What is ‘late in a fandom’? It’s after the first heady flush of media excitement. Six months after the standalone movie or book comes out, a year or more after the series ends.
We get inspired by late canon: the behind-the-scenes book, the deleted scenes, a revealing creator interview. We get inspired by fanon and meta. We get talking to that one – one! – person who likes our ideas.
Sometimes a fic even needs to be written late in the fandom. After thinking and creative ferment, worldbuilding and character development. ‘Late to the fandom’ is a good time to take risks. To do the dark AU, focus on the minor character from stage left. It’s also a good time to offer up tropetastic fun.
Whatever you do, you will get readers who appreciate that you are writing. Because for every writer considering writing ‘late’ there’s a hundred fandom members wanting some fresh content.
Writing a fic ‘late’ in a fandom is OK.
Thank the old gods and new for those still writing (or just starting to write!) late in fandoms (looking at you, BBC Sherlock fandom). It’s not only okay, it’s life-giving and we love you for it and hope you NEVER STOP.
And a special shout-out to those who wrote fantastic fic years ago and still respond to comments on AO3 by those of us who are always late to the party (even if you don’t necessarily write in that fandom anymore)! You also are giving me life!
I love everything about this. I’ve been in Sherlock fandom since the first hiatus but I only started writing fic after S4 and worried a tiny bit that I was too late. Nope, I wasn’t. Fandom might look a bit different these days, but we’re still here and still enthusiastic for new stories and that’s been so encouraging. Sometimes I wish I had done this earlier, but for me it’s been better late than never!
I wandered into Supernatural fandom in Season *13.* It’s never too late 🙂
I wandered into the A-Team fandom 20 years after it was cancelled. I never understood the mentality of being ‘too late’ to a fandom to contribute. It’s the late comers who keep it going, keep it fresh and interesting and offer new perspectives as well as reigniting the old excitement. There’s no expiration date on enjoying something.
“It’s a question that I’m always reluctant to answer. I’ll tell you why because … When you do interviews with journalists that’s ALWAYS the question they ask. They always say ‘What’s the story with freaky fans that you have? What did they do? What scary things do they say?’ and I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: When it’s a sport and people are fans of a team, they go into the stadiums and they dress up in the colours and everybody accepts it as perfectly normal. But when people are fans of a TV show or a film, they’re somehow described as freaky or suspicious or that there’s something kind of odd about that and I see absolutely no difference in it. In fact, I think our ability to get to play in adulthood which is something that we did … When children play we let them play and that’s part of life. And the further we go into adulthood, we move so far away from our ability to play and just have fantasy and do stuff that we really enjoy and do it with pride and with passion. So I’m reluctant to say that fans are strange or freaky or anything like that because … You know, from ANY of my experiences with all the people that I met today, on any Cons that I go to, I always meet fantastic people who allow themselves to be vulnerable and to be a little bit fucking weird.”
— Andrew Scott on the importance of fan interaction (Wales Comic Con 2018)
I swear, he is one of the only people involved with the show who actually GETS IT.
You have no idea how many people lurk on your work. No idea how many times people go back to revisit your work. How big they smile when they simply think about your work. How fast their heart beats, how excited they get when they see that you posted something.
People are shy with their feedback. Sometimes it’s because they’re simply shy. Other times it’s because they assume you already know how great and talented you are. Could be both.
My point is, even if you barely have any likes or reblogs, don’t get discouraged. You have a lot of silent fans, but they are still your fans. Keep on creating. Because there is always someone out there who will love what you have made.
Write us a fic, whether long or short Write us a fic tonight ‘Cause l we’re all in the mood for some Johnlock now And you’ve got us feeling alright
Now John and his Sherlock are cuddling There’s only one bed, you know But they won’t be too quick to see each other’s dicks ‘Cause the burn it has got to be slow
Well the sexual tension is killing us And the misunderstandings are dire But we’re sure that they could be compatible If they’d only light true love’s fire
Oh, la la la, di da da La la, di da da da dum
It’s a pretty good hit count, for a Saturday And the kudos they give me a smile ‘Cause I know that it’s me they’ve been comin’ to read To forget about life for a while And the podfics, they sound like a carnival And the pub scenes they smell like a beer And we read in our car and reblog from afar And say, “Man, I just love bein’ here!”
