let's make a meme

[rm]

Because I'm trying to get my head in the game for Terminus.

Each of your fandoms (no longer need to be current) and what you learned from them. I'll do mine later. Gotta work work work.

Comments

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

Daria: Don't post fanfic on the internet under your real name. Just don't do it.

Harry Potter: True love is Snarry and home fries.

Star of the Guardians: Women for a bodice-ripping Sagan!

Twilight: Calling me "Bella, my disney princess" in bed does not evoke the desired reaction. Sorry, dear.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Okay, Twilight for the win.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

This happened yesterday and led to about fifteen minutes of hysterical laughter.

[rm.livejournal.com]

That's so funny. I mean I have totally had fandom in bed moments (I mean, really, how could I not have, considering?) that have frequently been hilariously stupid, but that's particularly comical. And I've not even read Twilight.

Btw, Chicago -- Friday is bad. Otherwise unsure. Need to just send you my phone number and we can deal with it there.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

For context, this is his ringtone on my phone at the moment, which he was trying to emulate.

As for Chicago - phone there sounds like a plan! I'm pretty sure that I'll end up seeing friends from school there Friday anyway.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

OMG. *brb dying*

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

HP: My one-true fandom. I learned that slash can be hot, femmeslash can be hot, and het can be hot. Gen however is usually not hot. Seriously I didn't know about fandom or anything before 99/00 when I started lurking on HPfGU. I also learned that people you trust will throw you to the wolves in public and it is painful. Uh, I learned a lot about people. Good and bad. Plus I made life long friends like ladyofthelog.

Veronica Mars: That fen are crazy and it is often more fun to stand on the sidelines and watch the crazy. Especially when they turn on the show creator and eat him for breakfast.

Twilight: sometimes anti-fandom is more fun than fandom, but not as emotionally resonant. Also these books made me write my own damn book very quickly. I was so angry.

Who/Torchwood: Lurking is still cool.

Discworld: People are nuts. Fandoms that have lots of men are not fun for me.

LotR: Fangirls who live only to slash characters to the exclusion of all else including canon? No thank you. And I really like slash.

[demotu.livejournal.com]

HP: That fanfiction existed. That the stories I wrote in my head didn't make me crazy, just one in a million. That slash existed. That gender didn't matter. That age - to a point - didn't matter. That as long as the writing was good, I'd read anything. That you can avoid the meta and still enjoy the fic.

Numb3rs: That slashers, presented with two hots guys, really don't care that they're brothers. That fucked up relationships can make really amazing fic. That I can - apparently - write a little tiny oneshot that people like. That, with incest, it's hard to move beyond the initial "they get together" fics.

Torchwood: That (medium sized?) fandoms are cool, because there are enough people you can avoid who you want, but not so many that you get lost in the masses. That kinky, power-playing sex done right is my absolute favourite thing ever - and on that note, that urethral sounding, crossdressing, bruises, humiliation, and a whole lot of other things I'd never considered before, can be hot. That - oh my god - I can write an epic, and apparently I'm not a horrible writer - in fact, that I don't think I'll ever be able to stop writing out there. That the currency of the internet is content, and the rewards are relationships. That I really love darkfic, and the best stories are the ones that hurt. That telling the right story is not the same thing as telling the story I want to tell. That you can be really involved and *still* avoid the wank. That being really involved and writing and chatting and reading can suck your whole life away if you're not careful.

Uh, yeah, I could go on about Torchwood, but I need to go unsuck myself. ;)

ETA: And, hey, if this is a meme can I post it to my journal? Cause I want to ask my friends the same question!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes. This is a meme to make meme-y!

[demotu.livejournal.com]

Done! Have fun at Terminus! (I know nothing about it at all.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

I think the theme of Terminus this year is secretly fandom adultery. Here we have a Harry Potter con and half the people are going to Twilight-related events and the rest of us are all OMG Torchwood!

[demotu.livejournal.com]

I suspect that's a product of Harry Potter being done - as much as you can still write fic about it and whatnot, the new stuff always sparks people's imagination.

And hey, the split probably makes it easier to know who to avoid. "Twilight - no. Torchwood? Nice to meet you!" ;)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Seriously. I have friends who are into Twilight, but they were already credible with me before that. New people talking about that shit have a barrier to jump over.

