Amusing myself
I woke up a tad grumpy this morning, and stared out at the rain for a while. Then I watched Justin and the Flaming Lips three times running and was cheery again. Justin Timberlake in a dolphin suit makes everything better! ("Did you see the new episode of Angel?" "Yeah. They really could've used Justin Timberlake in a dolphin suit there.")
I also still love my new icon; I checked friendsfriends to see if this cap has been extensively weconned, but it doesn't look as though it has. Yet. Not that that would dim the glow of iconly love much, for me, because it's Justin in a dolphin suit, reassuring evidence that the world is, in fact, stranger and funnier than my imagination.
Working on overhauling my link pages, which is the second most dreary site-related task I know. (The very dreariest one is going through the old recs for broken links and trying to find the stories elsewhere.) To distract myself, I looked for a meme to frivol with in lj during link-checking breaks (ensuring that both the links and the meme take twice as long as they otherwise would). I thought about and discarded the 100 things about me one (1. I'm kind of privacy-minded.) and the say something to everyone on your friends list one (Hi. I read your livejournals. Most of the time.) Settled on syxer7's fandom history thingy, partly because of what cereta said about how you can do the same things in relation to show A and show B, and consider yourself a fan of, or part of the fandom for, A and not B.
For each fandom, in reverse chronological order...
When: What years were you active in it?
How: How did you find it?
Who: Who was your primary/favorite character?
What: What media did you consume/produce?
History: What kind of fandom was it for you? Anything special about it?
Popslash
When: early 2002 - present
How: I wanted to figure out how I felt about RPF, so I decided to read some. Discussion and fannishness ensued.
Who: I can tell already I'm going to have trouble with this one for all the fandoms. Justin and Nick and Chris and JC and... yes, well.
What: So far, I read and write and rec and listen to music and watch video clips and movies and... talk to other fans. *g* Livejournal's a big part of it, too. CDs, DVDs, insane amounts of downloads. Endless irc chats. Icons as a form of fannish communication. Heh.
History: Major fandom, definitely. And fun. I'm getting to know a lot of new people.
Harry Potter
When: fall 2001 - present
How: The dates are kinda misleading. I had a fling with HP fandom back when astolat wrote her Weather stories, and was on an actual list and all set to interact with people and everything, but for various reasons I backed away and didn't check out the fandom again until around the first movie, when it had become, well. Bigger. Much bigger. I'm not sure I'm even in the fandom, properly speaking; I don't participate on lists or post to archives or really talk much about it with anyone. I'm fannish about it, though.
Who: And I'm still having trouble with this one. On the whole, I like the adults best for fanwork/speculation purposes.
What: Reading, but not as much as I would have expected. It's a big, confusing fandom. I write a little, I rec a little. I reread the books, watch the movies.
History: Largely an internal, me-and-my-fannishness kind of fandom, rather than a must-share-with-others fandom. Medium-sized, as fandoms go.
Buffy & Angel
When: Started watching Buffy in season 2, Angel from the beginning - present
How: I think Shoshanna was the pimp, there. Or beyondallreason and hampden.
Who: Weh. No. There have been very few characters on either show that I haven't liked or found interesting in some way.
What: I watch. That's pretty much it. *g* I've scribbled a few things, but nothing serious. I read a little, I rec a little. I often actively avoid conversations about the shows, but I'm on a list, and read even if I don't post. I keep saying that I may stop watching Angel, but so far, it's been an idle threat. Despite all this, I count it as a fandom.
History: See above. *g*
Eroica
When: (1997) 2001 - presentish
How: I think hampden tried to pimp this to cin1607 and me way way back, but though I read and enjoyed it, the real fannish bug didn't bite until years later, though I've no real idea why it happened then.
Who: It's just barely possible that I like Klaus a tiny bit better. A tiny bit.
What: I love and frequently reread the manga. I read what fanfic I find. I've written stuff; I'm on a list, and have been known to participate a little.
