Fandom Home
In this space, I keep stuff related to my fandom activities. As Jaelijn I've been a fanwork creator for well over a decade, which compared to some really old-school fans isn't terribly long, but makes me increasingly feel like I've seen everything.
Some of my thoughts on fandom generally will eventually going into the Fandom Musings page. Equally, I may add little shrines to fandoms past.
For now, the main focus of this section is my little corner for Blake's 7, my current fandom and primary fandom for more than seven years. Blake's 7 is a late 70s British dystopian scifi show with an outstanding ensemble cast of characters. If you want sparkling special effects, it's probably not for you - but if you want clever dialogue and excellent character work, you might want to check it out!
Why am I using a website for B7 stuff and not one of the normal fandom haunts? Mostly, it's an emergency mirror: If social media collapses, if old B7 websites from the Internet 1.0 era disappear forever, I want to have a little space of my own that endures. So it'll be both deeply personal to my own fandom involvement and an informative space.
What the f* is fandom?
I'm going to admit, fandom has been on my radar in some way for so long that I can't really understand how people have not even heard of it. But apparently that's a thing, and I won't stand in the way of someone learning something new:
Imagine people who're really enthusiastic about a musician. Or a sports club. Or a book. Or a TV show. Or a game. Or... Those people are fans. Collectively, fans are in a fandom. Not all people who are technically in fandoms or very fandom-adjacent call themselves fans or their community a fandom, but certainly with entertainment (film, TV, literature), the term has caught on.
You may hear that "fan" comes from "fanatic", though that is actually not all that certain. What is certain is that you find noone more enthusiastic about something than a fan.
Glossary
fanfiction (also fan fiction, fanfic, fic): fictional stories written by fans based on an existing universe; usually taking several elements from the original work
fanwork: anything creatively created by fans. Includes fanfic, but also art, videos, gifs, music (=filk), analysis (=meta), audio versions of fics (=podfic) and everything else.
canon: Originally a term from Christian bible studies for church-sanctioned texts; in a fandom context the original work. Related: canon-compliant, canon-divergent, (non-)canonical
pairing: a romantic and/or sexual relationship between characters, generally two - hence "pair" - but polyarmorous relationships can also be called pairings. Historically used primarily for relationships that are not explicitly sexual or romantic in the canon, but interpreted as such by fans. More recently including canon pairings, too.
shipping: creating for, liking or otherwise supporting a fictional couple (whether canonical or not). From "relation-ship".
ship: Similar to "pairing" though also used as verb, as above. Often implying a fan's preference, as in "My ship is A/V, I ship A/V."
slash: fanworks involving a same-gender-pairing. Historically used only for pairings that aren't explicit in canon or for the fans' queer interpretation, from "/" as used between character names to signify the pairing. Modern use also refers to pairings that are explicit in the canon. Sometimes female/female slash is specified as "femslash".
gen: From "general". As with slash, describing a pairing constellation in a fanwork. Historically, "Gen" could be everything that wasn't "Slash", including heterosexual romance, but also be a "rating", aka "for general audiences". Modern use tends to exclude all pairings, as in, the delineation between Slash, Gen and Het has become sharper. The use of the term in a rating capacity has lessened.
het: From "heterosexual". As with slash and gen, describing a pairing constellation in a fanwork, in this case a heterosexual and/or female/male pairing. Historically, many works described as "Gen" included heterosexual pairings, with "Het" being used only for truly explicit stories. This applied to both heterosexual pairings in the canon and fan-interpreted ones, though heterosexual canon pairings are the reason Gen and Het used to overlap. Modern use makes a clearer distinction between Gen (as strictly no pairings) and Het.
multishipper A fan who's okay with or activelly shipping more than one ship.
OTP ("one true pairing"): A half-joking term to express a fan's affection for one ship in particular. Sometimes this stands in opposition to multishippers, as in if there's an OTP, no other pairings are liked. However, there are nuances to this: no other pairings are as interesting, no other pairings, period, no other pairings involving the characters in the OTP, active dislike of other pairings etc. I use it only to express which pairing I'm most invested in.
OT3 Same as OTP, except for "pairing" involving three characters. OT_ also excist for even more characters, as needed.
Archive of Our Own (also AO3): One of the current biggest depositories of fanworks, spanning any and all fandoms, founded by fans and run by fan volunteers, funded entirely through donations. At home here. It's AOOO aka A-3-times-the-letter-o, not A-zero-3, btw.
Livejournal (also LJ): An personal blogging website that used to be the major home of internet fandom after individual websites and email listings. Then Stuff Happened and fandom moved largely on. Dreamwidth is a LJ clone run by fans in a similar way to AO3, but it never really established itself.
Fanfiction.net (also FF.net): A multifandom fanfic archive, and a precursor to AO3. Mainly limited by a clunky uploading interface, aggressive on-site advertisement and a ban on content with higher ratings. It still exists, but few people still actively use it.
My Fandoms
A non-exhaustive list in no real order, mostly to give you an idea of my tastes. I've been more or less involved in these, so there may be things listed here that I've written 100+ fics as well as things where I haven't written a single one and have mostly lurked. All the same, there's some kind of line between "things I like" and "things I am a fan of", not that I can explain or define this line.
Film and Television
Blake's 7, Star Trek, Stargate: Atlantis, Red Dwarf, Supernatural, Doctor Who, Our Flag Means Death, Yuri on Ice, Drake's Venture, Pirates of the Caribbean, Avatar (James Cameron)
Literature
Sherlock Holmes (also including various multimedia adaptations)
Games and Other Things
Minecraft as well as Minecraft Youtube (esp. Hermitcraft), Magic the Gathering, Planet Zoo, Creatures
Also check out the games section on this website!