(no subject)
So, for longer than I've been knitting or spinning or weaving (first loom! last week! so excited!) I have been into fandom, and I figure it's probably about fucking time I stop just being all passive and shit about it. I think it's clear that I'm pretty committed to the whole idea, and so, new journal theme, new direction, new post.
I'll start by talking about how my first fandom was legitimately N'Sync, and how amazing it is to me how far I've come from that place. I have been reading fan works for TEN YEARS. The complete volume of fan-related words I've read probably outstrips all other words combined, including all my college reading (because... I only read about one in ten of those words. I was a bad, bad student I KNOW but I digress). I love to read and before I read fanfic, I still read fanfic, because the stories I loved the most before fanfiction were the ones that kept opening up, serially. I loved (LOVED) heck, I LOVE the feeling of reading a new work by the same author in the same universe. I love that shorthand that lets me feel like I'm in on something, because I understand what the author is saying sub-textually without needing to be led. I love the opportunity for character growth it represents. I love when something happens that I called from the first chapter, and I love it almost as much when something happens that I did not see coming even a little bit from far away on the horizon.
These are all things that fan works feed into so perfectly that it's rather silly to imagine I'll ever get tired of it. New shows and books and movies and pieces of music keep being made, and new authors keep showing up to write in them. I am reading works by people who are the age I was when I got into fandom. I am seeing people get into fandom now, and it fills me with, no lie, such a sense of hope, because these are honestly creative, interesting people, even the crazy ones, even the REALLY CRAZY ones, and I can pick and choose what I read EXACTLY BECAUSE there is such a spectrum of works available. I am grateful for every single person in fandom because of that, because I have more Hawaii Five-0 fic to read than I know what to do with, and I know that it's all good, every bit of it, and that it is only a FRACTION of what's out there, that there is so much I have yet to go through and discover and there will be good stuff in those undiscovered works too.
Being in fandom is like living in a library, a library built like how libraries looked when you were small and you could literally disappear into the stacks, into the back corners with the padded benches and the skylights with trees over them. It's like living in that library and knowing that you will never ever have to leave, that you'll never need to leave because you'll never run out of new things to pile at your feet and you'll never not have some new words to savor, to look forwards to.
So I love fandom, and I love fanfic, and I think that anyone who thinks fanfic or fandom is silly or wrong is SILLY AND WRONG. Except less hypocritically than that.
In conclusion, a list of my fandoms, past and present (in no particular order and evolving as I remember shit) -
Hawaii Five-0
Inception
Star Trek (all of it)
The Phantom Menace
N'Sync
Due South
Criminal Minds
Fullmetal Alchemist
DCU
X-Men
Harry Potter
Sherlock Holmes
Whedonverse
All Stargates past and present
Babylon 5
Leverage
CSI
As you can see, I am indiscriminate in all things except quality. Because no lie, I know I'm a picky bitch and I won't apologize, especially since I don't have to. That is the wonder of fandom.
I'll start by talking about how my first fandom was legitimately N'Sync, and how amazing it is to me how far I've come from that place. I have been reading fan works for TEN YEARS. The complete volume of fan-related words I've read probably outstrips all other words combined, including all my college reading (because... I only read about one in ten of those words. I was a bad, bad student I KNOW but I digress). I love to read and before I read fanfic, I still read fanfic, because the stories I loved the most before fanfiction were the ones that kept opening up, serially. I loved (LOVED) heck, I LOVE the feeling of reading a new work by the same author in the same universe. I love that shorthand that lets me feel like I'm in on something, because I understand what the author is saying sub-textually without needing to be led. I love the opportunity for character growth it represents. I love when something happens that I called from the first chapter, and I love it almost as much when something happens that I did not see coming even a little bit from far away on the horizon.
These are all things that fan works feed into so perfectly that it's rather silly to imagine I'll ever get tired of it. New shows and books and movies and pieces of music keep being made, and new authors keep showing up to write in them. I am reading works by people who are the age I was when I got into fandom. I am seeing people get into fandom now, and it fills me with, no lie, such a sense of hope, because these are honestly creative, interesting people, even the crazy ones, even the REALLY CRAZY ones, and I can pick and choose what I read EXACTLY BECAUSE there is such a spectrum of works available. I am grateful for every single person in fandom because of that, because I have more Hawaii Five-0 fic to read than I know what to do with, and I know that it's all good, every bit of it, and that it is only a FRACTION of what's out there, that there is so much I have yet to go through and discover and there will be good stuff in those undiscovered works too.
Being in fandom is like living in a library, a library built like how libraries looked when you were small and you could literally disappear into the stacks, into the back corners with the padded benches and the skylights with trees over them. It's like living in that library and knowing that you will never ever have to leave, that you'll never need to leave because you'll never run out of new things to pile at your feet and you'll never not have some new words to savor, to look forwards to.
So I love fandom, and I love fanfic, and I think that anyone who thinks fanfic or fandom is silly or wrong is SILLY AND WRONG. Except less hypocritically than that.
In conclusion, a list of my fandoms, past and present (in no particular order and evolving as I remember shit) -
Hawaii Five-0
Inception
Star Trek (all of it)
The Phantom Menace
N'Sync
Due South
Criminal Minds
Fullmetal Alchemist
DCU
X-Men
Harry Potter
Sherlock Holmes
Whedonverse
All Stargates past and present
Babylon 5
Leverage
CSI
As you can see, I am indiscriminate in all things except quality. Because no lie, I know I'm a picky bitch and I won't apologize, especially since I don't have to. That is the wonder of fandom.