History: This has gone from mild interest to big fannish love to slightly more moderate fannish love, but I still have stories I hope to finish.
Gundam Wing
When: 2000 - presentish
How: Not the most auspicious introduction to a fandom ever - some bright young thing lifted a couple of scenes from my vampire stories to put in her GW ones. I kept a wary eye on GW after that, which led to actually reading it, which led to getting more and more interested in it, which led to watching the actual show, which led to writing fanfic.
Who: I like all of them, la lala. Honestly, I like Heero best. Or Trowa. Or Heero. Or Trowa and Heero.
What: Reading, reccing, writing, watching, pimping from time to time. I'm not sure about this one, though - I didn't try to join the fandom in any way, really, for a good long while. Could be because I'd come from TPM and its huge list and huge archive and tons of people and was feeling asocial and grumpy, could be because GW was (is?) more splintered as a fandom, could be because it looked to me, from the outside, as though much of the fannish interaction wasn't my cup of lukewarm beverage (see part about being asocial and grumpy) and neither were some fannish conventions. I didn't feel I knew anyone in the fandom, and I'm shy. Then bunches of my friends got into it (waves), and I still didn't join anything much, so we're back to asocial and grumpy. I bought a few tie-in comics, though.
History: Me and my fannishness, again, looks like. It was a major fandom for me, though, and I still haven't let go of my fiction ideas, and do sometimes rewatch eps.
West Wing
When: 2000 - presentish
How: tzikeh is the best pimp ever.
Who: Ensemble! Big cast! Many characters! aigh.
What: I read a bit, rec a bit, write a very little, watch a lot. Not so much with the talking to people, for some reason, but I still feel fannish about it. I'm not on any lists or part of any specifically WW-oriented community. Not so much in the fandom as hanging around the fannish fringes.
History: Smallish fandom, but with staying power.
Highlander
When: winter 96/97 - presentish
How: I think it was through Nick Lea's guest appearance. Maybe.
Who: Duncan within his own universe, Methos for the crossover potential.
What: Watched eps, read a lot of fiction and recced some of it, written a bit here and there over the years. Been on a list or two from time to time.
History: This isn't a fandom I've ever been heavily involved in, or considered my primary, but I keep coming back to it.
Due South
When: 1996 - presentish
How: I don't remember.
Who: Well, I'm very fond of Diefenbaker.
What: There's been a lot of reading over the years, and reccing; watching eps, of course; I've joined lists, but not participated a whole lot. Written very little.
History: This is another one I keep coming back to. Kowalski reawoke my dS love, I love the eps (all seasons), and there's excellent fiction. I'm not passionate about dS, but I have a mild fannish fondness for it that has outlasted many more intense, erm, flings.
Star Wars
When: 1999 - 2001
How: Lemming. I can lemming with the best of 'em, plus thete1 put ideas in my head, and there was Ewan, and a cool fandom with lots of room for worldbuilding, and... Yeah, and there was the relationship thing. Liked that. *g* Then caraloup's influence, among other things, led me to incorporate eps 4-6 in my fannishness.
Who: Well, there's Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. And also Luke and Han, cause I'm counting all things SW here.
What: I read, I wrote. Recced. Joined lists and actually posted to them from time to time. Bought tie-in books, the JA ones, for a while. I have little OW and QG dolls, but they were presents, so I'm not sure that counts. On the whole, I don't buy toys and merchandise; I never know what to do with them after I've looked at them and said "ooh, cute."
History: This was a major fandom, big in every sense of the word. I burned out, and I can even date it precisely - May 17, 2001, I posted Meet another and then I packed my fannish bags and left.
Here is Greenwood
When: 2000
How: This was around the time when I was looking into anime, generally, and HiG just charmed me.
Who: I liked the relationships and interactions more than I got hung up on any one character.
What: Read what I could find (small fandom, at least then), watched over and over and giggled, hung around the fringes of the fandom, wrote a story.
