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crack_van2004-01-02 11:31 pm
http://users.livejournal.com/ari_/) wrote in crack_van2004-01-02 11:31 pm
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Gundam Wing: fandom summary (plus anime fandom basics)
Hi!
I'm your friendly neighborhood small fandom pusher for this month, and I'm going to pimp Gundam Wing to you.
If you're new to anime fandoms, GW is one of the two fandoms I'd recommend as a starting place, as the fandom is fairly large, there's a decent amount of fanfiction for it, and it's fairly easy to follow the fanfiction without having seen the series.
Gundam Wing is a 49 episode series, and is in itself a sideline of the Gundam series, which is all about huge fighting robots and incredibly popular in Japan. Gundam Wing is, however, an AU to the timeline of the main series with all-new characters in an all-new setup. There is also an OAV (basically a 1,5 h movie) set a year after the events of the series, and there are also several short manga releases, which mainly provide additional character background.
I'm not even going to *attempt* to summarize the whole plot, because some of the going-ons are rather confusing, and sometimes you need a chart to keep track of who's who and fighting for what side. I'm going to focus on the characters and just enough set-up and plot to make fanfiction understandable.
The Characters and Basic Plot
World setup: the year is 195 AC (After Colony). Earth has 5 established colonies, creatively named L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5. From what we see of them, they're artificial (it's not sure if they're just one small colony, or if they're actually small colony clusters), and they seem to represent different cultures - or, at least, their pilots do. They also would very much like to be free of Earth, but Earth doesn't exactly want that. Each colony has its own mad scientist, and the scientists have each independently built a mobile suit (big, robot-like fighting machines that have a pilot inside the breast area) out of gundamium, a nearly indestructible material that is not available on Earth (thus the name Gundam for the things). They all send their Gundams to Earth, where the pilots are to fight against the Earth Alliance, or more specifically, Oz, a subgroup within the Alliance.
The pilots of these Gundams are all 15 year old boys who have apparently been (more or less) trained just for this task.
Some of the info on the pilots comes from the manga about their childhood. Not all writers use that background, since its not in the anime, but most of it has made it's way into the standard fanon characterization for the characters
Note: all important characters and several side characters have names that are partially a number. Thus, it's become handy to state the character pairing by these numbers (ie, 1x2 is Heero/Duo, etc). The pilots all have the number of the colony they come from; I'll list the numbers for the other characters that have them in brackets when they come up. Also note that the spelling of some names is not fixed, as the names are transcribed from Japanese, and thus may differ if different transcription methods were used. You'll be able to figure out who they mean, anyway (example: Heero Yuy vs. Hiiro Yui).
All images open in a new window, and are rather big.
Pilot 01 - Heero Yuy from L1: he comes from a Japanese background, and is the stoic and 'only focussed on his mission' type character. He's inhumanly strong (he's up to bending iron bars), sets his own bones, spends pretty much all of his free time on his laptop, and has very few conversational skills outside of 'Hn'. He usually runs around in a green tanktop, black spandex shorts (from which he can pull a gun at the smallest provocation) and yellow sport shoes. His hair is dark-brown, and he has blue eyes. He pilots the Wing Gundam.
Background-wise, he was raised by an assassin (Odin Lowe, who probably was not related to him) until he was 8, and then directly by his scientist, Doctor J, who's a rather creepy fellow. Heero Yuy is not his real name, but rather the name of a prominent pacifist leader of the colonies who was assassinated years earlier. We have no clue to his real origins or name, and Heero probably doesn't know either.
Pilot 02 - Duo Maxwell from L2: he's the American-type pilot, and usually wears black jodhpurs, a black shirt with a white starched collar (semi-Catholic priest clothes), a cross around his neck, and his hair in a braid (down to his waist). He's bouncy, cheery, outgoing and really not at all angst-ridden, despite having had a rather bleak childhood.
He grew up as an orphan on the streets, in a small street gang led by a kid named Solo. They made their living by stealing. After a plague struck L2, everyone except Duo died - Solo died in his arms (Duo picked his name after Solo died to indicate that they'd always be together). He then got taken in by the Maxwell Church orphanage, run by a priest (Father Maxwell) and a nun (Sister Helen). The orphanage was later overrun by OZ soldiers, who killed everyone and burned it down. The nun died in his arms, and gave him the cross he wears. He took his last name from the priest.
His background means that he's rather stealthy, and good at stealing and picking locks (he carries his lock picks hidden in his braid) - he actually wanted to steal and then destroy the L2 Gundam (Gundam Deathscythe), and the scientist responsible (Professor G) decided that this qualified him to become the official pilot.
Duo calls himself "shinigami" (God of Death).
Pilot 03 - Trowa Barton from L3: there is no official clue about his nationality, and he's been called everything from European to Latin American to Gypsy. He has brown hair and green eyes, and seems to be completely unemotional, or at least severely apathetic.
Background-wise, he was with a band of mercenaries since his childhood, and later joins a circus, where he works as a clown. In the OAV, we learn that he's not really Trowa Barton: he was called Nanashi ('no name') most of his life, and somehow ended up as a mechanic working for the resident scientist. The original pilot, the real Trowa Barton, was killed by the scientist (Doctor S) because his goals were undesirable (he wanted to destroy Earth, instead of just fighting it to free the colonies). Our Trowa just volunteered when he saw the original getting killed, and got handed both the name and the Gundam (Gundam Heavyarms).
[Note: never, *ever*, touch the fandom debate on whether or not he was raped as a child when he was with the mercenaries. Really really don't. Trust me on this.]
Pilot 04 - Quatre Raberba Winner from L4: he's blond, has big blue eyes... and is Arabic. No, really. His father is a rather big name on his colony: he runs a huge business and has tons of money. Quatre also has 29 older sisters, all of which are test tube babies. Quatre thinks he is one as well (and he has self-esteem problems over this), tho in reality he was born naturally, and his mother died in childbirth. He's also apparently somewhat empathic - he can often feel other people's pain in his 'space heart'. He also plays the violin, and would really love it if everyone just stopped fighting (he tends to apologize to people after he kills them, too). If he can't have that, he at least wants all the Gundam pilots to fight together, and he's also usually the one who comes up with strategy.
He comes with a dedicated troop of followers: the Manguanac Corps consists of 40 dedicated fighters who practically worship him. They also have some kind of secret base on Earth, in the desert.
His mad scientist is Instructor H., and he flies Gundam Sandrock.
Pilot 05 - Chang Wufei [Chang is his last name] from L5: He's the Chinese pilot and flies Gundam Shenlong (he calls it 'Nataku'). He's a firm believer in justice, and that only the strong are worthy to fight - and women do not classify as 'strong' to him, at least not in the beginning of the series; he comes across as rather misogynistic. He also does not want to fight together with the other pilots, and is rather arrogant.
