celebrating 11 and a half years of the fandom I said I'd never join

[pauraque_bk]

Mixed feelings about hp_reunion, since so many of us are still here and have no need to be reunited! But I realize for many people HP fandom is now a long-ago memory and a reunion makes sense. I guess we should be glad it's stuck around long enough for that to happen.

Either way, today seems to be the day people are recreating or pointing to their first post in the fandom. Mine seems to have been on a mailing list called HP Improv.

But then! My friends from X-Files fandom persuaded me to get an LJ, which I had previously said I would never do. At the tender age of 20, I was already a stodgy old-timer who'd been in fandom for years, and I was sure this newfangled LiveJournal thing would never catch on. Online diaries were for high school drama, not Serious Fandom Business. Usenet and mailing lists forever! (Not sure whether to laugh or cry here.)

At last I caved and joined the 21st century, and broke the champagne bottle on my LJ's bow by reposting my very first HP fic, which I'm pleased to say is not embarrassingly bad. (Fortunately I was only new to Harry Potter, definitely not new to writing.)

And here's the post: May 6, 2003.

Notable things:

• I was still using my fandom moniker from my mailing list days. Why isn't my LJ called eodrakken, then? Because I didn't understand yet that my LJ name would be what people would call me. I thought it was more like an email address, and that people would call me whatever I put in the author field of my fics. (But yes, I'm good with being called pauraque now.)


• I used an "archive" field! That was actually a thing on mailing lists and I did not know it wasn't a thing on LJ. It meant that I didn't want people taking my fic from the mailing list and posting it on their own fic archive sites without asking, which sounds completely nuts now, but was actually a normal part of fandom then.


• I liked Draco! I never really stopped liking Draco, but I did fall into a crowd for whom he was not a liked character, so I sort of lost interest in him.


• Aw, the first comment I ever got on LJ was from someone who's still a dear friend (though going by another name online now). That makes me so happy.


• Very obvious that I wasn't new to fandom as I already had people showing up and making silly inside jokes from the XF mailing lists. ♥ But I think I started friending HP people really quickly after that.

This entry was originally posted at http://pauraque.dreamwidth.org/47840.html. Comment here or there.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

I remember that fic! You write a lovely Draco, that story was very memorable, I love the line from Narcissa wishing they'd be better about their indiscretions.

I also remember the post where people made guesses at how to pronounce "pauraque." That was fun. :)

[pauraque]

Just the other day a notable fandom personality misspelled my name. As always, it was an honor. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hannelore/]

pooraquay! ;)