Snowflake Challenge: Day Two

[tangeriner]

Challenge #2

In your own space, talk about your fannish history.

X-Men: The Animated Series was basically my gateway into fandom. I was so into the show that I started collecting the comics at the age of 12 and then, a few years later when I got online in the mid-90s, X-Men was the first thing I searched for. Things I definitely remember finding:

- an X-Men bulletin board, where I would create the user name Tangerine
- Lori McDonald's X-Men fanfic archive, which had a handful of stories, including one Angel/Psylocke story, which was my absolute jam at the time
- explicit X-Men fanart, because of course

I eventually figured out where the fic was coming from (alt.comics.fan-fiction) and got on that newsgroup, then eventually ended up in yahoogroups, which I think hosted the comicslash mailing list. During all of this, I began writing my own fanfic in 1997, because the books didn't seem to think Angel/Psylocke was worth the level of attention I felt it deserved. Eventually, Rictor/Shatterstar caught my eye.

I started attending Dexcon, a convention for comics fanfic writers held in Toronto. The first year, I had to leave at 7 pm, because I wasn't of legal drinking age (19 in Ontario) and I wasn't legally allowed to stay in the pub. I don't think I said more than a handful of words.

I stayed in comics for a long time, writing enthusiastic but not always good fic, then a friend sidled up to me and was all, have you heard about popslash? I had not, but I was (and remain) incredibly susceptible to fannish suggestion. I was only active there (as Rhys) from 2001 to 2004, but I wrote almost 900k words (my word count as Tangerine, after 22 years, is only 860k).

What followed popslash was a period of burnout. I dabbled a bit in The Dead Zone (TV), fell back into Rictor/Shatterstar off and on, but I mostly just wrote Yuletide stories once a year. 2014 to the majority of 2017 was me crying to friends that my fannish love was dead and I would never feel it again. I still watched and read things, but the urge to create was gone.

And then I spent a week in Iceland, and suddenly, the spark came back, at the most inconvenient time. My friend I was traveling with got inundated with story ideas and fannish thoughts. I came home, finished a couple stories, filled a few bingo squares, signed up for Yuletide for the first time in three years. It hasn't really stopped since then. My primary fandom is still X-Men, though I dabble elsewhere occasionally for fic exchanges. But yeah, I love the X-Men.

Comments

[enemytosleep]

I remember getting the tiny TV Guide Xmen comics (was it TV Guide? It was a small book) and was a super fan of Rogue.

[tangeriner]

We got never got amazing things like that in Canada (that I remember). Though I remember taking a family vacation to the US, when Pizza Hut had some sort of X-Men promo running, and we went there so I could get everything lol.

Rogue was and is so amazing! Excellent choice for a fav!