A Can of Worms

You are going to be horrified and embarrassed at some point by the shit you are doing now.

And you are going to wish with all your might you’d done more of it.  

You’re gonna wish you had more selfies, more photos, more videos being dumb with your friends.  You’re going to wish you’d had your hair even higher or your shoes even sparklier.  

Go.  Document the shit out of your ridiculous life.  Fuck trends but if you wanna be trendy, go all in.  Fuck in-groups and subcultures but if one sings to you, do it all.  Be exactly as cool or punk rock or goth or fandom or country or hardcore or hip hop or whatever, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.

I think I have talked about this before, but because life doesn’t end at twenty or thirty or forty or fifty and thinking that folks are going to fall out of social media or that there won’t always be someone your age and my age and twice both of our ages interested in [insert anything, ever] is a very limiting worldview.  

Somewhere there is a sixty-five year old who unironically loves Taylor Swift’s music and a fifty-two year old writing Superwholock fanfic and a ninty year old who absolutely lives for the next episode of Archer and a seventy-one year old that can kick anyone’s ass in k-pop trivia.  There will always be these folks, and all the Internet has done is give fans of all ages a chance to interact in a way that they never had before.

Before BBSes and the Internet and Usenet and the World Wide Web and fanrings and forums and social media, those people would just love it in their own way, in the privacy of their own homes.  But now anyone can make an Ao3 account or a basic fansite or tumbl about whatever they want, and sometimes you’re gonna learn those people are old but they still get it, and sometimes you’re going to find out those folks are still kids, twelve or fourteen at the oldest, and marvel at their maturity and skill and attention to detail.  

I love all the posts written by older fans, with their insight, and their generous attitude towards young fans, and young fanfic writers, and young fanartists. 

Older fans who patiently explain to whomever questioned the validity of older fans participation…

that it’s older fans running the AO3 servers and the entire OTW organization;

Older fans most often writing the actually well written fanfic; 

Older fans planning, organizing and executing massive cons;

Older fans who write out fandom history dating back to pre-internet so that history can be known and preserved and enjoyed;

Older fan lawyers enforcing Fair Use laws pro bono to keep fans from being sued for creating fic or art or any other media;

Older fans behaving well with life-lived-and-learned healthy boundaries;

or conversely dealing out smack-downs to those not behaving well be they older trolls or naively inexperienced younguns;

Older fans letting fans of all ages remember that zany enthusiasm is not the province only of the young - it is the province of humanity. 

Much as I love Supercorp, I’ve realized that I want/need AgentCorp to happen.

Because:

1. Alex deserves a love interest that is also a big part of the plot and not just an extension of her character

2. Lena deserves to be loved and protected in that way that is so innately Alex

3. They can talk science together and that is hot

4. They can annoy Kara and roll their eyes because she’s still hang-up on Mon-Hell

And most importantly…

5. I wholeheartedly believe that Katie and Chyler would protect and respect the fandom (and our hearts) ❤️

The Bachelorette: Lena Luthor Edition (insp)