meme: how'd you get into your canon?

[throughaphase]

Omg, it really has been since 2010 since we did this. Thanks, E, for remembering it! :D

How'd you get into your canon?

Did you just pick it up one day and found yourself unable to put it down, or did someone (maybe from this game) drag you into it? How long have you been into it? Was there any one thing or character that hooked you on it? This is your chance to wax nostalgic and go on about what made your canon so cool for you. If there's a story behind it, tell us! And if there's not... tell us anyway!

Comments

[fewer_explosions]

Oh, god. This is going to be a long one.

A little over three years ago now, I was, at least in RL, a shy little thing still flailing about my frankly insane decision to pick a major that would involve talking to people constantly. It was the beginning of my second year, and I had just started my first 'real' journalism assignment, as part of a small editorial team in my school's newsroom program.

We'd switch both mediums and sections (hard news, entertainment, etc) every two weeks. Six weeks in, I was in the environmental section as part of the radio team. Now, one of the rules was that at the end of each two-week cycle we'd have to turn in a product - an article, a radio report, etcetera - that had actualfax material from people we'd actualfax left the school to speak to. Obviously this was the part that terrified the shit out of most of us - I hated it, several people in my group hated it. But we were hitting the end of the two-week period and despite a rather impressive go at calling up the Paris office of a major technology firm and yelling at the CEO's secretary, I still had nothing.

Then I found out the Campaign for Biodiversity was kicking off at the end of that week. I sent out some emails, had a few panic attacks, but finally got the okay - I could come and bring my Marantz (radio recording apparatus) and do a bit. The dude next to me, some pleasant, quirky, and occasionally loud Southerner called Tijn started freaking out about half an hour after I'd finished the deal-- he hadn't managed to score anything on the outside either, and after lazing his way through the past two cycles, he kind of needed to show he was actually serious. So I offered to take him along, despite him being pretty much a total stranger.

We piled into my car on the day itself. I was terrified of it being awkward - it was a long ride - and it was for a while. And then we got onto the subject of video games. I hadn't played any in years, having given them up to be all properly academic and stuff some time earlier, but I'd heard about Dragon Age before and so I inquired after that. He muttered a few things about it, but then swiftly changed the subject to his favorite video game of the year-- Mass Effect 2. (Now a lot of shit went wrong during that biodiversity conference that I could fill fifty more comments with, but this is already long enough.)

As it turned out, this game sounded like it had all the stuff I loved: military space opera, romances, a good story, a potentially female protagonist. That weekend I said fuck it (having survived that catastrophic biodiversity conference with just enough material to origami something out of that was pleasing to my teachers) and bought the game.

Five minutes in, I was hooked. The story! The characters! The mechanics! The interactiveness of it all - being able to determine how the story went! I didn't remember video games being like that! I rushed back to the store on Monday to get the first installment, since the idea of being able to import saves from the first game into the second to actually *customize the game* seemed revolutionary and amazing to me. And despite ME1 being a *lot* clumsier in the gameplay department, I loved every fucking second of it.

I realize it's a long story with not a lot of payoff, at least from the outside - but three things happened here: I managed to pull through after a grueling experience in Interacting with Real People that was a fundamental part of building up my confidence to the point where it is today, I had my first genuine conversation with the dude who's been my best friend for the past three years, and I fell in love with an amazing video game that dragged me straight back into gaming.

[dollpocalypse]

AWWWWWWWW YOU AND TIJN. PLATONIC OTP FOREVER.

He wingmanned you and Mass Effect, the best ship ever! GOOD JOB, TIJN.

[gorka-wolf.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD I'VE MISSED THESE ICONS. AND THIS SERIES.


Once upon a time, long long ago, I found a comic book called Run Makita Run at a garage sale for fifty cents and picked it up. And fell in love. But I could not find ANY of the previous issues at my comic book store, and so thought it had been canceled and resolved to love my one, single, copy.

