Fandom Snowflake Challenge: Day 1

[r_grayjoy]

So, I'm gonna try to do this thing. My plan is to use this as a vehicle to get back into fandoming and writing and posting regularly again. I've been so detached from fandom for so long that I don't know how successful I'll be with this, and I probably won't have much to say that's terribly relevant or interesting, but... I'm gonna try to do this thing. Yep.

Day 1:

In your own space, talk about your Happy Place—the thing that gives you joy, calms you or keeps you sane.

But... but... fandom is my "happy place." Isn't that true for everyone taking part in this challenge??

"Fandom" means different things to different people, though, especially in a fandom like HP that has so many branches and areas of interest. Double especially now, when even the branches have branches. Fannish spaces are far less cohesive and much harder to define than they used to be, it seems. And I'm seven years out of date and out of touch. Still, I don't think the essential core of what fandom truly is has changed.

My first impulse when discussing fandom is to want to talk about journals or comms or fests or fic archives or chats... But those things aren't fandom in and of themselves; they're all simply the products of fandom. The true phenomenon of fandom is something far greater than the sum of its parts. So to speak.

Fandom -- my fandom -- is people: Strange, geeky, intelligent, diverse, fascinating, wonderful people with all kinds of backgrounds and experiences who are nonetheless all the same in some fundamental way that sets "us" apart from "them." Fandom is an experience: a collective exercise in squeeing and flailing and ranting and creating and discussing and theorizing and sharing with others who get it.

Fandom is the weirdest yet strongest family I've ever seen. We may squabble amongst ourselves at times, but the moment an outside element threatens one of us or the things we hold dear, we come together, circle the wagons, defend the vulnerable, and fight like hell until the threat is running away with its tail tucked between its legs. Fucketh not with the affairs of fandom, for we are not subtle and, after we have revealed what an idiot and/or jackass you are, we will probably write homoerotic fiction about you. Wizards and dragons don't stand a chance against us.

I've been mostly gone for quite a while now, but I've never forgotten any of this. And I'll be here for it as much as I can for as long as I can. You can pry my love of fandom out of my cold, dead hands. ...Actually, no, you probably can't.