How did I get into due South? well, it has a lot to do with Forever Knight - my first fandom.

( for reasons that need exploring at this juncture, Forever Knight and the early Internet led me to due South )

A bunch of Forever Knight fen were also into due South, or got into it because some dS actors guest starred on FK (Catherine Bruhier and Christina Cox). I would surf someone's FK fic/pic web page and see pictures of a Mountie. I thought, Wellllll, he's handsome. But I didn't pay it much attention, because I was there strictly for the Forever Knight vampires Nick and LaCroix - and the slashy pics and fics of them on people's early web pages.

Then CBS broadcast the S3 Forever Knight episode "Outside the Lines" - in which CKR guest starred. When I saw that episode, I thought, Christ, this guy [CKR] is unbelievably charismatic; the camera loves him. He just had this crazy charisma, and I couldn't take my eyes off him. I had no idea who he was, other than a guest star on Forever Knight.

( it honestly started with CKR even though I had no idea who he was at that time, other than a guest on Forever Knight )
Anyhoo, coming from Forever Knight's Nick/LaCroix heavily angsty father/son vampire m/m relationship -- and the Nick/Janette/LaCroix angsty m/f/m OT3 canon backstory -- plus the potential Nick/Nat/LaCroix from the episode "Valentine's Day" -- plus the general darkness and angst of Forever Knight, you really can't blame me for thinking due South looked like a boring, non-slashy prime time G-rated family-oriented show.
( other reasons I didn't initially vibe with dS, such as being a sucker for Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles )

I was bored and I wanted another show to get into. While consoling myself with the FK Nick/LC slashfic, I saw the promo photos started coming out for S3 due South. And although they weren't fantastic, I was like, Oooooohh, there's a nice slashy vibe here in these pics. (They were being posted on the web pages of people into both FK and dS -- usually with some cranky or bitchy comment about "the new guy.") Well, I didn't know anything about the show, really.

( I read due South slash before I actually got into the show, while I waited for the S3 premiere )
At the time I read it, I was like, Oh, damn, MORE slashfic, YAY!! Except a lot of stories described a balding Italian detective, and I got very confused, because I honestly hadn't really noticed him in the two eps I had seen. Hey, man - "something red moving fast always draws the eye." What can I say.

( finally the S3 premiere airs, and though they fucked up CKR's hair in BDTH, those HANDS got me )
So then the next ep was Eclipse and I was like HOLY FUCK THE SLASH OMFG WTF a;sldkjfal;skdjfal;sdjfasdlfjk (except of course omfg and wtf didn't exist as abbreviations back then). Ray "'do you find me attractive?' he asked the Mountie" Kowalski was so slashy and angsty - and, although lacking the dark edge and the vampires - I thought OK, I can really work with this slashy vibe!
( The third and fourth episodes of S3 due South cemented my love )

And I was like, OK, stick a fork in me, I'm DONE... I was already doing the online fandom thing for ForKni, so I just kind of slid over into dS fandom. Huzzah!

( but dS fandom then was not without its bumps in the road - the Ray Wars )

( love of Kowalski became love of CKR and c6d was born, though we didn't initially call it that, and HCL was the first c6d thing I watched )
Because remember, both FK and dS were the two little Canadian shows that could... and then couldn't. Both kept getting canceled at the end of each season, and then somehow revived. But each only managed to get revived after 2 cancellations. After the 3rd season of each, the networks involved (CBS on the American side) chose not to revive them, despite massive fan efforts, letter writing campaigns -- hell, for Forever Knight, we fen donated $$ to take out *billboards* in LA that could be seen by people driving in for work. All for nothing; it was never revived. And there was no Netflix to take it on, as has happened in recent years of great shows canceled by networks.
( my first forays into fanfic, and how I got to see the rest of due South before it was put in syndication on TBS after it was finally canceled )

Man, I remember discovering all the slashfic for Forever Knight online and being like, ohmygod, I have hit the *jackpot* here... it's all mine... and all these people walking around have no idea people are freely trading explicit erotic m/m stories about fictional vampires online for fun - how cool is this?!

( As a veteran of the Ray Wars... eventually I got past it and even wrote Ray/Ray and Ray/Fraser/Ray )
And after a bunch of Asylum dS fen moved to LJ, all this Ray/Ray and Ray/Fraser/Ray fic started being written... and then DW came into being and people moved to DW and continued the Ray/Ray... and since I never hated Ray Vecchio (unlike the Kowalski-haters), of course I read some... and then I wrote some myself, both way back when, as well as more recently here and here. That helped me get over it.

And, like many veterans, that's about as much as I want to talk about it. I'm glad it's long past and it's not okay to character or actor bash anymore. (Although it still happens, but at least it is frowned upon now.)

Now, there were two other things that were really frowned upon when I first found dS fandom: RPF/RPS, and bad!Ben AUs. To the point that people shared these things secretly and you would only learn of these fics if you knew someone or they knew you would probably like it and wouldn't 'out' them. Back then, making "OFM" (Our Favorite Mountie, a common nickname for Fraser) into a bad guy was very, very frowned upon and a rather fringe-y thing to do. And there was no AO3 at the time.

( before AO3, the bad!Ben fic web page was all you had if you wanted a little AU walk on the wild side of Fraser - and how to get the text to come up, and find the link to the RPS/RPF page by the same fen )

I've even traveled because of my fandoms: my first trip to Toronto, alone, not even a dog - my dog had died, and I hadn't yet gotten another one - in the rally 90s was because of Forever Knight and an online "FK points of interest" list that I printed a hard copy of, and drove around and found all the points of interest SBD filming locations on my own. Wish I still had that, but it's lost to the sands and winds of time.

My last trip to Toronto was for due South RCW139, and that trip and another one were for fancons (although I am not a huge con-goer, I do occasionally go to cons... very occasionally). In between, there were a couple trips where I visited both FK and dS filming locations. I've made fandom friends - some who live very close to me, geographically; some who I met long ago and lost touch with countless computers and email accounts so - and I've just generally had so much fun and derived so much enjoyment from fannishness. And I have some bucket list items that I probably wouldn't have if it weren't for Forever Knight and due South. Yay!

So thank you, ds30below, for prompting this trip down memory lane. 💜😊