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Again stealing things from other people's memes, I found a topic from this post about fannish growing up where the poster is asked to write about how life and age and experiences has changed his/her taste in fannish stuff.
It fascinated me enough that I have to write about it myself.
I probably have been fannish my whole life, because I remember obsessing about books and Chinese drama like Justice Bao, but the age in which I remember being fannish in a significant life-style changing way was when I was 12. That was when the wave of Japanese manga/anime started becoming prevalent in my country, probably starting with Sailor Moon. They were all pre-dubbed/translated into Chinese.
The interesting thing about being where I live is that the Taiwanese version of translations came out the fastest. That meant that I got translations in a) my mother tongue, b) with the traditional script that I wasn't as familiar with, because I grew up with the simplified form of Chinese.
That was why when I first became "fannish", I was predominantly reading and writing (!!!) in Chinese. I wrote my first fic in Chinese. I also somehow managed to overcome the barrier and actually read traditional script (when I learned simplified), which is still pretty useful now. (I don't know why I didn't extend that power to Japanese boo hoo).
Then the next stage of my life came when I started to fangirl over stuff with other people. They were mostly into yaoi, and introduced me to forums. I started to read (English) fic in awful forum and email format, which is why I'm pretty resistant to really ugly formatting. (I was broken! I can't help it!) It was also when I started to be really into Sues, including Sue-fying all my friends. (yes, we were a Sue ensemble. Sue me. *shot for bad pun*) (This was also a habit I never really grew out of.)
It was also the time for CLAMP, so I was reading a lot of shoujo, with wide-eyed pretty boys that swooned over each other and were swoooned over in turn by girls. I was pretty invested in the "seme/uke" relationships, and also, bizarrely, alternate universes where the same characters were put in different universes and locales.
A lot of this changed when I randomly became interested in Serial Experiements Lain. I can't explain what happened - I was just walking past a DVD shop, and thought it looked pretty cool. It was the first series I bought (and also happened to be pirated, though I didn't know that then). I became pretty interested in shows that were all about the ~questions of life~ and less about relationships, though the alternate universes still stayed. I think that's when I started moving away from more sparkly shows, though I don't think I wrote anything for Lain that I can recall.
I finally moved away from being only fannish about anime with the Harry Potter books. This was the other fandom that I became heavily invested in. I read anything, mostly on FF.net, though I liked the meatier, almost substitute novel fics. I was more interested in gen, and how the characters related to each other in more platonic ways, even outside of the usual friendship to venture into mentor-mentee fic (Snape-Harry, I'M LOOKING AT YOU). This also occured in my writing, though I didn't have the stamina for long stories.
Once I'd moved on to books, becoming fannish for other media was fair game. I slacked my craving for forums with the Justice League fandom. I got into the LOTR fandom, mostly with fic that kept to movie canon with huge nods to books like the Similarion and other stuff. At that time, I don't think I was writing fic, because I was in a poetry creative writing club and it took up a lot of my writing space and time. (I also thought fan poems were a really bad idea.)
Then Bleach happened, and I got into anime/manga in a huge way again. This time, it was with English translations, because I wasn't as familar with ~Chinese internet~ and the English scanlations were way faster than the actual official Chinese volumes (Which still came before the official English volumes). This was also when I was at my most prolific. I still liked to read gen, but because all the characters were so charismatic I found myself reading even romances with them. I also started to write solely romances, because Ichigo and Rukia are my forever pairing.
Writing for Bleach also made me more aware of the things that made me tick, especially as I got with a writing group that liked to question why we did things a certain way. =) I started to learn that I was really drawn to partners, and various other kinks besides. I started writing a lot in various different forms, and I think I perfected my drabble form here. I also wrote a lot of one sentence fics. With the extent I was writing/reading, I think I relaxed a lot of the previous hang-ups I had regarding lines I would draw in terms of writing. (Though in terms of reading, I was into pretty hard core stuff since I was 13 ^_^ )
There were brief flings with Transformers and Avengers as the quality of writing in Bleach became poorer, but it was still holding on as the main fandom in my life.
In hindsight, it should have been obvious that I would fall for Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It had the shoujo of my youth, the ~questions of life~ that Lain posed, and the extensive character interaction that I so craved, although it was with a tinier cast in comparison. It ate my life and demanded longer fic in worship. I also fell into becoming fannish for my first webcomic, Homestuck.
All my reading of novel-length fic finally made me ready to write a NaNo, and I actually achieved it! So here I am, writing my first novel, and it's really interesting to see how the other things all poured into it.
