Fannish history thoughts
I have one more final before I am done with graduate school. I don't want to study. Thus, I ramble about my fandom travels. This is very disjointed, and will likely not be interesting to anyone other than myself.
X-Files-I started like many others, as a MSR. I can still vaguely recall trawling through the newsgroups and the Gossamer archives, which I believe was at Ohio State. I still remember the Sound of Wind chimes, and Jackie St. George. I didn’t know what a Mary Sue was then. I remember seeing something called slash, but it wasn't interesting to me at that time.
Now this I still can't really figure out, but I somehow managed to get into Blake's 7. Most of my engagement was with the Space City mailing list. This was a very expensive time in my fandom life, since very little of the fic was online. I also began going to cons, mostly to get the zines. I liked Avon and Cally a lot, thus I was a het fan. At some point, I started reading slash, Blake/Avon in particular. I think the amount of Blake bashing that occurred may have had a hand in it, because my reaction was if Blake was so bad, why do people pair him up with Avon anyway? I started liking Blake more because of it.
Highlander: I think this is where my slash obsession began. I was lurking on the Forever Knight lists, and I think because they were on air at around the same time, I got onto the Highlander lists via some strange form of cross-pollination. I was fascinated by Methos, when I first watched the show. I stumbled onto maygra's Shield Brothers Arc, as it was being posted on ROG-L, I believe. *swoons* The intensity! I think that her works were the first to take my breath away on a regular basis.
The same thing happened to Duncan as happened to Blake on the ROG-L, and I started to like Duncan better as well, and started watching episodes with just Duncan. I liked Amanda, but I loved Rebecca, Amanda's teacher. I wonder if there's any femmeslash out there for them?
After about a year, the blush was off the rose, and I wandered the net, looking for more fic. I looked at X-Files, and being more interested in slash this time around, I started reading torch, kassandra, and I want to say CiCi, but I could be wrong about that. This time, I was an M/K shipper. For some reason, my passion for X-Files is never very strong, so after a few months, I went looking for something else. That something else was Phantom Menace.
TPM: MonaRamsey's stories were the first I read, I think before I saw the movie. Thank you sockii for the Master_Apprentice archive. Having so much fic all stored in the same place was wonderful. This was also the first time I went for a partner pairing rather than for a quasi-adversarial pairing. Liam Neeson may have had something to do with it, but I think it was very much because of the romantic ideal of someone being everything for someone else. Also, soulbonds. I still love lilith_sedai's elements series, and the end is my beginning. Sometimes the heavy emphasis on relationships got a little tiring, so analise's stories were a lovely change. Yay for plot!
I think I shall blame darthneko for my introduction into anime/manga fandom. I remember her stories in TPM made me weep. As did tenshi no korin's.
My anime/manga fandom history is not as well delineated as my slash history. I think it's because those fandoms seem less cohesive, so I'd visit a fandom for a few months, and go back to slash fandom. Well, I wandered around, dipped my toes into Stargate, didn't find the source engaging, although it's nowhere as bad as my anti-engagement with Sentinel. If I did the meme that that related fandom to romantic engagements, Sentinel would be my answer to the one about how did he get so many people. But it had a lot of hurt/comfort fics. *sighs*
I think this was around the time I returned to X-Files fandom. This might be my answer to the one night stand every once in a while question. For some reason, I began to really dislike Mulder. So I went the Skinner/Krycek direction. Krycek is an amoral bastard, but he's cute. Skinner makes a good dom, or at least that's what all the fics make him, so I was good with that.
The next wave was Smallville. Having a major archive was a blessing. Lex=woobie. Clark being gorgeous didn't hurt either. Te, seperis, RivkaT, and many others made me love the series despite the painful future that was to come. Shattered and Asylum made me stop watching the show entirely. Lex being rejected and hurt on a regular basis, plus those episodes, was too much to bear. Hearts Lanning and her identical series. How I wish that was canon.
