Contradictio in Terminis

*dusts hands off*

Today snuck up on me! There I was, sitting in my chair and checking my email, and BAM! suddenly it's the new year. Happy New Year, everyone! Here's hoping to movements of the "onwards and upwards" variety for 2011. :-)

Original plans for New Year's were of the "going out dancing and getting hammered" variety, but those fell through by virtue of Chloe and I being out of the city for a week prior and no one else having the organizational balls to do anything about it. So I ended up joining her at a friend Caitlyn's house, where, among other things, we danced, made mulled apple cider (Tasty!), played video games and Apples to Apples, watched AtLA, drank copious amounts of tea, ate copious amounts of junk food, made copious amounts of nerdy internet references (over nine thousand!) and generally had a good time. Saw some people there whom I'd gone to school with in grade four. It's interesting to see how people have grown up. 

To ring in the first day of 2011 (!!), David and I went out for breakfast with Oma. SO MUCH FOOD. (And then I went and exercised forever, omg.) Tonight, we made sushi again. So much deliciousness, holy.

Today has been awesomely chill, in that all I've done is ignore my exchange application and dick around on the internet, hooray! Yuletide is eating my lifeeeeeeee! 33 pages of Discworld and Good Omens fic! I'm a little bit in heaven right now. ♥

While in the midst of my Sherlock/Discworld/GO fic-reading spree, I realized that something's changed for me in fandom. When I was new(er) to LJ/the internet, fandom was for me a mainly individual pursuit. Sure, I had my (fledgling, tiny) flist and there were communities I checked regularly (remusxsirius , anyone? Holy hell, I used to have muscle memory for typing that address.) and authors I adored, but when it came down to it, fandom was basically me reading fic, and that was it. It wasn't anything I would call "lonely", because fandom, I don't think, could ever be lonely, that's the whole darn point of it, but I will perhaps call it "narrow". Aside from the occasional capslock-tastic comments on fics, I didn't really interact a lot with any other fans. (This is not to say that I do so to an extreme now, but I digress.) But then time passed and there were new fandoms to explore. Macros took over everything. The TDK party posts were probably where I learned that fandom didn't have to be solely individual. So many people! So many comments! SO! MUCH! CAPSLOOOOCCCCCCCKKK! Then Star Trek '09: the fic was amazing, the artists were top-notch, but I was still constantly distracted by thoughts of HOLY GOD LOOK AT THOSE PARTY POSTS GOOOOO~ ALSO THE KINK MEMES. Yuss. Fans interacting with other fans! An anonymous epistolary free-for-all! APH eating may brain for a looooooooooooooong time. :D Bit by bit, I learned that fandom didn't have to be all about the fic. Yes, fic is my drug of choice, but hey! The people are awesome too!

This was really driven home for me by ontd_skating . Suddenly, the Kink Meme almost took a backseat to the other members of the comm. Seeing so many people talking to each other and suddenly being aware that - hey! - I could join in too! It was novel. Before, fandom had always been comforting because I knew that there were a bunch of people out there in the world with whom I shared interests and opinions - the fic they wrote proved it. But with my dawning awareness of things like the APH/Inception/Star Trek/[your fandom here] Kink Meme and places like ontd_startrek  and ontd_skating  (SO MANY LULZ), I realized that yes, fandom is made up of people with similar and sometimes obscure interests - but fic didn't have to be my only connection to them. I realized that I could actually interact with those awesome people and take an active role in my personal fandom experience. Whoa.

This realization only solidified with the Epic Adventure that was Skate Chanada 2010 (and guys, I could never make a "Fuck 2010 List", because despite all the other stuff that happened, SC made my year unbelievably awesome). HOLY SHIT, THE PEOPLE POSTING IN THE COMM ACTUALLY EXIST IRL!!  AND THEY'RE ALL AWESOME!! That was the sum total of what was blowing my mind throughout that weekend. The discovery was so obvious, but just ~*~SO WHELMING~*~ I don't evan. SC was also a major bit of fannish involvement, I think. I have never spent that much money on anything fandom related before, but ;LAKSDJFALKJTA;TLKAJ; soooo worth every penny. :D (I don't even want to say that it was a once-in-a-lifetime event because I'm just MISSING MAY BROS so hardcore rn (wish I could have been there for NYE akdjfasld NEXT TIME) that I will definitely be on board for any reuniting that may happen in the future).

So fandom has evolved into a much bigger social conduit. It took me a while (as it always does) to catch up to the herd, but now that I have dusted off my Twitter account for SC, and since fellow-LJers seem to crop up where I least expect them IRL (hello, lovebanshee , thatdayismine  and ironychan !), fandom is more about connection than ever. It's this giant ridicu-mazing thing that makes me run out of adjectives and that I don't think I could ever properly define, but I'm really glad and honoured to be a part of. Fandom, being in it, and what I've learned and the people I've met through it, has helped shape who I am now. A little cheesy? Yeah. But not without truth. Taking a leaf from P. Chiddy (hay, don't look at me like that, I've been PChiddy-holmed) in DJBijoux's flawless, stunning, gorgeous, perfect, etc. remix:

HEY, FANDOM: YOU'RE REALLY, REALLY PRETTY, REALLY NICE. REALLY PRETTY, REALLY NICE. I HOPE I CAN ALWAYS KNOW YOU FOREVER!! 8D (<- PChan eyes!)

♥