(no subject)
Jun. 22nd, 2011 09:03 amI've had this weird confluence of articles recently.
thefourthvine put up a poll about whether your real life and your online life is integrated. Then I started reading Stellar Four and they had a couple of articles about when to "come out" as geeky to someone you're dating.
I was thinking about this and my response was "right from the start", at least with the geekiness. I always admit that my favorite movies are Terminator 1 &2, that I watched Firefly and currently watch Doctor Who, that Picard was my captain, but I can definitely see why Janeway rocks.
However, the fannishness not so much. I told my parents about fandom and about writing in fandom several years ago and my mom's been treating it like a stepping stone to writing original fiction since then. She's read all of my big bangs and a few of the shorter stories. I actually found out that she's been bragging to friends that I write fanfic (apparently someone else's daughter also writes fanfic).
Beyond my parents, I don't think any of my "real life" friends really know how much fandom was a part of my life. I don't know what part of fanfic pinged my "don't talk about this" button, but I have a really hard time talking about it/explaining fanfic to friends, even friends who are into different fandoms.
In college, a friend of mine mentioned that Dean and Sam were acting a lot more like life partners than brothers. I laughed and agreed, without even thinking of mentioning, "Yeah, I write stories about that."
I guess maybe one of the reasons that I don't talk about it is because the fanfic fandom that I know - nurturing and friendly and explosively creative - isn't what most people think of when we say "fanfic."
Recently, I told a friend about how after so many years doing fanfic, I'm having a hard time jumping to original writing. That the old strategies don't work as well. Which meant that I had to explain fanfic, and even as I was doing so, I said, "Don't tell anyone this..." like it was a secret. She didn't react badly, but even afterwards, I was pulling a couple of links for her and trying to find the best gen-fic out there. Like I was trying to prove that this hobby I have isn't all HP male-pregnancy underage porn.
I was thinking about this and my response was "right from the start", at least with the geekiness. I always admit that my favorite movies are Terminator 1 &2, that I watched Firefly and currently watch Doctor Who, that Picard was my captain, but I can definitely see why Janeway rocks.
However, the fannishness not so much. I told my parents about fandom and about writing in fandom several years ago and my mom's been treating it like a stepping stone to writing original fiction since then. She's read all of my big bangs and a few of the shorter stories. I actually found out that she's been bragging to friends that I write fanfic (apparently someone else's daughter also writes fanfic).
Beyond my parents, I don't think any of my "real life" friends really know how much fandom was a part of my life. I don't know what part of fanfic pinged my "don't talk about this" button, but I have a really hard time talking about it/explaining fanfic to friends, even friends who are into different fandoms.
In college, a friend of mine mentioned that Dean and Sam were acting a lot more like life partners than brothers. I laughed and agreed, without even thinking of mentioning, "Yeah, I write stories about that."
I guess maybe one of the reasons that I don't talk about it is because the fanfic fandom that I know - nurturing and friendly and explosively creative - isn't what most people think of when we say "fanfic."
Recently, I told a friend about how after so many years doing fanfic, I'm having a hard time jumping to original writing. That the old strategies don't work as well. Which meant that I had to explain fanfic, and even as I was doing so, I said, "Don't tell anyone this..." like it was a secret. She didn't react badly, but even afterwards, I was pulling a couple of links for her and trying to find the best gen-fic out there. Like I was trying to prove that this hobby I have isn't all HP male-pregnancy underage porn.