Snowflake Challenge #2

snowflake_challenge

Challenge #2

In your own space, talk about your fannish history.

I'm not really sure where to start. My dad's love of Star Trek? My aunt's love of anything remotely geeky and need to take all her nieces and nephews on adventures? My grandma making sure my brother and I got to watch Batman (the Adam West version), Gillian's Island, X-men the Animated Series, Gargoyles, etc? My grandpa's enthusiasm for Tarzan? I shed a few tears when I inherited his entire Edgar Rice Burroughs collection.

Do I talk about the characters that shaped me? Princess Leia from Star Wars. I will always remember the way I felt the first time I saw her grab that blaster and rescued her rescuers. She had long gorgeous long hair and I wanted to be as badass as she was with gorgeous long hair. Northstar from Marvel Comics who I discovered as I was having a difficult time coming out. His take no BS attitude really helped me find confidence in voicing who I am. Michael from Queer as Folk who was geeky and gay and sometimes struggling with his confidence, but tried to be true to himself. He gave me hope because I was geeky and queer and constantly struggling with my self-confidence. There are so many more, but these are the three that first come to mind.

I started RPGing and really getting into online fandom when I was thirteen. I'm so grateful that the mods were so nice to me. My strongest memories are the few times I made missteps and they calmly took the time to explain to me how I'd made a misstep and what I could do to correct it. I did some X-men RPGS, mostly as Jubilee and Jono. I joined a Power Rangers RPG and met one of my best friends.

I wrote my first fic when I was sixteen. Roswell. Never posted. One of my English teacher critiqued it as too cliché and I moved on. The first fic I posted with in the BtVS fandom. I was also very much into Marvel and Jean-Paul/Bobby for a long time. It's been Power Rangers and MCU as my main fandoms for awhile. I adore Legends of Tomorrow and somehow last year (I read Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston) I fell into becoming a bit obsessed with Star Wars.

Do I talk about getting into Power Rangers? I started dating a woman in college who really loved Power Rangers while I was into Stargate. We attempted to share. She wasn't interested in Stargate, but then I watched Power Rangers Ninja Storm and I knew I would love this show and characters. The first show I saw as it was airing was Jungle Fury. I came to the fandom a bit late. I have vague memories of the Green with Evil saga as it aired, but that's it for early me. Thankfully I was on LJ as the time and then joined an RPG. I made friends. I watched more of the shows. I started writing fic. I introduced friends to each other. They introduced their friends to me. It's always great when you meet someone by having a friend go 'You two both like this character that few people like, you should be friends'! So lost the girlfriend, but gained a lot of great friends!

The first convention I went to was Morphicon 2. I've since discovered several nearby cons. I like to go to Motor City Con and Steel City Con. I recently started taking a few more days around a con to explore the area I'm in. This year I went to The Shedd in Chicago and Universal (Harry Potter!) in Orlando.

I joined Geek Girl Brunch (so sad it ended) a couple years ago and through that have made several local geeky friends. We get together for movie nights and food adventures. Last November I took a road trip to NYC with two friends to see the Percy Jackson musical. I'm so excited that they're getting another tour and can't wait to see it again!