* who has shipped Spirk since that night in 1967 that Amok Time first aired * and helped storm NBC to keep TOS on the air for a 3rd season * and wrote fanfic way back in the day * and was privileged to be around for the earliest days of fandom, when Leonard used to come to your house if that’s where the fan club was meeting and sit on the sofa with you in that Spock hair cut and eat cake
All of you who are writing TOS/AOS fan fiction and creating fan art now: remember, YOU are the ones shaping the traditions of fandom. You have inherited the kingdom. Bless you for keeping it vibrant, growing, alive. In fifty years, you will be the ones who are remembered for molding it and handing it down to the future. It probably doesn’t feel like now, but you are making history.
Your current addiction to TOS and the feels you get when you contemplate the love between Jim and Spock will be with you for life. It won’t always be in the forefront; you will sometimes go years, sometimes go a decade, without Star Trek being more than a passing thought. But then something will remind you and every consuming feeling you feel right now will come rushing back, every bit as powerful and deep and strong as it is today. All there, right where you left it.
The friendships you make in fandom will be with you for life. Like all friendships, they will wax and wane as the focus of your life shifts over time, but you will always be able to pick up the thread. You will — to give you a hypothetical example — be 77 years old and discover Tumblr and get a rush of Spirk feels after a decade of not giving TOS a thought, and contact your 83-year-old fangirl friend in the nursing home, to whom you haven’t spoken in several years. You will open the conversation with, “So, Jim and Spock love each other and that just makes me so happy.” And your friend in the nursing home will sigh and say, “Yes. They do love each other. It’s such a comfort.”
That look that Jim and Spock give each other, of absolute adoration and acceptance and love? That’s real. It’s rare, but it’s real. One of my greatest joys in life is to see my son and his husband give each other looks like that. Of course I don’t know you; I don’t know your strengths and struggles or your place on the spectrum of gender or anything about your sexuality or what you look like or what your life has taught you to believe about yourself, but I do know this: YOU DESERVE TO BE LOVED AND LOOKED AT THE WAY JIM AND SPOCK LOOK AT EACH OTHER. Please don’t accept less than that in your life.
The future of our planet does not seem very hopeful at the moment. But please remember that when Gene created Star Trek, the world was in turmoil and the future seemed very bleak. Star Trek is, was, always shall be about hope. Reach for it. When TOS first aired, we hoped to see some form of a Starfleet on the horizon in our lifetimes. That vision must be passed on to you. Do it. Make the world worthy of launching the human race out into space. CREATE STARFLEET.
You are all creative and funny and amazing. Far more amazing than you know. Be kind to yourselves. Live long and prosper, kids.
Tags are in reference to my first bullet point. Meant as a kudos to your work, but feel free to untag yourself if you don’t want to be linked to my ramblings; I won’t be offended! (Also, this extends to a thousand other artists and writers out there who deserve kudos. tag at will.)
I am re blogging this ‘open letter’ tonight because I wrote and posted it one short week, and 5324 notes ago.
When I wrote it, it was for myself, because I honestly thought it would be read by the people I tagged (maybe) and no one else. I had 5 followers, at least one of which was a spam bot.
I could not have imagined how that post would lead to the kindness and welcome I have received here, to my new fandom grandkids, my very own Star Trek grandma portrait, all the conversations and sharing of memories and making of new friends.
Tonight I just want to say thanks to all of you for being so wonderful. For keeping fandom wonderful.
Is the Sherlock fandom still going?? Are they okay??
Let’s make it a poll, because we can. Choose one:
A) Yes; Yes B) Yes; No C) No; Yes D) No; No
B
B
A, mostly
I feel like the answer to this is and has always been B. For goodness sake we were walking up to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and slapping him in the face. Fans have always been a bit crazy in our passionate views about Sherlock Holmes from the very beginning.
Pre-internet era: You walk into a room and sit down at a table. Someone brings you a turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a soda. Perhaps you are a vegetarian, or gluten-free. Doesn’t matter; you get a turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a soda.
Usenet era: You walk into a room and sit down to your turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a soda. Someone tells you that over at the University they are also serving BLTs, pizza, coffee, and beer.