I think that reading slash can slowly change your conception of what's acceptable, at least in reading material. My first encounter with RPS was popslash. I was a bit uncomfortable with it, what if the lawyers found out and sued? I ignored them and went on my merry way, wandering through other fandoms. The change happened when I started reading LOTR fics, and at some point, I started reading Lotrips. I was still a little uncomfortable, but after a while, that feeling went away. The amount of good fics probably helped a lot. I love helens78's stuff, which led me to Theatrical Muse, the Establishment, and Chiaroscuro. I also love zillah975's works muchly. Her characters are not full of angst and they have their acts together. So often, one of her character expresses something that really touches my heart.
I got into Harry Potter because I saw the third movie. Not sure why. I had wandered into HP before, when Telanu was writing the first of the Tea series, and wandered back out fairly quickly. I was a SS/HP shipper that time, mostly because of the Tea series. This time, I became a SS/DM shipper. I think it was because of a post that butterfly made about Draco's reaction to being threatened, which struck me hard. I also started reading posts by people who like Draco, mainly that of sistermagpie. I started reading stuff by hp_femme and cursive, mainly hp_dungeons, and was converted to SS/DM. I also completely love Minor Arcana. This pairing is a warped reflection of being everything to someone ideal, because Snape could be everything to Draco, but Snape is not very much like Qui-Gon, nor is Draco much like Obi-Wan. Please, leave me my delusions.
Now, my current obsession: Viewfinder. The angst and the pretty is the reason I'm in this fandom. (read: Feilong) I'm not sure how much of a fandom there is, as compared to the slash fandoms I'm used to. It may be comparable to some of the anime fandoms, but there is no one that I know from previous anime fandoms, such as leareth, velvetpaws, petronia, aishuu, eag, and olympia_m (respectively from X, Hikago, and YnM fandoms), whose works that I can trust to be good, if not great. I know that there are writers who have works in other fandoms that are good, such as ingenius_inc, but they don't write my pairing. *sighs sadly* Maybe it's because there is such a dearth of fic, that I'm trying to write crack!fic to fill the void.
Thanks to all who bothered to read my rambling. I should probably sit on this and post it tomorrow, but I should study then, so why wait?
ETA: darkrose and darthneko are different people. Used correct name this time.
X-Files-I started like many others, as a MSR. I can still vaguely recall trawling through the newsgroups and the Gossamer archives, which I believe was at Ohio State. I still remember the Sound of Wind chimes, and Jackie St. George. I didn’t know what a Mary Sue was then. I remember seeing something called slash, but it wasn't interesting to me at that time.
Now this I still can't really figure out, but I somehow managed to get into Blake's 7. Most of my engagement was with the Space City mailing list. This was a very expensive time in my fandom life, since very little of the fic was online. I also began going to cons, mostly to get the zines. I liked Avon and Cally a lot, thus I was a het fan. At some point, I started reading slash, Blake/Avon in particular. I think the amount of Blake bashing that occurred may have had a hand in it, because my reaction was if Blake was so bad, why do people pair him up with Avon anyway? I started liking Blake more because of it.
Highlander: I think this is where my slash obsession began. I was lurking on the Forever Knight lists, and I think because they were on air at around the same time, I got onto the Highlander lists via some strange form of cross-pollination. I was fascinated by Methos, when I first watched the show. I stumbled onto maygra's Shield Brothers Arc, as it was being posted on ROG-L, I believe. *swoons* The intensity! I think that her works were the first to take my breath away on a regular basis.
The same thing happened to Duncan as happened to Blake on the ROG-L, and I started to like Duncan better as well, and started watching episodes with just Duncan. I liked Amanda, but I loved Rebecca, Amanda's teacher. I wonder if there's any femmeslash out there for them?
After about a year, the blush was off the rose, and I wandered the net, looking for more fic. I looked at X-Files, and being more interested in slash this time around, I started reading torch, kassandra, and I want to say CiCi, but I could be wrong about that. This time, I was an M/K shipper. For some reason, my passion for X-Files is never very strong, so after a few months, I went looking for something else. That something else was Phantom Menace.
