My Fandom History

[branchandroot]

So, while out browsing around, I stumbled across the fact that the fanhistory wiki has a listing for me. It’s based entirely on my ff.net account. As such it is laughably inaccurate. It did start me thinking, though, about what a more accurate version would look like, and I thought I’d give it a try. Not to post on fanhistory, because the people who run it tend to annoy me, but just to get it all down on pixels.

Pre-History

My unrecorded fannish history, like many of us, dates from about the time I learned to read, whereupon I promptly told and re-told stories centering around myself, because it's more fun that way. This touched on a lot of material, but a few stayers were Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books and Star Trek. There was a solid Labyrinth period, too. The fannish writing tailed off a bit by high school and pretty much went into hibernation by college, supplanted for a time by origific and appalling poetry.

Public Fannish History

Circa 2000

• Lured into anime fandom by a student who gave me the Japanese and English versions of Sailor Moon's first season ending to compare, with canny promises of rich material for gender analysis. Instantly hooked.


• Began writing analytical websites under legal name, starting with BSSM.


• Started finding more anime to watch and manga to read. Wrote pages for Rurouni Kenshin.

2001

• Wrote pages for Gundam Wing, Digimon. Latter is unusual in that this was the sole dubbed show written up.


• Brief round of fanfic writing, in Sailor Moon, Rurouni Kenshin and Gundam Wing. Pre-empted by work and abandoned.

2002

• Wrote pages for Fushigi Yuugi, Cowboy Bebop.

2003

• Wrote pages for Trigun, Yuugi-ou.


• Started some correspondence with Lys ap Adin, in GW. Was eventually convinced to join LiveJournal.


• Started writing analysis in short parts; from this point on, analytical pages were often posted well after the analysis was first written on LJ.

2004

• Started writing fanfic again, in Fullmetal Alchemist.


• Briefly active in LJ comm fm_alchemist discussions. Withdrew after first experience of Kerfuffle. Public participation from here on is largely limited to fic.


• Removed old, unfinished fic from website and started posting new.


• Created fic-specific journal, branchfic, posting all fic there and on website.


• Started writing Prince of Tennis fic.


• Wrote pages for Gundam Seed.

2005

• Wrote Tennis Sanctuary, aka Crack Crossover of Doom. First collaborative writing project.


• Involved in the journal- and log-based RPG Love Game, PoT based. Split off into the alternative story Unofficial Rikkai, with a single collaborator.


• Started writing Bleach fic.


• Posted pages for Prince of Tennis, Bleach. Also very incomplete Weiss Kreuz page.

2006

• Posted pages for Utena, Fullmetal Alchemist, Petshop of Horrors.

2007

• Started writing Saiunkoku Monogatari fic.


• Posted pages for Final Fantasy VII.


• Transferred all fic from the analytical site, alltrees.org, to a new archive at branchandroot.net

2008

• Incensed with LJ increasing interference in content, moved to IJ and replaced LJ fic-journal entries with links to archive. Transferred a selection of fandom journal entries to new, public journal at branchandroot.net. All future public entries posted there and copied to IJ.


• Involved in IJ challenge community, porn_battle, resulting in much short fic for disparate fandoms like Yuugi-ou, the Vorkosigan Saga, CLAMP Campus Detectives, Shounen Onmyouji.

Major Fandoms

• Fullmetal Alchemist


• Prince of Tennis


• Bleach


• Eyeshield 21


• Angel Sanctuary


• CLAMP-verse

Fannishly Influential Works

Websites

The Sailor Moon and Rurouni Kenshin sites, being posted during the heyday of fannish information sharing via sites and shrines, are both cited and still trafficked.

The research that initially appeared on LJ, and later on an analytical web page, was also referred to in the writing of informational FMA sites.

Fanfic

FMA

• Circumstances arc, one of the early Roy/Ed contributions, somewhat of a fandom albatross thereafter.


• After arc, also Roy/Ed.

PoT

• Mirror Writing arc, Seigaku and Hyoutei centered, especially Tezuka/Atobe.


• Challenge arc, Rikkai centered, especially Yagyuu/Niou.

Names/Handles

While analytical web pages were and still are published under my legal name, the name associated with my fic has changed several times, from my legal name to Alltrees to Branch. This parallels the progression of my journal name from ravenwoodiii to alltrees to _branch_ to branchandroot.

Links

Branch Writes: public journal under independent control.

Ink Burns: fic archive under independent control.

branchandroot: InsaneJournal, partially locked. Receives copies of both public journal and archive updates.

DS822: analytical sites.