Sunshine Challenge #2: Fannish Identities

[gullwhacker]

sunshine_challenge offers the challenge of introducing a fandom identity. I've done...some of the housekeeping challenge, but I've got at least seven years of badly tagged LJ posts too many to call that done.

To those stumbling across this for the first time, I left all my old posts up in spite of how I might have grown since then. Going through those was...I'll go with an educational reminder for me, but there's a prominent seven-year hiatus in there. Some things change, some things stay the same, but I can present how I think I am.


What does your username mean, and how is it pronounced?
In a way, my username predates nearly everything else I've done on the Internet, barring a foray into MOOSE Crossing and a bit of time poking at USENET.
As kids, my siblings and I were into Brian Jacques's Redwall series. A little later in life, we all played Myth II online - a sometimes-multiplayer strategy series from the late 1990s - and wound up joining a Redwall-themed clan. Part of joining involved picking a username from the books, and when it was my turn to play I eventually settled on 'Gullwhacker' - the name of one character's weapon of choice, a flail made of rope for fending off seagulls.
My interest in the game waned, but as I joined other communities I tended to fall back on it as a default username. Twenty years later, it's basically the moniker I'm most comfortable with online - partly due to remembering old rules about real names online, partly because it's a name I picked out.
I sometimes shorten it to 'Gull', pronounced the same as in 'seagull'; the -whacker suffix gets pronounced like the verb. Putting it that way felt...somewhat silly, admittedly.

What's your origin story? Is it fannish?
I mean, I could claim that my origin story starts with a self-insert crossover fanfic I wrote when I was...I don't know, six? I remember Inspector Gadget being involved because Penny had a book computer how cool is that, but not what else. I should probably see if I still have the floppy that was on.
My current online 'self', however, probably started in high school. I can't remember who pointed me at fanfiction.net, but I wound up making an account there in 2001 with all the grace and maturity of the average high schooler. (Again, against better judgment, I've left my first forays into published fic up there.) Through there I made a few good friends that survived the transition from ICQ to Yahoo Chat to IRC to Discord, and some of whom I still talk to these days.
I wound up reading far more fic than I'd ever write, my creative energies tending to go toward some online forum-RP, MUSHes, and online RPG campaigns. It's only in the last few years that my schedule has become unpredictable enough that I find myself called back to fic-writing.

What is your default icon about? Does it have personal meaning? Why did you choose it? What is it from?
NetHack. It's from NetHack. Not very fannish, and perhaps not very meaningful.
For quite a few years in university, I was hooked on NetHack - classic free Roguelike with enough strategy involved to trap my attention for long stretches. The icon I made for myself; entities in NetHack are by default represented as text characters, with @ being used for the player and human-like NPCs. The goal of the game is to 'Ascend', thus the label.
It's kind of simple, and very much a flag for 'hey, I'm interested in this one game'. During the shift to DreamWidth, I looked over my old icons, cringed at a couple, and settled on this as being a decent face to show the world.
At some point I should probably get a few new icons.

Preferred pronouns?
Honestly ambivalent. 'They' works well enough, but I've been called 'he' or 'she' depending on the community.

Languages other than English?
A dozen years of learning French have given me a passable understanding. I'm better written than spoken, and understand more readily than I can communicate; I have a habit of forgetting certain vocabulary words.
Still, I can get by if I'm careful about my word choices.

What does "fannish identity" mean to you?
An opportunity to ramble on about things.
In all seriousness, fandom has meant a lot to me over the years. There's the content itself - all the books and shows and games and sports events that people like to consume. Having a favourite, or even just having something enjoyed in common with someone else gives a point of commonality, something to talk about. There are video games I've played that my coworkers have too, and so that's something we can discuss during breaks.
There's a bit more to it with transformative works, though. Whether RPing as a character on a forum, writing a meta-analysis essay, drawing art of a favourite scene, crafting a show-accurate costume, or writing an AU fic, there's all kinds of ways to build on a favourite story and come up with something new. Anyone with a 'fannish identity' can have something they've done, some way they've expressed their enjoyment of some fandom, and that's a part of themselves they can present to the world.
The kinds of stories you enjoy or write, the types of characters that appeal to you enough to cosplay as, the aesthetics you want to try drawing, the story beats that sing to you - that's part of your fandom personality, your 'identity' - it's what people know about you, what helps them go 'hey, you might enjoy this story'.
In a way, it's almost something easier to spot in other people than myself. I'm bad at self-reflection in general, slow to notice the pattern to things I enjoy. I'm confident enough with some people to pin down things they like writing or reading or what have you, but put on the spot I have trouble thinking of my own favourites.
But there's a self there to discover.


To anyone who made it through that, I'm open to specific questions. Some of my answers might be brief, some might be long and rambling, but I'll do my best to come up with some answers. I might also add more details in the comments, such as if I can get my head together enough to come up with a list of recent favourite media or something.

