My Fannish History, a timeline
This is exceedingly rambly, especially for someone who has only been actively participating in fandom for 5 years or so. For anyone who wants the short version, there's the fandoms as relationships meme that I already linked in the introductory Snowflake post.
1990: I'm born into a house where one wall in the living room is entirely covered in books. My legal name is a pun. Instantly doomed to geekdom.
1997: "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is published in the UK, and the first season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" airs in the US. I'm 6 and in Latvia and have no clue that any of this is happening.
2001: The Latvian translation of "Harry Potter" arrives, with appropriate hype. I stand in queue to get the first book. I'm eleven like Harry. This is ideal.
Sometime in the early/mid-oughts:
- Watching "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" with my siblings with a ritually prepared big plate of sandwiches every time ("the Hercules plate"). At some (later?) point, my history teacher brings up the series as a positive example of getting The Youth informed about classical mythology. I'm a little snob who has inhaled "Mythology" by Jan Parandowski cover to cover, so I express some scepticism about the quality of info one can get from "Hercules".
- "Knight Rider" (the original series, I think?) is another TV series I watch with my family as it airs in Latvia, & I'm pretty invested in KITT the talking car.
- I read lots of things including Sherlock Holmes stories in translation. I cry when Reichenbach happens.
- Lots of "20 questions" games with my siblings and dad about "The Three Musketeers" (novel), for some reason.
- I read the Harry Potter books as soon as I can and reread often. At one point, I start reading the English versions first. Memory of translating the opening pages of "Half-Blood Prince" out loud to my younger siblings. I looked up vocabulary first, but I think I didn't write the whole translation down but rather improvised. The siblings complained how slowly this went. I thrust the book at my sister. "You do it, then!" Her attempt created the impression that Snape may have thrown a couch at Narcissa; cue vicious mockery.
- "Harry Potter" charades. "Harry Potter" 20 questions.
- The bookstore that published HP in Latvian tries to establish what they call a "Harry Potter fan club", which is a transparent attempt to market more fantasy books. I go to the first meeting. It's boring, but "Artemis Fowl", which they sell with a sticker "Recommended by the Harry Potter fan club", is still good.
- In a newspaper, someone writes an article about what a fan is - an interview with a boy who likes Harry Potter. "It's not a good article, though," my siblings say as I paste this into my scrapbook of Harry Potter things.
- I read HP fic on FFN on the family computer (did we really have only one at that point? Maybe my grandma's sister had her own and this was the one for common use.) Snape pairings. LOTS of James/Lily romance. Dad looks over my shoulder at what I'm reading one time (luckily, rated only PG-13). "Is this really worth your time?"
- I use a word with some kind of wrong meaning in an English essay (?) and, when my teacher corrects it, I tell her a person on a Harry Potter forum said this was the meaning of the word. She points out that people who are in the middle of arguing about fan things might bend the truth to suit their agenda.
- I have a Harry Potter sticker album (I still have it!! pictured below, sorry about the blur), and sometimes I buy Harry Potter sweets such as Every-Flavor Beans.
- I read fic on and off, with years of "off", but books always, at that point. There's a Terry Pratchett phase in high school. "Maskerade" is my gateway Pratchett novel that leads to binging as many of them as I can for a while.
- "Twilight". I've read up to book two or three when I desperately want more, so I find a forum where I lurk and read fic (and look at soft porn, they have a special subforum for pics of shirtless men) and very rarely comment. omg, re-found it! Twilighted Dot Net.
- 2004-2005-ish (??), I go to Germany for a week or so on an exchange program, and host an exchange student at home as well. She's big into manga/anime fandom. She writes sexy roleplay stories with her friend. She takes me with her to my first and so far only con, where I wear her old Rurouni Kenshin costume and kind of just amble about and look at costumes. I do have a sword, so that's neat. Someone compliments me on the cosplay and asks to take a picture. I read a lot of borrowed Kenshin manga before/after/during this (not sure, might be before, after, AND during the con), but that only lasts as long as the trip lasts. She gives me the address of a fan site that I have never, to this day, checked out. Ah, here it is: animexx.de. I didn't have anything to do with this site, though.
- Weird poem, in Latvian, about Thingummy and Bob from the Moomin books, who are perving over Legolas. I wrote it for my sister after losing a bet. She still has it.
- Another Germany trip a bit later, the host family shows me "Pirates of the Caribbean". Cue obsession with Jack Sparrow in particular and Johnny Depp in general. I write down notes for a brief PoTC crackfic/parody that I never finish. I walk funny and wave my arms around like Jack at all times. This is also the main reason why I take a liking to rum-based cocktails later. I repeatedly take an internet quiz about being able to name all Depp movies. I read fic for "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" before seeing the movie (the canon disappoints afterwards, there's SO much less slash). "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" desktop wallpaper. Mum buys me half a dozen Johnny Depp DVDs for a birthday (2007/2008??). I discuss Edward Scissorhands with her. "Don't you just want to... I don't know, feed him grapes and take care of him?" "He's a bit young for me."
- At one point I'm into "Phantom of the Opera", the movie. I talk at my friend about headcanons. She lends me the novel "Phantom" by Susan Kay, which I kinda leaf through without really reading. 2007-2008ish I write a 4000-word essay for school, comparing Leroux's original novel and "Trilby" by George du Maurier. "Phantom of the Opera" desktop wallpaper.
