DAY SEVENTEEN: yes it is the seventeenth
Trying to knock a couple prompts off the list today, since I've fallen so grossly behind since having my leg cut open.
Today, for
rionaleonhart: Tell us a bit about your early days on the Internet, or alternatively your early days in fandom.
I didn't actually start participating in fandom until, uh, fairly recently, all things considered. Grade A lurker. For YEARS. YEARS AND YEARS. But my first days on the internet, oh lol.
Young Jecca was a silly girl.
So! Internet became a Thing for me when I was in, hmm, early eighth grade, I believe. 13 years old or so? I have no idea what to do with it, buuut there was this cool show called Sailor Moon (briefly mentioned last entry!) that I was really into at the time, maybe there was STUFF out there! So I, I don't know, we had AOL, so whatever the AOL search engine was, probably, I didn't google Sailor Moon. I looked it up, though! Or maybe I looked up Sailor Pluto, because she was my favourite. THIS WAS LIKE HALF MY LIFE AGO OKAY I DON'T REMEMBER IT VERY CLEARLY.
And I found sites! Sites FULL OF PICTURES! omggggg so many pretty pictures! Guys, I saved so many of them to my family's computer. I at least didn't feel the need to print them all, small mercies. I quickly became super unimpressed by anyone who "drew" "fanart" by copying official art and then changing the hair or the outfit colours or whatever. I was such a little snob, haha. I was also super interested in all these other characters that weren't from the show! I figured out that they were fanmade, but woooow, these guys are super cool! Look at their cool abilities! And they're so pretty! Wooooow! These people are so creative!
I was so impressed. A lot of them were probably Super Sues, haha. I wasn't reading fic yet and I don't remember many details, so who knows. Were the creators having fun? Yes. So whatever. I usually don't hate on OCs too hard. Not sure if this was because I had a friend who created some truly awful ones (so, so awful) or if I just don't care so long as it's not being forcibly inflicted on me (which it has yet to be).
AND THEN I DISCOVERED FANFICTION. What was the site. Pretty sure it was "A Sailor Moon Romance" but I can't swear to that. (...actually I just googled that and I'm pretty sure that was, in fact, the correct name.) It was just. A HUGE Sailor Moon fanfiction library. And I decided, right then, that I was going to read ALL THE FANFICTION.
ALL OF IT.
It's okay, you can laugh at me.
I think what surprises me the most is the number of stories I got through before running into porn, frankly. And then I was mostly confused. Why would anyone write this? Who'd want to read it? How weird.
I REMEMBER ONE OF THEM was some Sailor Moon / DBZ crossover where Serena (because they used the English names with the odd bits of Japanese thrown in, as you do) went to DBZ-land for... reasons, idk, and fell in love with Gohan or something. There was some blood transfusion plotline in there somewhere that ended with Sailor Moon becoming a Super Saiyan. I DON'T KNOW WHATEVER OKAY I read some really awful stories.
I REMEMBER MY FIRST SONGFIC it was even more confusing than the sex fic. I had NO IDEA what was going on or how anyone was supposed to make sense of it.
And forums! There were forums! But I was afraid to sign up because what if the scary people on the internet stalked me down?! So I did not forum. I... I still mostly do not forum, but it's not because I am afraid everyone on the internet is a serial killer. It's 'cause aaaaugh interaction aaaaaaaugh.
I did eventually give up in the Moon Romance archives, if only because stories I'd read would have the nerve to go and UPDATE so I had to keep checking to see if I was still up-to-date and all.
Also, between grades 8 and 9, my best friend at the time hugely betrayed me and our mutual friend and we'd all been huge Moonies together and that sort of... killed some of the magic for me.
THEN THAT FALL (when I was in 9th grade) here my brother (who had bought a Playstation recently) picked up Final Fantasy VII from a yard sale and eventually I decided to read all the FFVII fic on fanfiction.net IT'S OKAY YOU CAN STILL LAUGH AT ME see 'cause that one the updated stories jumped to the top! So I would just START AT THE BACK guys I don't even. I was very stupid for a fourteen year old.
Exempting my wee self's Rudolph story (friends-locked, but goddamn fantastic) and the crazy adventures my brother and my friends and I played through with our Beast Wars toys (I think toy-playing can be a sort of fanfiction), FFVII was actually the first time I tried to write fic. It was certainly the first time I knew what I was doing as I did it. Though, despite that I'd been writing my own stories for YEAAARS, I for some reason was not capable of coming up with stories based in other people's worlds, so mostly I was just rehashing ideas from fanfics I'd read. It was pretty weird and I eventually decided I had better things to do and left it to be lost to time. Mostly I remember that Aeris stopped being dead because FUCK YOU SQUARESOFT SHE WAS AWESOME. And... stuff? There was definitely a lot of stuff.
Yeah. SO THAT WAS BASICALLY MY FIRST, uh. 4-5 years of internet. Lurking and reading ALL THE FIC.
