Meme

[thuviaptarth]

Tell me you want to play and I'll pick up to three of your fandoms. Then update your journal and answer the following questions:

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?


2. Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?


3. Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?


4. Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?


5. Do you think more people should get into this fandom?

laurashapiro gave me: The X Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

I'm better off doing this in chronological order, I think, and also cutting because I am long-winded:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?

Two friends of mine had been raving about the show for a couple of years, but I didn't watch TV. I mean, I had a TV, because my parents had bought one for me after I moved into my first apartment. (I would much rather have had the cash.) I did not, however, have television reception, because I didn't see the point in paying for cable, especially since I was accumulating credit card debt to pay for rent, student loans, and groceries all at the same time. (You can see why I would rather have had the cash.) Also, at that point in my life, I hadn't seen any television which didn't make me think, "This is okay, but I'd rather be reading a book."

A couple of years later, I had a much better-paying job and moved into a much better apartment. I figured I might as well spring for cable to get enough TV reception to watch that show my friends had been raving about, why not.

This must have been in April 1997, considering the episodes I saw -- an odd mishmash of Season 3 and Season 2 episodes, all out of order.

The first episode I saw was "The Zeppo." This did not thrill me.

The second episode I saw was "Consequences." I fell completely and passionately in love.

I still love this episode so much. Sister light sister dark, ambivalent sexual tension all over the place, trust and betrayal, a focus on relationships between women that included the importance of friendship, and it even had water imagery and disturbing dreams. So many of my favorite things all in one place!

It probably helped that it was the second half of a two-parter. I really liked teasing out the events and relationships from the way people interacted. Engaged more of my attention.

So I watched faithfully, and was on one discussion mailing list started by one of my Buffy-watching friends, but I wasn't involved in the fandom until Season 5 or 6, when I started watching The X Files and got involved in XF fandom and found some people who were also watching Buffy.


2. Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?

I don't think this meme was made for shows with closed canons.

(Okay, I did read the Season 8 comics. For my peace of mind, I have decided to consider them authorized fanfic. I am not reading Season 9.)

I don't know if I am in the fandom anymore, but it is the show of my heart. I will never get over it.


3. Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?

Oh, jeez. So many! Off the top of my head: "Restless," "The Wish," "Graduation Day 1," "Becoming 2," "Innocence" -- okay, here is where I can't remember whether "Surprise" or "Innocence" is part two and this stops being off the top of my head because I am looking up episode guides, "Innocence" was right -- "Nightmares," "Lie to Me," "Consequences" (still), "Helpless," "Earshot," "This Year's Girl," "Who Are You?", "Hush," "New Moon Rising," "No Place Like Home," "The Body," "Bargaining 1-2," "After Life," "Once More, With Feeling," "Dead Things," "Selfless," "Conversations with Dead People," "Potential," "Storyteller," and "Chosen."

I am tempted to take "Chosen" off, because there are parts of it I do not like AT ALL. But I will never, ever, ever not lose my breath over the slayers rising up, and "Are you ready to be strong?" So "Chosen" stays.


4. Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?


Back in the day I posted a lot of meta on a message board and on LJ (LJ was all shiny and new) and wrote a little fanfiction. I don't talk to people about the show much anymore. But my imaginary vid list has seven definites and one maybe to be vidded for this show, which is more than any other fandom except The Sarah Connor Chronicles. And I expect to get more vid ideas when I finally do my rewatch.

This was one of the two shows for which I first watched vids.


5. Do you think more people should get into this fandom?

Hell yeah.

The X Files

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?

A friend needed me to tape the first few episodes of Season 7 for her and I watched them while I was taping. (She had actually shown me a few episodes when I visited her some time earlier, but it hadn't clicked. That was the first time I'd ever seen it. Me and pop culture, we were not great friends.)

I loved "The Sixth Extinction" and "Orison." Apparently, sequels to episodes I haven't seen are the way to hook me. I loved Buffy for the dialog, but I loved The X Files for all its silences. I loved the cinematic visuals, the moral complexity, the emotional undercurrents I didn't understand.


2. Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?

I have moved and I left no forwarding address.

I grew up on the Buffy model, so I assumed events didn't make sense or were inconsistent because I hadn't seen the backstory episodes or hadn't seen the episodes in order.

This assumption proved incorrect.


3. Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?

"Pusher," "Sleepless," "One Breath," "War of the Coprophages," "Grotesque," "Wetwired," "Never Again," "Memento Mori," "Elegy," "Demons," "Redux II," "Bad Blood," "The Pine Bluff Variant," "The End," "Triangle," "Tithonus," "Milagro," "En Ami," and "All Things."

Almost-rans: I like a lot of the full circle ideas in "Requiem," but even if I disregard the last twenty seconds, almost all the dialog is incredibly awful. I love a lot of the imagery in "Within/Without," especially the way it picks up the color scheme from "All Things," but I hate many of the plot developments and also feel like that was the last time on the show I saw Dana Scully.


4. Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?

I wrote a little fanfiction. I sent many long and pretentious episode analyses to the scullyfic list. I read huge amounts of excellent fan fiction, some of which I even wrote feedback for. I posted a little and lurked a lot on the newsgroups.

This was the other show for which I first watched vids. (Hi, Laura!) It is the show that made me get fanfic.

I will make the Scully vid I have been wanting to exist since before I ever thought I would vid. After that, I may sell my DVDs.


