Fandom and blogging.
It's been many years since I was actively involved in any fandom activities. Once upon a time, this journal was all fandom, all the time, but it's been a long time since I posted anything fannish here with any kind of regularity, and almost as long since I regularly produced or consumed fannish works. Sure, I'd occasionally read a fic here and there if it was recced to me, and I'd check up on a few of my favourite authors every couple of months and see if they'd posted anything big. And once in a blue moon I'd go on a binge; head to a decent archive and look up one of my OTPs and read and read and read until the sun came up. But by and large, I was out of it.
Until.
About two months ago, I watched the Season 6 finale of Supernatural, and the timing was such that Season 7 had only just started airing, so spoilers would be easy to avoid, and the show was doing unspeakable things to my very favourite character and I had all these feelings about it and I just had to share that with somebody, and read other people's thoughts about it all, and I really just wanted some good meta to sink my teeth into and then a million fics to wave a magic wand and make it all better and then probably a million more fics that explored the heartbreak to its fullest, most dreadfully angsty extent, and rinse and repeat.
I'd never been involved in SPN fandom before, because I never watch it on telly so I'm always a season behind and I didn't want any spoilers. But then, the timing was just right, and I desperately wanted to see what the fandom was saying. And so I did.
This... may have been a mistake.
For one thing, it's stupidly addictive, and for a small fandom it's amazingly prolific. It's eating all of my time keeping up with new fics and vids and meta. In fact it's so addictive that I've even made myself a new fandom journal so I can follow more comms and post fannish squee there without shame. So don't worry, fansquee posts aren't going to take over here or anything. In fact, the fandom is so addictive that I'm even starting to write fic myself, despite knowing that I'm not much good at writing fiction in general. And maybe if I ever write something that lives up to my standards I'll even post it there. And I have never, ever posted my own fiction of any kind online before.
For another thing, the fandom is completely batshit insane. The general level of squee involved is no greater than in any other fandom, I suppose, but the way it's done has a certain unhinged delight to it that is catching. I think this is part of why I have less reservations than usual about the idea of posting my own fic. And there's this feedback loop with the actors and showrunners because they are all aware of and interact with their fans in ways that are frighteningly hilarious. And most of them are utterly nuts too.
Which brings me to problem number three: Misha. Freaking. Collins. I just. I don't even know. I haven't had a celebrity crush this bad since I was freaking twelve years old. It's embarrassing. In fact, I don't know if I've ever had it this bad for a celebrity. This article explains very well why it is so very hard to talk oneself out of a silly crush on Misha and just how the crush gets boosted to ridiculous levels. It's like the author was inside my head or something, because GodDAMN. It is all so truthy. Except she forgot to mention that he's got his own charity and is an amazingly nice person as well as being witty and charming and hot and talented and so on and so forth. And that his legal name is Dmitri Krushnic. Freaking Dmitri, man. I have had a thing about that name since I watched Anastasia as a kid, okay? I want to scribble it in the margins of my notebooks with little hearts all around it and dot the i's with love hearts too for good measure. Bloody bloody hell! I am a grown woman! I don't even have the excuse of a sweeping tide of unfamiliar hormones coupled with naive beliefs about the nature of real life relationships for this behaviour! What on earth is wrong with me?
(Mark just smiles at me and says "yes dear" when I squee about it. Except for sometimes when he teasingly eggs me on. I love my partner to bits.)
Overall, though, I am glad that I'm back into fandom, because I've missed it. The unbridled enthusiasm and the sense of community and the hours of entertainment afforded by fanfic are all lovely. And as hobbies go, it's got a lot going for it: it' practically free, it doesn't involve much in the way of energy, and it can be accessed at any time and any place where a net connection is handy which these days is all the time and everywhere.
... So. That's my squee about fandom. And I promise not to do it again - or at least not too frequently - or at least, not much in this journal. This journal is read by a few too many real life people, and people who don't get the whole fandom thing generally even if I won't see them face to face and be horribly embarrassed about it. Somewhere along the line this became my personal and sometimes political blog, and it's all a bit too real-life oriented these days, and I don't think I want fandom to take it back over. I like to keep my escapism separate. But if anybody on my flist would be interested in reading my fansquee, I might make a filter for you? Or if you ask really nicely and I know that you won't be turned off by my depraved inner fangirl, I might point you to my shiny new super sekrit fandom journal, but you have to promise not to tell anybody else that it's me. I foresee it being mostly SPN over there, for the moment, but also sometimes HP (of course), SGA, Xena, Labyrinth and Gormenghast.
