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Non-Rec: All the Fandoms I've Loved Before
Jan. 4th, 2020 12:30 pm
Challenge #2
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.
Well not ALL of them, we really don't have that kind of time. ;)
I suppose I started as a child doing fannish things that I did not really think of in those terms, but I first started thinking of fandoms and fannish things in those terms around the close of the nineties and in the early aughts. My first "Fandom" that I thought of as a fandom that I was in was Buffy the Vampire Slayer and very shortly after that Lord of the Rings and the prequel trilogy of Star Wars. In the really early days, my naivete lead me to believe that "Slash" was analogous to slasher films meaning that they were especially violent or gory stories and I know that that was not for me. But along came LotR and all it's soulful and longing looks, and I was made aware of what it really meant. I returned to BtVS and Star Wars with new eyes.
In those days, I lurked never really confident or comfortable with interacting with anyone in fandom but I read and watched and thought that wouldn't it be nice to be involved. And then I would stumble upon a ship war and thank my lurker stars that I was well out of it. I spent time in many fandoms in the early to mid aughts; Smallville, due South, Stargate Atlantis, Harry Potter, various anime fandoms.
By the early teens, I was very much in love with fanfiction in general which I have heard describe as its own genre which I think it a fair assessment. Despite this for a short time I for some convoluted personal reasons tried to "give up" fanfiction and be more "grown up" or "normal". This was so foolish. I was only out for six to eight months tops and found that I missed these fictional characters like long lost friends and finally stopped punishing myself. Loving fanfiction didn't have anything to do with age and normal (whatever that really means) was not something I ever was or ever would be and I needed to except that. Once I did that I was much happier. This epiphany lead me to think that I would like to give back, but I didn't know what that would look like.
After months and months of research and daydreaming, I started my first blog on Tumblr in April 2014 recommending the fanfiction that I enjoyed so much. I did it as much for myself as anyone else as I had been reading so long and loved so many stories I was having a hard time keeping track of the good stuff and this provided me a way to look back when I wanted to re-read something (because I almost always want to re-read the good ones). But despite that self motive, it always makes my day to discover that I have done the same by steering them to a story that worked for them.
When Tumblr arbitrarily changed their policy on nsfw posts in December 2018, I decided to look for a better fandom home which led me to Dreamwidth. For the first half of 2019, I was super jazzed about being more involved with fandom and it's people than ever before, but by the summer I was burnt out. After five years of daily recs and I huge six-month-long push to put all of my past recs on WordPress, I was just too tired to do anything.
Since the fall I've been re-engaging in fits and starts, and I'm really excited to participate in the Snowflake Challenge for the second year. :D
