Today's Pretentious Hairflip
| Meta | |
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| Title: | Today's Pretentious Hairflip |
| Creator: | princessofgeeks |
| Date(s): | April 18th, 2008 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Stargate SG-1, pan-fandom |
| Topic: | Fannish Drift |
| External Links: | https://princessofgeeks.dreamwidth.org/235447.html |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Today's Pretentious Hairflip is a post written by princessofgeeks in 2008.
It discusses how fandoms naturally rise and fall in popularity - calling these "lulls" - fannish drift, and staying in old fandoms.
The essay has 166 comments. The topic: "Fandoms have waves. Sooner or later, any given fan's beloved fandom will be in a lull. Why do lulls happen?" It discusses how fandoms naturally rise and fall in popularity - calling these "lulls" - fannish drift, and staying in old fandoms.
Some Topics Discussed in the Essay and in the Comments
- fannish entitlement
- fandoms going into closed canon and into a lull
- frolicking in "dead fandoms"
- saying goodbye to fandoms
- Stargate SG-1, The Sentinel, Lord of the Rings, Lotrips
- switching fandom love
Excerpts
This is my opinion, okay? Fandoms have waves. Sooner or later, any given fan's beloved fandom will be in a lull.Why do lulls happen? Many reasons. One or more of these, I have seen: The canon will close, a newer shinier fandom will suck good writers and enthusiastic feedbackers away, a BNF will change fandoms and take her entourage with her, a beloved character will get killed off or leave the show and that character's writers will lose interest or banish themselves out of anger, a spinoff series will suck good writers and enthusiastic feedbackers away, the series will deteriorate in quality to the point that even its most diehard fans wish it were cancelled.
It will happen to you, too. Eventually.
But I respectfully disagree when people solemnly declare fandoms dead. Fandoms may experience lulls, when the quantity of fic shrinks, but they don't die, in my experience. And when fandoms have lulls, people say things that I personally do not want to hear. This is very thin-skinned of me, I know.
My first online fandom was "Lord of the Rings." I came into slash on the excitement of the second movie, "The Two Towers," in 2003, after having been a book fan since the 1970s. I wrote FPS, and when I discovered Real Person Slash about the LOTR actors, I dove into that fandom and never looked back. ("My Experience with Actor Slash" is another post for a different day; we can have that meta too if you want. No, I had no idea what I was getting into and didn't think about the RPS Issues first. I was reckless and enthusiastic and full of lust.)
I was in that fandom in the, I believe, early stages of the third distinct wave of Lotrips writers. People were declaring it dead even as I was just hitting my stride. But see: It wasn't dead. A fandom feels dead when YOU lose interest. But it's not dead.
And furthermore: As a writer, I have feelings. I try to keep a thick skin, and keep my opinions to myself, but sometimes it's hard. It makes me all squirmy and mute when a fandom has a lull and people start to complain that there aren't any good fic in their fandom any more, or whine about how nobody's posting.
I'm doing the best I can, okay? I'm still writing. I'm writing as fast as I can, I have lots of ideas for SG-1, and this fandom is far from dead to me.
Also, when people post in order to nag people to write more, to post more, it makes me feel inadequate. I AM writing. I AM posting. Is what I'm doing not enough? I've written about 50 stories in this fandom; does no one reread? Am I the only one who rereads? And it's not about feedback, to me, either. I feel blessed by the feedback I get. It's amazing and generous and I'm always overwhelmed to see it.
But when people post in a way that I receive as complaining? That's hard for me. Really hard. I try not to rant, but here goes: Fic are not potato chips. They aren't precious one-of-a-kind creations by a French chef at a five-star restaurant in Paris, either, but they are somewhere in between. They are not products. They are not junk food.
SG-1 is in a lull. This is not 2000. Yes, some of the giants, the goddesses, the Promethean talents of SG-1 have written their body of work and gone on to other fandoms. It is ever thus. But new writers are coming in all the time, and several of the writers who are posting now are the equal of anyone who ever wrote this pairing, imho. And those awesome goddesses of SG-1 past have posted their stories where we can still read them. And if their sites are down, you can still quietly find their fic. And many of them are still around, in a fandom next door, and there is not a writer who doesn't appreciate a comment or an email noticing her old fic in an old fandom, and saying, hey, you are still being read and rec'd, and thank you for what you did, back in the day. Really. Writers love that. I know this from experience. Occasionally I still get feedback on "American Football," a Lotrips AU, and it makes me so fucking happy. I got a comment a couple of weeks ago on a story I wrote for Christmas 2005! That was so great!So I guess prefer to keep my glass half full, thank you very much.
