i still think you're amazing, you know

I'm trying not to confuse the issue or take away from FA's actions, which were by any standard completely wrong, but I'm really hitting hard against how we're devaluing ourselves (and you know, other people) in response.

FA fucked up. They were asking for money for their servers and vague 'educational' somethings untyped. They weren't applying for the purpose of a concrete concept with a complete explanation of what it would need, what it would accomplish, and what the eventual goal was and who it would benefit.

The fact they are running a fanfic archive, or it had anything to do with fandom, is immaterial to that; they weren't doing it for the right reasons or in the spirit of Pepsi Refresh (I just typed the words 'spirit of Pepsi Refresh'. Some part of me just tried to die for that). Any group of any type who approached an organization this way would have fucked up; being fanfic does not make it worse or better, from an objective POV. From a concrete POV, as in, this is my community, I'm just as pissed that they didn't come to the whole community first if they were in dire straits--which I'm still not sure they are since the comments are pretty contradictory in themselves.

That disposed.

Art and community enrichment are legitimate enterprises on which to give or get money. A lot of the discussion ending up asking the question "how often do you beat your wife" in metaphor; as a general rule, unless you are either remarkably masochistic or you have an axe to grind, setting everything in the goddamn world against starving children is absolutely insane. I could have used my ridiculously large copay for surgery to, IDK, buy food for a homeless shelter; gall bladder stones are not necessarily deadly and what's pain compared to starvation? Thyroid medication isn't strictly necessary for my survival and my copay for that could feed a family of three in some countries according to certain commercials. All the time I spend learning coding and bash scripting is serving absolutely no purpose in the greater or even smaller scheme of things. The time I spent writing this entry could have been spent working in a soup kitchen.



Art is devalued in society. Literature is devalued in society. Music is devalued in society. Hobbies are devalued in society. Anything--anything--that isn't devoted to making money or acquiring skills to make money is devalued. Self-expression is devalued with the exception of socially acceptable individualism, which is associated with--right. Making money.

(Sports isn't. Even amateur. Now think about why I'm not listing that as an exception, because it's not an exception to the rule. It's actually the reason for the rule.)

Forever ago, there was an article on Madonna. I read it I don't even know when. It traced her career, her controversies, the usual about-Madonna article (her music is junk, her performances are junk, blah blah blah) which are a matter of personal taste; the article was complimentary thought. They loved her business sense. There were several paragraphs talking about it. This stuck with me; in general, when expressing admiration of an artist, their art is secondary to their ability to sell themselves and their product. In the last year while wandering through the fields of RPS and for the first time in my life going to actively read articles about musicians (for context for fic, obviously) about Pete Wentz, Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert, they talked about their behavior, their private lives, their controversies--but man, they could and would be forgiven anything at all because how well they sold themselves. Their business sense. Their art was secondary.

Less than a week ago, I was sitting with some people making the argument bash scripting is a tool of the devil. Someone asked why I still was working on it, and I answered, knee-jerk "For fun." Why did I build a server? For fun. One person at that table didn't look like I'd suddenly turned purple; he is also a fanboy.

Think about that one--programming is like, not even art! It's a legitimate job and everything! (Yes, it fucking is art. It can be.) But it had no value for all but one person at that table because I wasn't using it to make money or to increase my skillset to make more money or to lead to a different job for the purpose of--yes--making money.

Stamp collecting, collecting comic books, coins, all are considered huge wastes of time--right up until the person in question finds their three-legged buffalo penny or Superman #1. Then they're lauded--for making money. There is absolutely no activity or hobby in the world that is not legitimized--not for existing for it's own sake--if it makes money. Because then you aren't doing it for pleasure; you are showing business sense.

The one and only place I have ever connected with any art or artistic-endeavor snob is here:

If I were a serious artist of any kind who was engaged in a mainstream-like artistic enterprise that could be used to make lots and lots of money like, IDK, music or painting/sculpting or writing non-fanfic novels, by this point in my life I would have snapped. The constant questions and scorn for the fact I wasn't a superstar or living in a loft off Central Park in New York or starring with Angelina Jolie in the next blockbuster or opening for The Fray and why was I doing this shit instead of getting a real job managing people in some sort of corporate office--why am I doing anything that isn't leading to a six figure income--okay, yeah, by this point in my life, I would with complete sincerity be saying shit about selling out and how all art that makes money sucks and true artists don't make money. I'd probably even believe it.

