My fannish history

[sqbr]

Inspired by this post at otw_onlinecon as linked to me by cupidsbow and ithiliana. Personally I'd rather be napping right now but I really feel like writing it all down now :)

There's sort of two related stories here: how I discovered science fiction fandom, and how I got into "transformative works" fandom. I describe some of the former in my sad tale of the pains of being an Isobelle Carmody fangirl and a lot of the latter can be followed on my downward spiral tag :)

Childhood: Like a lot of children's scifi and fantasy but have no ability to find the few which don't completely suck except via trial and error, so get disheartened.
early 1994: Watch Star Trek 2 on tv. Am entranced. Watch the rest of the movies (up to 6 at this point) Become somewhat obsessive, reading all the Star Trek materials I can find at my local and school libraries.
mid 1994: Discover science fiction books, starting with Isobelle Carmody. Leave Star Trek behind completely. Write bad pastiches where a plucky go-getter ignores sensible people's advice and goes on a brave and foolhardy mission against all odds.. and dies horribly.
late 1994-1996: discover the internet. Look up my favourite authors somewhat obsessively (none stick out as my One True Author). Compile Tolkein elvish dictionary. Have long nerdy conversations with friends. Draw misc fan art.
1997: Start uni. Get an email address. Finally join fandom-at-large via both unisfa and Isobelle Carmody mailing list. Create Isobelle Carmody fanpage, go on unisfa committee.
1999: Go to Swancon for the first time. Am utterly entranced.
Early 2000s: hear about fanfic via unisfa and cupidsbow et al's swancon panels. Give it a go. Am thoroughly squicked. Hear about blogs. Think they are narcissistic and dull.
2003: We don't talk about 2003 (but this is the year I decided that internet forums, fannish or otherwise, were a world of pain I could live without)
2004: Get a blog (just for real life friends). Make various fannish craft and comics, but don't think of it as being at all like fanfic, just part of my general creativity.
2005: finish Phd, stop hating the world. Get a livejournal since that's where all my (real life) friends are. Join skeletor_hordak via some guys from swancon, do not see it as fanfic (which I've tried a couple times more each time my flist rec something, still squicked though not as much).
2006: Discover metafandom via discussions about racism in POTC by emma_in_oz. Discover fanvids and then the_reel. Looking for fanvids at makesmewannadie's lj... discover fanfic I don't hate. Get into fanfic. Start running panels at cons.
2007: Get involved with the odd review at the_reel, my first fannish involvement which doesn't involve people I know from real life. Have a bunch of posts on metafandom. As a result get friended by a bunch of fannish strangers (who are all awesome :))
2008: Make a fancomic for a specific fannish community (run by bantha_fodder, who I know irl). Make a fanvid.
EDIT: And now I have written fanfic.

And from there I think the next logical step is for me to write fanfic and get on swancon committee. Neither of these things have any appeal to me right now, but clearly it's my destiny :) EDIT: LOL

Also: Sick, totally not in a comment replying to place.

Comments

[cupidsbow.livejournal.com]

I would point and laugh, but my journey was very similar, just with a different set of landmarks along the way.

[alias_sqbr]

See the embarrassing thing for me is that looking at that post, and the one before, my first thought was "Hmm, I guess my first real 'fandom' was the Lord of the Rings books, what with that elvish dictionary I made in yr 11" and I was happy enough with that...until the repressed memories of being a Trekkie came back :)

[lian-li.livejournal.com]

(here via otw_onlinecon) Write bad pastiches where a plucky go-getter ignores sensible people's advice and goes on a brave and foolhardy mission against all odds.. and dies horribly. Oh, noes! *put hand above her heart*

*g* Similar here. Except she didn't die. (...victim to the rule that characters who have a romance going on may never die. ... -_-; )

[alias_sqbr]

It's no fun if they don't die! :)

Actually, come to think of it, pretty much every story I wrote in highschool ended with "and then they died, because they were STUPID", I had a lot of repressed anger I took out on my characters :D

[lian-li.livejournal.com]

Hahaha :D Well, mine were shameless Mary Sues (imagine my chagrin years later when I became aware they totally were, but hey, at least pretty much everbody starts out like this!), so I took out my repressed anger at their enemies ("take that, member of nebulous patriarchal knightly order! *Thwack*")

Plus, totally forgot to add that in my history, was a huge Nirvana fan. Right music = excellent for anger management!

[alias_sqbr]

Heh. I was thinking "I never really got into music fandom" then remembered that my first website was inspired by the Radiohead website of the time, a whole bunch of surreal links in the form of poetry. To my teenage mind, coolness trumped usability every time :)

[trs80.ucc.asn.au (from livejournal.com)]

Why isn't this post also tagged downward spiral?

[alias_sqbr]

Because.. um....

Look, a distraction!

*quickly edits post*

(I mean, technically, it's not actually a part of the spiral, it just documents it, but it does fit on the tag anyway)