Snowflake Challenge #1 & #2

[dickinsons]

It's my first time doing this challenge, let's go!



Challenge #1 was about updating your fandom information, which I've done over at my sticky post and my profile.

And now it's time for Challenge #2: talking about my fannish origin story.

I've always been fannish about things, which, for me, means I always develop obsessions I can't stop talking about and creating things for. Some of the earliest examples I can think of are these:

• At 10, I got a Spanish fantasy book on my birthday. It was about a werewolf elf (werewelf?), and it happened to be the prequel to a book series I read after that one. Anyway, I got so obsessed with said elf that I started writing a sequel to the series that was about him. In longhand! This is a bit embarrassing, but I confess in the fic I killed off his girlfriend because I didn't like her, and made some new villains steal their baby. See? I already liked angst back then!
• At 11-12, I got into manga and anime. I made a lot of traditional fanart of the ones I liked: Naruto, Full Metal Alchemist... I also remember drawing Vocaloid fanart. I started going to anime cons and even cosplayed as Len Kagamine once.
• At 13 I started participating in anime forums. I still have some friends I met through these forums! This is also when I first found fanfiction online, in now defunct Spanish sites such as Amor Yaoi and Slash Heaven. Imagine little me opening a fic tagged as lemon and mpreg, not knowing what any of that meant. LOL.
• At 14-15 I got REALLY into The Beatles, and this early obsession follows me to this day, because I still mostly listen to music from the 60s and the 70s. I met a lot of Beatlemaniacs online, and it was very chill to be a Ringo fan while the Paul fans fought the John fans every day.
• At 15 I started watching a re-run of The X-Files, and boy, did I get obsessed! I basically outed myself by talking about how gorgeous Gillian Anderson was, got into whump through some of the very memorable Mulder torture scenes, and became the multishipper I am today by shipping both MSR and Mulder/Krycek.

All of these are examples of how I got into different canons and did fannish things about them, but I still wasn't very in contact with fandom itself. When I was 15-16 I got into both Doctor Who and BBC Sherlock, and I opened my first Tumblr account and an LJ account. This was between 2010 and 2011. I was also really into Downton Abbey! Since I already knew how to use Photoshop, I started posting icons to my old LJ. Let me show you some of those early icons:



...What's will all the redheads? LOL.

Anyhow, my first fics were posted in 2011 to FF.net, but they were in Spanish, so I'm not sure how much I can share here. My first fic in English, though, was very short and simple, since my English wasn't what it is today back then, and if you're curious enough you can read it here. It was a Johnlock fic, btw. I made a lot of friends in this era, a bunch of which I'm still friends with today!!

However, I never managed to get into SPN, even if I tried because of Superwholock, of course. And, eventually, I got fed up with Moffat's writing, dropping both DW and Sherlock maybe in 2012 or so. I believe my next main fandoms were Hannibal and In the Flesh, for both of which I wrote fic. My Hannibal fic from 2013 was still in Spanish, but from 2014 onwards I've only posted fic in English. 2014 was also the year where I created my AO3 account, so those early fics are there. Some of my fics archived there are in Spanish, but the BBC Sherlock ones are only in my FF.net account.

It's hard to mention all the fandoms I've had since then: I fandom hop so much I can't even keep track of them myself. You can get a decent idea if you check out my fandoms in AO3 and if you look at some more icons I made over the years (yes, I want to post some more because I think I got pretty good at making icons, thank you very much):





Since 2019 or so, I've been mostly getting into older canons, both ones I remember from my childhood (for example, Xena) and ones that are new to me. It's easier for me to think of all the fandoms I've been into since then, so I can list them here in order:

• Xena: Warrior Princess
• Battlestar Galactica
• Star Trek (all of it)
• Babylon 5
• Succession
• Farscape
• Our Flag Means Death
• SG-1
• Saw (movie franchise)
• Blake's 7
• due South

I love fandom history, which is one of the reasons why I tend to get into older fandoms these days. I really love exploring old fanworks, fandom trends, archived sites... The archiving of so much fanwork always seems to me like an act of love: fans saving their fanzines and donating them, newer fans working with the veterans to digitalise and archive older works, etc. It's amazing, don't you think?

In conclusion, fandom has been a part of my life for so long now and it's still a big part of it. I wouldn't have it any other way!

Comments

[gingicat]

Please do share the Spanish-language fics; there are plenty of fans whose first language is not English and diversity is important. You could even make a note in your community replies so that people know how to find it.

Archiving is indeed amazing and I very much appreciate those like you who find it worthwhile to do the work.

Thank you for participating!

[dickinsons]

You're right! Maybe I can even find other Spanish speakers around here. I'll add a link to my FF account! Thank you for leaving a comment :)

[potentiality_26]

Such pretty icons! I love that Deanna one especially <3

[dickinsons]

Thank you! I made so many back in the day, maybe I should give it a try again.

[kitarella_imagines]

That is so interesting and detailed, it's very open of you to share all that.

I'd like to read any short Spanish fics you've written, then I can try out my comprehension skills!