We're fanfic writers, fanartists, vidders, we build websites, organize cons, and acquire skills in the pursuit of something that cannot ever make money, ever. It's barred to us by the law and we built a culture around it. We built a culture that is at its foundation based on acts of creation that have no purpose other than to give and receive pleasure and has no business application whatsoever. Christ, we can't even claim a higher religious, philosophical, or social purpose in the foundation of our creation, though I believe we are engaged in all three and more anyway, because that's like, pretentious and you know, making ourselves feel better about being total losers. I don't want to say we are goddamn fucking special snowflakes, because that is wank bait that drags out accusations of pretension (moreso) and getting above ourselves, but it's okay if it's said about us, but as long as it's spelled 'speshul' because otherwise we might like, take it literally and not understand in our bones we are beneath contempt. We're kind of stupid like that.

You know what I mean, right?

Those fangirls who like porn, those girls always acting like their stupid little hobbies are like, important and shit when there are children starving and archives are stupid and I hope FA is totally destroyed forever wouldn't that be a comeuppance to lose that and what do you mean it's fannish history and the work of thousands it's not important and it would be hilarious, I'd laugh, and if you think it's important there are people starving and homeless why aren't you thinking about that. They're lonely women with no lives, hey, do you know any fangirl who is successful professionally IRL and has a family because all I see are losers, they can't get a man, fangirls who claim they are 'bisexual' just want attention, they're all fat disabled virgins, look at HP and Cassie Claire, look at Supernatural and all that shit stalking Jensen, look at that woman, she's a psycho, she's crazy, she's one of those Ianto fangirls, Dean fangirls, LOTRIPs tinhats, HP plagiarists, Adam Lambert fangirls like do they think he'll fuck them or something, she's a fangirl, they're crazy, they're goddamn fangirls, it's not art it's just how you get yourself off and it's not important, it's just fandom and none of it matters and are you like, upset or something, be upset about the war in Iraq or famine, God, why does this matter you're just proving that it's true, all of it, acting like this. I'm so ashamed.

Then there's what people who aren't in our community say about us.

I don't give a shit what people not involved in fandom think; I mean, on random days I have an attack of rage, but it's transitory because they don't matter. I don't hang out with them, go to cons with them, read their flists, exchange email and presents and advice; why would they matter to me in how my life is lived? Whatever, play your fantasy football and WoW with a sense of superiority, or continue your climb up the corporate ladder or whatever it is that makes you happy, non-community people; I'm a fanfic writer engaged in a pursuit that will not and cannot contribute to my professional life in any way; I am by my very existence all about people being happy. My culture is based on it.

I'm a fanfic writer and I'm not respected because my hobby is writing fic based on the works of other people; it's useless. The endeavor itself. It has no business value; I cannot and do not make money from it. I don't even want to. I'm not doing it to improve my chances of being published. I'm doing it because it's fun and God do I like my fun to be shared. Fanfic is worthless; professional derivative fiction is not, and I won't even go into this debate again because this is an absolute fact of existence. If fanfic was a legally protected enterprise that fell under parody and I became a different person who would take all my fanfic and sell it and I made money at it? I'd be praised for my business sense.

That's the value that is placed on my hobby and my life by people not in fandom. It's about as relevant to my life and interests as the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

I care, though, what we think of ourselves; this shit is what we're perfectly willing to trot out at a moment's notice like it's goddamn gospel written on the mountain. My last post was too mixed up with the FA thing to hit this as hard as I wanted to, but as a member of this community this is fucking relevant to my life and interests and I'm entitled to ask this question; is this what you think about when you're reading your flist, posting fic, art, vids, meta, media commentary, feedbacking, beta'ing, building websites and going to cons?

It's not that I have ever been completely oblivious to internalized shame or the fact as a group we are not overly eager to gain a spotlight in the public eye or not exactly thrilled every time mainstream media and some academics psychoanalyze or Jane Goodall us in the spirit of being open-minded about how we're all crazy lonely teenage middle aged middle class white housewives who want to fuck RPatz and own fifty cats blah fucking blah. Shock me; we are not huge fans of being the object of mockery and pity and derision from people who find the idea of what we do icky and weird and without monetary value (and therefore no value at all) because what we need is a deep dicking or a real life or a job or a family. People can and do make you ashamed of what you do, are, because we're human and we can do our best to fight it but man do we have bad days. But tentatively, and I am perfectly willing to be called on it if I'm oversimplifying or engaging in inflammatory rhetoric about something so terribly unimportant, adopting and supporting those attitudes while being in the community and engaging in community endeavors is a very high form of asshole.

