A Fandom Decade: Ten Years and Counting
It's the obligatory 'oh my life, where did the last ten years go??' post. However, seeing as 2010 marks my tenth year in fandom, I thought I'd ramble a little bit about how I got here and how it just isn't like the good old days...or perhaps it's better?
I was twelve years old when my best friend marzie_pan told me that I had to watch this thing called Stargate SG-1. I'd been raised on the classic BBC2 re-runs of Star Trek, Buck Rogers and classic BSG, whilst following the beginnings of Buffy and the later Trek series. However with Stargate also came fan-fiction.
I started in the Sam/Daniel het shipping land, where we very much the minority ship. I ran a mailing list on what was e-groups (and is now yahoogroups), which formed out of "major disaster" with the moderator of our former hub, and we had a minor ship war with the Sam/Jack shippers, who were very much in the majority and thought we were laughable. I was young and stupid, and wrote far too much (very bad) fanfiction - probably about sixty works in that fandom alone. I also went to a fair number of conventions, met the actors who formed my shipping pair and all my other favourites, and met a very good group of friends in tk_rtmt, maggis, black_wolf and helsinkibaby.
I then started accumulating other fandoms sometime in 2003. The first was The West Wing, where I loved Josh/Donna and worshipped the BNFs Jo and Ryo. However, I found my real passion in that fandom with Sam/Josh, my first big slash pairing. I had dabbled a little with Jack/Daniel back in Stargate, but that wasn't really my scene, and my first slash fic was a Sam/Josh semi-epic series.
After that, I was off - CSI (Nick/Greg), CSI:Miami (Speed/Eric), Smallville (Clex, natch), LOTR (Aragorn/Legolas) - until I ended up at Livejournal. There had been stirrings towards LJ during my Stargate and West Wing years, but my Smallville and LOTR experience was almost entirely through independent archives - Slashdom and Library of Moria, respectively - following my friends and favourite writers through our common links. It was through this method that I also found great fandoms such as The Sentinel and Hornblower, and brilliant writers like lanning and coppercowries.
My first solely Livejournal fandom was most likely Stargate: Atlantis (Carson/Rodney), before I threw myself into DC Comics fandom. It was at this stage that any little thing could trigger a fandom hunt - my descent into comicsville was due to babysitting at my comic geek friend's house and watching, of all things, Batman Returns. It's one of those great fandoms where you start with one ship, like Bruce/Dick, and you pick up the satellite ships, like Tim/Kon, and then you end up in wonderful places like Booster/Ted and Roy/Jason, which seemingly spring from nowhere. It also means you meet great fen like kirke_novak, ladybugkay, skitty_kat and fleur_de_liz.
And then you get the British fan phenomena - when I first joined Torchwood fandom, it was a wonderfully close-knit group of British fen, back in the very early days when Jack/Ianto was just a twinkle in the slasher's eye. And then, as Season 1 ended, the fandom exploded in a cornucopia of pr0n and it was exceptionally difficult to keep up. EXACTLY the same thing happened with Merlin - the Merlin/Arthur fandom was small and select, almost all Torchwood fans who knew when they were on to something good, and then spiralled out of control as Season 1 ended. However, I did pick up shinypilot and openskies, which only goes to show that the apple can be rotten to the core (XD).
Now I'm in a whole different twist of fandom - roleplaying games. It's a different world, though you meet the same ship alliances, and it is not entirely governed by your own sense of time, which means it can suck your life away. Also, there's Twitter, that massive fan-gathering tool - case in point, hils ;) - and the pleasant, socially-acceptable stalking of celebrities, such as @mishacollins from Supernatural.
I should probably also briefly mention my strange flirtations with RPS, most notably Cricket and Top Gear, but they were short-lived and slightly crazy. Also, I skirted over a few odd yet brilliant fandoms such as Alexander, dabbled at the fringes of fandom monsters like Harry Potter, and championed a pairing all by myself with Jake 2.0.
In short, I grew up with fandom. I'm twenty-two, engaged to a man who I've dragged into Batman geekery, and about to graduate from medical school. I no longer have the time to write the epics of my teenage years - and they're probably best forgotten anyway. However, I have wonderful friends, with whom I don't talk often enough, and who were among the first people I told of my recent good news, because I love them that damn much.
