Fandom: You Never Forget.
A Dorky Essay-ish Type Thing Written in Response to the Final Snarry Games
by conclusivelead
This may end up turning into something of an essay, but it's something I feel the need to get off my chest. I just, not ten minutes ago, found out that the Snarry Games have hosted their final round this year. I'm not sure how many of the people on my flist are Harry Potter fans now or have been in the past, but I've always, always been an avid HP lover and my HP-OTP is undeniably and irrevocably Snarry.
Harry Potter is that which triggered my interest in fanfiction, and it's actually what helped me to become aware of fandom in the first place. Unfortunately, I didn't make an effort to ever get involved in the Harry Potter fandom to a degree that I would have liked - I lurked, mostly, and read fanfiction at FF.net - but HP is something that I will hold near and dear to my heart long after Merlin has ended and long after the Winchesters drive off in the Impala for the last time.
This may sound heartless, but there are reasons for my feeling this way. Harry Potter is my childhood. For years and years and years, Harry Potter was my one source of comfort on stormy summer days; Harry Potter was my friend when I was in and out of ICU recovering from grand maul seizures; Harry Potter was the one thing that was always there for me, no matter where I moved or who I had to leave behind. When I moved from Alabama to Ohio and had to say goodbye to my best friend in the entire world (love you, pinkxthong), Harry Potter was able to come with me.
It was sometime around when I was like...I want to say thirteen or fourteen that I began to read HP fanfic, and while I did at first ship het pairings like Draco/Hermione and Snape/Hermione (and even, for a couple of really weird months, Harry/Hermione), my original uncertainty about slash very quickly turned into avid adoration (as is obvious.) I started with Drarry and eventually segued into Snarry, where I've stayed since and have been very happy.
I can't remember the first time I heard about the Snarry Games. Like I've mentioned previously, I got involved in fandom kind of late. While I did start reading HP fanfic around the time the first Games was held in 2006, I had no idea what Livejournal was or even that there was anywhere else online to find fanfic other than FF.net. So by the time I did become aware of the Games and their obvious relevance with Snarry fans online, I felt already like a great big Johnny-come-lately and I didn't want to barge onto the scene too late. Honestly, I'd thought that the Snarry Games had ended last year and so hadn't checked to see whether they were hosting another round this year.
I know a lot of you are probably thinking that I should have heard about this in HP comms and the like, but I haven't ever actually actively participated in the one fandom that I hold closest to my heart. I haven't actually avoided HP comms, I've just never, for one reason or another, visited one after joining it. It sounds so strange to say, but it's true.
I feel like I should make one thing clear - I was just a kid when everyone else that was squealing over Harry Potter and Snarry back in 2006 was old enough to actually produce fic worthy of the fandom. I had yet to mature to a point where I could write without making things overly dramatic and cliched, and I'm actually grateful that I never did try to write anything then because I surely would have hated it now.
I'm not sure how many of ya'll have actually read any of my writing, but I do write fanfiction for Merlin, Supernatural, and J2 RPS. I feel like I'm best known in the fandoms I'm involved in for the icons and animations I make, but the contributions I value the most are the stories that I post on my LJ. While the response to my fics is, needless to say, much less exuberant than the response to my graphics - and the response to the fics that I really, really love is much less exuberant than the response to the fics that I feel, in some ways, almost obligated to write - the writing aspect of fandom is that which fascinates me the most. The whole reason I'm even involved in fandom is for the reading and writing being a part of it allows me to participate in.
I guess, in the end, what I'm trying to say is this:
I regret never being able to have participated in the Snarry Games. I regret never having motivated myself to look and see if there were still opportunities for me to contribute to the fandom. I think the greatest thing about the HP fandom is that even though the books have all been written and all the speculation is over, there are still so many people involved and so much fic being written that it's easy to say that the fandom is still very much an active one. In most fandoms, once a series, be it a TV show or a book series, is over, usually that means the fandom drifts slowly into nonexistence. What I've discovered about HP, though, is better late than never. Even though there are a lot of really fantastic Snarry writers that I haven't seen hide nor hair of in years, it seems like there are still so many people willing to be creative and come up with new ideas, and this excites me more than any fandom has in a long, long time.
To wrap this up: Harry Potter was my first fandom, and is very close to my heart. Although I can't legitimately say I've ever been an active member of that fandom, I can say that I've been a fangirl at least as long as most HP fans on LJ have. Hearing about the Games being over is sad, yes. But I also get this distinct feeling that everything is going to be okay, and there is still going to be amazing fic being written by people that realize, like me, that even if Harry Potter is over, and even if a lot of the comms that have held out for so long since its end are finally closing, people still want to read Snarry. People still want to read new things about these same characters that we've been in love with for over a decade.
