Strange Fannish Coincidence or, Perhaps, Kismet

[switchbladeeyes]

The other day, I mentioned one of my fandoms of yore, Oz. I was rounding up stories I wrote a long time ago so I could put them on AO3, but there was one that was long gone because it was in a print zine I no longer had. The zine came out in 2004 and I loaned it to someone in 2005 and never got it back (I’m not mad about it. I’m sure it was just accidental and one of those things that slipped through the cracks.) I never posted the story online and have no electronic version of it.

I certainly did not expect to ever track the story down because:

I couldn't remember what the zine was called.

I couldn't even remember what the story was called.

I also couldn't even remember what the story was about except that at least part of it was from the perspective of a specific lesser written character (there was an illustration of this character in the zine that I distinctly remembered though).

Where even would I find someone who could possibly still have this zine? (I mean, I'm just over here on Dreamwidth connected to like 7 people in a totally unrelated fandom.)

Not great odds for tracking down something that was printed almost 20 years ago.

Fate, it seems, intervened.

Poking around Dreamwidth for "oz" as an interest, I stumbled across a few active and relevant groups/accounts and an Oz Discord link. (If you're not familiar with Discord, it's a service that lets you chat with others in real time.)

So I hopped on Discord, found it was active, and posted what little I did remember about the zine and asked if anyone knew what I was talking about.

And yesssssssss... another fan pointed me to a link on Fanlore and that it was probably this zine (NSFW images). You're damn right it was that zine. The illustration that I remembered was right there on Fanlore. A-MAZING.

Annnnd this fan had a copy of the zine and scanned my story for me.

Annnnnnnnnd this fan had been trying to track me down very recently as part of a project to import old Oz stories to AO3. But I was unreachable because (1) I'm locked out of the old livejournal account I used to use and (2) the email address for me in one of the main Oz fic archives of yore no longer works (the email service provider had long ago closed shop).

How about that, huh??

Such a strange sequence of events. Mind blown. Coincidence? Kismet? I don't know, but I'm certainly glad for it.

Comments

[thefruitbat]

Congrats! :)

[switchbladeeyes]

Thanks! :-D

FK has been a fun and interesting trip down fandom memory lane. Greer hooked me up with some long lost fic from FK.

And now it's starting to repeat with Oz. Like, I'm totally pleasantly shocked by this recent turn of events.

Gives me hope that I'll track down my only other long lost zine fic from a Highlander zine.

Lesson to impart: Back up your stuff. And then back it up again lol.

[greerwatson]

For something that spans the world, fandom can sometimes be remarkably small and cozy.

[switchbladeeyes]

For sure! There’s also just this peculiar "right place/right time" aspect for me. It's kind of eerie lol.

Like if you and I hadn't happened to get into a conversation on AO3 in which you pointed me to Dreamwidth, I wouldn't have ended up here. And I wouldn't have seen your post shortly after that about reconstructing the old archive and wouldn't have learned that those fics I wrote still existed.

Then I have this most recent experience locating a fic I knew existed, but never expected to find. But then I find it via someone who was also looking for me, but who never would have found me but for me stumbling across the Discord link (and knowing how to use Discord).

Kismet!

[trillingstar]

The number of steps required on both our parts to forge this ~cosmic connection *is* mind-blowing! Sheer, thrilling good luck and -- yes, I think there is something in the timing. I'm also glad for it.

[switchbladeeyes]

It’s still just like “mind blown" emoji over here.