TPM: MonaRamsey's stories were the first I read, I think before I saw the movie. Thank you sockii for the Master_Apprentice archive. Having so much fic all stored in the same place was wonderful. This was also the first time I went for a partner pairing rather than for a quasi-adversarial pairing. Liam Neeson may have had something to do with it, but I think it was very much because of the romantic ideal of someone being everything for someone else. Also, soulbonds. I still love lilith_sedai's elements series, and the end is my beginning. Sometimes the heavy emphasis on relationships got a little tiring, so analise's stories were a lovely change. Yay for plot!
I think I shall blame darthneko for my introduction into anime/manga fandom. I remember her stories in TPM made me weep. As did tenshi no korin's.
My anime/manga fandom history is not as well delineated as my slash history. I think it's because those fandoms seem less cohesive, so I'd visit a fandom for a few months, and go back to slash fandom. Well, I wandered around, dipped my toes into Stargate, didn't find the source engaging, although it's nowhere as bad as my anti-engagement with Sentinel. If I did the meme that that related fandom to romantic engagements, Sentinel would be my answer to the one about how did he get so many people. But it had a lot of hurt/comfort fics. *sighs*
I think this was around the time I returned to X-Files fandom. This might be my answer to the one night stand every once in a while question. For some reason, I began to really dislike Mulder. So I went the Skinner/Krycek direction. Krycek is an amoral bastard, but he's cute. Skinner makes a good dom, or at least that's what all the fics make him, so I was good with that.
The next wave was Smallville. Having a major archive was a blessing. Lex=woobie. Clark being gorgeous didn't hurt either. Te, seperis, RivkaT, and many others made me love the series despite the painful future that was to come. Shattered and Asylum made me stop watching the show entirely. Lex being rejected and hurt on a regular basis, plus those episodes, was too much to bear. Hearts Lanning and her identical series. How I wish that was canon.
I think that reading slash can slowly change your conception of what's acceptable, at least in reading material. My first encounter with RPS was popslash. I was a bit uncomfortable with it, what if the lawyers found out and sued? I ignored them and went on my merry way, wandering through other fandoms. The change happened when I started reading LOTR fics, and at some point, I started reading Lotrips. I was still a little uncomfortable, but after a while, that feeling went away. The amount of good fics probably helped a lot. I love helens78's stuff, which led me to Theatrical Muse, the Establishment, and Chiaroscuro. I also love zillah975's works muchly. Her characters are not full of angst and they have their acts together. So often, one of her character expresses something that really touches my heart.
I got into Harry Potter because I saw the third movie. Not sure why. I had wandered into HP before, when Telanu was writing the first of the Tea series, and wandered back out fairly quickly. I was a SS/HP shipper that time, mostly because of the Tea series. This time, I became a SS/DM shipper. I think it was because of a post that butterfly made about Draco's reaction to being threatened, which struck me hard. I also started reading posts by people who like Draco, mainly that of sistermagpie. I started reading stuff by hp_femme and cursive, mainly hp_dungeons, and was converted to SS/DM. I also completely love Minor Arcana. This pairing is a warped reflection of being everything to someone ideal, because Snape could be everything to Draco, but Snape is not very much like Qui-Gon, nor is Draco much like Obi-Wan. Please, leave me my delusions.
Now, my current obsession: Viewfinder. The angst and the pretty is the reason I'm in this fandom. (read: Feilong) I'm not sure how much of a fandom there is, as compared to the slash fandoms I'm used to. It may be comparable to some of the anime fandoms, but there is no one that I know from previous anime fandoms, such as leareth, velvetpaws, petronia, aishuu, eag, and olympia_m (respectively from X, Hikago, and YnM fandoms), whose works that I can trust to be good, if not great. I know that there are writers who have works in other fandoms that are good, such as ingenius_inc, but they don't write my pairing. *sighs sadly* Maybe it's because there is such a dearth of fic, that I'm trying to write crack!fic to fill the void.
Thanks to all who bothered to read my rambling. I should probably sit on this and post it tomorrow, but I should study then, so why wait?
ETA: darkrose and darthneko are different people. Used correct name this time.