I Came for the Fic

I have been almost completely absent from fandom since 2023. Honestly, my fandom participation has been declining for even longer than that. Some of that is just life--job stress, social life, relationship--but there are definitely other contributing factors. My anxiety is a big one. I kinda just...fell off the face of the earth. Stopped checking in on Discord, stopped posting any of my own work, and stopped commenting on the works of others. I had (have?) the best kind of fandom friends, and I just disappeared on them. Every time I think about going back I have this little voice in my head screaming that no one will want to hear from me or have me in their fandom spaces after I just abandoned them without warning.

Now, I am 100% aware that kind of thinking is just my mental illness talking, but logic and mental health don't always play nicely together. So, I've decided to make it a personal goal to reconnect with fandom in the coming year. In the interest of working with my brain instead of against it, I'm not putting a whole lot of restrictions or guidelines on what "reconnecting" means. I just want to be present and enjoy fandom again.

Most of the time I do need some kind of external/additional motivator tied to things. Gotta make my ADHD think it's a challenge or there's no dopamine in it, lol. Luckily, goals_on_dw is running a super cool "Fannish 50 in 2025" challenge. The goal is to make 50 fandom related posts in 2025. Beyond making sure they deal with fandom, there is no restriction on the type of post. It could be a top ten list or a post linking to a 100k word fanfic. Lots of possibility for variety, which I'm hoping will keep me from feeling like it's a chore. I'll be using this post as a sort of masterlist/index of my fifty fandom related posts throughout the year.

I'm very excited to get back into something that's brought me joy for so much of my life. Wish me luck!

( Fannish 50 in 2025 - 50 Post Masterlist )

I think part of the reason I got so bogged down and overwhelmed when I was last active in fandom was because I kept signing up for exchanges.

Just this week I caught myself looking over a couple of upcoming ones and thinking "maybe I should sign up" once again. I think part of the reason I do it is that it applies pressure. That whole ADHD trick of being productive only at the last minute. But I don't want to do that. I don't do good work when I do that, and I want to be able to write from my WIPs or the ideas in my writing journal instead of frantically trying to hammer out something for someone else's idea. 

So, I'm not going to sign up for a bunch of exchanges and ultimately disappoint both myself and whatever poor soul get stuck with me. I am going to have to find a way to deal with the little itch to apply, though. I was thinking maybe I could still look at the tag sets when they go live and then do a post on here with which ones I'd choose to write for and why they catch my interest. Or something. Could be an idea I can use for Fannish 50 next year as well.