Snapshot of a fangirl: manpain

From a very early age I remember that when a male character that I liked was hurting, usually emotionally but sometimes physically, I kind of, well, liked it. Something inside me went all gooshy and I wanted to, I guessed, be the one that made them feel better. And I felt like there was possibly something wrong with me for feeling like that. This may have actually been the beginning of the constant self-assessment that's followed me through life: "Would you like it if this happened in reality? No? Then you're probably fine, stop dwelling." (And yet I continue to dwell. I'm not sure that I ever stop.)

Obviously this all predates online fandom* and Joss urging us to let our angst flags fly. I'm talking The Hardy Boys on TV, Man From Atlantis, Star Trek: TOS of course, and M*A*S*H. In comics I had Batman, and Swamp Thing long before Alan Moore got his hands on him.

As freakish as I felt I still treasured those moments. A look at my old VHS tapes will show a pretty clear pattern from the TV episodes I recorded, and many of the movies as well, taped or purchased. As I got older I worried less about possibly being some kind of sadist deep-down, but it wasn't something I would have talked about. It settled into something between a quirk and a guilty pleasure.

Then I discovered fandom. You beautiful, crazy people. Thank whatever powers there might be for you guys.

Honestly? I still suspect I'm a bit of a freak. But I certainly feel a LOT less alone.

*squishes you all*


*I don't mean to ignore fandom before and outside the internet, but I was in a small town in Alaska, so as far as I was concerned it might as well have not existed.