Comments | meri_oddities: How do you connect?

meri_oddities

How do you connect?

May 04, 2006 18:09

I was talking to someone who commented on my LJ about not living around other fans and never having met any. I thought, wow, that must be so hard. I've always been fortunate that I live in a big metro area where there are a lot of fans around. There is always something happening around here ( Read more... )

fandom

Comments 134

isiscolo May 4 2006, 22:21:46 UTC

Well, you know me - I don't live near any other fans at all! So getting to go to one con a year is wonderful!

(Also, when I go to Boulder on business trips - maybe once a year - I get together with some of the Front Range crowd.)

I do talk on the phone with cathexys and fabularasa frequently. And there are a few people I love IMing with.

meri_oddities May 4 2006, 22:40:51 UTC

Not living near other fans makes the phone a great thing. I IM occasionally. I'm not fond of typing, and my wrists start to hurt after a while. I like talking in person, having dinner with folks. We never run out of dinner conversations!

Want to try for a run at Con.txt?

isiscolo May 4 2006, 23:34:40 UTC

I am going to have my running stuff with me - but as for running at the con, I have a feeling I'm going to be staying up WHOA LATE and not wanting to get up early enough to run when the heat is tractable. But who knows?

meri_oddities May 4 2006, 23:45:10 UTC

Heh. I'm pretty much blowing off that week of training, but I do have run at some point. I can only go so long without one.

I'm thinking I'm going to map out a 4 mile loop and just run that. Probably on Friday and Sunday. Presupposing I do manage to get up.

kassrachel May 4 2006, 22:25:47 UTC

sanj brought me into fandom in '99. I joined a bunch of lists, read fanfiction voraciously, started writing, and so on. Between lists (both public and private) and irc chat, I quickly came to feel that I had good friends here -- but for a long time I wasn't sure I would ever feel okay about spending the time and money it would take to go to a con, so I wasn't sure I'd ever meet any of y'all in person. I even wrote an essay about that.

sanj cajoled me into attending Eclecticon in 2000, which was near enough to reach by car. (That helped -- it wasn't very expensive, so it didn't feel risky.) The con was pretty mediocre but I got to go out to dinner with a ton of people, many of whom are still good friends of mine today. :-) That was my first contact with fans other than sanj (who I knew in college and who I've been close to for years), and it was awesome. The summer after that, several of the dinner guests came and spent a weekend at my house (along with carlacoupe, who I had never met, and who I was amazed was willing to fly up to Massachusetts to visit ( ... )

bethbethbeth May 4 2006, 22:30:46 UTC

Hey! That means I met you (and sanj at your first con! *g*

kassrachel May 4 2006, 22:33:52 UTC

Yes! I have such fond memories of that. The con itself wasn't great (and besides, at the time I was stubbornly clinging to monofannishness) but I remember meeting you and cesperanza and miriam_heddy and Sigrid, and what a treat that was.

meri_oddities May 4 2006, 22:49:50 UTC

Between lists (both public and private) and irc chat

I've never really done the IRC chats. I've been invited to a couple of them, but have never quite got there. People have described them to me as like being a con suite with a lot of people. I have often wondered if that were more like talking on the phone or IMing (which I don't do much of either).

willing to fly up to Massachusetts to visit someone she'd never met in person) and that was completely fantastic...

That's another thing about fandom, you're wiling to do these strange things. I had more than one person come stay with me for a weekend whom I'd never met. It's weird, but it's also wonderful. I rarely run out of things to say to a fan. *g*

It helps that my sweetie is tremendously fandom-positive -- he's a great big geek himself,

That helps. Mr L is very supported and a total geek himself, so he *understands* why there are all these women who come over and stay for *hours*. :-)

Thread 7

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meri_oddities May 4 2006, 22:38:14 UTC

Hey, I didn't know she had a journal!! Have friended her.

And I read zines from 1981, but I didn't find *fandom* until I went on-line in 1994. I guess I was slow. I never connected the zines I was reading with the people who produced them.

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meri_oddities May 4 2006, 23:01:07 UTC

Yep. Friended that, too. Why didn't I know about that? I *should* have done.

Was it on the website and I missed it. I did miss Z-con this year, which was the first one I'd missed since I got into fanom, but I did keep up with the list.

Thread 6

gaycrow May 4 2006, 22:30:15 UTC

I started off in fandom via an international Alan Rickman message board. I was the only Aussie.

We'd been going for a little while before anyone mentioned HP fan fic, then laurelwood and I diverted off into slash. The other members of the board weren't into slash at all, and because Laurelwood had a journal, I thought I'd start one as well, so that I could find new stories by the HP slash writers.

I'm lucky enough to have met several other fans, but only by travelling half-way across the country. I've made it difficult for myself, because I'm a one fandom/one pairing person, and I haven't come across any other Snarry fans here in Adelaide.

I've really enjoyed my trips to Sydney to catch up with other like-minded people, but it's an expensive exercise, and I'll never be able to travel overseas to any cons, so I'm stuck with the internet, which is a bit sad, really.

meri_oddities May 4 2006, 22:57:44 UTC

Wow, it must have been rough to have to go across the country to hang with other fans. Fortunatly, you can connect on the 'net. I don't think that is sad at all. It helped you connect with all of us. *g*

I don't know that many people who are one pairing in one fandom anymore. There are some. And at least, you're in a big fandom. I have a friend who has been in a rather small fandom for like 8 years. One fandom one pairing.

snakeling May 4 2006, 22:47:50 UTC

I know there are other French fans, and I even saw some on July 16, but I've never met them. (And those I saw were obviously Sirius/remus shippers, which is so not my cuppa. *g*)

But I met with quite a few fellow fen in London last September :) It was a lot of fun, and I'd like to do it again, except I have no money to pay for the fare to London.

As to how I got to fandom, well, it was 2001, and I ran into a few fanfics, and kept sneering at those people, because there was no way they could be writing better than the original creators ;)

Then I read a HL story (gen, really good, have long lost the link), and I started to get interested. I think I read every gen story on Seventh Dimension.

I then saw Bridget Jones' Diary, googled it, found the Republic of Pemberley and got into Jane Austen fandom. I read a lot of het story. PG stuff at first, then racier and racier :D ( ... )

meri_oddities May 4 2006, 22:54:17 UTC

because there was no way they could be writing better than the original creators ;)

And how we eat our words. *g*

I've been in fandom since 1994, and have been through many, many fandoms. I think I have a story on 7th dimension. *g* I wrote at least one story in LotR, too!

Oh, yes, Blood Magic was an excellent story. I'm glad you made it into HP and slash.