And yeah, the closing of the canon in a way that was emotionally satisfying in the short term but narratively bleh and didn't do anything with the big grey areas of the series really dampened a lot of people's feelings for the things. Mine, certainly. Snape was just a love-sick stalker. And he got killed by a giant snake. In a bubble. I mean, talk about a let down!

[miep.livejournal.com]

hrm, this is an interesting questions, as fandom, to me, meant something entirely different from fic/vids/art/etc. until about three or four years ago. I didn't even realize it existed in this context, which is kinda sad, as i spent the better part of my adolescence hanging out at cons and mnstf parties...

so, I've learned that fandom exists, that fic makes me love characters in a way I hadn't ever considered, and that there are some people who can write a pairing so truly that I find it more believable than canon.

[1-mad-squirrel.livejournal.com]

First fandom: Forever Knight, I had just gone online for the first time in 1998 when I found this fandom for a cult show I liked. I learned that you don't have to actually meet people for them to be essential to your life. Ten years later, the FK fandom's still alive, and I'm still a part of it. I also learned to write slash for the first time (Nick/LaCroix).

My second online fandom was The X-Files. I learned you could be active in more than one fandom at a time.

Lots more fandoms after that.

[trifles.livejournal.com]

ST:Voyager -- That I can love (and find wonder in) things that almost everybody else really hates; that rare pairings in an unpopular canon = heartbreak for finding fic; that fandom is a devil with whom supping with a long spoon is not inherently a bad idea (for instance, this was when I met Laura Hale of Fan History fame, and that was back in the '90s); that spoilers can be fun; that badfic can be educational!

X-Files -- That some creators are not just anti-fanfic or whatever, but will actually actively try to screw over their own fans; that no amount of shiny zoom! plot twists and UST can hide a complete lack of logic for very long (which is why I just knew Lost was going to sink under the weight of its own zoomyness); that porn? was hot; that a weekly obsession with catching a show was not in and of itself problematic in the grand fannish scheme of things; that some fanfic was actually good enough to be published professionally; that I, uh, could write fanfic too.

Buffy -- That slash? was awesome; that some creators were not out to actively destroy their fanbase, and were just as delighted as me to see what we all came up with; that I, uh, could write more fanfic, and specifically slash and gen, and I'd want to write novel-length stuff to boot; that watching a show with a pile of friends just as obsessed as me could be unbelievably fun; that foreshadowing and plot arcs and actual writing could turn a monster-of-the-week kind of premise into something actually beautiful.

Harry Potter -- That teacher/student slash? so hot and awesome as to fry my brain; that I would want to become predominantly a slash writer; that femmeslash didn't have to be wishy-washy garbage; that I, uh, tend to write dark when I'm not concentrating; that I really need to work on this whole "structure" and "character" thing when writing long; that notes about what I'm writing? best thing ever; that writing something simple and good is better than writing something incredibly complex that doesn't quite work; that I can write porn (!); that I am glad I figured out way back in ST:Voy that I'd had my fill of fandom hijinks, omg, Harmony.


...After HP, I have tiny fandoms I ship but aren't really all FANDOM! about (Firefly, Scrubs, any number of miniscule fandoms for which no one ever has or ever will write more than maybe three stories in, and they're all archived at Yuletide...)

As a note, some of these fandom learnin's melt into one another -- for instance, I'd read and enjoyed slash while in the Voyager fandom, but it was Buffy that really pointed the awesomeness out, and I'd written darkfic in X-Files (underage incest and insanity ftw!), but it was HP that really showed me the dark side of the Force.

What's also interesting is seeing how what I learned from fandoms shifted as I stopped being only a receiver and started being a creator -- by the time I hit Harry Potter, it was more about what I was turning the information into than what I was getting out of the fandom.

Uh. Anyway. The end.

hm..

[kaifoxx.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure how folks here define fandom actually. (I dont write anything related to it, unless you count the old White Wolf rpgs. And that didnt have anything to do with lj.)

I did spend a brief time on a site devoted to "Firefly" a few years ago. (still love the show, got real tired of Baldwin's Neocon rantings though. Especially after Kerry lost the 2004 Election.)