playing That Alphabet Meme (F-I)

F: What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? Which?

Define "in a fandom." :-)

I'm a second-generation Trek fan. My father never attended conventions or the like, but he's a Trek fan since its '60s premiere. He resisted streaming until Picard, insisting that Discovery would come to DVD. But with Picard, he let me gift him a CBS All Access subscription.

Similarly, my memory does not extend back before already loving Star Wars and making up better stories about Leia and Luke's mom at age 6 than Lucus did in the prequels. (I'm sure we all did.) But I've never been "in the fandom," as such.

Where "in a fandom" means active sharing with others, not just my dad and closest friends, it has to be Forever Knight. Because while I've been following Marvel, HL, D&DC longer than FK, only FK is ... FK. ("Oh, look, it's time for September's 'Recently in FK' bulletin.")

G: What was your first fandom?

Define "fandom." :-)

Again, if this means actively interacting with a wider community of fans, it was either Marvel (letters pages), or my first convention (Trek), or online (FK).

Yet if it means a deep, abiding, imaginative and creative engagement on my own, let's go back to the vintage RankinBass holiday specials (cinematic universe!). After them, then Dungeons & Dragons (the '80s cartoon), and Robotech. ♥ Also books. Many books.

H: Do you prefer live action or animated TV shows?

I prefer well-told, serialized stories that pull me on week after week, month after month, year after year, to a well-planned, fulfilling end. Medium is unimportant. Nineteenth-century me would have adored Dickens part-numbers (as you likely know, what we think of today as novels were often originally published as issues, pamphlets, a lot like like today's monthly comic books).

In case anime and manga feel neglected by me here, let me pitch the historical-fiction/fantasy Rurouni Kenshin. Set at the close of the nineteenth century, in a tumultuous period in a Japan struggling to choose which route it will take into modernity, our war-traumatized heroes stand up for the best of what should have been chosen, and lessons that should have been learned... while contesting historical super-villains via impossible fighting moves with elaborate names.

I: Has online caused you to stop liking any fandoms? If so, which and why?

Oh, dear, a sad question. If I share, you won't re-open the sadness, will you?

When the new Battlestar Galactica premiered, I didn't have cable. So I was eagerly awaiting a taped-from-TV VHS via media-mail. While waiting, I heard online that while all the original recurring male characters had analogues in the new series, none -- not one -- of the original recurring female characters did. Instead, they had recast some of the original male characters as female, and had just completely dumped Serina, Cassiopeia, Sheba, Athena, Rigel... today, I understand that Siress Tinia, the only woman on the Council of Twelve in the original series, has a claim on partly inspiring the President Roslin character in the new series, but I didn't know that then... I was disappointed. I felt disrespected by TPTB.

Then there was that online kerfluffle in which a few jerks who were fans of the new BSG loudly spread disparaging remarks about Dirk Benedict, the actor who had played the original Starbuck, as well as criticizing the original Starbuck character. They specifically went at Benedict's having cancer, as if the illness somehow deligitimized the character he had played, and as if the new character of that name could not stand up if her predecessor weren't first torn down. Trolls, before I knew what trolls were.

I ended up never watching that VHS tape, nor the series at all. I thought: Why would I want to spend time near such folks? I'll stick with the original BSG78 that I've loved since I was a small child watching one year late (because that's how most non-news TV still worked back then where I lived, when they physically shipped the media).

J, K, and L...

...are missing in my meme source. Curious. Do you know why they're missing, or what they should have been?

( the rest of the alphabet, for future use )