Fandom Appreciation - Day 7 - Counting My Blessings

[fullygoldy]

DAY 7: Count your fannish blessings. Post about (at least) three fannish blessings, for example, three reasons you love your fandom or fandom in general, three happy fannish memories, three people who've inspired your fannishness.
 

1. Archive of Our Own. Hours of delight and awe right at my fingertips. I like the new search and page arrangement quite a bit. I love being able to dip a toe into or dive in the deep end of any fandom that strikes my fancy.

 

1. Kradamadness. Even though it's basically inactive now, Kradamadness is how I came to embrace a certain subset of WIPs. I used to be highly WIP-averse, but the fun and silliness inherent to Kradamadness meant I could participate (mainly as a reader), enjoy WIPs, and let go of them if they were eventually abandoned. After all, there was always something new around the corner. I didn't have to feel betrayed if a story ended up going nowhere. I have choices!!

 

1. Porn. I've always (since a ridiculously early age) liked reading porn. And fandom has given me a nearly infinite supply of well-written, non-skeevy porn. (Yes, I realize that fandom in general is also still quite encumbered by poorly-written and/or skeevy porn.

 

• Porn sub clause a. Reliable recs so I can totally avoid the poorly-written and/or skeevy

• Porn sub clause b. A back button that I'm not afraid to operate (okay, that's not from fandom specifically or exclusively, but it's a very fine fannish blessing anyway)

1. New forms of Expression. This can range from staying up-to-date on the latest RL slang (SRSLY? ORLY? w00t! were all introduced to me by fandom), staying up-to-date with fandom-specific slang (Paul Gross arms, BSO, PWP etc), or picking up expressions from my favorite characters.

 

• Exhibit A: Just the other day, during my monthly update, I told my pantheon of managers, "okay, that's one impossible thing sorted. Only 5 more to go before breakfast." They were slightly bewildered, but they understood me from context. I smiled enigmatically.

 

• Exhibit B: Today, I realized that I now can really empathize with the GenKill boys, because my latest project has me fucked sideways, without benefit of gun lube, and the sand in my ass is KILLING me. Thank you Brad Colbert and Ray Person for helping me to get this off my chest.

 

1. Kinkmemes. These are a really good way to expand your horizons. I'm just sayin'.**

 

1. Making New Friends. How wonderful is it that anyone can go from leaving anonymous newby feedback, to direct interaction with authors/creators, to being granted access to their RL entries, or meeting and interacting with them face-to-face, to being allowed to co-beta the most awesome/popular thing that's dropped on fandom in recent history?!?!

 

• I could list nearly every single person on my DW reading list/LJ friend list as a "fannish" blessing (a very few of you aren't fannish, alas). You all enrich my days with your wit, wisdom and generosity.

 

1. I say unto you, verily, Fandom is a blessing.
    

*does anyone actually need this cited?
**see what I did there? And there?