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silveradeptChallenge #5 is looking for the good times and the happy things.
I jokingly refer to myself as a Great Old One of the Internet, because I was here in the era of the Web on dial-up, but I know that I'm not actually an Elder God, since there were plenty of groups and bulletin boards that predate the Web. Similarly, there are plenty of fandom Elder Gods who have done their things before me and before the Web, sharing stories and community with each other. It doesn't feel like I'm all that old, or that I've seen all that much, in comparison with the people who were here before me, but then I get reminded at work about being institutional knowledge, or I see some of the responses that tell me old wars are repackaged for new fandoms, and I recognize that while history rarely repeats, it often rhymes, and a sign of age and wisdom is recognizing when it's happening again.
If I pursue that line of thinking too much further, though, it gets mired in how so many things that were not good about the past either never left or are on their way around again, as new generations join up and start making the same mistakes of the past. (There's a certain amount of "we moved to a new platform, not all of the people who were there followed us, so now we have to gain that wisdom again" that happens, but there are a few things that I thought settled matters that are apparently unsettled and continue to plague the fandom.)
The first and most obvious of the happy fandom stories are all the time I spent on various boards and forums, with fannish roleplay, speculation about new episodes (for those things that were still updating), and discussion of properties and appreciation of fanworks. (And the creation thereof.) It was, in many ways, interesting to be close to creators and to talk about their works and other works and to engage with a community of people and our shared universes. And, occasionally, to be flirty with each other. I probably learned a lot about the technical aspects of writing and how to be a good member of an online community from those spaces that didn't particularly mind how old or young you were, so long as you could participate well and it wasn't obvious that you were not of age in an age-restricted space. While I'm sure many of those spaces still exist, many of them have also folded up and disappeared, the understanding of the impermanence of the Internet written large. Or they've moved to somewhere else without leaving a forwarding address. (Admittedly, some places disappearing means a lot of the stuff that I did that was the learning of these things has disappeared. Plenty of folks are very happy that their previous Internet selves have basically fallen over and sunk into the swamp.)
The main happy parts of that era is discovering and forming communities with people and trying to stay caught up with the volume, as someone with free time and studies that do not tax their brains entirely much. It helps the otherwise selective-of-friends young nerd fell like their provincial upbringing and community is not the entirety of the world, and it provides a bit of structure in addition to things like coursework. A lot of that disappears, both as I end up in the working world with something that eats my time, but in a relationship that demands the rest of my time and only occasionally can be fought off to give me space and time to pursue the things I like individually.
Fandom doesn't save my life (that's mathematics), nor is it through fandom that there is enough care and appreciation to get me out and give me a place to be while all of the relationship fallout resolves (that's other communities), but conventions do play a significant part in reconnection and enjoyment of fandom while I'm rebuilding and in the times after. They're not quite as getting close as the previous conventions are, but I do get to talk with creators about their works in the shops and art alleys, and their fandoms, and feel at least like I've drifted back into the orbit of fandom.
There's opening up my AO3 account and stuffing it with various exchange works and other things in my head, when the creativity comes back and starts being useful and present again. And a community of readers of various books that are getting sporked (although Tamora Pierce seems to have done an admirable job of avoiding the whatfruit and instead giving me reasons to poke at the whys of her worldbuilding, rather than curse-laden complaints about the unreality of her characters and their actions.) There's a fair amount of milestone stuff that happens in those eras - finding that sometimes you do have a timely enough funny thing that garners you four figures of kudos, when the previous efforts that had been well received were only flirting with three, getting some feedback that perhaps I'm doing okay at this writing thing through clear and definite squee, both in comments and in the bookmarks that people have made, and their associated comments on that. There were people who made podfic of stuff I wrote, and some people who made covers for one or two of the things that I wrote. I haven't yet received anyone doing fanart of something that I wrote, at least in any space where I was tagged in it or it was brought to my attention. (Since I don't have a presence on tumblr, I wouldn't be surprised if it has happened at some point and it hasn't come back to say hi yet.) It's still wonderful to receive signifiers that things went really well for recipients, or that people who are looking for their own challenges have looked at my work and thought it would be good to adapt. It's really good to have those supportive things to look at when things don't feel quite as good, or there are brainweasel bites about actual talent and skill.