However, if what you love most about fandom is the excitement of seeing fresh episodes or new canon, and talking to other fangirls about that, which is also a great and fun thing to do, then yes. SG-1 is pretty dead for you. You will move on, if you haven't already, to a series that has not been cancelled. And that is fine! But it doesn't mean that the people who still love closed canons aren't still having a good time. Or, you might find you have written all you want to write or have said all you have to say about a certain pairing or fandom, and you're done. That is also how it is, and how it ever will be. Some people keep an OTP or a single fandom their entire life. Some eventually do move on. There is no controlling this. At all.
So anyway. My fandom is not dead; it is in a lull. My squee is undiminished.
Excerpts from the Comments
batdina: Well, I for one am a re-reader. The things I print out are well loved and show signs of having been fondled often. This probably comes from my migration from dead tree fandom. I have zines that look like they've been around for 20+ years because they HAVE been around that long. I'm in the process of figuring out what to print out for my 72 upcoming hours off line and I'm sure I will choose things that are older than last week because I tend to do things like that. I've never quite understood the drive to be the first one to post an episode tag. Things like that make no sense to me. Anyway, this is a long winded "me too", I suppose. Though if you have any suggestions for longer things I can read for the next few days, I'm all ears. The last time you suggested a long something to me, I devoured it one Shabbat, if I'm recalling correctly.
princessofgeeks:I guess I'm just trying to point out that fandoms ebb and flow, and whining at the people who are still there, still doing what they always did, is not going to make any difference to the raw numbers of fic, if the fandom is in a lull.
It must be something about the free nature of the net, and the well organized categories of fanfic. Fic must feel like a free commodity, like an apple growing on a tree you can walk up and pick.....
lokei:The number of replies to your truly gorgeous and spot-on comments would be scary if it were not, in fact, evidence that fandom is not, in fact, dead. *wry grin*
As someone who missed pretty much all of Stargate the first time 'round and is still catching up, I am both an avid reader of things which are new to me, an avid rereader of the things I've already found to love, a somewhat petrified new poster of fic, and an avid watcher of seasons both favorites and still mostly unexplored.
So...
Huzzah for SG-1 fandom not being dead! Because it's true, it's all still new for me.
Huzzah for fandom in general not being dead, like Hornblower, which is in a lull, or any of the other fandoms I have loved and now love more quietly than usual. (Right there with you on LOTR, for instance. I don't participate in fandom much anymore but I love the canon forever and always.)
Fic are not potato chips. You can take longer to enjoy them the first time round, and they contain no calories. It's all good.
perfica: There's no way the SG fandom is dead. Since stargate_search started in 2005, we've had 687 requests and a whopping 3,584 comments left. There's 542 watches and the number continues to rise.
ivorygates:I love your meta.
SG-1 Fandom Will Never Die.
It may not be the shiny new fandom, it may not have open canon, but it will always be here, and new fans will always find it. How many years (decades) has it been since the last ep of ST:TOS? Yet the fandom for TOS is still here. The friendships and loves forged among its fans endure to this day. The fic is written, the vids and icons are made. The fandom endures.
And so will ours.
So say we all.
xylohypha:Sometimes I think that if there are even only two fans left, there's a fandom. Other times I'm sure it only takes one. *g*
For heaven's sake, there's still a Man from U.N.C.L.E. fandom busily at work at fannish stuff--and it's been decades and decades, and the DVDs are just now coming out. I think that a lot of the time when people say that a fandom has died, it has only died for them: they've lost their enthusiasm and can't seem to rekindle it--but don't really know how to deal with that, so they externalize the loss, and find things to resent about it instead of moving on.
So, yay for your glass half full, and half full of a good-sized glass is plenty enough water to drink.
Avon loves Blake (in a semi-psychotic way, mind)
et everlastingly cetera, and a wonderful thing it is, too. (That's just part of my own personal list: anyone's welcome to add or subtract as they wish.)
*Gee, now I want to go dig out my copy of Perestroika with those gorgeous Lovett illos....