ALL
THE
FIC.
okay I'm going to actually get up now.
[Crossposted from DW. Comments:
]
Today, for
rionaleonhart: Tell us a bit about your early days on the Internet, or alternatively your early days in fandom.
I didn't actually start participating in fandom until, uh, fairly recently, all things considered. Grade A lurker. For YEARS. YEARS AND YEARS. But my first days on the internet, oh lol.
Young Jecca was a silly girl.
So! Internet became a Thing for me when I was in, hmm, early eighth grade, I believe. 13 years old or so? I have no idea what to do with it, buuut there was this cool show called Sailor Moon (briefly mentioned last entry!) that I was really into at the time, maybe there was STUFF out there! So I, I don't know, we had AOL, so whatever the AOL search engine was, probably, I didn't google Sailor Moon. I looked it up, though! Or maybe I looked up Sailor Pluto, because she was my favourite. THIS WAS LIKE HALF MY LIFE AGO OKAY I DON'T REMEMBER IT VERY CLEARLY.
And I found sites! Sites FULL OF PICTURES! omggggg so many pretty pictures! Guys, I saved so many of them to my family's computer. I at least didn't feel the need to print them all, small mercies. I quickly became super unimpressed by anyone who "drew" "fanart" by copying official art and then changing the hair or the outfit colours or whatever. I was such a little snob, haha. I was also super interested in all these other characters that weren't from the show! I figured out that they were fanmade, but woooow, these guys are super cool! Look at their cool abilities! And they're so pretty! Wooooow! These people are so creative!
I was so impressed. A lot of them were probably Super Sues, haha. I wasn't reading fic yet and I don't remember many details, so who knows. Were the creators having fun? Yes. So whatever. I usually don't hate on OCs too hard. Not sure if this was because I had a friend who created some truly awful ones (so, so awful) or if I just don't care so long as it's not being forcibly inflicted on me (which it has yet to be).
AND THEN I DISCOVERED FANFICTION. What was the site. Pretty sure it was "A Sailor Moon Romance" but I can't swear to that. (...actually I just googled that and I'm pretty sure that was, in fact, the correct name.) It was just. A HUGE Sailor Moon fanfiction library. And I decided, right then, that I was going to read ALL THE FANFICTION.
ALL OF IT.
It's okay, you can laugh at me.
I think what surprises me the most is the number of stories I got through before running into porn, frankly. And then I was mostly confused. Why would anyone write this? Who'd want to read it? How weird.
I REMEMBER ONE OF THEM was some Sailor Moon / DBZ crossover where Serena (because they used the English names with the odd bits of Japanese thrown in, as you do) went to DBZ-land for... reasons, idk, and fell in love with Gohan or something. There was some blood transfusion plotline in there somewhere that ended with Sailor Moon becoming a Super Saiyan. I DON'T KNOW WHATEVER OKAY I read some really awful stories.
I REMEMBER MY FIRST SONGFIC it was even more confusing than the sex fic. I had NO IDEA what was going on or how anyone was supposed to make sense of it.
And forums! There were forums! But I was afraid to sign up because what if the scary people on the internet stalked me down?! So I did not forum. I... I still mostly do not forum, but it's not because I am afraid everyone on the internet is a serial killer. It's 'cause aaaaugh interaction aaaaaaaugh.
I did eventually give up in the Moon Romance archives, if only because stories I'd read would have the nerve to go and UPDATE so I had to keep checking to see if I was still up-to-date and all.
Also, between grades 8 and 9, my best friend at the time hugely betrayed me and our mutual friend and we'd all been huge Moonies together and that sort of... killed some of the magic for me.
THEN THAT FALL (when I was in 9th grade) here my brother (who had bought a Playstation recently) picked up Final Fantasy VII from a yard sale and eventually I decided to read all the FFVII fic on fanfiction.net IT'S OKAY YOU CAN STILL LAUGH AT ME see 'cause that one the updated stories jumped to the top! So I would just START AT THE BACK guys I don't even. I was very stupid for a fourteen year old.
Exempting my wee self's Rudolph story (friends-locked, but goddamn fantastic) and the crazy adventures my brother and my friends and I played through with our Beast Wars toys (I think toy-playing can be a sort of fanfiction), FFVII was actually the first time I tried to write fic. It was certainly the first time I knew what I was doing as I did it. Though, despite that I'd been writing my own stories for YEAAARS, I for some reason was not capable of coming up with stories based in other people's worlds, so mostly I was just rehashing ideas from fanfics I'd read. It was pretty weird and I eventually decided I had better things to do and left it to be lost to time. Mostly I remember that Aeris stopped being dead because FUCK YOU SQUARESOFT SHE WAS AWESOME. And... stuff? There was definitely a lot of stuff.
Yeah. SO THAT WAS BASICALLY MY FIRST, uh. 4-5 years of internet. Lurking and reading ALL THE FIC.
ALL
THE
FIC.
okay I'm going to actually get up now.
[Crossposted from DW. Comments:
]