Fandom.
I have talked about this in previous blogs, the fact that I belong to many fandoms and how it’s impacted my life. I’ve glossed over what I’ve learned and which fandoms I belong too. However, I’m always surprised how fandoms changed my life.
When I was 14, my family moved from southern California to northern California. It was a decision that I was vehemently against, and I felt my life had spiraled out of control. I remember the day that I felt like my control was gone. We were on vacation, and my dad had to leave. I cried buckets of tears then went back to my hotel room and watched X-men movie, and I remember feeling like I needed to find out everything I could about these characters on the screen. I used my allowance to buy comic books. My mom and I visited every comic book store in San Jose within the first 6 months, if it were within an hour away, we would go.
Also, I remember falling in love with Star Wars for the first time. I knew about Star Wars, my parents had a VHS tape with that we used for recording shows, and it had the duel of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker on it. So whatever movie we had recorded always ended with Luke screaming and getting his hand cut off. I was terrified of this scene as a child. Then when the prequels came out, and I changed my tune. My parents had an old version of the original Story, and I think my brother and I watched in a few days. I loved Princess Leia’s gumption and Spirit. We lived right next to a library and often I would go to the library and come home with a stack of books. Some were long novels and other comics books.
My mom and I would go on walks, and the entire time I would talk about fandoms that I was discovering. I would go to school armed with school books, a novel I was reading, a journal and my thinking when I get home from school I can jump back into fandom. College came and went, and as I was trying to navigate the world of adulthood, and then I met Jman. Jman and I are very similar in many ways. We have steady faith, we both love going to movies, and we both have the love for fandoms. Jman loves video games, dc comics and back to the future. I love Disney, How to train your dragon and Marvel. There are a lot more fandoms that I love. Between the two of us, we have a lot of common ground. Our best conversations usually involve fandom, and how we perceive the world.
When I was diagnosed with Cancer, fandom jumped back into my life through Smallville. While I was sitting at home feeling icky, I would watch syndicated episodes of Smallville and think my back aches and feeling horrible was not as severe as Clark Kent’s day today. And for some reason it made me feel a little better.
Fandom has always been an escape, when real life gets too crazy or too hard, I find myself falling head first into fandom. The fictional characters plight makes my life of crazy seem saner. And sometimes the way fictional character respond to something makes me think about how I would approach that situation. How would I react if I just found out I am Jedi or if I had a superpower that caused others to harm? However, there are times as well when Fandom, at least for myself, is an unhealthy obsession. If I am losing money, sleep or even dreaming weird dreams where fictional characters are now involved in my daily life. I know I need to slow down and take a step back and re-evaluate.
Fandom is about acceptance. It is always amazing to me how people can have a cordial and pleasant conversation about whether Wolverine could take down Superman, or how Darth Vader hero journey was never ending and remain kind, help and listen to others. People who belong to fandoms know how to communicate about their favorite characters. They know how to be human, and yes there are times when disagreeing but it doesn’t destroy a friendship. Because in the end as much as I love talking fandom, fandom doesn’t matter. Those friendships matter. People matter. Faith and belief matter. Issues of life.
Romans 15:13
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
TTFN And GOd Bless You and Keep you
Danie with an E reflections 