Then make_the_shot came to town during his cross-country tour, and was astonished that I did not know this was an ongoing series. And promptly loaned me all the copies he had in his car.

I read them in one night. I read them three times in a row, and then promptly addicted my boyfriend and two ninjas in the same evening.

The Red Star is a series by Christian Gossett set in a sci-fi/fantasy world described by Gossett as "Mythic [Soviet] Russia". The "Lands of The Red Star" were inspired by both Russian folklore and military history. The series is thus heavily reminiscent of a post-World War II Soviet Russia mixing technology and sorcery. Magic is a science, and one with a horrible secret.

It's the story of a woman who has lost almost everything in the name of her country, and keeps losing. Husband, best friend, her soul. A woman ready to die, who is then given one chance to take back everything that has been stolen from her. A opportunity to risk everything and remake the world. On the surface, it is the history of Maya Antares, her redemption from unthinking weapon of the State to savior, and her struggle to free humanity from unseen chains.

It is one of the few canons that has ever made me cry, joining ranks with Voices of a Distant Star for something that can make me bawl on command. Run Makita Run nails me every damn time. It's the series that gives us complex and nuanced characters such as Urik, Goncharova, and Kyuzo. People who want to do their duty, who honor and love their nation. People learning bloodstained lessons about love, loyalty, and patriotism, and the absolute heart-break when you realize all that you know about the world is a lie.

I know we've addicted a few of you, but for those who want to start small and read the stand-alone issue where Makita and Proto come to Fandom from, you can find it here (http://s278.beta.photobucket.com/user/AhddieIcons/library/redstar/runmakitarun/) (password is the same as my AIM screenname).

It's fierce. It's heartbreaking. And it is inspiring beyond all belief.

[hawkeye-too.livejournal.com]

This series.

SO GOOD. I'm so happy you made me read them.

[throughaphase]

My knowledge of comics growing up consisted almost entirely of Nick watching the X-Men or Spider-Man cartoons and me being in the room for it. Then they started making X-Men movies that hey, turned out to be pretty good. I got out of the first one, got home, went "I want to see it again" and started looking up showtimes. So since I was interested in that, Nick started trying to get me to read the comics and I kept saying no, mostly because if there's a lot of art on the page I have trouble reconciling it with dialogue.

And then a friend of mine got super into the X-Men movie fandom and kept linking me to fic, and I liked it, but I had no idea who these characters were that kept showing up. So finally one day after I finished one I knocked on Nick's door all "Okay fine, gimme," and he left this giant plastic tub full of comics in my room to read through. The first thing he gave me was the Dark Phoenix saga and I was hooked. (This is why that third movie doesn't exist for me, btw; these movies got me into this fandom- THIS STORY got me into this fandom- and they screwed it up so hard I still can't forgive them for it. Which is why Days of Future Past scares me, because that was the SECOND thing I read, and like you can't do Dark Phoenix right without Scott, I don't know how they'll do this one without Kitty.)

I've gone in and out with comics, where I was into certain titles for years and then gave it up around the time Joss' Astonishing run ended. When I apped Kitty I started reading again, but was still super intimidated by how much there was and wasn't reading anything new because I'd been out of it so long I didn't know where to start. Then I went and pinged Katie about the ending of the Bourne movie because I didn't want to spoil it on Twitter and somehow walked out of it with a bunch of comics to read and now I will read pretty much anything you put in front of me and I NEED IT TO BE WEDNESDAY I NEED TO READ ALL NEW X-MEN RIGHT NOW.

[harpy-daughter.livejournal.com]

Nuance's fault.

I had read the books about two years pre-FH, and got confused as to which books were in which Anne Bishop series and gave up after book two (and other assorted Bishop titles). It was too much crack, and my reading pile was too big to bother sorting it all out. I think I actually gave most of my Bishop titles then to my then-roommate (and she who got me into FH), Eury.

Then I decided I should figure out WHAT THE HELL was going on with this Karla character I didn't know from a book I think I read? Maybe? And picked them up from the library again.

