I’m honestly so envious of people who can just pack up their bags, pick some random show/movie/book that hits on some of their loves and just ‘decide’ that that will be their new fandom, that will be the new thing they like and will be super creative over. I can’t even fathom that.
I’ve always said that fandoms choose me, I don’t choose them. I never know what will get it’s lovely hooks in me, and when it happens it’s usually totally unexpected and happens very quickly. Then it’s a done thing. That’s where I live for the next 3 – 5 years. And having the fandom dissolve, or the source content go wildly sour before that 3- 5 year mark is up feels like someone ripping out stitches before a wound was fully healed. It’s actually quite painful and difficult for me.
So when people are like, “Lol, shut up, get over it, and just go be fannish and creative somewhere else!” I’m like:
Yeah I don’t choose my obsessions!
I agree.
I haven’t identified with a fannish post so hard in ages. This, this, this.
Lord knows I have tried. But sometimes, you just don’t get to control things the way you would like.
This. My first actively participatory fandom situation was Torchwood. I love Doctor Who as well – I have two Docctor Who tattoos – but I don’t really play in that sandbox as much more than an avid spectator.
Supernatural was an accident. It had been sitting in my Netflix queue for ages because I vaguely remembered seeing a few S1 eps and because people talked about it a lot, and I needed something to block out the sounds of Roommates Having Sex on a particularly stressful, sleepless night.
I tried to pick things up in the gap between them, and I always have a cluster of things I like a lot, but not everything gets into my skin.
I feel this post on a profound level.
It is 2017 and I’m writing a second fic for a fandom. This hasn’t happened since *2001.* Arguably 2000, because I think all the creative output I had then was in someone else’s sandbox. (*waves at @thessalian*)
Shit, the only three fandoms I’ve written in since that weren’t because of Yuletide* are Harry Potter, Rick and Morty, and Gravity Falls. And lord knows I’ve been active in a number of fandoms in all that time. Cosplay is my easy mode, so for me to write is MAXIMUM FANDOM PARTICIPATION for me. (That may amuse folks who remember my David Tennant Harassing Me On The Astral Plane days**.)
I never know what thing is going to be the new thing that appears in my head when I close my eyes.
*I love writing fic but I’m bad at focus and motivation. Yuletide gives me a deadline and prompts so things actually get written. **OH GOD THIS IS AN OLD AND VERY TONGUE IN CHEEK JOKE. Please take it with an entire box of salt.
Just to say, yeah, this is my fannish experience. I know it’s different for lots of people! This is just how it’s been for me.
I consume many things and love many things. But “yeah I’ve watched/read that and I LOVE it!” is not the same, for me, as experiencing the urge to be in the fandom for it, to produce content for it. (Especially art or writing.) To have it consume my thoughts, sometimes for years on end.
I can never tell when the lightning will strike next. It usually seems understandable to me in retrospect. But for me it’s always that sudden and out of the blue.
Gravity Falls marks only the 6th fandom I have ever participated in. And that’s over, *ahem*, a really long stretch of years.
(Once I’m in, 3-5 years *is* usually the amount of time that something keeps its hooks in me. It depends on the activity. The last fandom I was active in, just before GF, got a really solid 10 years out of me. And I do sometimes return to old fandoms after a break.)
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