Snowflake Challenge -- Day 5

[la_samtyr]

Day 5

In your own space, talk about your fannish origin story. How did you come to fandom, why did you choose your fannish name, do you have more than one secret identity? Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Under the cut because you should know how I tend to ramble on at times.

I suppose my love of fandom started back when I was just a kid and I had read "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" for the first time. Interestingly, I was told by my favorite cousin -- who had also been the one to give me the books -- to read "The Hobbit" first because it set up the larger world of LoTR. So I spent a glorious summer reading about Middle Earth and I was hooked. (The Silmarillion was far in the future and yet to be published.)

That fall, I started watching a *brand new* tv show called Star Trek (in the days before it became known as TOS.) I also read a lot of comic books and I devoured anything that had 'myth' as part of the story.

I knew there was a larger world that had people who were like me (aka: females who enjoyed elves and scifi and all sorts of 'less girly' things) but I had no way of knowing how to find them, let alone *where*. Back then you had to know other people in order to find any entrance into fandom and I just didn't know how to find people like that -- I only knew they didn't live in the middle of F'n Nowhere like me.

SO... fast forward or few years (ok, decades.)

Of course, there were movies I saw and adored at this time, notably the original 'Star Wars' trilogy and 'Blade Runner' to name but a few. Mostly movies based on King Arthur but there was one called 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' which featured two "new-to-me" actors named Morgan Freeman and Alan Rickman. I believe you may have heard of them, yes? :)

In the mid-90's I finally discovered "The X-Files" and since I now had limited internet access, I slowly began learning about the wider world of fandom and fanfic. I began to write and meet people online through fan sites. (Oddly enough, I didn't access FFN until much later but I'm getting ahead of myself.)

I really enjoyed "XF" -- right up until the first movie and after Season 6. Then it slowly began to tank and I just lost heart and only followed a few of the fan writers. But the way the show was being handled broke my heart and I swore I'd never get so caught up in a tv series again. (It's also a big part of why I never followed my XF friends over to SPN.)

It was also about this time that my mom became critically ill (cancer) and caring for her took up nearly all of my time from then until she passed on in 2004. I'd guesstimate that 90% of any/all fannish activity came to a standstill then.

I did see the first LoTR movies and I've written elsewhere about my first viewing of "Fellowship." I also saw PoTC 1 as well because pirates. So you might say that though I was aware of the movies, I wasn't in the fandom. I wasn't in any specific fandom, really. (Though I also had the misfortune to see the 'new' Star Wars movie and Lucas managed to do what I had thought impossible -- he turned me violently against not just that film but any new SW works that might show up. I've never seen the other two and don't plan to either. And the next three that are being promised... no, thank you.)

2006. Brokeback Mountain. Heath. I've already posted a ton about them but if you want to know more either look back to that year or ask.

Finally, in 2008/9, I returned to what I had loved first: LoTR and I've stayed with it ever since. Since 2012 I have been slightly drawn into MCU (courtesy of one Norse trickster god) but I still consider Tolkien as my main fandom.

Interestingly, I never was very into FFN although I did manage to find some of my favorite writers through it -- who were also archived elsewhere.

My name is due to a typo I made once and I decided to keep it. Most of my work can be found under this name (or some variant thereof) or (since 2011) Alquien, which I use mainly for my Tolkien work.

Comments

[elfscribe5.livejournal.com]

Always love hearing how people got into the fandom community. I was a Tolkien fan way back when from the time I was 13 and had read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and then found a group of like-minded folks in my junior high Tolkien Society. It never occurred to me to write stories with his characters myself or that there was a whole on-line community until I saw The Fellowship of the Ring and became enamored of a certain blond elf. Fall of 2002 I happened to do a search on Legolas and hit The Library of Moria. That was the beginning of a magnificent obsession and discovery of a whole community of lovely people on-line.

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

I wish there had been some sort of book club, let alone one about Tolkien when I was in school but there wasn't. (I live --still!-- in a very small town and the school had K-12 all under one roof, so to speak.) I was very much an outsider in that respect.

Strangely enough, there weren't any clubs like that at university either, at least none that I ever heard about. There were no serious studies about Tolkien either then, or maybe they were just starting. I know it would have made a world of difference had I known I could actually do grad work about Tolkien.

[gilli-ann.livejournal.com]

Interesting fannish story! Like you my fannishness started early and one of my first big crushes was LotR. And I see that through the years we've shared two more fandoms: X-files and Brokeback. :)

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember you from BbM -- I'm afraid I lost track of a lot of people from back then.

I didn't know you were in X-Files though. That's really cool. :) What are your favorite eps from XF, if you don't mind my asking.

Btw. is that a Merlin icon? I adored that show too but I didn't see much of it because that was about the time I had to decide (well, my budget decided) to either have cable tv or internet. You can see what I decided. :)

[gilli-ann.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is a Merlin icon. Merlin's been my main fandom for the last four (!) years.

I was completely hooked on the x-files for the first four seasons, but that was before I had internet access and so I was a one-person fandom all to myself.... I would be hard pressed to mention specific favourite episodes now, but I can say that in the earlier seasons I was at the edge of my seat during the show mythology episodes, with the clues about Mulder's sister etc. In the later seasons I was happy when an episode featured a 'monster of the week' and avoided the mythology (which really became increasingly boring, repetitive and was going no-where).

[keiliss.livejournal.com]

*But the way the show was being handled broke my heart and I swore I'd never get so caught up in a tv series again. * Oh gods, yesssss! By the end of season 2 I had organised my life around being free at 9pm on Fridays, I would even record episodes to rewatch. Then in season 5 there was the sense that they weren't knocking themselves out (which I blamed on the movie being front of mind over there), but by 7 I was watching because it was there and I was hoping against hope that somehow the magic would come back. And I have never let a tv series suck me in like that since. I watch stuff, it's nice, but my emotions aren't engaged. Been there, been burnt!

Wow, did not mean for that rant to happen, LOL! Sorry. Some introduction. Guess I need to say thank you for adding me, have reciprocated, and move quietly along.

Oh yes - hi *g*

[samtyr.livejournal.com]

Hi! Glad to see you here. :)

I didn't know that our Xfiles experiences were so similar. Wow. Most of my favorites are from the first 3-4 seasons, when they still had *good* writers. I've actually bought a few eps from iTunes: Humbug, Clyde Bruckman, Jose Chung... I suppose I will eventually buy a few more but I don't think I'll bother getting any box sets. I have too many other places for my $$, lol!