His colony apparently consists of just one clan, which was so powerful that it got exiled from Earth. He's the heir to the clan, and as such was married at age 14. At the time, he was a scholar not interested in fighting; however, his wife, Meiran (she called herself 'Nataku'), was a warrior and considered him weak. She was seriously injured in battle when the Alliance attacked the colony, and died in Wufei's arms. As a result, Wufei has become obsessed with being a strong fighter, and with taking his revenge on Earth - thus his becoming a Gundam pilot.
The important members of the Earth Alliance/Oz are:
Colonel Treize Kushrenada (13): leader of Oz. Young (24), cultured, loves opera and rose-scented bubble-baths (so much that he tends to give orders from them), but is a rather honorable man, even if he has some very strange notions about war.
Lady Une (11): Treize's right-hand woman, and who will do anything for him - she clearly worships the ground he walks on. Otherwise, she's rather ruthless, and seems to have a split personality as well.
Lieutenant Zechs Marquise (6): Elite Oz officer, also good friends with Treize, 19 years old. Runs around with a silver helmet/mask on, thinking that this will be some kind of disguise. As he lets his platinum blond, waist-length hair hang free, this might be less effective than he thinks.
Lieutenant Lucrezia Noin (9): another Oz officer, this one with a crush on Zechs. Apart from that, she's loyal and a good soldier.
Major Sally Po: Alliance military doctor, but very soon ends up fighting for the side of the Gundam pilots.
Back to the plot: the Gundams make it to Earth undetected, with the exception of Heero, who's spotted by Zechs. They fight, and Wing Gundam ends up crashing into the ocean. Sometime later, Relena Dorlian, daughter of the vice foreign minister of Earth, finds the washed-up pilot on the beach. Heero wakes up just as the medics she called arrive and is horrified to realize that she's seen his face. So he threatens to kill her, and then overpowers the medics and steals their ambulance. This causes Relena to fall in love with him.
Shortly afterwards, Heero and Duo meet. Duo has found Heero's Gundam and plans to use it for spare parts; Heero is tracking down his missing Gundam, and wants it back. Relena is following Heero to see what he's up to. Heero, as usual, threatens to kill her. Duo misinterprets the situation and shoots Heero to protect Relena. Heero attempts a daring escape, and eventually ends up getting captured by Oz. Duo decides to free him, and after he succeeds, he gives Heero back his (damaged) Gundam. Next morning, he wakes up and finds that during the night, Heero has repaired Wing Gundam by taking parts out of Duo's Gundam Deathscythe, and then flew off. Duo is not happy - but also intrigued.
Meanwhile, Quatre and Trowa run into each other: Quatre shows up just as Trowa has finished destroying an Alliance base and is out of ammunition. He still tries to fight Quatre, but Quatre ends up surrendering to Trowa instead, and even takes him to his desert hideout for a bit, where they end up playing an improvised duet: Quatre plays violin, Trowa plays flute. Then Trowa leaves, leaving Quatre behind with what looks suspiciously like a crush.
Wufei bombs another Alliance base, killing what turn out to be new recruits in their sleep, earning him the hate of Lucrezia Noin, who was responsible for training them.
Zechs develops an interest in fighting against the Gundam pilots (especially Heero) one on one, and even digs up an old, powerful mobile suit (named Tallgeese) for just that purpose
Heero and Duo enroll in a boarding school to provide a cover for them, as they have orders to destroy a nearby base together. Relena is obsessive enough about Heero to actually track him down and join them there.
Treize orders Une to kill Relena's father. Une succeeds, but Vice Minister Dorlian does manage to tell Relena that she's adopted, and that she's actually Relena Peacecraft, the heir to the Sanq kingdom - a famous pacifist kingdom that was destroyed by the Alliance when she was a baby. Attempts by Une to kill Relena as well are thwarted by Heero (who's not quite sure if he wouldn't like to kill Relena himself, but eventually doesn't).
Wufei tries to kill Treize, and actually manages to get close to him. Treize promptly challenges him to a sword duel, which Wufei loses. Treize still lets him go, but not before calling Wufei "Little Dragon". Wufei is now terribly depressed, because this has shaken his faith in himself. He is clearly weak, and thus unworthy to fight. This whole episode also spawned the Treize/Wufei pairing.
The Gundam pilots also get duped into killing the few Alliance officers who actually wanted peace and offer the colonies freedom. The pilots get really really bad press for this - the colonies disown them and deny having anything to do with them. Zechs, meanwhile, also reveals himself (by taking off his mask) as Milliardo Peacecraft, the older brother of Relena. Zechs feels that he has to leave the army/Oz/whatever. Treize, of course, knew all along who Zechs was, and lets him go.
***
Most stories are set around this period, especially most early fanfiction, which was written before the series was available in the US. While the pilots are never actually together outside of one battle during this period, *the* most popular fandom invention is the safe-house scenario, where all 5 pilots are moving from one safehouse to another (they're typically all owned by the Winner corporation), taking orders from their scientists and fighting Oz, and usually also being undercover, usually in some boarding school or another (steadily followed by an obsessed Relena in a pink limo).
***
During this time, Une also threatens to blow up the colonies if Heero does not surrender himself and his Gundam. Heero's response to this is to blow up his Gundam, with himself in it. His apparent corpse is picked up by Trowa's Gundam. Trowa takes him back to the circus, where he nurses not-quite-dead Heero back to health. He has the help of Catherine Bloom, who works as a knife-thrower at the circus (and might or might not be his actual sister. It's unclear in canon, and if she is, they don't realize it themselves).
Wufei gets kicked out of his depression and back to fighting by meeting Sally Po, the ex-Alliance doctor, who isn't taking any of his "women are weak" crap.
Zechs was very impressed by Heero blowing himself up, so he decides to start to rebuild Wing Gundam. Relena, meanwhile, tries to kill Lady Une to revenge the death of her adoptive father, but Noin (sent by Treize to protect her) stops her and takes her under her care. Noin also eventually tracks down Trowa and Heero, and invites Heero to have a re-match with Zechs in the rebuilt Wing Gundam. He accepts.
Behind the scenes, Romafella, the financial organization behind Oz, has started to develop new, remote-controlled mobile suits ("dolls"). They also manage to follow Heero and Trowa to Zechs, and attack them during their fight.
Quatre and Duo, who don't know that Heero is still alive, spent some time shacked up in one of Quatre's huge houses. They now decide that it's time for them to get back to space. Wufei joins them; however, the Oz troops don't want to let them leave and fight them. Quatre decides to self-destruct in his Gundam to let the other two escape, but his Gundam takes him out and puts him down in a safe place first (it's really a surprise that noone has written Quatre/Gundam Sandrock before, but so far, all I've seen is stories where Duo gets tentacleraped by his Gundam. *pout*). Duo and Wufei get away in their Gundams, and Quatre managed to gets into space on a shuttle. Heero and Trowa notice the battle, and take off to space as well, but without their Gundams.
...
