2020-01-03

In your own space, talk about your fannish history. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

My fannish history, at least the start of it, is pretty well documented on my journal, but I've never gone into a deep dive of my the rest of my fannish history.

I'd been peripherally aware of "fandom" for a long time, since high school. There were the Star Trek nerds and I think a few of them would pass around 'zines and giggle about Kirk and Spock (I was naive and didn't quite understand what they found so funny, at least not until I read the novelization of ST: The Movie). I also knew about 'zines from the back pages of the early Darkover novels (and yes, I have absolutely disowned any affection from MZB's body of work), where fans of the series were invited to subscribe to a printed newsletter and write stories in the Darkover universe (and where a lucky few every year were chosen to get published in an official collection). I do remember asking my mom (I was in high school) if I could get this with my allowance and baby sitting money (a check or money order was required) and she didn't think it was a good use of my money. I probably could have signed up for it when I got a checking account in college, but Darkover slipped off my radar (thank goodness?).

I didn't really hang out with a fannish crowd in college - I had a rather insane academic schedule, so free time was limited. Then came law school and career building and my interests went in different ways. When I read for pleasure, it was mostly romance novels. I didn't watch a lot of television, and I don't recall ever getting totally gripped by movies. Yeah, there were a few things I jonesed over, but nothing ever really grabbed me (okay, The Pretender tugged at me hard).

Until Farscape.

God, did I love that show. I lived for it, breathed for it. I haunted the show's official website waiting for news about new episodes. But oddly enough, I didn't find a fandom community (although I bought almost all the official Farscape magazines). It never even occurred to me to look!

After Farscape, nothing pulled at me like that. Not until White Collar and a strange confluence of illness and a post in a slash writer's blog about Peter/Neal smut on LiveJournal (see the first ever post on my Journal) that I truly discovered fandom.

I find it hysterical that in my first post, I wrote:

I'm not sure I'm cut out for writing fic...I do write and write well (if I may say so myself), but one of the things that makes my writing good is an intensive and obsessive attention to research and detail - and I just do not know if I can turn that off enough to write with the dramatic intensity I would want. But you see, I have these plot bunnies coupling in my head - they don't let me sleep - so I may just have to try.

God, I sounded like such a fucking twat. The thing is, I write for a living, basically, and I've achieved amazing things, professionally, with my words. That doesn't mean I would be any good with creative writing, though. But you never know until you try.

It took me another month before I started my first story. Wait, no - that's not true. It might have been a week. I'd posted a prompt on the WC Kink Meme and no on filled it, so I started to fill it myself (prompts and fills were author!anon for the kink reasons). My first story, under my own LJ handle, was published on March 9, 2010. I was SO proud of that little piece of shit, and remained so for years. I am almost afraid to re-read it - it was preachy and meta and I'm pretty sure it will push all of my humiliation squicks big time.

But regardless of quality, it got me started. And the White Collar fandom was just so lovely and kind and welcoming. That first year, I wrote so much. According to the spreadsheet I've been keeping since the beginning, I'd written 176 stories, although a bunch of them were multi-chaptered things and a lot were ficlets and drabbles, but still, the wordcount for my first year was pretty impressive - 266k.

Over the years, I discovered that I am intensely mono-fannish. There are a few drabbles and ficlets for other fandoms - one or two West Wing stories, a handful of Sherlock things, a few MCU ficlets, but the only time I left the White Collar universe for something longer than 500 words was for Inspector Lewis. I might have strayed more permanently, but I had so many close friends in WC and there was no active fandom for Lewis in the same way that I never really gave it my all.

Perhaps the most beautiful thing about White Collar was the community I found. I think it helped that the show was New York based and there was a strong community here on the East Coast. People would get together very regularly, and even the more far-away fans would come in for a visit (one year, I hosted a gathering and there were representatives from France and Poland). When the show ended, it took a few years for the fandom to fade away, despite everyone's best efforts to stay close. It happens - the fandom was the glue and people do move on, but I really do miss that community. And as I've said elsewhere (my FSC Day One post), I am unutterably grateful for the connections that remain.

