hells_half_acre (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hells_half_acre) wrote2015-10-12 10:35 am
hells_half_acre) wrote2015-10-12 10:35 am
Entry tags:
Fanfic Question Meme - Question 1
I want to spend today writing, but felt like warming up a little... by talking about fanfic.
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liliaeth has been dong this fanfic question meme thing over at her journal that I've been enjoying reading, but not commenting on (sorry liliaeth! I should really comment. Once a lurker always a lurker, I guess).
So, I thought I'd give it a go. The meme has 30 questions, but I figured I'd just go through them one at a time, every now and then.
1 - How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?
The short answer, and my first instinctual answer, is Supernatural.
What was it about Supernatural that pulled me in? I think it was that the characters were actually people I could relate to. For some reason, despite the fantastical aspect of their lives, Sam and Dean were characters that seemed real, nuanced, and relatable.
Not only that, but the world they inhabited was RICH and layered, and filled with possibilities... also, we start the story in media res. This isn't a "kid goes to wizard school" story, where are main character is a clueless audience surrogate - our main characters were two people who had already been in their world for 22 years. They already knew (mostly) everything. They were already highly trained. They already had a past, trauma, love, etc. What's more, in the early seasons especially, but still to this day, there was a feeling like we were only seeing part of the story. We were only seeing SOME of the cases and we were only seeing the action - not the quiet moments between. It's why there's a popularity for "domestic" fic... it's why I go crazy for seasons where we see the boys brushing their teeth. It's why I want a car washing scene for entirely different reasons than most of fandom... I loved the idea of exploring those unseen moments, their childhood, the moments between episodes... their internal lives that, due to their upbringing, they rarely vocalize. So, that's what pulled me in.
The more complicated answer to this question is:
The first fandom I ever wrote fanfic for was Star Trek: TNG. I wrote it in my head, when I was a kid. It was a complete self-insert Mary Sue, where they found this girl who had poison in her blood that gave her magical-type powers... she could walk through walls, she was a technopath, she could create pottery out of thin air (shut-up, I liked pottery as a kid... still do.) Depending on my mood, I either had Wesley (my age-group) or Geordi (Geordi was my favourite) falling in love with her. Star Trek: TNG was also my first ship, because I totally shipped Geordi/Data before I even knew what shipping was. I just wanted them to be best friends forever and ever and have an epic romance (probably innocently non-sexual, because I was very young at the time.) (And yes, I also watched Reading Rainbow.)
The first fandom I ever wrote DOWN fanfic for was Naruto. I got a girlfriend hooked on the show (the first plot arc) and she fell in love with Kakashi. So, the next year, when we were woefully separated by an ocean, and she was in Turkey working in a job that she hated - I wrote her a story where Kakashi showed up to her bedroom and rescued her... with sexytimes. So, it was very much a Kakashi/Reader fic, though the reader was very specifically my friend and she's the only one that ever saw the fic.
But Supernatural was the first one where I thought "I want to write fanfic, and I want to post it so that the fandom can see it - and I want to participate in the fandom and these stories and be a member of this community." And why I made that decision, I don't actually know - I'd been lurking in various fandoms for years, without ever being a participant, but Supernatural was different for some reason that I've yet to quantify. Maybe, it was just that it inspired too many fic ideas for me to hold them all in my head.
liliaeth has been dong this fanfic question meme thing over at her journal that I've been enjoying reading, but not commenting on (sorry liliaeth! I should really comment. Once a lurker always a lurker, I guess).So, I thought I'd give it a go. The meme has 30 questions, but I figured I'd just go through them one at a time, every now and then.
1 - How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?
The short answer, and my first instinctual answer, is Supernatural.
What was it about Supernatural that pulled me in? I think it was that the characters were actually people I could relate to. For some reason, despite the fantastical aspect of their lives, Sam and Dean were characters that seemed real, nuanced, and relatable.
Not only that, but the world they inhabited was RICH and layered, and filled with possibilities... also, we start the story in media res. This isn't a "kid goes to wizard school" story, where are main character is a clueless audience surrogate - our main characters were two people who had already been in their world for 22 years. They already knew (mostly) everything. They were already highly trained. They already had a past, trauma, love, etc. What's more, in the early seasons especially, but still to this day, there was a feeling like we were only seeing part of the story. We were only seeing SOME of the cases and we were only seeing the action - not the quiet moments between. It's why there's a popularity for "domestic" fic... it's why I go crazy for seasons where we see the boys brushing their teeth. It's why I want a car washing scene for entirely different reasons than most of fandom... I loved the idea of exploring those unseen moments, their childhood, the moments between episodes... their internal lives that, due to their upbringing, they rarely vocalize. So, that's what pulled me in.
The more complicated answer to this question is:
The first fandom I ever wrote fanfic for was Star Trek: TNG. I wrote it in my head, when I was a kid. It was a complete self-insert Mary Sue, where they found this girl who had poison in her blood that gave her magical-type powers... she could walk through walls, she was a technopath, she could create pottery out of thin air (shut-up, I liked pottery as a kid... still do.) Depending on my mood, I either had Wesley (my age-group) or Geordi (Geordi was my favourite) falling in love with her. Star Trek: TNG was also my first ship, because I totally shipped Geordi/Data before I even knew what shipping was. I just wanted them to be best friends forever and ever and have an epic romance (probably innocently non-sexual, because I was very young at the time.) (And yes, I also watched Reading Rainbow.)
The first fandom I ever wrote DOWN fanfic for was Naruto. I got a girlfriend hooked on the show (the first plot arc) and she fell in love with Kakashi. So, the next year, when we were woefully separated by an ocean, and she was in Turkey working in a job that she hated - I wrote her a story where Kakashi showed up to her bedroom and rescued her... with sexytimes. So, it was very much a Kakashi/Reader fic, though the reader was very specifically my friend and she's the only one that ever saw the fic.
But Supernatural was the first one where I thought "I want to write fanfic, and I want to post it so that the fandom can see it - and I want to participate in the fandom and these stories and be a member of this community." And why I made that decision, I don't actually know - I'd been lurking in various fandoms for years, without ever being a participant, but Supernatural was different for some reason that I've yet to quantify. Maybe, it was just that it inspired too many fic ideas for me to hold them all in my head.