I really tried to write a short and understandable summary the rest of the plot, but I gave up somewhere around ep 30 (the above was up to around episode 17). If you do want to read up on the rest of the plot, I direct you to Morgan Richter's "Let's Hear It For The Boys" page, which has well-done and snarky episode summaries. They are probably the next best thing to watching the series yourself. I'm just going to mention 2 more characters that you meet later in the plot:
Hilde Schbeiker is an Oz recruit who meets up with Duo. He eventually convinces her that maybe Oz isn't in the right. She ends up helping Duo a couple of times, risking her life in the process.
Dorothy Catalonia is the granddaughter of one of the leaders of Romafella (the financial organization behind Oz). She's also Treize's cousin, and has even weirder eyebrows than he does. When we first meet her, she's being friends with Relena; however, she's very much in love with war (as opposed to Relena, who's very into absolute pacifism), which later causes trouble.
There is also the OAV/movie. It's not really necessary to watch it, but if you want to know, there's a detailed summary available (avec some typos, but it's the best summary I've found - the only thing missing is the fact that after Heero looks over Relena at the gathering, he then disappears into a crowd, giving off a definite 'I'm going to disappear forever' vibe). Also, here's a picture of Mariemaia.
The Fandom
The creators of Gundam Wing are on record as saying that they created the series with no canon pairings (apart from the obvious crushes that Relena, Noin and Une have on Heero, Zechs and Treize respectively). Each character has (at least) one male and one female pairing possibility (by that, I mean one that can actually be supported by canon). However, the GW fandom also has a huge amount of fanon, some of which is based on early stories that were written before the series was available in the US, and some based on the additional materials (the manga, the official character information that never made it into the series, or the many many pieces of official artwork, many of which show the characters in strange outfits - the GW pilots as a rockband, while skiing, as fairies, as male fashion models, etc.).
Heero:
Duo:
Trowa:
Quatre:
Wufei:
Zechs:
Treize:
There's very little gen, and also surprisingly little Mary Sue, at least given the amount of existing fanfiction (but they do exist, usually in the form of a 6th pilot). Either they're hiding at ff.net, where I've never looked for GW fic, or most of the writers write themselves into Duo, who often is more tortured than Blair Sandburg, Tom Paris and Methos together.
There are, however, a number of really nice, long AUs, if you like these.
Talking of Duo and his characterization: well... he's bouncy, he's talky, and he's got hair down to his ass. That alone guarantees that decent Duo characterization is hard to find.
Character bashing is one of the biggest problem of the fandom, so much so that pretty much every character has a "Society against the Bastardization of [character name]". Relena is usually the one most affected - especially the Heero/Duo fans see her as nothing more than an air-headed, obsessed horror (granted, she's somewhat loopy at the beginning of the series, but she does grow up towards the end...).
Other typical stereotyping includes Heero the cold bastard, Duo the depressed teenage girl, Trowa the emotionless lump, Quatre the sissy (or, ZeroSystem!Quatre[*] the insane killer who rapes camels), and insane ranting Wufei (who's usually also homophobic). Treize and Zechs just end up as the occasional insane bad guys (Zechs usually more often than Treize).
[*] the Zero System is explained in the last half of the series. Check the link to Morgan Richter's summary for details
Where To Find The Fandom
There's no centralized archive. The closest thing there is is GWAddiction. Other websites that house archives... hm - many of the archives I used to frequent have since disappeared... Actually, I'd recommend going to the GWAddiction links page and start working through these, and just keep following links pages.
Many authors are mostly found via mailing lists. There are tons of them (and I haven't been following them for about a year and a half, but I don't think there'd be any big new ones), and I wouldn't really recommend them to anyone not already a fan - but if anyone is interested, just yell, and I'll look through the ones I remember and see which ones still look active.
Things You Should Know If This Is Your First Anime Fandom
Anime fandoms differ somewhat from normal tv/movie fandoms, and you might get some sort of culture shock if you're not used to them. Ok, it's not as bad as it used to be, as more and more people begin to be involved in both, but still, here are some things that may help you avoid confusion:
m/m is usually called yaoi. The term is a Japanese abbreviation for 'yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi': no mountain (ie peak; climax), no point, no meaning. It originated with doujinshi (fan drawn comics based on other people's characters which in Japan can legally be sold for money. The yearly doujinshi conventions are *huge*), which are usually the drawn equivalents to PWPs. The term is used by Western anime fandom to cover everything that relates to m/m. It is not quite the same as slash, but arguing the differences can get wanky.
(I highly recommend googling for doujinshi for Gundam Wing and other fandoms. Some of these are *very* nice...)
shounen ai: this translates as 'boy's love'. The term is sometimes used to refer to m/m stories that are not explicit.
Yaoi pairings are always made up of a seme and an uke. When it comes to sex, the seme is the top and the uke is the bottom. However, this refers to more than just the sexual positions: it also refers to the role the character plays in the relationship. The seme is also the more active, commanding one, and the uke is always more submissive. Trying to explain this concept here is impossible, mostly because it's damn difficult to explain at all. Just accept the fact that the for the Japanese, there just *has* to be a seme and an uke, and to them, it's always clear who's the seme and who's the uke, and that's the way it is (the closest I've found in tv fandoms is the concept of the strong dominant big guy and the frail and easily hurt little guy - Chakotay and Paris, Jim and Blair, etc).
When it comes to Western yaoi fandom, this is not as strict as in Japan: some people see the other part of the pairing as the seme, some only use it as equivalents to the terms 'top' and 'bottom', and others ignore the seme-uke distinction altogether. However, for some people it *is* a big deal, especially when it comes to Trowa. This is one of the things you have to accept.
When it comes to pairing codes, a sexual relationship is not indicated by a '/', but by a 'x'. Thus, DuoxHeero (or 2x1) means that the story pairs Heero with Duo, and Duo is the seme. People who write the characters without the seme/uke distinction often use 1x2x1 - this doesn't mean Duo is sleeping with both Heero and a clone of Heero, it just means that they're considered equal. Some authors might have a different notation to express the same sentiment, but it's usually clear. Also, a '+' between 2 characters means that the story features a relationship between them, but it's friends only (or it might be up to shounen ai, but nothing more). So a story labelled 1x2, 2+4 means that Duo and Heero are going to have something sexual going on, and that Duo and Quatre are going to be friends, or Duo might actually pine after Quatre.
Dubs vs subs: GW played in the US on Cartoon Network, dubbed into English. I have seen bits of the dubbing, and ... *gah*! Ok, granted, there are worse dubs, but some of the fandom characterizations can be traced back to these. Given the differences between the Japanese and the English language, there are just some concepts that you can't translate. Duo in the original is still bouncy and outgoing, but he does also come across as occasionally serious, and someone who has a clue. Duo in the dub... definitely reminded me of a 40 year old surfer who smoked too many cigarettes. If you ever decide to watch GW (or any other anime), do watch the subtitled Japanese version (GW has some especially nice and famous Japanese voice actors...)
