Nevanna's Forest of Stories

I wrote about the intersection of my shipping obsession and my music obsession in the early 2000s.

Until the concert in question, I did not actually know that "Savage Garden" was a reference to Anne Rice (I think that either Elle or my housemate pointed that out), so hearing the phrase in the recent Interview With The Vampire series was sort of a reverse "I understood that reference!" moment.

I don’t like April Fool’s Day, but I do like stories about scams and hoaxes. Here are five of my… well, “favorite” is a loaded word when talking about some of this subject matter. People were definitely or very likely hurt in all of these cases. People died in connection with some of them. I am not trying to make light of those tragedies when I say that I am fascinated by these accounts… but then again, maybe that’s how all the True Crime Girlies excuse their obsessions.

Anyway. Here are five scams or hoaxes that I find myself thinking and talking about a lot.

1. Beatrice Sparks’s Teen Diary Empire

I already alluded, in a previous entry, to the intersection of books like Go Ask Alice and Jay’s Journal with the War on Drugs and the Satanic Panic. I would still recommend Rick Emerson’s Unmask Alice to anyone who’s interested in those topics, or remembers picking up the supposed “diaries” of “real anonymous teenagers” from their local bookstore or school library.

2. MsScribe’s Fandom Social Climbing

MsScribe was a fanfic writer and LiveJournal blogger in the Harry Potter fandom of the early 2000s, who employed sockpuppets, weaponized existing ship wars, and almost certainly embellished the truth about her personal life, to gain sympathy and favor from the “Inner Circle” of popular fangirls. Part of why her actions remain a compelling and enduring part of fandom history was the deftness with which she understood and manipulated the expectations, grudges, rivalries, and allegiances of her community. In addition to the Fanlore article and the archived version of Charlotte Lennox’s “Unauthorized Fandom Biography,” you can watch Strange Aeons’ video on the topic if the audiovisual format is your preferred one.

3. Thanfiction’s Hobbit and Wizard Cults… And Beyond

I think that there are two reasons why I closely followed the fandom exploits of Andy “Thanfiction” Blake (as recounted primarily by his former partner, Abbey, and by The Tea Blogger, who has spent years building a massive timeline of Blake’s online activity), and they’re only tangentially related to his phony celebrity connections or attempts to scam people out of their money (and it’s been speculated that financial benefit was never even his primary objective anyway). The first reason is that I understand, on a very personal level, how the narrative that he offered his closest followers – including his supposed ability to “channel” characters from Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, as well as his own OCs – might have been appealing. I’ve talked about fictional characters and worlds in some of the same ways that he did, and so have a few of my friends, but none of us have ever started a cult about it.

Secondly, Blake’s years on Tumblr, in which he often posted about Supernatural and current events (and appeared to over-identify with fictional characters but didn’t necessarily “channel” any), offer another example of how a bad actor can manipulate the norms of a subculture – in his case, the trappings of social justice and the revisionist version of his own mental illness and trauma history – to gain attention and power over others. The use of Tumblr (and other online platforms) for activism or for bonding over shared experiences is not an inherently bad thing, but I’ve long been skeptical of the social expectations that can develop in those environments and their vulnerability to exploitation.

4. TIED: Amanda Riley’s and Belle Gibson’s Fake Cancer Diagnoses

As far as I know, these two cases are unconnected, but they’re similarly horrifying when one considers how brazenly each woman took advantage of a religious community (in Riley’s case) and the already problematic world of complementary medicine and “wellness” trends (in Gibson’s), benefiting both financially and emotionally from their lies, at least for a time. Riley’s crimes are covered in a podcast called Scamanda; my primary understanding of Gibson’s story comes from a recent Netflix dramatization, Apple Cider Vinegar, but it’s based on a nonfiction book that I’ve requested from the library and am looking forward to reading.

5. Lani Sarem’s Attempted Bestseller List Coup

Handbook for Mortals – an awkwardly written “urban fantasy, paranormal romance” complete with a love triangle – appeared at the top of the Young Adult New York Times bestseller list in August 2017 despite nobody in the YA writing and publishing community ever having heard of it or its author before. It remained there for less than a day while booksellers and journalists pieced together writer Lani Sarem’s plan to buy her way into fame (and hopefully the production of a movie franchise). Although this scheme didn’t arise in transformative fandom, it’s come up in fandom history conversations because of a brief rumor that Sarem was secretly the author of infamous badfic My Immortal. There’s no evidence that this was the case, and part of me hopes that that particular mystery is never solved.