There's also some fandom-ness that has been enjoyable to watch through, read through, and see some of the development of stories go from the whispers of the slash goggles to the acceptance of the slash goggles, even if they're seen as the province of those weird people over there, to the point where it was safe to mention gay characters and relationships (in more than just parodies of soap operas), to having relationships on screen, and kisses and even having media for children and teens start really reflecting the identities and realities of children and teens. In many of the stories, things are getting more intertwined and much less easy to carve away, and it gives the fandom even more opportunity to extend and expand upon those things and not have to feel like they're being transgressive and transformative solely by imagining the relationships being different, but to be able to add, subtract, and change the relationships to suit the desired story, some of which even don't have to leave the original canon to make them work. It's been really heartening to see how much our blorbos from our shows have also been helpful in making it so that at least some of us can be closer to our real selves and that others will accept that, instead of assuming that there's something wrong with us.
Yeah. There have been a fair number of happy things involved by sticking with fandoms and with working the exchange circuit and otherwise sharing my time and creativity with other people. It seems like one of them that was recent (Yuletide 2023) was all the people who laughed, liked, or found an e-mail from a department chair about the upcoming doctoral defense by snake fight eerily accurate to some of their own higher education experiences, even though they're not obligated to fight any reptiles, large or small, to obtain their own advanced degrees. And one that still gets lots of nice comments was a Fandom Trumps Hate bit where one of the characters had a disabling event, but eventually adapted and found a girlfriend out of it, once the girlfriend was willing to see past the bitchy front she put up. (The comments are often about how good the treatment of the disability was and how true to character everyone remained even with this change in events, which I like very much, since the prompt I picked up was about a disabling event and what came from it.)
Sometimes it is worth celebrating the wins, even though I know that my brain is not going to hold on to them long or think of them as the results of what I did, rather than some other thing that was fully out of my control, or a manifestation of Beginner's Luck. I could always use more help with the celebration of good things, or of people saying good things about me that they believe genuinely.
Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom. […]
Fandom can be a highly meaningful experience for many! We'd love to hear about how being part of a fandom has helped your life change for the better. Have you made any cherished memories or connections? Does fandom bring you joy? Tell us about the ways that fandom has helped you.
I jokingly refer to myself as a Great Old One of the Internet, because I was here in the era of the Web on dial-up, but I know that I'm not actually an Elder God, since there were plenty of groups and bulletin boards that predate the Web. Similarly, there are plenty of fandom Elder Gods who have done their things before me and before the Web, sharing stories and community with each other. It doesn't feel like I'm all that old, or that I've seen all that much, in comparison with the people who were here before me, but then I get reminded at work about being institutional knowledge, or I see some of the responses that tell me old wars are repackaged for new fandoms, and I recognize that while history rarely repeats, it often rhymes, and a sign of age and wisdom is recognizing when it's happening again.
If I pursue that line of thinking too much further, though, it gets mired in how so many things that were not good about the past either never left or are on their way around again, as new generations join up and start making the same mistakes of the past. (There's a certain amount of "we moved to a new platform, not all of the people who were there followed us, so now we have to gain that wisdom again" that happens, but there are a few things that I thought settled matters that are apparently unsettled and continue to plague the fandom.)
The first and most obvious of the happy fandom stories are all the time I spent on various boards and forums, with fannish roleplay, speculation about new episodes (for those things that were still updating), and discussion of properties and appreciation of fanworks. (And the creation thereof.) It was, in many ways, interesting to be close to creators and to talk about their works and other works and to engage with a community of people and our shared universes. And, occasionally, to be flirty with each other. I probably learned a lot about the technical aspects of writing and how to be a good member of an online community from those spaces that didn't particularly mind how old or young you were, so long as you could participate well and it wasn't obvious that you were not of age in an age-restricted space. While I'm sure many of those spaces still exist, many of them have also folded up and disappeared, the understanding of the impermanence of the Internet written large. Or they've moved to somewhere else without leaving a forwarding address. (Admittedly, some places disappearing means a lot of the stuff that I did that was the learning of these things has disappeared. Plenty of folks are very happy that their previous Internet selves have basically fallen over and sunk into the swamp.)