Fangirl Japanese: There's watching something in the original language, and then there's going way overboard. Fangirl Japanese falls into the second category - it's nice that anime makes people start to study Japanese (hey, it's the reason I started, too), but many fangirls feel the need to pepper their fanfiction with bits and pieces of Japanese, no matter if it's appropriate or not. If you want to take Gundam Wing as an example: from what we can see, everyone in GW speaks the same language. But even if you want to assume that different languages still exist, why would Duo, who is of American background, use Japanese endearments for Wufei, who's Chinese? Especially if they're incorrect endearments... Still, considering how often you'll run across these if you ever get into an anime fandom, here's a very nice glossary of the most common terms.
Oh, and if you do end up googling for doujinshi, I should mention that you will, occasionally, run across images of the characters in chibi form. Sometimes they'll even be both chibi *and* partially some kind of animal (cats are most common). The Japanese consider this cute. Accept it. Eventually, you will get used to this, and even learn to like it.
thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flambeau for holding my hand while I was writing this.
*falls over*
I'm your friendly neighborhood small fandom pusher for this month, and I'm going to pimp Gundam Wing to you.
If you're new to anime fandoms, GW is one of the two fandoms I'd recommend as a starting place, as the fandom is fairly large, there's a decent amount of fanfiction for it, and it's fairly easy to follow the fanfiction without having seen the series.
Gundam Wing is a 49 episode series, and is in itself a sideline of the Gundam series, which is all about huge fighting robots and incredibly popular in Japan. Gundam Wing is, however, an AU to the timeline of the main series with all-new characters in an all-new setup. There is also an OAV (basically a 1,5 h movie) set a year after the events of the series, and there are also several short manga releases, which mainly provide additional character background.
I'm not even going to *attempt* to summarize the whole plot, because some of the going-ons are rather confusing, and sometimes you need a chart to keep track of who's who and fighting for what side. I'm going to focus on the characters and just enough set-up and plot to make fanfiction understandable.
The Characters and Basic Plot
World setup: the year is 195 AC (After Colony). Earth has 5 established colonies, creatively named L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5. From what we see of them, they're artificial (it's not sure if they're just one small colony, or if they're actually small colony clusters), and they seem to represent different cultures - or, at least, their pilots do. They also would very much like to be free of Earth, but Earth doesn't exactly want that. Each colony has its own mad scientist, and the scientists have each independently built a mobile suit (big, robot-like fighting machines that have a pilot inside the breast area) out of gundamium, a nearly indestructible material that is not available on Earth (thus the name Gundam for the things). They all send their Gundams to Earth, where the pilots are to fight against the Earth Alliance, or more specifically, Oz, a subgroup within the Alliance.
The pilots of these Gundams are all 15 year old boys who have apparently been (more or less) trained just for this task.
Some of the info on the pilots comes from the manga about their childhood. Not all writers use that background, since its not in the anime, but most of it has made it's way into the standard fanon characterization for the characters
Note: all important characters and several side characters have names that are partially a number. Thus, it's become handy to state the character pairing by these numbers (ie, 1x2 is Heero/Duo, etc). The pilots all have the number of the colony they come from; I'll list the numbers for the other characters that have them in brackets when they come up. Also note that the spelling of some names is not fixed, as the names are transcribed from Japanese, and thus may differ if different transcription methods were used. You'll be able to figure out who they mean, anyway (example: Heero Yuy vs. Hiiro Yui).
All images open in a new window, and are rather big.
Pilot 01 - Heero Yuy from L1: he comes from a Japanese background, and is the stoic and 'only focussed on his mission' type character. He's inhumanly strong (he's up to bending iron bars), sets his own bones, spends pretty much all of his free time on his laptop, and has very few conversational skills outside of 'Hn'. He usually runs around in a green tanktop, black spandex shorts (from which he can pull a gun at the smallest provocation) and yellow sport shoes. His hair is dark-brown, and he has blue eyes. He pilots the Wing Gundam.
Background-wise, he was raised by an assassin (Odin Lowe, who probably was not related to him) until he was 8, and then directly by his scientist, Doctor J, who's a rather creepy fellow. Heero Yuy is not his real name, but rather the name of a prominent pacifist leader of the colonies who was assassinated years earlier. We have no clue to his real origins or name, and Heero probably doesn't know either.
Pilot 02 - Duo Maxwell from L2: he's the American-type pilot, and usually wears black jodhpurs, a black shirt with a white starched collar (semi-Catholic priest clothes), a cross around his neck, and his hair in a braid (down to his waist). He's bouncy, cheery, outgoing and really not at all angst-ridden, despite having had a rather bleak childhood.
He grew up as an orphan on the streets, in a small street gang led by a kid named Solo. They made their living by stealing. After a plague struck L2, everyone except Duo died - Solo died in his arms (Duo picked his name after Solo died to indicate that they'd always be together). He then got taken in by the Maxwell Church orphanage, run by a priest (Father Maxwell) and a nun (Sister Helen). The orphanage was later overrun by OZ soldiers, who killed everyone and burned it down. The nun died in his arms, and gave him the cross he wears. He took his last name from the priest.
His background means that he's rather stealthy, and good at stealing and picking locks (he carries his lock picks hidden in his braid) - he actually wanted to steal and then destroy the L2 Gundam (Gundam Deathscythe), and the scientist responsible (Professor G) decided that this qualified him to become the official pilot.
Duo calls himself "shinigami" (God of Death).
Pilot 03 - Trowa Barton from L3: there is no official clue about his nationality, and he's been called everything from European to Latin American to Gypsy. He has brown hair and green eyes, and seems to be completely unemotional, or at least severely apathetic.
Background-wise, he was with a band of mercenaries since his childhood, and later joins a circus, where he works as a clown. In the OAV, we learn that he's not really Trowa Barton: he was called Nanashi ('no name') most of his life, and somehow ended up as a mechanic working for the resident scientist. The original pilot, the real Trowa Barton, was killed by the scientist (Doctor S) because his goals were undesirable (he wanted to destroy Earth, instead of just fighting it to free the colonies). Our Trowa just volunteered when he saw the original getting killed, and got handed both the name and the Gundam (Gundam Heavyarms).
[Note: never, *ever*, touch the fandom debate on whether or not he was raped as a child when he was with the mercenaries. Really really don't. Trust me on this.]
Pilot 04 - Quatre Raberba Winner from L4: he's blond, has big blue eyes... and is Arabic. No, really. His father is a rather big name on his colony: he runs a huge business and has tons of money. Quatre also has 29 older sisters, all of which are test tube babies. Quatre thinks he is one as well (and he has self-esteem problems over this), tho in reality he was born naturally, and his mother died in childbirth. He's also apparently somewhat empathic - he can often feel other people's pain in his 'space heart'. He also plays the violin, and would really love it if everyone just stopped fighting (he tends to apologize to people after he kills them, too). If he can't have that, he at least wants all the Gundam pilots to fight together, and he's also usually the one who comes up with strategy.
