My weirdest fandom break-up yet: Guardian

[schneefink]

By now there are quite a few fandoms I've lost interest in. Sometimes it was very sudden – The Magicians, for example – and sometimes it was long and drawn-out, like with hockey (RPF). Sometimes the reason is something to do with canon, sometimes I just got distracted by other things. But there usually is a reason, which is what makes "Guardian" so strange, because I don't really know what happened.

I watched Guardian in mid-2018 and enjoyed it a lot. So many beautiful tropes I love! I knew pretty much from the beginning that it'd never be a fandom I'd be very active in in terms of fic-writing, there's just too many plot holes and I'd find that too frustrating, but fortunately other people are less bothered by that. I enjoyed the pretty gifs and the amounts of great h/c fic and the discussions etc. and I was excited when more people got into the fandom. After a while I stopped seeking out new Guardian fic, and I thought I was in the cool-down phase of a fandom crush and the slow fading-out would continue as usual.

Instead, from one day to the next I completely lost interest in Guardian fic. Well, probably not literally, but that's what it felt like. People were still updating WIPs I'd loved and posting new fics with tropes I like and I had zero desire to read them. Which is very strange especially considering that I have no problem reading fics for fandoms I feel neutral about or don't even know, and if it's an author I like sometimes even for fandoms I dislike. And I don't dislike Guardian canon - I don't have strong feelings about it anymore, but I still have fond memories, I still enjoy screenshots when I happen to see them on my Tumblr dashboard, and I might even rewatch a few of my favorite episodes at some point. I just don't feel like reading fic about it. No clue why. It's weird. Not really bad – there's more than enough other stories to read, so it's not something I have a desire to "fix" somehow, and I was never deeply enough in the fandom that I miss it, though I did sometimes almost wish I was because it was nice seeing friends so excited about it. Just odd. Maybe it'll change again at some point, who knows. One of the things I've learned is that I can never predict which fandom will catch my interest next. (Makes life more exciting.)

Comments

[sheron]

That's interesting!

I feel like this is an experience similar with having too much of a certain type of food. Sometimes you really want something sour (maybe your body is missing some vitamin C) and a certain fruit is just amazing and then you just...go off it. Your body has had enough of that particular thing, it's oversaturated, and you want something else.

I've had experiences like this with things that I ostensibly Should Like (tm) but it just happened to be hitting the tropes/themes that I'm already getting from elsewhere and so my brain doesn't really care to engage with the thing because my needs for it are fulfilled already.

[schneefink]

I've had that happen with food, too. Makes sense that it could also happen with fandoms in similar ways! Not sure it was the case here, but then, like with food, it's not exactly something you're necessarily consciously aware of the reasons why.