ETA: high school literature teacher encouraged us to write fic of one of the works on the syllabus, and I wrote a story based on "The Little Prince" - something like a missing scene fic, where he visits two more planets.
2008-2011: nothing much fandom-wise, I think? I think I was just reading some books? I was definitely out of the habit of fic-reading.
ETA: no, around 2010-ish is when I was into Doctor Who! Only ever watched New Who up to sometime in the 11th Doctor's era. I had the theme song as my ringtone, and we made dalek gingerbread, and I read some fic and wrote a draft of a oneshot that - you guessed it - I never posted.
2011-ish: me and sister are into Loki, Tom Hiddleston, Loki/Tom as a smutfic ship, and also, somewhat, Hiddleston/Hemsworth RPF AUs - I remember one where one of them was an assassin and the other was the target but then romance and smut ensued. :) I keep asking sister to rec me some fic, because going to a fic archive and browsing for fic is apparently not the kind of thing I do? Until sister gets fed up with it and tells me to find my own smut. Which I do.
2012-2014-ish: I watch BBC Sherlock with my family, BAM Johnlock obsession!! I eventually create an AO3 profile and tumblr account for this. Much invested in fic. Sometimes I comment. Omegaverse. Fawnlock. I write one (1) unposted limerick, in English, about Pocket!John and Pocket!Sherlock and also life-size Tom Hiddleston. Series 3 is a letdown & I drift away soon after that.
Sometime around then: Welcome to Night Vale. Me and sister listen, and we go to a live event in Helsinki once. We buy a two-headed, spider-eyed deer t-shirt that we both own.
At some unidentified point: more HP fic reading. Wolfstar phase. :) Also Drarry and Harry/Tom Riddle there for a moment.
Summer/fall/winter 2014: I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer with my siblings! I listen to womanaction's Buffy playlists on 8tracks, and I read AU fic on AO3 before I'm done watching the show.
Spring 2015: I make some basic edits where Buffy screencaps meet Welcome to Night Vale tweets. Post them on tumblr.
Also spring 2015: a Spuffy fic rec list on tumblr gets me to sign up at Elysian Fields so I can read the stories. I read on EF and AO3 and sometimes comment.
Late 2015 (November?): there's a challenge floating around on tumblr that dares me to comment on every fic I read for a month. I never stopped.
January 2016: baby's first AO3 fic (a BtVS fusion with "Flatland" by Edwin A. Abbott). Semi-regular Buffy ficlets and poems ever since.
February 2016: I'm on an archive binge of herself_nyc's Buffy fic when senpai notices me commenting everyting and says something like, Who are you? We should know each other. I go, "Hi, call me starstruck." Welp, I guess I'm using my LiveJournal account that I created in summer 2015 for non-fannish purposes (keeping in touch with my sister while she was abroad; she started an LJ blog for a bit). I had been meaning to check out the Buffy side of LJ anyway, because I knew that's the place of good things like the all-penguin AU.
March 2016: I arrive on LiveJournal right on time for @teragramm's Circling the Wagons friending meme, which lets me find a ton of Buffy friends immediately.
April 2016: I try blackout poetry made from Buffy shooting scripts, for poetry month.
May 2016: freecat15 convinces me to post the next batch of blackout poems on seasonal_spuffy for a free-for-all day. I've participated in every round since then (I think. Though not all of the free-for-all events outside rounds.)
April 2017: on Rebcake's request, I say "I think I could handle tumblr crossposting" [of links to new entries] for Seasonal Spuffy. It's a slippery slope that leads to mod posting.
Also April 2017: LiveJournal kerfuffle with the TOS update. I make a Dreamwidth account and have been posting mainly here ever since, with auto-crossposting to LJ. I still post on LJ for communities.
June 2017: first Spuffy ficlets crossposted on Elysian Fields
2017: I read most of Les Mis (the novel) and write limericks and run a quote sideblog on tumblr because I don't know how or why to read a book non-interactively anymore, apparently. Cue angst about what if I drift away from the Buffy fandom now, because I have a history of changing fandoms every couple of years. The Buffy fandom newsletter @su_herald posts a call for editors in late spring (I think), and I think I'd like to, but I just can't promise I'll be sticking around in this fandom.
Drifting away from the Buffy fandom does not happen. Whew. :D
December 2017: I respond to the next call for @su_herald editors.
Fall 2018: I get a Pillowfort account (same username as Dreamwidth).
December 2018: I flounce out of tumblr and slam the door (but still lurk on a few of my friends' blogs to this day).
2019 spring/summer: binge-listening to "Hamilton"; the only transformative result is that my next Buffy poem has assonance.
2019 summer/fall: Crowley gifs and drawings look like gender presentation goals, and I reread the novel and read a bunch of Good Omens fic. I don't post a lot about Good Omens, because it's not my main fandom and I don't want it to be. It doesn't even have a newsletter (that I know of) -- how can they live that way? ;)
January 2020: my first Snowflake Challenge. :D
This entry was originally posted at https://thenewbuzwuzz.dreamwidth.org/164340.html.