He comes with a dedicated troop of followers: the Manguanac Corps consists of 40 dedicated fighters who practically worship him. They also have some kind of secret base on Earth, in the desert.
His mad scientist is Instructor H., and he flies Gundam Sandrock.
Pilot 05 - Chang Wufei [Chang is his last name] from L5: He's the Chinese pilot and flies Gundam Shenlong (he calls it 'Nataku'). He's a firm believer in justice, and that only the strong are worthy to fight - and women do not classify as 'strong' to him, at least not in the beginning of the series; he comes across as rather misogynistic. He also does not want to fight together with the other pilots, and is rather arrogant.
His colony apparently consists of just one clan, which was so powerful that it got exiled from Earth. He's the heir to the clan, and as such was married at age 14. At the time, he was a scholar not interested in fighting; however, his wife, Meiran (she called herself 'Nataku'), was a warrior and considered him weak. She was seriously injured in battle when the Alliance attacked the colony, and died in Wufei's arms. As a result, Wufei has become obsessed with being a strong fighter, and with taking his revenge on Earth - thus his becoming a Gundam pilot.
The important members of the Earth Alliance/Oz are:
Colonel Treize Kushrenada (13): leader of Oz. Young (24), cultured, loves opera and rose-scented bubble-baths (so much that he tends to give orders from them), but is a rather honorable man, even if he has some very strange notions about war.
Lady Une (11): Treize's right-hand woman, and who will do anything for him - she clearly worships the ground he walks on. Otherwise, she's rather ruthless, and seems to have a split personality as well.
Lieutenant Zechs Marquise (6): Elite Oz officer, also good friends with Treize, 19 years old. Runs around with a silver helmet/mask on, thinking that this will be some kind of disguise. As he lets his platinum blond, waist-length hair hang free, this might be less effective than he thinks.
Lieutenant Lucrezia Noin (9): another Oz officer, this one with a crush on Zechs. Apart from that, she's loyal and a good soldier.
Major Sally Po: Alliance military doctor, but very soon ends up fighting for the side of the Gundam pilots.
Back to the plot: the Gundams make it to Earth undetected, with the exception of Heero, who's spotted by Zechs. They fight, and Wing Gundam ends up crashing into the ocean. Sometime later, Relena Dorlian, daughter of the vice foreign minister of Earth, finds the washed-up pilot on the beach. Heero wakes up just as the medics she called arrive and is horrified to realize that she's seen his face. So he threatens to kill her, and then overpowers the medics and steals their ambulance. This causes Relena to fall in love with him.
Shortly afterwards, Heero and Duo meet. Duo has found Heero's Gundam and plans to use it for spare parts; Heero is tracking down his missing Gundam, and wants it back. Relena is following Heero to see what he's up to. Heero, as usual, threatens to kill her. Duo misinterprets the situation and shoots Heero to protect Relena. Heero attempts a daring escape, and eventually ends up getting captured by Oz. Duo decides to free him, and after he succeeds, he gives Heero back his (damaged) Gundam. Next morning, he wakes up and finds that during the night, Heero has repaired Wing Gundam by taking parts out of Duo's Gundam Deathscythe, and then flew off. Duo is not happy - but also intrigued.
Meanwhile, Quatre and Trowa run into each other: Quatre shows up just as Trowa has finished destroying an Alliance base and is out of ammunition. He still tries to fight Quatre, but Quatre ends up surrendering to Trowa instead, and even takes him to his desert hideout for a bit, where they end up playing an improvised duet: Quatre plays violin, Trowa plays flute. Then Trowa leaves, leaving Quatre behind with what looks suspiciously like a crush.
Wufei bombs another Alliance base, killing what turn out to be new recruits in their sleep, earning him the hate of Lucrezia Noin, who was responsible for training them.
Zechs develops an interest in fighting against the Gundam pilots (especially Heero) one on one, and even digs up an old, powerful mobile suit (named Tallgeese) for just that purpose
Heero and Duo enroll in a boarding school to provide a cover for them, as they have orders to destroy a nearby base together. Relena is obsessive enough about Heero to actually track him down and join them there.
Treize orders Une to kill Relena's father. Une succeeds, but Vice Minister Dorlian does manage to tell Relena that she's adopted, and that she's actually Relena Peacecraft, the heir to the Sanq kingdom - a famous pacifist kingdom that was destroyed by the Alliance when she was a baby. Attempts by Une to kill Relena as well are thwarted by Heero (who's not quite sure if he wouldn't like to kill Relena himself, but eventually doesn't).
Wufei tries to kill Treize, and actually manages to get close to him. Treize promptly challenges him to a sword duel, which Wufei loses. Treize still lets him go, but not before calling Wufei "Little Dragon". Wufei is now terribly depressed, because this has shaken his faith in himself. He is clearly weak, and thus unworthy to fight. This whole episode also spawned the Treize/Wufei pairing.
The Gundam pilots also get duped into killing the few Alliance officers who actually wanted peace and offer the colonies freedom. The pilots get really really bad press for this - the colonies disown them and deny having anything to do with them. Zechs, meanwhile, also reveals himself (by taking off his mask) as Milliardo Peacecraft, the older brother of Relena. Zechs feels that he has to leave the army/Oz/whatever. Treize, of course, knew all along who Zechs was, and lets him go.
***
Most stories are set around this period, especially most early fanfiction, which was written before the series was available in the US. While the pilots are never actually together outside of one battle during this period, *the* most popular fandom invention is the safe-house scenario, where all 5 pilots are moving from one safehouse to another (they're typically all owned by the Winner corporation), taking orders from their scientists and fighting Oz, and usually also being undercover, usually in some boarding school or another (steadily followed by an obsessed Relena in a pink limo).
***
During this time, Une also threatens to blow up the colonies if Heero does not surrender himself and his Gundam. Heero's response to this is to blow up his Gundam, with himself in it. His apparent corpse is picked up by Trowa's Gundam. Trowa takes him back to the circus, where he nurses not-quite-dead Heero back to health. He has the help of Catherine Bloom, who works as a knife-thrower at the circus (and might or might not be his actual sister. It's unclear in canon, and if she is, they don't realize it themselves).
Wufei gets kicked out of his depression and back to fighting by meeting Sally Po, the ex-Alliance doctor, who isn't taking any of his "women are weak" crap.
Zechs was very impressed by Heero blowing himself up, so he decides to start to rebuild Wing Gundam. Relena, meanwhile, tries to kill Lady Une to revenge the death of her adoptive father, but Noin (sent by Treize to protect her) stops her and takes her under her care. Noin also eventually tracks down Trowa and Heero, and invites Heero to have a re-match with Zechs in the rebuilt Wing Gundam. He accepts.
