oh no, a fandom milestone

[hugseverycat]

OK so I'm pretty new to this whole "fandom" thing to be honest. I've always liked stuff and have occasionally read fanfiction but I've never really participated in the fandom stuff until I got into The Untamed/CQL/MDZS. And if I'm being honest with myself I really only got into fandom because the pandemic was starting and I felt a mighty need for something fun and divorced from the reality of 2020

Anyway.

So I'm reading this book right now called Winter's Orbit and it is giving me SUCH wangxian vibes! If someone told me it started life as a sci-fi arranged marriage wangxian AU I would be nodding along like "yes, this totally makes sense".

To be fair, literally nothing in the plot so far is like MZDS at all, but here are our main characters: Kiem, who is outgoing, loves to party and drink, has responsibilities but approaches them with an irreverent air. Jainan, who hella smart and accomplished, quiet, cerebral, reticent, and serious. They're put into an arranged marriage. They are both super into each other, but are convinced for various reasons that the other person isn't interested and/or resents them. They both tiptoe around each other's feelings and they each interpret this as dislike.

So yeah, the fandom milestone is that I'm starting to read character dynamics from the show I like into other media ;^^

(PS I googled the book just now and it turns out this book did start out on AO3 but I didn't read further to see if it was fanfic or an original story but yeah, I wasn't totally off-base in clocking it as fanficy)

Comments

[theladyscribe]

!!! Course of Honor! It actually started off on fail_fandomanon as a serial original work in the WIP thread! I had missed that they were publishing it, so I am glad you mentioned it. Definitely gonna have to track down a copy of it for myself. I'm curious if they've made any major changes because I remember there were some plotlines that shifted a bit as the story evolved.

[hugseverycat]

Oh wow! Yeah I'm only about 1/3 of the way through but I'm enjoying it so far!

[lirelyn]

I read Winter's Orbit because a bunch of my MDZS friends had read the original on AO3 and were squealing about the book coming out! I really enjoyed it. I love Jainan so much, and it delivers a few of my absolute favorite tropes.

[hugseverycat]

Yeah so far it's good! I gotta be honest though -- if these 2 don't stop being clueless around each other soon I'm going to scream

although now that I think about it, they do have pretty good reasons to hold back besides general cluelessness. Kiem thinks Jainan is in mourning and was cruelly forced into a new marriage, and unless I'm dramatically misreading things, Jainan's previous marriage was actually abusive, so yeah

Anyway I'm only like a third of the way through right now. So I have a ways to go.

[solo]

Hey! I followed you here from the meme because... well, mostly because of your handle. I have three cats and hug every cat that will let me!

I am also fascinated by how you're so new to fandom. Like IDK how old you are but okay I checked and OMG by the time I was your age I'd spent about 25 years in fandom OMG OMG. Okay I feel like a dinosaur now.

Anyway, WELCOME! And if anything confuses you or stuff, I volunteer to be your white-bearded non-binary guide. (The beard seems de rigeur)

[hugseverycat]

Haha yeah it's funny, on one hand I'm an Old(tm) because I'm 38 which is basically in the grave already to some people, but I'm also a Baby because I don't know shit about how to Do Fandom so I'm just flailing. Like, I've always been a Fan Of Things, obviously, but I've seldom actually found community in it. Which is funny because I'm also a big re-reader of books and re-watcher of shows. Like, all those dozens of times I've re-read book X or whatever, I could have been geeking out about it to people on the internet!! Who knew???

Anyway, hi, nice to meet you :-D