In other news, I fully intend to update here more regularly this year. Hopefully no less than once a fortnight. I miss the contact with my friends here, so I'm going to make a point of finding things to write about and share with you. And I'm also resolving to comment more.
Wish me luck?
Until.
About two months ago, I watched the Season 6 finale of Supernatural, and the timing was such that Season 7 had only just started airing, so spoilers would be easy to avoid, and the show was doing unspeakable things to my very favourite character and I had all these feelings about it and I just had to share that with somebody, and read other people's thoughts about it all, and I really just wanted some good meta to sink my teeth into and then a million fics to wave a magic wand and make it all better and then probably a million more fics that explored the heartbreak to its fullest, most dreadfully angsty extent, and rinse and repeat.
I'd never been involved in SPN fandom before, because I never watch it on telly so I'm always a season behind and I didn't want any spoilers. But then, the timing was just right, and I desperately wanted to see what the fandom was saying. And so I did.
This... may have been a mistake.
For one thing, it's stupidly addictive, and for a small fandom it's amazingly prolific. It's eating all of my time keeping up with new fics and vids and meta. In fact it's so addictive that I've even made myself a new fandom journal so I can follow more comms and post fannish squee there without shame. So don't worry, fansquee posts aren't going to take over here or anything. In fact, the fandom is so addictive that I'm even starting to write fic myself, despite knowing that I'm not much good at writing fiction in general. And maybe if I ever write something that lives up to my standards I'll even post it there. And I have never, ever posted my own fiction of any kind online before.
For another thing, the fandom is completely batshit insane. The general level of squee involved is no greater than in any other fandom, I suppose, but the way it's done has a certain unhinged delight to it that is catching. I think this is part of why I have less reservations than usual about the idea of posting my own fic. And there's this feedback loop with the actors and showrunners because they are all aware of and interact with their fans in ways that are frighteningly hilarious. And most of them are utterly nuts too.
Which brings me to problem number three: Misha. Freaking. Collins. I just. I don't even know. I haven't had a celebrity crush this bad since I was freaking twelve years old. It's embarrassing. In fact, I don't know if I've ever had it this bad for a celebrity. This article explains very well why it is so very hard to talk oneself out of a silly crush on Misha and just how the crush gets boosted to ridiculous levels. It's like the author was inside my head or something, because GodDAMN. It is all so truthy. Except she forgot to mention that he's got his own charity and is an amazingly nice person as well as being witty and charming and hot and talented and so on and so forth. And that his legal name is Dmitri Krushnic. Freaking Dmitri, man. I have had a thing about that name since I watched Anastasia as a kid, okay? I want to scribble it in the margins of my notebooks with little hearts all around it and dot the i's with love hearts too for good measure. Bloody bloody hell! I am a grown woman! I don't even have the excuse of a sweeping tide of unfamiliar hormones coupled with naive beliefs about the nature of real life relationships for this behaviour! What on earth is wrong with me?
(Mark just smiles at me and says "yes dear" when I squee about it. Except for sometimes when he teasingly eggs me on. I love my partner to bits.)
Overall, though, I am glad that I'm back into fandom, because I've missed it. The unbridled enthusiasm and the sense of community and the hours of entertainment afforded by fanfic are all lovely. And as hobbies go, it's got a lot going for it: it' practically free, it doesn't involve much in the way of energy, and it can be accessed at any time and any place where a net connection is handy which these days is all the time and everywhere.
... So. That's my squee about fandom. And I promise not to do it again - or at least not too frequently - or at least, not much in this journal. This journal is read by a few too many real life people, and people who don't get the whole fandom thing generally even if I won't see them face to face and be horribly embarrassed about it. Somewhere along the line this became my personal and sometimes political blog, and it's all a bit too real-life oriented these days, and I don't think I want fandom to take it back over. I like to keep my escapism separate. But if anybody on my flist would be interested in reading my fansquee, I might make a filter for you? Or if you ask really nicely and I know that you won't be turned off by my depraved inner fangirl, I might point you to my shiny new super sekrit fandom journal, but you have to promise not to tell anybody else that it's me. I foresee it being mostly SPN over there, for the moment, but also sometimes HP (of course), SGA, Xena, Labyrinth and Gormenghast.
In other news, I fully intend to update here more regularly this year. Hopefully no less than once a fortnight. I miss the contact with my friends here, so I'm going to make a point of finding things to write about and share with you. And I'm also resolving to comment more.
Wish me luck?