My first foray into fandom was when I joined deviantart at 14 and found Tokio Hotel fanfiction. Yes I started reading smut way too young, and yes my first foray into fanfic was twincest. (If you're looking for purity culture this is not the place to find it). I also, as most do, started with writing self-insert fic. My friends and I claimed a member each and invented reasons to meet and of course date them. Later I found the deviantart Doctor Who community, and especially the artist lstu.

I got into Sherlock on deviantart and made the jump to tumblr when most of my circle did. I had just turned 16 and of course I fell straight into superwholock. I was exactly as annoying as every other superwholock, and I regret none of it. Kill the part of you that cringes and all that. These days everyone talks about the Mishapocalypse like it was a horror movie, but I just remember how much fun I had that day.

Supernatural was the second fandom I really got into fanfic for, and I believe it's the reason I got an AO3 account. I looked at my profile, and I got AO3 1 year almost to the day after I opened my tumblr. That's kinda cool.

I stopped watching Sherlock after a disappointing 3rd season followed a 2 year hiatus, and I fell out of Doctor Who gradually as the writing deteriorated through seasons 6 and 7. Supernatural, however, persisted for a while longer. I watched from the beginning and I believe it mid-season 8 when I caught up. I eventually fell off somewhere in season 10. I've never been good at watching things week to week. I'm very much a binger.

It's actually supernatural I have to thank for the name I go by now: I've never been good at naming things, and my accounts on websites were no exception. I had a few different usernames, none of which really felt permanent or right. My blog name on tumblr would change whenever I found something funny or snappy. That's what happened in my final year of high school when a friend and I were waiting for a train, talking about Sabriel (Sam/Gabriel). I have no idea how the conversation got to this point, but my friend said the phrase 'sabriel and orange juice' and my immediate reaction was "I'm gonna steal that to name my tumblr." I'm fairly sure he didn't even watch supernatural, but I never found anything better to change it. When I started making accounts on other platforms (twitter, twitch, etc) I copied it, and now here I am today. I don't even like orange juice.

Meanwhile, my love for computer games was just beginning. I grew up with nintendo consoles, both home and handheld, but not many games. I'd never played pokemon until my parents bought an R4 card and uhh borrowed a family friend's game library. In high school my friends played Minecraft on their laptops, and after sharing a friends account for a month or two I forked out the $15 for a beta copy myself. Watching those same friends play portal is also the reason I got a steam account, but it's minecraft that's had the most influence on my fannish life by far.

I got into Mindcrack purely by accident and, uncommonly, without knowing a single other person that liked it. I randomly watched a playthrough of Captive Minecraft by one of it's creators, HiFolksImAdam, and from him found my way to SethBling. UHC was really my gateway drug, and to this day Seth's season 9 perspective is my absolute favourite. (Other highlights include the Nebris & Vechs arc in S17-S21).

Mindcrack as a minecraft server was declining when I joined the fandom, with a lot of the members getting burnt out on the game. I knew the names of the big fic writers, but I never understood Dreamwidth enough to be properly involved with the Salad. VintageBeef put out at most two episodes of Lords of Minecraft, but it was enough to get me interested in the rest of the Buffalo Wizards, and that server is where I made my first fandom friends. The Cult of Deadbones was a lot of fun, and it's where I met my beloved Luna, my bird dealer Shichahn/Lauren/TinyLongWing, and a lot of others I've lost contact with.

I published a tiny bit of fic on deviantart back in my Tokio Hotel and Sherlock days, but where I really got my start as a writer was with Mindcrack and Buffalo Wizards. The fics are short and mostly unfinished, but they're still up on my AO3. The Buffalo Wizards Salad had a skype group I was part of, and we all transitioned together to basically found the Thrilling Intent fandom.

Thrilling Intent was another fandom experience that was just so much fun. We had a skype group with around 20/25 people, and we recruited anyone that was making fandom content on tumblr at least. At the time the fandom was still small enough that we would email the creators with questions and actually get long, detailed answers. With at least half the members of the skype group having formerly been Mindcrack/Buffalo Wizards fans, this was the place I befriended the big name writers I admired from the salads. In fact all of my current digital friends can be traced back to that skype group.

