Topics Meme: January 1st

[tsukino_akume]

January 01 - The Story of How I Got Into Fandom
It occurs to me as I'm typing this that it was never specified *which* Fandom. So I guess I'll go on about the whole story, then.

My very first fandom was Sailormoon, when I was but a young teenager who shared a new-found love of anime with my 'nee-chan. I read everything I could get my hands on. I created my own OC (as nearly everyone who reads/draws/writes Sailormoon does), and made multiple attempts at writing her story. I even got brave enough to post two one-shots about her on one of my favoritest fanfiction sites at the time, A Sailor Moon Romance.

No one ever commented on it.

So I posted it on my personal website that 'nee-chan and I created together, in hopes someone would find and appreciate it. Instead, months down the road, I got my very first-ever flame. They complained that my character was an awful Mary Sue, and, clearly not realizing that it was *my* story they were complaining about, said I should take it off my site and gave some very cruel thoughts about the author.

I ... did not react well to this. Hurt and angry after all the effort I'd put into the character and the story, I wrote a scathing e-mail in return for their harsh words. There was never a reply.

I've regretted it ever since, because yes, this person was mean and rude to me about my story. But I could have handled my response a *lot* better. And I did, eventually, force myself to the conclusion that they were right: my character was a Mary Sue, and a terrible one. It hadn't been my intention when I wrote it, but it happened anyway.

But that reaction was the reason I still struggle with whether or not to respond to flames when I get them even now.

I gave up on the Sailormoon fandom shortly after that. I still wrote things that I hoped to post someday, but I kept them to myself. (Stories which I still have actually, but they need a horrible amount of revision and editing before I'd ever allow myself to post them now.) I still read things here and there, but I was also discovering more of the original, undubbed series and getting frustrated with the changes, when unfortunately a great deal of the fandom at the time was still made up of people who, like me, had only known the dub.

Instead I focused my energy on the fandom for the newest anime I was falling in love with: Gundam Wing.

Gundam Wing is a series that shall forever and always be close to my heart, for one very specific reason: it introduced me to Yaoi. More specifically, its fandom *tricked* me into falling in love with a story about a very loving couple, only to discover at the very end that said characters in question were both boys.

It opened my eyes on a lot of things, reading that. It forced me to not only start to read more Yaoi to better understand what I was cringing away from, but to realize that my dislike of it was invalid. There was so much more depth and *emotion* to the Yaoi side of the fandom. I fell in love with my favorite pairings for that series and began to establish my love of slash in that fandom. Enough so that I started writing for it.

Looking back now, I *cringe* at some of the things I posted back then. It was all terribly OOC and very ... fanciful, I s'pose. I wasn't very good at working within the dynamics of the world the show set up back then, so I wrote about things like guardian angels and mysterious safe houses where the pilots seemed to spend weeks at a time in for no real reason. I threw random Japanese phrases into everything because that's what everyone in fandom *did* back then. I think we thought we were being authentic or something; now I look at it and facepalm. But the one thing I had been *very* careful about was *not* writing OCs, because of the way I was burned about my last one.

And then one day, I had a 'brilliant' idea: five teenage boys, and a baby.

It was fairly ridiculous plot line to be honest, for many reasons. And badly written. But people actually commented on it. And loved it even! I was so thrilled I even wrote a sequel to it, which was equally terrible and equally loved.

And then I discovered plagiarism.

I can't remember what it was called now, or the name of the person who wrote it, but someone posted a story damn near identical to Five Gundams and a Baby. Same pairings, same plotline, same concepts, same gender for the baby. The ending was slightly different, but barring that? They even posted it to the same archive I used.

I was furious. And hurt, because I would have expected the owner of the archive - which wasn't that big at the time - to have noticed. I don't know if they did and didn't care, or if they hadn't bothered to read either story. Either way, I abandoned the fandom. I was too upset to ever post anything for it again.

But I'm a writer. And writing is what I do. So when I found Fanfiction.net, I was hooked.

Posting that very first story over there, Going Home, was *hard*. I was terrified of having the same experiences as before: flames, plagiarism, or no comments at all. But the idea wouldn't die, and I eventually convinced myself that no one would probably read it anyway. And even if they hated it, I'd never be a professional writer one day by hiding from criticism.

Going Home was also terrible, in retrospect. But people loved it! And they were *nice* to me. It absolutely blew my mind.

Enough so that I got braver, and posted my very first epic: Fade to Darkness. OCs and all. It was also terrible, but at least I was improving. And I was getting enough encouragement to keep doing it.

For awhile I lurked around the outer edges of the Power Ranger fandom, posting stories and browsing other fics and fanart. I tiptoed through Rangerboard for a bit, somewhere after it was firmly established but before it started getting mean. I watched the show religiously, much to my family's annoyance. And I loved all of it.

But I didn't really consider myself part of the fandom until the day I got a PM from starlit_purple.

I don't even remember what it said exactly anymore. Just that it was so sweet and friendly and warm, and made me tear up a little at how sincere and kind it was. I felt so encouraged by it, that I replied.

And she replied.

And I replied.

Eventually we were messaging back and forth enough that we ended up exchanging screen names for Yahoo Instant Messenger. (Or was it AIM first? I can't even remember now.) Chatting with her was always fun and encouraging, helping with ideas and making me feel better about my writing and myself, in a way no one ever had before.

At some point she mentioned having a LiveJournal account, and how there were a lot of fandom members lurking around there and posting stories. She even compared it to Fanfiction.net for the sheer amount you could find there.

I flatly refused to join. As far as I was concerned, meeting starlit_purple was a wonderful fluke that would never, ever, happen again. There was *no way* I was subjecting myself to another fandom burn.

Suffice to say she eventually wore me down by telling me how awesome and nice everyone was.

... Well, that and I was *really* bored one day.

My first post was a confusing ramble of my new headcanon for B Squad's parentage - which inevitably led to the foundation of Bright Skies - and the one-shot Technologically Impaired, in which Eric Myers meets LiveJournal. It was the very first time that rosabelle and starandrea ever spoke to me. (There was much squealing and fangirling because I'd been following Stars FOREVER, and I am not ashamed to admit it.) Ironically they were the very people starlit_purple had been trying to coax me into meeting. And they were both so nice! I was instantly charmed. ♥

Eleven days later I had a mental breakdown, and posted Blowing Smoke.

It led to a huge fissure between myself and most of my relatives. It was the reason my mother and I didn't speak for two years. It was the reason I moved to Idaho to stay with Brother and met his wonderful family.

It also introduced me to the warmth, kindness, love, and caring that the Power Rangers fandom is capable of. That I wasn't broken, that I wasn't wrong, and there were people who loved and cared about me just as I was. As I am. It taught me that I am a beautiful person, with wonderful, beautiful, amazing friends, who remind me ever day that love can be something more than shared affection for a TV show. That being part of a fandom can be so much more than that.

And I've never looked back. ♥

Comments

[starlit_purple]

*frowns* It...might have been AIM first? Cause I remember I didn't like YIM and was not going to use it. *laughs* But then you started using it more and some of my other chat buddies were moving to it and I finally caved. Now it's all I use anymore. *laughs*

Dude, I was just stoked that this amazing author person was talking to me! Yours was the biggest story aside from starandrea's stuff that I'd ever read at the time. (I started off as the hugest fangirl ever. I was probably dreadfully annoying, now that I think about it. *laughs*) But I don't regret any of it, cause I love that you're here in fandom, and even moreso, I gained a best friend. ♥

I love you always! ♥♥♥