Fannish Drift

[jadesfire]

With Dreamwidth rapidly hurtling towards reality, I've been doing a lot of mulling (read: staring out of the window chewing a pencil) about the way I thought I'd use my LJ and the way I actually do.

Since that bit's of no interest to anyone but me, I've also been thinking about Fannish Drift as a phenomomonemon*. I came to LJ for House-fic, stayed for Torchwood/Doctor Who/Jack, got hooked, lined and sinkered by SGA and am now watching my flist diversify into Merlin, Leverage, Psych, Due South and all kinds of other shows. Fortunately, my flist is based not only on shared fandom interests, but actually getting on with people - if you've friended me and I haven't friended you back, it's not because I don't like you or find your journal offensive or not worth looking or anything, it's because I don't feel I know you yet. Well, at the moment it's more likely to be because I have enough flist-neglect-guilt as it is and can't take any more, but not knowing people is the other reason.

But it's at times like these that I'm relieved my flist is as much personal as it is fannish, because else I'd be left sort of standing in the corner, shuffling my feet and watching everyone else wander off. I've been trying to throw myself into Criminal Minds¹, and am partially succeeding, but it's a heavily slash-based fandom and I'm still a gen-ficcer at heart. Not that people are friendly or hostile or anything like that about gen. They're just not interested, which again, is fine, but leaves me without people to engage with fully in the fandom. I'm still trying to seek out the gen-coterie that I'm sure is out there somewhere², but that's going to take a while.

I'm going to have a look at Merlin at some point, but again, the fandom seems to be all-slash, all the time. I'm also toying with Numb3rs (2 seasons down, 2.5 to go), and Supernatural (6 episodes in - no detailed spoilers, please!), but I'm not used to being multi-fannish. That's probably why the writing's dried up; it's hard to focus on one show when you're watching 3 others. In a slight breaking of the meme rules, I can tell you that five of them are SGA, two are Criminal Minds, one is Torchwood and one is a CM/Numb3rs crossover. Juggling these, plus my own ficverse is just not possibly for my distracted little brain.

There may have been a point to this post at the beginning, but I think where I've ended up is actually where I started: gratitude that my flist sticks around despite fannish divergence. I'm going to add to that generalised frustration that I can't seem to focus on one thing at the moment, but maybe that's what I need right now. When things in Torchwood started getting drama-prone, I retreated to my flist, and I did the same in SGA. Criminal Minds seems too sensible for that, but I'm not ruling it out. But at the end of the day, this is where I come home to, and I love having a space where my whole fandom is at my disposal with one click

Judging by this report, I'm not the only one to view LJ this way. If you haven't seen it already, it makes fascinating reading, even if you do want to keep going "well, duh". I have to keep reminding myself that it's for people who don't necessarily use LJ!

¹On the off-chance that a bau_inbox mod clicked the cut, no linky thanks :)

²Hell, I can write Torchwood gen. I'm sure I can find it in Criminal Minds.

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*Like Nanny Ogg, I know how to begin spelling things, I just have trouble knowing where to stop

Comments

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

I find that you can take the girl out of a fandom but you can never take the fandom out of the girl. I started in Harry Potter fandom, made my home in House, and have dabbled in a few others. I still find myself reccing HP fics, and writing 24 fic every couple of years *g*, and yeah. This LJ started out about fandom, but really it is about the friends made over the years. (I'm on this journal more than my other LJ, for sure.)

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

Heh, that's definitely true. It gets into your blood, or something like that :)