Jikoshoukai
Since I haven't been around for years and am currently making some brand new friends, I thought I'd make a post giving a bit of my fannish background.
My fannish history started almost as soon as I could read: at the tender age of 7 I became fan of a series of books by German author Karl May, set in the 'Wild West', the protagonists being a German engineer and his noble Native American friend. They have adventures.
rheasilvia, who for once was not responsible for getting me into that but who was a fan independently, has made a great post about it here in her LJ
That lasted for 7 years. I was never fannishly active and didn't know any other fans. I didn't know what fandom was. I also didn't know what slash was, or I'd have known better what I wanted from those guys.
When I was 14, I came across Starsky & Hutch, and that sealed my fannish fate. Amazing chemistry, lots of gratuitous touching, lots of looking at each other, finishing each other's sentences, eating from each other's plates, you name it, they do it, and more. I started to find fandom - in the form of penpals to whom one wrote actual letters, because internet, not so much. I started to visit people I'd never met before in countries none of my family had ever been to, much to the bemusement of my parents. Within two years I'd been introduced to slash fic, which was then still a thing you had to know someone who knew someone to access. In printed fanzines of course, sold furtively under con tables. The earliest one I got didn't even have any author names in it for fear of repercussions.
I started writing in S&H fandom but never actually finished or published anything. I was active betaing, organising conventions and doing all sorts of other stuff, though.
That lasted 20 years. Then
rheasilvia showed me some episodes of a show called Highlander (Duncan/Methos for those who are interested) which was so very different and so very intriguing. By now fandom was also reliably online. Soon I was chatting in forums and betaing for people there, though I never got as involved as I was with Starsky & Hutch fandom; went to a few meet-ups though and made a few good friends.
Soon after I also discovered Due South (Ray 2, thanks). I can't even remember if that was
rheasilvia's fault as well, but it may have been. I read a lot of fic there and watched the show up and down and up and down, but never really interacted fannishly except with people I already knew, because that fandom was full of extremely strange people.
And around... 2003? 2004?
rheasilvia *sigh* introduced me to an anime series called X, for which I fell very, very hard. I got into the associated manga too, started to learn Japanese, hung out in the fandom, betaed a lot and also started to write my own story, which turned out to be enormously long and never got finished because 4 years later...
I found Gokusen. (All by myself!) That's a Japanese TV show about an enthusiastic novice teacher who gets the most delinquent class in an already bad school assigned to her, but that's okay because she's the daughter of a Yakuza boss and can handle thugs. Of course the thugs come to love her. It's a fun series, and it got me to ship my first het pairing ever (Shinkumi of course), but the important thing here is that when I was finished watching it, not quite knowing what to do with my fee-fees, I gave the second season a chance. (Second season wasn't a continuation of the first but a re-set, which is why I was reluctant.)
Second season had an incredibly slashy (and incredibly pretty) pair of delinquents in it, so that was a major success. When I researched the actors of these delinquents, it turned out they were Akanishi Jin and Kamenashi Kazuya, the front guys for a pop group called KAT-TUN.
Jin!
Kame!
Of course that's not what they looked like back then. They looked like this:
When I checked out KAT-TUN, I found I really, really loved their music. So from 2008 to now, I've been watching everything these guys do, going on many concert trips to Japan, subtitling some of their shows (in teams with various people), translating some doujinshi, spending wayyyy too much money on tour goods, and making amazing friends and, as part of the writing team haikuesque finally publishing some fan fic (Akame, RPS, be warned). Akame fandom has never been on Dreamwidth so this journal has been pretty empty for a pretty long time.
I travel to Japan a lot, to go to KAT-TUN's and Akanishi Jin's concerts.
So now, Guardian. And also The Untamed! Hi guys! I might be there a while! Blame
rheasilvia. Now tell me about yourselves!
About me in general: I live in Scotland with three cats about whom you'll probably see posts occasionally. Other hobbies include language learning and political activism.
