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Okay, everyone drop what you're doing and go read Ars moriendi by wiseacress. It's the sequel to her brilliant Modus Vivendi and it's just as good. (And if you've somehow managed to avoid Modus Vivendi until now, please go read it! You won't regret it.)

This is not a particularly thoughtful post, but it's very sincere

So, I'm sitting here at work, catching up on what I missed over the weekend, and I'm thinking about what I'm going to do tonight. I'm going to stop at Angelica's (yummy vegan restaurant) for takeout, and then I'm going to curl up in front of my computer and catch up on fic. This just strikes me as such a ... satisfying? pleasant? perfect? ... way to spend an evening.

And it occurs to me how very much I love fanfic. I am so glad that I discovered it. I'm the kind of person who cries when she finishes reading a book, not because the story is sad, but because it's over. When I read something, I get so utterly immersed in that world and I *hate* to leave it. But with fanfic, it's never really over. There's always more, an endless supply; there is no end, just a million alternate universes that span into infinity. It's like The Neverending Story come to life. (Okay, I get that there's a finite end somewhere, that theoretically it's possible to collect every fanfic involving Spike and that would be it, but realistically there's no way one person could ever do that, and even if you did there would be more coming every day.)

I love reading other people's interpretations of the characters and situations. I love seeing all these other ways that the story *could* have gone. I don't buy that there is One True Version of the story; it's all fiction and every person's imagined version is just as real as the "official" version to me.

I love that there are so many amazingly talented writers in the fanfic world. I love that, at its best, it's a community of shared ideas and communication, and that it's a community of people who are so passionately inspired by the subject that they write without any expectation of compensation. I love that it's a community of writers who are constantly working to improve their skills and to learn more about their craft, and that writers are encouraged to try new things, explore new ideas, expand their skills, reach new heights. I love that it's a community where people support each other and help improve each other's work. And I love that it's a community where you can build real, meaningful relationships that endure way beyond the world of fandom.

I was just sitting here thinking about this and I'm in awe over how cool it is.