Spreading the Fandom Love: My Cup Runneth Over - and I Don't Mind the Stain on the Rug

The last two weeks I've received a sudden and unexpected influx of gifts and blessings here on LJ, and just gotten quite a lot of pleasure out of my participation in this fandom. I've been wanting to acknowledge all the love coming my way and spread it out, but it's hard to put into words. Or rather, words I have by the ton; coherence not so much. So I'm going to try to return and spread the love out all this week, because it's too much for one little post.

1) Buffyverse Top 5 was just a tremendous amount of fun to participate in. yourlibrarian and petzipellepingo deserve a huge round of applause for being such wonderful hosts, as always; and kudos to everyone who participated with rec lists of their own and/or comments. It was a great party! I remember enjoying myself last year but not to the same degree as this time but I was very new to fandom, didn't know as many people; and was focused on the goal of rec'ing meta because nearly all the other rec lists were focused on fanfic, with emphasis on shippiness.

Thank you velvetwhip, snogged, shapinglight, debris4spike, sparrow2000, lusciousxander, punch_kicker15, beer_good_foamy, rebcake, dragonyphoenix, endeni for all your lists; and thanks to the artists who keep bringing all of us what you love in any format....


This time around I had a lot of things I wanted to rec in every genre - fic, meta, art, vids - and only had time for a fraction of what I wanted to do. But other folks had the same idea: picspams, podcasts, videos, meta, some folks mixed things up in all forms; a lot of very new to me authors and stories that covered a wide range of the Buffyverse in terms of 'ships, gen, female-centric, etc - something for everyone. All of it very high quality on every level of craft (technique) and art. There's enough there to keep me busy neglecting housework chores for some months to come. And it continued a trend that I've noticed of late: that my fandom circle of aquaintance, friendships, reading habits and tastes have been widening. It keeps things more interesting and fun, and reminds me just how large this fandom really is, and how much variety of people and interests within it.

The "bad news" is that this round is over until the next "Classic Round" starting October 30th. The good news is that gives me plenty of time to procrastinate until the last minute prepare my lists in advance.

(And I hope y'all will forgive me an indulgence: I already mentioned in my last post that petzipellepingo surprised me by including one of my own posts from last June in their Top 5 picspam list. What I forgot to mention because it hadn't sunk in quite yet, was that I was keeping company alongside snowpuppies and comlodge, two of the most amazingly talented artists in this fandom. Are you kidding? I'm still dancing with joy.)

2) While I'm celebrating communities here, I want to give a shout-out to the wonderful editors of the Sunnydale Herald: rahirah,  secondalto, oni_9, lynnylou, gillo, audela & menomegirl  continue to prove at least 2-4 times a week that the activity and creativity in this fandom is truly an embarrassment of riches with your . At least 2-3 of the meta I rec'd on Buffyverse Top 5 I found on their lists, not to mention all the meta I wanted to rec but didn't have the time to. (Barb explained to me once how they manage to run and organize it and I still can't wrap my head around the work they do.)

And they've been providing something invaluable: free marketing and PR. Readers I wouldn't have been able to draw on my own, even if it's one person, and I didn't have to lift a finger. I didn't even have to tell anyone I'd written it; it's just there. I've watched my sweetie try to build her art blog and an audience out of whole cloth, without the support of a community or ready-made audience and it is damn hard and frustrating work. So every time I see one of my posts linked there it's another gift just falling into my lap, and I don't think there's any way I can adequately express my gratitude for that except to say "thank you".  (Can I get an "amen", somebody?)