I'm not talking about venting; yes, we all do that about each other, welcome to humanity, we're catty and judgmental as fuck and boy we get pissed about stupid shit; you should have seen my grandmother's genealogical society. I'm not talking about your vendetta against everyone who likes pairing X, or this fandom, or that actor; in a shocking turn of events, people polarize on things love to fight it out; have you seen people argue over yarn in the knitting communities? Build a community, they will come, they will argue, they will fight, they will polarize and clique and it's life and it's what we do. People do this shit.

What's getting to me here is, I'm not sure if any other group has such an internalized sense of shame about the entirety of their own goddamn hobby including everyone else who is engaged in it. It's not enough to personally feel that maybe writing MCR RPS is like, ick, though I'm not exactly thrilled if someone was engaging in fandom hating themselves as they answer five hundred pieces of feedback: that's painful and really, it's okay, love thy fic and thy encyclopedic knowledge of MCR and their various members, I admire you hugely and love it. Holding everyone else doing it in contempt while you do it yourself--your friends, cowriters, betas, mods, the chick you met through MCR that you spent the weekend with last week and got drunk with at a karaoke bar--is--help me out, what's a word for joining a group, getting to be friends with everyone, sharing your secrets and feelings and whatever and all the while secretly thinking "All of you suck and are terrible human beings who suck," while the group is buying you a beer and telling you how much they like you and like your work?

Being ashamed because mainstream values say we are freaks and our work has no value while acknowledging mainstream values are fucked up and working to overcome the internalization is one thing; externalizing that to the point where it's knee-jerk to agree every time someone calls a fanfic writer/artist/vidder/meta writer a [see the paragraph way up there for a complete list; I can't do it again], to actually believe that, isn't ironic realism or showing how really, you are really aware and smart. You are totally nothing like those fangirls who are about porn and stalking (and seriously, I'm so tired of the weight thing it's unreal); you know you suck, and though you're still doing it and everything, it's way superior to those losers who like, don't get how loser they are. You acknowledge you do worthless things and that makes it okay.

I was thinking I'd be angry about it; after everything I read today (in the last year, five years, ten years), Christ, it's like watching performance flagellation, but then it occurred to me; this is fandom and we shape our fandom experience to please ourselves. I can't sit here and say that just because you hold all of it and its people and works in utter contempt, you're doing it wrong. This is your fannish experience and this is how you are happiest engaging in it; be happy.

I honestly don't know if I'm being sarcastic; weirdly, writing this, I'm mostly not. I don't understand it; I don't agree with it; I'm kind of vaguely wondering how wanky this post is because fuck if can tell if I'm hitting crazycakes or tl;dr like the fist of god. It's a toss-up; I can't even blame drugs and surgery for incoherence or overinvestment, so there goes that defense, would it have killed FA to do this on Saturday when I was hopped up on mixing two painkillers and a muscle relaxant and hadn't slept in thirty-six hours? And I think svmadelyn right now is telling me I forgot to drink water again and I find it really surreal she doesn't have to actually be interacting with me to send 'drink water' vibes across the country. Possibly crazy, who can tell?

Mostly, though, I want to know when you're going to post the next part of that fic I love about my OTP, because I love your work and I love your writing and in every fandom we've been in together you just get better. Are you going to VividCon, KiScon, ConTxt, Escapade? Did you see last night's ep, I read your review of last season and kind of want to see the show now. I'm so glad you're here; we would have been infinitely less without you. I'm so glad I met you.

I just wish you could say the same.

Comments

[niqaeli]

Thank you. So very much; this articulates really well why, while I was not okay with FA's actions it wasn't because it was FA or the starving children in Africa. And moreto the point it articulates why my skin is crawling and, frankly, my gob is rising, SO MUCH MORE at all of the internalised shame and hatred fen have been displaying in response.

Art is goddamned societally valuable. To EVERYONE. Poor and rich alike. And, what we make in fandom is art. And so's the opiate of the masses that we work with (which, seriously I go up the wall when people say making money makes something Not Art). IT IS ALL ART. ALL. ART. WE ARE ALL ARTISTS. We make things that provoke joy and despair and a range of emotions. All of us are artists. (Actually I believe that. I believe that about people who insist they aren't creative. But my notion of art is mind-bogglingly large and apparently no one else agrees with me on that. OH WELL.)

