Greetings!

[Raevyn Tsornin]

Welcome to TarValon

 

[Demonfaer al'Dreamteare]

Welcome Viktara! I look forward to seeing more of you around! 3

 

[Rhianna Solstice]

Welcome Viktara to the site, I look forward to seeing you around!

 

[Atane Valthon]

Welcome to Tar Valon, Viktara!!

 

[Nandi el'Shahir]

Welcome!

 

[Faeril Munlear]

Welcome, Viktara! Another Texan here, also from Central Texas....and also with a cat! I should also say and a munchkin too. Never meant to leave him out. <3 I was following Elia.

 

[Viktara Fen]

Many thanks to everyone for the warm welcomes!

 

[Ilissa al'Nari]

Welcome Viktara! I really enjoyed reading your introduction! Like you I am in my 40s, and like you I discovered WoT when I was in my teens. But I never even thought about looking for WoT online in those really early years --I found this community rather by accident in 2004, because I was doing a re-read and wanted to check something about Alviarin. That led me to the TV.Net library, which again led me to the forums and chatroom, which was incredibly busy back then.

I can also relate to the reading a book in a day bit -- the first book I picked up as prep for a 5-hour train ride in 1996, and I am pretty sure I finished that book in a day. Much of it on the train (because really, however scenic the north of Norway is, much of the train ride is pretty dour, especially when you have done it as many times as I had at that point). I do remember that my English teacher was part annoyed and part impressed when I told him I wanted to use the four(!) first books in our read-a-book project a few weeks later. Annoyed because the man /hated/ fantasy with a passion -- one of those "Fantasy is not real literature, and no smart kid should ever read fantasy because it ruins their brains" people.

Part of my family lives in Texas -- I have never met them, but my mom went to Texas when I was a kid and stayed with our family for a couple of days. Apparantly they're (or at least 'were') really conservative, though, so it wasn't exactly a good match :P. Like a lot of Norwegians my mom's age she flirted with communism as a young adult, had me out of wedlock and had a couple of friends who were gay --the Texans didn't like any of those much and were not afraid to make their opinions known.

 

[Viktara Fen]

Hi, Ilissa Sedai,

I imagine the chatroom was quite busy so many years ago! I remember being active on quite a few different forums and in various chat rooms around the Web back then. With social media's growth over the years it seems as though it has gotten steadily less and less so.

You have my sympathies regarding teachers who don't like fantasy literature! I had a few of those in junior high and high school, as well as a few college professors. Thankfully not all of them were like that, though. My 7th grade English teacher actually assigned The Hobbit as a novel study, and that got many of us in my class interested in reading more fantasy books.

How interesting that you mention Texas! I have heard that there is a fairly significant Norwegian community here in Central Texas, and that most members are the descendants of people who immigrated from Norway years ago, but I do not know much about it beyond that. As for the conservative attitudes, that sounds like some folks around here, and I tend not to be a good match for them, either.

 

[Nymala Ingasy]

Welcome!

 

[Alyria Ess]

Oh my gosh I love it when I read someone's intro thread and I can tell right away you're one of us

Welcome

 

[Ilissa al'Nari]

I've studied literature in college, and one of the Norwegian lit. teachers assigned us the first Harry Potter book. In Norwegian, obviously, and in the Norwegian translation most of the names of the characters are changed and I found it incredibly annoying. There wasn't a lot of Norwegian fantasy on the market at that time, but it still annoyed me that they had to choose a book that so many of us were already familiar with in English - this was in spring 2002, and the vast majority of my co-students had watched the first HP in theathers. . We were supposed to write a paper about the book and had very free reins in what we wanted to write about, so I chose writing about the translation process and the pros and cons of changing names.

 

[Elania al'Manir]

I imagine the chatroom was quite busy so many years ago! I remember being active on quite a few different forums and in various chat rooms around the Web back then. With social media's growth over the years it seems as though it has gotten steadily less and less so.

It was so busy as to be intimidating to 14 year old me. I remember popping into IRC a couple of times, but ultimately stuck to the forums after that.

I think social media has also changed the main chat platforms we use without removing the concept of chatting altogether. I have a group of 20 people who chat in WhatsApp. I'm in a multitude of Discord servers. I think chat just evolved from the old style of mostly text, non-persistent messaging to a more modern style with pictures, gifs, and being able to read the history.

 

[Viktara Fen]

I think social media has also changed the main chat platforms we use without removing the concept of chatting altogether. I have a group of 20 people who chat in WhatsApp. I'm in a multitude of Discord servers. I think chat just evolved from the old style of mostly text, non-persistent messaging to a more modern style with pictures, gifs, and being able to read the history.

That strikes me as accurate to my experience, Elania Sedai. I have found that most social media platforms are not a good fit for me--I tend to prefer older, slower, and more asynchronous forms of online communication these days, and I prefer to avoid the nonstop stream of public and semi-public status updates, ads, and algorithm curated content--but I do use some standalone messaging platforms, and I appreciate the ability to have a persistent, searchable chat history without having to save chat logs manually.

 

[Siusane al'Cuyler]

Thank you! And may I just say, Siusane Sedai, that although I have no idea what's going on in your avatar, I think it's glorious?

and thank YOU. I see you were peached by someone else as well, but in any case, it's a glorious vibrating peach. even if it is static as an avatar.
speaking of peaches and Texas...I loooove central Texas peaches. I drove through Fredericksburg in December and saw all the not-open peach stands and was a little sad that it was December when I was there.

I only peeked into our IRC every now and then, but turns out I really enjoy Discord. I don't do too much social media in general though I suppose...no facebook, no twitter, no tiktok... but I like discord because it's more like an expanded group text for me. and I don't have to "follow" anything or be bombarded.

Brynden mentioned events and I want to plan something, I've just been moving slow... I did go to renfest in October to meet up with family and we had a good day. and it's Friday so have a great weekend!

 

[Viktara Fen]

and thank YOU. I see you were peached by someone else as well, but in any case, it's a glorious vibrating peach. even if it is static as an avatar.
speaking of peaches and Texas...I loooove central Texas peaches. I drove through Fredericksburg in December and saw all the not-open peach stands and was a little sad that it was December when I was there.

I only peeked into our IRC every now and then, but turns out I really enjoy Discord. I don't do too much social media in general though I suppose...no facebook, no twitter, no tiktok... but I like discord because it's more like an expanded group text for me. and I don't have to "follow" anything or be bombarded.

Brynden mentioned events and I want to plan something, I've just been moving slow... I did go to renfest in October to meet up with family and we had a good day. and it's Friday so have a great weekend!

Central Texas peaches are the best!

As for social media and such, not getting bombarded is super important for me. I've tried a lot of services over the years, but these days I've settled into my old fall-backs of a messaging/chat platform, e-mail, and a journaling site, with forums like this one where relevant. Keeps things nice and compartmentalized and helps me not live on my laptop and phone.

Regarding faire, if anyone ends up going to Scarborough this spring, I plan to go several weekends if I can. It would be a blast to say hello if folks happen to be present and are so inclined.

I hope you have a great weekend, too, Siusane Sedai!