Snowflake 2026 #3
Jan. 6th, 2026 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
visualjyushiWrite a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.
I haven't had a particularly outstanding experience in any one fandom, so my appreciation goes out to fandom spaces in general.
Fandom spaces have allowed me to connect with the people I talk to today. Not to get too deep, but I've never been any good at making friends. To this day, I am notoriously bad at properly expressing myself to people I'm not already close with, and my neurodivergency is definitely the culprit. However, being able to connect with others both online and in real life (even if only briefly) through a shared fandom has helped me learn to cope with feeling lonely and isolated all my life. It's one of the only reasons I've been able to make the few close friends I have offline. It's also the reason I was able to find the person I now consider my life partner. My social anxiety and trouble understanding social cues led me to believe I'd never find a long-lasting love, let alone this early in life, but online fandom spaces gave me the opportunity to prove myself wrong. Fandom has even encouraged me to leave my house and socialize more by attending cons.
I was drawn to writing from a very young age for similar reasons involving my difficulty in connecting with people. In a way, I feel like I'm able to express myself through my writing, and the only reason I've been able to improve my writing was by writing fanfiction. Which is something I've likely discussed here in a past post. I intentionally began to write fanfiction as a means to practice writing and experiment with it. If fandom spaces hadn't introduced me to fanfiction, I might not have the writing skills (and, in some sense, the communication skills) that I have today. And, although I still wish I had more writing friends, writing fanfiction has also allowed me more opportunities to meet new people in the past.
I said I wasn't going to get too deep, but in all honesty, I doubt I would be here today without fandom. My interests have comforted me and kept me going through some of the hardest times in my life. I had little else to turn to as a very depressed, passively suicidal kid with parents who didn't believe in therapy and were wary of anti-depressants. Seeing characters go through similar troubles as me and overcome them also sort of helped me understand myself better as I was growing up. I can't even count the number of times I've searched for fanart and fanfiction of my favorite characters to comfort myself when I've been feeling down. I still do so today.
So, to everyone who fosters fandom spaces and continues to make connecting with fellow fans much easier: thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I haven't had a particularly outstanding experience in any one fandom, so my appreciation goes out to fandom spaces in general.
Fandom spaces have allowed me to connect with the people I talk to today. Not to get too deep, but I've never been any good at making friends. To this day, I am notoriously bad at properly expressing myself to people I'm not already close with, and my neurodivergency is definitely the culprit. However, being able to connect with others both online and in real life (even if only briefly) through a shared fandom has helped me learn to cope with feeling lonely and isolated all my life. It's one of the only reasons I've been able to make the few close friends I have offline. It's also the reason I was able to find the person I now consider my life partner. My social anxiety and trouble understanding social cues led me to believe I'd never find a long-lasting love, let alone this early in life, but online fandom spaces gave me the opportunity to prove myself wrong. Fandom has even encouraged me to leave my house and socialize more by attending cons.
I was drawn to writing from a very young age for similar reasons involving my difficulty in connecting with people. In a way, I feel like I'm able to express myself through my writing, and the only reason I've been able to improve my writing was by writing fanfiction. Which is something I've likely discussed here in a past post. I intentionally began to write fanfiction as a means to practice writing and experiment with it. If fandom spaces hadn't introduced me to fanfiction, I might not have the writing skills (and, in some sense, the communication skills) that I have today. And, although I still wish I had more writing friends, writing fanfiction has also allowed me more opportunities to meet new people in the past.
I said I wasn't going to get too deep, but in all honesty, I doubt I would be here today without fandom. My interests have comforted me and kept me going through some of the hardest times in my life. I had little else to turn to as a very depressed, passively suicidal kid with parents who didn't believe in therapy and were wary of anti-depressants. Seeing characters go through similar troubles as me and overcome them also sort of helped me understand myself better as I was growing up. I can't even count the number of times I've searched for fanart and fanfiction of my favorite characters to comfort myself when I've been feeling down. I still do so today.
So, to everyone who fosters fandom spaces and continues to make connecting with fellow fans much easier: thank you from the bottom of my heart.