And it's just been fucking depressing to see people calling, effectively, their own time and efforts worthless. I want to ask: Is it really? Do you honestly think that? Have you always? Or did you believe you should think that, and so you told yourself it's true until you began to believe?

I don't believe it. Maybe that's enough.

[seperis]

And it's just been fucking depressing to see people calling, effectively, their own time and efforts worthless. I want to ask: Is it really? Do you honestly think that? Have you always? Or did you believe you should think that, and so you told yourself it's true until you began to believe?

I don't believe it. Maybe that's enough.

Yes. This.

[ilyena_sylph]

I love you (in, you know, appreciative ways) and you are my favorite.

Thank you.

[seperis]

*grins* Thank you very much.

[amalthia]

Your post gave me a lot to think about. Thanks!

[seperis]

I wish I could offer pie too. As an inducement. *thoughtful* Or at least a snack.

Trite is my middle name.

[morgandawn]

We are the mirror of our thoughts. Our perceptions shape our reality. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Instant karma exists in every instant.

And: "You can go to your corner and beat yourself in shame while I stand here in my corner and dance. And we can both stare aghast at those in the middle who dance whilst beating each other."

In short: love your post about the toxicity of accepting internalized shame as a cultural norm.

Re: Trite is my middle name.

[seperis]

And: "You can go to your corner and beat yourself in shame while I stand here in my corner and dance. And we can both stare aghast at those in the middle who dance whilst beating each other."

To be perfectly honest, I think I'd be too shocked at their coordination; I try that, I end up on the floor hating gravity.

And yes, on shame and normalization; we have got to get that out of our system soon.

[fairestcat]

Will you marry me?

Just, I want to draw sparkly hearts and flowers all around this entry in, like, twenty colors of glitter pens. I wish I could make this mandatory reading for everyone in fandom, maybe sneak into everyone's houses and tape copies to their keyboards or something, because seriously, just, so much THIS to everything you've said here.

[seperis]

...okay, this image of stealth!meta-spreading is just working for me. With uniforms.

*hugs you* Thank you.

[cesare]

Ow. Those last two paragraphs are amazing. I want to encourage you to adjust your cut to put the last two graphs outside the cut, because even if people glaze over on some of it, they should really see that.

[seperis]

Thank you very much!

[pir8fancier]

You've articulated perfectly why I was so irritated with them, but jumpstarted the bigger question I found myself asking: when a fandom finds itself on the wane, do all those words gets erased when someone can't pay for them? It's a much bigger issue for fandom than people realize. Which is why I support the OTW. I find in my job (a nonprofit) that you can get a government entity to support the initial effort (much like excited fangirls ponying up initially) but no one wants to pay for maintenance, and I think that's what we have here: the larger issue of preserving all those words. All that creativity. Putting a value on it. Recognizing it as history that should be preserved.

[seperis]

Yes, so much yes, so very much yes. Because yes, it's history and it's our history and goddamn it, the mods here are stupid but the archive is amazing and this, this thing we want to keep.

[minim_calibre]

I flick my virtual lighter in your general direction. This was beautifully said.

[seperis]

I am trying to think of an appropriate power ballad now to symbolize this. Something deep yet perky and requires head banging.

Thank you.

[coraa]

This is both beautiful and true. So, thank you.

[seperis]

Thank you very much.

[nagasvoice]

