Descending Into Hell

First of all, I would just like to say: it's not my fault.

I blame my boyfriend, AKA "the boy."

Now, I know he will deny this - probably very, very strongly. But it was his friend that turned me onto fandom, so by default, it's his fault. See, I was minding my own business one day, oh...maybe three or four years ago, listening to this friend talk about her adventures stalking tracking down the Morrissey-shaped one on her trip to England. For some odd reason, I was amused. And decided that it must be fun to be so into something that you spent all of your money on it and thought about it all the time, and talked about it all the time, etc. At the time, I was an innocent. I wasn't really into anything, on any level of extremity. I had never been one to put up posters of bands on my wall. I had purchased one Teen Beat in my entire young life - and that was under duress. I was ashamed to have it. (I had to buy it. My cousin made me. And I, uh, kind of wanted the picture of that Ryan kid from Kids, Inc. and The Monster Squad. Only, like, kind of.) I wondered if it was possible for me to become obsessed with something, and what that experience would be like. So, in the name of science, I decided, at that moment, that I needed an obsession.

Yes, this is really how my mind worked. And continues to work.

It's amazing how easy it was, really. I was working the graveyard shift at a group home, so I pretty much had the entire night to amuse myself after I finished my homework. I had recently taken to entertaining myself with Buffy the Vampire Slayer - both the series and the movie. Hey, it was a state-funded facility, we didn't have a lot to choose from. I think we had the Buffy movie and some Burt Reynold's flick from the '70's. As you can see, it wasn't a difficult choice. Anyway, I decided that Buffy, since it entertained me so and got me through many a boring-as-all-fuck nights, would be my obsession. I started taping the show at home, even though we didn't have cable and the reception was crap, and watching it at work - maybe more than once a night. Maybe. If, you know, Comedy Central didn't have anything amusing on. Which, sadly enough, once they took off The Young Ones, they rarely did for that 2am to 6am stretch. Let me just say, people, that graveyard sucks ass. Do not EVER do that to yourself. It's been three years, and my brain is still trying to recover.

Though I'm sure it was amusing for all of those lucky people sitting next to me in lecture to watch me jump at my hallucinations during class.

Oh yes, much fun was had by them, I'm sure.

Hallucinations put aside for now, with my new obsession carefully picked out, I went to work. I went to the official site, still buffyslayer.com then, which I had gone to once or twice before when they first set up the Bronze posting board, and surfed around. Oooo, well, what do you know? They were going to put out comics! And dolls! And collector's cards! And...and...other stuff! Oh, my excitement knew no bounds! Look, I decide to have an obsession and it just works out, like magic! I can buy merchandise! And drive the boy crazy! Ha ha ha ha. Good times. Easily controlled good times.

Or so I thought.

I began to site hop. Caught up on gossip. Introduced myself to spoilers. Found Buffystore.com. And it was all good.

Then, one night, I was insanely bored. I had recently been loaned a laptop. I decided to go check out The Bronze, the Buffy linear posting board. I decided to post. With little to no thought I picked out my handle and I dove in - with one of those spectacular, way-to-fit-in-with-the-community "What the fuck are you people talking about?" posts.

I like to make a good first impression.

And still, it was all under control. I continued to post, but only late at night. I was a L.O.S.E.R (Lover of Sleepless Endless Repartee-athons (c)Ty King), meaning I posted between midnight and 4am. Oh, sure, the comics came out and I scoured the city until I found them. And the boys at the counter only laughed at me a little. They continue to laugh at me...more than a little. And they're probably pretty pissed at me, seeing as how they've been holding a stack of comics for me for, oh, a few months now. Sorry guys. I'm coming in, I swear. Really. *sigh* I got all of the dolls, even the ugly ones, and all of the action figures - every variant in the first wave. But I told myself it was just for fun, just to see if I could do it. It was a challenge, if you will. I may or may not have gone to a PBFP (Posting Board Fan Party). But it didn't matter, because I was under control, it was still just an experiment.

And then they postponed the Buffy episode "Graduation Day 2." The fuckers.

About five months before this happened I had gotten a new day job in an office. I was actually trying to be good and not abuse the internet, and I never did. Until that fateful day. I was bored, they weren't giving me enough work to keep me busy, Buffy had just been postponed and I was pissed. I am easily pissed off when bored. So I posted my indignation on The Bronze for all to see. And I never stopped. I bonded with the ubercool Lisa over Douglas Adams. I mastered the art of dropping tags. I picked up the lingo. And I got into a convo with Amy on platform shoes with fish in the heels.

Ever seen I'm Gonna Git You Sucka? No? Well, if you have, you know this is where the fish shoes came from. So we're all clear that my descent to the next level is all Keenan Ivory Wayan's fault, right? I love the man, he gave me In Living Color (the good years) and common ground with Amy: the aforementioned shoes. But he also must shoulder the blame for lackey fic.

Um, yes, lackey fic. I can't explain it - even though it's mostly my fault. Mostly. As best I can recall, the platform-shoes discussion led to a shoes-in-general discussion, which led to a needing-lackeys-to-polish-our-shoes-and-carry-them-for-us discussion, which led to a which-boys-would-we-like-to-have-polish-our-shoes discussion, which led to Amy and Lisa's inboxes receiving the beginning of a story involving lackeys, a pile of shoes and a search for the BBS (Boogedy Boogedy Shopkeeper: a Buffy character who may or may not (not) be dead and lives way beyond his prime in our hearts) the next day. Their confusion was tangible. Once I explained how it came about, though, it made perfect sense. Amy even suggested that we bring Amanda on board. And brought aboard she was, two or three installments later, in a spectacular twist involving jealous lackeys, handcuffs and fondue. Maybe. I think. It's been over a year, but that sounds about right. What really matters here is that, with this fateful combination, the lackeygurls were born.

