There was a time when a fandom of choice could only be enjoyed within its original medium. Star Trek and Doctor Who were on television, Star Wars was a movie, Dungeons & Dragons was a game. But somewhere along the way, creators realized that fans not only wanted more, but would devour everything about their fandom of choice. Star Trek crossed to the big screen, Doctor Who went audio, D&D got into adventure novels and Star Wars went everywhere. And, of course, pretty much all fandoms now have comics.

If you want to immerse yourself in a fandom, this is the time. You can watch the tv show, read a novel, enjoy the comic series, maybe even catch the movie and then listen to the soundtrack. Of course, there’s plenty of fan fiction out there too, if you want to read how others interpret your fandom (or you can write some yourself).

And crossing mediums also means that some fandoms can continue to exist after their original medium ends. Some tv shows, for example, evolve into movies (like Star Trek or Veronica Mars) or continue their storylines in comic form (like Buffy or Firefly). So you don’t exactly need to say goodbye or just live in the past.

Sure, it can sometimes seem like there’s a lot of properties out there now in pretty much every medium. But it’s far better to have too much to choose from than barely anything at all.