katewrites (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
katewrites) wrote2011-06-22 09:03 am
katewrites) wrote2011-06-22 09:03 am
(no subject)
I'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.
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.