#Sorry this got heavy as hell lol Going through LJ last night got to me a bit tbh

[solradguy]

Do you ever get caught up in the immensity of the Guilty Gear fandom that used to exist? Not that it was particularly large, but it felt different.

Around 20 deadlinks in and I start to feel like I’m walking in an abandoned city of skyscrapers when I’m barely medieval. Where did they all go? Did they used to be a nation?

I do... Last night I spent 3 hours going through just Livejournal links and blog archives, not even Dreamwidth or Geocities webrings, and it was like that. Some of the core people went off to college/post-college jobs, like Ed Chang. Most of the original GG fandom left, I think, because they would be in their 40s now. Isn't that crazy to think about?

Some LJ profiles had birthyears that were like 1980, 1982. They would've been in their teens or early 20s at the peak of Sol/Ky discourse circa 2004. Wonder what they would think knowing people like you and I have been sifting through those old posts haha

It is sad how much is gone too though... I used to be in the Doctor Who fandom with a big interest on the pre-reboot stuff (so media before the 8th Doctor's movie in the mid '90s) and it was insane anytime any of the fan media from that popped up. Doctor Who cosplay photos from 1970 will change a man. Sitting there, wondering what those teens-now-retirement-age-adults are up to. How much of their original fandom is gone... Some Classic Who episodes/media only survived because dedicated fans recorded it and kept it safe. The BBC wrote over or threw out original episode reels from the '60s and '70s. Their GG Vastedge... It can be recovered, but it will never be whole again.

I wish there was less petty arguing in fandoms. It makes it hard to want to record what's happening in the moment. In 2043—20 years from now—how much of what we're talking about and making now will be archived? How much of it do people feel should be archived? I think it's all important, honestly. Fandoms are such a uniquely human experience and Guilty Gear's is fascinating for how closely it's managed to close the gap between its Japanese and English-speaking communities, and for the large amount of LGBT people in it.

Tumblr, Livejournal, Dreamwidth, Twitter, and Neocities are not permanent things. If you love something, make copies of it and copies of those copies. Rehost things, keep records. Think about the city of dead links and deleted Tinypic image hosts. Some of the GG stuff we have now only exists because the original poster 22 years ago kept copies in two places.