pronker

In your own space, talk about your fannish history. Leave a comment at the Fandom Snowflake Challenge on DW saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I pruned last year's entry to produce: At sleepovers, we five girls wrote round robin Star Trek fics as TOS unfolded; Superfan, our polestar in fandom, preferred Spock as the whumpee while Kirk tended to him lovingly in fic after fic. Whatever happened to these works?

Until Star Wars' A New Hope, I didn't participate in fandom. Star Wars hit and so did "nostalgia shows," places in large venues for vintage furniture, books, comics, anything older than maybe ten years. At one of the shows, a vendor displayed a 'zine to a customer at a comic booth where I browsed and thrust it in a box under the show table after the customer departed. After the first customer left without purchasing, I asked to see it, too, and the vendor seemed pleased to relate what 'zines were, though they also seemed to keep it hush hush. This caveat operated for 'zines of all ratings during my years of "nostalgia show" attending.

I bought a 'zine for maybe $25, which was average price. For some years, 'zines filled boxes in my apartment and then I joined a letterzine (In The Belly of the Whale for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea fandom). It was only for writing LOCs (Letters of Comment) regarding all aspects of fandom, including fics, that appeared in other 'zines.

I first got online in 2005 onto the library's computer. Wow! First came one year of lurking and reading both meta and fics on starwars.com, theforceDOTnet, fanfictionDOTnet, various personal websites on geocities and elsewhere, and master-apprenticeDOTorg. I interacted with admired authors, dipped toes into reviewing, brainstormed plots, and wrote fic in challenges. I used a beta once and was a beta once. More fun came with posting illustrations and manips. And all free of charge.

Life is good in fandom.