My Fannish Origin Story

[ladyfoxxx]

Let's just pretend I've been posting regularly, shall we?

So some folk were talking about fannish origins on Twitter and it got me thinking, I don't know if I've ever really shared my origin story in any real deapth and it might actually be a fun thing to do. So, here it is.


The only reason I even heard about fanfic was because of the X Files. I was a HARDCORE X-Files fan before I even had the internet (god I sound old now). I'd heard that some folks out there in the "cyberworld" were so sure that Mulder & Scully were in love that they were writing their own stories about it and "R-ing the ST" as it were and as soon as I heard that I HAD TO READ THEM. I remember paying for time at an internet cafe JUST to search for and read fanfic.

Of course once I had my own internet at home I fell down the hole of the Gossamer archive and read ALL THE THINGS (including the terrible Mary Sues before I even realised that was a thing). I wasn't really aware or even interested in slash at first because I was a pretty hardcore Mulder/Scully shipper (they were my first OTP, before I even knew what the fuck those letters stood for).

Me being me, I didn't stay obsessed with the fandom's central pairing for long. I got pretty obsessed with a recurring character in the series, Agent Pendrell who worked in the lab, had a huge crush on Scully and was ginger haired and socially awkward.

Everyone who is surprised that I was obsessed with the dorky lab guy raise your hands. *no hands are raised* I thought so.

Now the Pendrell corner of the fandom was smaller and very friendly and welcoming and this was about the time I thought maybe I could try writing something. About Pendrell, of course. But the problem then is - who do I slash this guy with? I don't want to break up my OTP!

So my first real fic in X Files fandom was a threesome.

Everyone who is surprised raise your hands. *no hands are raised*

Of course there it was only a very small step between writing Mulder/Scully/Pendrell to writing Mulder/Pendrell and the wonderful world of slash opened it's arms to me.

I haven't read any of those old fics in years and I'm a little afraid to. I'm pretty sure the bulk of them are in first person. Oh GOD.


I honestly can't remember how I went from The X Files to Savage Garden. Like, it's a weird leap, right? I mean, I was reading ALL the things (Star Wars episode one, Velvet Goldmine, all the different pairings in X Files etc), but somehow when I discovered that there was a small circle of people writing fic about Savage Garden I was THERE. I was hopping through webrings (ha ha ha WEBRINGS) and reading everything. Not all of it was great. In fact, lots of it was terrible, and a lot of it was getting written in parts with no real idea when (or even IF) the next part was coming. Also not all multipart fics necessarily had proper content warnings thus how I wound up reading a multi part WIP that suddenly had surprise!mpreg and it kind of put me off mpreg for LIFE.

For anyone not familiar with Savage Garden they were a pop duo in the 90's/00's - they had a lot of hits with love songs. I didn't even want to sleep with either of them, I just really liked reading about them. Plus I was totally qualified to write about them because they were from my hometown. In fact, Darren (singer) worked at my local music store when I was a wee thing.

So anyway, RPS. OMG. RPS was SUCH a dirty word in fandom back then. I'm not entirely sure why, but a LOT of people writing FPS about characters in shows were DISGUSTED by RPS. And not only were we writing RPS, we were writing SLASH RPS. We were totally the SEEDY UNDERBELLY of fandom, yo. You write GAY fic about REAL PEOPLE, EW.

I remember one quite well known FPS writer made a throwaway comment about how one of her guilty pleasure was she would occasionally read Savage Garden RPS and OMG IT'S SO BAD but she COULDN'T HELP IT. I was kind of terrified/hopeful that she might one day read one of mine.

Anyway, so my first fic in Savage Garden fandom... was a threesome.

Raise your hands all who are surprised. *no hands are raised* It was Darren/Daniel/Daniel's girlfriend and it all went terribly because of course Daniel professed his love to Darren in the middle of rumpy-pumpy and broke her heart and ANGST ANGST ANGST.

Savage Garden fandom was FUN. We were a small fandom and we had plenty to work with (I mean, Darren is out these days, but back then he just liked to be "ambiguous"). I'm pretty sure I wrote the first high school AU and the first hooker fic, but don't quote me on that. Of course, then the band broke up (as they do) and while the fandom kicked on a while after it eventually died.


