Personal biggest fandoms history

[schneefink]

starshipfox wanted to know about my biggest fandoms over the years.

The two top are easy, and also easily visible on AO3: between 2009 and 2012 (mostly 2010-2012) I wrote 17 SGA fics, and between 2013 and 2016 I wrote 13 Pittsburgh Penguins Hockey RPF fics.
(I was fannish about things before I found online fandom, but not really "in fandom.")

SGA was my first big online fandom that I actually participated in – I lurked for years before I first commented, then interacted with people, and then actually wrote and posted something. I first watched SGA in early 2007 iirc (a friend of mine showed me the Ronon episodes first.) I think I found the fandom not too long after, definitely by 2008, and I had several great years in it until I lost interest in 2013. I still have a lot of nostalgia for SGA fandom: I met wonderful people, I had a lot of fun, I learned a lot, the fanworks were amazing, and it's still the gold standard for crack fic.

And then I accidentally fell into Hockey RPF fandom, which was a complete surprise. During the 2012-2013 NHL lockdown I stumbled upon a couple of primers that included both fascinating player stories, clips of beautiful hockey plays, and recs for good fics with tropes I enjoyed, and then suddenly I started having opinions on trades and following sports writers and I remained baffled how that had happened. Previously I'd never been a big sports fan before - apart from following alpine skiing closely for a few years as a teenager, but, well, I'm Austrian, that's not a big surprise, and it's not a team sport either. So sports fandom was new, and weird, and the combination of sports and sports RPF fandom was weird, and overall it was probably the most stressful fandom I've been in. And I was very lucky in regards to timing, my team was doing very well (with… some exceptions, that Boston series, ouch, but still, they always made the playoffs) and even won Cups! (Let's just say I'm glad I didn't become an Oilers fan. As a random example.) I had some great times in hockey fandom (stand-out moments for example were watching a Pens playoffs game with other Pens fans in a bar in NYC, the Kessel trade etc.)
In 2014 I started taking beginners' hockey classes, which I did for two years and which was a lot of fun, and I met my best friend and current flatmate there so for that alone I'll never regret my time in hockey fandom.
I started losing interest in 2017, first in the RPF side and more slowly in the sports side too. It was a combination of a natural loss of interest over time and being unhappy with several aspects of the game and hockey culture etc. I joined both Twitter and Reddit originally for hockey news and I every once in a while I'm still amused when something exciting happens, but overall I barely follow it anymore. Though recently I did find myself thinking that when the NHL starts again, it might be fun to watch a game again. Hockey can be very pretty. And it turns out I still have many feelings about all aspects of the fandom.

I didn't have any fandoms I was into to the same extent after that. I was pretty into Nirvana in Fire for a while (which I still enjoy a lot but no longer feel as fannish about), then The Adventure Zone: Balance for even shorter, and I dipped into several different smaller fandoms and wrote fic for some of them. I thought The Magnus Archives might be my next big fandom, but it turned out to be more medium sized and I don't have the same level of fannish engagement I had with SGA or Hockey RPF.
Sometimes I miss that. Every time I find something new that I feel fannish about I wonder if this will be my new most shiny thing, but so far it's always been short-term. I'm pretty sure that it's going to happen one day, and it'll probably be something completely unexpected, and in the meantime I'll enjoy playing around with whatever things currently hold my interest.

Comments

[nnozomi]

Edward Seidensticker once described hockey as "great brutes of men soaring up and down the ice like angels, pausing occasionally to beat the hell out of each other"...

[schneefink]

Sounds accurate xD

[dine]

my path into hockey fandom started similarly - late 2011 a friend rec'd a hockey RPF fic with a trope I adored, and I read and kinda enjoyed it, then forgot all about it. some months later I wanted to reread it, read others by the author and then started reading more. and then I needed to know about the game, so started reading blogs and watching clips, then games, and developed opinions. I've also backed away some - it's been a long time since I read much fic, and obviously I've not watched too many games this year, but I'm still generally interested in the sport, which is odd as I've never been a sports-type person

[schneefink]

I think a lot of people got into hockey RPF and then hockey as a sport who hadn't been into sports fandoms (much) before, the "how did I end up here??" attitude wasn't uncommon ^^
I just checked the hockey RPF tag on AO3 for the first time in ages and found out that apparently currently one of if not the most popular pairing is Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick, TIL. (The majority of the most popular (by kudos) SGA fic posted this year are crossovers, huh.)

[starshipfox]

I don't follow hockey at all, but my wife similarly followed hockey fandom and games, so I feel like I've been in the fandom too! I've actually just started watching SGA for the first time ever, and I'm enjoying it so much. It's a really fun, well-constructed sci-fi show, and I can see why it inspired such fannish engagement.

[schneefink]

Second-hand fandoms are fun :D

I rewatched a few SGA episodes a few years ago and was surprised how much fun they were. Maybe I'll do that again.

This was an interesting question to research because I went back through my "hockey" tag on DW and it basically starts with "so I accidentally got interested in hockey a few months ago, how the hell did this happen." (Pretty sure I didn't mention it earlier because I was embarrassed, heh.)

[starshipfox]

I definitely recommend rewatching SGA! It really holds up.

Second-hand fandoms are so interesting! I have so much knowledge of, and fondness for, fandoms I've never actually been in.