Anonymous asked:
I am turning 24 soon and I can't help but freak out. I know what I am about to say next is going to sound very trivial compared to what is happening around the world now but I can't stop thinking that there will come a time when I would be considered too old to be in a fandom. Like what would happen when I turn 35/45/55?? Won't it be awkward? Would it be creepy if I still read ao3 fics in my 60s? I don't want to go away from the fandom space. It helps me so much to cope in this world.
unpretty answered:
my advice is to block and mute anyone who makes you feel that way and enjoy posting about batman with the other well-adjusted adults who like to enjoy things on the internet
most of the best fanfic is produced by women who are over thirty. older women aren’t just ‘still’ on AO3, they’re producing the highest-rated content. older women are the backbone of fandom and always have been: they are archivists, skilled costumers and writers, professional artists and editors and videographers and organizers. they run the fests, they code the archive itself, they volunteer, they watch out for people. they invented zines and webrings and conventions and cosplay and so many things kids just take for granted as natural parts of fandom.
mature, experienced women are hands down the most valuable resource any sphere of human activity can accrue. becoming one of them isn’t a tragedy, it’s an honor.
Every so often I post a fic and someone will comment on it asking, basically, “how do you do that?”
And the answer is, from the bottom of my heart: I’ve been practicing for longer than some of you have been alive. I posted my first fic online in October of 2002, when I was just about to turn 21, and I have continued writing and posting fic for going on eighteen years now, which means I am not far off from turning forty. I hope to keep it up for eighteen (and thirty-six, and fifty-four) more—and I’m guessing plenty of my readers hope the same.
If you want really good content for your fandom, you cannot chase away or shame the people who stick around long enough to get really good at producing it.
I’m 71 as I keep insisting, and I published my first fan fic in 1998 (ST:TNG). I was nearly fifty, and it literally changed. My. Life. You mustn’t worry about such things as age. Yes, I left or whatever several fandoms, but it wasn’t because I was too old. Just follow your blood.
