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Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 12
Continuing the meme/challenge begun and tracked here.
Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 12
What makes you fannish? And by that we mean, what is it about a TV show/
In your own space, tell us what it is that gets you to cross that line into fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
The answer on this one is very simple, and just as short: I don’t know.
I’ve written in a few fandoms, but I’ve had only one utterly possess me: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Or I suppose I should say the Buffyverse itself, since I’ve done BtVS stories that didn’t include main Buffy characters at all, or stories from Angel: the Series … different show, same ’verse.)
That isn’t the only time I’ve ever written fanfic, though, or the only time I’ve ever been ‘possessed’. I’ve loved fandoms, loved them a lot; I got bit hard by the Marvel comics bug in 1967, and it took something like twenty-
Even more recently, I’ve followed certain fandoms closely. That has become easier with the advent of the Internet; back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, you had to watch a TV show to be a die-
I liked Alias. (Not as good as Buffy, but good enough to enjoy.) I loved Lost (though the show writers managed to burn that out of me, sure enough!). Heck, I’ve said more than once that Smallville could have taken me over the way Buffy did, if my allegiance hadn’t already been set. (And, years after it ended, I’m finally working my way through the last couple of seasons. Folks, they did a lot of things right. Of course, some of that they managed by following what had worked on Buffy, or by using the memory of Buffy to stimulate their imaginations regarding what could be done with an established canon.) For that matter, the first season of Veronica Mars grabbed me solid … and isn’t it a shame that subsequent seasons, better than most of the rest of what was on television, should be so disappointing simply by not being able to measure up to that intro?
Watching, though, isn’t the same. Liking isn’t the same. Loving it isn’t the same. When I look at the place Buffy assumed in my life … well, I’ll say it again: only Smallville might have been able to do the same. Except it never did. Some of what I’m seeing in the Marvel movie universe (especially the Avengers and Captain America material) … yeah, maybe. But, again, it hasn’t happened.
I’ve enjoyed, and followed, and been loyal to, and loved, many characters and many creations. I was haunted for years by the picture of Sarah Connor presented in Terminator II (and may yet write out my version of what Terminator III should have been). But the dividing line between “I love this” and “I have to write in this!” — that’s a different matter. It requires more. It require something special.
Unless something else AS special ever comes along … for me, it requires Buffy.
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Gabrielle
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Maybe Buffy caught me at precisely the right moment, and nothing else ever took hold in the same way because that hold was already there. Maybe I would have become an impassioned Smallville fanatic if I’d just never thought to follow some little cult show on a network that no longer exists.
It’s entirely possible. Not even unlikely. But that’s a what-if, and what happened instead is an IS. I am where I am, and I’ve stayed there since 1999. (Following Buffy since the first episode, of course, but never knew how much a fan I had become till I discovered fanfic — and online fandom — themselves.)
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