Are there any scams or hoaxes – within or outside of fandom – that have captured your attention?

Inevitably, my friends’ and my fannish interests and participation don’t always line up completely. I like to think that we can still support and even vicariously enjoy some of each other’s fandom obsessions… or, at least, I try to offer them that support, to the best of my ability, because I’d like them to do the same for me, to the best of theirs. Here are five fandoms to which I would consider myself “adjacent” even though I’ve never created any fic for them (which is how I personally define participation, for these purposes, though that’s obviously not a universal metric).

1. Star Trek: Voyager

I’ve actually seen a scattering of Star Trek episodes, across several eras, because I know so many dedicated fans, though I’ve never sat down and watched any series from the beginning. And, of course, I love any and all stories about the franchise’s place in overall fandom history. But one of my closest friends in college was especially fond of Voyager and showed some of our social circle a sampling of episodes; we shared an appreciation for the episode “Meld,” and I fangirled intensely over the descriptions of telepathic contact in the fic that she wrote as a result. Although that experience was only one tiny facet of a very long friendship that incorporated several fannish obsessions – shared and otherwise – it was an early sign that we interacted with stories in very similar ways, and when she confessed that Brad Dourif’s character was “eating her brain,” I understood exactly what she meant.

If anybody is wondering whether she also showed me and our other friends “Threshold,” she absolutely did.

2. Kingdom Hearts

I am not a video game person and never have been. I heard enough about Kingdom Hearts, from my two best friends at the time (one of whom was the Voyager fan that I mentioned above) to recognize the parts of the story that would likely appeal to me (possession! hidden memories! dual identities! an elaborate media crossover not unlike the ones that I scribbled on every available scrap of paper as a young teenager!). If it had been in any other format, I might have been right there with them. I did read some of the manga, just to gain some understanding of what they were talking about, and could probably pick out Sora, Riku, Kari, and Axel from a lineup, although I am led to understand that at least one of them has a metaphysical doppelganger. Or three.

3. Les Miserables

My high school choir practiced a medley from Les Mis when I was a freshman (I don’t remember whether or not we actually performed it), and the theater department at my summer camp staged the musical during my last year, but there were probably a few years in between when I had no idea what the story was about, beyond the general historical setting. If that.

Around the time that the 2012 movie was released, my then-housemate showed me a recording of the 25th Anniversary stage production and read me enough passages from the original novel to convince me of Enjolras and Grantaire’s tragic love. I enjoy reading what other people have to say about all of the characters – but especially those two – even if I have yet to tackle the book or develop any particular desire to write about them myself.

4. Glee

I’ve seen the first season and part of the second, I’ve liked some of the songs, and I’ve watched Mic the Snare’s outstanding video essay more than once. My impression of Glee is that it offered compelling characters who were often frustratingly underserved by the plot, which created plenty of space for transformative fanworks, including crossovers. Thus, about a decade ago, I spent a lot of time talking with my friend D – who was more invested in the show than I was – about AUs in which Kurt Hummel was (variously! not all at once!) a vampire, a magic user, and a mutant with psychic empathy powers.

5. Supernatural

It’s difficult to be involved in modern fandom and be entirely ignorant of this show, and I’ve enjoyed fanfic and meta about it despite only having seen a relatively small number of episodes, many of which I experienced alongside my dear friend Elle (who gave me permission to identify her in this post). I’ve happily beta read some of her fic, and since the final seasons of SPN and The Magnus Archives happened at roughly the same time, we shared some of the joys and frustrations and worries that came from witnessing the end of an ongoing, episodic story in real time. I might never commit to watching all or even most of SPN from the beginning, and I’ll probably never adore it like she does, but I love her love for it. Anyone who thinks it’s a cool and fun hobby to sneer at fans of the Winchester brothers can take it somewhere else.

I shared a list of the story ideas that I generated for ladiesbingo several ago, as well as what I eventually did with some of them.

Here are some fannish things that I hope to accomplish in 2025. I am assuming – perhaps optimistically – that I’ll have the time and energy for fandom. I hope that you have the time and energy for the things that bring you joy, too.

1. I would like to write belated birthday presents for two wonderful fandom friends. (Both fics will probably be for The Magnus Archives, unless I am otherwise inspired.)