Dammit, Nuance.

But what caught me in the web was the secondary characters. The main characters are typically not my cup of tea, but I loved Marian, Surreal, Titian, and the rest of the supporting cast. So now you have a teenage courtesan-assassin running around Fandom. YOU'RE WELCOME.

[glacial_queen]

I REGRET NOTHING!

But, yes, it's the secondary characters that are the best. I love the boyos so much.

And Tersa. Tersa is amazing.

[justbeingbay]

I may have suggested this meme partially so I could tell this story.

So one of the procrastinatory things I watch on YouTube is Big Bang Theory clips. I'm not exactly a fan of the show, but in 30-second increments it makes me laugh. And if you watch Amy Farrah Fowler squee over her tiara enough times, YouTube starts suggesting Switched at Birth clips. (I have no idea why. Ask YouTube.) I'd read a handful of positive mentions of Switched at Birth and the frame in the sidebar looked cute enough, so I clicked on over.

Break for backstory: In college, I had a close friend who was deaf, and she influenced me to read a fair number of books about Deaf culture. So when I realized the male romantic lead on SaB was deaf and nonverbal and the show had several other deaf characters, it made me aware that the show was both more than your standard ABC Family teen soap, and, to me personally, more compelling.

Anyhow, so I clicked around the clips a while, loved every moment I saw, and then got the bright idea of searching Netflix for SaB. Turned out they had all of Season 1. I didn't have anything better to do, so I decided to give the pilot a try.

And then the second episode.

And then the third.

And then ... well, by that point I was pretty sure I needed to app Bay. So I crammed the next 27 episodes into, like, two and a half weeks to be familiar with canon before the app cycle ended.

And now here we are.

[seaweed-demigod.livejournal.com]

I was looking for a good, longish series since Harry Potter was pretty much done. trickydemigod, of course, started this and when the movie came out and she gave it some fairly positive remarks, I decided to check it out.

And hey, I really liked the movie (even though reading the books after makes me go WHY DID YOU DO THIS AND THIS AND THIS AND WTF ANNABETH'S HAIR) so I picked up the entire series and tore through them.

Books > movies (why are they making another PJO movie, I ask you?) and I loved the character for being a bratty teenager who continues to be a brat even with GREAT RESPONSIBILITY. I thought he'd go all saintly but NOPE.

Always a brat.

[taseredagod.livejournal.com]

So the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general is part of those seventy-two hours of my life where I did not sleep, turned 20, and also includes passing out in the bathroom, RDjr, a toaster, two finals, a plate of cookies and seven cups of coffee, among others. It was a very bizarre 72 hours but I came out of it with a love for Marvel. And a toaster.

Thor specifically I ended up seeing with a friend when I was in New York. For reasons known only to us, we saw it in Times Square at midnight. Then we got kebobs. Because why not.

As for Chaz, it's mostly Coconut's fault. (I'd also like to blame the first story on her, but it's only her fault to the point where she didn't pick up her phone when I called so I called someone else.) She recommended Shadow of Templa and Shadow Unit to me in one sitting, I got confused and thought they were the same thing. I ended up reason all of SoT, not understanding why she thought it was amazing and trying to figure out where I misplaced Chaz and Brady. Then it turned out I was reading the wrong thing...

With Shadow Unit, it also helped that I instantly recognized an author due to FH. :)

[batwaffles.livejournal.com]

part of those seventy-two hours of my life where I did not sleep, turned 20, and also includes passing out in the bathroom, RDjr, a toaster, two finals, a plate of cookies and seven cups of coffee

My favorite part of this, as throughaphase pointed out, is how nobody ever questions the RDJ part of the story.

[necroslacker]

I read Sam's canon purely by luck. I was browsing Barnes and Noble one day and was just randomly picking up books with interesting titles on the spines. Hold Me Closer, Necromancer is pretty damn catchy so I read the dust jacket to get a feel for the story. And it sounded pretty damn good.