[There are currently
comment(s) on the Dreamwidth version of this post. | post a comment @ Dreamwidth]
My fannish history started almost as soon as I could read: at the tender age of 7 I became fan of a series of books by German author Karl May, set in the 'Wild West', the protagonists being a German engineer and his noble Native American friend. They have adventures.
rheasilvia, who for once was not responsible for getting me into that but who was a fan independently, has made a great post about it here in her LJ
That lasted for 7 years. I was never fannishly active and didn't know any other fans. I didn't know what fandom was. I also didn't know what slash was, or I'd have known better what I wanted from those guys.
When I was 14, I came across Starsky & Hutch, and that sealed my fannish fate. Amazing chemistry, lots of gratuitous touching, lots of looking at each other, finishing each other's sentences, eating from each other's plates, you name it, they do it, and more. I started to find fandom - in the form of penpals to whom one wrote actual letters, because internet, not so much. I started to visit people I'd never met before in countries none of my family had ever been to, much to the bemusement of my parents. Within two years I'd been introduced to slash fic, which was then still a thing you had to know someone who knew someone to access. In printed fanzines of course, sold furtively under con tables. The earliest one I got didn't even have any author names in it for fear of repercussions.
I started writing in S&H fandom but never actually finished or published anything. I was active betaing, organising conventions and doing all sorts of other stuff, though.
That lasted 20 years. Then
rheasilvia showed me some episodes of a show called Highlander (Duncan/Methos for those who are interested) which was so very different and so very intriguing. By now fandom was also reliably online. Soon I was chatting in forums and betaing for people there, though I never got as involved as I was with Starsky & Hutch fandom; went to a few meet-ups though and made a few good friends.
Soon after I also discovered Due South (Ray 2, thanks). I can't even remember if that was
rheasilvia's fault as well, but it may have been. I read a lot of fic there and watched the show up and down and up and down, but never really interacted fannishly except with people I already knew, because that fandom was full of extremely strange people.
And around... 2003? 2004?
rheasilvia *sigh* introduced me to an anime series called X, for which I fell very, very hard. I got into the associated manga too, started to learn Japanese, hung out in the fandom, betaed a lot and also started to write my own story, which turned out to be enormously long and never got finished because 4 years later...
I found Gokusen. (All by myself!) That's a Japanese TV show about an enthusiastic novice teacher who gets the most delinquent class in an already bad school assigned to her, but that's okay because she's the daughter of a Yakuza boss and can handle thugs. Of course the thugs come to love her. It's a fun series, and it got me to ship my first het pairing ever (Shinkumi of course), but the important thing here is that when I was finished watching it, not quite knowing what to do with my fee-fees, I gave the second season a chance. (Second season wasn't a continuation of the first but a re-set, which is why I was reluctant.)
Second season had an incredibly slashy (and incredibly pretty) pair of delinquents in it, so that was a major success. When I researched the actors of these delinquents, it turned out they were Akanishi Jin and Kamenashi Kazuya, the front guys for a pop group called KAT-TUN.
Jin!
Kame!
Of course that's not what they looked like back then. They looked like this:
When I checked out KAT-TUN, I found I really, really loved their music. So from 2008 to now, I've been watching everything these guys do, going on many concert trips to Japan, subtitling some of their shows (in teams with various people), translating some doujinshi, spending wayyyy too much money on tour goods, and making amazing friends and, as part of the writing team haikuesque finally publishing some fan fic (Akame, RPS, be warned). Akame fandom has never been on Dreamwidth so this journal has been pretty empty for a pretty long time.
I travel to Japan a lot, to go to KAT-TUN's and Akanishi Jin's concerts.
So now, Guardian. And also The Untamed! Hi guys! I might be there a while! Blame
rheasilvia. Now tell me about yourselves!
About me in general: I live in Scotland with three cats about whom you'll probably see posts occasionally. Other hobbies include language learning and political activism.
[There are currently
comment(s) on the Dreamwidth version of this post. | post a comment @ Dreamwidth]