Fandom Snowflake Challenge #13

[aadler]

Taking on the meme/challenge here.

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #13

In your own space, share a favorite memory about fandom: the first time you got into fandom, the last time a fanwork touched your heart, wild times with fellow fans (whether on-line or off-line), a lovely comment you’ve received or have left for someone. Leave a comment here saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

There have been good memories — let’s face it, I do this stuff because I enjoy it — but I would have a hard time picking out any particular moment. If we’re thinking in terms of significance, though …

“the Ballad of Charles Whitman”, by nwhepcat, may possibly have not been the first remix I ever read, but it was the first I read with the awareness that it was a remix, and it provided a slam-bang example of just what a remix story could be. I would later learn that there’s usually a substantial difference in quality between a remix and the original story from which it was done, but nwhepcat (remix author) and liz_marcs (author of the story that was remixed) were not just both good, they were pretty much equally good, and both were good at much the same things, and when I compared the remix to the original — “Revelations” — I was seeing neither a huge improvement nor a pale imitation, but two really good stories working from the same idea but approached from different directions.

This was a new experience for me, and I signed up for RemixRedux the next time it came around, then for Gen_Remix the same year, then for Buffy_Remix, and in the meantime I’d started my own Circle of Friends Remix (cof_remix) just because I enjoyed remixes so much. For several years, I was turning out as many remix stories as aadler-originals, and practically all of that derived from the first experience of seeing what a talented remixer could do with a story that was already pretty solid in its own right.

I let cof_remix wind up after its tenth year, and RemixRedux came to its own end as well, so it may be a while before I do another remix story. For a good long time, though, I had a bunch of fun with the ‘genre’, and nwhepcat’s effort clear back in 2006 was the source of it all.

Comments

[turps33.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed reading your remix memories.

I good remix is an amazing thing and it sounds like you've had a lot of fun with them over the years.

I hope you get to do another before too long, because it's obvious how much you enjoy them.

( I don't have a mod snowflake icon over here, so pretend it's there )

[aadler]

As I said, for some time I was doing more remixes than non-remixes. I’m glad to be back into more original work, but I do kind of miss the fun times from the old days.