Fandom Snowflake Challenge #2
Taking on the meme/challenge here.
Fandom Snowflake Challenge #2
In your own space, talk about your fannish origin story. Whether you’ve been in fandom for a while or just discovered fandom, we’d love to know how you came to fandom! Was it that one book or a TV show or movie or anime/manga or a band/song that gave you that first spark? Or a character or characters that you wanted more of but the canon material just didn’t have enough of them? Or were you introduced to fandom by someone? Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment here saying you did it.
I’ve covered that before, in most detail here, here, here, and here. Briefly, though I’d heard of the concept and even had some VERY limited exposure to it, I didn’t actually encounter fanfiction as a widespread phenomenon till 1999, at which point I pretty much immediately became swallowed up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction. (What really did it for me was the massive fic collection at the Slayer’s Fanfic Archive, defunct for many years now but still accessible in some archives.) I wrote my first non-self-insert fanfic in May of 1999, and I’ve been at it ever since.
Despite the fact that I’ve been extremely enthusiastic about various fandoms since, oh, 1967, my actual writing has been almost totally focused on Buffy. In the past 26 years I’ve done only six non-crossover stories outside the BtVS ’verse, and have maybe another six that I could write … and some of which I probably will, eventually, but it may be years yet, mainly because there are all these Buffy ideas pushing their way to the front of the line.
I attended the first two WriterCons, in 2004 and 2006, which remains the entirety of my real-life participation in fandom. Though I’ll interact online with other authors and fans, that’s a however-much-welcome sideline for me; the real fun is in the stories.
I’ve been saying for at least five years now that my continuing fanfic activity will probably dwindle and stop sometime soon. I still feel that way … but there are still stories that want to be told, so I’ll stay with it for a while yet.
