User:Awils1
| Name/s: | Amy |
| Fandom/s: | Professional Wrestling, NCIS, Top Gear UK, Law & Order: TOS, House, M.D., Professional Wrestling, Deadliest Catch, The Office, Reaper, Batman (Nolanverse, in particular), Sherlock Holmes & Adaptions, Excluding Sherlock, The A-Team, Smallville, Glee, Miami Vice |
| You can find me at: | DW/Archive Of Our Own/StumbleUpon. |
| On Fanlore: | My contributions / email me |
Me, as a fan.
I’m rather rubbish at these sort of things; so I’ll just give the facts, mmkay? I dived head first into fandom while on an online wandering in 2002 of Harry Potter fansites; specifically MuggleNet. I had discovered a fic called Snape Summer or something thereof. Of course, while waiting eagerly for the fifth book, I was hooked on the idea of ‘expanding a source material’, as the academics among us put it.
Then, a few million clicks later (but that was still a relatively short time in RL), I found LJ, in all its glory. Fic, fanart, icons, pics (no vids, of course—I was on dial-up), and friendly community. I dove into anything and everything, but magically found an OTP within a few months: Draco/Ginny.
It wasn’t to last, though.
In hindsight, HP was too big for this fan. There was just so much to read, to look at, that I burnt out. I was lucky I could drop out, too. I used a pseudonym, so it was relatively easy, but I felt incredibly guilty about abandoning my f-list.
I wandered the Web looking for a home for about a year. I tried SlashDot, Usenet, but was still feeling adrift in a sea of data. From a post on SlashDot, I was informed of StumbleUpon, and rapidly joined and fell in love. Blogging there has helped me in writing better feedback and also has introduced me to the wonder that is the Web as a separate entity from fandom.
A House, M.D. marathon with a friend clawed me back in (this time as a slasher—House/Wilson), but only as a lurker. I read rather secretly, gawked to myself, and squeed to nobody, and still stubbornly refused to join LJ again. Fandom had become my secret hobby.
Clicking the Stumble! button lead me to the OTW, and my interest was most definitely piqued. I had always thought fandom needed some weight behind it. I joined as a voting member, and started volunteering; first for the Content Policy for the Archive of Our Own, then in beta testing this wiki, and finally in beta testing the Archive. I worked for AD&T and Systems creating minutes, and then was recruited for the now defunct Documentation team. I spent 2009 working on that, and branched out into Support and Tag Wrangling during that time, and now have started work as a technical liason for the Fanlore Committee.
In 2010, I was feeling rather lost fannishly -- I couldn't identify with the politics of the new Sherlock Holmes fans, and while my love for Professional Wrestling remained strong, the fandom is and was very young and immature, as a result of the targeting of the TPTB towards the under-13 market. The endless, and badly written Centon fics had no appeal for me. I wanted to see long, complex epics that featured The Miz. I did discover the wonders of zine fic, and bought several -- some great, some good, and some not so good. I do plan to add reviews of them in the future. I emphasise how lonely this existence was, but there would be hope on the horizon! The same friend who had introduced me to House had decided I must see the The A-Team movie. I fell in love with BA/Murdock this time, and the next day, did my usual fannish thing and gorged myself on fic and vids. I regret nothing! And have a fandom for 2011 :)