Meme for December: Fandom Memories

[pensnest]

ladymoonray asked for my favourite fandom memories. Many of you will already know what those are, but ladymoonray is quite new here!

My first fandom, Star Trek: TNG, brought me to the point of being brave enough to attend my first convention in 1996. It was the big Trek con and it was in Cardiff that year. I was very pleased with myself for hearing someone's name as she checked in and pouncing on her in an "I really like your stories!" way, so that we hung out together for a while, avoiding the *ludicrously noisy* disco and talking about fanfic. I met someone else who recognised my Ol' Yellow Eyes T-shirt, and she and I had a lovely time talking about Data and Brent Spiner. And for the middle evening of the con, we met up with two other women and had a terrific and funny conversation in the café. Small conversations with like-minded women is exactly my scale. I think I must have had the best laughs of my life among fans.

I had a lot of fun, too, the following year, when Brent was the main guest at the May con in Blackpool, and therefore almost all my Dataphile acquaintances were there too. For the first time in my life I could walk through a room and find someone to talk to on the way. And I'd printed off a story, which various people borrowed (and kept running off with). That was the time we met the Klingons in the fish and chip shop, bewildering the waitress with complaints that all the food was cooked and then lapsing into human mode and making the other fans giggle.

I was sorta between fandoms from 2000 to 2005, because I didn't write in any (except one Harry Potter story), but I went to a few Buffy/Angel/Firefly cons with my daughter. At the Firefly con with nearly all the cast present, the costume competition was spectacular. There was a Mudders' Statue of Jayne (sadly, Adam Baldwin had had to drop off the guest roster) which would surely have won… had there not also been a Washosaurus, which had Alan Tudyk on his feet in ecstasy and begging the rest of the cast to take photos of them together.

Then, of course, came popslash. So many favourite fandom moments. Discovering the fic wasn't so much a moment as a couple of months. Opening an LJ account, posting my first popslash story, and getting a bigger response than I'd ever had to anything I'd ever posted before—that was good.

Then there was the Lava Lamp Story Reading at nopseud's house, which not only made my stomach muscles ache but also spawned a mini-genre. Sparkly weekends tend to merge together, mostly, as times of laughter and very bizarre conversations, but one standout was when nopseud, ephemera and I watched 'Harry and Max' together and then watched it again with the director's commentary and nearly died laughing. Foreskin accident, anyone?

The first Camp Sparkle, dancing on the doorstep of Little Brampton (turlough can attest to this), and meeting so many other popslashers, and having a weirdly wonderful weekend in that charming, eccentric cottage. All the subsequent Camps have made wonderful memories, although I suspect the most powerful is probably of msktrnanny's reading of the Lava Lamp story, with additional characterisations supplied by some of those present, including a very versatile vodka bottle.

Going to concerts, BSB, and Adam Lambert, and even NKOTBSB, with fannish friends. So much fun. Admittedly, driving back from the O2 to Portsmouth at dead of rainy night in a very inferior minibus was less fun, but it's certainly a Memory. Gah.

Fandom memories. Good times. Good subject to muse on today, as my Brats have just set off back to Norwich. *sniff*

Comments

[ephemera]

Hurray for good memories, and also for people I know but didn't realise knew each other knowing each other!

[pensnest]

Nine Worlds!

[ladymoonray]

Pen was my hero at Nine Worlds, while I was having a serious wibble :)

[turlough]

Lamp!!

I'm so proud I've managed to avoid watching Harry and Max despite having attended so many Camps :-)

That first Camp Sparkle will always live in my memory. It was such a high point in my fannish life. "It doesn't snow all the time in Europe!" The hottubbing in the snow! All the weird staircases and mysterious passages and suprise!bathrooms!