It's true! I've made friends with Germans even through the anonymity of a fest. Similar sensibilities, maybe. And yeah, I still tend to use English when I talk to them in comments – there are so many fandom-specific words that don't translate well. (I'm aware that not using the language doesn't exactly help with that.)

(Incidentally, a similar thing happens outside of fandom as well – I've been studying in the UK for three years and I get along with English people just fine, but all but one of my close friends are Finnish, Swiss, Czech, and so on. It's partly shared continental ideas and partly just being different from the majority together.)

And EKP: That's very neat! (Would be even better if I was into soaps more. :3) Oddly enough, I've never really thought about this, but I'm pretty sure I'd write in German if the canon I was working with was German.