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you never forget your first
I am reading through the free e-book PDF of Writing Boldly, an account of the early days of Star Trek 'zine fandom. Here, have some interesting facts from it!
(Mind you, my reason for not picking it up is that I still haven't even read my copy of "Star Trek Lives", which I should do, only that'd mean digging into the ST book boxes, and that'd mean nothing else getting done for a week, minimum, while I re-read all my old favorites with modern-fandom context.)
ETA: Crossover fanfic in which Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, astrophysicist, comes to Atlantis and then sets up Dr. McKay with his BFF Jon Stewart: y/y/mfy?
- Things I thought originated in LJ fandom but actually pre-date ST:
- The term "fannish", which was used in the first ST 'zine so must have dated back to SF fandom.
- Tickyboxes. I quote:
A tradition that Spockanalia carried over from sf fanzines, and which carried over to subsequent Star Trek fanzines, was the check-off list on the last page. The list's introduction stated, "You are receiving Spockanalia because...." A number of possibilities followed. On my issue, the editor checked: "You are in Spock Shock," "We admire you," and "You are totally illogical." - Actor RPF. Okay, I knew this had been around from early days, because "Visit to a Weird Planet Revisted" was in one of the New Voyages anthologies, but I didn't realize that "Visit to a Weird Planet" was actually in the first ST 'zine ever (Spockanalia issue 3, while the show was still on the air. Lois McMaster's first published fic was also in that 'zine, btw.)
- Stupid summary/author's notes from Mary Sue writers aren't an ff.net phenomenon; they actually *predate* the term "Mary Sue": from NCC-1701, 1973:"When I began writing my Star Trek series, I added a character to the crew of the Enterprise. This character is Janine Daniels, an eighteen-year-old with long brown hair—and green eyes. This is how she comes to the Enterprise." (Writing Boldly also contains the full text of the story that originated the term Mary-Sue, from Dec. '73)
- Ni Var was a Vulcan poetic form that showed up in the first Spockanalia issue, and was apparently used frequently in early Trek fandom, in which one is of two minds about something. The first Ni Var poem is reprinted, and man, it's excellent, as fanpoetry goes, and as poetic forms go, perfect for writing fanpoetry. Given I'm a sucker for Vulcan poetry anyway (ask me about Surak's Last Stave sometime) I wanna write me some Ni Var.
- Grup 1, the first all-adult ST 'zine, had a naked Spock centerfold.
- "Pon Farr means never having to say you're sorry", the subtitle of one of the earliest fanfic meta essays (summary: Why We Write Spock Sex) needs to become a fannish catchphrase again. /me is totally still working on a Ponn Farr story.
- The name Michelle Malkin makes me feel icky even when I'm 99% sure the early 'zine editor was not *that* Michelle Malkin. (Although it would be awesome if it was.)
- Why don't we have SMOFs anymore?
- Jacqueline Lichtenberg's Kraith AU, based around the concept that Kirk and Spock are soulbonded but not having sex, started around 1970, has had several hundred people write in it, and is still being written in, which means that it's been ongoing for almost 40 years. Eat that, M7 fans!
- Damn, I had no idea how many current big-name pros got their starts in Trek 'zines.
(Mind you, my reason for not picking it up is that I still haven't even read my copy of "Star Trek Lives", which I should do, only that'd mean digging into the ST book boxes, and that'd mean nothing else getting done for a week, minimum, while I re-read all my old favorites with modern-fandom context.)
ETA: Crossover fanfic in which Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, astrophysicist, comes to Atlantis and then sets up Dr. McKay with his BFF Jon Stewart: y/y/mfy?
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You thought "fannish" originated on LJ?!? I remember hearing that term, along with "fen" and "filk", back at my first ST con, in the '80s. And finding it perfectly ridiculous, mind, but yeah. It's ooooold.
while I re-read all my old favorites with modern-fandom context
Am I bad for thinking the resulting meta would be so interesting as to wish that you'd get nothing done for a week? ;)
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Yeah! I know! On sober reflection, it's pretty obviously the recency illusion (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002849.html) - I just never noticed it until a few years ago - but somehow it never got connected in my mind with old-school fandom; I assumed it was an annoying-but-useful neologism of the m_f crowd. I guess it didn't show up in the lexicons and stuff the way that "filk" and "fen" did, because people took it for granted as a normal English word? Since ST books were pretty much my only contact with fandom until the Internet era, I wasn't really exposed to that kind of casual fan usage much.
And if I though that the meta would actually get written I just might. Sadly, I predict that instead what would happen is that I'd disappear from the internets, and everywhere else, for about a week, and then surface to make one post about how somebody needs to write the fic where genderswap!Kirk from New Voyages II actually sleeps with the Klingon captain, and/or the Romulan commander, and that would be it. :P (And I can write that post now, because he *totally should* have slept with him.)
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And Sheppard and Carter totally start hanging out with Dr. Colbert all the time, partly because it annoys Rodney so much and partly because Colbert's actually really funny (and John and Sam remind Stephen of Jon and Sam back home), and then Sam sleeps with him in a fit of bad judgement only to have Stephen discover the next morning that he's actually totally gay, and then Rodney goes mental on them, so out of guilt Sam tells him that Rodney would love him forever if he got him a chance to meet Jon, and then Rodney spends the next three weeks wandering around Atlantis talking about how dreamy Jon is and everybody misinterprets it and John freaks out.
...or something like that. :P
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Also, on my list of crack-SGA-crossovers-to-finish, it's below the-one-where-Dr.-House-diagnoses-John-with-mpreg and the-one-where-Mer-and-Jean-are-raised-on-the-road-as-rogue-demon-hunters and the-one-where-Elizabeth-is-John's-mom and the-one-where-bug-John-from-Conversion-does-sex-with-Illyria-pretending-to-be-Dr.-Fred-Burkle.
So probably not.
But you never know! Maybe my sister will write it!
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A friend and I are cowriting a Ministry-based First Voldemort War series starring mostly minor canon characters, one of whom is a Star Trek fan. It's a fairly minor aspect of his character, since he spent his formative years at a boarding school without electricity, much less television, but he's got a very obsessive personality, and it's good to know what kind of options he'd have.
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SMoFs were pan-fandom: they were people who knew people who could talk to Pro Author X about being a guest at your con (or were that person), who could get help with Getting Stuff Done, from spreading a good word about a con or fannish group to helping get a blood-drive set up. They were behind-the-scenes players, hence the 'Secret' part of the moniker.