2. I definitely want to participate in threesentenceficathon if it happens again.

3. I want to write more Hypnotists fic, including the multi-chapter exploration of two characters’ later teenage years.

4. I still haven’t given up on the possibility of a sequel to Ordinary Town, which offers an outsider perspective on the first season of X-Men: Evolution. My wordcount during two long-ago NaNoWriMo sessions also covers the second season of the show, although, like the previous fic, it would need some pretty drastic edits.

5. I hope to continue my Fandom Throwback Thursdays!

And I would like to keep posting my Tuesday Top Fives as well, so at this point, I’m asking you to suggest topics for future entries. You can ask about fandom and pop culture, books and libraries, baking or crafting… anything that you’d enjoy seeing me talk about. Any one person can suggest multiple topics.

I’ll see you next year, friends.

Here are five of the media- or fandom-related things that have made me happy recently.

1. fandomgiftbasket reveals went live in mid-October. I wrote two X-Men: First Class ficlets, Second Thoughts and See How We Measure People, both of which focus on Charles and Erik. I received two lovely Doctor Who pieces: Belief, which is about Martha Jones during the Year That Never Was, and an untitled Nine/Rose/Jack interlude.

2. I left some Hypnotists prompts for smallfandomfest because of course I did. Anybody who wants their small fandom represented has two more days to submit prompts!

3. wish_upon_a_meme is a prompt exchange event that looks very cool.

4. I’m rewatching Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous at Cartoon Night and it still rules.

5. I’m rewatching the first season of Arcane: League of Legends with my housemates, before we dive into the new episodes, and it also still rules. Also, if this show had been around when I was still LARPing, Jinx is absolutely and completely the type of character that I would have yearned to play.

I tried to start a new fic last Friday, and did manage to scribble down a few paragraphs, but right now, it feels simultaneously like a dreaded chore and an inappropriate indulgence.

I'm trying to tell myself that this lapse in motivation won't last forever, to believe posts like this one, which compares imagination to a field between harvests (this is amusingly appropriate since some of my fandom friends refer to certain types of writing as "worms"). And I did manage to write a couple of very tiny ficlets for fandomgiftbasket, which I hope to share as soon as the event wraps up.

It's still discouraging to feel like I have to make myself engage in a hobby that I love, and to entertain the possibility that I might have outgrown fandom altogether, even if I don't want that to be true.

The submission deadline for fandomgiftbasket has been extended to this Saturday, September 28, in order to (hopefully) ensure that all participants receive at least two fannish gifts. If you're so inclined, check out the spreadsheet and the rules to see if you can fill any of the requests!

(Full disclosure: mine is one of the "baskets" of requests that nobody has filled yet. I recognize now that I should have included a wider variety of better-known fandoms when I signed up, but I wasn't thinking that far ahead.)

Here are my (current) top five shipping moments, in chronological order!

1. Utena opens Anthy’s coffin in the series finale. (Revolutionary Girl Utena)

I am sure that other fans have written, or could write, entire essays on the thematic and symbolic weight of this scene; how it’s simultaneously tragic and affirming; how and why it sets up the show’s perfect, beautiful final moments. Even if true love and understanding can’t save someone, they can show her that she can save herself.

2. “Are you sneaking around in here, Charles? Whatever are you looking for?” (X-Men: The Movie)

The first scene that Charles Xavier and Magneto share in the very first movie is also one of my favorites in any version of canon. It tells the audience pretty much everything we need to know about their beliefs and shared history, while also setting up questions about what will happen next. And I am endlessly delighted by the implication that, after their long estrangement, Erik still knows exactly how it feels when Charles reads his mind.

3. Jack says goodbye to the Ninth Doctor and Rose. (Doctor Who)

My first OT3! The missing (and theoretically limitless) time between episodes, in which those three obviously bonded, is a gift to fans.

4. “No matter who I am, no matter what they put in my skull, I always remember you.” (Dollhouse)

I’ve already argued that Tony and Priya’s romantic arc was one of the strongest parts of this very uneven show, and I considered several of their other scenes for this list, but that line (which Tony delivers just before he willingly subjects himself to the Scary Mindwipe Technology) is the perfect encapsulation of why I was so attached to their story.

5. “Look at me and tell me what you see.” (The Magnus Archives)

AND THEN JON AND MARTIN FLED TO SCOTLAND TOGETHER AND NOTHING BAD HAPPENED TO THEM EVER AGAIN, RIGHT?

I wrote a very long post about Larry Trask, an obscure X-Men villain who has always been close to my heart.