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Sunshine Revival Challenge #7
Jul. 27th, 2025 01:23 pmThe Ferris Wheel
Journaling: Life in fandom goes through ups and downs. Reminisce about the "wild ride" of your time in fandom or in other online communities.
I was writing fan fiction in creative writing classes in primary school in the 90s before we even had Internet access... then a chance moment on a forum in 2004 lead me to fanfiction.net, which in turn lead me to LiveJournal, and the rest, as they say, is history.
I did write Harry Potter fic in high school, though you won't see me touching that with a 20 foot pole anymore. And to be honest, I was only ever a casual fan and involved as the books were coming out, and once there was no more source material, I didn't really have any reason to stay in the fandom.
Actually, that was often the case for me, I'd get super into something for a short amount of time, visit the fandom briefly, and then drop it as soon as I wasn't interested anymore. Off the top of my head, I think I wrote a couple of Stargate SG-1 fics, because I binged the first four or five seasons, then I had to go home for a couple of weeks and didn't have access to my friend who was loaning me the DVD box sets, and then by the time I got back to uni, I was like, "Nah, I'm good."
My main fandoms were Doctor Who and Disney, and that's still the case insofar as I still participate in fandom. I lost touch with fic writing for a literal decade, then suddenly watched Tangled the Series in 2023 and got back into writing briefly... But again, once I had watched the series once, I had no particular desire to rewatch it and continue engaging with fannish stuff... the movie will have my heart always, but the series is... okay. It had a lot of promise, but it didn't live up to it. Anyway, that's a rant for another day.
I became more engaged with Doctor Who again with the most recent series and wanted to participate in fandom a bit more, but Tumblr seemed the most likely place for it, and Tumblr can be a weird space... I had to step back after reactions to the finale, when there was so much stuff like "Russel T Davies needs to DIE" and yeah, it was probably just hyperbole borne from frustration (I was also left frustrated with the finale few episodes) but it also felt kind of like they meant it.
My main "fannish" (for want of a better word) pursuit these days is generally reading and blogging, but the bookish community, at least on Insta/Threads, is a bit of a hot mess.
- Both readers and authors are entitled in so many ways.
- If you're not reading the latest releases, you don't get a lot of traction (and I am never reading the newest releases, a. because I have always been behind, and b. currently romantasy is the big thing, and while I love a fantasy with a solid romantic subplot, a fantasy setting with a romance plot is not my thing).
- Pirating and generative-AI are big things now. I guess it's always been there but now you have people commenting on an author's post promoting their book asking where they can get a free PDF, and I feel like no one was so brazen about it before.
- There's been this whole thing where two serial-numbers-filed-off Dramione fics were published on the same day. Not an issue on its own, but basically the whole marketing plan has been pushing the Dramione angle. A lot of people have been talking about how weird it is that they leaned so hard into the fic angle when this has never been how it's done before (yes, we know 50 Shades was a Twilight fic, and we know that Ali Hazelwood's early books started out as Reylo fics, but that was never pushed in the marketing of the original versions). Plenty of trans people have been asking readers not to engage, as it's keeping the HP franchise relevant, and the authors are pushing some stuff about "fanfiction can be an act of resistance" but... they are both cis women, writing heteronormative relationships... not exactly a reclamation of anything much. Anyway, it's been a whole thing.
So mostly, I just read my books and post on my review blog, and enjoy the likes that I get on any photos I post. Threads' algorithm is so weird, I have basically stopped posting there because I always get people giving weird responses.
Anyway. This post probably ended up a big more negative than I intended, but it's an honest take on the scene (from my POV) at the moment, too.
Journaling: Life in fandom goes through ups and downs. Reminisce about the "wild ride" of your time in fandom or in other online communities.
I was writing fan fiction in creative writing classes in primary school in the 90s before we even had Internet access... then a chance moment on a forum in 2004 lead me to fanfiction.net, which in turn lead me to LiveJournal, and the rest, as they say, is history.
I did write Harry Potter fic in high school, though you won't see me touching that with a 20 foot pole anymore. And to be honest, I was only ever a casual fan and involved as the books were coming out, and once there was no more source material, I didn't really have any reason to stay in the fandom.
Actually, that was often the case for me, I'd get super into something for a short amount of time, visit the fandom briefly, and then drop it as soon as I wasn't interested anymore. Off the top of my head, I think I wrote a couple of Stargate SG-1 fics, because I binged the first four or five seasons, then I had to go home for a couple of weeks and didn't have access to my friend who was loaning me the DVD box sets, and then by the time I got back to uni, I was like, "Nah, I'm good."
My main fandoms were Doctor Who and Disney, and that's still the case insofar as I still participate in fandom. I lost touch with fic writing for a literal decade, then suddenly watched Tangled the Series in 2023 and got back into writing briefly... But again, once I had watched the series once, I had no particular desire to rewatch it and continue engaging with fannish stuff... the movie will have my heart always, but the series is... okay. It had a lot of promise, but it didn't live up to it. Anyway, that's a rant for another day.
I became more engaged with Doctor Who again with the most recent series and wanted to participate in fandom a bit more, but Tumblr seemed the most likely place for it, and Tumblr can be a weird space... I had to step back after reactions to the finale, when there was so much stuff like "Russel T Davies needs to DIE" and yeah, it was probably just hyperbole borne from frustration (I was also left frustrated with the finale few episodes) but it also felt kind of like they meant it.
My main "fannish" (for want of a better word) pursuit these days is generally reading and blogging, but the bookish community, at least on Insta/Threads, is a bit of a hot mess.
- Both readers and authors are entitled in so many ways.
- If you're not reading the latest releases, you don't get a lot of traction (and I am never reading the newest releases, a. because I have always been behind, and b. currently romantasy is the big thing, and while I love a fantasy with a solid romantic subplot, a fantasy setting with a romance plot is not my thing).
- Pirating and generative-AI are big things now. I guess it's always been there but now you have people commenting on an author's post promoting their book asking where they can get a free PDF, and I feel like no one was so brazen about it before.
- There's been this whole thing where two serial-numbers-filed-off Dramione fics were published on the same day. Not an issue on its own, but basically the whole marketing plan has been pushing the Dramione angle. A lot of people have been talking about how weird it is that they leaned so hard into the fic angle when this has never been how it's done before (yes, we know 50 Shades was a Twilight fic, and we know that Ali Hazelwood's early books started out as Reylo fics, but that was never pushed in the marketing of the original versions). Plenty of trans people have been asking readers not to engage, as it's keeping the HP franchise relevant, and the authors are pushing some stuff about "fanfiction can be an act of resistance" but... they are both cis women, writing heteronormative relationships... not exactly a reclamation of anything much. Anyway, it's been a whole thing.
So mostly, I just read my books and post on my review blog, and enjoy the likes that I get on any photos I post. Threads' algorithm is so weird, I have basically stopped posting there because I always get people giving weird responses.
Anyway. This post probably ended up a big more negative than I intended, but it's an honest take on the scene (from my POV) at the moment, too.
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