Web 1.0 (aka The Great Schism): You walk into a room. The room is lined with 50 unmarked doors. Someone tells you, “We have enough food to feed you and a hundred more…but we’ve scattered it behind these fifty doors. Good luck!”
Web 2.0 (present): You walk into a room. Someone points at the buffet and says, “Enjoy!” You turn to see a 100-foot-long buffet table, piled high with every kind of food imaginable. To be fair, some of the food is durian, head cheese, and chilled monkey brains, but that’s cool, some people are into those…and trust me, they are even more psyched to be here than you are.
Tumblr (a hell pit): You try to serve yourself a baked potato. An angry child runs up and slaps the plate out of your hand. “NIGHTSHADE PLANTS ARE POISONOUS,” the child yells. You are hungry. The child gives you a turkey sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a kick on the shin.
The fact that a potato is replaced with a different form of potato is what makes that last one so accurate.
But it’s so scary! I was in superwholock phase when I was sixteen. There are MOMS and people over 30 who are still in fandom spaces, who interact with people in THAT way and the older I get, less I understand. You’re a fucking grown ass person. If you still like the shows, nobody’s stopping you from reblogging stuff (of course, DEPENDS what kind of STUFF you’re reblogging but that’s another discussion) but when the adult is an active member of the fandom which is mainly populated by kids… It’s ugly and disgusting and I feel so bad even thinking about that.
I look at posts like this and wonder… when was I supposed to get out?
Was I supposed to get a mortgage and some sensible shoes and learn to play bridge? Shuffle off to the glue factory to die?
Do you know how much many fandoms would lose if you declared everyone over 21 (or whatever the cutoff is) “creepy” and cast them out? As bad as I feel for a 30+ year old mother who is deeply into Superwholock, why should she be unwelcome in the fandom? Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Sherlock are none of them Game of Thrones but they aren’t kids shows. Adults on the internet do not have a responsibility to keep everything they do sanitized for hypothetical minors who might see it. I AM over 30, and trust me when I say that this shit got hashed out in court back in the 90s when it was new.
Older fans saw hundreds of thousands of fanworks disappear in the early 21st century, sometimes due to technical and economic reasons (like the loss of mailing lists and the fall of Geocities) but we also saw how ugly things could get when puritanical think-of-the-children handwringing censorship turned into witch hunts and deletions on FF.net, LJ, and more. AO3 was a gift from older fans so new fans of all ages wouldn’t have to worry about that stuff.
I mean get off my lawn and etc, but everyone in fandom needs to understand that they are functionally in a public space that does not promise to be “safe” for them personally, no matter their age. You may end up interacting with adult content and like it or not it’s going to be up to you to control your experience- block people, blacklist tags, move to a more moderated community, whatever you have to do, but the whole fandom is not going to keep everything acceptable by any one person’s standards.
Fandom is a place where we all come together, and the only thing we need to have in common is a shared love of whatever Thing we came for.
Is OP saying that existing on the internet while over 21 is inherently abusive?
Also it cracks me up when people assume Tumblr is mostly kids.
Don’t you know that mothers are supposed to have no other interests then children and women are supposed to have no other interests than becoming mothers after the age of 22? We are of course all monsters who have no right to create content, never mind that we (and really our mothers and grandmothers) created the platforms that we created the fandoms & now they’re supposed to be playgrounds for the kiddies and we’re in their spaces.
But it’s OK they will generously allow us to re-blog their contents as long as we don’t get too uppity and think we have the right to have voices ourselves.
Holy shit. I can’t even contemplate how bleak people like this must believe their futures are.
The OP makes me sound like a criminal… Just because you reach a ‘certain age’ doesn’t mean your interests suddenly change. Like it’s bad for people (apparently especially MOMS) to like certain things and damn forbid talk about it with others. I think without fandom, interests,…. life is pretty boring. So please, let me lead my life while you lead yours.
If your opinion aligns with OP, please do not read or reblog anything created by a fandom author who is over age 30.
* Note that this includes Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.
note, too, that Supernatural, Sherlock, and Doctor Who are all shows about… adults. Written by adults, played by adults, about largely adult characters living largely adult lives. Some of the characters are even–and please, brace yourself, because this might be a shock–MOMS. So how, exactly, do adult fans not have a place in those fandoms, and on the fandom architecture we built?