I was wary of something Twilight-ish with a stupid romance and sparkling vampires but this book promised comedic bits spliced in with a good action story. And the chapter titles were song lyrics and seriously, I just couldn't resist with puns like that.

So, I picked it up, blew through it and loved it. And then I got whenshewasnice to love it too!

[suitably_heroic]

Meanwhile, my relationship with Knights of the Old Republic is a little rockier.

After going through Mass Effect 1 and 2 (repeatedly; about eight times in total) I decided I wanted to catch up on all the gaming goodness I'd clearly missed over the years. I played a lot of Dragon Age - hence my apping Alistair for a while some time ago - and tried out a variety of other games. But everywhere I went, I kept seeing Knights of the Old Republic pop up, being cited as the greatest RPG ever made (or at least ever made by Bioware). Nick apping Jolee helped a little, but really just added fuel to the fire.

So I put it on my Saint Nicholas Day list, and my loving relatives being what they were, they eventually managed to dig up a copy... of Knights of the Old Republic 2. I was obviously flummoxed - I hadn't heard anything about this game, clearly it was substandard! - and when I tried it, the gameplay seemed so outdated to what I'd played before that I convinced myself it was an inferior product and dropped it for some time.

About a year later, I managed to get a copy of the original KotOR, and found, to my confusion, that it held roughly the same kind of gameplay. It was easier, though - to this day, I absolutely hate the opening missions of KotOR2, Peragus is made of hell and tediousness and gaaaaaaaaaaaah why - and so I didn't mind playing it all the way through. It was a fun game, you could see how it was a Bioware game, but its narrative was very traditional; while I enjoyed it, it wasn't exactly Mass Effect for me.

And then on some bored summer's afternoon I said fuck it, I understand the gameplay now, I'll give the sequel another chance. And I did, and with a lot of fortitude I managed to push past Peragus, and then... I kept playing, and played some more, and played some more. I think I honestly fell in love with it the first time I heard Atton rail against the Jedi and the Force, because here was a game that looked at Jedi, the Sith and the Force from that crucial third angle: the people who had been hurt, maimed, abandoned or destroyed while these gods among men battled it out with each other. The game doesn't have pretty vistas, it has planets that have been bombed to hell and back, that are falling apart, that are ruled by gangsters and thugs (related: I am so looking forward to Star Wars 1313.); the Republic itself is crumbling because all of the - predominantly Jedi/Sith - wars that have gone before have destabilized it utterly.

One of the main characters is a robot that's made things *worse* by being programmed to make it better, much as the Jedi do; the main protagonist and one of the main antagonists are literally black holes in the Force, devouring everything around them. The standout character - not quite your enemy, not quite your friend - is a woman who was broken and discarded first by the Jedi and then by the Sith. It's about the sentient flotsam that remains after Our Heroes have powered through.

I've never fully warmed to the gameplay on either game, but the flavor of it, the story, the characterizations, the way KotOR 2 actually examined a universe I'd pretty much always considered 'great entertainment, but way too simplistic in its morality' in a way that made me love it again, that got me fascinated by it again. (And I shipped the hell out of the Exile and Atton while loving the way the game never actually let them get there on account of the Exile being busy and Atton being a bag of issues, which I'm always into.)

And, y'know, HK-47 is awesome and you meatbags suck.

[mummyspromdate.livejournal.com]

In a word: Tumblr.

I was just in Kitty's Tumblr tag looking through and the Avengers Academy issue where AA faced off against the Jean Grey School had just come out, so there were scans from that all over. (Mostly the one where Kitty kicks Clint and Bobby out of the game for excessive awesomeness, which makes me laaaaugh.) And the more I saw of it, the more I wanted to read it, so Nick hooked me up with the comics and I found out that there was like one freaking issue left in the series and that a few of the characters were going on to Avengers Arena so I was gonna get all attached and they were basically going on to the Hunger Games. (I'm in this comic as long as Jenny's around, I swear to god.)