And I can't regret a second of it
I was twelve years old when my best friend marzie_pan told me that I had to watch this thing called Stargate SG-1. I'd been raised on the classic BBC2 re-runs of Star Trek, Buck Rogers and classic BSG, whilst following the beginnings of Buffy and the later Trek series. However with Stargate also came fan-fiction.
I started in the Sam/Daniel het shipping land, where we very much the minority ship. I ran a mailing list on what was e-groups (and is now yahoogroups), which formed out of "major disaster" with the moderator of our former hub, and we had a minor ship war with the Sam/Jack shippers, who were very much in the majority and thought we were laughable. I was young and stupid, and wrote far too much (very bad) fanfiction - probably about sixty works in that fandom alone. I also went to a fair number of conventions, met the actors who formed my shipping pair and all my other favourites, and met a very good group of friends in tk_rtmt, maggis, black_wolf and helsinkibaby.
I then started accumulating other fandoms sometime in 2003. The first was The West Wing, where I loved Josh/Donna and worshipped the BNFs Jo and Ryo. However, I found my real passion in that fandom with Sam/Josh, my first big slash pairing. I had dabbled a little with Jack/Daniel back in Stargate, but that wasn't really my scene, and my first slash fic was a Sam/Josh semi-epic series.
After that, I was off - CSI (Nick/Greg), CSI:Miami (Speed/Eric), Smallville (Clex, natch), LOTR (Aragorn/Legolas) - until I ended up at Livejournal. There had been stirrings towards LJ during my Stargate and West Wing years, but my Smallville and LOTR experience was almost entirely through independent archives - Slashdom and Library of Moria, respectively - following my friends and favourite writers through our common links. It was through this method that I also found great fandoms such as The Sentinel and Hornblower, and brilliant writers like lanning and coppercowries.
My first solely Livejournal fandom was most likely Stargate: Atlantis (Carson/Rodney), before I threw myself into DC Comics fandom. It was at this stage that any little thing could trigger a fandom hunt - my descent into comicsville was due to babysitting at my comic geek friend's house and watching, of all things, Batman Returns. It's one of those great fandoms where you start with one ship, like Bruce/Dick, and you pick up the satellite ships, like Tim/Kon, and then you end up in wonderful places like Booster/Ted and Roy/Jason, which seemingly spring from nowhere. It also means you meet great fen like kirke_novak, ladybugkay, skitty_kat and fleur_de_liz.
And then you get the British fan phenomena - when I first joined Torchwood fandom, it was a wonderfully close-knit group of British fen, back in the very early days when Jack/Ianto was just a twinkle in the slasher's eye. And then, as Season 1 ended, the fandom exploded in a cornucopia of pr0n and it was exceptionally difficult to keep up. EXACTLY the same thing happened with Merlin - the Merlin/Arthur fandom was small and select, almost all Torchwood fans who knew when they were on to something good, and then spiralled out of control as Season 1 ended. However, I did pick up shinypilot and openskies, which only goes to show that the apple can be rotten to the core (XD).
Now I'm in a whole different twist of fandom - roleplaying games. It's a different world, though you meet the same ship alliances, and it is not entirely governed by your own sense of time, which means it can suck your life away. Also, there's Twitter, that massive fan-gathering tool - case in point, hils ;) - and the pleasant, socially-acceptable stalking of celebrities, such as @mishacollins from Supernatural.
I should probably also briefly mention my strange flirtations with RPS, most notably Cricket and Top Gear, but they were short-lived and slightly crazy. Also, I skirted over a few odd yet brilliant fandoms such as Alexander, dabbled at the fringes of fandom monsters like Harry Potter, and championed a pairing all by myself with Jake 2.0.
In short, I grew up with fandom. I'm twenty-two, engaged to a man who I've dragged into Batman geekery, and about to graduate from medical school. I no longer have the time to write the epics of my teenage years - and they're probably best forgotten anyway. However, I have wonderful friends, with whom I don't talk often enough, and who were among the first people I told of my recent good news, because I love them that damn much.
And I can't regret a second of it