Snowflake Challenge - Day Five
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?
When I was 12 I read the HP books for the first time, and then again and then again (there were 4 out at the time and I read them 4 or 5 times in quick succession). Yes, I was obsessed, and so I was actually a fan of Harry Potter before I knew the different ways fandom could exist. Not long afterwards, we got internet at home and mugglenet.com was one of the sites I frequented the most regularly (I checked and it seems to still be existing), but not too much because I already feared spoilers back then.
It's during this time period that I stumbled upon my first fanfiction ever, except I didn't actually know it was fanfiction at the time. It was presented to me by my best friend, who's not into HP any more but who used to be way crazier about it and in another manner, e.g. making me promise I would be sitting in the first row at her wedding to Daniel Radcliffe. She even had written to his fanclub to get a signed photo of him. Anyways, she also had a better internet access than I did, and found this story, but told me that it was a leaked first chapter of Book 5. I didn't like spoilers but I wanted to know so I let her read it to me, and seriously, it wasn't that good, but exciting at the same time to feel like we knew something only few others knew. Then I discovered it was not it at all, but just a fanfiction, and developed a great distrust towards the idea of fanfiction itself.
The next run-in with fanfiction I had was a few years later, but this time it was a Buffy thing. I was a big Buffy fan the same way I was a big HP fan in my youth, and in one of the magazines I bought they recommended Buffy websites to check out, and one of them was a fan-written 8th season. I checked it out, this time knowing full well it was fanfiction, but I found it so bad that I just gave up on fanfiction as a whole at that point.
It was only in 2009 that I actually read my first fanfiction that I liked, and that made me want to read more. I'd stumbled onto the Deniz/Roman in Alles Was Zählt on youtube and after devouring all of it, I wanted more and checked out the profiles of the girls that posted the videos. There was Deniz/Roman fanfiction there, and I read it all, but I still wanted more. Which is why, when I noticed that one of them had Harry Potter fanfiction to her name too, I thought I would give it a try. I had never thought of Harry/Draco as a pairing, but has always been a fan of Draco and not a great supporter of Harry/Ginny (back when I first read the books I really wanted Harry to be single in the end the way Luke Skywalker was single in the end of Star Wars, don't ask me why) so I checked it out and just...fell in love. With H/D (of which I devoured pretty much all the fanfiction I could find) and with the wider fandom I discovered after that on LJ.
It took me until January 2011 to stop lurking (but still lurking at the same time), and here I am now, four years later. This feels surreal because it feels like it was ages ago, but also like no time has passed at all.
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?
When I was 12 I read the HP books for the first time, and then again and then again (there were 4 out at the time and I read them 4 or 5 times in quick succession). Yes, I was obsessed, and so I was actually a fan of Harry Potter before I knew the different ways fandom could exist. Not long afterwards, we got internet at home and mugglenet.com was one of the sites I frequented the most regularly (I checked and it seems to still be existing), but not too much because I already feared spoilers back then.
It's during this time period that I stumbled upon my first fanfiction ever, except I didn't actually know it was fanfiction at the time. It was presented to me by my best friend, who's not into HP any more but who used to be way crazier about it and in another manner, e.g. making me promise I would be sitting in the first row at her wedding to Daniel Radcliffe. She even had written to his fanclub to get a signed photo of him. Anyways, she also had a better internet access than I did, and found this story, but told me that it was a leaked first chapter of Book 5. I didn't like spoilers but I wanted to know so I let her read it to me, and seriously, it wasn't that good, but exciting at the same time to feel like we knew something only few others knew. Then I discovered it was not it at all, but just a fanfiction, and developed a great distrust towards the idea of fanfiction itself.
The next run-in with fanfiction I had was a few years later, but this time it was a Buffy thing. I was a big Buffy fan the same way I was a big HP fan in my youth, and in one of the magazines I bought they recommended Buffy websites to check out, and one of them was a fan-written 8th season. I checked it out, this time knowing full well it was fanfiction, but I found it so bad that I just gave up on fanfiction as a whole at that point.
It was only in 2009 that I actually read my first fanfiction that I liked, and that made me want to read more. I'd stumbled onto the Deniz/Roman in Alles Was Zählt on youtube and after devouring all of it, I wanted more and checked out the profiles of the girls that posted the videos. There was Deniz/Roman fanfiction there, and I read it all, but I still wanted more. Which is why, when I noticed that one of them had Harry Potter fanfiction to her name too, I thought I would give it a try. I had never thought of Harry/Draco as a pairing, but has always been a fan of Draco and not a great supporter of Harry/Ginny (back when I first read the books I really wanted Harry to be single in the end the way Luke Skywalker was single in the end of Star Wars, don't ask me why) so I checked it out and just...fell in love. With H/D (of which I devoured pretty much all the fanfiction I could find) and with the wider fandom I discovered after that on LJ.
It took me until January 2011 to stop lurking (but still lurking at the same time), and here I am now, four years later. This feels surreal because it feels like it was ages ago, but also like no time has passed at all.