But yes, I mainlined the 38 issues that were out, ignored sleep, and I need more of these characters right now. When they're not potentially dying.

[therewaslife]

I'd just finished reading American Gods and continued to be in a Gaiman mood. I gave Neverwhere a read and after that, was going back and forth between The Graveyard Book and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (which I know isn't Gaiman but came recommended).

I chose The Graveyard Book because it was shorter and I'm lazy. And then I blew right on through it, loved Bod, loved Silas, loved everything and an app was written.

Simple one, that.

[gdiumbrella.livejournal.com]

Well, way before the movies I was totally into the games. Still am, so I had all the Resident Evil thing going on and I guess I love the fact there's an underlying story to the whole zombie thing, which is something to say compared to most zombie flicks. Of course, the movies aren't masterpieces but I've always liked Alice? Strong female that actually doesn't like being a superpowered biological weapon and would rather shoot her way out of a sea of zombies rather than unleash the superpowers? And that's glad she loses them and quite pissed of she gets them back? Yeah, I'm sold. I only wish we got to know more of her, but I think that's another good point for the movies; it really doesn't matter who Alice was, because the world has changed to much past identities are more of a burden, maybe.

Now all I want is that the next movie has more Leon and his cheesy lines.

[robinonadderall]

Tumblr was all "Hey, look at these gifs of some hot gay werewolves" and I was like "Shit yeah, I love hot gay werewolves" and that's how the show came on my radar. But I didn't actually start watching it until I saw millions of gifs of Stiles being a sarcastic bitch and for the entire first season I basically only kept watching because of Stiles being a sarcastic bitch and the Derek-and-Stiles-Comedy-Hour because I could not stand Scott or Scott/Allison or whatever the hell Jackson was doing in the first season.

I had a Supernatural "it's so bad why do I keep watching" attitude towards the whole show until maybe the 7th episode where it began to pick up. Then I actually started watching for the plot instead of mocking purposes.

And then season two was amazing and Stiles remained amazing and Scott stopped sucking so the show became less of a guilty pleasure and more of something I told people I watched. Then I decided to app, and I picked Stiles because I knew Elaine was bringing in Derek and they just work oh so well together. Most of the time.

Now I'm waiting for the bottom to fall out and the show to start sucking and then I'll inevitably ditch it because I have not seen a whole show through to the end in my entire 25 years of living.

[solo_sword]

One of my very first memories was watching Star Wars on tape when I was about three, and I haaaated it.

Then when I was about thirteen, I got pulled into scifi because the boys were cute. I started watching seaQuest because of Jonathan Brandis and when Mark Hamill had a guest star arc on there I realized I hadn't seen Star Wars since I was tiny and since the movies were on USA constantly at the time I gave them another shot. And then they took over my life for a summer.

That summer I found out that they had books. BOOKS. Sure, they were Kevin J. Anderson but I didn't know any better then. So it went like this:
Nick: *gets book from library, reads, gives it to me*
I: *read it super fast, wait impatiently for him to finish the next one*
Nick: *gives up halfway through, just gives me the damn book*

I went up and back with this canon, too, because sometimes I felt like I outgrew it, or something would happen and it would piss me off (hello, Chewie and Anakin's deaths) and I'd leave it alone for years and then come crawling back to it. When I apped Jaina, I swore I was done with it and wasn't reading anything past the NJO, and Fry ended up giving me copies of the Dark Nest Trilogy and the begining of LOTF. Luckily I read LOTF first. Sacrifice (the one where Mara dies) was the first Star Wars book I'd bought in like a decade and it ended with me crying reading it in the airport on the way home for Christmas, and that was it.