I've really enjoyed our chats about Blake's 7 and amazed that you've put up with my ranting about the Professionals 😳

Yes it's great to be in fandoms isn't it, I'm so, so glad I joined Dreamwidth and can talk about it with likeminded people.🥰

[barbaratp]

Adorei seus ícones, amei como és organizada com quais fandoms está e muito legal ver aqui alguém que esteve no Slash Heaven (meus deuses me mata que até hoje eles não tenham conseguido fazer nada pra restaurar as fics em backup para enviar ao ao3, foi feita a oferta pelo open doors). Amor Yaoi eu não entrava muito, preferia o Slash Heaven, sinto saudades do que li ali e perdi pela queda do site. Agora deu até vontade de chorar. Mas vou fazer isso não. No mais parabéns pela participação no desafio e feliz ano novo

[barbaratp]

Tô querendo saber qual foi esse livro lindo que você leu na infância. Você ainda lembra o nome?

[green]

You should definitely get back into making icons! I made some occasionally but haven't in about 2 years. I stayed in some icon communities on DW, though, so I know where to go if I want to get back into it!

You have a wonderful collection of fandoms. :)

[silversea]

Gorgeous icons! I especially like the top right icon (is that Hannibal?).

I did some archival work for a community at a job, and I loved it so much. It's so interesting getting to see people's daily thoughts, concerns, and trends. I was amazed at all the niche periodicals being made back then. Now I'm interested in fandom archiving! How do you go around looking for fandom history and older fanworks?

[dickinsons]

Thank you! I really enjoyed writing that, and reading what other people wrote about their own journeys.

This short Spanish fic could be a good one for you to read, it's 800 words long or so and the story is pretty simple. But I wrote it when I was 15, so there isn't much depth there, haha.

I'm glad I joined Dreamwidth as well! :D

[dickinsons]

¡Gracias, y feliz año nuevo a ti también! ¿Está bien si te contesto en español? No sabía que pasó eso con los fics de Slash Heaven, qué pena. Yo echo de menos esas páginas también.

[dickinsons]

El libro se llamaba "Fenris, el elfo" y la autora es Laura Gallego. Me leí muchos libros suyos aparte de ese, pero ese fue el primero y el que me enamoró.

[dickinsons]

Thank you! And yeah, I'm the same about icons. I've made some recently but only for some fandom events.

[barbaratp]

No pasa nada, puedes me contestar en español que yo lo comprendo perfectamente. Hablo muy poco, estoy un poco sien preparo a esto, pero leeo mejor que me expreso.

[barbaratp]

O site era baseado em um tipo de arquivo que perdeu a funcionalidade anos antes, ninguém do staff parecia saber como mexer nos códigos e após uma falta de pagamento do host onde o site estava hospedado muito se perdeu. Última notícia que tive foi que eles precisavam de alguém para codificar o backup do site para salvaguardar o que sobrou. Muitas pessoas falaram do AO3 se unir a eles, mas até onde sei isso não ocorreu ainda.

[dickinsons]

The black and white one is Hannibal, yes! I'm glad you like them.

Well, there's definitely a lot about fandom history at fanlore.org. I've learnt so much on that site! You can also try to locate archived fandom websites through the Wayback Machine, where you can often find some gems, and plenty of old fandoms have digitalised or scanned fanzines and letterzines. There are many collections on AO3 where entire fanfic archives have been imported. For example, the Hermit.org Blake's 7 Library or the Due South Archive. I also keep getting in touch with the fandoms as I start getting into all these canons, and in many private servers people will share scans of zines, letterzines, etc. as well as discuss their first-hand experiences in the fandom back in the day! Depending on the fandom, many old fanworks are lost, but I still think it's remarkable how many we still have.

[dickinsons]

Gracias por contarme los detalles. Pues parece que todavía queda esperanza entonces, esperemos que haya nuevas noticias pronto y puedan archivar en AO3 lo que consigan recuperar.

[barbaratp]

O grupo do SlasHeaven no Facebook é de onde vem as informações, mas não estou entrando no site faz alguns meses já. Então pode haver notícias que ainda não sei

[barbaratp]

O título suena buenisimo u.u

[dickinsons]

Lo miraré, gracias!

[dickinsons]

Era un poco triste, pero siempre me ha gustado el angst y en cierta forma fue mi primer woobie ese personaje, jaja.

[barbaratp]

Como esquecer o primeiro woobie não é mesmo? Impossível se formos pensar bem. Ainda mais depois que eu vi uma das artes da capa desse dito elfo com uma cabeça de lobo nas mãos. Interessantíssimo

[kitarella_imagines]

Thanks for the Spanish fic, I could understand about half of it or less, it's so difficult! lol. Makes my Spanish learning seem so bad. I will keep trying at it though.

[svgurl]

I love how in depth your fandom history recap is! And your icons are lovely. I especially like the first b&w one and 2, 7 & 8 from the second set. Very pretty coloring and blending. :D

[dickinsons]

Estos días estoy pensando en escribir algún fic de un hombre lobo porque me acuerdo mucho de ese woobie, a lo mejor lo hago.

[dickinsons]

I'm glad you could understand some of it! And don't worry, language learning is hard, and Spanish has particularly nightmarish verbs, for example.

[barbaratp]

Se o fizer vou ser a primeira a querer ler ok

[dickinsons]

Thank you! I think a lot about my fandom history, often because I have friends who've been in fandom with me for years now, so every now and then we'll go "remember that one time in that one fandom when...?" I think that's why I remember so much, haha.

[dickinsons]

Jaja, vale. Ahora estoy escribiendo para un exchange así que este tendrá que esperar.

[barbaratp]

Sem problemas, eu espero u.u

[kitarella_imagines]

I think if you learn a language as a child, it's easier. I still remember a lot of the French I learned at school, but starting another language in middle age is harder. I shall keep going though!

[dickinsons]

I believe in you! :D

[kitarella_imagines]

Muchas gracias!