December Daily: switching fandoms

[resonant]

princessofgeeks asks, "How did you go about changing fandoms? Was it, historically, something you did or something that just happened? Did friends lure you? Did you find new shows to watch?"

I think that the last fandom that attracted me because of something in the canon was "Star Trek: The Next Generation" when it was new.

It's much more typical for me to get drawn in by fan activity -- great stories that make me fall in love with a character or a pairing, great meta that fixes things that bother me in the source material.

When I lose interest in a fandom, often it's just that between me and the other fans I feel like we've explored all the most interesting nooks and crannies. I remember cesperanza once saying something like: We write a funny snippet and we write a sexy one-shot and we keep writing bigger, deeper things until we EXPRESS OUR SOULS! and then we wander off into a new fandom where it's all lube and balloons.

Sometimes it's that the canon gets crappy, or that the crappiness that was always there gets harder and harder to ignore. With SGA, it got to the point where I had difficulty making myself watch episodes.

Sometimes it's the fandom that goes sour. That was what happened with BBC Sherlock. I mean, the canon was going sour at the same time, but if that had been the only issue, I could have happily paddled around in pre-Reichenbach canon for at least a few more stories, pretending that Series 3 was no realer than the epilogue of Harry Potter; what drove me out was that the first time I encountered The Goddamned Discourse on Tumblr was in the context of people I admired putting a lot of energy into trying to reason with people whose entire argument was basically "anyone who loves BBC Sherlock is clearly a racist misogynist, and if you support them, you're one of them," and that was Res out.





1 -- goss, "VENOM! Why do you think it's been such an instant hit with Fandom, and what are some of your favourite fanworks so far?" and nestra, "Any Venom recs?"
2 -- anitac588, "How do you relate to different fandoms? Do you revisit them? Sometimes I find it difficult to go back to reading stories in 'old' fandoms after discovering new OTP."
3 -- marginaliana, "what is your favorite physical non-living thing? Not a person or a pet, but it could be something you own or a piece of art, etc."
4 -- cesperanza, "I'll ask an HP question, actually, because I wasn't really ever in it and I'm interested in the reactions of people who were. It seems to me from the outside so spectacularly meh now; like, it was the fictional equiv of Lost (which I also didn't watch) where it was fascinating as a piece of serialized fiction but where the execution simply couldn't live up to the collective imagination. Am I wrong?"
5 -- teigh_corvus, "Your thoughts on James Joyce and Ulysses."
6 -- kass, "If the you of 10 years ago could see you now, what would surprise her most?"
7 -- jjhunter, "What do you carry with you?"
8 -- mific, "Sounds like you commute to and fro still. How do you pass the time traveling? Music? Audiobooks? Something else? Any reccs? :)"
9 -- torch, "favorite advent songs!"
10 -- princessofgeeks, "How did you go about changing fandoms? Was it, historically, something you did or something that just happened? Did friends lure you? Did you find new shows to watch?"
11 -- reginagiraffe, "(It's MrGiraffe's birthday so...) Have you ever written a birthday themed story? If not, what couple would have the best/funnest/easiest birthday story to write and why?"
12 -- laurenthemself, "What are your thoughts on Thor: Ragnarok? I know ya boy Steve wasn't in it but did you have any shippy feelings?"
13 -- allheadybooks, "13. What's your least favorite thing about splitting your time between two houses? (My wife and I are also in a commuter marriage at the moment, and I get so frustrated every weekend when I have to go grocery shopping AGAIN because I thought I had eggs but that was at the other apartment!"
14 -- schneefink, "how about your field of study/work/specialization/hobby and how a book/movie/series/canon got it terribly/hilariously wrong?"
15 -- china_shop, "What hooks you into a fanfic? Is it banter, characterisation, tropes, or...? Is it different from what hooks you into original fic?"
16 -- muccamukk, "Describe a long fic you always wanted to write, but never have and likely never will."
17 -- ride_4ever, "rec two due South fanworks: a favorite that you created and a favorite that someone else created. (Anything! Triggers and squicks not a concern for me.)"
18 -- kass, "What have you read recently that you've enjoyed?
19 -- jjhunter, "What are five words you like or find especially meaningful + 1 word you despise? Why?"
20 --
21 --
22 -- mekare, What would Ben Fraser do in 2018?
23 -- marina, "What was the last book you read that wasn't fanfic and that you intensely loved, and why."
24 -- wychwood, "Something about SGA! What's the one fic you're sorry you never wrote? What was your favourite episode? Do you still love John/Rodney? How gay WAS John Sheppard? Where in Atlantis would you live if you could pick any room you liked? Pick one or a topic of your choice."
25 -- isabellerecs, "What was your most favorite Christmas present that you ever received as a kid?" and/or "What Christmas present had you wanted badly but never received as a kid?"
26 --
27 --destina, "how has your relationship to fandom changed over the years? By which I mean not just participation in it, but your level of tolerance/interest for the cyclical things about it, the way old arguments never really stop or die, etc, but also the ways fandom changes and new ways of doing fandom evolve. (And old ways evolve out, and terms evolve, etc.)"
28 -- kass, "What do you like best about where you live?"
29 --
30 -- china_shop, "Your favourite book you read this year."
31 -- wolfshark, "what is your favorite story to reread of your own stuff? what was your favorite story to write?"

Comments

[krait]

Aww, that's rough.

I rarely interacted with anyone on Tumblr, so I never experienced those kinds of fans personally, but I certainly heard about them.

