That Fandom Meme

[przed]

I've been enjoying reading everyone's responses to the fandom meme. Here's the questions:

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?
2. Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
3. Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?
4. Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
5. Do you think more people should get into this fandom?

sc_fossil gave me MFU, Pros, and Sean Bean/Viggo Mortensen RPS, a.k.a. VigBean!


MFU

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?
I was too young to watch the show in first run, and it wasn't re-run in Canada whilst I was growing up. Then I caught The Return movie when it was first aired when I was in university. It wasn't great, but I immediately fell for Illya. (I'd previously loved David McCallum in Invisible Man and Kidnapped.) Then a year or two later CBC started running the episodes early Sunday mornings, and I started dragging my sleep-deprived self out of bed every week too watch it. I got obsessed with the show. Bought the videotapes, bought the making of book, bought every issue of Epi-Log magazine that even mentioned the show. But this was before the internet made connecting to other fans so darn easy, and I had no idea about the fanfic. Move forward a couple of years, I'm in grad school, have discovered fandom through Blake's 7. Within a couple of years, I'm looking for a kinder, gentler fandom (those who say that Pros is a fandom that eats its young have never dipped their toe into the B7 pool) and stumble upon some MFU zines. Then I'm writing gen. Then a friend asks me to write slash for her first zine (Relative Secrecy 1!) and I never looked back.

2. Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
As much as it pains me to admit it, I've sort of already moved on. UNCLE was my home fandom for years and years, but I've been down to only writing Christmas stories for a while, now. And this year my schedule is crazy enough that I didn't even sign up for the Christmas story exchange. But I don't feel I'm totally done with the fandom. I've got a long story cycle that's only half completed, and that's never been posted online. When I have some time, my plan is to post the finished ones, then get to work on the remaining stories. Fingers crossed, I'll actually do this in the next year or two. And now that the DVDs are out, I'd love to vid the show.

3. Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?
Favourite eps include The Shark Affair (with a delicious Robert Culp as the sort-of villain), The Girls of Nazarone Affair, and The Terbuf Affair. I tend to the first season, black & white eps.

4. Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
See the above about having moved on.

5. Do you think more people should get into this fandom?
Absolutely. It's a wonderful show, in that goofy '60s spy mode. The comms are still wonderfully active. And there's decades of wonderful fanfic out there for the reading, both in zines and online.

Pros

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?
Remember I said I bought a lot of Epi-Log magazines for the UNCLE content? Well one issue with an UNCLE episode guide also had an episode guide for Pros. The photos looked intriguing, and once I'd read the episode description for Discovered in a Graveyard, I knew I had to watch the show. But this was in the late '80s, I wasn't in fandom, and had no way of tracking down the eps. It took getting into fandom, and then tracking down grey market video tapes before I saw the eps, and then I bought as many zines and read as many online stories as I possibly could.

2. Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
I'm pretty much here for the duration. For whatever reason, Bodie and Doyle hit something essential within me. I still love watching the show, reading the fic, writing myself, and vidding. Not to mention interacting with other Pros fans when I can.

3. Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?
Favourite eps: Discovered in a Graveyard, Mixed Doubles, Hunter/Hunted, Wild Justice. Favourite fic: Georgina Kirrin's Spring-heeled Jack, Ellis Ward's Harlequin Airs, and just a ton of others.

4. Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
Yep. My fannish time is rather limited these days, but I write and vid when I can. And co-modded the Pros Big Bang. I get involved in discussions let frequently, but that due more to time considerations than inclination. If I can only do so much, the discussion is what's going to get cut out.

5. Do you think more people should get into this fandom?
Absolutely! The lads are gorgeous, the show is still interesting, and the fic is fantastic.

VigBean RPS

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?
This was a complete accident. Ya see, I'd loved Sean Bean since he was in Stormy Monday, and Viggo Mortensen since he was in The Indian Runner. I watched both of them in a multitude of dodgy films and TV shows. (I saw G.I. Jane in the freaking theatre.) Then they were cast in Lord of the Rings as Aragorn and Boromir, my two favourite characters in the books, the two characters I was slashing as a ten-year-old before I even knew what slash was. Before the first movie was over, I knew I was going to read Aragorn/Boromir, and probably write it. I inhaled everything out there, read everything that was posted as it came out, and eventually ran out of stories. I went looking for more and started hearing rumours of RPS and rugbytackle. Which led me to LJ. (Yes, RPS got me on LJ.) I was hesitant at first, read a few not great shorter stories. Then I read cinzia's complex, angsty and cathartic A Long Journey and fell for my first (and so far only) RPS fandom. It was a fandom that utterly consumed me for a good few years. I was literally waking up in the middle of the night with story ideas for months.

2. Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
Alas, this is another one I've moved on from. I'll always have great fondness for the stories, but I don't think I can write it any more.


3. Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?
Cinzia's A Long Journey is still my fave story. The Orange Grove, an epic collaboration between her and viva_gloria is a very close second.

4. Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
Not any more, though I do get a shiver of pleasure whenever I see any of the old crew posting VigBean. And I have an unfinished AU set in WW II that I may finish one of these days.

5. Do you think more people should get into this fandom?
The old fic is still worth reading--there's some really fantastic stuff there--but it's not really as vital fandom as it was back in the day.

Comments

Part Two of my lengthy rant

[beauregard.livejournal.com]

Still whining and betaing in order to get my hands on new stuff as fast as it was coming out, I managed to aggravate her into handing over a bunch of tapes and zines in Pros. (as she said...a sort of erzatz S&H). Ah, love at first sight...not quite. British actors are not pretty boys...but boy do they grow on you. I realized as I read my way through the zines and bought every one I could get my hands on...that Pros was a lot like X-Files. It could be dark, it could handle AU, its story lines could be more varied. I realized that Starsky & Hutch was not only vanilla but had many restriction. It was too contemporary and its characters would not translate to AU with ease. Also, they were loved in such a way that there was little or no flexibility with many of the darker themes. There was just too much that our boys 'just would not do". I went to the final Zebracon in 2005 because of Starsky & Hutch and Pros. I have reread my zines and worked my way through most of the Circuit CD. I bought a Sony Reader but the first series I put on it was my X-Files ...all the stories I saved/downloaded from a multitude of lists and archives. Next up is Pros and finally Starsky & Hutch. Somehow I really burned myself out on Starsky & Hutch and it is too recent for me to go back yet. I let X-files lay fallow for over ten years (while still collecting all the stories posted). It has few zines compared to other fandoms so my collection is not big. One thing I do every year at least twice is reread The Gift of An Enemy...it is comfort food for any bad time. Pros, at present is my main fandom and I am looking forward to delving into all my collected stories and rewatching all the dvds. I am actively avoiding any new fandoms and that is helped, I think, by my age and the fact that I don't fall in love with characters or actors like I did in the past. Old faithful here has a select few special loves. It really helps to keep one's interest alive when a fandom is so active and activity is ongoing and new and old writers are prolific and Pros fandom meets all criteria for a long life. It is, above, all flexible. Any disagreements are short lived. There are no hardnosed, nasty minded, knife tongued BNF's that crush newcomers and make the pond an unhappy place for long time fans. Cheers for us all. Sorry to go on so long. eeeek it is time to walk the dog. Karen-Leigh