Ramblememe January 22: how did you get into SPN fandom
cassiopeia7 asked this highly pertinent question. The answer, obviously, is you guys...
It's a strange fact that my big fannish obsessions have come out of not feeling great. But it is so. Three years back, I was feeling like crap, with resurgent problems with balance and anxiety (don't actually know which comes first, they feed off each other in ungood ways). I wasn't going out so much, and I decided it was about time to add SPN to my Lovefilm account. Because half my flist had been going on and on about it for years by then.
I'd seen flisties 'lost' to SPN (I now feel pretty bad about that language - I'm doing the same, and it's not great to feel like you're leaving friends - but it doesn't have to be that way at all unless they see it that way. I've plenty of friends in both fandom and neither; there's a certain level of fannish squee that is very recognisable if not shared); I'd always meant to chase it down, but never quite bothered.
Then it turned out I'd had the actors the wrong way round - somehow I'd thought there was an irresponsible younger brother and a responsible older, got the actors' ages wrong, switched the names, and generally absorbed fannish things incorrectly. I thought Sam was Dean, and vice versa. Dope.
Then I actually watched the pilot. Slightly uncomfortable with the fear factor (I hate horror films, with vim), but... erm... I may be quite shallow, but I really fancied Jensen Ackles and that seemed like a reason to keep watching. It has remained a pretty good reason to keep watching. I have eventually noticed there's a plot; the horror aspects have either softened up or I've got more accustomed and they certainly don't bother me. I loved the interaction between the brothers from the start.
I see I bought the box set December 2010, and I *know* I was already up to mid season 3 by Christmas, because I watched A Very Supernatural Christmas just before packing up and heading off to the parents. So I inhaled s1-5 pretty fast (I seem to remember slowing down in s5 quite a lot, actually, which has been the pattern with later seasons - start apace, then realise I'm about to run out and slooooow down.)
I'm certain I was already reading fic by then, but it took me a long time to start writing. I'd had false starts with mainlining slash in nuTrek and Sherlock, but never wanting to write. This felt like the same thing. But eventually, my brain was too full of SPN, and SPN RPF, and it started to spill out. I've only been writing about 18 months, I guess, apart from the odd crossover. It feels like more. There's definitely some more writing to come, though I've found RPF more exciting to write, and I'm not marinated in SPN canon like I am Buffy, so canon fic feels like harder work to me. Still, I'm mixing up both for now.
It's a strange fact that my big fannish obsessions have come out of not feeling great. But it is so. Three years back, I was feeling like crap, with resurgent problems with balance and anxiety (don't actually know which comes first, they feed off each other in ungood ways). I wasn't going out so much, and I decided it was about time to add SPN to my Lovefilm account. Because half my flist had been going on and on about it for years by then.
I'd seen flisties 'lost' to SPN (I now feel pretty bad about that language - I'm doing the same, and it's not great to feel like you're leaving friends - but it doesn't have to be that way at all unless they see it that way. I've plenty of friends in both fandom and neither; there's a certain level of fannish squee that is very recognisable if not shared); I'd always meant to chase it down, but never quite bothered.
Then it turned out I'd had the actors the wrong way round - somehow I'd thought there was an irresponsible younger brother and a responsible older, got the actors' ages wrong, switched the names, and generally absorbed fannish things incorrectly. I thought Sam was Dean, and vice versa. Dope.
Then I actually watched the pilot. Slightly uncomfortable with the fear factor (I hate horror films, with vim), but... erm... I may be quite shallow, but I really fancied Jensen Ackles and that seemed like a reason to keep watching. It has remained a pretty good reason to keep watching. I have eventually noticed there's a plot; the horror aspects have either softened up or I've got more accustomed and they certainly don't bother me. I loved the interaction between the brothers from the start.
I see I bought the box set December 2010, and I *know* I was already up to mid season 3 by Christmas, because I watched A Very Supernatural Christmas just before packing up and heading off to the parents. So I inhaled s1-5 pretty fast (I seem to remember slowing down in s5 quite a lot, actually, which has been the pattern with later seasons - start apace, then realise I'm about to run out and slooooow down.)
I'm certain I was already reading fic by then, but it took me a long time to start writing. I'd had false starts with mainlining slash in nuTrek and Sherlock, but never wanting to write. This felt like the same thing. But eventually, my brain was too full of SPN, and SPN RPF, and it started to spill out. I've only been writing about 18 months, I guess, apart from the odd crossover. It feels like more. There's definitely some more writing to come, though I've found RPF more exciting to write, and I'm not marinated in SPN canon like I am Buffy, so canon fic feels like harder work to me. Still, I'm mixing up both for now.