Now I've just accepted that this fandom has me forever, even when it sucks, though I'm looking forward to Sword of the Jedi in insane ways. At this point I've been reading these characters for like half my life and feel like I've grown up with Jaina, and I can't stop now, you know? Also Star Wars Christmas is my favorite thing and I'd keep reading just for that. :D

[ultron_junior]

Back in 2006, we got a new character named Molly Hayes. And she was bouncy and fun and, you know, one of the most awesome parts of a generally awesome newbie batch. Her player also pimped the comics a lot, and eventually I downloaded a couple. Mostly it was because of Monsta, but I also knew I liked Bryan K. Vaughan because one of the very first comics I ever read was Y: The Last Man at the behest of a coworker.

Anyhow, the first volume of Runaways was compelling and well-written and all of that, and I finished it more than a little in love with Nico. And then I moved on to S2, got a raging fictional character crush on my boy here when he was introduced, and kept reading. And along the way, I fell in love with the entire universe.

Wanting to know more about background events in Runaways, not to mention some relentless pimping from parties who shall not be named, got me to read more in Marvel. I'm still far from an expert, but the sheer fun of most of what I've read made me more confident I could play in this crazy world.

[reven8e.livejournal.com]

Emily is basically She who fights monsters (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeWhoFightsMonsters), and I've never played something quite like that. Actually a few characters have a bit of this too, but Emily shows it more.

If it was for me I wouldn't have ended up hooked up on Revenge, but fortunately there were some friends from an IJ RP that kept gushing about it week after week, so I had to check it out. And as I said, I fell in love with Emily's good-but-willing-to-do-bad mentality and how you see her becoming more and more like the ones she wants to destroy as the shows goes. Taking her from before and working my way up is just a way to explore that venue, and once the canon kicks up...well. Fun times.

I think I got hooked, independently of friends' opinions, because the show really goes and displays a wide arrange of characters and doesn't center exclusively on Emily; it's a nicely told story and it evolves naturally.

And plot twists, man. All the plot twists.

[liarallmyown.livejournal.com]

I like really bad YA books. I've read Twilight multiple times. I've read Mockingjay more than once even though that book fills me with rage. If there is a Mary Sue and a shitty love triangle, I will read your crappy book series that you've been writing in Panera for the last two years.

So that would explain why I read The Mortal Instruments. Bad writing aside, it's actually not a horrible story (for the first three books) and Clary is, in my opinion, not the worst heroine I've read. If I ever felt like apping a girl again and had to pick a heroine from a bad YA series I'd probably pick her.

But I suck at playing girls, so.

I only keep reading the series now because I have never seen quite a train wreck like this written on paper before in my life. The last book surpassed Breaking Dawn in "WTFEVEN IS THIS" ridiculousness.

[twintuitionist.livejournal.com]

Peter Krause was on the show, and played a character I did not want to disembowel with a chopstick. (Oh, sorry, that's my Six Feet Under bitter creeping through.) How could I resist?

Honestly I probably started watching DSM for the Krause factor, and kept watching because the people were pretty, the dialogue was appealingly funny, and I'm always in the market for a good trashy soap. I lost track of it during S2 because the plot lines started getting more and more ridiculous, but I kept Juliet in my back pocket as a potential app because she really is a great character. Even if I relentlessly neglect her.

[notconflicted]

There is totally a flow to how I got into my fandoms.

Sooo as mentioned above I'd decided I wasn't going to read anything in Star Wars past the NJO, I was going to write Jag out of Jaina's time at FH because he wasn't important if she was here, etc. etc. I think it might have been the same trip home where I cried in the airport over Mara that I found out the Legacy comics were a thing. I was staying at Nick's and he had all the ones that were out so far and told me to go ahead and read them if I got bored. At the time I was out of comics so I kept saying no and basically I should shut up and listen to Nick when he suggests something to me.

I got back late one night and Nick was asleep but I was bored, so I started reading. And went "Well I guess I'm not writing Jag out after all" and was totally hooked, because it was frankly a better story than I was already reading.

We'll see if I say that about the new canon.

[trickydemigod.livejournal.com]

I...think I saw the movie first? I can't remember. It was 2010, I had the year off school and no job so I went to the movies a lot so I'm pretty sure that's what happened. Either that or I read The Lightning Thief somewhere between Harry Potter books, I can't remember. I don't remember what I ate yesterday.

