Nym’s Fandom and Fanfiction Website

I’m Nym, a lifelong fangirl approaching the milestone of my 50th birthday. As I write this, Doctor Who, my oldest fandom, has its 60th anniversary later in the year. The TV series that led me to find fandom, Robin of Sherwood, turns 40 next year. Between all that, I’m feeling pretty nostalgic. I’ve started thinking about fandom and posterity.

I’ve written and published fanfiction about Good Omens, Doctor Who, Once Upon a Time, Harry Potter, Pet Shop of Horrors, Stargate, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Young Hercules, Star Wars: TPM and Jedi Apprentice, The Tomorrow People, Highlander the Series, VR.5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Beauty and the Beast (TV), Star Trek DS9, TNG, and TOS, and others.

Before about 1995, everything I published was in fanzines or newsletters. Since about 1999, everything’s been online. Most of what I wrote in the overlap years is lost.

Ephemeral Fanworks

In the past, I’ve viewed my own fanworks as ephemeral, with some or all of their meaning and relevance soon lost along with their context. I’ve never been very comfortable presenting my fanfiction without the context that spawned it, so I’ve tended to quietly retire older and odder stories from public view when the fandom goes quiet. Over the years, that’s meant that quite a few pieces I once had online have become lost, some to carelessness and computer mishaps and some to obsolete file formats.

Preservation and Posterity

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older and have more history to look back on than I used to, but I’m slowly reevaluating my reluctance to leave older fanfic lying around. The more I appreciate the work of Fanlore and the OTW in preserving fanworks and fannish history, the more I’ve been thinking about how I could supply the missing context rather than removing my work.

That’s the purpose of this website: to preserve that context and to record my memories of fandom. Nearly 40 years worth, at this point. I have a particular interest in how fandom’s communication and organisation evolved after the internet became a part of daily life.