The rest of my descent into fandom hell can be attributed to my lovely partners in lackeydom. I'd say, in the sanity department, we were a bad influence on each other. I created the Roswell coloring book for Amy. (I still remember her hysterically funny phone call when she got it. Not as hysterical as Melynee's when she got her *NSYNC watch, but close.) I flew to LA, a city I despise, to meet Amy and Amanda and Lisa at the Buffy Posting Board Party. We may possibly have visited every Jerry's Deli we could find, because Amanda and Amy read in some teeny magazine that Brendan Fehr liked them and frequented one by his house. It's entirely probable that we took a casual stroll around the block of one, just in case. My buying of teen magazines, and I'm not talking semi-serious ones like YM here, was and is completely their doing. They encouraged lackeyfic, which continues to be written. Sometimes. The gurls have been known to jump in from time to time, and lots of "wacky" adventures have ensued: Lisa has channeled Michelle Pfeiffer, the Grease 2 incarnation, atop a ladder, Amanda was Spartacus, and Mr. Deus Ex Machina has made an appearance. Once. Only once. So far. I have a habit of writing us into situations, then forgetting how to get us out of them, or even, you know, remembering how we got there. We've been in war zones and outer space. Strawberries and fondue are heavily featured, and just the mention of them makes us giggle. Buttered ears of corn showed up on a dare. And still, we haven't found the damn BBS. I blame my inability to tell a coherent story.

And Nyquil.

All the best stuff is written on Nyquil.

Somewhere in the middle of this Amy, Amanda and Lisa strong-armed me into watching Roswell. I did not want to watch Roswell. At that time in my life, I hardly watched any TV. I didn't need anything else to warp my precarious grip on reality, really. But I caved. I watched. Well, I tried to, but I kept forgetting when it was on. I think I finally caught the last half of "Heatwave," and didn't get it. I wanted to know what was up with Maria's clothes and eyebrows, but this didn't exactly compel me to watch. I was not sold. Ha ha ha ha ha! I was impervious to bad TV! I was strong!

Then the WB replayed the pilot. Well fuck, what was I supposed to do against that? Of course I loved it. I'm a freaking sap. Damn me, damn me to fangurl hell!

So, let's see, what happened next? I've been sliding so fast down the slope since, it's been difficult to keep it all straight. I'd say the next big mile marker was deciding to go to Viva Las Buffy to see my gurls. Yeah...that was probably what really did it. For Melynee, my peon in the COQ (something I am not going to explain), was there. Bringing with her her uncontrollable, and completely contagious, love of all things boy-bandy. You know, I had met her first in NY, when I was out to visit the boy's sister and see my gurls (Amanda and Lisa flew out and we terrorized Amy's mom for a few days. Aaaah...memories), and I had, until that moment, thought she was kidding. That our arguments over whether or not JC was cute were in jest. That she did not really press her hand to her chest without realizing it. I still desperately clung to this belief as I arrived in Vegas. Oh, how young and innocent and naive I was.

So, anyway, we're all in Vegas. Me, Amy, Lisa, Melynee and Amanda. Melynee came armed with lord knows how much *NSYNC footage. We attempted to rent a VCR. It was all in good fun, right? Said VCR was way too outrageously priced. So, says Colleen, our friend in LV, let's go to my place! And go we did. I just...you know, I have no idea how it happened. We spent hours watching the Madison Square Garden concert special and mimicking their choreography. And somehow it was just understood that we would be doing this in front of a large group of people. Who had cameras. And I still have no idea how this happened. But it was fun, and Melynee is quite the drill instructor - but these are stories for another day.

So, at the actual party, we did it. We FPAed (Fist Pumping Action). In front of witnesses. And cameras. It's become our thing. But more on this part of my shame when it's my turn for "Exercises in Humiliation" - because I can never get enough of that humiliation I hold so dear.

Where am I now, in the grander scheme of things, you ask? Vegas left me helpless against the current boy band du jour. I have read fanfic, since someone (Amy) started sending random, terrifying ones to me. I am not completely sold on fanfic, unlike the rest of the PopGurls, but I love the bad stuff. A bout of insomnia led me to the discovery of La Femme Nikita, played five nights a week for my bad-TV-viewing pleasure. Needless to say, I'm addicted. Amy also fell in love with La Femme Nikita at the same time - just before it was cancelled. Of course. Did that stop us from doing nothing but surfing LFN websites and talking about it non-stop for weeks? No. No, it did not. Can I explain this? No. No, I cannot. Did it stop us from laying around for almost an entire day when she came to Seattle, to watch a Femme marathon? Ha, yeah right. We even let it cut into our frantic search for a comic shop that carried the Roswell trading cards. If you had been there, you would understand the significance of this. I think we hit every shop in the greater Seattle area. And we were mocked. Mercilessly. By comic book geeks. Gotta tell ya, that still stings.

And then, one night, Amy and I were up AIMing, always a dangerous pastime, amused by our fangurlness. We decided we needed our own site to talk about things that keep us sane and make us laugh at ourselves. Because, you know, the web needs more random sites out there that are just there to amuse us. Lisa, Amanda and Melynee were recruited to help. Lisa, unfortunately, got hijacked by life, which is currently holding her for ransom. We're still working on getting that ransom together - I really think that this time, I have the winning lotto ticket. Really.

And, thus, was PopGurls born. And my forays into fandom are nowhere near over. I'm afraid. Very much so.

Now, to recap...geeky fangurlness: clearly not my fault.

People on whose shoulders fall the blame: the boy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Joss Whedon by default. My boring job. Boredom, in general. The Internet - a very nebulous claim, I realize, so let's blame the inventor of the internet. The lackeygurls. And now, the PopGurls.

Pray for me.

2001-07-05