Warning: this post is sentimental af because i’m super tired and i’m very sorry
so, I got home from JIB some hours ago. And here’s the thing.
While seeing all the actors was, obv, super amazing, something else hit me this year and it was the people surrounding me. Idk if other cons work, feel, look this way, but this is what JIB was for me this year.
It was getting to see someone I met last year at the con and getting to be her roommate, and it was making a real connection for life.
It was the utter joy when @bold-sartorial-statement told me she saw me there last year and later I realized we chatted for a bit but never even got each other’s names until this year.
It was being stuck on a mostly empty shuttle bus to Rome for 2 hours and having a (sometimes tired) blast.
It was the care and concern and understanding I got whenever I felt or expressed any kind of discomfort, and it was the care and concern and understanding I found myself wanting to give back immediately.
It was the posts on Facebook about lost and then magically found things. It was the posts on Facebook asking for help and random strangers helping within minutes.
It was the watch parties thrown by strangers who invited strangers, and it was the silence in the room after the finale credits rolled.
It was the shared laughter in the elevator.
It was the girl I met at an autograph session crouching by my seat in the panel room hours later just to show me her photo op.
It was drinking wine with @buckybee (whose jacket I still need to mail her) and realizing I could spend a lot of evenings that way.
It was me, an introvert, deciding to stay at the bar with @vobobo, whom I’d met five minutes prior, until 2am. I didn’t want to go to bed. At all. What are the chances of meeting someone you click with right away at midnight on the last day?
It was going to this con feeling uninspired and it’s getting home feeling loved and utterly inspired.
The saddest thing about JIB for me this year was that my seat was by the aisle and the seat next to me remained empty. It made me realize that the thing that makes JIB what it is is that the people who are lucky enough to be there ACTIVELY SHARE IT. I think that tumblr and online spaces in general often make me forget that that is not the only side to fandom. It’s not just salt and (however spot on) criticism.
You’re seated next to a stranger or waiting in line next to a stranger and if you felt dizzy or upset or there was anything wrong with you, they would hold you up, they would help you without asking, and you would do the same. No one cares who your favorite character is or whether you’re a shipper or not. It’s not important.
I saw someone call JIB a love-fest and that’s exactly what it is. For some reason, it almost feels like… home? I suppose. And idk, I guess I was ready to quit the show and the fandom, and now I’m really not.
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