Eastercon
I've got a problem really. How do you describe an incredibly hectic busy and fun four days in one convenient entry? With difficulty. I think I'll just have to mention highlights :)
Dr Who panels with Paul Cornell: And other lovely folks, including calapine and seleney, but Paul was the real star. One was more serious, talking about the Doctor as saviour or trickster god, and the other was more silly. It was *supposed* to be about Martha Jones: the most heroic companion of them all. What it ended up being was a discussion of various companions, and what made them great. This included fashion sense, the ability to scream, did heroism exactly equate with numbers of clothes lost?, and, most importantly, who had the best arse. (This was a close-run thing between Martha, and Zoe in the silver cat-suit, by the way)
I never expected to be discussing the possibility of whether the Doctor buds, not breeds, seriously, with a writer from the show! At one point I asked Paul if he could arrange to have David Tennant tortured prettily, please, and he *texted* RTD!!! (If that now happens, I will be ashamed, but gleeful :)
After the first panel I was lucky enough to be able to have a lovely discussion with Paul with much ranting and wavings of hands, and glee (there was a fair bit of ranting at this con actually :) It was fantastic, he is a lovely man, and enormously patient, and surprisingly smutty - it was all wonderful. I truly hope I can persuade him to join us as a GOH at Redemption next year - I aim to try.
Interviewed for the radio: By a chap called Alex Fitch (Paul arranged it, he's a mate, I think), it will apparently be on a London radio station and will most likely be broadcast during Sci-Fi London, the film festival. It's the first time I've been interviewed for the radio in a fannish capacity - I talked too fast, and rambled, and potentially said embarrassing things. I can't remember, it was all a bit of a blur. I hope it was ok. Mostly I was asked about being a panelist, and how I came to be one, and could anyone do it, to which mostly I said, absolutely! Only with a lot more words.
He said he would get in contact with me to do another interview about being a slash fan, for which I will probably use an alias. It would be just my luck that someone from work would hear it, otherwise!
Kaffeeklatsche with China Meiville: It was a highlight, because it wasn't something I could do in normal circumstances, but I can't gush about it in the same way as I can about meeting Paul. He was... a bit stand-offish? A bit too fond of his own views? I disagreed with one or two of the points he made in his GOH speech, and he appeared to dismiss me after that - what am I? Suddenly the rabid right wing, not worth bothering with, because I disagreed? He didn't even try and argue back, that's what shocked me - I thought it would start a good discussion, spark debate, and he didn't seem to want to know. Perhaps I wasn't coherant enough, I know I ramble. *shrug*
I suppose I was particularly shocked, because if it wasn't my views that made him not want to argue with me, then the other vague feeling I got from it, was that it was because I was a woman. I'm really hesitant about that, because it seems so out of his supposed character, but I'm mystified otherwise.
Seriously, he started ignoring me as the kaffeeklatsche went on, and I decided to be charitable and assume that it was because he wanted to let the other people speak, which is entirely fair enough. So I got quieter and quieter, but no-one else filled in the gaps, and the only person China tried to bring out a bit was the (incoherent) chap on my right, who was a raving fanboy and gushed about how great everything China said was - and then China began repeating the fanboy's views back to him, as though they were clever points the chap had made, instead of being China's own views from the day before!
As you can tell, I was not very impressed.
Perhaps that's why most of his characters aren't very sympathetic. Anyway.
Balloon Debate: This was another of my panel items, and involved the old game of justifying your existence - explain why you should live and others die. It's the first one of these I've done, and I was probably more nervous for this than my discussion panels - weird. Possibly it was because I was portraying Rodney McKay - I wanted to do the dear man justice. I got quite competitive through it all, actually - and it counts as a highlight because I won! Yay, go Rodney! In fact, a couple of people told me afterwards that they had never even heard of Rodney before, but my arguements had them quite convinced! Basically (there's a theme here, can you tell :) I talked at people. A lot. It was lovely - such a high - that my ranting in this case was not only justified, and in character - but also saved my/our lives! Woo!
My favourite two moments - first, leaning over to 'Marvin the Paranoid Android' and offering to tighten up the diodes down its left side, and secondly, the final rant, a last diatribe to convince the doubters, in which I was going on - and on and on. Was stopped in a moment of comedy genius when 'Mr Spock' came over to my chair, and neck-pinched Rodney into unconsciousness. Fantastic.
Meeting Bryan Talbot: A lovely man, who created Luthor Arkwright, and drew many other seminal charcters. Had a lovely chat with him in the bar on Sunday night, and he forgave me my absolute ignorance of comics, and we instead talked gossip and steam trains and old conventions, and the last time we had both been in this particular hotel (which turned out to be the Babylon 5 Wrap Party), and he extremely kindly gave me a new book of his artwork, all signed to me and everything.
So that was my Eastercon. Of course, there was tons more - Mitch Benn on Sunday night was fabulous, so funny, and I had other panels, and there was catching up with old friends, and meeting new ones. Wobblevision on Saturday night - nearly the last one, at least for B7. Helping out on reg desk, killing my fingers in take-down. There was so much. It was fabulous, but I've said that.
