me. (<--what a crappy sentence but I shall leave it. I like the word crap today, apparently.)

[xie-xie-xie.livejournal.com]

Ummm, dare I ask what the Great Schism was ABOUT? I came to fandom in 2006 and I thought the only schism was the B/M-B/J thing which I have no experience of but had heard about... there was something else?

If it can never be spoken of, I understand. ;)

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

I'd say that the vast, vast majority is always going to be the B/M vs. B/J. It'll never wear itself out for a hundred million, however long fandom is around. Hee.

As for the Schism, I know that I'm the one who posted about it since this was originally and flocked post and I don't want to hurt the feelings of those involved who are on my flist. I will say that it was very personal, very hurtful, and that person is no longer anywhere near our fandom.

[plasticine-star.livejournal.com]

WEEEEEEEEEEE!

*rubs hands in anticipation*

I was a lurker back in 2005 I was so scared from just the rumors that i didn't actually get an LJ until 30-06-06.

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

I'm also excited! Eeee!

Wait, rumors? What rumors? Were there dirty rumors about our fandom or something? Haha. You are welcomed into the fold with open arms. :)

[suzvoy.livejournal.com]

I found the show in 2005.

I NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING :D

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

OMG SUZ THIS POST WILL BE TAILOR MADE FOR YOU. :X

[aurora]

Oh man, I think I've forgotten about most of the wank. And about the amazing fic. *NOSTALGIC*

[aurora]

Also, I have no idea what the schism was about, even though I'm pretty sure I was there for it. *curses memory*

[merkuria.livejournal.com]

oh this is seriously making me weep...

finding QaF in 2008 is like being born past one's time, oh man. Not fair

[xie-xie-xie.livejournal.com]

I don't think I could have lived through it while it was still airing. I hate angst and having to live through the season hiatuses would have killed me dead.

[beloved4always.livejournal.com]

Hi, came here via url_girl's pimp. Just friended you and hope you'll friend back. My memory's not great but if anything you write jogs it I'll certainly throw in my 2 cents. I've been around since the beginning so...

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

I'll be happy to add you back! I very much adored your site and spent quite a significant amount of time there and of course will be included in nostalgia-happy-post. :) I think that we joined LJ fandom at the same time so if I'm missing something or a little blank myself I'd love for you to throw your two cents in.

[we-dreamerz.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I also jumped on the band wagon after all the BJ vs. BM and of The Schism I am unaware. Xie made a great point about the B/M...I for a very brief moment at the beginning of season 1 thought it a B/M thing.. but then quickly saw the error of my ways.

A Nostalgia post is a perfect idea. =) I'd love to learn about some of the things from first airing. Like...for those who lived through it...I'd love to hear about rumors and speculation..What did people think was going to happen?

Liz

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

All will be addressed in nostalgic form to inform the people who weren't present when it actually happened. I agree with Xie's statement. I admit I'd never thought of it that way!

There were so many differing opinions on what was going to happen, people who've long since disappeared, groups that appeared like Queers Who Hate Queer as Folk, etc. So, hopefully it'll be an informative post!

[juteux.livejournal.com]

Oh man, the wank was great. Teacherfic!! There is so much great old school fic.

[gaedhal.livejournal.com]

I'm laughing at the thought of that as "old school"! I'd
say more like Third Generation.

The Shipper Wars really began over on TWoP and got so bad
that they closed the boards down. To say it was vicious is
an understatement. Vicious and personal to the point of
attacking the ACTORS (which is still going on to some extent),
never mind the TPTB (including writers and CowLip), so it
went well beyond fanfic and basically involved everyone.

I was browsing through the posts from another fandom revently
and saw the name of one of the most infamous of the B/M shippers --
one who was heavily involved in the "war" -- and I literally
shuddered! LOL! It was an involuntary action, really, but
it happened.

The whole Austria/Poland debacle -- no comment.

