Long ago, the Saitou & Sano subfandom was full and active. There was ongoing conversation about the pairing, RK in general, and all the fanfiction we posted. For years and years I’ve been trying to get that back, and it hasn’t been working. These days there are almost no fans, there is almost no conversation, and my fics get almost no attention. I’ve long been aware that if I wanted something like that again, I would have to switch fandoms.

The idea never appealed to me, however. Nothing means as much to me as Saitou & Sano; nothing touches me like they do; nothing is as close to my heart. They’ve become such a part of my life that it’s been more than I could even imagine to give up writing about them, and where would I go then? No other fandom and no other characters come even close to making me feel what I feel (including the massive amounts of inspiration) for this pairing and this version of Saitou Hajime in particular; I can’t bend my fandom life around someone else.

But now the wicked behavior of Dead Author has struck what seems like a death blow to an already mostly dead subfandom, and I’m wondering: why go on at all? I guess I’ve always known I had to prepare myself for letting go at some point; why not now? I’ve only been writing about these guys for twenty years; they’re only my best friends; I only have Saitou’s motto tattooed on my back — no big deal, right? No, of course I’m not crying. Why should this be horrendously painful?

So what I’m saying here is that I’ll be tapering off. Obviously I’ll finish the in-progress fics I’m posting — you’d have to kill me to get me not to — and I’ll probably still work on the HoH stuff I’ve got going despite not having begun to post any of that yet… but the 30 other Saitou & Sano stories (and small handful of RK stories about other characters) in various states of startedness and finishedness I have sitting around on my hard drive will probably never be completed. I’ll convert what I can into original fiction (which obviously nobody reads, but at least then I’ll still be able to write it).

My heart is broken. I know it’s selfish to be focusing so much on the effect Dead Author’s inhumanity is having on my writing and my place in a community that already hasn’t existed for a decade rather than on the much greater and more life-destroying effect that type of behavior, on his part and that of others, has on its actual victims… but there it is. I’m not as hurt as the real victims, but I am very hurt by this. I’ve spent literally half my life on something I’m now feeling compelled to walk away from.

(Note: The next entry dealing with this contains less despair and more specific planning.)