Day 5: Snowflake Challenge, Fannish Origin Story
How did you come to fandom?
Oh gosh, I've been in fandom since I was like 12. I started in Sailor Moon fandom, back when sailormoon.com was a thing, where I spent many an hour, chatting and exchanging emails with like minded SM fans. Good times. I've been in fandom ever since then. From Sailor Moon, I branched out to other anime fandoms, including Gundam Wing (my most life-scarring fandom, so much internalized misogyny and female-character-hate, jfc!), Dragonball Z, Fullmetal Alchemist, Inuyasha, and Cardcaptor Sakura.
And then I moved beyond anime fandom. I got really into the DC Animated Universe for several years while Teen Titans, Justice League, and JLU were airing, which then got me into the DC Comicsverse (and then Infinite Crisis happened and I noped the fuck out of there and haven't looked back). Teen Titans fandom was super formative though. There was this crazy long TT fanfic called "These Black Eyes," that I got really into. Fun fact: I actually suggested to the author that he should consider setting up a forum for fans of his story to interact, and lo and behold, he sent out an email to the mailing list that announced the opening of the "Space is a Waste" forum. I swear, the friends I made on there got me through high school, and I'm still friends with some of them to this day.
Some other fandoms I was a part of at the same time were Alias, Harry Potter, and LOTR. And that was my fannish journey through high school. In college I got back into anime with Naruto, Bleach, and Ouran High School Host Club. And thennnn, I got into KPop fandom, which ended up being my main fandom for like 4 years. Some other fandoms I was involved with around the same time included the Glee fandom (...let us not speak of that), Firefly, Stargate Atlantis, Tortall-verse, and Star Trek: AOS.
And then the Avengers came out and MCU has basically been my life since then, with side fandoms in Elementary, Brooklyn Nine Nine, and some other smaller fandoms. I've been mainly a fannish consumer for most of my time in fandom, but it wasn't until 2 years ago that I started podficcing and then writing. I'd heard of podfic before, but it never really occurred to me that it was something I could do, until I read Culture and Other Balls of Twine. The character voices were so wonderful and authentic and I just felt with such conviction that it was a story that needed to be read out loud. At the same time, I was nannying, and my kiddos loved it when I read to them, so it was sort of a perfect storm that led to me thinking, "Oh what the hell, why not try this?" It took me a couple of months of reading tutorials and multiple technical difficulties but eventually I managed it and I haven't looked back.
Why did you choose your fannish name, do you have more than one secret identity?
Oh god, I have like a different handle on every social media site. I made my LJ handle super_tricie341 back when I was 15, based on a childhood nickname, and like, I post under it and I always feel vaguely embarrassed when I do, but it's not like I care enough to shell out money for a rename token. In high school/college, I'd moved on to a new internet handle, which is about the time I made my DW
xdiorix; it's based on the name of an old Sailor Moon OC I'd made, whose name I've always loved. And then when I started to podfic, I decided I really needed to settle on a recognizable handle that wasn't fandom specific and on which I could build a fannish reputation. I chose
blackglass because when I was younger I had a geology nerd phase, and one of my favorite rocks that I collected was obsidian, which to me looked like black glass. It's the handle I used over at AO3, but when I tried to migrate over to tumblr, I found some snotnosed teenager had already taken the url *fistshake!* Same situation with Twitter. So it's
blackestglass and
blackestglass over on those sites.
Oh gosh, I've been in fandom since I was like 12. I started in Sailor Moon fandom, back when sailormoon.com was a thing, where I spent many an hour, chatting and exchanging emails with like minded SM fans. Good times. I've been in fandom ever since then. From Sailor Moon, I branched out to other anime fandoms, including Gundam Wing (my most life-scarring fandom, so much internalized misogyny and female-character-hate, jfc!), Dragonball Z, Fullmetal Alchemist, Inuyasha, and Cardcaptor Sakura.
And then I moved beyond anime fandom. I got really into the DC Animated Universe for several years while Teen Titans, Justice League, and JLU were airing, which then got me into the DC Comicsverse (and then Infinite Crisis happened and I noped the fuck out of there and haven't looked back). Teen Titans fandom was super formative though. There was this crazy long TT fanfic called "These Black Eyes," that I got really into. Fun fact: I actually suggested to the author that he should consider setting up a forum for fans of his story to interact, and lo and behold, he sent out an email to the mailing list that announced the opening of the "Space is a Waste" forum. I swear, the friends I made on there got me through high school, and I'm still friends with some of them to this day.
Some other fandoms I was a part of at the same time were Alias, Harry Potter, and LOTR. And that was my fannish journey through high school. In college I got back into anime with Naruto, Bleach, and Ouran High School Host Club. And thennnn, I got into KPop fandom, which ended up being my main fandom for like 4 years. Some other fandoms I was involved with around the same time included the Glee fandom (...let us not speak of that), Firefly, Stargate Atlantis, Tortall-verse, and Star Trek: AOS.
And then the Avengers came out and MCU has basically been my life since then, with side fandoms in Elementary, Brooklyn Nine Nine, and some other smaller fandoms. I've been mainly a fannish consumer for most of my time in fandom, but it wasn't until 2 years ago that I started podficcing and then writing. I'd heard of podfic before, but it never really occurred to me that it was something I could do, until I read Culture and Other Balls of Twine. The character voices were so wonderful and authentic and I just felt with such conviction that it was a story that needed to be read out loud. At the same time, I was nannying, and my kiddos loved it when I read to them, so it was sort of a perfect storm that led to me thinking, "Oh what the hell, why not try this?" It took me a couple of months of reading tutorials and multiple technical difficulties but eventually I managed it and I haven't looked back.
Why did you choose your fannish name, do you have more than one secret identity?
Oh god, I have like a different handle on every social media site. I made my LJ handle super_tricie341 back when I was 15, based on a childhood nickname, and like, I post under it and I always feel vaguely embarrassed when I do, but it's not like I care enough to shell out money for a rename token. In high school/college, I'd moved on to a new internet handle, which is about the time I made my DW
xdiorix; it's based on the name of an old Sailor Moon OC I'd made, whose name I've always loved. And then when I started to podfic, I decided I really needed to settle on a recognizable handle that wasn't fandom specific and on which I could build a fannish reputation. I chose
blackglass because when I was younger I had a geology nerd phase, and one of my favorite rocks that I collected was obsidian, which to me looked like black glass. It's the handle I used over at AO3, but when I tried to migrate over to tumblr, I found some snotnosed teenager had already taken the url *fistshake!* Same situation with Twitter. So it's
blackestglass and
blackestglass over on those sites.