Unless you suffered (and I mean suffered) through months of
hiatus for season after season, you can have no idea what it
was like to be part of the fandom then. Every rumor, every
smidge of info was dissected, discussed, debated -- And if
you think that would never happen to you, think about getting
offline and not looking at anything fan-related for 8 months.
How about 8 weeks? 8 days? See what I mean. I couldn't do it
and neither could anyone else.

[my2cats.livejournal.com]

I came here via url_girl's pimp.

I would love to read some of the *dirt* what was going on while the show aired.I watched QaF while it aired but didn't get into fandom until the show ended.I stayed mostly a lurker because some of the stuff I red scared me,lol

is it ok if I friend you?

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

That'll definitely be addressed. I think that was very much part of fandom and though I don't want to rehash anything, some information should be shared for those who weren't there to witness it.

Friend away!

[rinmonsterer.livejournal.com]

omg, I'm dying to read the hate memes :D I've read a lot about them on fandom_wank, but all links were dead or locked. Woe. I only managed to get to fanfic_hate and laughed my ass off. I miss wank. I'm sorry I wasn't around to see and live it. :C

And I also saw, I think it was on josselin's LJ, how people brainstormed ideas that later became fics like 'If you needed me', 'Blissed' and other?

Well, most of all I miss the people who left this fandom. :C julad, josselin, sounczech, erin. And the excitement over new eps, new fics. Everything. Wah. I'm waiting for your fandom nostalgia diaries, waiting so hard, like wow!

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

Aw, some were really, really quite vicious so I'm kind of glad those are gone. There were personal attacks on people that just went way, way, way too far. When it started diverting from the topic at hand or what was being discussed, that's when things got questionable.

Hmm, was it josselin's LJ? I don't remember that. I don't know if Myrna's fic came from there but it's worth taking a look!

I miss them too. I think that we really had some great people that were part of this fandom and that weren't caught up in the drama. The excitement was really the best part ... until a lot of us got screener episodes, lol. But, to come. To come.

[brianswalk.livejournal.com]

*waves*
I came over from url_girl's place. I was late to the fandom, but I'd love to follow your nostalgia posts. I promise to contribute when I can! I'm going to add you so I can play along at home, OK?

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

Hello! Glad to have you here and to check out the nostalgia posts. Hopefully you can contribute any memories. Maybe there'll be something post-Qaf where everyone can share more recent memories.

No problem, add away!

[bigj52.livejournal.com]

This is what I posted on urlgirls’ LJ so thought I would add it here. I thought if people were willing we could get some personal pics of Randy and Gale from our fangirls who have seen them perform in person. I look terrible in photos but I have a few of Randy and myself and my daughter from 2007 and 2008 at Stockbridge and I know quite a few fangirls on LJ who have been. What do you think? I just need instructions to post pics on LJ as I've never been able to master this.

ETA does anyone know why I have to log in every time I post a comment. Has something changed with LJ? I've been on hols so plead ignorance to any changes.

Thinking about my idea and thinking that it's not really QaF nostalgia but more Randy and Gale nostalgia. That's my two cents worth. And I totally understand if you think it's a crap idea.

I didn't join the fandom till 2005 and it was the Midnight Whispers forum while we were waiting for S5 in Australia and LJ till much later so I missed all that good? stuff.

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

I don't think that that would be an issue to display any photographs that have been displayed publicly. Private ones will probably be kept private since that's the owner's wish but I know that there are probably some known public photographs that people haven't seen.

Not a crap idea at all! Just like I said, I'm going to be mostly posting photographs that have only been publicly linked. I'm sure some people have missed out on it.

Also, I don't know why you'd have to log in whenever you post a comment. Usually, when you log in, there's something that says "remember me". Click the box next to it and you should be logged on more permanently.

[lady-jane.livejournal.com]

*clears throat*

I'd like to point out that I am prominently featured on one Fandom_wank post, although most of the pointing and laughing is directed not toward my actions, specifically. Ah, the good ol' days.

