Kia - just stuff I remember

[tadorna]

Ok, so I 'met' Kia at the end of 2002, when I was very new to Livejournal, and constantly spamming in the vague hope the someone would read some of this stuff. She was kind enough to give me feedback for this bizarre sort of fic I wrote about Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and she introduced me to trianne.

I've never been much of a one for IM, but I probably chatted to Kia on it as much as anyone. We both had this terrible habit, at the time, of staying up until about 4am, talking rubbish and saying "I'm going to bed now!" I'm quite tempted to post the entire transcript of the chat we had in which we decided to be boring pirates going, "Lots of water round here, ain't there?" "Arr. Powerful lot of water." Er, but I won't, because those sorts of things are only vastly entertaining to the people involved, which is kind of the point of them.

I actually met Kia, along with trianne and neverwhere, at Collectormania 3 at Milton Keynes. I'd never met fandom people before, and was obviously convinced they thought I was boring, cos I am a bit. I thought Kia was so sweet and nice. Afterwards, I realised she'd been virtually convulsed with shyness. She got to meet Billy Boyd, and phone me up tell me and they all screamed at me down my mobile, which I thought was really funny. But for some reason she was incredibly embarrassed about the fact that she'd done it, and kept on beating herself up about it until I told her to shut up.

She was frustrating because she thought she was stupid, and stubbornly refused to listen to people when they patiently pointed out that she had a degree in Astrophysics or whatever it was. She also thought she was talentless, was ridiculously easily hurt by things people said, and (again) stubbornly refused to listen when people patiently pointed out the many, many, many people who loved the stuff she wrote. Just the other day, someone recced one of her fics on crack_van. I don't know if she got to see that - probably not.

There's probably a lot more to say, but I seem to have run out of steam. I was very fond of her, and her death seems terribly unfair.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I think you should post that transcript. Kia loved to laugh and to make people laugh, and if it is a fond memory of her that you can share, I'm sure that others will appreciate it.

And you're right. This is so very unfair.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Ok, maybe I will.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much, MW. x

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I'm still dealing with this. I veer between feeling very disturbed, just plain sad and indifferent. The LJ life is a very strange thing, or perhaps it is death that is strange? I never met Kia and I'm sure that makes a difference. Although relationships online can be very intense, even without meeting up. And then what to do? In the real world, you'd send flowers to the family and go to the funeral but there is no format on LJ. Maybe there will be some day. I keep thinking of that first fic I beta'ed for Kia, and then about one or two later ones I read. It's hard to think she was so dismissive about her own abilities. How old was she?

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

I know, I know, to all of the above. It is all very, very strange and disturbing. Even apart from the fact that someone I kept in touch with, talked to and, quite often, worried about in a vague sort of way, has just... gone. My thoughts have been going in all sorts of odd directions - lotrips... well, somehow this seems to underline its 'overness' for me. It was a fun and escapist thing, and this is not fun or escapist, it's horrible and serious and painful. Obviousl it doesn't work like that for everyone, but right now, it does for me. That and the general impermanence of things... What with one thing and another, I feel very protective of my friends just at the moment. Let's meet up soon and then I can ramble along like this for hours in person! Haha, lucky you. :)

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Oh, and Kia was about a year or two older than me, I believe. Although until recently I thought she was much younger. She seemed a lot younger sometimes, and of course she was studying when I first came in to contact with her, but I gather she had to wait quite a long time before she was able to go to university. I think much of her life was pretty tough.