It wasn't a continual friendship though. My inability to keep up with week to week shows struck once again, and as I fell further and further behind I was less and less active in the skype group, until I eventually lost touch with everyone. I don't remember how I got into Achievement Hunter and Rooster Teeth. I don't even remember if it was after TI or if I was already a fan, but it was almost certainly what filled my attention next. The creators are nothing special (and in fact kind POS it turns out), but the AUs and creations that came out of that fandom are still massively influential on me. The Achievement Hunter Fake AH Crew AU, and from the brief time I spent as a Funhaus fan, Switchblades and Gym Class. They took on lives of their own, and the characters really had very little to do with the youtubers they were based on by the end. To this day I create fanfic of those stories with other characters (though I haven't yet published any).

At this point I'd finished high school and was at least a year into university. I'd discovered D&D, was playing a rogue in a game with some friends, and then I found Critical Role and fell head over heels for Vax. As one does. I still love the show and the cast, but C1 is the only one I've seen all the way through, and yes I still cry thinking about Sam trying to save his 9th level Wish. The Legend of Vox Machina is an amazing show, and I'm looking for to finally seeing the Mighty Nein story in more than just tumblr posts when their animated show airs.

At the same time the webcomic Check, Please! was taking tumblr by storm, and I was no exception. Ngoziu really made a perfect story, A*, no notes. And I'll still go re-read some of the fanfic if my current hyperfixation isn't providing. At the same time I was enjoying both the gameplay and the fanfiction for Overwatch. My final years of uni I had a fairly diverse but also stable set of fandoms, with the only real change being the addition of Hamilton. I actually managed to experience the mega-popular media before all the people talking about it on tumblr pissed me off! RIP Le Mis I would have loved you if only I'd watched the movie.

I had to look back through my tumblr archive for the next section because everything gets a bit fuzzy. Apparently I had a Harry Potter reniessance, back when Joanne's bigotry was annoying but not unavoidable yet. I'm still heartbroken that such a big part of my childhood is now tainted by hate, and also that so many people are unwilling to cut ties with such a hateful woman and her tainted franchise. Stranger Things also premiered in this era, and I still stand by my Steve/Nancy/Jonathan ship.

The next big thing that happened in my fandom life was The Overwatch League. The first two seasons were my one and only foray into E-sports, and it was fun, but also the closest I've been to fandom wank. My team was Houston Outlaws, and none of the other fans could handle Monte and DoA being right about them consistently underperforming for the talent they had on the team. I still think they were the best casting duo, and I stopped watching the league when they left. OWL is an interesting fandom, because for once there was no fanfic for me to read, and even fanart was thin on the ground. Esports needs more tumblr type fans. Regardless, I made a great friend in the Banicord, the lovely Jaynein, who I don't talk to nearly as often as I should. She's a sweetheart and an incredibly talented artist who has done a lot of work for me.

My next fandom is one that really isn't reflected on my tumblr, because it happened irl. I heard a local band playing at a market, and I wasn't even sure if I liked the music, but they were all stupid hot, so I followed them on twitter. They were always so positive and wholesome, after 6 months I went back to the market to see them play again. I found that yes, I did in fact like their music, to the point where I binged it all and when they played again the next weekend I was singing along to all the songs. That was apparently rare enough that two of the members came to chat with me during the setbreak, and before I knew it I was a friend and a groupie.

I have (or will have) a shrine for The Fergies, but the next 2-3 years was undoubtedly the strangest of my fandom life. It's an interesting tension when you're friends with the object of your hyperfixation. I went to all their shows, I chatted with them afterwards and helped them with their equipment, I was their friend for sure. But I was also a fan, and very conscious of that fact. I was always wondering where the line was for appropriate interaction, and constantly worrying that I would step over it. It didn't help that I also discovered my own polyamory by falling for two of the members, and having to navigate that as well.

For all of the weirdness though, it was an incredible time. I'll always cherish the friendships I made, both with the band themselves, and with the other fans. It's unfortunate circumstances that ended that part of my life. External stresses caused the band to split up in november 2019, and then the pandemic took away live music entirely. These days they all have their own projects, some with each other and some solo or with others, but it turns out I'm not actually a life music fan. I was just a fan of them.