I do want to say a lot of my friends are featured in the other stuff. People who are still on the edges the fandom, but don't participate in public much because what we loved about the show and about the fandom doesn't have a place in the post-show fandom. That doesn't mean that our love has diminished - not at all.

I was reading above through the comments of people who just weren't around at the time. I've had conversation with friends of mine, and it's true, there is a very big difference between people who lived through the fandom while the show was airing and those who swallow the entire show in a sitting (and I missed the worst of it, entering in 2004 myself, but I have direct experience with the fall-out and the continuing skirmished that lasted through the entire show, believe me). Having to defend one's love and beliefs under an ongoing onslought of other fans, and what might happen (I imagined a billion scenarios for S2 in the nine (?) months b/w S1 and 2), having to explore every little bit of actors' comments and writer interviews in order to take the edge of the tension of having to wait a week, filling in the gap with endless discussions and arguments about the possibilities - it gives a fan a much wider interpretation and a much more entrenched, researched basis for belief. It's also a huge expression of love that consumed our lives for years.

People who come after all this know how deeply they feel about this show, about B/J, but they have no idea how it feels to feel this way and to have those feelings belittled, mocked, and assaulted by other fans on an ongoing basis, every little word taken seriously, put under a microscope and dissected - but this deep scrutiny also yielded a hugely creative effort that explored possibilty in ways we just don't see anymore, in a fandom that now basically believes Justin had to have come back from New York because to believe otherwise breaks the fairy tale. QAF, back in the day, was NOT a fairy tale. Or maybe, it was a fairy tale more like the original Grimm version, and now we're living in the Disney version.

The fandom now doesn't want to deal with the more grim results of the evidence and discussion that's possible, which is fine. It's just different, not wrong, just different. Dealing with the evidence, though, gave rise to huge ongoing productive arguments and discussions (and wank) that we just don't have anymore.

The atmosphere was brutal, and if you couldn't take your knocks and come back swinging, you might as well have dropped out of the fandom altogether. It was a VERY different atmosphere. Even the Mary Sunshines were hard core, and not sensitive so much as entrenched. So, yeah, people who talk of QAF fandom as one of the more brutal experiences, because it was. Everyone knows how TwoP banned QAF threads because they were too ugly. This is just a single example in a host of it.

I'm offering this as the other side of the story here, because I gotta tell you, in reading through this discussion, I'm afraid it made me feel very bad. It's not that it was horrible, although, yeah, it was a tough fandom - it was also really exciting and the idea that anything was possible was terrifying and wonderful all at once. But the idea that I might see my friends and even my own positions mischaracterized and misunderstood, or at best taken completely out of context because the lens of what is taken as acceptable in the new QAF fandom is making me feeling more than a little sick to my stomach.

I'm not going to say whether you should or should not do this, but I wanted to remind people that just because some of the older fans aren't as visible, doesn't mean we're not here and reading.

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

See, I thought that I saw your name there (as you were given a pretty big shout out) but I wasn't sure if it was you. And this is why I wanted discussion because in no way do I want to rehash old hurt feelings of people who were involved in some of those battles. I remember how bloody they were and how many comments there were and all the back and forth. It was brutal.

So, just to let you know that the focus isn't entirely on fandom wank and I don't want it to be. I'm just trying to bring back those happier moments that we had as a fandom for those who did experience it and those who didn't through (mostly) fic, videos, and some picspam. There's going to be major disclaimers in anything wanky related that's for sure.

[lemonbargirl.livejournal.com]

I found qaf in early 2006, so I missed A LOT of fandom activity, well, actually all of it when the show was still airing.
So, I'm very excited about your nostalgia post. :)
I religiously read my way through a lot of LJs, boards, sites, fics, discussion groups, etc, but I'm sure I still missed quite a bit.
The Austria/Poland thing got me intrigued. I need to know what that is all about. :D

Oh, and would you mind if I friended you?

