I'm kind of trying to wrap my head around this wave thing, because it looks like in the examples that writers can go in waves, get stuck in a wave, and be out of sync with the wave-cycle of a fandom as a whole.
Of course, it got me to thinking--as I read a whole bunch of fic before I started writing, is it likely that writers can really skip waves? They may read themselves through wave 1 and 2 and end up writing wave 3 -- which sort of feels like what we've got now. Lots of writers who have already progressed through wave 1 and 2 (maybe in other fandoms?) and now we've got a lot of wave 3 and 4 productions.
But do we enjoy reading wave 3 and 4 as much as wave 1 and 2?
Especially since the later waves seem most influenced by cultural mores where gay and bi are becoming more accepted in general. So, would a brand new fandom now still go through those first waves? Or maybe go through them in a jiffy?