So...ask away!

Comments

[silveradept]

I never got far enough in NetHack to ascend, or, for that matter, even to figure out half of what's there, but it definitely is an interesting game, constantly being worked on and further given all sorts of new tweaks to deal with.

Also, have you seen Get Smart? I think Agent 86 was essentially the template for Inspector Gadget, just with some extra doodads.

[gullwhacker]

I think there's more in that one game than anyone can be expected to know. Interactions between items, easter eggs, little tricks to pull. The amount of time it's received active development support is a little terrifying, honestly, but it's fascinating at the same time.

(I think everyone's favourite physics joke in the game involves the Quantum Mechanic (a monster) that can randomly drop a box. Most containers in the game keep track of their current contents, but this box is special; it contains either a dead cat or a living one, to be determined randomly the moment you open the box.)

As for Get Smart - before my time, sadly, but I've heard about it and stumbled across some of its references.

[silveradept]

There's probably a doctoral dissertation or two in tracking the changes that Nethack has undergone since the original release and linking them to cultural and historical phenomena that are happening about the same time.

The box with the cat is a good joke, especially from that monster.

Get smart is before my time - Inspector Gadget is more my target time, but I own it, and it is not hard to imagine his direction in the voice booth was "Agent 86 as a cyborg, Don."

[gullwhacker]

Terry Pratchett died shortly before the latest patch came out, so the topical news last update was throwing in a big pile of fun responses if you try to talk to Death. Which is a thing you can do.

I'll have to look into Get Smart sometime, if that's the aesthetic...

intruding on your thread

[oldtoadwoman]

Interrupting to add that while Get Smart was technically before my time as well, it reran on my local TV station when I was a kid and I remember my sister and I thinking it was the funniest thing ever. However, I say that with the heavy caveat that I had no taste whatsoever as a child so it was probably terrible. It was basically if James Bond were American and also incompetent but without the edge of Archer which is a different vibe entirely.

The same actor Don Adams played Maxwell Smart and provided the voice of Inspector Gadget and he was one of those character actors who always tended to play the same part so it's easy to headcanon that Max had some kind of accident and got turned into a cyborg.

Here's a compilation of dumb jokes from the show: https://youtu.be/rEGA7eyWeAA

[autobotscoutriella]

Your username is fantastic! (I'll admit to being quite biased, as is probably evident from my Mariel icon--but god, I love those books.) It's certainly a memorable nickname.

[gullwhacker]

It just kind of felt right, and it stuck.

Also glee, reference recognized! (And that is a gorgeous icon.)

[autobotscoutriella]

I actually still have a gullwhacker toy that I made back in middle school when I was obsessed with the series! (...More obsessed.) It's my cat's most heavy-duty toy now.

Thank you! ilyena_sylph made it for me back during the Snowflake Challenge. It's one of my favorites.

[gullwhacker]

I suddenly remember one summer when we did a Redwall-themed picnic. Recipes based on the books, made a facsimile of the Abbey wall...fun times were had. I think I might have the official cookbook kicking around, come to think of it.

Admittedly, the most I've thought of the series lately is making tentative plans to read some of the books to my kids. PRobably starting with Mossflower, it was always my favourite. The duology about Mariel and Joseph is...fairly high up there, though.

Five will ride the Roaringburn, but only four will e'er return...

[autobotscoutriella]

I love that cookbook so much. Some of my die-hard "I Will Adult Now By Cooking Actual Food For Myself" recipes are straight out of it--those recipes were surprisingly good (or not surprisingly, considering the source) and easy enough to pull off in a hurry with basic stuff.

I've been racking up hours for the library summer reading program by getting the audiobooks, which has kept my love of the series alive. It's certainly not perfect, but it's still tons of fun. The Mariel and Joseph duology is SO GOOD--I mean, most of the audiobooks are, but those in particular had spot-on voice casting and acting, and they're so good in general. (The Bellmaker might actually be waiting for me on the holds shelf right now...must check on that.)

[enemytosleep]

I was gonna point you here if you hadn't made it already haha!

[autobotscoutriella]

I sensed Redwall and was summoned from afar :D

[enemytosleep]

No worries on the work in progress status. I had a heads up being a mod, and I’m still finishing up on mine!


Comme vous, j’ai oublié beaucoup du vocabulaire, mais je voudrais parler plus si je peux.

[ilyena_sylph]

I saw 'Gullwhacker', thought 'Redwall', and am delighted to have been right!

+grins+

Hi!

[gullwhacker]

Hi!

I'm a little amused at how well known the reference is here. Usually in a new community I'm lucky to find one or two people who recognize it, but here...

[ilyena_sylph]

+grins+ Dreamwidth has a fairly high percentage of exactly that kind of bookish no-longer-kids, I think.

If you have a favorite Mariel cover, I enjoy doing icons!