I think it was around this time that I thought fandom had died altogether, because the mailing lists (yes, we used to do fandom on mailing lists, GOD I am old) were getting less and less active. I was kind of falling away from fandom anyway, with my own fandom dying and no real interest in a new one so I never really figured out that fandom wasn't DYING but CHANGING.

Fast forward about seven years where I'm pretty much out of it but occasionally checking in to dead mailing lists and I get an email out of the blue from amproof to let me know my (Savage Garden Fanfiction) geocities site is about to go down forever. Of course this is the point where I learn fandom isn't DEAD it just MOVED - to LJ, so I get an LJ, fall face-first into the disgusting, beautiful, stage-gay-ey world of MCR. Like everyone I started with Frank/Gerard but pretty soon it was ANYONE/ANYONE, with a particular bent of Ray/anyone. Also I avoided Panic at first because I thought they were babies but I totally didn't hold out long there, not with all the awesome GSF and BDSM to be had.

Interestingly upon my return to fandom I noticed that RPS was NO LONGER a dirty word, probably because fandom seemed to have moved beyond that to push more taboo boundaries like incest *hands*. No really, it took me quite a while to get past that. But oh, I DID.

So that's my Fannish Origin Story. What's yours?

Comments

[annemari]

This is so interesting. o____o Like, I never knew RPS was considered gross? (I mean, I DID know before I read this, but not when I got into fandom.) Then again, I got into fandom in 2004 right before the HP POA movie came out, so maybe by that point it was okay. Probably, yeah. Plus the first RPF I read wasn't slash, it was an Emma Watson story that someone posted in an Emma Watson forum, where Emma went on dates with Dan, Rupert and Tom, and ended up choosing Rupert, EXCEPT they made it seem like she chose Dan and there was a twist ending. SERIOUS STUFF. Actually, it was the first fic I read, period. I mean, it was kind of Mary Sue-ish, because EVERYONE was in love with her. BUT at the same time it's Emma Watson so it wasn't really a stretch! No, but so then I got LJ because people were posting their icons there.

Basically it took me 4 years after that to really get into slash and therefore fic. Meanwhile I was... making graphics on various forums (like, Smallville (I was into Clark and Lana. And Lana. Lana, Lana, Lana)) and then LJ (when I was into, like. Veronica Mars and Doctor Who. I never read any fic for these, hmm). And then in 2008 Merlin happened. And I wrote some Skins fic, I guess. Hmm. Fandom. *hands*

[ladyfoxxx]

OMG I love that description of your first fic! Pretty sure I read some like that but about different stars. OOOH TWIST ENDING.

That is quite an array of fandoms there! I've had a pretty small number of fandoms where I feel like I've been "all in" but then I don't think I'm in til I'm writing. At the moment I'm reading a wide array - ST, TW, Hockey, Sparty, I'm kind of flighty. But Bandom is totally my home and I'll be a sad panda if it ever vanishes completely.

Yay fandoms!

[annemari]

Yeah, I keep forgetting I did stuff for those fandoms? Like, I was also in a BTVS + ATS etc forum where I made some Buffy graphics, and there were some actresses (like Emily VanCamp, Michelle Trachtenberg) who I was into (watched videos, made graphics), but mostly it was a solitary type thing, actually. I mean, barring Smallville and other forums where I sort of participated. I think if I'd have to count all my main fandoms that I've been into then I'd say... Emma Watson (NOT Harry Potter, because I never really read fic for that, lol. I read some Remus/Sirius when I discovered slash, but I wasn't really IN the fandom), then briefly Merlin (show + fic and participation, etc), then American Idol season 8 (but mostly Kris and Adam, and then only the Adam Lambert fandom) and then bandom. *CLINGS TO BANDOM* I don't think I've ever felt as home in a fandom as in bandom.

But yeah, I don't read a lot of fic in other fandoms, but I do sort of count them as "I'm into this" but, on a show level? So I'd say I'm into Doctor Who, Teen Wolf, and I used to be into Veronica Mars and such, but never truly in the fandom. Either because I just wasn't interested (Veronica Mars; it was more of a "my flist was into it and that was it", Skins, etc) OR I hate the majority of the fandom and haven't found a corner I really enjoy (except my tumblr dash,or feed, but I don't count that as a fandom, just as a good place) (Doctor Who and Teen Wolf fall under this, crol) (and I don't read fic for them, because nothing's calling out to me). I mean, you could also say that bandom would fall under "don't like the majority of the FANS" (I'm thinking of tumblr here), but yet I still am TOTALLY IN BANDOM because my feed is and I read it and write it, soooo. ... COMPLICATED idk idk. These are my thoughts. \o/

[sperrywink]

Funny and charming fannish origin story!

