Oh look, a fangirl
5 March 2019 09:05![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nym_wibblyYesterday I finally started wiggling back into the fannish headspace. I've been pulled in so many different directions over the past few weeks that there hasn't been room for more than wishful thinking about fandom. The characters' voices are never far from my brain though, even when my attention is completely elsewhere and doing Responsible Adult type things.
Last week, Horror (talk about channel drift) aired Star Trek's 'Journey to Babel' and brought back a load of fannish memories. It'd actually been long enough since I saw the ep that I didn't know it inside out any more, which was the weirdest feeling. Sarek and Amanda were my first proper fannish pairing. I'd had a mind inclined to 'shipping for as long as I could remember, right back to seeing the Star Wars films when I was really small; I'd encountered fandom through Robin of Sherwood. And of course I was already familiar with the original Star Trek - it'd been as much a part of my life as a TV show could be back in the days before VCR and commercial home video releases.
I don't remember exactly when or how I became truly fannish about it, or latched on to Amanda, Sarek, and Spock as the focus of my Trek attention. Probably via Robin of Sherwood fandom in some way - a newsletter, maybe, or a conversation (by letter, in those days). Maybe at my first convention? I'd seen the episode, but I didn't see it again through fannish eyes until I scored a copy by tape tree some years later. I remember reading Jean Lorrah's The I.D.I.C. Epidemic, and hunting for ages to get hold of a copy of The Vulcan Academy Murders (which I finally managed at my second convention, thanks to a dealer's table with stock from the US). At some point long before I turned 18, I managed to scrape together enough money and International Reply Coupons and goodness knows what else to buy Jean Lorrah's fanzines from the US. Again, I can't remember how I found out about them, or whether I found them before or after I found her Star Trek novels. Before, I suspect, but it was a particularly bad time in my life and a lot of memories just aren't there. I'd owned a couple of Robin of Sherwood fanzines, and there was occasional fanfic in the fan club newsletters too, and of course I was already writing my own fanfic without knowing that fanfic was even a thing. But Jean Lorrah's fanzines were my first pairing fic, my first smut, my first taste of the kind of writing that this little Nym wanted to be reading. I'd been an insatiable reader my whole life, but my interest in pro-fic pretty much stopped right there with Jean Lorrah's Night of the Twin Moons and other Sarek/Amanda 'shipper zines. Move over, mainstream fic, you are not effing worthy.
I haven't read them in... decades. I still treasure them, and I'm always conscious of how deeply they continue to influence the fanfic I'm writing today, thirty years after my teenage Star Trek 'shippy phase. To put that on the fandom timeline, we're talking pre-Star Trek: The Next Generation, here. I'm still writing my own homage to those stories - the unlikely pairing who have to work at making it work, the intimate glimpses into their daily lives, the philosophy about love and life and the fundamental differences between individuals and cultures. It's all there in A Bed of Thorns (Once Upon a Time), Antithesis (Doctor Who), In the Blood (Stargate SGA), Drive (Petshop of Horrors), Knowledge (Buffy), Shattered (Harry Potter), Grown in Darkness, Know Thyself, and Hero Worship (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys). Any of my longer, messy, pairing-fics you care to name is, in part, an homage and response to those first, glorious fanzines by Jean Lorrah about Sarek and Amanda, their marriage, and their relationships with Spock. They're me in the process of trying to learn how to give a reader what Jean Lorrah gave me.
Jean Lorrah's smut changed my life and I owe her such a debt for giving me an outlet and a focus for my fannish inclinations at a time in my life when my creative energy, my only hope of hanging on to my mental health, lacked direction and understanding. It was another ten years before I could write a complete story of my own - before I had the ideas for plots, or the discipline not to just write page after page of PWP or emo waffle (something I still occasionally do for the private enjoyment of it, and to explore characters I love). At the time, being a teenager, smut was a large part of the fascination, and a large part of the craving (though I loved the smut-free offical novels just as much). These days, to me, fanfic smut has become the tool, the framework, the medium for exploring the characters I love in their complex and difficult human (or less-human-in-some-way) relationships. The alien in us all. Beauty and the Beast (the GRRM TV version of which was contemporary with my entry into fandom), re-imagined. I've never lost sight of that debt, but until I saw 'Journey to Babel' last week, I think I'd lost sight of Sarek and Amanda - and this in spite of the fact that both characters continue to pop up in the Star Trek universe, right up to the present day.
Last week, Horror (talk about channel drift) aired Star Trek's 'Journey to Babel' and brought back a load of fannish memories. It'd actually been long enough since I saw the ep that I didn't know it inside out any more, which was the weirdest feeling. Sarek and Amanda were my first proper fannish pairing. I'd had a mind inclined to 'shipping for as long as I could remember, right back to seeing the Star Wars films when I was really small; I'd encountered fandom through Robin of Sherwood. And of course I was already familiar with the original Star Trek - it'd been as much a part of my life as a TV show could be back in the days before VCR and commercial home video releases.