...Yep. Maybe I'll dig out Blue Eyes and Blue Jeans, too. *g*
(Sometimes it's downright mind-boggling to look back on twenty-some years of reading slash and think about how much squee has gone under the bridge. Errr, well, that doesn't sound quite right. It's certainly been a fun trip, though!)
jd-junkie:"My squee is undiminished."
Hell yeah.
There are peaks and troughs in any fandom at any time.
Me? I go through peaks and troughs with writing, but my squee for this fandom is competely new and shiny and undiminished. I love Jack/Daniel, plain and simple. I love their relationship in all its various guises. I watch eps and STILL find new things to surprise and delight and challenge.
Dead? Nope.
I light a candle every day that the likes of you and paian are keeping the love alive.
The quantity of fic has reduced; a lot of writers now focus on Atlantis. But the quality of a lot of what is being written is of the highest order.
Screw what anyone else thinks.
My fandom is alive and kicking.
And thank you so much for what you do to keep it that way. :-)
*hugs*
green-grrl:Jack Loves Daniel. The End.
Amen! *smoosh* *still clinging*
Jack/Daniel is one for the ages. I mean, well, look at The Sentinel and Due South. Yeah. Old fandoms never die, just the participant lists change.
grievous-angel:I agree with everything you say there. I've said in the past just what my opinion is of fandom and the people who insist on saying that it's dead; fandoms do not die, they simply evolve into something else - they 'downsize' for want of a better phrase as they become less immediately available and as no new episodes/films are released.
And yes, you do occasionally get spin off series or a new character and you end up thinking "nooooo...". But I think part of being *in* a fandom and passsionate about a fandom is that you can criticise - you can say that series 6 of SG is nowhere near as good as series 2; it doesn't mean you don't enjoy it, it simply means that you understand that nothing can maintain such a high level - it's still enjoyable. Does that make sense?
And I feel the same with fandom writing. I have to admit I don't really read it much now, but that's more to do with the place I'm in right now, and nothing at all to do with the standard of writing; the standard remains high, but people have to find their own paths - more and more AUs because at the end of it, the joy of any fandom is finding a character and running with it.
hilarytamer:Also, when people post in order to nag people to write more, to post more, it makes me feel inadequate. I AM writing. I AM posting. Is what I'm doing not enough? I've written about 50 stories in this fandom; does no one reread? Am I the only one who rereads?
Heh. You're certainly not the only one who re-reads—at last count, I had *rummages* 1317 fics saved to my hard drive. But as someone who a) enthusiastically reads new stuff but b) isn't a writer, I'm certainly guilty of the sin of (if I'm honest) nagging a writer to write more. Interpreted in the way you suggest, that's clearly rude, not to mention counterproductive, so I'm wondering if you think there is an acceptable way for a reader to give positive feedback in this sort of fashion, i.e. specifically by telling a writer how much she enjoys her work and how much she would love it if the author were to write something new. What I'm thinking of is some sort of post or comment hoping--or even nudging an author, depending on how well the poster knows her--for more fic, rather than any sort of general post that's addressed to fandom at large which bemoans the lack of anything decent to read these day and thus either ignores the authors who are in fact currently writing in the fandom or puts pressure on them to write more!more!more! now!now!now!.
t-verano:I'm only a couple of years old in fannishness, and I guess I'm into necrophilia since TS had already been dead for years by the time I discovered it, heh. Fine with me; I guess I might someday love a current, shiny show, instead of a closed-canon "corpse", but I love that closed-canonness right now.
I really only follow TS on LJ, and I don't see the "TS is dead; there isn't enough/any good new fic being posted" faction I might see if I belonged to some of the founding lists (not that I'm complaining about missing posts like that :-)). That kind of comment just leaves me wondering if whoever said it is paying *attention* -- there are people actively writing TS now who should be classed with TS's best writers of any period of the fandom and a lot of quality fic is being posted. Not as much fic as during the most active years of TS, sure, but I think what we currently have is worth enjoying (and honoring!), and anyway -- sometimes you get what you ask for, right? People saying a fandom is dead and the writing is comatose and/or abysmal are only helping encourage that state. (Thank goodness fandom is bigger and more resilient than those attitudes!)
