Thinky thoughts: Why I'm Afraid of New Fandoms

(I know, from me. Try not to faint.)

Jossverse -- Buffy and Angel -- was my first fandom, my first real fandom. I still love the shows so, so much, and the characters, and it didn't surprise me at all when I fell in love because I'd been in love with other shows, before. I'd "just" never had relationships with other people who also loved them with the same burning, shocking passion.

I watched X-Files starting some time partly through S1. The first episode Mr WG and I saw was the one with the Jersey Devil, in which there's a line something like "Primates have an instinctive fear of heights." Seriously? Monkeys? Are afraid of heights? We still repeat that line to each other occasionally when in need of a good laugh. But we got really into the show, and watched it every week. We even chose the DJ for our wedding because he was an X-Files fan. (Yes, really.) But while I was a huge FAN of the show -- "Fight the Future" was the first movie I ever saw in the theater by myself, because I couldn't wait until that night when we were going with friends -- I still didn't even know about fandom.

At some point, I discovered fanfic, and I read a ton of X-Files fic. I even started writing one (in a notebook, still kicking around somewhere). But I didn't TALK to other fans. I don't think I ever even sent feedback.

It wasn't until the summer before S5 of Buffy aired, and I happened to catch "Hush" as a re-run, that I discovered Buffy and Angel. I was, of course, instantly fascinated, and immediately borrowed and mainlined about 20 tapes (episodes of both Buffy and Angel, all unlabeled and out of order) in a week and a half. I started watching the shows as they aired, then byrne, who I knew from elsewhere on the internet, wrote some Spike/Xander and got an LJ and it was all over, LOL.

Anyway. Finding Jossverse fandom was like coming home. It was the first place I ever felt like my obsession with TV characters didn't make me a freak -- or at least it was reassuring to know that there were so many other freaks -- and for years I couldn't even IMAGINE being involved in another fandom. When the last episode of Buffy aired, I watched it on my own because I knew I was going to cry through the entire thing. When Angel was canceled, I was devastated. When the last episode aired, I felt sick. It was partially because I wasn't going to get new shows, sure, but it was mostly because this thing, this amazing phenomenon, was ending. And I'm still not over it.

Fans have moved on. Heck, I've moved on, although I still consider myself to have one foot in Jossverse and the other out in the world of other fandoms. But I think I'm a little scared to throw myself wholly into ONE fandom again, because that just gives it so much more power to hurt me. It's stupid. I know it's stupid. But I can't help it. It feels like, as long as I haven't really devoted myself to one show, I'm safer. I write fic, and I read fic, but for the most part I keep my distance from the fandom part of fandom -- if I don't know what's going on in the kerfuffles, if I'm not involved, I'm safe. I don't have to take sides or try to protect my friends from being hurt.

I'm watching Supernatural and Atlantis and Torchwood and loving all of them. But something's missing, and it's not the shows. It's me.

I'm just not sure how to fix it.

Okay, this session of thinking-while-typing is now at an end. Please exit the car on the right hand side. :-P