Fandom Snowflake 2021 #1

[greerwatson]

Challenge No. 1: Introduction

I've not done the Snowflake Challenge before. I've seen friends do it, but always seen their posts part way through the month and decided it was too late to catch up. This year I subscribed, so I'd get the notification. (Okay, starting a little late maybe, but not too much so.) I don't post very often to my journal; but that's not to say I'm not involved in fandom. Nowadays, this mostly means gift exchanges. However, I started on mailing lists, followed by LJ communities; and I have to say that I do miss that sense of community, where you got to know fellow members.

I was fannishly inclined long before I went on line (which was in 2004). Back when I was a kid, I used to tell myself long-running self-insert stories based on favourite books, some of Andre Norton's books, particularly; and then TV series, notably the original Star Trek. I never wrote anything down. First, because I didn't know anyone with similar interests, so why bother. Second, because I totally lacked the patience. I didn't write until the late 1980s, when I ground out a long K/S pon farr novel by requiring myself to write at least one page every day. Yes, I finished it. No, it was never published in a fanzine: I was totally out of any organized sort of fandom. I had read a little about it in books like Star Trek Lives! and Textual Poachers; so I knew fanfic existed. However, I'd never read any.

In the early 90s, I was gripped again with ideas, this time for ST:TNG. However, the stories refused to jell; and I eventually realized it was because I was seeing them in my head as if they were episodes. I owned David Gerrold's book about the making of "The Trouble with Tribbles", in which he'd included the script. Many tries later, I'd more or less taught myself script-writing and completed five or six stories. Like the K/S novel, these are in a box. In a cupboard. (It may even be the same box.) I haven't looked at them in years.

The next series to inspire me fannishly was Forever Knight. Like so many FK fans, I loathed the series finale (in which TPTB killed off most of the characters); and—again like so many FK fans—I wrote an alternative. As I knew scripts, I wrote a script. I'd been thinking about it so hard in the week after "Last Knight" aired that it only took a few days. As I'd had other plot ideas, I then started writing those. Eventually, it turned into an entire virtual season. There's a write-up on Fanlore. Some time later, my ancient Commodore died; and, when I replaced it with a spanking new PC, I went on line for the first time. One of the first things I did was hunt for FK fandom. (I knew there had to be one!) I found the mailing list and the main fic archive. I promptly joined the former and browsed the latter. Avidly.

For several years, I was a member of a couple of other mailing lists and lurked around a message board or two. Then, in 2007, reading in the old Yuletide archive, I found a story based on Mary Renault's The Charioteer, googled a bit, and found maryrenaultfics (MRF), a Live Journal community for fans of her works. I joined LJ so that I could participate in an upcoming chapter-by-chapter discussion of the book. As it was really only community activities on MRF that interested me, it wasn't till 2011 that I actually posted in the journal itself—and that was only because they were going to delete the empty ones. Eventually, I migrated to DW; but I still only post occasionally.

Nowadays, the FK mailing list is very quiet and maryrenaultfics has been discontinued by its moderators. However, starting with Yuletide in 2011, I began doing gift exchanges. This year, I plan to do Chocolate Box and Worldbuilding (and who knows what after that). I always nominate both FK and The Charioteer when they're eligible, and certainly still write in both fandoms. In particular, I've done fkficfest ever since it was started. However, at this point, I've also written for quite a few other fandoms. Mostly small ones: the biggest is probably DC's Arrowverse, particularly The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow. Perversely, though I've been a comics fan since the late 60s, it took a TV adaptation to get me to write fanfic about superheroes.

My stories are here on AO3. I also have a personal website. I started it back in the fall of 2004, teaching myself HTML so that I could put my virtual season on the web. Yes, I do update it with all my new stories. I love designing the pages for them.

Comments

[spikedluv]

Welcome to Snowflake! I got into Snowflake in a similar manner. I saw posts on my f-list for years, then finally decided to give it a try. I loved it and never looked back; I hope it's the same for you.

I joined fandom in 2001 via Yahoo Groups, which was a fun place to be at the time, and then migrated to LJ when it seemed everyone else was doing so.

Congrats on keeping your personal website up. I had one, at one point, but it was such a pain to keep it updated with everything. I let it go and am happy to just post on AO3. *g*

I see from your AO3 page that you write in several small fandoms. I run a couple of small fandom challenge comms, if you're interested in checking those out: smallfandomfest and smallfandombang.

[greerwatson]

As I was involved in a project in FK fandom to try to save as many of our GeoCities sites as possible, I'm sadly aware that the personal website and the dodo have a lot in common.

I think the reason I still keep mine up is because of the webpage design: each story gets its own, you see. If you click on the links, you can see what I did with three rarelit fic from assorted Yuletides: "Queue for Exit", "Fairies of the Orchard", and "Season 7, Episode 4: Day Two". Of course, they do mostly have the same basic pattern: a fancy background, with the story inside a table that has an elaborate border. However, making and matching the graphics is a lot of fun.

I'll keep an eye out for your small fandom challenges as the year progresses.

[spikedluv]

A fest is running now (through the end of January), and another will start in May (and then again in Nov).

The BB is running currently, open for artist sign-ups at this time. A new round will open in September.