Next Eastercon I'm going to, I suspect that I'll be helping to run it, which means probably missing more. So I'm going to enjoy these memories. gaspodex accused me of being a SMOF today - I don't think he's right, but I liked the illusion. Maybe one day :)
Dr Who panels with Paul Cornell: And other lovely folks, including calapine and seleney, but Paul was the real star. One was more serious, talking about the Doctor as saviour or trickster god, and the other was more silly. It was *supposed* to be about Martha Jones: the most heroic companion of them all. What it ended up being was a discussion of various companions, and what made them great. This included fashion sense, the ability to scream, did heroism exactly equate with numbers of clothes lost?, and, most importantly, who had the best arse. (This was a close-run thing between Martha, and Zoe in the silver cat-suit, by the way)
I never expected to be discussing the possibility of whether the Doctor buds, not breeds, seriously, with a writer from the show! At one point I asked Paul if he could arrange to have David Tennant tortured prettily, please, and he *texted* RTD!!! (If that now happens, I will be ashamed, but gleeful :)
After the first panel I was lucky enough to be able to have a lovely discussion with Paul with much ranting and wavings of hands, and glee (there was a fair bit of ranting at this con actually :) It was fantastic, he is a lovely man, and enormously patient, and surprisingly smutty - it was all wonderful. I truly hope I can persuade him to join us as a GOH at Redemption next year - I aim to try.
Interviewed for the radio: By a chap called Alex Fitch (Paul arranged it, he's a mate, I think), it will apparently be on a London radio station and will most likely be broadcast during Sci-Fi London, the film festival. It's the first time I've been interviewed for the radio in a fannish capacity - I talked too fast, and rambled, and potentially said embarrassing things. I can't remember, it was all a bit of a blur. I hope it was ok. Mostly I was asked about being a panelist, and how I came to be one, and could anyone do it, to which mostly I said, absolutely! Only with a lot more words.
He said he would get in contact with me to do another interview about being a slash fan, for which I will probably use an alias. It would be just my luck that someone from work would hear it, otherwise!
Kaffeeklatsche with China Meiville: It was a highlight, because it wasn't something I could do in normal circumstances, but I can't gush about it in the same way as I can about meeting Paul. He was... a bit stand-offish? A bit too fond of his own views? I disagreed with one or two of the points he made in his GOH speech, and he appeared to dismiss me after that - what am I? Suddenly the rabid right wing, not worth bothering with, because I disagreed? He didn't even try and argue back, that's what shocked me - I thought it would start a good discussion, spark debate, and he didn't seem to want to know. Perhaps I wasn't coherant enough, I know I ramble. *shrug*
I suppose I was particularly shocked, because if it wasn't my views that made him not want to argue with me, then the other vague feeling I got from it, was that it was because I was a woman. I'm really hesitant about that, because it seems so out of his supposed character, but I'm mystified otherwise.
Seriously, he started ignoring me as the kaffeeklatsche went on, and I decided to be charitable and assume that it was because he wanted to let the other people speak, which is entirely fair enough. So I got quieter and quieter, but no-one else filled in the gaps, and the only person China tried to bring out a bit was the (incoherent) chap on my right, who was a raving fanboy and gushed about how great everything China said was - and then China began repeating the fanboy's views back to him, as though they were clever points the chap had made, instead of being China's own views from the day before!
As you can tell, I was not very impressed.
Perhaps that's why most of his characters aren't very sympathetic. Anyway.
Balloon Debate: This was another of my panel items, and involved the old game of justifying your existence - explain why you should live and others die. It's the first one of these I've done, and I was probably more nervous for this than my discussion panels - weird. Possibly it was because I was portraying Rodney McKay - I wanted to do the dear man justice. I got quite competitive through it all, actually - and it counts as a highlight because I won! Yay, go Rodney! In fact, a couple of people told me afterwards that they had never even heard of Rodney before, but my arguements had them quite convinced! Basically (there's a theme here, can you tell :) I talked at people. A lot. It was lovely - such a high - that my ranting in this case was not only justified, and in character - but also saved my/our lives! Woo!
My favourite two moments - first, leaning over to 'Marvin the Paranoid Android' and offering to tighten up the diodes down its left side, and secondly, the final rant, a last diatribe to convince the doubters, in which I was going on - and on and on. Was stopped in a moment of comedy genius when 'Mr Spock' came over to my chair, and neck-pinched Rodney into unconsciousness. Fantastic.
Meeting Bryan Talbot: A lovely man, who created Luthor Arkwright, and drew many other seminal charcters. Had a lovely chat with him in the bar on Sunday night, and he forgave me my absolute ignorance of comics, and we instead talked gossip and steam trains and old conventions, and the last time we had both been in this particular hotel (which turned out to be the Babylon 5 Wrap Party), and he extremely kindly gave me a new book of his artwork, all signed to me and everything.
So that was my Eastercon. Of course, there was tons more - Mitch Benn on Sunday night was fabulous, so funny, and I had other panels, and there was catching up with old friends, and meeting new ones. Wobblevision on Saturday night - nearly the last one, at least for B7. Helping out on reg desk, killing my fingers in take-down. There was so much. It was fabulous, but I've said that.
Next Eastercon I'm going to, I suspect that I'll be helping to run it, which means probably missing more. So I'm going to enjoy these memories. gaspodex accused me of being a SMOF today - I don't think he's right, but I liked the illusion. Maybe one day :)