Huh, apparently I haven't posted about it at all this year, but 2019 marks the 20th year since I first started posting fic online. I can't believe it's been so long, but at the same time, it feels like I should have written so much more. I thought I'd do some sort of celebration when I hit 20 years, but this year has been such an explosion of family and work issues that I haven't even thought about it until just now. Ah well.

Finding online fandom in the late 90s was one of the best things I ever did, and I will remain grateful for it until my dying day.

( All 30 days )

I've seen this going around, and it looks like a good set of themed prompts, since I just finished that personal meme. (Of course, considering how long that took me, I'll still be answering this in 2020, but whatever.)

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?

Technically, I've been telling fannish stories since I first started telling stories as a small child, and I wrote my first fanfic in high school, when a project for 1984 turned into a short story my teacher loved. I started writing and posting fanfic online in 1999, though, after reading a ton of it and spending a lot of time on mailing lists. There was no real decision to start writing fic. I always told stories, I always wrote, and it just made perfect sense to start sharing stories with the people who I was talking to so often.

My first online fandom was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, specifically the Willow/Angel mailing list, and its spinoff. The women there, many of whom I'm still friends with, had a huge influence on the woman I've become over the past two decades. The fanfic is only a small part of that.

Even back then, I loved monsters and teenage girls being heroes and chosen families, so BtVS hit a lot of my buttons. Add that to how awesome the other fans were, how friendly and funny and smart, how willing they were to take a teenager under their wings, well, I had an excellent time in fandom, long after I was no longer watching and analyzing the show every week.

Some of the same things still appeal to me, which is probably why I sometimes write Buffy fic to this day. In particular, I love the way that the series finale opens the world up to Slayers everywhere, and what that does to the girls and women who were forcibly called. (And the ethics of how Buffy becomes what she's railed against by the end.)

(Though I like some of the things in the comics, they don't tend to exist in my canon when I write fic. Mostly because I haven't read very many.)

I don't have an appropriate icon. Sad.