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Fandom Snowflake Challenge - Day 15
Jan. 16th, 2012 09:21 amDay 15
In your own space, share a favorite memory about fandom: the first time you got into fandom, the last time a fanwork touched your heart, crazy times with fangirls (whether on-line or off-line), a lovely comment you’ve received or have left for someone.
I first really got into Doctor Who fandom when![[livejournal.com profile]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
djm4 took me along to a monthly gathering of Doctor Who fans that had been going since before the old series went off air. They were a friendly bunch, the kind who managed to combine an encyclopaedic knowledge of the show and all things related to it with the kindness never to make me feel my ignorance, and they talked about all sorts of things that had nothing to do with Doctor Who; sometimes we could spend a whole evening there without the show being mentioned at all, just enjoying each other's company, celebrating each other's successes, commiserating on each other's problems. I felt less social anxiety there than anywhere else at the time. (Love and Monsters was partly a tribute to that kind of fandom, which may be why djm4 and I loved it when so many others hated it.)
So for a few years I became a regular, until my schedule became too complicated. I'm still in touch with a good handful of the people I met there, though. Amongst the old hands were a number of writers who had managed to merge their fannishness with their careers: they worked on fannish magazines, they had written episode guides or novelisations or New Adventures, and quite a few of them went on to work on the new series, which was in the planning stages at the time I started going. One who attended occasionally was Steven Moffat, who probably doesn't remember me at all, and that's fine; we probably only spoke four or five times. He was introduced to me only as "Steven"; about halfway through our conversation, he realised that I had no idea which Steven he was. A flicker of surprise crossed his face - clearly this was already something that didn't happen to him very often, especially in that context - but he dealt with it with good grace. I remember that he was already working on Jekyll by this stage and rambled at me amiably about it for a while before drifting off to talk to someone who actually knew him ;-)
I think my favourite memory of that gathering is from a few years later: the new series was a runaway success, Steven had won three Hugos, and there were strong rumours that RTD was about to announce his departure. We all suspected that Steven was the showrunner-in-waiting, but the BBC was controlling news about the show very closely, so most of us knew better than to ask him. One night, though, we were sitting cosily round a table in the pub basement, and someone - I don't even remember who - not only asked The Question, but did so repeatedly. We spent the next twenty minutes or so listening to Steven coming up with increasingly creative ways of refusing to answer. We laughed a lot. It was an amazing display of wit and language, and I still look back on it very fondly.
And then there was the fish fingers and custard story, but I think those of you who haven't heard that one from me will have to ask me in person ;-)
In your own space, share a favorite memory about fandom: the first time you got into fandom, the last time a fanwork touched your heart, crazy times with fangirls (whether on-line or off-line), a lovely comment you’ve received or have left for someone.
I first really got into Doctor Who fandom when
djm4 took me along to a monthly gathering of Doctor Who fans that had been going since before the old series went off air. They were a friendly bunch, the kind who managed to combine an encyclopaedic knowledge of the show and all things related to it with the kindness never to make me feel my ignorance, and they talked about all sorts of things that had nothing to do with Doctor Who; sometimes we could spend a whole evening there without the show being mentioned at all, just enjoying each other's company, celebrating each other's successes, commiserating on each other's problems. I felt less social anxiety there than anywhere else at the time. (Love and Monsters was partly a tribute to that kind of fandom, which may be why djm4 and I loved it when so many others hated it.) So for a few years I became a regular, until my schedule became too complicated. I'm still in touch with a good handful of the people I met there, though. Amongst the old hands were a number of writers who had managed to merge their fannishness with their careers: they worked on fannish magazines, they had written episode guides or novelisations or New Adventures, and quite a few of them went on to work on the new series, which was in the planning stages at the time I started going. One who attended occasionally was Steven Moffat, who probably doesn't remember me at all, and that's fine; we probably only spoke four or five times. He was introduced to me only as "Steven"; about halfway through our conversation, he realised that I had no idea which Steven he was. A flicker of surprise crossed his face - clearly this was already something that didn't happen to him very often, especially in that context - but he dealt with it with good grace. I remember that he was already working on Jekyll by this stage and rambled at me amiably about it for a while before drifting off to talk to someone who actually knew him ;-)
I think my favourite memory of that gathering is from a few years later: the new series was a runaway success, Steven had won three Hugos, and there were strong rumours that RTD was about to announce his departure. We all suspected that Steven was the showrunner-in-waiting, but the BBC was controlling news about the show very closely, so most of us knew better than to ask him. One night, though, we were sitting cosily round a table in the pub basement, and someone - I don't even remember who - not only asked The Question, but did so repeatedly. We spent the next twenty minutes or so listening to Steven coming up with increasingly creative ways of refusing to answer. We laughed a lot. It was an amazing display of wit and language, and I still look back on it very fondly.
And then there was the fish fingers and custard story, but I think those of you who haven't heard that one from me will have to ask me in person ;-)