RPS had such a bad rep, and I think still does in certain corners, but it is so much fun (as long as you don't take it seriously, omg tinhatters, stop already). I like the flexibility of RPS, it is probably my favorite thing about it.

Of course, except bandom, my main writing fandoms right now are FPS, but I am sure it will swing back around one day.

[ladyfoxxx]

It makes me sound terribly innocent doesn't it? Just stumbling into all these interesting array of fandoms.

I agree - RPS is SO fun and SO flexible (omg tinhatters. I am so glad I'm not in SPN RPS, DAMN those tinhatters win the crazy prize)

I'm sure you'll come around again, just give it time!

[onthehill]

LOL - well it all started with X-files. Heee Gossamer! But I just wanted to find out other people's thoughts on Krycek, because I thought he was awesome. I was immediately plunged into Krycek/Mulder and Krycek/Skinner and occasional threesomes!
I think one of the writers had a Fanfiction.net account where there were some stories that she hadn't put anywhere else, and so I slithered over there and she'd also written in something called 'Gundam Wing' which I tried, and then spent maybe a year devouring EVERYTHING Gundam Wing. I mean EVERYTHING. I watched the series about halfway through the year, but TBH it was a little disappointingly lacking in angst! WOE. Still, I read nothing else, till I saw that one of my favourite writers had an LJ where she posted everything quicker.

Of course I trotted over to the bounty that was LJ, and followed my favourites again, and added in Buffy, and later Fullmetal Alchemist to my reading lists. Then a couple of them started writing in Supernatural. I read for a while and caught up on the show. And then - you guessed it - one of my favourite SPN writers started raving about MCR, just after Art is the Weapon was released. Heh. BANDOMSPLODE!

Oh, fandom ILYSoMuch! Where will you lead me next???

[ladyfoxxx]

OMG GOSSAMER! It was like PARADISE when I found it, but omg so BIG and easy to get lost in. I loved Krycek. I was a repeat visitor to the MKRA website (I think I got the acronym right). I remember someone wrote a Mulder/Krycek/Pendrell threesome and I was SO HAPPY and then they made it a series and it was EVEN BETTER.

I LOVE the feeling of following good authors into interesting and new places. I've come from Bandom into a whole bunch of interesting places. I NEVER thought I'd end up reading fic about hockey boys! But hey, never say never.

YAY FANDOM!

[turps]

Mine is very similar to yours, except instead of X Files I fell into fandom with Voyager.

I was a huge Paris/Torres shipper and joined a few Voyager mailing lists, and got my fannish feet wet sending LoCs to stories that were posted at a P/T ML. Like you I surfed webrings, all the time looking for Paris/Torres and Paris/Janeway fic, because I'd fallen headlong for Tom Paris. At that point I didn't know about slash, and in fact, had ignored MLs on E Groups under the heading slash because I thought they'd be about horror. Then one day I'd pretty much read every Tom story I could get my hands on, so I clicked on that E Groups link, and found my people.

The first slash fic I read was a Chakotay/Paris n/c torture fic. The first of many, because my goodness, Tom Paris was put through the wringer -- and I loved it. This is the point when I started to gobble down slash fic for every tv show I loved, X Files, Voyager, A Team, Highlander, Poltergeist the Legacy, and then, The Sentinel. That's the fandom where I got fully submerged in fandom, I joined mailing lists, read fic and wrote my first story. I've told you about that story before, but I'll always be grateful to the established fans who actually helped when I was a newbie writer who posted this huge wall of text and bad writing to a ML. Thankfully, it was one to help writers and not an actual finished product ML, but even so. The people who helped had the patience of a saint.

I stayed in The Sentinel for a long time. I wrote, joined MLs where you had to write dues --- angsty short stories every month or so -- to stay on the list, wrote slash fic, gen fic, that strange TS thing where you write gen and slash versions of the same story, fell in lust with Blair Sandburg, got ignored on a cliqu'ey ML, made friends on other MLs and generally had a blast in what was a h/c lovers dream fandom.