So I’m the same age, give or take a year or two, as the main characters on Sherlock. When I write Sherlock fic, I’m writing about my generation. My peers.
I’m also a parent. Would it be creepy if I wrote a romance novel? Would it be creepy if I read a book with SEX in it? How about if I wrote a TV script for a show that already exists? Isn’t that exactly what some fanfiction is?
Does having kids mean I have to put away my sexy thoughts, pick up my knitting and sit in the fucking corner for the rest of my life?
“but when the adult is an active member of the fandom which is mainly populated by kids… It’s ugly and disgusting and I feel so bad even thinking about that.” “As bad as I feel for a 30+ year old mother who is deeply into Superwholock…”
Do you ever see people telling older men to stop cheering at sporting events? That it’s gross or disgusting for an old guy to put on a baseball jersey and yell his head off at a home game? No? I wonder why.
I hope you understand that this attitude perpetuates the absolutely raging sexism and ageism that permeates our culture. You’re perpetuating society’s wish that women of a certain age should go away and be silent. That we abandon our personhood as soon as we have kids. That mothers are vessels and not people. That older women are not supposed to be sexy or think about sex or feel passion. That we are supposed to sit in a circle with other mothers sipping wine and planning soccer carpools.
FUCK. THAT.
I was born a fannish person. I still love the same books I loved when I was in elementary school. I love talking about TV and movies and music with other passionate fans. I’ve always written fic, even before the internet, even before I knew what fic was. Having kids did not remove that part of my brain. It changed my life, but it did not change ME.
I’ve been in fandom for decades and have a large circle of wonderful fandom friends who are in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Together, we are responsible for hundreds of thousands of words of fanfic. We’ve made podfics, fan art, podcasts, cons, writing groups. We’re not stopping anytime soon. To quote the worst rock n’ roll song ever written, we built this city.
When you call older fans “ugly and disgusting” you are discriminating against people who just happen to have a different fucking birthday. You are telling a female-dominated community that their desire and passion and creativity has an expiration date. And you are feeding our culture’s entirely sexist expectations of how older women, especially mothers, should behave.
I for one, as a MOM and well over 30, hope the OP figures this out before they become a parent (optional) and/or over 30 (not mandatory but this is already tragic enough). Because that’s a ton of baggage to unpack while you’re busy having an adult life.
I came to fandom late. Past 30 late. I wish I could say I never worried what would happen if anyone found out, but that’s not true. But I got there. I decided I DO NOT CARE if PTO Moms or Soccer Moms or My Mom think this is an unseemly enthusiasm for me to engage. Fuck that shit. I was miserable, as miserable as you can be when you forget who you are. Now I’m not. I could argue that I’m a better parent, a better person, because of it. That’s true, but it’s not the damn point. I am HAPPIER now than I was before. That’s enough.
@marsdaydream & @kestrel337 saved me a good bit of typing.
^^
As another 40yo mom who’s been in fandom since she 15, y’all kids can get the fuck off my fannish lawn.
If I’d had fandom when I was 16 and had the content written by older, sexually experienced Fandom Grandmas, I could have saved myself decades of suffering.
I’m very late to the party because I only knew of MALE fandom – fandom that called you a poser if you didn’t speak fluent Klingon or couldn’t recite every story line of every X-Men comic ever published.
Finding fandom and fic late in life validated things I’d been feeling since I was 13 but didn’t have words or concepts to express. I hope that other girls like I was can use fanfic to help figure themselves out. And guess what – the fic written by other teens won’t help them a bit!! It’s the fic written by the Oldies who’ve been around the block a few times that can help the Youngsters figure out this insane game called Life.
People like OP don’t even realize how they’re perpetuating the cultural erasure of women past their twenties.Hopefully by that fateful age where she’s supposed to shrivel up and go away she’ll have gained some wisdom and maturity about these things. I’m not super optimistic, though.
Tbh this whole thing is terrifying to me. I got into fandom when I was…32?? I didn’t even know what I was missing until that point and I was missing SO MUCH. It makes me sad to know there’s a dividing line here. There’s no way I’m stopping now when I’ve just got going, I’m going to keep fanning and keep writing because I forget how old I am fairly regularly in amongst the scary crazy amazing parenting world I’m in now, and fandom helps with that nicely 🙂
Actually, how about you kids get out of my fandom? I mean, y’all should be watching cartoons, and KC Undercover and Raven’s Home. You know, shows about kids. You’re too young to watch Supernatural, Dr Who and Sherlock, I mean those shows are for adults and quite frankly, having kids watching shows meant for adults is just creepy, so go back to your own space, and play with your dolls and Legos and stay out of mine.
