Con-txt report
Back from con.txt! I survived! Okay, I came home on Sunday, fell in to bed at about 6 PM, and slept though until Monday morning, but still, I survived!
...and now there are two years to wait until the next one. ):
I went to sixteen panels (and modded or co-modded six of them); still managed to go out to an excellent lunch with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
starlady and an excellent dinner with zana16, erinptah, and nakedbee; taught my self to fold dirty origami at the dance, then some stitch'n'bitchery downstairs with synecdochic, sarah, and some of the other usual suspects; then there was the vid show, the Dr. Who viewing party, and the late-night trivia quiz; cosplayed, dropped off and took some stuff at the swap table, sold something at the art auction; got a lead on Dr. Who slash 'zines from a dealer, stayed for Dead Duck, and even did a little bit of freeform socializing.
I think I used up all my extroversion points for about two months. There's a reason I've spent all my free time the past two days basically lying on my bedwatching UK Parliament.
Also, my laptop didn't *technically* completely die! I had to stop using the heavy-duty replacement power cord (which now emits sparks and smoke, and never quite fit the socket) and go back to using the original power cord (which atm transfers current only through creative placement of electrical tape and bulldog clips) but at least the cooling fan motor didn't actually burn out like I thought it had! I mean, unless I'm wrong about that and the whole thing's going to melt into my lap as soon as I post this - I'm not sure how I'd tell, given ambient temperature around here.
I commuted this year, carpooling witherinptah. Having now done both, it really is amazing how different the experience is - and I'm not sure why. It's not as if I spent any less time in the con areas, and I even had sailorptah sleeping over. I think it's, okay, partly the continual awareness that I have to be competent to drive at the end of the day, and get enough sleep to drive back in the morning. That it's less of a marked off, separate space from daily life. But it's mostly that I never quite feel like I belong at the hotel when I don't have a room - having the room as a quiet private place to retreat does make a huge difference, but there's also just the awareness that there are places in the hotel I'm locked out of, that I'm supposed to have somebody with a keycard chaperoning if I want to go to a room party or wherever, that when all the con rooms are closed there's really nowhere for me to go - that, I think, is most of the difference. And I think that a lot of the people who always buy rooms don't realize just how many of us commute.
Anyway. It's not less fun, just different! And I think part of the reason I stuck more to the structured con activities this year.
So. Got there halfway through the intro, just in time to join the chorus of joyous shouting over the prospect of, yes, a UK Politics Slash panel. And to then end up moderating it. :D Alas, several of the people who voted for the panel ended up not being able to come, but still, con-txt, HOW ARE YOU SO AWESOME? AND FULL OF UTTER CRAIC?
I skipped the first panel session to give me a chance to orient myself a bit, wander the consweet, etc. There were many, many amazing people there, and I would love to mention you here, but I quite promptly forgot all the names unless i actually wrote them down (yes, even those of you who are already on my online networks I probably promptly forgot.)
Then, on to panels! I am not going to do full panel writeups for the ones I modded here, because if i do, I will *never* finish this entry. Hopefully, later. But it all went well and there were so many thoughtful people! As usual! I felt like the panels I went to this year were generally more srs business and less full of squee than previously - but that may partly be that I didn't go to as many of the squee-focused panels (usually because they were opposite ones that I *had* to go to.)
The "How Soon Is Too Soon" hot topic panel went really well, and pretty productively, I think, especially since the moderators had almost no time to prepare for what was such a tricky topic, and some great discussion was had. It didn't really focus on the privilege issue as much as the tragedy issue, not quite what I was expecting (which was not the mods' fault, and not necessarily a bad thing - I think the question of using RL tragedy is worth talking about in general.) And these discussion operate *so* much differently in a panel setting, face-to-face, than online - doing so much of my interaction online sometimes makes me forget that there are other modes of discussion, but I do wish we could get more fan-people into rooms like that one doing the face-to-face discussion thing.
