Snowflake Challenge #2: Fannish history

[akk]

snowflake_challence no. 2: Talk about my fannish history


My first fannish activities were in the 1980s circling around Captain Future, Queen Millennia, Cyborg 003, Robin of Sherwood, and (back then still the German translation of) C.J. Cherryh's The Dreaming Tree. My first fics were still written in longform - and later on a typewriter. It was before I got my first computer and online. Luckily, I might say, because I have TOTAL CONTROL over who gets to see those early scribbles (and I deny everything(!)), but the pastel chalk paintings of Cherryh's characters still adorn my hallway.

I got my first computer (Commodore C64 with a floppy and a color monitor) near the end of the 1980s, and actually programmed a monitor interface for writing textfiles that looked like a mix of the screens in the Comet (Captain Future) and StarTrek TOS.


I got internet access at home in 1993, when I started studying physics at university. By that time I was writing stories and created fanart for the Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers in German on my home computer for fun. Information about the Galaxy Rangers was about the first thing I searched for online and I happened upon a lovely mailing list (Ranger-L still exists but is awfully quiet these days, though recently www.betamountain.org, the home base for the fandom, was revived). I dared translating some of my stories for the list and gained one of my best online friends (and my first beta ever), who took it upon herself not only to correct my grammar and spelling, but also explain them to me - resulting in (a) a lot of fun , (b) tremendous growth in my written English skills, and (c) over 100.000 words of GR fanfic, and an introduction to Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

I happened about CLAMP'S Tokyo Babylon in 2002? 2003? And more or less started writing immediately, posting first to the sadly gone Clampesque forum and on LiveJournal. The Decagram cycle combines Tokyo Babylon, X/1999, several other of CLAMP's works with geometry, taoism, and my love for quirky plants (no, I don't have a carnivorous cherry tree, but you better don't trust my coffee arabica!).

I was involved with several manga and anime fandoms on LiveJournal, with Yamane Ayano's Viewfinder, Ai no Kusabi, and Yami no Matsuei being the most active. When the climate on LJ turned too hostile for my tastes, I established a backup Journal on Insanejournal (it still exists) and finally moved to Dreamwidth for good, learning happily that the Decagram readers were willing to read my works here as well - even after I deleted my LJ for good. Archiving at the AO3 came much later and I admit, that the current installment of the Decagram is the first one I post chapter-by-chapter to the archive.

Decagram is probably the most sophisticated work I've written (and am writing) so far, and even now that my fandom contact is more of less limited to DW, AO3 comments and a Discord server (invite only; not my server) still the world I enjoy playing with most, though I took a couple years break after finishing my PhD, during which I edited my biggest unfinished Galaxy Rangers fic (I hate leaving major plot archs unfinished!). By then most of my fandoms had moved away from LJ, DW, and therelike, with a lot of people gathering on Tumblr, a site that made my skin crawl, so I didn't follow. These days, fandom appears on Twitter, but that's also a site designed towards volatile quarrels rather than long texts and discussions.

I also wrote a few short fics for Lindsay Buroker's The Emperor's Edge around that time. The EE fandom was again centered around a forum (again gone by now) and lasted less than two years, but it had the same inclusive and friendly dynamic I knew from the Ranger-L mailing list. Ironically, it's the only fandom I know that established crotcheted bunnies of the main characters as a thing. Here's my contibution of "Bunnirias and Tikabunny" from L. Buroker's books "Encrypted" and "Decrypted":


Science Fiction and space opera are almost always a second line of my fannish activities - usually with mental role playing, not actually writing - parallel to everything else. The most important ones are Legend of the Galactic Heroes (novels and anime), Cosmowarrior Zero, Starblazers 2199, Captain Future, C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series, Babylon 5, StarTrek DS-9 and Voyager, and Raumpatrouille (esp. the books!).

Right now, I'm back at writing the Decagram and am enjoying every minute of it. Writing Sakurazuka Seishiro is a very relaxing activity. :)

Comments

[solo]

It's been a while since you posted photos of your plants, unless I missed something! How big is your cannibalistic coffee?

[akk]

Well, Hannibal Lecter died after we redecorated in 2018, but Coffeebal is now about 50 centimeters high and suspiciously green despite still being in a much too small pot, and Baby Coffee, that mom got as a present from Tchibo, is tiny (15 - 20 centimeters), but it's doubled its width since we got it this October.

Most bloodthirsty is actually the Doctorate Plant right now. It's more than 80 centimeters high (larger than any Aloe Mitriformis is supposed to be), managed to push its pot off the windowsill, so that it now has an inverted steel barrel and a plant lamp, and more and more resembles Morticia Addams' African Strangler. I really have to post pictures of it soon-ish.