And then someone gave me a code for a LJ, and I found RPF and specifically popslash. RPF was such a touchy thing back then, so much so I seriously considered creating a sock journal to post my first Backstreet Boys story. But I didn't, and got defriended by some The Sentinel people and told by my TS beta at the time that rpf was raping the characters and she didn't agree with it all. Sadly it wasn't an isolated opinion, so much so that when I went to a slash con at the time I was told people who like rpf were lower that furries on the fandom levels and popslashers lowest of all -- which, thank you for that person I was sharing a table with.

But, I stayed in popslash -- including reading Savage Garden fic -- and made some amazing friends who are still around now, ten plus years later. Popslash is where I grew into being a fan. I kept writing, commented, ran communities and challenges and generally had a sparkly, amazing time. Until the day I saw Pete Wentz, and then, through reading fic about him, found Mikey Way, and though I clung onto popslash for a while, within months I was fully into bandom.

My first badom love was Mikey/Pete, but I quickly fell in love with every Mikey pairing going, and still love them all these years later.

Attitudes have changed so much since I've been in fandom. RPF barely creates a ripple now and I think there's much more acceptance of things like kinks and incest. People may not like them, but for the most part they don't condemn the people that do, and that's fantastic. So yeah, that's my story. Webrings, geocities websites, mailing lists and E Groups changed for DW/LJ, twitter, tumblr and A03. It makes you wonder what the next years will bring.

[ladyfoxxx]

Oh wow, I'd heard bits and pieces about your experience going from FPS to RPS but this is the first time I've heard the whole thing. Wow. I think I was super lucky I fell into RPF BEFORE LJ, because prior to that all my fannish activity had been very specific, you join specific MLs for specific things. LJ is great because it's so personal and you can put it all together, but at the same time, having everything under one banner means mixing your fandoms and in this case it sounds like that was... not great.

I didn't know you read SG fic! It's funny I knew you were popslash but those two things are kind of stupidly separated in my head, which is kind of ridiculous considering how much crossover there is. WHAT DID YOU READ? *chinhands*

I'm SO happy about the change of attitude in fandom. I LOVE that people (mostly) seem to be quite accepting of other people's preferences/kinks, in a "I may not like it, but I don't have to read it, and I won't try to have it taken down". I mean, coming back after 7 years was such an eye opener! I remember an SPN macro that basically said "welcome to SPN, where RPS is the higher ground" because of the FPS incest. I find that FASCINATING. But pleasing! Yay RPS being acceptable (in fandom anyways)

Thanks SO MUCH for sharing, what an interesting origin tale. <3

[turlough]

I think it says a lot about how big it was that so many people seem to have started their fannish life in X-Files. It wasn't my gateway to fanfic fandom - that was Doctor Who - but it was the fandom I first read widely in.

I'd been quite active both on Usenet and on mailing lists back in the mid-late 90s but that was in science fiction book fandom and I didn't discover fanfic until after my back had gotten really bad and I'd to stop typing so much. It was either in late 1999 or early in 2000 when I discovered Dr Who fanfic on Usenet and about a week later I started wondering if there was any Turlough/Fifth Doctor fanfic and found slash. I never looked back :-)

It was through her Turlough/Fifth Doctor stories that I found Viridian5's website where I discovered first X-Files - where I spent several months happily reading lots and lots of Krycek/Mulder before I got bored - and then Buffy - mostly Xander/Spike - and Andromeda - first Harper/Dyland and then Harper/Tyr. After that I spent quite some time in assorted anime: Weiss Kreutz, Gundam Wing, Yoroiden Samurai Troopers, Saiyuki. Then for some reason I went back to live action with Stargate SG-1 for some months and then fell into my first book fandom with Harry Potter.