History: Small fandom, but I enjoyed it very much.
X-Files
When: winter 1996/97 - February 2000
How: I enjoyed the show for the longest time, but I got into the slash side of the fandom when I fell for Mulder and Krycek.
Who: See above.
What: This was a very active fandom for me. I read, I wrote, I recced, I joined lists and posted a lot, I even ran a list for a while. I made a lot of friends. Okay, I'm getting all nostalgic now. I started my rec page when I was into XF, too.
Voyager
When: August 1996 - 1997 (with a few relapses)
How: I don't remember, really. I know I found the online fandom first and the show second.
Who: Tom and Harry! Ah, the fresh-faced sweetness. That was a while ago.
What: Reading, writing, babbling, watching. A social fandom. Lists and newsgroups and stuff.
Vampire Chronicles
When: 1995 - 1996 (also with a few relapses)
How: Got online, found a newsgroup.
Who: No, not that question again.
What: Read the books, bought the next book (Memnoch the Paperweight, not my best purchase ever), talked to people, wrote fiction. Made my first fannish friends, and I find it so very cool that a lot of y'all are on livejournal now.
So that was the chronological fandom thing. This is a bit selective, obviously. I've written for many other fandoms (or non-fandoms), watched many other shows, read... yeah, really a lot. But these are the ones where I've felt connected to a fandom, to whatever degree; where I feel, or have felt, like a participant and/or deeply fannish. I know there's a Good Omens fandom, but I didn't know that when I wrote my one story, and I've never checked it out; if there's a Jeeves & Wooster fandom, I've never found it, and a few unconnected fans do not a fandom make.
::shrug:: This is pretty much My Subjective Fannish Experience, by torch, aged... yeah, I feel I aged quite a few years just looking at all this stuff. *g*
And I did get to know new people between XF and popslash, honest. Just not in the same specifically single-fandom-based way, I think.
Don't know if it's really such a brilliant idea to fix links while so many trickster sites still haven't returned. Sigh, slog, slog. I could watch Justin again....
ETA: Yes, merryish, I could write.
I also still love my new icon; I checked friendsfriends to see if this cap has been extensively weconned, but it doesn't look as though it has. Yet. Not that that would dim the glow of iconly love much, for me, because it's Justin in a dolphin suit, reassuring evidence that the world is, in fact, stranger and funnier than my imagination.
Working on overhauling my link pages, which is the second most dreary site-related task I know. (The very dreariest one is going through the old recs for broken links and trying to find the stories elsewhere.) To distract myself, I looked for a meme to frivol with in lj during link-checking breaks (ensuring that both the links and the meme take twice as long as they otherwise would). I thought about and discarded the 100 things about me one (1. I'm kind of privacy-minded.) and the say something to everyone on your friends list one (Hi. I read your livejournals. Most of the time.) Settled on syxer7's fandom history thingy, partly because of what cereta said about how you can do the same things in relation to show A and show B, and consider yourself a fan of, or part of the fandom for, A and not B.
For each fandom, in reverse chronological order...
When: What years were you active in it?
How: How did you find it?
Who: Who was your primary/favorite character?
What: What media did you consume/produce?
History: What kind of fandom was it for you? Anything special about it?
Popslash
When: early 2002 - present
How: I wanted to figure out how I felt about RPF, so I decided to read some. Discussion and fannishness ensued.
Who: I can tell already I'm going to have trouble with this one for all the fandoms. Justin and Nick and Chris and JC and... yes, well.
What: So far, I read and write and rec and listen to music and watch video clips and movies and... talk to other fans. *g* Livejournal's a big part of it, too. CDs, DVDs, insane amounts of downloads. Endless irc chats. Icons as a form of fannish communication. Heh.
History: Major fandom, definitely. And fun. I'm getting to know a lot of new people.
