meme Day 3: fandom is largely about fans

[tielan]

Day 3: What's a favorite, or at least memorable fandom meeting/interaction that you've had?

Over twenty years of being in fandom - actively in fandom, that is, including meeting other fans, authors of fanworks, going to conventions before the MCU changed the fannish landscape...

One of the favourites is definitely meeting fellow Discworld fans at Sydney Central Station, and walking up to a guy who was holding up the hardcopy version of The Fifth Elephant and watching people double-take. (It was the late 90s.)

Another one is travelling to the USA for the first time in 2000 to meet a group of Melanie Rawn fans - along with the author herself. I walked past the trio who'd come to collect me at the gate (it was before 9/11 and they could do that then) because I didn't recognise them and they weren't sure if that was me... They kept me from being skittled the first time I crossed a road, and were fascinated by our colourful Aussie notes when I completely forgot that I was in another country and pulled Australian currency to pay my part of the bill. And when it came to meeting Melanie for lunch, she sat down, looked around and asked, "Where's my Australian?"

There was meeting Jason Momoa one year at a Melbourne convention while dressed in Number Six Cylon's red dress. That was around 2009, maybe?

There were the almost-annual visits with the SJHW - the Sam/Jack Horsewomen (because, of course, Sam/Jack as a pairing would inevitably bring the apocalypse, according to the slash fans of the day) often at Gatecon in Vancouver. I tied those visits in with visits to other fans all over the USA - Chicago, DC, Atlanta, LA, Sacramento, Little Rock AR, Houston, Raleigh NC - and a few outside it: London, Bristol, Birmingham, York...

I don't know about favourite. I've had so many wonderful interactions with fans over the years, made friends that I've had for twenty years or more (one of whom I saw at Hamilton the other week, quite unexpectedly), and been anchored within fandom, by fans, for...well, ages. First in LJ, then on DW, and also on AO3 and ff.net and Tumblr - to name the biggest ones.

In spite of feeling perennially lonely when it comes to interests, fandom has been good to me insofar as it has allowed me to meet and befriend fellow fans.

Comments

[wpadmirer]

My first live interaction with fans was in 1995 with fellow Keanu Reeves fans. That was a time that fandom bloomed. It had started really going on UseNet, and then Yahoo groups, and it just kept getting stronger. I started with a private mail group called The Garden for Keanu Reeves fans and made friends there that I have to this day. It continued on through X-Files, ER, into Enterprise and then Stargate but mostly Atlantis. Though I read a lot in the original Stargate. I've been to conventions (also met Momoa, and he's a sweetheart. His mother was with him at the convention where I met him. I had a drawing of him my friend, who was with me had done of Ronon. He looked at it and me and asked, "Did you draw this?" I said no and pointed to my friend who was beside me, "She did." He was thrilled. She'd sent copies to the Atlantis set and they had actually been given to the actors. He stood up, kissed her on the cheek and then yelled, "MA! MA! COME SEE THIS!" I will never not love him for that. My friend was SO flustered when we left she drove past our exit from the interstate three times. It was hysterical.

[beatrice_otter]

I am envious--I've pretty much never had in-person experiences with fans. I've only briefly lived close enough to major centers of population big enough to have meetups. When I had time on weekends (when most fan stuff is) to go to things, I had no money to travel to them; now that I have money to travel, I don't have time on weekends!