Snowflake Challenge #5

[mistressofmuses]

For snowflake_challenge: "Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom."

Fandom has definitely been a net positive for me, though not in ways that are terribly unique, I imagine.

Because of fandom, I've made several lasting online friendships. Once upon a time, this was on Livejournal, then sometimes on tumblr, now here (and sometimes following across platforms) with people I'd never have met otherwise. For the most part anymore we don't share specific fandoms, but there's a certain understanding of sorts that comes with just being fannish, and has led to many of those friendships spanning years and years!

Arguably, despite Alex not being fannish himself, I wouldn't have met him without fandom, either. I only discovered Livejournal because people I found through fandom (authors I liked on ffdotnet, owners of fandom-specific personal sites, etc.) had Livejournals. Once it was clear that All The Cool Kids Had LJs, I started one as a personal journal (full of embarrassing teenage whining and angst), but it was absolutely fandom that first introduced me to LJ. (Then I continued my journal as I went away to college, and I eventually joined an advice community, read a post of Alex's in that comm, friended him, and then we became actual friends.)

Outside of the social sphere, fandom has given me the opportunity to have a creative outlet. Aside from all the teenage badfic (and early twenties mediocrefic) that languishes on that old ffdotnet account, I returned to writing fic in 2019/2020, and have really enjoyed that for the last several years. Fanfiction has given me a way to share some of the things I write, and actually have other people read it! Maybe not a ton of readers, but it's cool that there are any. Some people have enjoyed things I made!