My first post-White Collar fandom was The Flash. It was also the fandom that pushed me nearly full-time onto Tumblr. Nothing was really the same, though. Tumblr, as a medium, is image based and seems to cater to people's worst impulses. The Flash, as a comic-based show, also attracted a much younger (age and emotional) set of fans who I had little in common with. I didn't stay too long and left when the show took a turn I didn't like. I'm fond of saying that it was cancelled fifteen minutes before the end of the second season. But one very good thing came out of it - I formed a close and dear friendship (ironically, my friend actually lost interest in The Flash before I did).

Kingsman came next, and only because in late 2016, a friend from my White Collar days was visiting and she's casually mentioned that she's gotten sucked into Kingsman fanfic. I'd heard of the movie but hadn't seen it, but had made a mental note of it. In mid 2017, I found the DVD on the sale rack at Target and thought, why not?

I watched the movie on a Saturday afternoon and spent all night reading fic. It took a few weeks, but I got my start with a series of cross-over ficlets with White Collar. It seemed like a natural fit that Neal Caffrey had once been a Kingsman recruit, and that explained so much of his unbelievable skills. These little fics (most were under 3k) whetted my appetite, but I'd been working on a long Flash AU that had absolutely nothing to do with the show, and kept on writing it for another few months, only taking a break with the cross-over stories. But I slowly started turning my Tumblr away from The Flash and towards Kingsman and it's cast. I didn't actually start writing Kingsman full-time until after the second (and terrible) movie came out, and I wrote a fix-it for my ship. Of course, that started the ball rolling and been pretty much Kingsman-committed ever since. It helps that I have made good friends there, too. That is what keeps me going, after all.

I probably should mention that when it comes to fannish activities, I am a stereotypical Aries. I like to run things or help run things. Almost since the very beginning, I would host prompt-fests on my journal (and some of those produced some pretty amazing stories). I also ran, or helped run many communities, like White Collar 100 with

ladygray99, the White Collar Big Bang, the White Collar Reverse Bang, and White Collar Pairings. That urge continued with The Flash, except that that fandom had no presence on LJ/DW and little interest in being here.

But the need to organize and promote didn't die, and as a result of one of last year's FSC posts where I'd mentioned that I'd like to start a Reverse Bang for Kingsman, my dear friend

anarchycox hopped on board and helped me get the ball rolling (and she has been the most awesome co-mod ever).

Right now, the Kingsman fandom is very quiet. I don't think it's going to die out, the prequel "The King's Man" will be out in the fall and that looks promising. And Taron Egerton has all but confirmed that the third Eggsy movie is getting under way very soon.

I do confess that at the moment, I'm delicately flirting with the Endeavour fandom, which is the prequel to Inspector Morse and Lewis, but I don't see myself going there full time. There is a Discord, but I don't find it an easy way to be a fan - the way I want to be fannish. So, while I will continue to enjoy canon and create as the mood strikes, I don't think I'll ever consider myself part of those shows' fandom.

(Takes a breath, re-reads) Holy crap, I have gone on far too long, seriously. Seriously.

If I have to sum up my fannish history, I'll say this - the best kind of fandoms are ones that give me a strong sense of community. If I don't find a way to connect with at least one other person, the fandom brings me no real joy. I've been lucky, though; I've found people who have reached out or answered my outreach, and we've forged connections beyond our fannish interests. I may talk with these people daily or weekly, or sometimes months will go by between connections, but these relationships sustain me and bring me joy.

Thank you.

EDIT This entry originally had a cut-tag, but scrolling through other posts for Day 2, I am astonished (!) to see that my 1600 or so words is somewhat brief. This is an amazing topic and I love how many people are taking the time to commit their fannish histories to words. Thank you to everyone for sharing.

2020-01-03

Fandom Snowflake 2020 - Day 2

Fanfic Year In Review - 2019