Holy crap the movie was bad. But I was like a) How old is this Logan Lerman kid 'cause he's hot and b) Adam Milligan's character is cool and he's also hot. So I read the full series after that and looooooooved Luke because I'm a sucker for good guys who go evil by accident (please go evil by accident, Stiles) and I love villains and redemption arcs and blondes and...yeah. Pretty much a character I love to a T.

I also liked Percy as a narrator because he's such a little shit and sometimes is SUCH an idiot and that's amazing for a hero of the story, man. The series really benefited from having him being a narrator. I think the new series is missing a lot being in 3rd person.

Also with no Luke I lost interest pretty quick. I like what I like, okay?

[annieadderall.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time they used to run commercials for Community and they got me to watch.

They don't really do that anymore.

I liked the first season just fine, though there were episodes I missed and didn't care that I missed them back then, and when it settled into its cracky, fun self, I was beyond hooked. Of course now they're screwing over the show in every way possible in order to kill it, so watching what's happened in the last year between Dan Harmon getting fired and the dhow getting yanked around the schedule and the cast and crew moving on to different things before they've even pulled the plug is pretty painful.

I love my soon-to-be dead Advanced Gay show.

[fates_jaye]

See also Community but on a different network and with four episodes instead of four seasons.

[nottheshoes.livejournal.com]

Me getting into George's canon can be blamed on me getting into Kate's canon... which I'm going to blame on access to Amazon and and no resistance to cheap and awesome-looking trashy books. Annnd what I thought would be a one-off junky foray, turned out more than that.

I checked back, and apparently I picked up the first Kate book in early 2008, and apparently never looked back, because five years later I still get all ASKJDKDL!!!11 when a new release pops up.

George's series may be over now, but Kate's is still going strong. JULY. COME TO ME, JULY.

[ihavediabetes.livejournal.com]

I was totally that kid who used to go to the public library with a grocery bag to take everything home, and then I'd be done with them all in a week. Because I did this, and it was a public library where I had a limited selection of what was in at the time, I'd grab whatever was there and read series out of order based on what was available. So when I was seven I ended up with The Ghost at Dawn's House.

I don't remember what I loved so much about the book, but it was the first thing I really obsessed over because I loved the characters. I had to get all the books and I wanted to start my own Baby-Sitters Club (because eight-year-olds should totally do that) and it was my Thing for years.

I was the first one in my grade to be into it, and the first to get out of it, getting bored with it when I was about eleven. But I also retained a terrifying amount of knowledge from the books, which had a friend from the Farscape fandom send me The Unofficial Guide to the Baby-Sitters Club, and then earned me the nickname The Unofficial Guide to the Baby-Sitters Club.

[atreideslioness]

I do not remember a time before I loved the Dune books.

I must have read them the first time in fourth grade or so, when I was devouring the science fiction section of my public library. A lot of it went over my head, I'm sure, but I loved Herbert's world-building. I wanted to be a Bene Gesserit when I grew up. I read every single book that had been published, but really, I think I liked the first one the best at that point.

I read them again in high school, when I stumbled across the same, worn-out copies in the library, and I was hooked. I read them again once a year, and then in college, when the mini-series was coming out and I gleed and squeed and spliced illegal cable into my room so I could watch it. SHHHHH.

Ghanima, Alia, Jessica, Irulan, and the Reverend Mother fascinate me. How they relate to each other, how they interact with people, how they are all strong female characters in different ways. For all of Frank Herbert's massive Fails (and I still think he smoked crack with OSC behind the tire swing during school hours), these were characters that spoke to me. I loved reading the intricacies of Fremen culture. And while I will deny there is anything in book!canon! beyond the first three books -- four books, if I'm being nice to future_sandworm! -- I do love both mini-series to death. Even when I'm yelling at the hideous lighting for CoD, which tends to make it impossible for people to icon.