December Daily: a look back

[resonant]

krait - "I pick December first, and will start things off with some backward reflection: Talk about a fandom you're no longer active in."

Some of my old fandoms feel like looking back on former relationships, and some of them feel like looking back on crushes. You know, an old relationship is like "Yeah, we had some good times together even though we weren't great for each other in the long run," but an old crush is more like "What the hell?"

Like: I don't feel that I've fully left Due South. If a story in the fandom comes over my dash I'll read it happily. If I get a chance to see a current photo of the leads, I'll certainly take it. I've been thinking about doing a rewatch, since eps are a lot easier to find now than they were when I was writing it. It's not quite that I sleep with my ex (because to do that here I'd have to WRITE something), but I certainly have no hesitation about reading sexy letters from my ex.

I started reading DS in '98, and looking back on it today, what strikes me is how much technology has changed the way I do fandom. 1998. No YouTube or Netflix to look for episodes. No ep guides. No engaging with other fans on DW, Tumblr, Twitter, Discord ... mostly just emails on mailing lists. No AO3.

Even in the episodes and the stories I see a lot of change. It's hilarious how many stories revolve around telephones. Like, wired-into-the-wall telephones, where if somebody called Fraser they'd have to talk to someone and leave a message, which he could fail to receive in a way that caused plot to happen.

Also there was no spandex in the trousers.








Specify a date if you want; otherwise I'll just answer them whenever.

This year, in addition to the usual kinds of questions, I'd also love to get storyish prompts. Storyish meaning you never know what you might get: two sentences of a story, or a description of a story that will never exist, or a love song about how much I like that trope, or a rant about my pet peeve about that trope, or I know nothing about that canon except what I see on social media and here's what I think it might be about, or Ten Reasons Why I Love/Hate/Am Indifferent To that character, canon, or trope, or ...

As always, I'd love to hear about it if you're doing the meme too.

2. mific - "what about the Wraith in Stargate Atlantis? Ever tempted to write John/Wraith fic?"
3. clevermanka - "How are Brian Johnson and John Bender are doing these days?"
4. pauraque - "Something fannish (a character, a ship, a show, a trope) that you initially disliked, but that grew on you. What changed?"
5. terminally_underwhelmed - "What's a popular trope that doesn't do much for you, and an unpopular one you love?"
6. runpunkrun - "something you recently learned about yourself"
7. muccamukk - "Favourite power couple(s) and what makes them work so well together. Can be storyish or not."
8.
9.
10. mific - "what about crossovers? Have you written any?"
11.
12. marginaliana - ghost stories
13. runpunkrun - "a new thing you tried "
14.
15. - Guardian as described by someone who only knows it via social media
16.
17. ride4ever's birthday prompt - "Storyish prompt: for any due South fic you've written, write a prequel or sequel snippet for the fic or meta about the before-or-after that can be imagined about the fic's story arc."
18. mific - "the genderswap trope where a character's gender is changed. Yes? No? Maybe?"
19. runpunkrun - "fake dating: yes or no"
20. minoanmiss - "One of my favorite tropes is Then Let Me Be Evil. What do you think of it/have you explored it/so on and so forth?"
21.
22.
23.
24. runpunkrun - "John and Rodney in 2020"
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.

Comments

[rhi]

Also there was no spandex in the trousers.

I am trying to picture Fraser in that, or even just skinny jeans, and quite honestly, I think we'd have gotten even *more* slash if that'd been a thing.

I'll just be over here in my bunk, thinking about it and purring.

[auroramama]

I like the distinction between exes and ex-crushes. It doesn't seem to be under my control which a fandom turns out to be. Any more than I was in control of how many days I absolutely had to replay "Row Jimmy" on my mp3 player before it stopped giving me quite the same buzz.

[luthien]

I hear you about the fandoms as old relationships and old crushes. Some of them (for me) were bad break-ups, some we parted as friends, some I simply fell out of love with - and some I think “What the hell??”

[armadillo1976]

Hi! Any day you want. I'd appreciate a few words about navigating the issues of kids growing up and having the "mommy writes fanfic, mainly erotica, and mommy's using this word just because it sounds better than porn" conversation. My kiddo is only 5 now, and I have only written one story and am in the middle one the second one, but I see myself writing more, so I've been wondering how this conversation goes. Thanks!

[clevermanka]

there was no spandex in the trousers
Honestly, one of the great tragedies of our time.

[pauraque]

It's hilarious how many stories revolve around telephones

I noticed this when I was rewatching Seinfeld recently. Probably half the episodes rely on problems that would have been instantly solved if everyone had cell phones. Quite a few rely on problems that would have been instantly solved by having the modern internet, too!

[resonant]

Jodhpurs would be much easier to deal with if they had a little spandex. But Fraser in jeans is pretty much the pinnacle of yum.

[resonant]

Ha, yes, it's exactly like that! Sometimes I'll go on a six-week obsession about some fandom that I barely know the source material for, slurping AO3 dry and subscribing to twelve new writers that later I won't remember how I discovered them, and then eventually I'm going, "Noooooo, I never ever ever read modern au Sokka/Zuko and I have no opinions about the amount of fic in that category or how much of it is or is not explicit."

[resonant]

I've had bad breakups with the canon and bad breakups with the fans.

I'm lucky that I seem to handle long-term monogamy with a human a lot better than I handle it with a fandom.

[resonant]

In my head somewhere, modern-day RayK is taking modern-day Fraser shopping for clothes that aren't either a uniform or an Arctic survival costume.

[resonant]

There was a movie -- The Accidental Tourist, maybe? -- where to demonstrate how eccentric a character was, they showed him sit in a room and continue to carry on a conversation while ignoring a ringing phone. Which is normal behavior now!

[clevermanka]

It's the first time since his (first) wedding that Ray voluntarily enters a suit store.

[rhi]

Oh, jodhpurs so totally would be easier that way, yes!

[mific]

Due South! Best series ending ever! ❤️

[resonant]

It was!