(note: I stopped updating this blog in July of 2011 to focus on the Shoon Yamashita fan community I was a moderator of, and left the fandom in 2016)
I've decided to come back to the place where it all started. It's been a long hiatus: almost 7 years, I think, though it feels as if
they passed in the blink of an eye. The passing of time scares the hell
out of me. I hate calendars, clocks and planners.
I did not make a
conscious decision to step away from the fandom. It was something
gradual, as I found myself losing interest in everything when Shoon
left. I started feeling detached, as if I was standing in the middle of a
fairground where everyone except me was having fun.
Some
of my Shoon fan friends turned to other idols and fandoms, but
nobody/nothing else sparked my interest, so I ended up focusing on real
life, which got busy and complicated (as the German proverb says "Kleine
Kinder, kleine Sorgen, grosse Kinder, grosse Sorgen" - - while we're
young our problems are not that big, but they become bigger as we grow
older).
And life is still busy and complicated for me, but a few
months ago, because of a problem with my computer that forced me to back
up all my files, I ended up digging out the USB hard drives where I
kept all my fandom files (Shounen Club, Ya-Ya-yah show, Hyakushiki, all
of Shoon's Internet broadcasts...). And there started my fandom revival.
I'm tweeting and blogging in Japanese as well as English because obviously the largest part of the fandom is in Japan (I always dreamed of bridging the gap between us), but I worry all the time about my grammar mistakes. The Japanese fans probably think I'm crazy, and they probably frown in puzzlement when they read some of my tweets and blogposts. XD;;; Maybe because of that I don't get many comments from them, but their likes and retweets are encouraging. The Japanese fans who have left comments and with whom I've chatted a little have been extremely nice, though. ^_^
As for the English-speaking fandom, I feel kind of lost. Coming back to find that LJ is now a Russian company was bizarre enough, but it was even more shocking to discover that most of the LJ JE-related communities are dead or hardly active. Even the Shokura comm and the comms of debuted groups like HSJ, SnowMan and SixTones. Posts have no comments or a very few comments at best. I joined a couple of Discord groups, but there isn't much activity there either. It also broke my heart to see that Jent-fanfics is dead and that JE-related fiction at Archive of Our Own, which I joined just recently, seems to be dying as well.
Maybe there's not as much need for fans to be part of a community now that most idols and groups are getting YouTube channels and social media accounts? Or maybe my fandom generation has just moved on -of course many people have married and have children, etc.- or has new interests now.
However, it's nice to have found people whom I became really fond of and who still remember me -I thought nobody would!- and are still around, at Twitter, etc., even though their personal circumstances are different now and their lives are not as carefree as they used to be in our early fandom days.
MY FANFICS (in recommended reading order)
Why Don't You Like Cats? (one-shot - public post)
Kotchan's Story part 1 | part 2
Bokura No Secret (Our Secret) part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6
part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11 | part 12 | part 13
Cross the Line chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5 | chapter 6
The One Thing he Wanted (NEW!) (one-shot)
Personal Twitter account: https://twitter.com/irea8
Shoon Yamashita (+Leon&Ya-Ya-yah) "fan community" Twitter account: https://twitter.com/YmstShoonFlock
The Flying Sheep's Flock (Shoon LiveJournal community) https://shoonie.livejournal.com [no longer active]
TFSF Instagram account: instagram.com/flyingsheepclock
1 comment:
my god, my heart reading this!
I hope your words can reach him.
this is beautiful.
when he left all those years ago I felt a gap, honestly I tryed looking for something to fill it but nothing did for me either, so I left the fandom completely.
If I'm honest I was mad at je not realising his reason for leaving at the time.
But a year later I started listaning to a.b.c-z and started likeing them.
when I think about ya ya yah, I can't help but think of your blogs.
they brought alot of joy in that time period of my life.
the music, the fans, blogs, tv shows.
things back then we're just more enjoyable.
don't know how to describe it.
I think about this time often and how much fun it used to be.
they were like what I call the golden days of the johnnys entertainment fandom.
There's been alot of changes since then I'm sure you have seen.
if I'm honest with you, I don't support johnnys anymore as a company.
But that can't take away the memories we have with other fans and idols.
sometimes I do check in on your blog now and then to see how you are doing. so I hope you don't mind 😄
it would be lovely if yabu or hikaru to stumble across your blog one day.
I'm sure it would mean alot to them knowing that fans around the world are still supporting them.
it makes happy to see that you are doing well 😄.
I left a message on ig :) that's me.
sorry, I hope you don't mind 🎄🙏
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