The First Baby Step

[polarissruler]

After recently I made a post in my journal about my first fandom, I decided to ask - how did it began to you? What was your first fandom? How did you found it? Did you start writing/drawing/reading/whatever else first? And do you look fondly on those good old days, or not so much?

Comments

[malurette]

Some 20 years ago I was just entering my teenage years and ran into a Saint Seiya/Knights of the Zodiac rerun on cable--I had missed the original run, being a tad too young and taugh to sneer at "violent and perverse japanese cartoons" hah the damage prejudices did then--and wow it pushed so many of my buttons.
Plus a few months later we got internet at home for the first time and there I was, sneaking through Altavista to learn more about my favourite characters and their story, encountering episodes lists, fan sites, and... fanart. Fanfiction. Shipping. Yaoi!
I cringe just a little bit at the memory, oh to be so young and naïve and would-be-edgy, but mostly I look back fondly at it. While I'm relieved that my first atrocious attempts at fanfiction were lost with Geocity, I'm disappointed that most of my first awful attempts at fanart disappereared too, those I wish I'd saved. Some of them are safe at the bottom of a box but the worst, that is, the best examples of baby's-first-trashy-crack-and-porn that I wish I could share again because looking back on it I find them hilarious, got destroyed.

[silverr]

Saint Seiya

😍

[polarissruler]

Oh, the yaoi. It shocked me a lot the first time I found yaoi fanart, but after that - there was not turning back for me.

[malurette]

I was very lucky, the very first yaoi fanarts I encountered were hidden behind Big! Honking!! Warnings!!! but were actual very tame (just the faces, a hint of bare chests, maybe leaning on each other's shoulder or a kiss on the cheek, and, oh the horror, a dribble of blood on the ones Extra-Warned for Vampires?) and here I was, wondering 1) what all the fuss was about, 2) but why this pair of boys and not another one that had more chemistry? and uh the rest was history.

[polarissruler]

Well, the first I saw was even tamer - just holding hands, but for me it was the peak of obscenity. (Don't ask why; I was a strange kid. It might have been because it was a non-canon ship and I could not believe something like that existed rather than being yaoi - strange kid, told you.) Once I got over that, my thougt process went in the same direction as you - and as you say, the rest is history.