Fandom Snowflake 2019 #1: The Good Place

[silveradept]

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

Now would be the perfect spot for a Dear Author letter. Except I don't really have one, because that says I have tastes and preferences and enough experience with everything to put down what I like into a post and be reasonably assured that someone else will understand it.

But language is ambiguous, to some degree, and besides, I haven't read my one thousand works on each trope I might be interested in to know whether or not I really do like it.

And there really isn't a home fandom for me. I find Steven Universe and Miraculous Ladybug charming for their own reasons, and I can appreciate the classical quality of the Merrie Melodies, and Farscape and Killjoys are equally up there as good things with Big Hero 6 and Kubo and the Two Strings. (Good Godfrey, Laika, that has all the feels.)

I love being able to peer into someone else's ideas and write something they'll find good or worthy of a long comment as a gift, because it means success in my endeavors. I don't necessarily have as well-developed a sense of writing something for myself or because that idea really needs to be written and I don't care how many words it takes to get done.

I'm not broken. But nowhere feels especially like home. And it might be because I spent a lot of my life feeling apart from everyone else, having weird interests and not having a lot of people around who shared those interests. (More people had those interests than I thought, but I didn't know that at the time.) And then a lot more of my life being actively separated from the people who would share those interests and be friends, because I didn't feel like I was allowed to have friends, much less do anything with them.

I've finally got art out on the walls that represents me and my interests, rather than it being closed away where the guests don't see it. I have friends that I see regularly and places to go and conventions to do. There's a lot more happiness in these last two years than there has been in the many before them. That happiness is often tempered by time and the knowledge that it eventually ends up coming to an end. Which is not to say that I don't fling myself headlong into it all, because I totally do. And I'm really happy and enjoying myself while I'm there. It just means there's a period of down that follows the up where I have to get readjusted to the idea that it's back to the regular world.

The idea of the Happy Place, where someone can go back to of the day is bad, or if they need cheering up, or just to be there and enjoy the sunshine and the friendly entities around, well, it sounds nice. And I'd like to have one or two around.

More and more, it seems like I'm getting too old to discover them, or I'm too old to hang out in those spaces without getting suspicious looks. By fandom standards, I'm probably already ancient, tapping away on Dreamwidth, not where the Zeitgeist is (or was) on Tumblr, watching as the new generation of fans do many of the same things we did when we were that age, but on topics that were on the fringes when we were arguing about them.

It is difficult to feel at home in a place that you're never sure you really belong in. (That's mostly brainweasels at work, honestly.) But it's nice to ride the coattails of other people as they get enthusiastic about things, or to give them encouragement as they go about their way, cheering in their successes and consoling them when it's less successful.

And to hope, perhaps someday, to experience what they are experiencing for myself.

A customer I interacted with frequently at work used to sign off, as it were, with this thought, "If you are well, then I am well." His context of meaning was very informed by Christianity, but I think that might be the closest thing I have to a Happy Place right now. If you are well, then I am well.

Be well.

Comments

[teigh_corvus]

Those brainweasels are such jerks. But their potency does seem perpetual. And that does seem like an excellent Happy Place proxy.

[silveradept]

It's a good proxy, certainly, and it sometimes radios benefits, like having friends who can help stand you up again.

[bladespark]

Having no space that's home resonates with me a lot. I spent a long time looking for a community where I fit in, and I've never found one. It always seemed like something I was would be unwelcome in any given space for the other things I am. (Being queer was not welcome in Christian spaces, yet being Christian was equally not welcome in queer spaces, being furry was unwelcome nearly everywhere, but in furry spaces being kinky or multiple or Christian again would be unwelcome, and well...)

The only thing I've found in the long run is the space I've made for myself, the chat rooms and places I run, where I can invite my friends in. That's not perfect either (IRC/Nightstar seems to be slowly dying, and my Discord has some...issues) but it's at least something.

[silveradept]

Sometimes the only way to find a space where you fit in is to make one.

It always feels a bit frustrating to not be able to be your complete self everywhere, even if it is nice ti be able to interact with others (however limited that may be.)

[coyoteclaw11]

Personally, I think fandom is for all people of all ages. I really hope you can find a place where you belong soon, because you more than deserve one! Sometimes, a happy place can just be a room in your mind that you fill with the things you enjoy. You might not enjoy those things in the future, but that's okay. You can enjoy them now and find new things to enjoy in the future! Best of luck finding your happy place. I will do my best to be well so you can be too ^^

[silveradept]

Thank you for the thoughts. Sometimes it's nice being me, but there's a lot of weasel territory in there still.

[sodium_amytal]

OOF this whole post is a Big Mood™.

These parts resonated with me the most:

I spent a lot of my life feeling apart from everyone else, having weird interests and not having a lot of people around who shared those interests.

it seems like I'm getting too old to discover them, or I'm too old to hang out in those spaces without getting suspicious looks.

It is difficult to feel at home in a place that you're never sure you really belong in.

But what you said here: it's nice to ride the coattails of other people as they get enthusiastic about things, or to give them encouragement as they go about their way, cheering in their successes and consoling them when it's less successful.

Is super important! Because we need more people like that in fandom. I hope you find a place where you belong, but helping other people feel like they belong is a skill that's very important and can't be understated. ♥

[silveradept]

It's a big mood, no lies.

Helping others fit in is a useful role, and I wish there were more people on the welcoming committee, but each person finds their way in their own way. I just hope that I get to help them fit in and enjoy the place.

[used_songs]

Art on the walls is one of the things that makes my home feel like a home, too.

[silveradept]

Yeah. I can see a lot of things in those art pieces, things that are a part of my life, now on display, instead of hidden. It's not my space without my narrative present.

[azurelunatic]

Have you got fandoms and interests that are under-represented on the walls?

[silveradept]

Maybe, but when I realize it, I'll probably be standing in front of someone who can sell me the fanart I need.

[marahmarie]

Seconding this. There's art almost everywhere you look in our place (at least, downstairs - upstairs, not quite so much). I read sometime over the last year how art is therapy and how homes without it can hurt one's mental health (that was the gist of it, though I think not everyone wants or needs or likes art, but if it's their thing I can see how it might help).

[marahmarie]

Plz stop w the "getting too old" stuff you're making me feel ancient k thx bai

You're never too old. You're never too old. And you're never too old.

For me it's anywhere peaceful and quiet, though preferably, it's outdoors.

[silveradept]

I know that, you knew that, and yet, since everything moves at the speed of Internet, even being not-old can make you feel old.

[marahmarie]

Bah, age is a state of mind, though often it can also be a state of health, in that feeling older can make one feel older in general, so I'll give a nod to that; otherwise, it's a state of mind. I'm just 25 despite what my birth certificate says.

[batrachian]

Had to double check because hi, sourcing, but. That phrase, in Latin ("si vales valeo") is namedropped in one of my own personal Happy Places, Girl Genius. Albeit very much not in the usual context (more details would, alas, spoil a fair bit and I won't do that unprompted)

Echoing others that this post resonates a fair bit. <3

[silveradept]

It being Girl Genius, Sparks are probably involved.

The resonance seems echoed across more than a fair few of those posts I've seen.

[batrachian]

Sparks in glorious Technicolor fashion, yes.

*sits definitively on hands* Being Serious about spoilers. Yes. That is me.