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

I'm excited you're excited! Only gives me more incentive to gather everything.

That's a lot to read through. I am impressed! Hopefully I'll still be able to find some of these buried things like certain discussions.

No problem! Friend away!

[crazyharper.livejournal.com]

*waves* I've been around the fandom since season 3, but I was definitely never one of the popular members of the Old Guard, and I basically just lurked. Anyway, I think this is a really great idea and I'm excited to see all the stuff gathered.

I was wondering, since I haven't really been around the fandom lately and only recently started scampering about its murky waters due to nostalgia, if the 2007 QAF Reunion Lunch was discussed at length yet? Because I just watched that a couple of weeks ago and WOW. If there was any doubt in anyone's minds about which actors are still friends and which actors are NOT, that was very eye-opening. I'm wondering if anyone else saw it the same way.

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wasn't either and was definitely a lurker. I was barely a commenter even though I remember a lot of things.

No one on my flist discussed the reunion lunch. Since the two most prominent members were missing I don't think that very many people cared about it honestly. That's just my opinion from the perspective of the people on my flist. And as for the actors who are friends, though they may not participate in the reunion, Gale and Randy have been quoted and seen with other cast members even recently so I don't see it as who's a friend of someone else. :)

[galesweetie.livejournal.com]

Been in fandom from day one....TwOP/Showtime Board, but a major lurker until 2004.
I loved those days and I miss them! Cannot wait to read some of the stories.
btw I did friend you:)
Thanks!
fran

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

You'll definitely find some items that'll bring you right now memory lane. :) I miss those days too.

No problem!

[sevigny7.livejournal.com]

I wasn't around for the original discussions either - I watched QAF unspoiled on DVDs after all five seasons had aired, but I love to hear about fandom history, so I'd like to friend you and join in. It sounds like there are still some very strong emotions here, but it should lead to some good observations.

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

No problem, always happy to have someone else join on board and contribute. :)

[fiercediva.livejournal.com]

May I stroll along? I was a latecomer too, but came in right before 2005 but got some of the fallout of past wanks back to Twop and the ShoBoards that I was completely unaware of. The Great Schism was quite an eye-opener; I thought I was online savvy but I was green as grass until experiencing QAF fandom.

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

Of course, absolutely. Always interesting to have someone else's perspective on a topic of discussion. :)

[passing-through.livejournal.com]

I came over here from url_girl's journal. I only found fandom after I watched the entire series on DVD (mid 2006). I've seen some of the past wank as I've traveled through others journals and different sites. I'm excited to hear about past fandom memories from fans that have been around longer than I and I like hearing others views on the show and the characters. I also friended you so I can keep up with your memories as you post them.

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

I think that there will definitely be plenty of memories and different perspectives on the show while it aired. I'm interested myself to see how this is going to go. No problem! :)

[veryshortlist.livejournal.com]

1. Gale can't dance.
2. Seasons 1-3.
3. Debbie.
4. Emmett.

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

1-4: Yes.

[kika-k.livejournal.com]

Hi, I came here via url_girl's pimp because I'd love to learn about some of the things from first airing.
I was a lurker all the 2004 (serching all the qaf things) because my shitty english and now it’s not better. X(
I remember a lots of video, a lots of pics and authors of fics on sites that doesn’t exist anymore.
2005 -2006 in the forum of my country.......
I watched the S1...mhhh on line... but gone crazy for the slowness of the connession! So I bought all the dvd and I saw all the seasons in one week.
I get the LJ late in the 2006 but I made the fist comment in the fandom in 2007.
I remember a site of B/M but only for some file with BRIAN voice..... ;-P

[amelialourdes.livejournal.com]

No one should feel intimidated because of their language! I believe the show's very international and does open up a broader form of communication.

It's going to be interesting to see everyone's reactions to past items that will be posted so hope you stick around!