The main happy parts of that era is discovering and forming communities with people and trying to stay caught up with the volume, as someone with free time and studies that do not tax their brains entirely much. It helps the otherwise selective-of-friends young nerd fell like their provincial upbringing and community is not the entirety of the world, and it provides a bit of structure in addition to things like coursework. A lot of that disappears, both as I end up in the working world with something that eats my time, but in a relationship that demands the rest of my time and only occasionally can be fought off to give me space and time to pursue the things I like individually.
Fandom doesn't save my life (that's mathematics), nor is it through fandom that there is enough care and appreciation to get me out and give me a place to be while all of the relationship fallout resolves (that's other communities), but conventions do play a significant part in reconnection and enjoyment of fandom while I'm rebuilding and in the times after. They're not quite as getting close as the previous conventions are, but I do get to talk with creators about their works in the shops and art alleys, and their fandoms, and feel at least like I've drifted back into the orbit of fandom.
There's opening up my AO3 account and stuffing it with various exchange works and other things in my head, when the creativity comes back and starts being useful and present again. And a community of readers of various books that are getting sporked (although Tamora Pierce seems to have done an admirable job of avoiding the whatfruit and instead giving me reasons to poke at the whys of her worldbuilding, rather than curse-laden complaints about the unreality of her characters and their actions.) There's a fair amount of milestone stuff that happens in those eras - finding that sometimes you do have a timely enough funny thing that garners you four figures of kudos, when the previous efforts that had been well received were only flirting with three, getting some feedback that perhaps I'm doing okay at this writing thing through clear and definite squee, both in comments and in the bookmarks that people have made, and their associated comments on that. There were people who made podfic of stuff I wrote, and some people who made covers for one or two of the things that I wrote. I haven't yet received anyone doing fanart of something that I wrote, at least in any space where I was tagged in it or it was brought to my attention. (Since I don't have a presence on tumblr, I wouldn't be surprised if it has happened at some point and it hasn't come back to say hi yet.) It's still wonderful to receive signifiers that things went really well for recipients, or that people who are looking for their own challenges have looked at my work and thought it would be good to adapt. It's really good to have those supportive things to look at when things don't feel quite as good, or there are brainweasel bites about actual talent and skill.
There's also some fandom-ness that has been enjoyable to watch through, read through, and see some of the development of stories go from the whispers of the slash goggles to the acceptance of the slash goggles, even if they're seen as the province of those weird people over there, to the point where it was safe to mention gay characters and relationships (in more than just parodies of soap operas), to having relationships on screen, and kisses and even having media for children and teens start really reflecting the identities and realities of children and teens. In many of the stories, things are getting more intertwined and much less easy to carve away, and it gives the fandom even more opportunity to extend and expand upon those things and not have to feel like they're being transgressive and transformative solely by imagining the relationships being different, but to be able to add, subtract, and change the relationships to suit the desired story, some of which even don't have to leave the original canon to make them work. It's been really heartening to see how much our blorbos from our shows have also been helpful in making it so that at least some of us can be closer to our real selves and that others will accept that, instead of assuming that there's something wrong with us.
Yeah. There have been a fair number of happy things involved by sticking with fandoms and with working the exchange circuit and otherwise sharing my time and creativity with other people. It seems like one of them that was recent (Yuletide 2023) was all the people who laughed, liked, or found an e-mail from a department chair about the upcoming doctoral defense by snake fight eerily accurate to some of their own higher education experiences, even though they're not obligated to fight any reptiles, large or small, to obtain their own advanced degrees. And one that still gets lots of nice comments was a Fandom Trumps Hate bit where one of the characters had a disabling event, but eventually adapted and found a girlfriend out of it, once the girlfriend was willing to see past the bitchy front she put up. (The comments are often about how good the treatment of the disability was and how true to character everyone remained even with this change in events, which I like very much, since the prompt I picked up was about a disabling event and what came from it.)
Sometimes it is worth celebrating the wins, even though I know that my brain is not going to hold on to them long or think of them as the results of what I did, rather than some other thing that was fully out of my control, or a manifestation of Beginner's Luck. I could always use more help with the celebration of good things, or of people saying good things about me that they believe genuinely.
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