Have you ever read about the internalized shame and hatred of colonial cultures? The oppressed internalize the hatred directed at them, and vent it at each other. This is also reputedly true for other kinds of oppressed, visible minorities, as the fat and disability activists are quick to remind people. A lot of old fen are quick to assert that fandom has large percentages of people who grew up reading everything they could get their hands on both because they got bored easily (oh hello, ADHD and Aspberger's kids!), and/or because they were busy hiding in libraries to avoid getting the crap kicked out of them. (In the case of the LGBTQ kids, sometimes they get literally killed for it.)
Funny thing is, you get the same sort of fury in lots of other hobbies too. From personal experience, I can say the gardening and tropical fish and doll people also suffer from ferociously conflicted geekdom (oh, the technical disputes!!) and self-hatred, the squabbles over nothing much, the tender egos!
That said, I don't agree with the self-put-downs that claim there is no value to any of this, there's no monetary value to it. There's no *short-term* immediate value that pays the rent. It's sharpening the saw, in the corporate training sense. The conventional wisdom is that only a few people will be able to make a living selling hobby things, such as supplying the bits and pieces that people need for engaging in the hobby.
But it's hard to say how it changes your life professionally learning how to do things for a hobby. I know I owe the start of my current work career to being able to say I'd been writing on Commodore and Atari computers, at a time when a lot of people couldn't afford IBM desktop computers except at work. It proved I was capable of learning their systems.
This is a little more difficult for folks who don't want to out themselves at work for things like writing slash, but having PS skills to mock up document layouts because you've been doing artwork for years is nothing to mock. You mention learning all kinds of computer skills because you wanted to build fannish sites. Similarly, I know a lot of odd things people have learned how to do for love, which may be Etsy-scale stuff, and which may or may not get them jobs later. But they didn't learn it because they thought it would go anywhere. Also, I know of too many writers and artists who honed their skills in fannish venues before eventually going pro. The argument for writing anything amounts to the same scorn--impatiently asking, "But what is it *worth*?"
It's the mercantile mind that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

[seperis]

I love this, but this:

It's the mercantile mind that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Perfect quote. Utterly perfect.

[out_there]

I don't know what other people htink, but I think this is a great post.

Then there's what people who aren't in our community say about us.

Oh! That hit hard. Because, well, ... yeah. It's true. It's rhetoric that you hear, it's attitudes that we can all be guilty of, and this undermining and undervaluing our community by those ideas... it happens.

is this what you think about when you're reading your flist, posting fic, art, vids, meta, media commentary, feedbacking, beta'ing, building websites and going to cons?

No, not really. I think about the thrill of posting the story, of sharing the ideas, of seeing what people on my Flist think of this or if so-and-so has posted the next bit of that or if someone else came across anyone wonderful fics and recced them. When I think about the people on my Flist or authors I'm reading or people who've left feedback, I don't think in those insulting fandom stereotypes.

You are totally nothing like those fangirls who are about porn and stalking (and seriously, I'm so tired of the weight thing it's unreal); you know you suck, and though you're still doing it and everything, it's way superior to those losers who like, don't get how loser they are. You acknowledge you do worthless things and that makes it okay.

But that's it. There are times when we get down on ourselves personally and I think it's easy to buy-in to the idea that, well, nothing fannish is of value. None of it's practical/adult/mature/whatever you want to call it, whatever you feel like you're failing at in the outside world. And we're a very... personally focused, friendship-based community. In some ways, it's awesome but it can amplify some less attractive parts of human nature.

Mostly, though, I want to know when you're going to post the next part of that fic I love about my OTP, because I love your work and I love your writing and in every fandom we've been in together you just get better. Are you going to VividCon, KiScon, ConTxt, Escapade? Did you see last night's ep, I read your review of last season and kind of want to see the show now. I'm so glad you're here; we would have been infinitely less without you. I'm so glad I met you.

And that, right there? That is the awesome part of it. The part that brings joy and glee and something incredibly shiny to look forward to each and every day.

[seperis]

No, not really. I think about the thrill of posting the story, of sharing the ideas, of seeing what people on my Flist think of this or if so-and-so has posted the next bit of that or if someone else came across anyone wonderful fics and recced them. When I think about the people on my Flist or authors I'm reading or people who've left feedback, I don't think in those insulting fandom stereotypes.

Yes God yes. I want to make a joke about how part of it is, i really don't have time to add a litany of fanshame between reaidng, feedback, writing and oh, real life, and wow some peoples' time management is amazing, but I couldn't get it worded right. So I put it here.

And that, right there? That is the awesome part of it. The part that brings joy and glee and something incredibly shiny to look forward to each and every day.

YES TO THIS YES.

[snottygrrl]

thanks for articulating this. i've had an uneasy feeling all day about the fandom response of sort of well, sure art deserves grants and i'm all for fanfic, but what kind of insanity is it that fa should ask for that grant! have they no shame!???!!11!?1!

i think it was not the wisest choice fa could have made, but the response seems off to me, too. thanks for words that produce thinky thoughts about it.

[epershand]

Thank you, this is wonderful.

[northern]

Thank you.

[burnishedvictory]

♥ ♥ &hearts

I really needed to read this tonight. Thank you.

