Snowflake Challenge Day 5
Jan. 9th, 2025 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chibifukurouChallenge #5
Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom.
I'd say fandom probably changed a large chunk of my life trajectory. I was a kid/teen growing up in a high control family based around a high control religion. I got one approved and vetted extracaricular every 1-2 weeks. Where the focus was religious/providing help/skills acquisition. And books were monitored for 'suitability'.
Teaching Sunday School or learning to sew from one of the older ladies from the church wasn't exactly going to give me information about being queer. I learned what asexuality was as a teen from DBZ fics where Picallo's ability to procreate asexually got explored in relation to asexual relationships.
Later I would find out AFAB folks could be trans. And what nonbinary was.
I think I probably would have still walked away from the church and possibly found the queer community. Social media has brought a lot of these discussions to the forefront. Kids aren't having to use underground fiction to get names for their experiences.
But I'm willing to bet that without fandom it would have taken me a lot longer to shift my own understanding to match.
Talk about what has improved in your life thanks to fandom.
I'd say fandom probably changed a large chunk of my life trajectory. I was a kid/teen growing up in a high control family based around a high control religion. I got one approved and vetted extracaricular every 1-2 weeks. Where the focus was religious/providing help/skills acquisition. And books were monitored for 'suitability'.
Teaching Sunday School or learning to sew from one of the older ladies from the church wasn't exactly going to give me information about being queer. I learned what asexuality was as a teen from DBZ fics where Picallo's ability to procreate asexually got explored in relation to asexual relationships.
Later I would find out AFAB folks could be trans. And what nonbinary was.
I think I probably would have still walked away from the church and possibly found the queer community. Social media has brought a lot of these discussions to the forefront. Kids aren't having to use underground fiction to get names for their experiences.
But I'm willing to bet that without fandom it would have taken me a lot longer to shift my own understanding to match.