escritoireazul

December Talking Meme Master List

(There are still some days left open in the meme, if you want to suggest a(nother) topic.)

No requests for December 12 or 13, so we skip ahead to December 14, which was suggested by

endeni: What was your first fandom?

Before I found online fandom, I was fannish about a lot of things, from Star Trek: The Next Generation to Tamora Pierce books to hockey to horror movies (werewolves!) to Legos to ... well, you get the picture. I'd tell myself stories about my favorite characters all the time, and I'd even written a bit of 1984 fanfic as an assignment in a lit class. During high school, I had one friend who also watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer (seasons one, two, and three, at least), and we would talk about it in class the next day, share theories, and she made some beautiful art cards for various holidays for me.

I discovered online fandom in 1998, through mailing lists for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as lurking at the Bronze, and it was amazing. I still consider Buffy my first real fandom. I didn't start writing fic right away, but I did start reading it pretty much immediately. I didn't start writing until well into season three, and didn't start posting until 1999 (yes, I am finishing my 15th year of posting fanfic online, thank you, thank you), but the friends I made. Oh, the friends I made. I'm still friends with some of the women from the mailing lists, particularly the Willow/Angel mailing list and a private spinoff. I was still in high school when I joined the list, and most of the people I became friends with were a good decade or so older, and I would not be the person I am today without them. In many, many ways, including the fact that J and I got back together because of a trip I made with VT and her family, and the girl and I met because my time writing Buffy fic led me to writing Lost Boys fic, and actually, the girl met her husband due to a mutual friend from Lost Boys fic who she actually met because I hosted that mutual friend's fic on my website, which was a direct result of my time in Buffy fandom.

I still love the show SO MUCH and the characters. (Faith and Oz have always been my favorites, but the more I watch, the more I love Buffy herself, too, and all the others.) I went through high school with Buffy and the Scooby Gang. They graduated when I graduated. They went off to college when I went off to college. The source material for this fandom is wonderful (and problematic, yes), and that would be amazing enough, but the fandom was just unbelievable. I went through so many huge life events supported by people I met through Buffy, both back then and in more recent years.

Fandom, man. It can be so amazing.