5. Do you think more people should get into this fandom?

It seems to have had a new influx of people due to the second movie, who seem to be having a lot of fun, and occasionally send me new feedback on the first fanfiction story I ever posted. There is an extraordinary wealth of excellent fanfiction. There are some sublimely wonderful episodes, unfortunately mixed with sublimely awful ones.

So, hey, whatever, if you think you might have fun, go for it. As long as you never, ever, under any circumstances, attempt to make sense of the mytharc.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles

1. What got you into this fandom in the first place?

It was a new sf show with a female protagonist and also Summer Glau and that kid who was really good in a really minor part in Heroes.

I am possibly the only person of my generation who did not see the first two Terminator films in the theatre, or in fact at all, before seeing SCC Season One.


2. Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?

I will never get over this show. FUCK YOU, FOX, I AM STILL BITTER.

I wasn't able to participate in the big group rewatch a couple of years ago -- I love this show beyond words, but it demands an emotional fortitude I did not have at the time -- but one day I will, and then I will write up slow, loving reactions to every episode.


3. Favorite episodes/books/movies, etc?

... can I say all of them? Seriously, there is not a single episode in this show I dislike. (Granted, it died untimely young.) Okay, ones that kicked it up a notch above the generally excellent quality: The Pilot, "What He Beheld," "Samson and Delilah," "Allison from Palmdale," "Alpine Fields," "Some Must Watch, While Some Must Sleep," "Today Is the Day 1-2," "To the Lighthouse," "Adam Raised A Cain," and "Born to Run." God, that sequence of 2x18-2x22 ("Today Is the Day" to the finale) is FUCKING AMAZING.

Also, once I watched the movies, T2 was pretty cool.


4. Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?

I occasionally posted meta while the show was airing. I have actually made one of my imaginary vids for this!

Six definite vids on my list, three maybes. I want do at least one vid for every major character. I'm not sure about the song for Catherine Weaver/the machines, although I have two possibilities I kind of like.


5. Do you think more people should get into this fandom?

The whole entire world should watch this show and then participate in a letter campaign to revive the show or at least finish it off with a half season or a mini-series.

Comments

[chaila]

*weeps tears for TSCC* I would love to see more TSCC vids from you, and would lovingly read and respond to loving episode reactions. <3 I sometimes wish I had more meta/discussion left in me about it (I do, but usually now only in reaction to other people's posts) but I can't seem to have both words AND vids about something anymore.

P.S. I want to play! :)

[thuviaptarth]

The TSCC vids have moved up in my schedule now that I have lost most of my enthusiasm for my planned Fringe vids, so hey, I may even do them this decade.

It was really hard to write about TSCC when it was on. I loved it so much it left me speechless.

I could watch endless vids for it, although somehow I was never into SCC fic for some reason.

Fandoms:
SCC, of course
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Attolia (or Farscape, if you don't want to do book fandoms)

[laurashapiro]

Your answers about The X-Files amuse me greatly, and I note we have a fondness for the same episodes -- not surprising, really -- and the same aspects of the show. Oh, those visuals. I've still never seen another show that looks like that. I look forward to your Scully vid with great enthusiasm!

FUCK YOU, FOX, I AM STILL BITTER.

I AM WITH YOU, SISTER.

[cofax7]

WORD.

[thuviaptarth]

I miss it SO MUCH.

[thuviaptarth]

Your answers about The X-Files amuse me greatly, and I note we have a fondness for the same episodes -- not surprising, really -- and the same aspects of the show.

Now I am wondering if I should have put "Paper Hearts" on. It is a much better episode than some I have included ("Milagro" and "all things," much as I love them, are really ... not good in many ways), but I appreciated it more than loved it. Vince Gilligan did do my favoritest episodes, though. I wish I had any interest at all in Breaking Bad.

Oh, those visuals. I've still never seen another show that looks like that.
Unsurprisingly, I still gravitate majorly to sf noir.

I look forward to your Scully vid with great enthusiasm!
One of these decades! I have to admit I haven't been looking forward to an XF rewatch with the same pleasure as I have for a BtVS or SCC rewatch.

[laurashapiro]

I love Paper Hearts. There were so many crap episodes about Mulder's Samantha-related motivation, but this one was just epic.

Breaking Bad holds no appeal for me either, though I hear great things about it.

I have to admit I haven't been looking forward to an XF rewatch with the same pleasure as I have for a BtVS or SCC rewatch.

I can understand that! I find it helps to have a newbie to show it to.

[kore]

I love Paper Hearts. There were so many crap episodes about Mulder's Samantha-related motivation, but this one was just epic.

I seriously can't rewatch Paper Hearts, not because it was crap but because it was too good. The bit where the 'BYE' comes up - //shudder

[thuviaptarth]

I AM WITH YOU, SISTER.

It was SO GOOD, Laura. And it got EVEN BETTER. And then they renewed fucking DOLLHOUSE.

[laurashapiro]

Dollhouse had better ratings, I guess. Which is, in itself, horrible to contemplate.

[oyceter]

Oooo, me?

[thuviaptarth]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Once Upon A Time, Fruits Basket

[kore]

I loved Buffy for the dialog, but I loved The X Files for all its silences.

That is beautiful.

OMG a Scullyvid from you sounds great (plus an Oliviavid....)

I sent many long and pretentious episode analyses to the scullyfic list.

....ooooh.