Out of the 4PM panel slot of pain and why must I pick just one, I went with the Holmes one. Seeing as I was doing Madelyn Mack cosplay (which was really awesome, by the way, even if I didn't figure out how the collar worked until halfway through the day, and ended up ripping part of the hem out of the bottom of the skirt. Hooray for cosplay day!) I metstarlady sitting at the back of the room (recognizable by her bag of ST novels). We ended up steering the conversation a lot towards published tie-in novels, which yay, as that is where most of my Holmes fannishness still seems to be trending. Why, yes, Bucketeers *did* come up! Also, I was going to compare this to the Holmes panel I went to at Farpoint in February, but really, there was *no* comparison. None. To start with, Con-txt appreciates the sheer perfection that is Stephen Fry as Mycroft. :P
starlady's Star Trek: Beyond The Shows panel was, of course, excellent. We stuck with a lot of the older novel canon, mostly TOS and the animated series of course - which is kind of predictable, as con-txt tends to skew to the people who like old school slash, but I was hoping to hear more about the better bits of other series' paracanon. Although there were people there who had never heard of the H/C glory that is Marshak and Culbreath! Well, they have now. :D And I think I kinda sorta want to actually read Peter David's ST 'verse now, despite my recent disillusionment with him. Also, I managed to talk about my OTP-4EVA of Bran Tse-Mallory/Truzenzuzex despite it not being actually ST, yay. We forgot almost until the end to give away the giveaway novels, but the people who were left fell upon them like starving hyenas, so I suspect that was a success. Plus, now I don't have to bring them home!
Being commuters who had nowhere else to go and no dinner plans,erinptah and I hung out at the DIY pizza parties until the dance. The fandom_secrets one was ... dude, I don't know. I think I had been mildly aware before then of how much its own Thing f!s has become, but this was A Look On The Inside. I am *almost* tempted to actually submit one now, only, no. The Star Wars one (like the informal SW panels I've ended up at other years - with mostly the same people!) was, as usual, a ton of fun.
I think that was a large part of the reason I was basically out of extroversion by the time of the dance, though. D: I think that is one thing where having a room to go up to would've *really* made a difference - people who'd gone up to their rooms to change were coming down to the dance just as I was about to give up on it. Remember for next year: be at least an hour late for Disco Duck, it helps if the room already has energy when you get there and you aren't expected to donate energy to start it. (part of it, however, might have been that I was still very aware that I still had panel prep to do for tomorrow.)
Anyway that's when I went off to find the stitch'n'bitch and ended up spending most of it smacking my laptop very hard while thinking dire threats at it. Did finish most of another dalekling though!
Anyway. That's Friday. I think I'll stop here - there's a werewolf book I pulled off the swap table that's calling to me. And precious sleep, of course.
...and now there are two years to wait until the next one. ):
I went to sixteen panels (and modded or co-modded six of them); still managed to go out to an excellent lunch with
starlady and an excellent dinner with zana16, erinptah, and nakedbee; taught my self to fold dirty origami at the dance, then some stitch'n'bitchery downstairs with synecdochic, sarah, and some of the other usual suspects; then there was the vid show, the Dr. Who viewing party, and the late-night trivia quiz; cosplayed, dropped off and took some stuff at the swap table, sold something at the art auction; got a lead on Dr. Who slash 'zines from a dealer, stayed for Dead Duck, and even did a little bit of freeform socializing.I think I used up all my extroversion points for about two months. There's a reason I've spent all my free time the past two days basically lying on my bed
Also, my laptop didn't *technically* completely die! I had to stop using the heavy-duty replacement power cord (which now emits sparks and smoke, and never quite fit the socket) and go back to using the original power cord (which atm transfers current only through creative placement of electrical tape and bulldog clips) but at least the cooling fan motor didn't actually burn out like I thought it had! I mean, unless I'm wrong about that and the whole thing's going to melt into my lap as soon as I post this - I'm not sure how I'd tell, given ambient temperature around here.
I commuted this year, carpooling with
erinptah. Having now done both, it really is amazing how different the experience is - and I'm not sure why. It's not as if I spent any less time in the con areas, and I even had sailorptah sleeping over. I think it's, okay, partly the continual awareness that I have to be competent to drive at the end of the day, and get enough sleep to drive back in the morning. That it's less of a marked off, separate space from daily life. But it's mostly that I never quite feel like I belong at the hotel when I don't have a room - having the room as a quiet private place to retreat does make a huge difference, but there's also just the awareness that there are places in the hotel I'm locked out of, that I'm supposed to have somebody with a keycard chaperoning if I want to go to a room party or wherever, that when all the con rooms are closed there's really nowhere for me to go - that, I think, is most of the difference. And I think that a lot of the people who always buy rooms don't realize just how many of us commute. Anyway. It's not less fun, just different! And I think part of the reason I stuck more to the structured con activities this year.