I don't remember exactly when or how I became truly fannish about it, or latched on to Amanda, Sarek, and Spock as the focus of my Trek attention. Probably via Robin of Sherwood fandom in some way - a newsletter, maybe, or a conversation (by letter, in those days). Maybe at my first convention? I'd seen the episode, but I didn't see it again through fannish eyes until I scored a copy by tape tree some years later. I remember reading Jean Lorrah's The I.D.I.C. Epidemic, and hunting for ages to get hold of a copy of The Vulcan Academy Murders (which I finally managed at my second convention, thanks to a dealer's table with stock from the US). At some point long before I turned 18, I managed to scrape together enough money and International Reply Coupons and goodness knows what else to buy Jean Lorrah's fanzines from the US. Again, I can't remember how I found out about them, or whether I found them before or after I found her Star Trek novels. Before, I suspect, but it was a particularly bad time in my life and a lot of memories just aren't there. I'd owned a couple of Robin of Sherwood fanzines, and there was occasional fanfic in the fan club newsletters too, and of course I was already writing my own fanfic without knowing that fanfic was even a thing. But Jean Lorrah's fanzines were my first pairing fic, my first smut, my first taste of the kind of writing that this little Nym wanted to be reading. I'd been an insatiable reader my whole life, but my interest in pro-fic pretty much stopped right there with Jean Lorrah's Night of the Twin Moons and other Sarek/Amanda 'shipper zines. Move over, mainstream fic, you are not effing worthy.
I haven't read them in... decades. I still treasure them, and I'm always conscious of how deeply they continue to influence the fanfic I'm writing today, thirty years after my teenage Star Trek 'shippy phase. To put that on the fandom timeline, we're talking pre-Star Trek: The Next Generation, here. I'm still writing my own homage to those stories - the unlikely pairing who have to work at making it work, the intimate glimpses into their daily lives, the philosophy about love and life and the fundamental differences between individuals and cultures. It's all there in A Bed of Thorns (Once Upon a Time), Antithesis (Doctor Who), In the Blood (Stargate SGA), Drive (Petshop of Horrors), Knowledge (Buffy), Shattered (Harry Potter), Grown in Darkness, Know Thyself, and Hero Worship (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys). Any of my longer, messy, pairing-fics you care to name is, in part, an homage and response to those first, glorious fanzines by Jean Lorrah about Sarek and Amanda, their marriage, and their relationships with Spock. They're me in the process of trying to learn how to give a reader what Jean Lorrah gave me.
Jean Lorrah's smut changed my life and I owe her such a debt for giving me an outlet and a focus for my fannish inclinations at a time in my life when my creative energy, my only hope of hanging on to my mental health, lacked direction and understanding. It was another ten years before I could write a complete story of my own - before I had the ideas for plots, or the discipline not to just write page after page of PWP or emo waffle (something I still occasionally do for the private enjoyment of it, and to explore characters I love). At the time, being a teenager, smut was a large part of the fascination, and a large part of the craving (though I loved the smut-free offical novels just as much). These days, to me, fanfic smut has become the tool, the framework, the medium for exploring the characters I love in their complex and difficult human (or less-human-in-some-way) relationships. The alien in us all. Beauty and the Beast (the GRRM TV version of which was contemporary with my entry into fandom), re-imagined. I've never lost sight of that debt, but until I saw 'Journey to Babel' last week, I think I'd lost sight of Sarek and Amanda - and this in spite of the fact that both characters continue to pop up in the Star Trek universe, right up to the present day.
addka;jfkljdf
Date: 5 Mar 2019 09:55 (UTC)Re: addka;jfkljdf
Date: 5 Mar 2019 09:57 (UTC)no subject
Date: 6 Mar 2019 09:42 (UTC)She had to toss it when the box her zine's were in got moused (she had some Professionals, Star Trek and Tolkien) and everything was chewed up but I then clicked around fanlore and found another zine that she had -Jane Land's Kista- and theres a typed up copy on the ao3! And a sequel!
I thought this would haunt me forever than you so much omg :)
no subject
Date: 7 Mar 2019 08:30 (UTC)I produced fanzines for a few years before the interwebz found its feet, and even in the era of early home printers and high street print-copy shops, reproducing and binding a brick of text was no joke, and expensive. I can't even IMAGINE doing it on a mimeograph!!
no subject
Date: 7 Mar 2019 17:08 (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Mar 2019 17:16 (UTC)It's not my favourite of Jean Lorrah's Sarek/Amanda works, but it's definitely the most important to fannish history, especially as it crosses over into her offical Trek novels. I wonder if there's any way to get permission to put it online?
no subject
Date: 7 Mar 2019 17:39 (UTC)The prices are fair enough thirty to forty dollars I'd happily pay double and call it a bargain, but then shipping to Australia is easily cost of the zine itself twice over. Ouch.
But so tempting! It's always nice when I find things mum liked when she was my age.
no subject
Date: 9 Mar 2019 08:38 (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Mar 2019 11:35 (UTC)Like no obligation, if you're not feeling up to it but it would be so cool :D
no subject
Date: 9 Mar 2019 13:05 (UTC)