[dafna]

Excellent post. Fannish self-hatred has always reminded me a bit of those high school girls who hang out exclusively with guys, and talk about how they're so not like those other girls who are too superficial/clothes-obsessed/gossipy/whatever. (And of course some of those girls stay that way through their 20s, though the older I get the less of this I see, thank god.)

Other people have listed other good examples of self-hatred in marginal communities, but the fact that I always think of the "I don't really like other girls" syndrome when this comes up makes me wonder if there's something about fandom being primarly (though not exclusively, of course) a female space. And if it's thus linked to the way that women are rarely taught to value themselves and their contributions. So I wonder if we're more likely to talk about our more "mainstream" (ie, male-approved) hobbies than ones that are more female oriented. (On the flip side, my mother, a big second-wave feminist, has gotten way less dismissive of my fanfic since OTW started and I was able to frame it for her as being about valuing the not-for-profit work of a female dominated community.)

That said, your point about art has got me thinking. Because I do a very geeky spreadsheet every year where I decide what % of my annual charitable contributions go to which category (eg religion, human services, art, etc.) and then decide which charities in each category I'm going to give to. And I've always put OTW in the "social change" category, rather than "art". I'm going to have to think about why that is, and if I need to change it.

[arobynsung]

Thanks for this post.
It's wonderful. I'm in love with that last paragraph because, YES, to all of that.

[nenne]

Here was a lot of food for thought. Thank you.

I might be too new to fandom to even recognise this phenomenon, but I honestly didn't know that devaluation of own writing/drawing/what not was a common denominator. Yes, it is understandable that people on the outside, who might not even like the books or TV-shows your fandom relates to, can find your effort worthless, but do people really feel that way about themselves and their own creation? If so it is just sad.

Actually it makes me really upset. I don't contribute with writing or drawing, just a whole lot of squeeing. I'm a reader and art appreciator and to think that all the hours of entertainment I get out of this is deemed worthless by others is both strange and infuriating.

Oh, well. This has probably been expressed better by someone else anyway. I'll stop. But today I think I'll write even nicer and more in depth reviews than normal to really show my appreciation to everyone who entertains me for free.

[niqaeli]

...to think that all the hours of entertainment I get out of this is deemed worthless by others is both strange and infuriating.

This is something that highlights why I, personally, insist many things are Art that are rarely acknowledged as being Art. And why my favourite example of 'lowly entertainment' actually being Art is "SHAKESPEARE!"

Because if Shakespeare is Art then god damn it, then the opiate of the masses television is Art too. Shakespeare, in his time, was looking to entertain the masses and, probably, to make a living. And that was worthwhile, all on its own. The entertainment value of his work has lasted centuries, which maybe makes it Great Art, but the point being: it was in its time, and still remains, entertainment. And that's arguably the thing that makes it art.

So the entertainment and joy we bring each other in fandom is art too. Even the furry HP porn. Even, god help me, the terrifying and poorly made photoshop of kinks that are so far from being mine (I am thinking of a specific SPN photoshop artist at the moment, I admit): they bring joy to the people whose kinks they are. Who am I, then, to say it's not something of value? Even as I, myself, find it kinda fucked up, I can see that it still has value. Not, possibly, to me -- but then the world is not only about me.

It is very strange and infuriating to think that the entertainment that people get out of fandom is any less valuable than the entertainment they get out of a thousand other things that are more widely acknowledged and accepted.

[ladyjax]

Reading this as I plow through final prep for BASCon (which starts Friday and OMG I have so much to do!), I'm reminded why I do what I do.

Thanks.

i still think you're amazing, you know

[vaysh]

Thank you for writing this.

[anatsuno]

I like the way your punch up!

[kass]

I am by my very existence all about people being happy. My culture is based on it.

YES YES YES YES YES x a billion.

I'm so glad you're here; we would have been infinitely less without you. I'm so glad I met you.

Hey, me too, you know? Seriously -- the amount of joy I've gotten out of fandom over the last 10+ years is unquantifiable. My life is immeasurably richer for knowing y'all, for having the conversations we've had, for writing the fic we've written and shared (and the remixes and the meta and and and and and.) I draw giant pink sparkly hearts around fandom every day. Or if I don't, I should.

[resolute]

Nicely said, thank you.

[oxymora]

Yes to this and your other recent posts about the value of fandom.

Thank you.

[the_shoshanna]

OH MY GOD YES.

*cheers and signal-boosts*