Now, how fucked up is that. Me, an adult with a spouse,and kids and a mortgage, presuming to tell you, a non-related person younger than me, what you should or should not do and how you should interact with other people who enjoy the same things. So child, you may no longer be 16, and you may no longer be in a superwholock “phase” but fuck you for telling me, or anyone else who doesn’t meet your criteria of “kid” how they should interact. If you’re underage, and aren’t comfortable with my posting a smut-fic of Cas & Dean doing the do, or an explicit pic of Dean balls-deep in Cas’s ass, then don’t follow me. If you’re old enough to participate in fandom, then you’re old enough to police yourself and avoid things you aren’t comfortable with. I may be a mom, but I’m not your mom, and I’ll be damned if I self-censor because you’re uncomfortable.
I love everyone in this bar full of old farts.
I’m so confused! I’m not a mom but I am over 30. What am I allowed to enjoy and participate in???
Fandom. ❤
Funny, I’ve always experienced fandom as a primarily adult space where kids are allowed to be as long as they mind the rules and stay out of specifically 18+ spaces (special colored badges at cons and whatnot). I have no problem with kids in fandom as long as they stay in THEIR lane and don’t try to follow my clearly minors-unwelcome blog, or lecture me about how what I write is naughty-naughty-icky-boo-boo. (Yes, it is. I know it is. That’s how I like it.) Kids are great in energy and enthusiasm. Not so much when they start appointing themselves hall monitors.
But if it comes down to a question of who fandom really “belongs to,” there’s really no question that it “belongs to” the people who do the bulk of the work of creating it. Which is definitely adults – always has been and still is.
(Yes, this is a response to a post going around how maybe it’s okay if adults are in fandom as long as they understand that fandom is for ickle kiddie-boos and walk on eggshells. Um, no. Back in my day, we kicked y’all off our yahoogroups so we could post adult material, and rigorously didn’t post adult material if the list allowed you.)
So, back in the day, several of the authors of an LJ community that posted NSFW fic met up and had a group photo, which they posted. Apparently, some of the 18 year olds said, “Ewwwwwww! They’re all, like, oooooollllld!”
There’s actually a good reason for that.
Writing is part being good with words and part being good at turning your life experiences into something that other people want to read. Remember my previous rant about how you can’t assume a mystery writer is a homicidal maniac, and you can’t assume that a reader who likes a character has the same personal flaws as that character? There’s a reason people assume these things about authors.
See, if you’ve never fallen in love, you might think romance is when the other person brings you a dozen roses and a box of chocolates. And that’s fine! That’s romantic, too! But if you have fallen in love, you might remember the time that you woke up and went to go to class and found a bunch of wildflowers and a plastic ring from a bubblegum machine tucked under your windshield wiper. And you might remember the half touched, half about to burst out laughing expression on your sweetie’s face when you showed up to class wearing that tacky plastic ring. You might think that love is thinking the other person is the best-looking person in the world, or that love is wanting to spend your life with someone else. That’s love, too! Well, at least the second one is (the first is probably just infatuation). But if you’ve been in love before you’ll know that love is also hurting all over because your sweetie’s abusive parent died and they’re unexpectedly destroyed over it. The latter is worth a million flowery declarations.
Now, I’m not saying that no one under 30 can write. Some young people have had very full lives. And some young people have a natural talent for extrapolating from their own feelings. Virgins can write convincingly about sex, even. But the more life experience you have, the easier it is to extrapolate, and the easier it is to come up with the specific details that make things feel real and true.
If you want to become a better writer, the best things you can do are write a lot, share what you write, and live a full life. And remember, before you say adults should be banished from fandom: your favorite author is probably over 30.
Just because you reach a ‘certain age’ doesn’t mean your interests suddenly change. Like it’s bad for people (apparently especially MOMS) to like certain things and damn forbid talk about it with others. I think without fandom, interests,…. life is pretty boring. So please, let me lead my life while you lead yours.
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 