On the "but I don't mean it like that!" front -- I do that "please write more" thing myself; I really never thought of it being perceived as putting pressure on somebody to write, though, or being pushy. Oy! When I say stuff like that, it's just intended to mean that whenever the person *does* write more (when or even if that might be), the new fic will be eagerly welcomed, because what I've read so far of the person's writing has been wonderful. Oh, sheesh... have I been making people feel bad? I totally *know* it's not potato chips...
bluefo:Wow, there are people out there who think that this (J/D, SG-1, whatever) fandom is dead??? I'm kinda newish to the fandom, enough where I feel like a kid in a candy store. That's a funny thing with coming "late" into a fandom...I have no idea how old the stories are that I'm reading, since they're all new to me. I'm finding new (and awesomely great) fics all the time; thanks, in large part, to rec lists.
With that in mind, I am STILL squeezing over your rec list. So much new stuff for me to read! So thank you a million times over for putting that together.
I'm not a writer; just a reader. I admit to occasionally asking writers to write more. But when I do that, I view it in a "I'm a super greedy person and I LOVE reading your stuff because it's SOOO good and even if you wrote a story every hour I'd still want more because you are THAT good!" kind of way. It's one of my ways of writing a compliment. To think that it could be construed as whining and commanding and not-appreciating-your-old-work, horrifies me. What about if it's a series and you post something like, "Can't wait to read the next part!"...is that bad, too??
To think that I would EVER make any writer feel bad is so horrendous to me. I have incredible respect, admiration, and thanks for people who write, and then have the balls to post their stories for others to read. I just feel happy and thankful with what I get.
I am constantly amazed with the writing talent in this fandom. Granted, this is my first (and so far only) fandom, but still. Wow. To everyone who writes, I'd just like to say THANK YOU and GOOD JOB! You're all amazing! And whenever you feel like writing something new...or not...is fine with me!! I can definitely content myself with rereading one of the many fics I love, adore, and cherish.
redsnake05: I totally agree. No fandom is dead to you till you're finished. I write Regency slash, and there are about five of us, maybe, on LJ, and a handful of websites. But I love it, even if no one reads it. I'm still gleeful about it. Fortunately, HP more than makes up for it - I don't know how I'd cope if I was right in the middle of one of the really big ships *thanks goodness she's into rarepairs because she couldn't handle the crowds*
choclate-kree:Oh I hate that "this fandom is dying" thing. I had people telling me this about Stargate not too long ago. I'm thinking, um, ten years of seasons? Two movies? Yeah, not going to be dead anytime soon. Here, I have just found this fun new show that I mainlined in a ridiculous amount of time, and I haven't even touched most of the fic out there! And I'm bursting with a billion ideas too. I have about 5 half finished stories and a ton of bunnies as we speak!
But I think there are those out there who really do only write for the feedback rather than because they see this story in their head that has to be put out there. If someone feels they need 40 comments to write in a fandom, they aren't going to hang out when interest slows. Nd I do think there is a portion of some of these fandoms who don't really go beyond LJ for their fanfic. Like what is here is ALL that exists out there in the whole planet for a certain pairing.
One of the reasons I was told that SG1 fandom, especially the slash side of things, is dead was because all the big writers had moved on so it wasn't worth it anymore. WHAT? Because writer "X" has moved on, no one will ever write this pairing well ever again? No new author might stumble upon Jack/Daniel and go, Hey, I'll write about these guys?
I have been told I really should start reading McShep because there's more out there, I really should start watching Torchwood because there's more Jack/Ianto out there. And even though I do have some interest in that, I don't get why there are people out there that seem determined to have me not enjoy *this* show. It's weird.
So I'm happy to see all the comments here that sort of feel the same way I do about things. I know I'm not the only one rolling my eyes when someone goes on about how dead a fandom is.
siriala:I guess it depends from where you're looking at your fandom. I imagine very well that people sticking to yahoo lists must have the feeling that SG1 is indeed dead, as I still belong myself to a few JD ones that are less and less active, if not altogether dormant. The same for my first fandom, TPM, or most of the other fandoms I enjoy. Compared to what those lists were when I joined them, it might be heartbreaking for some people.
But if you look at all this from LJ, the view is so different, for some fandoms at least. SG-1 is certainly not dead, nor is DS, or HL, or TS. But I really miss some others, particularly when I compare them, and I admit I had a kind of rant not that long ago about TPM, considering that many of the wonderful authors that I loved so much when they were writing Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon now happily play somewhere else. And especially in SGA (that, as much as I've tried, I can't enjoy like I enjoy SG1 and don't feel the need to read about) and after they bypassed totally SG1. Yes, the reader is a selfish and greedy lot. And I now regret that I probably didn't give enough feedback back in the days, even if I was relearning English at that time, thanks to the writers and their slash fic, and didn't feel comfortable enough to write (badly) to those women whose work I admired. Particularly considering that the few fb I was brave enough to send brought me the best fandom friends I could wish for.