Behind the scenes, Romafella, the financial organization behind Oz, has started to develop new, remote-controlled mobile suits ("dolls"). They also manage to follow Heero and Trowa to Zechs, and attack them during their fight.
Quatre and Duo, who don't know that Heero is still alive, spent some time shacked up in one of Quatre's huge houses. They now decide that it's time for them to get back to space. Wufei joins them; however, the Oz troops don't want to let them leave and fight them. Quatre decides to self-destruct in his Gundam to let the other two escape, but his Gundam takes him out and puts him down in a safe place first (it's really a surprise that noone has written Quatre/Gundam Sandrock before, but so far, all I've seen is stories where Duo gets tentacleraped by his Gundam. *pout*). Duo and Wufei get away in their Gundams, and Quatre managed to gets into space on a shuttle. Heero and Trowa notice the battle, and take off to space as well, but without their Gundams.
...
I really tried to write a short and understandable summary the rest of the plot, but I gave up somewhere around ep 30 (the above was up to around episode 17). If you do want to read up on the rest of the plot, I direct you to Morgan Richter's "Let's Hear It For The Boys" page, which has well-done and snarky episode summaries. They are probably the next best thing to watching the series yourself. I'm just going to mention 2 more characters that you meet later in the plot:
Hilde Schbeiker is an Oz recruit who meets up with Duo. He eventually convinces her that maybe Oz isn't in the right. She ends up helping Duo a couple of times, risking her life in the process.
Dorothy Catalonia is the granddaughter of one of the leaders of Romafella (the financial organization behind Oz). She's also Treize's cousin, and has even weirder eyebrows than he does. When we first meet her, she's being friends with Relena; however, she's very much in love with war (as opposed to Relena, who's very into absolute pacifism), which later causes trouble.
There is also the OAV/movie. It's not really necessary to watch it, but if you want to know, there's a detailed summary available (avec some typos, but it's the best summary I've found - the only thing missing is the fact that after Heero looks over Relena at the gathering, he then disappears into a crowd, giving off a definite 'I'm going to disappear forever' vibe). Also, here's a picture of Mariemaia.
The Fandom
The creators of Gundam Wing are on record as saying that they created the series with no canon pairings (apart from the obvious crushes that Relena, Noin and Une have on Heero, Zechs and Treize respectively). Each character has (at least) one male and one female pairing possibility (by that, I mean one that can actually be supported by canon). However, the GW fandom also has a huge amount of fanon, some of which is based on early stories that were written before the series was available in the US, and some based on the additional materials (the manga, the official character information that never made it into the series, or the many many pieces of official artwork, many of which show the characters in strange outfits - the GW pilots as a rockband, while skiing, as fairies, as male fashion models, etc.).
Heero:
- H/Relena - The biggest het pairing, obviously. Based on all the canon material, and some promotional images that show them being all cuddly. Very little of it is worth giving a try unless you're already a dedicated fan.
- H/Duo is the biggest slash pairing. There are relationship hints in the series if you look for them, but there is also the fact that many many official images feature Duo and Heero, and often have them with their arms around each other's shoulders. Fanfiction-wise, it's damned difficult to find good 1x2 stories under all the stuff that is churned out by mostly teenage fangirls (often repetitions of the "Heero is a bastard who has no feelings and Duo is sooo in love with him but Heero doesn't return his feelings so Duo starts cutting himself (again) and/or whoring himself (again) and/or gets addicted to drugs (again) and/or gets gangraped by the rest of the pilots, all of Oz and at least one Gundam (again), and that makes Heero realize that he loves him after all, and they love and kiss and all is fluffy" plot), but they are out there.
- H/Trowa is the most common small/er pairing, which I don't particularly see (they seem to have maybe three quarters of a normal person's emotional behaviors between them), but considering that there are people who write H/Dr. J fanfic...
- H/any other characters does exist, but usually it's just a handful of stories for each, and some pairings don't exist at all - or at least I never found them.
Duo:
- D/Hilde: it exists, based on the fact that Hilde does risk her life for him, and that they do run their scrapyard together after the series. However, the vibes they put out seem to me to be mostly brother/sister or friendship vibes, and considering the lack of any significant amount of stories about them, I'm probably not alone.
- D/Relena: surprisingly enough, there are probably more stories for this pairing than for D/Hilde. I'm not quite sure what the pairing is based on, but I've read some stories that worked.
- D/Wufei: probably the biggest of the alternative slash pairings. The dynamic between Duo and Wufei is somewhat similar to the one between Duo and Heero, and they do have one or two moments together that might facilitate bonding between them.
- D/anyone else: There are more Duo pairings than pairings for any other pilot, but a lot of this has to do with the fact that Duo is also the character who usually gets hurt, beaten, raped, folded, tortured, cut in two, or gets to die in childbirth, so many of these are just DuoTorture stories. I don't think there's anyone who has not, in one story or another, gotten to rape Duo - and yes, I am including the Gundams in this.
Trowa:
- T/Catherine: is nearly non-existent, probably because there's a chance that they're really brother and sister. Also, Catherine does pretty much treat Trowa like a younger brother.
- T/Une: these are usually set during the time when Une recruits him into Oz. This sometimes works surprisingly well.
- T/Quatre: the most "obvious" slash pairing - very often they're simply considered canon (similar to Remus and Sirius in HP fandom). Their part of fandom suffers from an overabundance of fluff, *and* the fact that Trowa was the reason for the biggest war in the GW fandom. I admit that I find the pairing rather boring...
- T/Wufei exists, but is very rare. T/other characters is even rarer.
Quatre:
- Q/Dorothy ... er. It exists, I just see absolutely no basis for it. The only thing Dorothy might find fascinating about Quatre is his belief in pacifism, and I think she'd be much more likely to go after Relena if that's what interests her...
- Q/others is out there, somewhere. Sometimes Q gets to be all pacifistic and emphatic over Heero, and I've seen Quatre/Rashid (the huge guy who's the leader of the manguanacs) (eek!), and I've heard about Quatre/camel...
Wufei:
- W/Sally: there's not much, but they usually make a pretty good match - Wufei does need a woman who's not afraid to kick his ass.
- W/Treize: given the whole swordfighting incident with Treize, this pairing shouldn't come as a surprise. A good writer can make it work quite well, despite the fact that Wufei would probably find it dishonorable to sleep with the enemy. But given Treize's strange approach to honor, he might end up convincing Wufei... Oh, and occasionally Wufei is shagging both Treize and Zechs. Well, it does make for a nice mental image...
- W/others: er. Not that I've seen, but I'm sure someone has written pretty much everything there is to write...
Zechs:
- Z/Noin: well, they're canon, and have a canon happy ending. However, there are few stories featuring them. They're usually just a background pairing in stories focussing on other characters.
