Discussion Post: Making A Fan

[amalnahurriyeh]

This is a continuation of the previous discussion post...

So let's say your campaign has worked; now your friend is superexcited, can recite the entire lite cream cheese speech, has favorite episodes, has put the 2AM reruns on Syfy (or local equivalent) on hir TiVo (or local equivalent). And now you want to try for the big leagues...you want to bring hir into fandom. Like, full-on membership: belonging to CAPSLOCK communities, obsessively collecting icons for every mood, joining multifandom RPGs, ship-manifesto-writing, fic-writing, vid-making, squeeful-excess fandom.

Where do you start? With particularly artistically perfect fanworks? A soft intro with an LJ and a membership in some nonthreatening comms (like xfiles or a rewatch comm)? A whole bunch of crackfic or crackvids to burn the mind into submission?

Highbrow or lowbrow? Softball or hardball? How do you make a fangirl (or boy, or none-of-the-above)?

(PSST DON'T FORGET: SQUEEFEST ON WEDNESDAY!)

Comments

[red_eft]

I am looking forward to these answers, because I'm currently watching the X-files all the way through for the first time with a fannish lens (mid way through s3!) and have no idea where the fandom's at (other than, you know, here) *g*

[amalnahurriyeh]

OH HO HO

*MR BURNS HANDS* EEEEEEEEEXCELLENT.

For someone who already groks fandom, my recommendations would be different, so...what sort of things are you into/do you do? There's a divide of reasonable size between MSR folks and others in terms of where they hang/how they socialize, and I know the MSR and Scullyist communities better than I know the others, but still. LET US DIRECT YOU TO OUR CRACK VENDING MACHINES.

[red_eft]

:D
Hrm, I sort of like everything! Ficwise I am a slasher at heart, but I'm also digging the Mulder/Scully vibe, and I could go for some casefic as well, with or without shippishness. (And, you know, eventually I suspect I will need fixit fic for the latter seasons) I don't know what a Scullyist is, but I think Scully is super awesome?

[amalnahurriyeh]

*rubs hands in glee*

Oooooohkay. Let's do this as LJ and non-LJ editions. I know of two widely used discussion boards: Haven and TWoP, both of which are pretty active. I'd say that if you aren't a die-hard shipper, and if you are in the least picky about the quality of your fic, Haven is not for you; I generally find the threads on there not particularly interesting. TWoP is a little more general. The major archive for the whole fandom is Gossamer, where most writers store their fic. (Some lazy asses, like yours truly, have yet to do this.) Most fic goes through Ephemeral before it gets on Gossamer, so that's where the newest stuff is. And the major slash archive is DITB.

As for LJ: I think you might share fic taste with wendelah1 (I think she just imported her LJ to DW, but it might be easier to find recs on LJ). She's a noromo but reads and appreciates well done MSR and other sorts of fic. She also runs a really fantastic comm on LJ called xf_book_club, which picks out good fic and discusses them. I generally don't think going through the recs there will lead you astray. I've also been pleased with the quality of the recs at crack_van for XF. It doesn't hurt that Wendy's a frequent reccer there, also. There's a new rewatch community on LJ as well, into_the_woods. They're still in Season One. And the main place that new fic gets posted on LJ is xfilesfanfic. (Though now I realize I haven't been posting there lately. I am a bad bad fic-writer.) There's a xf_bigbang comm that's just starting a new round, and a xf_pornbattle that hasn't run in a while, but has some good stuff (especially the first two--the quality in the third one was a little lower).

As for who's written fixit fic (to bookmark for later): I know that Aloysia Virgata and Scarlet Baldy have both done good stuff (which I think is on Gossamer, or their websites might still be up--they've both taken recent fandom hiatuses). I've also written a lot of it, not to self-pimp, especially set after the second movie.

There's a lot of specialized terminology in this fandom! Probably because we are OLD. But generally folks tend to get divided into Mulderists and Scullyists, based on who they emotionally sympathise/identify with. There are actually Scullyists who detest Mulder, and Mulderists who despite Scully, but I think those folks are rarer than people whose emotional loyalties tend to lie more with one that the other, or who grok one more than the other. I'm a Mulderist, but I find that, because I hang out in a feminist corner of fandom, I'm mostly surrounded by Scullyists. Which is just fine with me, as Scully is MADE OF ALL THE AWESOME IN THE WORLD.

[amalnahurriyeh]

Bwah, and I cannot edit to fix my multiple coding fails. The bigbang comm is on LJ, not DW.

[littlegreen42]

There are actually Scullyists who detest Mulder, and Mulderists who despite Scully

I just don't get this. Why do they hate these characters? Is it because they love one of them so deeply that they can't spare any good feelings for the other? Because I just can't think of why anyone would hate Mulder or Scully. I'm a Mulderist, but I just can't see why anyone would hate Scully.

[amalnahurriyeh]

As I understand it (and here I apply my anthropologist hat), what they are is such partisans of their character that all they can see is what terrible things the other one does to them. So anti-Mulder Scullyists see Mulder as the cause of all these terrible things that happen to Scully--her abduction, her fertility, the killing of her career, Melissa, William. And anti-Scully Mulderists see Scully has a frigid bitch who can't show him the compassion and reverence he deserves.

Er. OK, so even though I'm a Mulderist, I find the anti-Mulder Scullyist position more tenable than the anti-Scully position. I don't blame Mulder, but bad shit follows him around. Whereas Scully actually pushes herself past her emotional limits to do what she can to connect with Mulder emotionally, in ways that speak to her personal strength.

I am a very strange Mulderist.

[red_eft]

:D Thank youuuuu! I am excited.

There's a lot of specialized terminology in this fandom! Probably because we are OLD. But generally folks tend to get divided into Mulderists and Scullyists, based on who they emotionally sympathise/identify with.

The terminology is fascinating to me! Mmm, fandom subcultures.
I suspect I am a Scullyist, then, although I am also fond of Mulder.

[heartequals]

Me too! I used to read fic when I was like. . .twelve and have vague memories of sites dedicated to the Jebus slug but that is about it. I'm rewatching series now and wondering about fandom too ;)

[amalnahurriyeh]

psst I made a really long comment to red_elf that I don't know if you'll get, but go check it out...

[littlegreen42]

I think it really depends on the person. For me, it was great to just jump in and spend hours reading all the fan fic I could get my hands on, no matter what genre, no matter whether it was good or bad!fic or something in between. It was just an exhilarating experience. But for someone else, this might be a little off-putting. It might be better to just ease some people into fandom.

Also, you have to take into account the different kinds of fans. For example, I'm not really what you would call a shippy person. If someone had tried to get me into fandom by showing me MSR vids, or giving me only MSR stories to read, or had a shippiest episodes marathon I might've thought, "No, this really isn't for me." Not that I don't like any of these things, they're just hardly what I find most enjoyable about fandom. Now if I were trying to get someone interested in fandom, I might take a decidedly non-shippy approach, and if this person were more inclined toward shipping, my attempts might not work.

Being a fan is such a personal thing, and everyone's different, so I don't know if there's one way to do it. Or if you even should do it -- my introduction to fandom was just so spontaneous that it might not have been as fun had someone been guiding me along.