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into tomorrow & the rest of our lives
I haven't done this meme in about a year, which means it's high time to resurrect it. I don't know if it has official instructions or an official name, but it basically goes: personify your fandoms as relationships and then talk about those relationships! I think it is a very apt thing to do; I was mostly fandomless, if still fannish, from roughly 2005 to 2007, which not coincidentally were the years when I was spending time and energy on a couple of lovely girlfriends. Fandoms can also be kind of like dating.
I think of these guys as my four major fandoms. There is a lot of fannish activity and enthusiasm I'm leaving out here, but I can actually mark periods of my life by these ones, no lie.
I believe I started seeing Harry Potter in very early 2001, which was also the point at which I discovered internet fandom in general. Harry Potter was a pretty awesome first fandom; it was very good about holding my hand and reassuring me that it was cool to be outside heteronormativity. It had some weird ideas about what constituted a good romantic relationship, but on the whole it treated me right, even though after Sirius died, rather than just making comforting noises and giving me tea, it encouraged my denial. Eventually it started paying attention to things I wasn't interested in, and we drifted apart; these days when I see it on the street, we still smile and say hi and talk about the good old days, but it has lots of weirdly named kids in tow and seems too invested in House politics, so I mostly just walk on by.
I met Good Omens in 2003; I never really dated it, but it was always nice to me when Harry Potter was doing something weird. It has a tendency to make high-pitched squeeing noises and is a perpetual teenager, but it's also a giant dork and a history buff and likes to listen to Queen with me, and it introduced me to its friends the Neil Gaiman books, so I'm still very fond of it even though we don't really hang out.
I was introduced to Doctor Who in, hmm, 2005 when it first got a makeover and moved into the twenty-first century (which is, after all, when everything changes); I didn't start actually seeing it on any regular basis until 2007, though, when it seduced me with the clever application of phonesex. It came with a lot of history and baggage, but to my astonishment I discovered that I really liked most of its history and baggage, and it never actually gets bored of that "bigger on the inside" joke. It has a tendency to be self-loathing, though, and I kind of dislike its friend Torchwood, because Torchwood always shows up at the parties with too much pie, talks at length about hot men while getting steadily drunker, and eventually retreats to a corner to cry unless it manages to pick up someone at the party first. I eventually realized that Doctor Who will have to get its act together before I want to spend any quality time with it again, although we've arranged to hang out at Christmas and it has promised me lots of awesome presents even though I should know better than to expect it to actually deliver by now.
And then of course at the tail end of 2008 I met due South. I'd known who it was basically forever, but I never really made the effort to say hi. I'm still in the starry-eyed honeymoon stage with it; it's unfailingly polite and screamingly funny and astonishingly hot, and it brought all its friends. It reminded me of that one time I'd hung out with Slings & Arrows back in the day, so S&A and I had some passionate makeouts and now S&A occasionally stops by the house and impresses the hell out of my parents. Due South also insisted that I hang out with Hard Core Logo, who is probably not good for me and who would really not impress my parents at all; it is fun nevertheless, in that "let's get trashed and make jokes about zombies" way, and even though whenever HCL and I hang out, it also brings along its friend Canadian RPF and makes ADORABLE FACES AT ME, I forgive it because between the two of them they also bring along a lot of really good music. Basically due South and all its buddies are made of KITTENS & RAINBOWS & OCCASIONAL DELICIOUS ANGST, and cause a hell of a lot less drama in my life than Doctor Who ever did, and I want to keep dating both due South and also possibly a lot of its buddies on the side for as long as possible.
It is now extremely important that you do this meme too! either in comments or your own journal, I am not fussed. It's entertaining and potentially informative and might even give you nostalgia for fandoms past.
I think of these guys as my four major fandoms. There is a lot of fannish activity and enthusiasm I'm leaving out here, but I can actually mark periods of my life by these ones, no lie.
I believe I started seeing Harry Potter in very early 2001, which was also the point at which I discovered internet fandom in general. Harry Potter was a pretty awesome first fandom; it was very good about holding my hand and reassuring me that it was cool to be outside heteronormativity. It had some weird ideas about what constituted a good romantic relationship, but on the whole it treated me right, even though after Sirius died, rather than just making comforting noises and giving me tea, it encouraged my denial. Eventually it started paying attention to things I wasn't interested in, and we drifted apart; these days when I see it on the street, we still smile and say hi and talk about the good old days, but it has lots of weirdly named kids in tow and seems too invested in House politics, so I mostly just walk on by.
I met Good Omens in 2003; I never really dated it, but it was always nice to me when Harry Potter was doing something weird. It has a tendency to make high-pitched squeeing noises and is a perpetual teenager, but it's also a giant dork and a history buff and likes to listen to Queen with me, and it introduced me to its friends the Neil Gaiman books, so I'm still very fond of it even though we don't really hang out.
I was introduced to Doctor Who in, hmm, 2005 when it first got a makeover and moved into the twenty-first century (which is, after all, when everything changes); I didn't start actually seeing it on any regular basis until 2007, though, when it seduced me with the clever application of phonesex. It came with a lot of history and baggage, but to my astonishment I discovered that I really liked most of its history and baggage, and it never actually gets bored of that "bigger on the inside" joke. It has a tendency to be self-loathing, though, and I kind of dislike its friend Torchwood, because Torchwood always shows up at the parties with too much pie, talks at length about hot men while getting steadily drunker, and eventually retreats to a corner to cry unless it manages to pick up someone at the party first. I eventually realized that Doctor Who will have to get its act together before I want to spend any quality time with it again, although we've arranged to hang out at Christmas and it has promised me lots of awesome presents even though I should know better than to expect it to actually deliver by now.
And then of course at the tail end of 2008 I met due South. I'd known who it was basically forever, but I never really made the effort to say hi. I'm still in the starry-eyed honeymoon stage with it; it's unfailingly polite and screamingly funny and astonishingly hot, and it brought all its friends. It reminded me of that one time I'd hung out with Slings & Arrows back in the day, so S&A and I had some passionate makeouts and now S&A occasionally stops by the house and impresses the hell out of my parents. Due South also insisted that I hang out with Hard Core Logo, who is probably not good for me and who would really not impress my parents at all; it is fun nevertheless, in that "let's get trashed and make jokes about zombies" way, and even though whenever HCL and I hang out, it also brings along its friend Canadian RPF and makes ADORABLE FACES AT ME, I forgive it because between the two of them they also bring along a lot of really good music. Basically due South and all its buddies are made of KITTENS & RAINBOWS & OCCASIONAL DELICIOUS ANGST, and cause a hell of a lot less drama in my life than Doctor Who ever did, and I want to keep dating both due South and also possibly a lot of its buddies on the side for as long as possible.
It is now extremely important that you do this meme too! either in comments or your own journal, I am not fussed. It's entertaining and potentially informative and might even give you nostalgia for fandoms past.