December daily: First fandom

[resonant]

jelazakazone prompts: First fandom. What got you excited and revved up about it? Were you surprised to find yourself falling into fandom?

Still a few spots left to ask a question!

The zine I mentioned yesterday was a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" zine, and TNG was the first show that ever inspired me to go looking online for slash. I didn't find much, though -- I was interested in Data/Geordi, which was all but nonexistent. (I fondly remember some lovely Picard/Q, though.)

My first true fandom -- the first fandom for which I joined mailing lists and bookmarked archives and fangirled authors -- was "Star Trek: Voyager." I read many pairings indiscriminately, het and slash and femslash, but in my heart I was a Paris/Kim girl.

The most amazing thing for me was discovering that I wasn't the only person who took her favorite characters around in her head with her all the time, and talked to them, and spun out more stories for them -- I hadn't made up that hobby -- there were more of us -- and we could share!

I take for granted, now, that when I fall in love with characters, I can come here and find them again. I ought not to do that. When I'm in that awful position of No More Canon, Canon All Used Up; when the canon is clumsy or simplistic or just plain wrong; when the canon is giving me insipid romances that bear no resemblance to reality plus a friendship that has all the elements of a really great romance except for the actual romance ... well, I ought not to take for granted that the characters can have more life, or a better life, here.

(That makes them sound like immigrants. "Give me your tired, your poor, your chiseled cheekbones yearning to rub up against other chiseled cheekbones ...")

Comments

[jelazakazone]

The most amazing thing for me was discovering that I wasn't the only person who took her favorite characters around in her head with her all the time

This, right here, is what fandom is all about for me. Relating to other people who carry those characters around in their head. :D

Thanks for the answer. You always post interesting things.

[resonant]

Who knew there were so many of us?

[majoline]

Yes, this! This is what fandom is about for me ♥

[resonant]

It's to the point where there are a lot of canons that don't interest me at all -- except that I can predict that they're going to interest other fans.

[krait]

I love the mental image of characters immigrating to fandom in order to find the lives their canon couldn't give them!

[resonant]

"I can't stand any more stilted dialog and obligatory babes of the week! Let's flee to Fanlandia and ask for sanctuary!"

[laurenthemself]

I felt so embarrassed when I realised that not only had I not invented X-Files fan fiction, everyone else out there was ever so much better at it than I was.

The first thing I read was NC-17 Mulder/Krycek PWP. I swear it didn't inform my choices in reading and writing from then on at all, nooo.

[resonant]

I think I dove into the steamy end of the pool right away, too. Well, I was reading romance novels; it was clear to me immediately that this was a better way to meet my smut needs!

[laurenthemself]

Much cheaper, wider variety, higher ratings, and kink. I was sold instantly.