LJ-versary

[alixtii]

This journal is three years old today.

To say the same thing in slightly different words, three years ago today, I created this journal. Before I go on, let me recognize that this journal would be nothing without the people reading it. You all read it for slightly different purposes; some people are here for the fic, some for the meta. Some have know me offline and God bless you for scrolling through all the fannish content.

Let's trace the history:

YEAR MINUS ONE: Alixtii O'Krul, a junior in college, posts his first fanfic at Fanfiction.net: the first scene of Windows of My Soul. Other works follow.

YEAR ZERO: At some point--and I'm not sure if this was in Year Zero or Year Minus One, Alixtii begins to read around LiveJournal, following favorite FF.net authors like likeadeuce and hjcallipygian. Using hjcallipygian's flist--including the su_herald--as his own and his base of operations, he reads fic and follows meta discussions, leaving signed anonymous comments all over the place, so that people come to recognize him. wisdomeagle, who is not on hjcallipygian's flist, gets bookmarked as a regular reading stop as well.

Alixtii travels to London, where his following LJ is reduced to the time in the FSU center's computer lab. He still manages to learn about the death of Andrea Dworkin and mourn her on LJ. Derrida dies too, but I don't remember anything LJ-related.

YEAR ONE: Back in the states, Alixtii figures out how to set up a free account and feels stupid that he didn't figure it out sooner. He friends his favorite writers, many of whom friend him back immediately. He posts, backdated, his already-written fic. He posts his first meta post  (note the condescending tone--although, honestly, it's probably open to argument whether I've actually changed any) and, true to form, mentions Wittgenstein. (This would be taking place during my first introduction to Wittgenstein, in undergrad.) buffyverse1000 is still going relatively strong. He posts his first challenge fic, to wisdomeagle's Serenity community 20weeks.

In his second meta post, he describes himself as such:

As for myself, I am a Buffy/Angel (or Firefly/Serenity or West Wing or Star Trek or whatever) fan first, a het writer who dabbles with femslash second, and invested in specific ships in a strictly tertiary capacity. I'm also a proud member of the canon bordello, so maybe I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was that so many of my stories are actually gen.

[Three years later, in the present, he will re-read this post and shake his head not only at the shift in his loyalties, but even more so at the oh-so-gendered fanboy behavior and commitments.]

He posts his first ficathon fic. femslash_minis starts up, altering his loyalties as a fic writer forever.

Three months into the existence of the journal, and well after he's been making his presence known in LJ for an even longer time, wisdomeagle figures out he's a boy.

The novella Divine Interventions is completed and posted over the summer. It is 30,000 and is the longest thing he has written to date. (One day, I promise!) He creates the Mal/Kaylee community iluvmycaptain and goes on to be the most absent mod ever. He works on his honors thesis (which can be found here iff I have you friended).

YEAR TWO: Alixtii graduates from college. He writes more fic. He picks up more fandoms.

YEAR THREE: Alixtii is baptized. As a Christian, he goes on to explain why the Bible says incest fic is okay.

OTW is founded. Strikethrough2007 happens. Alixtii organizes the Cross-Gen/Incest Porn Battle! and the (first annual?) 'Cest-a-thon!.

YEAR FOUR: Alixtii makes a long boring post summing up the history of his LJ ending in a self-referential sentence.

Comments

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Would you be interested in sharing the context? I'm always interested in hearing it. It's strange, because there was a period when I just sort of slipped into fandom and everyone assumed I was female and I didn't correct them, then a period in which I was constantly disclaiming because I was producing so much feminist meta and responding against "being mean to men" claims (and I could do that much more effectively if my interlocutor knew I was male), and then I assumed that most people knew I was male already and mostly stopped disclaiming.

[faith-chaos.livejournal.com]

I think it was you saying something about being male on your LJ and me just going "TH'FUCK?" I never really considered you not being female but that definitely just on me and my preconceived ideas of fandom in general. Plus, like, I thought the same about beer_good_foamy.