Snowflake Challenge #2: Fannish Origin Story

[ermingarden]

Today's challenge is to talk about my "fannish origin story." My first fandom was Star Wars, especially the old Expanded Universe novels. Like many people, I was writing fanfic before I knew there was a word for it, and certainly before I knew about online fanfic archives and fan communities! (I actually had a secret ambition of writing a Star Wars novel myself someday.)

Someone pointed me toward fanfiction.net before too long. I joined FFN in 2012, and when I checked the dates on my profiles I was shocked to see that I only joined AO3 in 2013 - in my memory the stretch of time when I was on FFN but didn't know about AO3 is longer, for some reason.

When I was first entering fandom, a lot of the people I looked up to were active in journal fandom, and I was honestly pretty intimidated. It took until 2018 for me to get up the nerve to join the cool kids on DW, and I'm very glad I did! The conversations I've had here have shaped my attitude toward writing and fandom in a really positive way - and, of course, I've made friends <3

Comments

[gingicat]

I'm so glad you persisted! When fandom communities are good, they're pretty great.

Thank you for participating!

[ermingarden]

100% agreed! And thank you for modding <3

[vendettadays]

I remember finding journal fandom to be daunting too - it's great see you on DW and very glad you joined! Thank you for sharing your story!

[ermingarden]

Thank you! As I said, I'm definitely very glad to be here :)

[elwendell]

Lol. Who was not a Star Wars fan? I remember having the posters on my bedroom wall for a few years.

[ermingarden]

This has me thinking back and realizing I've been kind of obsessed with Star Wars for the substantial majority of my life.

Interestingly, I do know one person who's really not into Star Wars, and it's my mom! She went to see A New Hope in the theater as a teenager and literally fell asleep. (Which is also impressive because it's not exactly a quiet movie.) She doesn't like Tolkien, either, and if I didn't look so much like her I'd almost wonder if we're actually related!

[elwendell]

I used to have a friend who could not stand any kind of movie or TV series that involved fantasy of any kind. She hated musicals and I told me her then boyfriend was disgusted when he took her to see the first Alien movie, and she laughed her way through the entire thing. I, on the other hand, rarely watch anything that does not have an element of fantasy.

[pauraque]

It's fascinating to me how AO3 has brought people to journal fandom from other corners, since of course AO3 came from journal fandom in the first place. Even as fandom has diversified, there's more continuity than one might think.

[ermingarden]

For sure! I joined in December 2018, when Tumblr's "adult content" ban caused a large number of people there to move elsewhere, including to DW. I wasn't personally affected by the ban, but seeing a lot of other people who didn't have experience with LJ or DW move to journal fandom for the first time, and seeing how welcoming many people on DW were toward newcomers, gave me the courage to take the plunge myself. (And I like it so much better here than I ever liked Tumblr!)

[independence1776]

I am so glad you got p the courage to join us here!

[ermingarden]

I'm really glad, too! <3

[luthien]

I'm glad you found your way here and that it's given you a really positive fannish experience. That's great!