In contrast to the blurry chronology of 2015-2019, I know exactly when I became a fan of BTS. I followed them on twitter on June 4th 2019, the day before Jin's 'Tonight' was released on Soundcloud. In the weeks prior I was between fandoms (The Fergies being a weird case) and looking for something to read, so I was browsing the general mutual pining tag and came across this fic which piqued my interest. When I finished it I looked for more works with that pairing, and after a couple of fics I got curious about what they looked like, what their music sounded like. I was on a massive hiphop kick at the time, so it's probably lucky I started with their first album and worked my way through their discography in order.

I was fairly immediately obsessed with BTS, and boy do they provide for people who are obsessed. Music videos, performances, vlogs, unofficial song releases, behind the scenes videos in both short and long form, and their own variety show. Not to mention the 6 years of fics that had built up. They easily filled all the little fandom spaces in my life.

That said, it's probably the most isolated I've been from other fans ever, and it was on purpose. The fandom is massive and diverse, and that means there's a lot more people who thrive in drama. Even if they're in the minority, they are the loudest and therefore easiest to find, and it's been easier to stay isolated in my little corner than to weed through all the toxicity in search of the chill people I vibe with. I did find one artist that I adore: Plumey and I just have to give her a shoutout. If you like cute and soft and comforting definitely check her out.

As isolated as I am in the online BTS fandom, they're big enough to have in-person events even out here in Australia. Getting into BTS just before the pandemic hit, there weren't many at first, but I went to the cinema screening of their films. And this year I've been making a particular effort to find an attend any fan-organised events that I can. Every time I've met ARMY irl has been the best experience of my life. Everyone is so generous with their time and with their crafts. At every event I have arrived knowing no-one, and left with at least one friend and several freebies that people have made to give out. It's a community in the truest sense of the word.

Being divorced from the online ARMY presence did not mean I stopped using tumblr, and that left space for other fandoms to creep in, along with the return of some old friends. While most media suffered under the pandemic, minecraft youtube exploded, especially the Dream SMP. I never unfollowed my old friends from the Mindcrack/Buffalo Wizards/Thrilling Intent days, and when a couple of them started reblogging posts about a couple of friends flirting very publically I was confused but intrigued. I made a post to that affect and tagged the two culprits, and within a day I'd been added to a discord group called "Dream SMP Indoctrination". Readers, it worked. I was throughly indoctrinated. I never actually got into Dream and George themselves, but I loved the sleepy bois, Ranboo, and especially Karl Jacobs. I wrote and published fic for the first time in 4 years. Our discord group became an 18+ server with the members being mostly writers and their artist friends, and it's a great community. It reminds me of the skype groups from years ago, but this time the core group of us are older and more chill. We wholeheartedly reject drama and we try to guide the younger members to do the same.

Ultimately, Dream SMP fandom itself ended up being a bit high energy for me, but through it I found MCC, Empires, and Hermitcraft, a minecraft server as old as Mindcrack, but still going strong. With an average age about double that of Dream SMP, the fandom for the most part is also older and more mature. More chill. This is definitely more my speed, and I am very much a current Hermitcraft fan. Decked Out is the greatest thing that's ever been created in survival minecraft and it has consumed all my waking hours. I am as a ddicted as all the hermits.

The other thing consuming my waking hours, the scant few that are left, is One Piece (live action specifically). A couple of months ago I went on a roadtrip with my girlfriend in the UK, and she showed me one of the movies (Strong World I think). It was fun to see something that's so important to her, and also ZoSan is a great ship. I've been reading fics mostly fandom blind since then, both recs from her and ones I've found on my own. I only barely new the live action series was coming, but we talked about watching it together, and I was really excited. I actually watched it first on my own; I was having a bad day on maybe the second day it was out? And because it made me think of my gf it was comforting to me, so I watched it to cheer myself up, and was immediately hooked. The actors, the sets, the writing and pacing, it's all exquisite. And also they're all so hot wtf. I've watched the show twice through on my own, and my gf and I are 5 episodes in watching together, and I've also devoured just about all the cast videos on youtube.

So that's it. My fandom history up to the current day. There's been a lot of other things I've loved but haven't been as active in fandom for (good omens) (merthur) that just haven't fit into the flow of this, and it's 2800 words already. (It's more than twice as long as the longest fic I've published wtf). I'm not sure if I'll continue this in future. If I'll expand this page or make a new one or not extend it at all. For now, this stands as a monument to nearly 15 years in fandom.