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bromcommie · 5 months ago

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🤩🎯

Hi, thanks for the ask! :) 🤩 What led to your interest in the fandom?

Oof, boy. So, I mean, I was a geeky little kid and grew up loving the Spiderman and X-Men comics, so my interest kind of naturally progressed with the MCU boom of 2009 or whatever. As for Cap, I have to admit I didn't like him all that much at first - I'd only seen him in The Avengers and I think like many other people I kind of just viewed him as The Square Old American Imperialist Guy (thanks, Joss Whedon😒). It was only after seeing CATWS and retroactively CATFA that the floodgates opened. The interest was kind of on and off for a while, but it definitely spiked with time and I got into the Cap, WS, Black Widow and some other comics as well after that.

Idk when exactly I got into Stucky, because I distinctly remember having a phase of "why can't guys just be really really really good friends???" (I know, I know.) but between then and CA: CW I definitely fell in love with both characters and a) kind of went through my own awakening lol, b) started rapidly developing an unrelated but helpful interest in early and mid-20th century history and c) watching a shit ton of Cap edits on YouTube because I've always liked vidding. I eventually started making some of my own vids and fanart when my brain just woke up one morning and clicked into "oh shit. oh, not only is the premise of this story compelling on several levels, but these motherfuckers are in love in love" mode, and inevitably that also led to me starting to read fanfiction.

And that was just...a fucking revelation and a half. Because suddenly here were all these people writing heartfelt, compelling stories—sometimes heavy as shit, sometimes downright hilarious and sometimes just publishing quality—about everything ranging from grief and guilt and trauma to bodily autonomy and disability and queerness and self-worth to relationships with faith and nationality and community and intersectional identity to beliefs and morality and perseverance to violence and war and systems of oppression to different kinds of love and devotion etc etc etc I could go on literally forever. All set to a sprawling love story, all in a historical context I was interested in, all with about a million different perspectives you would never actually get to see on screen or on the page. I also fell in with a bunch of very passionate, nerdy queer people in college after, all of whom loved comics characters and shared these interests and had a lot to say on the overlap of the two, and well. I never really stood a chance, after that.

I guess ultimately what really drew me to it was the potential of taking material that was (I'm sorry, but let's be real) sometimes painfully mediocre-to-plain bad but with a great premise, and then projecting and exploring some really interesting and grounded and even vulnerable topics through the very fun sandbox that the more fantastical, epic aspects of these stories present—often in a subverted way and with mouthpieces (read: Stereotypical Empowered Bulky Macho Men) that you don't get to see in that light in mainstream media. And the Cap fandom really had (and has to this day!) an abundance of talented, curious people throwing themselves into that wholeheartedly and with such wonderful passion and creativity and care. So engaging with that as a hobby can be really lovely and inspiring and cathartic. And sometimes it's just plain lighthearted fun! I think the older I get the more I can really appreciate that.

Also, not to be super sappy or make it sound more serious than it is, but stories about goddamn superheroes overcoming painful, fucked up real life situations and aspiring to do and be better were a great comfort to nerdy Little Me, and so was getting to talk to people about the things I saw in them that meant something to me. I think Steve's character and origin—and the perspectives on it I got from other people—were just a big deal to my baby teenage brain during a time when I was starting to develop a real life social and political awareness and a sense of all the ways in which the things we do and say and how we stand up for each other matter. And as a grown-ass adult today, I still cherish that. And I cherish that even though I've matured and evolved and so have my other interests, I still got to come on here in the year of our lord 2024 when this particular hyperfixation suddenly came out of its long winter slumber and indulge in a comforting, creative hobby and stretch my writing muscles, and that I still got to find people to play in that sandbox with in a way that is extremely satisfying.

So there you go, and I'm so sorry. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on this. Make of that rambling essay what you will.

🎯 Do you have a writing milestone you’re working towards?

In terms of fandom works, I really don't. I started writing fic just as a fun hobby for myself, and I never really thought of it in terms of goals like I do the original work I try to write, just because I think that'd probably take some of the fun out of it. I'm in a bit of a rut at the moment though, so I'd really like to be able to break out of it soon and post the next few chapters of orpheus I've been trying to work on, if that counts!

#ask game #asks #joy-returns-in-the-morning #thanks again<3 and sorry I gave you my whole life story ssdsgs

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