Harry Potter
When: fall 2001 - present
How: The dates are kinda misleading. I had a fling with HP fandom back when astolat wrote her Weather stories, and was on an actual list and all set to interact with people and everything, but for various reasons I backed away and didn't check out the fandom again until around the first movie, when it had become, well. Bigger. Much bigger. I'm not sure I'm even in the fandom, properly speaking; I don't participate on lists or post to archives or really talk much about it with anyone. I'm fannish about it, though.
Who: And I'm still having trouble with this one. On the whole, I like the adults best for fanwork/speculation purposes.
What: Reading, but not as much as I would have expected. It's a big, confusing fandom. I write a little, I rec a little. I reread the books, watch the movies.
History: Largely an internal, me-and-my-fannishness kind of fandom, rather than a must-share-with-others fandom. Medium-sized, as fandoms go.
Buffy & Angel
When: Started watching Buffy in season 2, Angel from the beginning - present
How: I think Shoshanna was the pimp, there. Or beyondallreason and hampden.
Who: Weh. No. There have been very few characters on either show that I haven't liked or found interesting in some way.
What: I watch. That's pretty much it. *g* I've scribbled a few things, but nothing serious. I read a little, I rec a little. I often actively avoid conversations about the shows, but I'm on a list, and read even if I don't post. I keep saying that I may stop watching Angel, but so far, it's been an idle threat. Despite all this, I count it as a fandom.
History: See above. *g*
Eroica
When: (1997) 2001 - presentish
How: I think hampden tried to pimp this to cin1607 and me way way back, but though I read and enjoyed it, the real fannish bug didn't bite until years later, though I've no real idea why it happened then.
Who: It's just barely possible that I like Klaus a tiny bit better. A tiny bit.
What: I love and frequently reread the manga. I read what fanfic I find. I've written stuff; I'm on a list, and have been known to participate a little.
History: This has gone from mild interest to big fannish love to slightly more moderate fannish love, but I still have stories I hope to finish.
Gundam Wing
When: 2000 - presentish
How: Not the most auspicious introduction to a fandom ever - some bright young thing lifted a couple of scenes from my vampire stories to put in her GW ones. I kept a wary eye on GW after that, which led to actually reading it, which led to getting more and more interested in it, which led to watching the actual show, which led to writing fanfic.
Who: I like all of them, la lala. Honestly, I like Heero best. Or Trowa. Or Heero. Or Trowa and Heero.
What: Reading, reccing, writing, watching, pimping from time to time. I'm not sure about this one, though - I didn't try to join the fandom in any way, really, for a good long while. Could be because I'd come from TPM and its huge list and huge archive and tons of people and was feeling asocial and grumpy, could be because GW was (is?) more splintered as a fandom, could be because it looked to me, from the outside, as though much of the fannish interaction wasn't my cup of lukewarm beverage (see part about being asocial and grumpy) and neither were some fannish conventions. I didn't feel I knew anyone in the fandom, and I'm shy. Then bunches of my friends got into it (waves), and I still didn't join anything much, so we're back to asocial and grumpy. I bought a few tie-in comics, though.
History: Me and my fannishness, again, looks like. It was a major fandom for me, though, and I still haven't let go of my fiction ideas, and do sometimes rewatch eps.
West Wing
When: 2000 - presentish
How: tzikeh is the best pimp ever.
Who: Ensemble! Big cast! Many characters! aigh.
What: I read a bit, rec a bit, write a very little, watch a lot. Not so much with the talking to people, for some reason, but I still feel fannish about it. I'm not on any lists or part of any specifically WW-oriented community. Not so much in the fandom as hanging around the fannish fringes.
History: Smallish fandom, but with staying power.
Highlander
When: winter 96/97 - presentish
How: I think it was through Nick Lea's guest appearance. Maybe.
Who: Duncan within his own universe, Methos for the crossover potential.
What: Watched eps, read a lot of fiction and recced some of it, written a bit here and there over the years. Been on a list or two from time to time.
