HAYYYY NEW FRIENDS. I am far too lazy to have written up an introduction post to have handy at this moment, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask!
My one-year bandom anniversary was a little over a week ago, and I thought I should commemorate a little by talking about
Last year, a ton of my friends were getting into this new-fangled thing called "bandom." I was firmly entrenched in the Supernatural fandom at the time, despite having originally been from a bandslash fandom to begin with (Good Charlotte/Mest/Simple Plan/etc.) I was...stubborn, to say the least. This "bandom" was not for me! There was too much canon to learn! That Pete Wentz dude seemed vaguely skeevy!
But there were so many good writers writing bandom, and every single post about bandom on my flist was fun and silly and full of pictures of hot guys, and there's only so much of that a girl can take before she breaks. So I posted
this, asking my bandom friends to hook me up with these shenanigans.
My friends turned out to be filthy amazing enablers, as you can see from the comments. I don't remember what the first bandom fic I read was, but I do remember staying up all night reading Wednesday Night Boys, Discipline and Punish, and pretty much every other bandom fic on
arsenicjade's website.
"THIS IS THE FANDOM OF MY HEART," I thought to myself. I spent a couple weeks mainlining every primer, interview, video, and fic I could find.
I was mostly absent from LJ that summer, but
whirligigged and I spent countless hours e-mailing back and forth about bandom and the ridiculously epic fic ideas in our heads. We managed to come up with three main ideas (a dictator!au, a ranch!au, and a mental hospital!au) that we chatficced our little hearts out about. I still have hope that these will be written someday, even though Lisa has forsaken me for Merlin. >:(
I also started e-mailing
schneestern, and between us we managed to rack up an impressive amount of fic ideas and WIPs (I think it's sitting somewhere around two hundred right now.) We posted our first complete co-written fic for BBB this year,
Rock Band is (Not) a Synonym for Love. :D
I've settled into bandom pretty well, I think, despite getting into it fairly late in the game. I missed ProRev, I missed the rosevest, I missed bb!Patrick. But most of it was all there for me to get caught up on, thanks to the amazing font of information bandom has compiled in primers.
I can honestly say I've never felt more at home in a fandom, or more warmly welcomed. The comments on my "please convert me" post last year are evidence of that. I can have the most ridiculous fic idea and know that somewhere, someone will say "PLEASE WRITE THIS" or will point me in the direction of where it's already been written. I can squee over any phase any band member's had and someone somewhere will go, "THAT IS MY FAVORITE, TOO!"
I'm not saying bandom's all sunshine and roses, because it's not, but despite that, I have never been in a fandom that supports each other like bandom does. I've written more fic in this fandom than in any other (which, admittedly, isn't a huge feat since I'm not exactly prolific) and that is directly because I had people around me every step of the way saying, "That is an awesome idea, you should write that!" or "Come talk to me about your ideas and I'll help you flesh it out!" or "Let me know if you need a beta!" I wrote a 45k fic for my personal BBB this year, and to get a little cheesy and pathetic on you, that is something I never thought I'd be able to accomplish. Some people even liked it (and some people didn't, and that's A-OK by me, which is another thing I thought I'd never be able to do - get criticism and be okay with it instead of hiding under my bed and crying :D).
Bandom has brought me some of the people I consider my best friends in the world. It's made me look a little closer at my own internalized misogyny. It's made me happy on days when nothing else seems to be going right. It has taught me to use the phrase "THEIR FAAAAAAACES" on an everyday basis.
So hey. Thanks, bandom, for being ridiculous and awesome and for letting me join in. ♥
Now you should all go leave prompts at
bandom_hc, because this is shaping up to be AMAZING. I WANT ALL OF THE STORIES RIGHT NOW. And you should also go check out the
Random Acts of Kindness Fic Meme. And then you should tell me about your day. ♥