Through all these fandoms I'd been a complete lurker. I only read fic and never interacted with any other fans. Mostly because I didn't have either the mental or the physical energy since my back was so bad. I'd become aware of LJ in Harry Potter fandom but it wasn't until after I'd fallen into popslash in late autumn 2004 that tentatively started to interact with other fans again. I got my LJ in April 2005 and was very active in popslash until I couldn't avoid falling into bandom in early autumn 2007. (I completely blame Nafs and her Nick Carter/Patrick crossover story!) I tried to juggle two fandoms for a while but it didn't work. I'm definitely a serial monogamist where fandom is concerned. I read the occasional story in one of my old fandoms and do some graphics but mostly I'm still all about bandom. Or rather MCR since I quickly lost interest in Pete/Patrick and found Panic totally uninteresting. (Also, LOTMS really does have a lot to answer for :-)

I think it must have been because I was such a lurker because I'd no idea there was any stigma attached to RPS until after I'd fallen into popslash. I still feel quite bewildered by all the RPS hate that floated around back in the day. (And still does in certain corners of fandom I've noticed.)

[glitteryv]

Huh, funny. I only knew Viridian5 from her due South fic back when I was in that fandom. I remember going to her website and gleefully ignoring all the links except for the due South ones. LOL.

[ladyfoxxx]

LOL I was gleefully ignoring all the links that weren't in my fandoms too! She was so prolific!

[ladyfoxxx]

I think X-Files has a lot to answer for, at least in the world of online fanfic. I know the original Star Trek was the real pioneer, but I feel like X-Files was the big fandom right when the internet was starting to get widely used.

I think I missed Usenet completely, I was totally a mailing list and websites girl. In fact I think I would have remained a pure website-hopper if I hadn't written my first story and sent it to one of the websites, and the person who ran the website invited me onto the mailing list - if that hadn't happened I probably would have continued to be clueless about mailing lists too!

Oh MAN Viridian5! I LOVED her stuff. I read all her X-Files stuff (she wrote a Pendrell/Krycek/Mulder threesome I was terribly fond of) but I also read all her Once a Thief and Pike & Benny (BtVS the movie) stuff as well. Oh man, it's such a small world.

I never had an anime phase, but it seems most people in fandom have. I was a total lurker in any fandom I wasn't writing in, and that included all non-Pendrell X-Files stuff, I'm sad to admit.

LOTMS totally has a lot to answer for. It's damn inspiring material, yo! How can you NOT love MCR after watching that? HOW?

It makes me sad that there is still RPS hate floating around. I mean, I'm not surprised, but it's kind of sad that we still haven't moved past it completely. At least in most places we are no longer pariahs!

[turlough]

Pike & Benny!! I totally blame Viridian5 for my love of those guys. (And I sometimes think that my lukewarm interest in the Buffy canon was because they weren't in the tv show :-)

[glitteryv]

Xena was my gateway into online fandom. I got a computer right around the middle of the first season (talking about 1995). It didn't take me long to discover fic (after following a couple of web rings.) *high-five for old skool web rings. Hee!* This led to me to spend many a late night reading as much Xena fic as I could find. It was...tropetastic: self-cest, AUs, tentacle!sex, BDSM, etc.

After a couple of weeks, I realized that I only wanted to read Xena/Gabrielle (with the occasional Xena/Callisto if I was in a mood for something twisted.) bb!Luce was into the femslash BIG TIME. This trend continued when I also got into Buffy (intensifying during Season 3 when Faith showed up.) I shipped Buffy/Faith like my soul depended on it. Eventually, Faith became the little black dress of Buffy femslash for me 'cause I paired her up with EVERYONE.

It was fun times.

due South was what led me to LJ in late 2003/early 2004. Both Xena and Buffy had gone off the air by then and I was a little adrift in my fannishness. I'd been part of a couple of boards and Yahoo groups, but the general interest for either fandom had died down.

Anyhoo, I found a link to a due South fic posted on LJ. I followed it and was totes blown away by the fandom (this was around the tail end of the second wave of the due South fandom so, things were ridic active). I was Lurky McLurky til 2007 when I posted my first non-anon!comment to someone's fic. It'd be a few months until I wrote and posted my first fic.

Now, due South has a side-fandom called Canadian Six Degrees or C6D that is made up of many TV shows and movies. In some ways, it's kinda like Bandom? Because there's a core group of Canadian actors and musicians (about 15 more or less) who tend to work and hang out with each other a lot. This in addition to being friends for years. So, the slide into C6D RPF was super smooth. As a whole, due South/C6D is generally RPF-friendly.

Personally, I've never had any issues with RPF. I just never 'got' it--despite reading Xena RPF and Buffyverse RPF to see if it'd click for me. Once I got into C6D, though, the RPFs left me googly-eyed.