So. Got there halfway through the intro, just in time to join the chorus of joyous shouting over the prospect of, yes, a UK Politics Slash panel. And to then end up moderating it. :D Alas, several of the people who voted for the panel ended up not being able to come, but still, con-txt, HOW ARE YOU SO AWESOME? AND FULL OF UTTER CRAIC?
I skipped the first panel session to give me a chance to orient myself a bit, wander the consweet, etc. There were many, many amazing people there, and I would love to mention you here, but I quite promptly forgot all the names unless i actually wrote them down (yes, even those of you who are already on my online networks I probably promptly forgot.)
Then, on to panels! I am not going to do full panel writeups for the ones I modded here, because if i do, I will *never* finish this entry. Hopefully, later. But it all went well and there were so many thoughtful people! As usual! I felt like the panels I went to this year were generally more srs business and less full of squee than previously - but that may partly be that I didn't go to as many of the squee-focused panels (usually because they were opposite ones that I *had* to go to.)
The "How Soon Is Too Soon" hot topic panel went really well, and pretty productively, I think, especially since the moderators had almost no time to prepare for what was such a tricky topic, and some great discussion was had. It didn't really focus on the privilege issue as much as the tragedy issue, not quite what I was expecting (which was not the mods' fault, and not necessarily a bad thing - I think the question of using RL tragedy is worth talking about in general.) And these discussion operate *so* much differently in a panel setting, face-to-face, than online - doing so much of my interaction online sometimes makes me forget that there are other modes of discussion, but I do wish we could get more fan-people into rooms like that one doing the face-to-face discussion thing.
Out of the 4PM panel slot of pain and why must I pick just one, I went with the Holmes one. Seeing as I was doing Madelyn Mack cosplay (which was really awesome, by the way, even if I didn't figure out how the collar worked until halfway through the day, and ended up ripping part of the hem out of the bottom of the skirt. Hooray for cosplay day!) I met
starlady sitting at the back of the room (recognizable by her bag of ST novels). We ended up steering the conversation a lot towards published tie-in novels, which yay, as that is where most of my Holmes fannishness still seems to be trending. Why, yes, Bucketeers *did* come up! Also, I was going to compare this to the Holmes panel I went to at Farpoint in February, but really, there was *no* comparison. None. To start with, Con-txt appreciates the sheer perfection that is Stephen Fry as Mycroft. :Pstarlady's Star Trek: Beyond The Shows panel was, of course, excellent. We stuck with a lot of the older novel canon, mostly TOS and the animated series of course - which is kind of predictable, as con-txt tends to skew to the people who like old school slash, but I was hoping to hear more about the better bits of other series' paracanon. Although there were people there who had never heard of the H/C glory that is Marshak and Culbreath! Well, they have now. :D And I think I kinda sorta want to actually read Peter David's ST 'verse now, despite my recent disillusionment with him. Also, I managed to talk about my OTP-4EVA of Bran Tse-Mallory/Truzenzuzex despite it not being actually ST, yay. We forgot almost until the end to give away the giveaway novels, but the people who were left fell upon them like starving hyenas, so I suspect that was a success. Plus, now I don't have to bring them home!Being commuters who had nowhere else to go and no dinner plans,
erinptah and I hung out at the DIY pizza parties until the dance. The fandom_secrets one was ... dude, I don't know. I think I had been mildly aware before then of how much its own Thing f!s has become, but this was A Look On The Inside. I am *almost* tempted to actually submit one now, only, no. The Star Wars one (like the informal SW panels I've ended up at other years - with mostly the same people!) was, as usual, a ton of fun.I think that was a large part of the reason I was basically out of extroversion by the time of the dance, though. D: I think that is one thing where having a room to go up to would've *really* made a difference - people who'd gone up to their rooms to change were coming down to the dance just as I was about to give up on it. Remember for next year: be at least an hour late for Disco Duck, it helps if the room already has energy when you get there and you aren't expected to donate energy to start it. (part of it, however, might have been that I was still very aware that I still had panel prep to do for tomorrow.)
Anyway that's when I went off to find the stitch'n'bitch and ended up spending most of it smacking my laptop very hard while thinking dire threats at it. Did finish most of another dalekling though!
Anyway. That's Friday. I think I'll stop here - there's a werewolf book I pulled off the swap table that's calling to me. And precious sleep, of course.