Sunshine

Frankly there's too much right now (it's 90 degrees and it's not even noon!) So my fannish identity. Boy has that changed over the decades.

First off my user name isn't fannish at all. I hate to admit it, I didn't want to go online back in the day, seriously. I resisted email for years (god knows why. I think I loved writing letters and didn't want to lose it) and I absolutely didn't want to have a blog because it was no one's business what I did (I had to do this for a class believe it or not and it was a different blog that I can't even remember the name of). I transitioned to LJ because Buffy the Vampire Slayer fandom moved from yahoo groups and online forums to LJ. By then I was a little more willing to be online. My name, I felt, captured my life. It was a horrible time for me. Hell I thought I started this blog (now homed on DW and mirrored to LJ thanks to their Russian overlords) earlier than I did. In 2004, I had just retrained to teach after the hand injury robbed me of my dreams of being a surgeon. Recently looking for long lost BtVS/AtS fic I reread a lot of 2004-2005, and not sure how I survived it. Anyhow cornerofmadness resonated with me but it turns out it was actually the title of the editorial column in my undergrad's newspaper. I had a crush on the editor as a freshman and I guess it lodged in my brain forgotten until I found an old paper when I was cleaning out boxes I had stored at grandma's.

Anyhow, my name isn't fannish which in a way is good. I don't feel like changing it as my fandoms change. I started in fandom back in 1977 after seeing Star Wars for my 10th birthday. It was as bad as you'd imagine, a self-insert named Crystal Diamond, relative to Luke and had her eyes set on Han. (cut me a break, I was 10 but I still remember it. I have a lot of them somewhere in a box on decaying paper). I shared them with people at school and another girl started writing with me in my world.

By the time I was 12/13 I wanted to be in Star Trek fandom. These were the paper zine days. ST fandom was older than me in general and I felt a bit bullied and left out. I was never in any of the zines (probably rightfully so but it hurt).

But at that same time period, I found Elfquest much of fandom was at least teen aged. And from there in a few years I jumped in Pern fandom. This is where I had my first true fannish identity. I wrote a lot. Most of it was surely bad but this is where I learned and it was a MUCH safer place to do it than online. It was a more innocent identity back then too because all of us had our physical addresses in the zine because you were meant to write someone to use their characters. I know that sounds weird but both EQ and Pern allowed fandom but NOT use of the actual characters so everyone created their own. It was really a great lesson in how to create characters. Honestly I couldn't have asked for a better way to learn to write, these fandoms and the people there in taught me a lot. Some of them I'm still friends with since the 80s.

My first online persona was within Buffy fandom. (again coming later than I thought. I swore I got on FFN in 98 in Madison WI but nope, 2001 in Cassadaga FL) I wrote dozens of stories and no doubt a 100 or more drabbles. I have at least a dozen WIPs that now 15+ years later I'm trying to finish (I also learned a lesson about pubbing WIPs, don't do it). I followed the Buffyverse over various forums but when it came to Tumblr I never made the jump (I disliked it so never got into it).

Unfortunately I was naïve back then and also we didn't even have flashdrives in common use (I didn't have one until 2004) Between corrupted floppy discs, damaged CDs and crashed hard drive I've lost at least two dozen of my Buffyverse stories. Hopefully by the end of the year, I'll have a full list of them but I doubt they're anywhere to be found. All the old angelfire, GeoCities, etc etc websites are long gone. Some disappeared from FFN (I have no idea why. I did remove any NC-17 content when they asked so naturally the explicit stories are all gone) Some were never put there. So a lot of that identity died an ignoble death but I think I did well. I had a lot of award fanfics for whatever that means. It was a good ego boost if nothing else.

I transitioned from the Buffyverse to Fullmetal Alchemist. I've been into anime and manga since the 70s but none captured my creativity like FMA. It's another fandom I wrote scads for, there's probably close to 100 stories there too. During the FMA years, I wrote tons of other anime but the second biggest was Saiyuki.

So my fannish identity of the last 20 years has been Buffyverse/FMA/other anime. Yes I dabbled in other shows like Star Trek, The X-Files and Lucifer. Until this time last year I slowed greatly in fandom because I am devoting time to my original writing. I've done FAR too little of it this year as Buffyverse has reclaimed my soul.

But in a way I'm okay with that. It's been a horrible year. Original fiction takes too much of my mental abilities. Fanfic is easier so I'm giving myself a bit of a time off.

So that is me. If any of that interests you, I gladly accept questions.