A potted history of my life in fandom

Ah. There's nothing like stepping back in time and revisiting an old fandom, seeing what's new, what's old, basically what's changed since you were last playing in that particular sandbox. Emily has unfortunately been the cause of all this, so you can all go and blame her.

I realised today that Sky One are still showing Stargate episodes every day at six. Accordingly, I watched the last half of Beneath The Surface this afternoon. It's a good episode; the Sam/Jack UST is rather sucky, but the rest of it is good. It's a pity they're already at season four - I would have preferred to see some of the older episodes. I wonder, shipperkitten - feel like having a Stargate evening and watching all the old ones?

Of course, Em and I will never agree on what to watch. For some as-yet-inexplicable reason, she likes Sam/Jack episodes. I like Daniel-whumpage. Therefore, the only episode we ever agree on watching is There But For The Grace Of God. I have always loved that episode; it's such a beautifully simple set up. They go the through the Stargate, yo. It's another planet. Yawn. Daniel pisses off Jack, vice versa, Daniel wanders off. Yet again. Then the mirror... and I'm still in awe of what follows. Sci-fi at its clichéd best, but it's so damn good. The rest of the arc isn't actually as good as its beginning, but even when it's not at its best, it's still good. Then, at the very end, only the slashiest moment ever. I must have watched it three thousand times, and I still all but die at the words, "Space monkey."

The other early episodes I really like are Fire and Water and The Fifth Race. Actually, more The Fifth Race. Not for any stand-out reason, simply because of all the little things - it's witty, sharp and clever, and it ends on the most wonderful, uplifting note. The dialogue still makes me laugh just thinking about it, especially as some of it reaches good-sitcom standard without once becoming out-of-character or facetious. Emily and I still seem to be able to quote the "cruvus" section at each other, like the geeks that we are. To quote myself, the geeks shall inherit the earth.

I don't think I'm going to be as fangirly as I was during my first immersion, but this is nice. And it's also nice to have the benefit of hindsight and three years' more writing/fandom experience - a couple of days ago, I asked gamesiplay to beta for me. Stargate fic, that is. The stuff I wrote three years ago and now simply cringe at. I can't believe some of the stuff I wrote. I suppose the scary thought is looking back in three years' time and cringing at myself now. I don't think I like that idea.

In any case, gamesiplay herself is also partly to blame for this. She and senza are also new inhabitants of the fandom, and hey, if the cool kids are doing it...

Now I come to think of it, I suppose all this looking back is rather appropriate. I was planning to make a post about fandom anyway, as in a few days' time, in February, I will have been in fandom for three years. Which isn't very long compared to some, I know, but it's an achievement for me, especially when you consider that those three years are nearly twenty percent of my life.

I have to say, I never thought fandom would become as much a part of my life as it has. I always knew I had an obsessive personality, but considered that to be something only I was unlucky enough to suffer from. But I can remember February, 2001, as not having been a good time. Becca and I had been friends for some time then, but we were in the middle of a prolonged - well, not argument. It never actually came to that. But it was a prolonged coldness, distance, and I don't know if my gentle readers have ever been fourteen and sans amies in an all-girls' school, but it is not a fate I would wish upon anyone. I suppose part of it was simply being fourteen, but it depressed me thoroughly at the time, made me feel like my entire self-worth was measured by the fact I didn't have anyone to sit with at lunchtime.

Coincidentally at about this time, I had begun watching a sci-fi show on Sunday afternoons on Channel Four when I didn't have anything better to do. It was because of a book I had taken out of Formby library a short while before. It was a novelisation of a film I vaguely remembered as having seen in Delhi, of all places, because it was the only English-language thing on television - Stargate. I actually didn't like it all that much, but it wasn't awful, so when I saw the words "Stargate SG-1" in the Sunday Times guide to television that week, I watched the programme. It was the season two episode, Spirits. If you remember it, it boasts the presence of a shape-shifter, Xe-els, whose preferred form is... wait for it... a raven.

Over the next few weeks and months, I went from a lukewarm beginning to being completely obsessed with the show. I looked stuff up on the internet randomly, I absorbed trivia like a sponge. And then, one day, discovered, a truly remarkable website - Heliopolis.

Don't click on the link. Heliopolis is sadly no longer the wonderful Stargate fanfiction archive it was then. But it took me the entire summer to work my way through the archive, and by September, I decided it was time for me to have a try. The story is still floating round somewhere - its characterisation is quite good, but in other respects it is truly awful and I wouldn't like it read now. However, I got some feedback for it, from none other than hathy_col. The story of how Colleen and I slowly realised that we were not only the same age, gender, nationality, but lived five miles apart and had at least two real-life friends in common, has already been discussed. So has the story of how the mention of "Stargate" in an instant-message conversation turned shipperkitten and I into chance acquaintances into very, very good friends. That it happened will suffice for this story.

I wrote one fic. Then two. Then more than two. I had a lot of time, because of my complete lack of social life at that time. I ignored real life - it wasn't worth writing home about in any case - and found somewhere else to play. I discovered and re-discovered a love of writing and words and fiction. I met people who were just like me, and obsessed. After a year, I moved on to other fandoms, met even more people, discovered the delights of a small fandom as opposed to a large one, I went to a con (only one as yet - SG5) and met fandom people in real life, and I even got stood on by Christopher Judge. I gave a talk to a class of hostile teenagers about the delights of fandom, and got indulgent laughter and general lack of hostility.

Now, I have friends in real life again, and have had for a long time. Some of them are fannish friends. I have friends online, too. I have another personality - Raven - as an addition to the one I had already. I am a much better writer than I was, and a much more confident person.

What more could you ask for?