clevermanka: default (Default)
clevermanka ([personal profile] clevermanka) wrote2020-02-13 09:29 am
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My true love

Wednesday's blahs were helped considerably by the fact that when the KC dentist vet's admin called to check on Miss Thing/Miette yesterday, the phone call went like this:

Her: Hello! I'm calling to check in on Miette to see how she's doing.
Me: Oh, she's fine. Begging for food and rolling around on the floor for pets.
Her: Wonderful! etc. etc. various other details and questions and then
Her: And one more thing, I stayed up way too late last night and watched five episodes of The Untamed.

That was followed by about three minutes of us squeeing at each other. Y'all, I GOT ANOTHER ONE! That makes...four? in the flesh people that've taken me up on my Untamed pitch. I also told her about Guardian of course and sent her the link for [personal profile] solo's subs but of course Netflix is always easier. Anyway. I needed a good thing and that was a good thing.

Y'know what? Let me write up a little synopsis our in-person interactions at the office because it just makes my heart feel SO GOOD. I was a little early to the appointment because I wasn't sure what the KC traffic would be like that time of day. So when we had thirty minutes to wait, I opened up my laptop to work on Deconstruction. The admin asked if I'd like the WiFi password and of course that answer was yes but I also offhandedly said "Who needs to write when there's Tumblr?" and she laughed! "Oh! you're on Tumblr?" I asked, and she said yes and I asked if she was a fangirl and she said yes and I asked what fandoms and she's mostly into the juggernauts (Harry Potter, Dr. Who, Supernatural, Sherlock). She asked what I was into, and I was like "well..." and gave her my standard in-person pitch for Guardian. "But there's another really good Chinese drama on Netflix if you'd like to try that out first." And we talked general fandom a bit and it was super fun to watch her open up a little about fan stuff.

When I came back in the afternoon there was about half an hour while they prepped the cat for release and she said "Okay, so I watched the first episode of The Untamed over my lunch and I have no idea what's going on but I'm hooked" and I reassured her that I didn't have any idea what was going on either until about episode five and recommended she print out the Wikipedia article with the character names chart.

Then we discovered our mutual love of Avatar and things got amazing.

It was like watching a flower bloom. Her entire body posture changed and her face lit up and I was thinking "There it is! There's the fangirl!" and we (quietly) yelled at each other about Zutarra! and Toph! and how we both wanted to like Korra as much as ATLA but didn't and it. was. wonderful. to watch someone open up like that. I myself am at a constant volume of 10 (possibly 11) when it comes to fandom stuff. Not in general conversation, but if someone even breathes a hint of being My Sort Of Fan about something, there's no slow rev up with me. I'm straight off the line zero to a hundred and sixty immediately asking them what they like and who they ship and how long they've been watching and do they read fic or write!!! fic (and thank you Tumblr for educating me about shows I will never watch because that makes these interactions so much more rewarding).

And it made me a little sad (mostly happy! but a teensy bit sad) because how many of us get to flap our nerd flags at each other in person on any sort of regular basis? NOT MANY OF US. And for those of us who do, it's mostly at cons, so even if it is regular, it's rare.

But anyway it was just Really Good and fed my soul and honestly it's taking a lot of effort to not email her again and be like "Hey I know I'm old enough to be your mother but do you wanna be friends???"

I love fandom and fangirls.

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