Meeting Online

[milieva]

questionoftheday asks: Have you ever met anybody important to you (a friend/significant other/etc.) online? How did you meet and are you still close with them? Have you ever met face-to-face?

My answer:

I have so many wonderful friends I have met online over the years. Many of whom I've known through my tiny little Rayearth webforum. I've met about... eight of the members in person now. I've met at least one person I knew from the Doctor Who fandom in person when I was visiting DC one year. I also have a few people I regularly send holiday cards to this time of year (I've slacked off on that, and I'm sorry guys. I need to get back on that.), but the most notable person I met online was my wife, down.

We started talking some twelve years ago now, all because we were both writing fic for the same pairing on Fanfiction.net. So, this is truly a case of "Both of us think these two nerds would have an insane amount of chemistry if they were older", and honestly, we still agree that they do. We're still writing fic about them.

We chatted for a year or two there at the beginning, but life and stuff got in the way and we lost touch while I found a new fandom and made more friends. Then Tumblr happened and I started fuckyeahrayearth and ended up finding her again. We started talking even more frequently and while things were coming to pieces in my personal life at home, I had this person I had known for years, still there, still talking to me.

We met in person the first time because I simply invited myself over. I basically said "That bit of England looks like it could be fun to visit, so I'm coming to stay", and we had a great time as friends, meeting up in London with a few other friends from the same forum. I also learned a lot more about myself on that trip, and that played heavily on what happened in my relationship back home.

After my husband and I officially parted ways, down and I were talking seriously about getting me to England, so we could date.

And that obviously worked.

Because I am sat here at my dining table in little ol' Norfolk, England writing this post on my journal.

Life is strange and complicated, but I do think that things eventually work out for the best if you put effort into making it happen. And I don't know. I am rambling nonsense.

Comments

[alwaysbeenasmiler]

That is so sweet-- I loved hearing that. And those are the best relationships-- of course I parted ways with my last online relationship, though it had ended up with us cohabiting real life. And just, we both changed--- I am so glad though that the two of you are happy together and still rocking the nerd life!

No matter what, I think it's important to date your best friend-- more important, to marry them.

[milieva]

It does mean we have two of almost everything Rayearth related that we started with, and absolutely no plans for either of us to get rid of ours... But it works with some things because she has the older set of Tokyo Pop english translation, and I have the newer anniversary set. Then she has the older Japanese manga and I have the newer. We do have two copies of the artbooks, materials collection, scenario collection and DVDs.

It is definitely worth it to marry your best friend. Totally agreed.

[stardreamed]

Aww, that's sweet how you and your wife got together. :)

Your journal name sounds really familiar to me, but I can't quite place it. If you used to post on time and chips on LJ or on teaspoon with a similar username, maybe I read your doctor/rose fics years ago.

[milieva]

Yes, I used to post to T&C and Tsp ages ago. I don't really link to my fic journal right now because, having been migrated from LJ, it is a bit.... Well, all the links are broken. But I am the very same Milieva from both places and if anyone wanted to go digging about, milieva_fics is my fic journal. I'm slowly migrating fic to AO3 (by slow, we mean a snails pace - there are two there), while trying not to overwhelm my Rayearth readers as that's all I've posed over there since 2012. But I have written over 50 DW fics. Most D/R.

[stardreamed]

Wow, that's a lot of fic. I haven't read D/R in ages, but I'll always have a soft spot for them. Some of the names of your fics definitely ring a bell, like Absolution. (I still can't believe how long ago that was!) So, yeah, that was it. :) I recently did a rewatch of seasons 1 & 2 while I was studying this last semester - I feel the episodes held up pretty well. :)

[milieva]

Oh, Absolution. One of the many fic I barely remember writing. I have vague ideas of what the plots of most of these stories were, but it's been so long for me too.

I came back to Rayearth in 2012, so that's six years away from D/R fic. And I have one poor person who keeps popping up on Tumblr and other places every six months (especially once I started posting my fic on AO3) asking if I will finish my one large WIP for that fandom.

[stardreamed]

I don't remember the plot off the top of my head, either. I'm kind of hoping it's not one of those fics that people feel embarrassed about later. (I've written some of those... My excuse is that it was DBZ in the late 1990's, early 2000's and I was 20. Lol) Also, the way you've been consistently writing all this time, I bet your style has really grown.

Oh, that poor person. :) Writing is a lot of work - I totally get focusing on what you're into.

[milieva]

As far as I remember, it's a fix-it for the fact I hated the duplicate Ten plot thing to get rid of Rose. Which is basically Ten regenerates and he and TenII switch bodies, and then he tried to go about winning Rose over.

Not sure how well the fic holds up, but I don't actually hate most of my Doctor Who fic.

And most of my early Rayearth fic (early 2000s), I don't completely hate the base plots, so I have been rewriting some of my early fic with my current style and detail. Thus what was a short thing that moved too quickly and was confusing when I first wrote it at 16, is now a much more thought out and paced fic of well over 100,000 words, because there is too much going on to condense it down to something short. I have another I am currently also working on.

I have told that person that they shouldn't lose hope. It just might be another decade before I pick the fic back up, as that seems to be my pattern. (I probably would have finished it when I was writing it if real life stuff hadn't killed my drive to play in the fic universe. Even though I sometimes regret posting the project before it was finished because I knew my interest was lagging)