Amedia

Amedia is a fan writer and editor who has written slash in several fandoms. She initially tried out several pseudonyms before finally settling on Amedia; earlier pseudonyms included Kerrvert and Anaktoria.
Amedia was already a longtime gen fan when she was gradually enticed to the slash side of the Force in the early 1990s. The first story that gave her the "aha!" moment of understanding the attraction of slash was Jane Carnall's Blakes 7 story "Revenge for What," which appeared in Southern Lights Special 4.5. Amedia wrote a couple of slash parodies in Doctor Who and Blakes 7; it is possible but not absolutely certain that she wrote the first m/m Doctor Who story. "Unkindest Cut of All" in a 1988 section called "Footsie Notes" in the zine The Lieutenant's Log. She began writing slash in earnest in Man from U.N.C.L.E. fandom after encouragement from Paulle Alexandre, whom she met at an early REVELcon. Two of her stories and several limericks appeared in Paulle's zine Rose Tint My World.
In the mid 1990s, she became a fan of Rat Patrol after seeing it in reruns on WGN. At that time, one unusual fannish humor genre was the imaginary flyer for a nonexistent zine; she composed such a work, a flyer for an imaginary slash Rat Patrol zine, and shared it with fellow Rat Patrol fans at REVELcon. Their response was startling: two of the individuals present immediately called dibs on stories described in the flyer that they wanted to write, and another offered to print the zine when it was completed. What had begun as a joke turned into a publication that lasted for four issues. The zine's title, Flanking Maneuvers, was suggested by Randi Leer, who also contributed stories to the first and fourth issues. The first issue came out in 1997; Lindbergh's Legacy Press printed the zine until the death of the press's founder, Ann Elaine McKannan, in 1998. The zine was then printed by Criterion Press and later transferred to Agent With Style. Amedia contributed Rat Patrol slash stories to the first two issues of the zine (edited by TODS, her usual beta reader; Amedia edited the other stories), and to the multifandom slash fanzine Diverse Doings.
Amedia's participation in Rat Patrol fandom included witnessing portions of the infamous SockPuppet Wars. She posted an account of these incidents on her LiveJournal in 2006 and invited other fans to contribute their perspectives, hoping to create a valuable record and to warn other fans of the symptoms to help prevent such events from recurring.
Next, she wrote Barney Miller slash fanfic and created a pimping tape featuring slashy interactions between the characters of Harris and Dietrich to show at conventions. Her first Harris/Dietrich story, "Nocturne," appeared in Awakenings 7, which was a tribute issue dedicated to its late editor, Marion McChesney; the second, "On and Off," appeared in Southern Hospitality; the others appeared in Diverse Doings. Her short piece "In Flamingo Delicto" won the ZebraCon 2001 Story Contest, appearing in its program booklet, and was later reprinted in Diverse Doings as well.
Although she had been online since 1995, participating in listservs and groups, she did not post stories online until she became involved in Emergency! fandom, in which she wrote mostly Johnny/Chet, and Lord of the Rings, in which she wrote a few short Legolas/Gimli pieces. In both fandoms she participated primarily in the form of posting to listservs.
From roughly 2002 to 2008, she experienced a creative drought and wrote very little fanfic. The SciFi Channel miniseries Tin Man, which she watched in January 2008, provided a welcome reboot and she became active in the online fandom, primarily on LJ, writing primarily slash and a smattering of gen.
The recent BBC production Sherlock (BBC) rekindled her longtime interest in Sherlock Holmes in general; she has written a few short pieces based on the BBC version. The vid show at Escapade 2020 inspired her--as it did many others--to seek out the Chinese fantasy series The Untamed, which served as a gateway to other Asian drama. She is currently active in Guardian (webseries) (a.k.a. Guardian TV 2018) fandom, along with Due South and the German mystery series Tatort Muenster, while still active in some old favorites such as Star Trek and Rat Patrol.
After participating in lessons from both the Vexercises and Aaron's Vidding Bootcamp, Amedia has also begun to vid. Her first vids were the first all-Rat Patrol vids (both gen: a one-minute Vexercise to Elvis Costello's "Senior Service" and a full-length vid to the Parselmouths' "Quidditch is my Favorite Sport"). She also made a Harris/Dietrich Barney Miller vid set to "Maybe You're Not the Worst Thing Ever" from Galavant, using many of the same clips (re-ripped from DVD) as the analog pimping tape she created in the early 2000's. She has since vidded in the fandoms Nirvana in Fire, Cherry Magic, and Guardian.
All her vids, current fanfic, and most of her zine-age fanfic is posted at https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amedia.
If there was one person that Amedia would like fandom to remember, it's Ann McKannan. Without her offer to print the zine and her enthusiastic support along the way, Flanking Maneuvers would never have come into existence. She was a generous, talented soul who is still missed.
==References==
Category:Fanwriters