It fascinated me enough that I have to write about it myself.
I probably have been fannish my whole life, because I remember obsessing about books and Chinese drama like Justice Bao, but the age in which I remember being fannish in a significant life-style changing way was when I was 12. That was when the wave of Japanese manga/anime started becoming prevalent in my country, probably starting with Sailor Moon. They were all pre-dubbed/translated into Chinese.
The interesting thing about being where I live is that the Taiwanese version of translations came out the fastest. That meant that I got translations in a) my mother tongue, b) with the traditional script that I wasn't as familiar with, because I grew up with the simplified form of Chinese.
That was why when I first became "fannish", I was predominantly reading and writing (!!!) in Chinese. I wrote my first fic in Chinese. I also somehow managed to overcome the barrier and actually read traditional script (when I learned simplified), which is still pretty useful now. (I don't know why I didn't extend that power to Japanese boo hoo).
Then the next stage of my life came when I started to fangirl over stuff with other people. They were mostly into yaoi, and introduced me to forums. I started to read (English) fic in awful forum and email format, which is why I'm pretty resistant to really ugly formatting. (I was broken! I can't help it!) It was also when I started to be really into Sues, including Sue-fying all my friends. (yes, we were a Sue ensemble. Sue me. *shot for bad pun*) (This was also a habit I never really grew out of.)
It was also the time for CLAMP, so I was reading a lot of shoujo, with wide-eyed pretty boys that swooned over each other and were swoooned over in turn by girls. I was pretty invested in the "seme/uke" relationships, and also, bizarrely, alternate universes where the same characters were put in different universes and locales.
A lot of this changed when I randomly became interested in Serial Experiements Lain. I can't explain what happened - I was just walking past a DVD shop, and thought it looked pretty cool. It was the first series I bought (and also happened to be pirated, though I didn't know that then). I became pretty interested in shows that were all about the ~questions of life~ and less about relationships, though the alternate universes still stayed. I think that's when I started moving away from more sparkly shows, though I don't think I wrote anything for Lain that I can recall.
I finally moved away from being only fannish about anime with the Harry Potter books. This was the other fandom that I became heavily invested in. I read anything, mostly on FF.net, though I liked the meatier, almost substitute novel fics. I was more interested in gen, and how the characters related to each other in more platonic ways, even outside of the usual friendship to venture into mentor-mentee fic (Snape-Harry, I'M LOOKING AT YOU). This also occured in my writing, though I didn't have the stamina for long stories.
Once I'd moved on to books, becoming fannish for other media was fair game. I slacked my craving for forums with the Justice League fandom. I got into the LOTR fandom, mostly with fic that kept to movie canon with huge nods to books like the Similarion and other stuff. At that time, I don't think I was writing fic, because I was in a poetry creative writing club and it took up a lot of my writing space and time. (I also thought fan poems were a really bad idea.)
Then Bleach happened, and I got into anime/manga in a huge way again. This time, it was with English translations, because I wasn't as familar with ~Chinese internet~ and the English scanlations were way faster than the actual official Chinese volumes (Which still came before the official English volumes). This was also when I was at my most prolific. I still liked to read gen, but because all the characters were so charismatic I found myself reading even romances with them. I also started to write solely romances, because Ichigo and Rukia are my forever pairing.
Writing for Bleach also made me more aware of the things that made me tick, especially as I got with a writing group that liked to question why we did things a certain way. =) I started to learn that I was really drawn to partners, and various other kinks besides. I started writing a lot in various different forms, and I think I perfected my drabble form here. I also wrote a lot of one sentence fics. With the extent I was writing/reading, I think I relaxed a lot of the previous hang-ups I had regarding lines I would draw in terms of writing. (Though in terms of reading, I was into pretty hard core stuff since I was 13 ^_^ )
There were brief flings with Transformers and Avengers as the quality of writing in Bleach became poorer, but it was still holding on as the main fandom in my life.
In hindsight, it should have been obvious that I would fall for Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It had the shoujo of my youth, the ~questions of life~ that Lain posed, and the extensive character interaction that I so craved, although it was with a tinier cast in comparison. It ate my life and demanded longer fic in worship. I also fell into becoming fannish for my first webcomic, Homestuck.
All my reading of novel-length fic finally made me ready to write a NaNo, and I actually achieved it! So here I am, writing my first novel, and it's really interesting to see how the other things all poured into it.
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