But no, I don't think a fandom can die. I'm thinking of my smallest, also one of my most beloved fandoms, Velvet Goldmine. There is maybe ten, or twenty fic written each year now (that I'm aware of at least). I like/love maybe half of them. Compared to SG1, it's negligible. But Curt and Arthur will always be my OTP. And I know that if someday SG1 stops inspiring the writers, I'll keep on rereading my favourite stories, because Daniel is not someone I can't stop loving, just like I'm always here for any good J/D fic when I find the time. Because you're right, Jack loves Daniel and it's a wonderful thing to appreciate for as long as possible.
frodosweetstuff:Totally agree. There are lulls and when these happen, it doesn't do any good to make tearful posts about how no one is around anymore. Those people should better spend the time doing something constructive rather than depress those who are still around and are working on producing more fics, pics or whatever.
I have these two things I tell myself when I find myself on the brink of publicly bemoaning the state of the fandom:
1) Don't ask what the fandon can do for you - think about what you can do for the fandom.
2) If it is to be, it is up to me.
So I sit down and write something or post recs or re-read or make a quiz or whatever. And suddenly there are lots of people eager to comment and take part and someone may leave with a plotbunny and someone else may discover an old, yet new to them writer. :)
Sam loves Frodo. And Frodo loves Sam. Forever.
elgrey:Oh! (Here via metafandom a few days late.) Had to comment though because reading this gave me such a boost. I've always felt that SG-1 is the kind of show that ought to be attracting new fans and remaining dear to the heart of old fans for pretty much forever and you've pretty much confirmed that this is the case.
I think to some outside observers who were around in the early days it looks as if the fandom is ebbing because the old groups where we dinosaur fans of the past used to gather don't get the posts they used to, but it looks to me as if the discussions have just moved to LJ and there has been lots of wonderful new blood come into the fandom who want to discuss the episodes all over again, sometimes from a completely different perspective. It's not as if it's a dead show, either. There is still more canon to come.
I don't think it's the kind of show where one 'goes off it' as such. One might fall in love with other shows *as well*, but who could ever not love the Jack and Daniel interaction that first made one a Jack-and-Daniel fan? It's still there on DVD (and much easier to watch than on Sky One with all those bally adverts).
I do think that for some people there are different eras of the show that are particularly bound up in their love for it and they might prefer the later seasons and so be more cut off from the Jack-Daniel dynamic and be more into the Daniel-Vala one, or like the early seasons but not be as enthralled by the later ones. And perhaps there are people who are invested in saying 'Those Were The Good Old Days And Their Like Shall Never Come Again' because they were enjoying the show and the fic more back then simply because that was their time of maximum enthusiasm for the show, but I think they would be amazed, if they followed up some of the recs of newer fic, at how much wonderful fic is being written right now.
Anyway, I don't actually have anything intelligent to add, except to go 'Yay! Jack and Daniel Forever!' and wave pom poms in a celebratory fashion, but I do think fandom is organic and that it should evolve and is enriched by doing so. I hate the idea of there ever not being someone watching 'The Torment of Tantalus' for the first time, or finding out that Jack and Sam are in Antarctica in 'Solitudes' or that Daniel has stepped into an AU in 'There But For The Grace of God'. There are so many amazing and surprising and devastating and beautiful moments in the show and it seems to me equally important for fandom that there should be people just discovering those and coming on line to talk about how amazing they were, as there should be the people who saw them for the first time ten years ago and still get a thrill when they think about it.
surreallis:Oh hell, people were saying the Stargate fandom was dead when I first started. And then it was apparently dead again when Jack left. And now it's dead because the series is over. And it will totally be dead after the second movie. Ten years from now I'm sure it will be ABSOLUTELY DEAD!
You know, except for all of those people still writing. Just ignore them. :)
paceous:I was just thinking (yesterday or the day before) about you saying how the writers are writing as fast as they can, or that if a writer isn't writing, she wishes she was. I must admit I was thinking that when I was complaining quietly in my mind that there's nothing to read -- but I didn't post about how nobody is writing anything, so I count that as a win. And I know there are lots of lovely fics out there that I haven't yet found, so complaining would be completely unnecessary and dumb.
