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Snowflake Challenge #10
In your own space, write a love letter to Fandom in general, to a particular fandom, to a trope, a relationship, a character, creator, episode, or it could be your fandom friends. Share your love and squee as loud as you want to.
Dear Fandom
You've taught me to think. So many interesting discussions, so many smart women sharing thoughts and principles, wisdom, analysis. About feminism and what it means to be an independent woman; about queerness and not-straightness in so many forms; about what it means to be a writer; about race, prejudice, and how to do better.
Thank you.
*
Dear Trek Fandom
You brought me in! When I first became addicted to my late-night ST:TNG binges, I would sneak into the local W H Smiths and Waterstones and sneak out with official Star Trek Magazines and books in brown paper bags, feeling as embarrassed as if I'd been buying Playgirl. Through them I found the IDIC newsletter, through that I found my way to fanfic—home!
I had a lot of fun with you. I had about a dozen penfriends, back then before we got our first dial-up modem and I found my way to the alt.startrek.creative newsgroup. I had stories published in zines. I went to my first Convention, in Cardiff, and met some like-minded people. Spent a very memorable Saturday night in the bar talking Data and Picard and having some wonderful laughs. I went to Glasgow for a con with John DeLancie as the main guest, and to London where there was a wedding going on at the same time—I retain the memory of a bride who thought this was delightfully funny, and her parents who were very unimpressed, and also, my gorgeous dragon earrings which I bought in the dealers' room. I owe my first visit to the USA to my Trek fandom, for I wanted to see Brent Spiner as John Adams in 1776, which I did, four times. And I even had the courage to go to MediaWest, back then when zines were still a thing.
We haven't been close lately, though I am rediscovering the pleasure of that series I loved so much back then, and people are still writing for it, so, maybe we might have another twirl.
*
Dear Popslash
Dearest fandom of my heart. What can I say. I approached you with deep suspicion, but I fell in love practically at once. I spent six weeks seeking out every scrap of you I could find on the internet—it felt like every waking moment, but it can't have been because not only did I have a husband, two children in school, and consequent laundry and ironing to do and meals to cook, I was also in a show at the time, as a minor principal, even. But the joy of finding a new fandom to love, after five years between fandoms, oh, that was something so precious. You gave me back my creativity—I'd produced a story or two, during that barren interim, but in my first year of Popslash I wrote more than thirty stories, and oh, the rush of the feedback, and the fun of being encouraged to create by all the fannish love going on around me. LiveJournal, to which I was introduced at the same time, was a big part of why I felt so at home, and remains, to my mind, by far the best way of 'doing fandom'.
Through Popslash, I made so many friends, and got to know quite a lot of you in person, mostly through Camp Sparkle, which has been a source of enormous joy and fun through the years. I hope we can do it again—maybe not till next year. I've been a tourist in all sorts of spots in my own country as a result, and there have been so many laughs, from the first time when we were expecting lumberjacks/axe murderers, to playing Cards Against Humanity (With Added Boybands), to being flashed by a passing hen-partier in Brighton, meeting the emo ponies, cooking together, picking up Campers from the airport in a Barbie-pink limo, having Christmas in June, and probably most memorably of all, the live-action late-night Lava Lamp Reading. So many Afternoon Teas, so many stately homes. Backstreet concerts. Alas that I was too late arriving to have the chance to see JC on stage.
I've loved writing you boys, and because of the challenges and encouragement of other fans, I've produced *so* many stories, many of them things I would never have imagined I would write. You have the BEST canon: someone who grew up so poor he had to sleep in laundry to keep warm, someone who won a beauty contest before he entered adolescence, someone who grew up gay in Mississippi and then went to Russia to learn to be a cosmonaut. You could not make that shit up. There is dwarf canon, and dolphin canon, and diamond canon, and I am sure there are demons, and though I have not yet found canon dragons (except maybe the inflatable one Lance had in his pool) I bet there are some. I've written you as space fighters and quasi-mediaeval knights, as advertising executives and strippers, dragons and chefs. I've loved reading you in so many, many wonderful stories. And, Lance, dear Lance, you have not let me down.
I wish I could revive you. There are plenty of stories available to tell about the five or ten, but fandom has left you behind. I can't give you up, and it's hard to imagine that another fandom could give me the satisfaction, the fun, and the inspiration. Maybe one day. Meanwhile, I'll be here, quietly finishing the stories I still want to tell.
I <3 you, Popslash.
Dear Fandom
You've taught me to think. So many interesting discussions, so many smart women sharing thoughts and principles, wisdom, analysis. About feminism and what it means to be an independent woman; about queerness and not-straightness in so many forms; about what it means to be a writer; about race, prejudice, and how to do better.
Thank you.
*
Dear Trek Fandom
You brought me in! When I first became addicted to my late-night ST:TNG binges, I would sneak into the local W H Smiths and Waterstones and sneak out with official Star Trek Magazines and books in brown paper bags, feeling as embarrassed as if I'd been buying Playgirl. Through them I found the IDIC newsletter, through that I found my way to fanfic—home!