BBC Sherlock was a weird canon parting for me because it happened almost instantaneously with no discernable trigger. One day I had bought S2 on DVD and ploughed through two episodes, looking forward to the third as soon as I could reach it...

and then I never watched it. Still haven't! Just completely lost interest in the entire thing without noticing, between one episode and the next. It's pretty bizarre, because generally I hang onto fandoms until long after they've stopped accruing canon! (HP, anyone? Or the multitude of 90s animes? Book series that started in 1985?)

[saraht]

...well, at least you got to miss TJLC? I don't think I've ever seen a flavor of fannish nastiness and craziness quite so widespread.

[stepps]

Good question! I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk about how or why they moved fandoms before. Very interesting.

[anelith]

BBC Sherlock's canon went so sour for me that I had a hard time even reading fic after Season 4; I can't imagine how bad it would be to try and write something. I'm starting to feel like enough time has passed that I could probably go back and enjoy reading old favorites again.

[princessofgeeks]

Thank you! Fascinating. Well someday I guess those Tumblr fans will fall in love with a problematic thing and THEN what will they do. Sheesh.

[isabellerecs]

Sherlock, what a trainwreck that turned into (show and fandom). Makes me sad because it had started with such potential.

When I started following fandom back in 2000/2001, it was like moving heaven and earth to move from one fandom to a next. Now almost 20 years later (where has the time gone), I find myself caught between a barrage of shiny, new ones and a swirling vortex of nostalgia that drags me back with regularity.

(So I noticed that some of your days are still empty, and if those days are bolded because you're taking a break on those days that's cool but if not I have a question.
25 -- "What was your most favorite Christmas present that you ever received as a kid?" and/or "What Christmas present had you wanted badly but never received as a kid?")

[lunabee34]

An active fandom energizes me too. I miss the heyday of Buffy and Gateverse for that.

[resonant]

They made such a hash of the explanation for the fall, and the bits of Sherlock that we saw post-return were so unnecessarily cruel.

[resonant]

I assume I must have arrived after that was over, or else it happened during the period after I scuttled the resonant8 tumblr, when I was so cautious with the new one that for several years all I looked at were Iguanamouth's art posts and photos of people's cats.

[resonant]

It was interesting to think about, because when I experience it, it feels very much like the end of a crush -- which is not something that's easy to explain!

[resonant]

Yes, I agree about the canon going sour. I have a partly written story that I would love to be able to finish, and as I mentioned I see nothing wrong with pretending that the canon ended at Season 2, but I'm not sure I can really get in there and ignore all that I know about what came next.

[resonant]

My other issue with Tumblr is that most of these are people I don't know, and people just change their names on a whim, so I'm suspicious of everybody's identity. On Dreamwidth I have long-term relationships; on Tumblr it could all be Russian bots and people out to discredit feminism, for all I know.

[resonant]

My fannishness is somewhat monogamous -- I wish it were less so. I'd love to be able to dip into various fandoms at will.

Thanks for the question!

[resonant]

Mostly when I'm feeling nostalgic I miss Due South.

[krait]

Everything I've heard about the parts I haven't watched has been like this!

Sometimes I wonder if the cause of my mysterious sudden disinterest was some kind of fandom guardian angel interfering to spare me the disappointment! :D Smited with disinterest just in time to avoid the worst of the trainwreck sounds almost too good to be true.

[stepps]

When I think about it that's how I'd explain it too! Feelings, so funny.

[lunabee34]

I have never seen Due South. It is a terrible failing on my part. :)

That's the origin of the Canadian Shack thing, though, right? I did enjoy the way that would bleed into other fandoms.

[resonant]

Yep, that's where the Shack was born.

I don't know how Due South would hold up after [checks wikipedia] holy crap it's been twenty years. Probably all sorts of flaws we didn't see at the time. But at the time, it was a show that I genuinely admired and enjoyed watching -- not a flawless show, but a good one -- as opposed to a lot of other shows, where I'm fannish about them but it sort of pains me to watch the source material.

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*

I hear ya.

Now that you mention it

[jesse_the_k]

my experience of fandom -- the best part of it -- is identical to a crush. I get that happy glowy feeling from every interaction.

I was lucky with SGA

[jesse_the_k]

...because I started reading just as it was ending. sasha_feather gave me the "8 episodes you have to watch" and I could roll around in all the lovely fanworks without any interference from troublesome canon.

Re: Now that you mention it

[resonant]

Trying to describe being non-asexual to an ace teenager: "I sometimes feel feelings about a person that are like the feelings you feel about a pairing."

[ace teenager gives me a look full of pity and dread]

Re: I was lucky with SGA

[resonant]

Live canons are a pain, aren't they? A closed canon may be deeply flawed, but you know where the flaws are, and no new ones are being added.

[laurakaye]

DUE SOUTH <3

X-Files was where I discovered fic and Sentinel was where I discovered slash but Due South was just... special in a way that few other things have been for me, mainly I think because I made so many friends there and I learned so much about writing.

Re: I was lucky with SGA

[laurakaye]

SO TRUE

"You love X show, why won't you watch the new episodes?"

"WHAT IF THEY RUIN IT?"

[laurakaye]

Almost every new fandom jump I've made has been because one of my good friends or favorite writers jumped first and I followed them there.

I will sometimes go on a reading tear for some book or movie I just experienced and loved, but getting me "into the fandom" beyond just a weekend on the tag it usually takes a personal connection or someone whose stuff I love taking it up in a big way.

I usually only write in one fandom at a time but will read in many at once.

[resonant]

All this is true for me, too. It's hard to imagine anything else that would have been powerful enough to attach me to Stargate:Atlantis past season 1.