History: This isn't a fandom I've ever been heavily involved in, or considered my primary, but I keep coming back to it.
Due South
When: 1996 - presentish
How: I don't remember.
Who: Well, I'm very fond of Diefenbaker.
What: There's been a lot of reading over the years, and reccing; watching eps, of course; I've joined lists, but not participated a whole lot. Written very little.
History: This is another one I keep coming back to. Kowalski reawoke my dS love, I love the eps (all seasons), and there's excellent fiction. I'm not passionate about dS, but I have a mild fannish fondness for it that has outlasted many more intense, erm, flings.
Star Wars
When: 1999 - 2001
How: Lemming. I can lemming with the best of 'em, plus thete1 put ideas in my head, and there was Ewan, and a cool fandom with lots of room for worldbuilding, and... Yeah, and there was the relationship thing. Liked that. *g* Then caraloup's influence, among other things, led me to incorporate eps 4-6 in my fannishness.
Who: Well, there's Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. And also Luke and Han, cause I'm counting all things SW here.
What: I read, I wrote. Recced. Joined lists and actually posted to them from time to time. Bought tie-in books, the JA ones, for a while. I have little OW and QG dolls, but they were presents, so I'm not sure that counts. On the whole, I don't buy toys and merchandise; I never know what to do with them after I've looked at them and said "ooh, cute."
History: This was a major fandom, big in every sense of the word. I burned out, and I can even date it precisely - May 17, 2001, I posted Meet another and then I packed my fannish bags and left.
Here is Greenwood
When: 2000
How: This was around the time when I was looking into anime, generally, and HiG just charmed me.
Who: I liked the relationships and interactions more than I got hung up on any one character.
What: Read what I could find (small fandom, at least then), watched over and over and giggled, hung around the fringes of the fandom, wrote a story.
History: Small fandom, but I enjoyed it very much.
X-Files
When: winter 1996/97 - February 2000
How: I enjoyed the show for the longest time, but I got into the slash side of the fandom when I fell for Mulder and Krycek.
Who: See above.
What: This was a very active fandom for me. I read, I wrote, I recced, I joined lists and posted a lot, I even ran a list for a while. I made a lot of friends. Okay, I'm getting all nostalgic now. I started my rec page when I was into XF, too.
Voyager
When: August 1996 - 1997 (with a few relapses)
How: I don't remember, really. I know I found the online fandom first and the show second.
Who: Tom and Harry! Ah, the fresh-faced sweetness. That was a while ago.
What: Reading, writing, babbling, watching. A social fandom. Lists and newsgroups and stuff.
Vampire Chronicles
When: 1995 - 1996 (also with a few relapses)
How: Got online, found a newsgroup.
Who: No, not that question again.
What: Read the books, bought the next book (Memnoch the Paperweight, not my best purchase ever), talked to people, wrote fiction. Made my first fannish friends, and I find it so very cool that a lot of y'all are on livejournal now.
So that was the chronological fandom thing. This is a bit selective, obviously. I've written for many other fandoms (or non-fandoms), watched many other shows, read... yeah, really a lot. But these are the ones where I've felt connected to a fandom, to whatever degree; where I feel, or have felt, like a participant and/or deeply fannish. I know there's a Good Omens fandom, but I didn't know that when I wrote my one story, and I've never checked it out; if there's a Jeeves & Wooster fandom, I've never found it, and a few unconnected fans do not a fandom make.
::shrug:: This is pretty much My Subjective Fannish Experience, by torch, aged... yeah, I feel I aged quite a few years just looking at all this stuff. *g*
And I did get to know new people between XF and popslash, honest. Just not in the same specifically single-fandom-based way, I think.
Don't know if it's really such a brilliant idea to fix links while so many trickster sites still haven't returned. Sigh, slog, slog. I could watch Justin again....
ETA: Yes, merryish, I could write.