By late 2010, however, I was falling out of love with due South and some of the C6D branches. It so happened that I came across a rec for a Bandom fic in early October of 2010. I checked it out and was totally blown away by it. Mostly because it was unlike anything I'd read in the due South/C6D fandom. (FTR, I'd heard of Bandom (especially because several of the most active people in due South fell into Bandom and/or the Kris/Adam fandoms). Nothing about it had caught my eye back then so I never paid attention to picspams and posts about The Black Parade and the FOB hiatus, for example.)

So I read tons of short and mid-length Bandom fics, not paying much attention to the pairings (though I was able to suss out that Waycest wasn't for me at all). I had no idea what Mikeyway, Brendon, Spencer, Ray, Gerard, Lyn-Z or anyone looked like and I didn't care. That said, I didn't approach the stories like they were original fics. Mostly because I knew I'd seen Pete Wentz's cock online many years before. Also, I had a vague memory of video for Helena (though I didn't remember what the guys in the band looked like. IDEK.)

Fast-forward to about 3 months later when I got totally @______________@ for MCR (after finally seeing them on TV.)

Bandom (or any active RPF fandom for that matter) is so fun because there aren't any limits to what we can create. It helps that everyone has crazy amounts of chemistry with everyone else. >:)

[ladyfoxxx]

*WEBRINGS HIGH FIVE*

Xena is not a fandom I was ever in, but I was so very happy it existed! I imagine it would have been a HUGE deal when the Gabrielle/Xena stuff actually became canon!

Oh wow, the thought of you reading a whole bunch of Bandom fic without knowing what they looked like is SO INTERESTING. What happened when you finally saw what they looked like? What did you THINK they looked like? I mean, I read a bunch of hockey fic just like it was original fic before I'd really gotten a look at any of the dudes and then when I finally saw them I was like, WOW, THEY'RE NOT THAT ATTRACTIVE. Was it like that?

RPF is REALLY interesting in how flexible it is! I'm not sure WHY this bunch of dudes in bands have somehow become characters we like to see in a variety of AUs whether they be in space, or werewolves or detectives or what, but they ARE and we DO. It's SO fun.

Thanks for sharing your origin story bb!

[glitteryv]

Old skool interneting, FTW!

From what I remember, people were INTENSE in the Xena fandom. The fanart (except for podfic--that's something that I didn't come across until I got on LJ) was off the charts. Who knows how enthusiastic it would've been if Xena had aired nowadays. It helped that the show and everyone involved with the show understood the high queer factor and served it up without being apologetic about it. The only really sucky thing was the series finale (in fic terms it ended up becoming really nonsensical ghostfic). :-/

After three months of reading Bandom fics, I was at a friend's house in early January 2011, flipping through his DVR. As it happened, he'd recorded the NYE show that had MCR performing in it. Soon as I saw them do Na, Na,Na and SING, I was a goner. Hunted down every Bandom primer, picspam, Tumblr post, all the music videos and interviews, etc. IT WAS GLORIOUS (Not a spoiler: IT STILL IS!!!!)

Overall, none of the Bandom peeps looked anything like I'd imagined. As a matter of fact, all them were HOTTER. >:)

Another thing I couldn't believe is that a LOT of the things people wrote about in the canon fics ACTUALLY HAPPENED (for example, Mikeyway and Gabe Saporta dirty dancing. *g*) Also, even after you put the vids and albums and performances to the side, there's tons and tons of canon available! Somehow, the hugeness of said canon (even if you look only at MCR, that was about a decade or so worth of canon left!) didn't overwhelm me. Keep in mind, that the canon for the previous RPF fandom I'd been in (C6D RPF) would add up to about 1.5% of Bandom's. Srlsy.

I'm totes nodding at your comment about the Hockey peeps. There was this one fic that I considered reading. It was...disappointing to find out what the dudes looked like. Like you, I didn't find them attractive at all so I soon lost interest in reading Hockey RPF. *hands*

In all truth, my getting into Bandom without any visual clues til later was a singular event. :P

RPF can be anything we want. Granted, that's also the case in FPF fandoms. What I really like about Bandom is the unpredictability of the peeps. They do awesome things, mottsy ones, etc. I like the complexity of their stage/public personae and how we can pick and choose how to approach them. In short, \Bandom/! Hee!

Thank you for this opportunity to look back. ^_^