- Z/Treize: they're good friends, they trust each other, then fate and their pasts come between them... of course they get slashed. Also, some people prefer this pairing as it is the only m/m pairing where both partners are over 18. Ok, you *could* slash them with the mad scientists...
Treize:
- T/Une: at least her crush on him is canon. I could easily see them having something together sometime during the series - although Une is rather vulnerable when it comes to him, so maybe Treize would have considered it dishonorable. Anyway - given that Treize dies, there's not really much fiction for them (the He-Isn't-Really-Dead stories seem to be written nearly exclusively by the slashers).
There's very little gen, and also surprisingly little Mary Sue, at least given the amount of existing fanfiction (but they do exist, usually in the form of a 6th pilot). Either they're hiding at ff.net, where I've never looked for GW fic, or most of the writers write themselves into Duo, who often is more tortured than Blair Sandburg, Tom Paris and Methos together.
There are, however, a number of really nice, long AUs, if you like these.
Talking of Duo and his characterization: well... he's bouncy, he's talky, and he's got hair down to his ass. That alone guarantees that decent Duo characterization is hard to find.
Character bashing is one of the biggest problem of the fandom, so much so that pretty much every character has a "Society against the Bastardization of [character name]". Relena is usually the one most affected - especially the Heero/Duo fans see her as nothing more than an air-headed, obsessed horror (granted, she's somewhat loopy at the beginning of the series, but she does grow up towards the end...).
Other typical stereotyping includes Heero the cold bastard, Duo the depressed teenage girl, Trowa the emotionless lump, Quatre the sissy (or, ZeroSystem!Quatre[*] the insane killer who rapes camels), and insane ranting Wufei (who's usually also homophobic). Treize and Zechs just end up as the occasional insane bad guys (Zechs usually more often than Treize).
[*] the Zero System is explained in the last half of the series. Check the link to Morgan Richter's summary for details
Where To Find The Fandom
There's no centralized archive. The closest thing there is is GWAddiction. Other websites that house archives... hm - many of the archives I used to frequent have since disappeared... Actually, I'd recommend going to the GWAddiction links page and start working through these, and just keep following links pages.
Many authors are mostly found via mailing lists. There are tons of them (and I haven't been following them for about a year and a half, but I don't think there'd be any big new ones), and I wouldn't really recommend them to anyone not already a fan - but if anyone is interested, just yell, and I'll look through the ones I remember and see which ones still look active.
Things You Should Know If This Is Your First Anime Fandom
Anime fandoms differ somewhat from normal tv/movie fandoms, and you might get some sort of culture shock if you're not used to them. Ok, it's not as bad as it used to be, as more and more people begin to be involved in both, but still, here are some things that may help you avoid confusion:
m/m is usually called yaoi. The term is a Japanese abbreviation for 'yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi': no mountain (ie peak; climax), no point, no meaning. It originated with doujinshi (fan drawn comics based on other people's characters which in Japan can legally be sold for money. The yearly doujinshi conventions are *huge*), which are usually the drawn equivalents to PWPs. The term is used by Western anime fandom to cover everything that relates to m/m. It is not quite the same as slash, but arguing the differences can get wanky.
(I highly recommend googling for doujinshi for Gundam Wing and other fandoms. Some of these are *very* nice...)
shounen ai: this translates as 'boy's love'. The term is sometimes used to refer to m/m stories that are not explicit.
Yaoi pairings are always made up of a seme and an uke. When it comes to sex, the seme is the top and the uke is the bottom. However, this refers to more than just the sexual positions: it also refers to the role the character plays in the relationship. The seme is also the more active, commanding one, and the uke is always more submissive. Trying to explain this concept here is impossible, mostly because it's damn difficult to explain at all. Just accept the fact that the for the Japanese, there just *has* to be a seme and an uke, and to them, it's always clear who's the seme and who's the uke, and that's the way it is (the closest I've found in tv fandoms is the concept of the strong dominant big guy and the frail and easily hurt little guy - Chakotay and Paris, Jim and Blair, etc).
When it comes to Western yaoi fandom, this is not as strict as in Japan: some people see the other part of the pairing as the seme, some only use it as equivalents to the terms 'top' and 'bottom', and others ignore the seme-uke distinction altogether. However, for some people it *is* a big deal, especially when it comes to Trowa. This is one of the things you have to accept.
When it comes to pairing codes, a sexual relationship is not indicated by a '/', but by a 'x'. Thus, DuoxHeero (or 2x1) means that the story pairs Heero with Duo, and Duo is the seme. People who write the characters without the seme/uke distinction often use 1x2x1 - this doesn't mean Duo is sleeping with both Heero and a clone of Heero, it just means that they're considered equal. Some authors might have a different notation to express the same sentiment, but it's usually clear. Also, a '+' between 2 characters means that the story features a relationship between them, but it's friends only (or it might be up to shounen ai, but nothing more). So a story labelled 1x2, 2+4 means that Duo and Heero are going to have something sexual going on, and that Duo and Quatre are going to be friends, or Duo might actually pine after Quatre.
Dubs vs subs: GW played in the US on Cartoon Network, dubbed into English. I have seen bits of the dubbing, and ... *gah*! Ok, granted, there are worse dubs, but some of the fandom characterizations can be traced back to these. Given the differences between the Japanese and the English language, there are just some concepts that you can't translate. Duo in the original is still bouncy and outgoing, but he does also come across as occasionally serious, and someone who has a clue. Duo in the dub... definitely reminded me of a 40 year old surfer who smoked too many cigarettes. If you ever decide to watch GW (or any other anime), do watch the subtitled Japanese version (GW has some especially nice and famous Japanese voice actors...)
Fangirl Japanese: There's watching something in the original language, and then there's going way overboard. Fangirl Japanese falls into the second category - it's nice that anime makes people start to study Japanese (hey, it's the reason I started, too), but many fangirls feel the need to pepper their fanfiction with bits and pieces of Japanese, no matter if it's appropriate or not. If you want to take Gundam Wing as an example: from what we can see, everyone in GW speaks the same language. But even if you want to assume that different languages still exist, why would Duo, who is of American background, use Japanese endearments for Wufei, who's Chinese? Especially if they're incorrect endearments... Still, considering how often you'll run across these if you ever get into an anime fandom, here's a very nice glossary of the most common terms.
Oh, and if you do end up googling for doujinshi, I should mention that you will, occasionally, run across images of the characters in chibi form. Sometimes they'll even be both chibi *and* partially some kind of animal (cats are most common). The Japanese consider this cute. Accept it. Eventually, you will get used to this, and even learn to like it.
thanks to
flambeau for holding my hand while I was writing this.*falls over*
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The flame wars! The character bashing! The desperate hunting for decent Duo, Quatre, and Wufei characterization!
Also, I just did a quick check of old bookmarks, and the other archives I used to frequent, A Little Piece of Gundam Wing, Steelsong, and Death and the Dragon are all still around, although who knows the last time any of them were updated.
