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stonepicnicking_okapi) wrote2025-01-11 12:12 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi) wrote2025-01-11 12:12 pm
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Snowflake #5: Better living through fandom
The heading was stolen from sixbeforelunch because it made me laugh.
Challenge #5
Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom.
1. Friendships. Fandom friends are all my friends except for the members of my meditation circle. That's it. I exchange messages with fandom friends every day, and some of the friendships are of many years. For example, all but 2 (my sister and a former co-worker) of the Christmas cards I received were from DW friends all of whom I have never met.
2. Poetry. Because of my participation in the LiveJournal Sherlock 60 comm, I rediscovered poetry and began writing it and that has enriched my life greatly.
3. Fandom made me queer. It did! I found fandom in my mid-30's and before that, I thought about the world differently and reacted to the world differently. I feel like as my interest in fandom has grown other parts of my interior life have shrunk to very small defined boxes or disappeared entirely. What I appreciate has changed. Yes, it's getting older and being a mother and not have a job or a career or really an identity for 10+ years, but I still think if I had followed this path without fandom, I would not be queer. And my degree of mental illness and sheer miserableness would be very great.
sixbeforelunch because it made me laugh. Challenge #5
Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom.
1. Friendships. Fandom friends are all my friends except for the members of my meditation circle. That's it. I exchange messages with fandom friends every day, and some of the friendships are of many years. For example, all but 2 (my sister and a former co-worker) of the Christmas cards I received were from DW friends all of whom I have never met.
2. Poetry. Because of my participation in the LiveJournal Sherlock 60 comm, I rediscovered poetry and began writing it and that has enriched my life greatly.
3. Fandom made me queer. It did! I found fandom in my mid-30's and before that, I thought about the world differently and reacted to the world differently. I feel like as my interest in fandom has grown other parts of my interior life have shrunk to very small defined boxes or disappeared entirely. What I appreciate has changed. Yes, it's getting older and being a mother and not have a job or a career or really an identity for 10+ years, but I still think if I had followed this path without fandom, I would not be queer. And my degree of mental illness and sheer miserableness would be very great.
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Yeah, I feel this.
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Yeah, I don't think (for me, life without fandom) it would be a question of not having the words or the concepts to deal with myself, I think it would be more subtle and profound than that. It would be the lack of friendships AND the lack of conversations about something other than my kids AND the absence of the examples of other ways of living AND the encouragement to read and create transformative works. It would be real sense of isolation which would I think end up twisting my head in strange (and, let's face it, unhealthy) ways and manifestation. Like, I don't cut anymore. I don't even have the urge. And I can't draw a direct line between, say, a fic about cutting and me deciding not to cut, but I still think there's a connection between the two.
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I agree with you there. I've done the same as you- not had a job or career or really an identity for decades- but I truly don't know what I'd do without fanfiction and writing in general. It is the only thing that makes me happy and joyful, I don't have a social life or friends or even leave the house most days. So I throw everything into my writing, it saves my life 💖
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That's awesome! (I had a similar experience where, after some years of not writing anything at all -- the early child-rearing years -- my gateway back to poetry were fannish poems spurred by a LJ comm, in my case ASOIAF.)
The other things are of course awesome, too. The poetry just jumped out at me for being a bit rarer :)
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