I don't like it either when people say that a particular fandom is dead. It makes me feel as if my experience doesn't matter, if I was just having fun in the fandom in question.
This is a great post. Thank you. Oh, and a question: you say that "I did not know how to change fandoms, and it was an extremely hard thing to learn." So... how do you change fandoms? *g* Is there something to it that I don't know about?
princessofgeeks:I think I was just amazed that it could happen; that I could ever even WANT to change fandoms. In the middle of my LOTR and Lotrips phase, I posted about that -- pondering how a person could ever change fandoms. Because LOTR was huge for me; huge. I discovered slash and writing fic and the net community all at once. Plus LOTR was already a huge thing for me when I was, as far as I knew, a fandom of one of the books.
So coming to the end of what I wanted to write about Frodo and Sam, and then about Elijah and Sean and whomever else -- that was weird and dislocating. I clung very hard to a couple of dear friends I'd made in Lotrips then, and I was very surprised when I found I enjoyed TS and could dive into it as deeply as I'd dived into Lotrips. And then SG-1 -- I loved Jim and Blair, but I'm totally gone for the Gateverse.
So for me it was about grokking that it COULD happen, and then somehow finding something else that I could love. I investigated HP when so many fine writers from LOTR went there, but it didn't "take" for me, didn't spark anything. I read some highly rec'd terrific fic, and I love the canon, book and movie, but, nope. Not fannish about it.
Then TS did "take" for me, and I was off and running, and there was a core of terrific TS authors who also wrote SG-1 (astolat and quercus and anna in particular) and they were my bridge into SG-1.
It's still partly a mystery to me, though.
carodee: Wow, do I recognize this. It's just like The Sentinel - wash, rinse, repeat. *g* SG-1 is one of those fandoms with legs. It'll still be around for our grandkids.
hasapiens:As further evidence for it not being dead, I offer the awesome turn-out we're having for the new LIMS. Seriously, I worried that the fandom had lost its luster and that we'd have maybe 10 people show up to play, including the 3 of us organizing it. Instead, we have 50 people signed up and even more willing to play by voting. (*makes with the flirty eyes*) For comparison, the most successful LIMS I know of, lantis_lims, has 50 people in a round. I'm still in shock (and glee!) over the response.
SG-1 fandom is *so* not dead and neither is the J/D fandom. :)
mab browne:A fandom feels dead when YOU lose interest. But it's not dead.
Amen, sister. My experience was exactly yours except in 'The Sentinel'. And like you, I am was thin-skinned about seeing 'where are all the good writers?' comments two days after I (or some other writer) posted the latest magnum opus. *g* As you say, all fandoms have lulls and waves, peaks and troughs. It must be hard for fans who've seen a fandom in what they regard as the glory days, but to quote Mistress Weatherwax, any fandom is allowed to say, "I aten't dead", regardless of its appearance to some.
redbird-sgfic:LOTR, however, is still in a class by itself for me.
You never forget your first. *G* Me? Oh, um. ST:TOS. Yeah, I'm that old.
Something I've noticed is that a lot of these 'closed canons' have *new* fans coming in, thanks to DVD reissues of the series- some of them quite old. (I just totally crack up every time I see the 'cellphones' on The Sentinel. Yeow. But I'm still really fond of the series.)
And just a couple of weeks ago I had a friend (whose daughter borrowed the first two seasons of SG-1 DVDs from me) call me up and say, 'Oh, thank god you're there. We just finished S2, and I *cannot believe* the cliffhanger- I need to get S3 RIGHT NOW!'. After I stopped laughing, I said, 'sure, c'mon over'.
I actually didn't come in until S7 myself, and I'm resisting getting too involved w/SGA because I'm not ready to move on from SG-1 yet.
And? I totally recommend using a statcounter, if you have your own site. People *do* reread. I know this, because even though they (mostly) aren't leaving feedback, I see them in my site stats. And you know they didn't spend an hour on my site for the pretty pictures! It's very egoboosting. I know a couple of other writers who've seen the same thing.
[...]
I was lucky enough to find fandom in college (and to live in an area where it was possible to join fannish groups and go to conventions frequently). Hence I encountered fanfic back when it was badly copied comb-bound books with dubious editing *g*. It took me a surprisingly long time to register that it had moved onto the internet.