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Good stories can also be found at Gundamwing@fanworkrecs (http://gundamwing.fanworkrecs.com/main.htm), which has many excellent gen, het & slash recs.
gwyaoi (http://gwyaoi.org) is an extremely well organised recs page, and has a section of intro recs for newbies (http://gwyaoi.org/recs/intro_ficrecs.shtml) too -- it's almost exclusively 1x2x1 though, with some 3x4 & 5xwhoever (poor Wufei, always gets the leftovers). However it does have extensive links to just about every yaoi archive and writer in the fandom.
Though a bit irritating in parts, the character essays here (http://www.croik.com/essays/gundamwing/) are very in depth and a good antidote to the massive amounts of Dumb Fanon this poor fandom seems to have.
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I should probably update the summary at the end of the months with all the stuff I (re)discover until then...
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Damn, I wanted to go to bed early today...
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http://www.geocities.com/jnurichan/fics/VeryStrangeIndeed.html
http://www.geocities.com/jnurichan/fics/SkinandSteel.html
(that one is actually cute. I mean, compared to the others. Not compared to anything sane)
http://www.geocities.com/jnurichan/fics/untitledDeathscytheDuoRapefic.html
Generally, anything by Sephiroth is... unique:
http://www.geocities.com/jnurichan/sephiroth.html
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I am sorry I asked. So very very sorry. *Rocks in the corner hugging her bear.*
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Oh, and if you do end up googling for doujinshi, I should mention that you will, occasionally, run across images of the characters in chibi form.
Yes, and it freaks me out. There will be a frame of graphic sex or cum or sadomasochism, and then a cute little chibi frame. I'm afraid my brain just can't process the dichotomy *g*.
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Chibi Terror by Kat Reitz & tzigane:
http://rpgplug.co.uk/Asylum/Gundam/chibi.html
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(or, ZeroSystem!Quatre[*] the insane killer who rapes camels),
Hee hee.
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Very little of it is worth giving a try unless you're already a dedicated fan.
Aren't you being a little biased? I could say that about every pairing you have written in the summaries stated here.
While I'm at it, I'll promote this site since GWaddiction isn't the ONLY GW site out there.
Blissfulignorance (http://www.blissfulignorance.com/phpBB/portal.php)
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But when I was active in the fandom (mid-2000 to mid-2002), I was on several het-focussed MLs, and I did look through archives (I remember yaoijanai.com, and ff.net). And - there weren't any 1xR stories that I really liked. LemonWing is pretty much the only het stuff (apart from 2 or 3 WufeixSally stories) that I like enough that I'd be willing to recommend it to others, especially others who're not fans already.
I tried to keep the plot summary mostly impartial, but yeah, the couples section does reflect my own views.
GW fandom is huge, and with 2-3 recs a week for one month, I can at most rec 15 stories. I'm trying to spread the ones I do rec around, so that there'll be many different types of stories, but I can't represent the whole fandom in these recs.
Maybe there are great GW het fics hiding somewhere where I can't find them. But if you think so, why not sign up for doing a second round of GW recs, and rec het exclusively?
Also, I do plan to spend more time this month surfing around and trying to find where most of the archives went, so that I can edit in more links to the intro post. If you (or anyone else) want to write up a GW couple summary to show your viewpoints of the pairings, I'll edit that in as well.
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I mean, it's so obvious what you're opinion of the show is and what characters and pairings you like and dislike. That, shouldn't show through in your descriptions.
Gundam Wing is such a huge fandom and is filled with more opinions and pairings then one can imagine, and none that are really etched in stone either. My advice, is that when entering the Gundam Wing fandom, you must keep an open mind and make up your own mind. Your own likes and dislikes and not solely rely on anyone's descriptions or depictions.
Gundam Wing is not an easy fandom to be part of, good Lord I know, so beware, all ye who dare enter into this fandom.
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I had actually started writing up a summary for GW, too.
Small error... 'Romafella' is traditionally spelt 'Romafeller', though since it's Japanese none of the spellings count. ;)
Also, for anyone who thinks this is a bit daunting... don't worry. Pretty much no knowledge of the actual plot is needed to read about 95% of GW fanfics. The thing is, the plot is very thick, so most fanfics spend time on characterization. It's also surprisingly easy to think up ideas for. GW has some of the widest range of fanfics. Especially AU-wise. And every other-wise. It's... really confusing.
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(If I'm repeating any, I'm sorry)
Lev's Lair (http://www.gwaddiction.com/levlair/) - A ton of good fanfics, updated semi-regularly. Lots of 1x2x1, but others also. (Tapered off during the school year, I think.
Aenai Ai (http://aenai.steelsong.com/) - Primerally 1x2x1. Not updated as frequently, but has some darker fics, if you like that stuff. Go just to see the picture on the entrance page!
Twisted Perspective (http://www.twistedperspective.com/fiction/main.html) - Okay, this is Spook's site, but it's a good place to start out, since most of her fics have more to do with the characters than the story. *cough*AsylumOnlyGoodAU*cough*
I'm probably just being annoying now, so I'll stop. Lol. I wanna rec this fandom!
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Thank you for the links below - I'll edit them in at the end of the month.
Also, if you want to rec GW, just sign up. GW is big enough that it should be able to get it featured again (it's a big fandom, but there are not many anime fans, which is why it's not a year-round fandom). It could probably use recs from another perspective.
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I used to love this fandom, but I ran screaming from the ML wars shortly after it came out in the US. I pretty much learned to hate it to convince myself to never, ever venture back into the fandom. But now you made me want to watch it again. I still have all my old fansubs... *slaps hand*
Well, maybe one or two fics won't hurt...
wufei in fanfom
(Anonymous) 2007-02-08 12:44 am (UTC)(link)GW is an awesome fandom and I want to advise everyone to check out Amy Mizuno's Gundam Wing Page, though it's primarily yaoi/shonen ai stuff. I highly recommend reading Jei, Merula and Sunhawk's fanfics.
http://mizunoamy.bravepages.com/main.html
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But.... did you SERIOUSLY not mention Relena in your list of characters?
Seriously?
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Relena is the daughter of King Peacecraft of Sanc Kingdom, adopted by the Darlian family after his assassination. She becomes fascinated by Heero from the moment they meet, and keeps track of him until her role in the bigger story starts taking shape. Taking after both her biological and adopted father, Relena exhibits characteristics of leadership and is a strong advocate for pacifism, but she is not afraid of pulling a gun when need be.
Admittedly I'm biased myself, since Relena is my favorite Gundam girl and I love her even more than Chara Soon, but please allow me to say that skipping her in the introduction was a gross fucking oversight on your part.
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And thank you so much for those lines! They cracked me up so very hard. LOL
Duo in the dub... definitely reminded me of a 40 year old surfer who smoked too many cigarettes. and Quatre the sissy (or, ZeroSystem!Quatre[*] the insane killer who rapes camels)