I had a lot of fun with you. I had about a dozen penfriends, back then before we got our first dial-up modem and I found my way to the alt.startrek.creative newsgroup. I had stories published in zines. I went to my first Convention, in Cardiff, and met some like-minded people. Spent a very memorable Saturday night in the bar talking Data and Picard and having some wonderful laughs. I went to Glasgow for a con with John DeLancie as the main guest, and to London where there was a wedding going on at the same time—I retain the memory of a bride who thought this was delightfully funny, and her parents who were very unimpressed, and also, my gorgeous dragon earrings which I bought in the dealers' room. I owe my first visit to the USA to my Trek fandom, for I wanted to see Brent Spiner as John Adams in 1776, which I did, four times. And I even had the courage to go to MediaWest, back then when zines were still a thing.
We haven't been close lately, though I am rediscovering the pleasure of that series I loved so much back then, and people are still writing for it, so, maybe we might have another twirl.
*
Dear Popslash
Dearest fandom of my heart. What can I say. I approached you with deep suspicion, but I fell in love practically at once. I spent six weeks seeking out every scrap of you I could find on the internet—it felt like every waking moment, but it can't have been because not only did I have a husband, two children in school, and consequent laundry and ironing to do and meals to cook, I was also in a show at the time, as a minor principal, even. But the joy of finding a new fandom to love, after five years between fandoms, oh, that was something so precious. You gave me back my creativity—I'd produced a story or two, during that barren interim, but in my first year of Popslash I wrote more than thirty stories, and oh, the rush of the feedback, and the fun of being encouraged to create by all the fannish love going on around me. LiveJournal, to which I was introduced at the same time, was a big part of why I felt so at home, and remains, to my mind, by far the best way of 'doing fandom'.
Through Popslash, I made so many friends, and got to know quite a lot of you in person, mostly through Camp Sparkle, which has been a source of enormous joy and fun through the years. I hope we can do it again—maybe not till next year. I've been a tourist in all sorts of spots in my own country as a result, and there have been so many laughs, from the first time when we were expecting lumberjacks/axe murderers, to playing Cards Against Humanity (With Added Boybands), to being flashed by a passing hen-partier in Brighton, meeting the emo ponies, cooking together, picking up Campers from the airport in a Barbie-pink limo, having Christmas in June, and probably most memorably of all, the live-action late-night Lava Lamp Reading. So many Afternoon Teas, so many stately homes. Backstreet concerts. Alas that I was too late arriving to have the chance to see JC on stage.
I've loved writing you boys, and because of the challenges and encouragement of other fans, I've produced *so* many stories, many of them things I would never have imagined I would write. You have the BEST canon: someone who grew up so poor he had to sleep in laundry to keep warm, someone who won a beauty contest before he entered adolescence, someone who grew up gay in Mississippi and then went to Russia to learn to be a cosmonaut. You could not make that shit up. There is dwarf canon, and dolphin canon, and diamond canon, and I am sure there are demons, and though I have not yet found canon dragons (except maybe the inflatable one Lance had in his pool) I bet there are some. I've written you as space fighters and quasi-mediaeval knights, as advertising executives and strippers, dragons and chefs. I've loved reading you in so many, many wonderful stories. And, Lance, dear Lance, you have not let me down.
I wish I could revive you. There are plenty of stories available to tell about the five or ten, but fandom has left you behind. I can't give you up, and it's hard to imagine that another fandom could give me the satisfaction, the fun, and the inspiration. Maybe one day. Meanwhile, I'll be here, quietly finishing the stories I still want to tell.
I <3 you, Popslash.
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Popslash sounds like such fun! Thank you so much for the link, I've bookmarked it to peruse at a later date.
Thank you so much for sharing this, so many happy memories. This is why we are here :)
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And may Popslash return to you! ♥
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I kinda miss the Metafandom comm on LJ.
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The world is very tiny indeed and joined by fandom :D
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I failed to find a vendor of deep fried Mars bars, too - but I did not wander very far.
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They've pretty much just a tourist nonsense - most chippies won't do them, the decent ones certainly won't.
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I'm rather glad to hear that the deep fried Mars bar is not *really* a thing. Mind, I remember being very disappointed with fried ice cream at Disneyworld. It wasn't battered at all. Inferior product.
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i have weird and fun con memories like yours - well, not exactly like yours, i mean no one ever picked me up at the airport in a pink limo - but that same idea, the weird and fun things you do with your fellow fangirls when you get a chance to hang out together. i honestly think it's the best part of being in a fandom, getting to meet other fen.
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The pink limo scenario was amazing. It reversed slowly into view in front of my lounge window, and I was able to announce that our transport had arrived... then at the airport, we could see the group of Campers pointing at the limo and (presumably) saying, wouldn't that be a perfect car to take us to Camp, and looking for the expected minibus, and then
But I'm sure you have some wonderful memories of getting together with other fans - that's the real joy of it, really. The *laughs* I've had!
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That was lovely, thank you for sharing!
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the popslash one really resonates - it wasn't my first fandom by a long shot, but it was the first one with sticking power; it was my primary fandom for many years and I still love those idiot boys no end
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I don't think anything has ever made me laugh so much as the readings of the Lava Lamp stories. I hope that somewhere, the writer of that fic has a warm feeling due to all the joy they've created over the years. Though maybe a nice warm feeling, not one like an inserted lava lamp...
And yes, popslash does have the best canon. So great.
*hearts;
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