Because you never forget your first fandom.
by conclusivelead
This may end up turning into something of an essay, but it's something I feel the need to get off my chest. I just, not ten minutes ago, found out that the Snarry Games have hosted their final round this year. I'm not sure how many of the people on my flist are Harry Potter fans now or have been in the past, but I've always, always been an avid HP lover and my HP-OTP is undeniably and irrevocably Snarry.
Harry Potter is that which triggered my interest in fanfiction, and it's actually what helped me to become aware of fandom in the first place. Unfortunately, I didn't make an effort to ever get involved in the Harry Potter fandom to a degree that I would have liked - I lurked, mostly, and read fanfiction at FF.net - but HP is something that I will hold near and dear to my heart long after Merlin has ended and long after the Winchesters drive off in the Impala for the last time.
This may sound heartless, but there are reasons for my feeling this way. Harry Potter is my childhood. For years and years and years, Harry Potter was my one source of comfort on stormy summer days; Harry Potter was my friend when I was in and out of ICU recovering from grand maul seizures; Harry Potter was the one thing that was always there for me, no matter where I moved or who I had to leave behind. When I moved from Alabama to Ohio and had to say goodbye to my best friend in the entire world (love you, pinkxthong), Harry Potter was able to come with me.
It was sometime around when I was like...I want to say thirteen or fourteen that I began to read HP fanfic, and while I did at first ship het pairings like Draco/Hermione and Snape/Hermione (and even, for a couple of really weird months, Harry/Hermione), my original uncertainty about slash very quickly turned into avid adoration (as is obvious.) I started with Drarry and eventually segued into Snarry, where I've stayed since and have been very happy.
I can't remember the first time I heard about the Snarry Games. Like I've mentioned previously, I got involved in fandom kind of late. While I did start reading HP fanfic around the time the first Games was held in 2006, I had no idea what Livejournal was or even that there was anywhere else online to find fanfic other than FF.net. So by the time I did become aware of the Games and their obvious relevance with Snarry fans online, I felt already like a great big Johnny-come-lately and I didn't want to barge onto the scene too late. Honestly, I'd thought that the Snarry Games had ended last year and so hadn't checked to see whether they were hosting another round this year.
I know a lot of you are probably thinking that I should have heard about this in HP comms and the like, but I haven't ever actually actively participated in the one fandom that I hold closest to my heart. I haven't actually avoided HP comms, I've just never, for one reason or another, visited one after joining it. It sounds so strange to say, but it's true.
I feel like I should make one thing clear - I was just a kid when everyone else that was squealing over Harry Potter and Snarry back in 2006 was old enough to actually produce fic worthy of the fandom. I had yet to mature to a point where I could write without making things overly dramatic and cliched, and I'm actually grateful that I never did try to write anything then because I surely would have hated it now.
I'm not sure how many of ya'll have actually read any of my writing, but I do write fanfiction for Merlin, Supernatural, and J2 RPS. I feel like I'm best known in the fandoms I'm involved in for the icons and animations I make, but the contributions I value the most are the stories that I post on my LJ. While the response to my fics is, needless to say, much less exuberant than the response to my graphics - and the response to the fics that I really, really love is much less exuberant than the response to the fics that I feel, in some ways, almost obligated to write - the writing aspect of fandom is that which fascinates me the most. The whole reason I'm even involved in fandom is for the reading and writing being a part of it allows me to participate in.
I guess, in the end, what I'm trying to say is this:
I regret never being able to have participated in the Snarry Games. I regret never having motivated myself to look and see if there were still opportunities for me to contribute to the fandom. I think the greatest thing about the HP fandom is that even though the books have all been written and all the speculation is over, there are still so many people involved and so much fic being written that it's easy to say that the fandom is still very much an active one. In most fandoms, once a series, be it a TV show or a book series, is over, usually that means the fandom drifts slowly into nonexistence. What I've discovered about HP, though, is better late than never. Even though there are a lot of really fantastic Snarry writers that I haven't seen hide nor hair of in years, it seems like there are still so many people willing to be creative and come up with new ideas, and this excites me more than any fandom has in a long, long time.
To wrap this up: Harry Potter was my first fandom, and is very close to my heart. Although I can't legitimately say I've ever been an active member of that fandom, I can say that I've been a fangirl at least as long as most HP fans on LJ have. Hearing about the Games being over is sad, yes. But I also get this distinct feeling that everything is going to be okay, and there is still going to be amazing fic being written by people that realize, like me, that even if Harry Potter is over, and even if a lot of the comms that have held out for so long since its end are finally closing, people still want to read Snarry. People still want to read new things about these same characters that we've been in love with for over a decade.
Because you never forget your first fandom.