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hmpfThere are two new people on my friends list and I feel friendly today, so here's an official welcome post!
New friend number one is![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aprivatefox in whose journal I found this very articulate, personal explanation of furry fandom which prompted me to give him a link to my recent thoughts on fandom and fetishism which prompted him to reply this which prompted me to reply this and this and basically led to us friending each other. *g* So, welcome aprivatefox!
New friend number two is actually an old friend:frank_altpeter is a veteran German Scaper ;-) whose interests according to his user info include 'whiskey' and 'whisky', but no Farscape - I'm shocked! ;-) Nah, not really - I do realize that some people do move on, and moreover, that fandom is not as central to everybody's identity as it is to mine. Anyway, welcome to LJ and my friends list, Freddy!
And, speaking of identity and fandom... yesterdaycathexys posted some thoughts about slash, fandom, identity and activism in her LJ (which unfortunately is friends locked, so you won't be able to go there and read them, sorry). Those thoughts sparked an interesting discussion (as happens almost on a daily basis in cathexys's journal, since she is almost scarily perceptive and articulate, and so are most of the people who read her LJ, it seems), and in the course of that discussion I posted this:
>>Well, I'm not a real slasher, having only written one slash story, so slash is certainly not central to my identity per se. However, slash is a part of the larger culture of fandom in my eyes, and being a fan *is* very central to my identity. And I *would* liken being a fan almost to something like a sexual identity, although it is of course about much more than sex. (But then, if you're a homosexual to whom being homosexual is of central importance in terms of identity, chances are that it's not just about the sex, either, but also, like fandom, about community.) Maybe a cultural identity is a better way of putting it. And putting it that way, it's absolutely central to my identity. Not because I have no life, but because it describes my way of relating to people, and to fictions - and indirectly, to life. A large part of being a fan, for me, is to take fictions seriously, and appropriate them, and make something new of them. I have always 'lived' very much 'in' the books I read, and I have always, in my mind, expanded the stories, written fanfic, if you will. Fandom is a whole culture of people doing the same; people who *communicate* that way. People who speak my language. A whole culture of people to whom imagination is a crucial quality to cope with life.<<
So there. My credo. In not so perfect English, and far from the brilliance that some people in that discussion displayed, but, even rereading it today, I still like it. It still rings true. This is me.
New friend number one is
aprivatefox in whose journal I found this very articulate, personal explanation of furry fandom which prompted me to give him a link to my recent thoughts on fandom and fetishism which prompted him to reply this which prompted me to reply this and this and basically led to us friending each other. *g* So, welcome aprivatefox!New friend number two is actually an old friend:
frank_altpeter is a veteran German Scaper ;-) whose interests according to his user info include 'whiskey' and 'whisky', but no Farscape - I'm shocked! ;-) Nah, not really - I do realize that some people do move on, and moreover, that fandom is not as central to everybody's identity as it is to mine. Anyway, welcome to LJ and my friends list, Freddy!And, speaking of identity and fandom... yesterday
cathexys posted some thoughts about slash, fandom, identity and activism in her LJ (which unfortunately is friends locked, so you won't be able to go there and read them, sorry). Those thoughts sparked an interesting discussion (as happens almost on a daily basis in cathexys's journal, since she is almost scarily perceptive and articulate, and so are most of the people who read her LJ, it seems), and in the course of that discussion I posted this:>>Well, I'm not a real slasher, having only written one slash story, so slash is certainly not central to my identity per se. However, slash is a part of the larger culture of fandom in my eyes, and being a fan *is* very central to my identity. And I *would* liken being a fan almost to something like a sexual identity, although it is of course about much more than sex. (But then, if you're a homosexual to whom being homosexual is of central importance in terms of identity, chances are that it's not just about the sex, either, but also, like fandom, about community.) Maybe a cultural identity is a better way of putting it. And putting it that way, it's absolutely central to my identity. Not because I have no life, but because it describes my way of relating to people, and to fictions - and indirectly, to life. A large part of being a fan, for me, is to take fictions seriously, and appropriate them, and make something new of them. I have always 'lived' very much 'in' the books I read, and I have always, in my mind, expanded the stories, written fanfic, if you will. Fandom is a whole culture of people doing the same; people who *communicate* that way. People who speak my language. A whole culture of people to whom imagination is a crucial quality to cope with life.<<
So there. My credo. In not so perfect English, and far from the brilliance that some people in that discussion displayed, but, even rereading it today, I still like it. It still rings true. This is me.
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Well, the fic *is* a subset - both in terms of fan culture
Date: 2004-02-28 07:05 pm (UTC)Psychologically, writing comes a long way after actual reception, and since I discovered fandom, after debating the meaning of what was received. (Although of course writing and its virtual preliminary stages - what I call mindfic, the crude story material that flits through your head after you've seen or read something that pushes your fannish buttons - form part of debating that meaning.) At the most basic level fandom is living in stories, and you don't have to write your own to do that. Anybody who's lived for a year in the glow of a book (LotR in my case, 1992) knows what being a fan is; I've been a fan long before I became a writer.
On the next level there's the making sense of it and the creative aspect. And on yet another level is the community building.
Oh frell, I have to cut this short here and now. I have to go to bed, it's three a.m. again. Frell, frell, frell.
Re: Well, the fic *is* a subset - both in terms of fan culture
Date: 2004-02-28 07:52 pm (UTC)thus, i'd call myself a slash fan first, not a source text fan...
Am I a source text fan...?
Date: 2004-02-28 08:26 pm (UTC)In Highlander fandom I was a fan of one character, but not the entire source text - but I guess you could say the character could be considered the source text for me, then. But with time the community became more important. And the writing, of course. That was my first writing fandom. So, the writing was pretty central for me there as it could focus on the character I was interested in instead of the hero of the show whom I found boring.
With Star Trek (Deep Space Nine) it was the source text, pretty much. Never really found a community; and didn't read all that much fic.
With Tolkien - actually my oldest fandom - it was always the source text, and fan fiction actually makes me uncomfortable there. But the community is very important, and this is the only fandom where I'm actually part of a Real Life organisation (the German Tolkien Society).
With Harry Potter it was a character again - Sirius - or a pairing - Sirius/Remus. There, the writing, or rather the reading of fanfic is everything - I'd go so far as to say that for me the real Sirius and Remus only exist in fanfic, and the books merely served to suggest a certain pattern that could be used in fic. I'm even less attached to Harry Potter as a whole than I am to Highlander.
With Farscape, it's the whole package - the characters, the universe, the whole source text; *and* the writing, the reading, the discussing, not to mention the Save Farscape campaign! Farscape is the fandom where I've done the most fannish things, including costuming, meeting a star, and vidding.
And then, of course, there's the whole 'background noise' of being a fan... there's a lifelong fascination with space, the future, alternate realities, fantasy. There's the feeling I get when I stand in the sf section of a bookstore just looking at the books, and the feeling I get when I read about space, and the exhilaration of discovering a new idea or a new universe. All that is also part of being a fan, for me.
So, I am not just a fan, I am, specifically, an sf fan. I am also a media fan, and a budding comic fan, but there also I heavily lean towards sf and related things.
Oh, this is complicated. But I can't untangle it now.
Re: Am I a source text fan...?
Date: 2004-02-28 08:30 pm (UTC)Yes, mom. Or maybe: yes, ma'm!
Date: 2004-02-28 08:33 pm (UTC)Re: Yes, mom. Or maybe: yes, ma'm!
Date: 2004-02-28 08:34 pm (UTC)NOW GO TO BED!!!!
Well...
Date: 2004-02-28 08:36 pm (UTC)*runs*