But yeah- I read ]]ST\\- first the *very* strange 'official' fanfic of the 70s (]]Marshak]] and ]]Culbreath]] et al), and probably the first 40-50 of the published novels plus tons of amateur stuff. And I loved ]DW and Blake's 7 and the original BSG...back when the fandoms were all brand-shiny-new. Who knew? Internet, vidders- we're living in science fiction here, and fandoms will never die. :) :) :)
[...]
Oh, I suppose it's not so terribly strange now, but I was pretty young. I'm thinking Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath's The New Voyages and the sequel and also the other two novels published around the same time, Triangle and Spock Must Die! by James Blish These were published as mass market paperbacks in the 70s and early 80s when Paramount was just starting to get realize (due to syndication) what a gold mine they had. There were a few more that I'm probably not recalling, because I found them at the library rather than getting my own copies.
The New Voyages were anthologies of fan stories, including the classic 'A Visit to a Strange Planet Revisited' (sequel to 'A Visit to A Strange Planet' which is the prototype of all the stories where the actors and characters change places). Triangle is, if not actually slash, certainly implied slash (as a rather sheltered teenager I found it baffling). Spock Must Die, despite the title was IIRC closer to canon- it was written by Blish, who did the official novelizations of all 79 episodes. It was the novelizations that I first encountered...I saw ST in syndication as a kid, but it was on at dinnertime. And my mother had very firm ideas about dinnertime. So I saw the first *half* of about a quarter of the episodes as a kid and had to resort to the novelizations to find out what happened. I don't think I saw all the episodes in their entirety until after I got out of college and lived in a place where I could get cable.
I will note that this was the infancy of TV tie-ins, and subsequently, they drew much stricter guidelines for what could and could not be published as a Star Trek novel. And even then they got some works they never expected. At this remove, I'll say that there are a lot of not-very-good ST novels out there, but I would still recommend John Ford's hilarious How Much for Just the Planet?. (I believe he was politely invited never to write another one after that, which is a pity, because it's outstanding.)
ryda wrong: *drops by just for gratuitous moment of John M. Ford fangirling*
kllangley56:Thank you for your reply (and to The Princess for jumping in as well). I guess I wasn't quite clear in *my* question, however, and I apologize for confusing you.
When I read this comment: "I read ST- first the *very* strange 'official' fanfic of the 70s (Marshak and Culbreath et al) . . . "
My curiosity was piqued at the description of "*very* strange fanfic"--and I was wondering what specifically it was you had read that caused you to describe it in that particular fashion. :-)
To be sure, Sondra and Myrna--who would deny utterly that they wrote K/S--did turn out several works that would easily pass the "slashy subtext" standard with room to spare (beginning with THE PRICE OF THE PHOENIX and its sequel, THE FATE OF THE PHOENIX).
I'm an older fan than either of you, sorry to say, so I'm no stranger to the line of professional ST novels produced beginning in the 70s, and I've been collecting fanzines for 35 years--indeed, I read the stories printed in NEW VOYAGES in their original zine publications. Now *that's* old. ;-)
But thanks again, ladies.
carron:*clinks glasses with you*
Not dead. Just resting. Fandoms never die. They thin out, lay low, pick their moments. There are those who think they speak for fandom; they bang their gavel and try to pronounce this fandom or that fandom dead and gone. The rest of us just laugh at them. Then there are those who stand at the entry doors to fandom and hit the newcomers over the head to such an extent that no one new dares try their hand at the OTP love-of-choice. Maybe because they want to be the last Big Name Standing, I don't know.
But the rest of us, the ones who love the fandom and the stories, the authors, we're still here; we read and we e-mail each other, encourage each other. Fandoms never die. If they did, there'd be no such thing as a Star Trek convention.
moonshayde:There seems to be a lot of anger or frustration in this post which I don't understand. Did something happen to set you off. [princessofgeeks]?
Fandoms go through lulls. It's a fact of life. I agree with you completely. I don't think fandoms ever die. But interests change. it doesn't mean you love the fandom any less. or the show any less. or the characters any less. Sometimes RL happens. Sometimes new shows happen. Sometimes you go where your friends go.
I don't know why people come out and claim fandom death. It just can never really happen. Maybe it's dead to one person, but perfectly alive to another. I still love Star Wars very very much, but I haven't read or written anything for it in about 8 years. Yet, that fandom still very much exists.
I find it interesting how fluid fandom is :)