girlofprey: (Craig Wade Dies young)
[personal profile] girlofprey
I've been a bit off the radar for the past couple of days. Sorry about that. I'm sort of slowly alternating between getting stuff done and looking on this happily as a new adventure, and getting upset and seeing it as a pointless exercise of jumping through hoops that are too far off the ground anyway. I like to think 'happy new adventure' is winning.

I can't believe I'm having this little life crisis the same week as Connotations. Though I suppose this is my first summer ever without school/education to go back to at the end of it. And maybe I should look on it as a little reprieve, before that whole 'sorting out the rest of my life' thing. Or - the 'totally not doing that' thing. However it turns out.

I just realised I never did a proper Con report for last year's Connotations, I don't think. Let's see... Got on the train at some ungodly hour on the Friday morning. Spent three hours on the train. With three changes. Towards the end, Jekesta rang me up. And - had a voice. It was crazy. I completely failed at communicating information in any way with her and had to text her afterwards to say when I'd get there. Out of the station I was blinded by the sunlight and the beauty of Newcastle. Forwent sightseeing in favour of getting a taxi to attempt being there in time for the buffet. It went quite well except for the fact that the taxi driver wanted me to tell him how to get to the hotel. Not so much, taxi driver. I flapped a website printout at him and he worked it out eventually, and off we went. He regaled me with tales of crazy tourists who hire him for a day and hundreds of pounds so they can run around taking pictures of piles of bricks that are apparently part of some wall. He told me about his daughter who'd just gotten out of uni and didn't know what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. All in all it was very pleasant, even if it did cost £18.50 when I was expecting £11, but hah, my parents had offered to pay my taxi fares. And then I went in.

To be honest, I'd for some reason been expecting one of those shiny glass-and-marble, Las Vegas style hotels you see on TV. It had more carpet than I was expecting. But it was fine, and then I went into the con room to drop off my bag, and met the people. And no, they weren't how I was expecting them to be, but I was expecting a Las Vegas-style hotel, so what're you going to do? They were lovely and I totally stole a space on the couch from one of them, I can't remember which. And lunch involved cake and sausage rolls. And it was shiny.

The panels started pretty much after lunch, but to be honest I can't remember them. I know there were a lot of fandoms mentioned that I knew nothing at all about, and had to be all 'Oh yes, [X] and [Y]!'. My panel on British Comedy: Why Is It So Gay? (co-modded by Nerdcakes) was on the Saturday. People tell me I was good, but I mostly remember Nerdcakes doing most of the talking and me sitting in my chair and being grateful. And mostly using the wrong words, though in fairness I warned everyone they were wrong before using them. There weren't many people there except for the glovelove gang though. Which was win. I remember that Sunday morning's panel was very quiet, and Katemonkey wanted hot gay lesbian sex. More of it. In fic. That's pretty much it.

Friday night was the Higniffy party, which had wine and lemonade. And people. And possibly the 'Wonderboy' Captain Jack Harkness video. Calapine promised to write me Tim/Duane Spaced slash for some reason, I remember that. I pimped Sea of Souls to my utmost, which mainly involved looking very sad, and totally got a person to agree to watch it. That person was Jekesta, haha. There might have been some running around the corridors for no particular reason. I only dimly remember it.

For the record, my room didn't have that much wrong with it, but the mattress was completely knackered and there was a yellow light just outside the window that blazed all night long. Which made for interesting sleeping. The next morning a few of us attempted to brave the outside world to get money, but were turned back by the cold. We went down to the beach instead, and wrote slashy messages in the sand. I was the only one who remembered a camera. The pictures did not come out so great, sadly. But we'll always have the memories.

That evening was the Moderately Tidy Dinner. I did the great honour of having a shower and putting on a new top. Some people wore dresses. And I think there was a tuxedo? There was definite Moderate Tidiness around. I remember there was cake, but only for some of us, and Jekesta possibly tried to use cancer as a bargaining chip for a piece? Or to end an argument? Or something. Also, she totally quoted Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at me. For true, yo.

The next day there were more of those panels I can't remember, then fandom pimping. Some people had flowcharts. It was all very impressive. Nerdcakes did Higniffy, and showed the Frolicking clip. People generally expressed amazement there was a Higniffy fandom. What's that about? And there were gay Victorian soldiers, ejaculating all over the place. Probably you had to be there. Then there was the raffle. Calapine won everything. Everything. And then we...did something? I can't remember. We were totally there all night. The details escape me. I think there was synchronised sitting, and general slashy talk. And there might have been disco dancing in the conference room. QI (complete with screaming) was Friday night. Slash Pictionary was Saturday. Nope, it's gone. I can only assume it was fun. Then the next day was Monday and we had to pack and leave. For some reason. On the way back the taxi driver told me how he'd read a book by Germaine Greer once, and it was clear she'd 'been scarred by men'. I told him the amusing anecdote my Theory tutor told me about Andrea Dworkin (crazy Andrea Dworkin), and we were all squits, and then I had to get the train back to Nottingham and pretend that lectures and seminars IN ANY WAY COMPARED with what had just occured. And I enjoyed it. It was great.

Favourite random gift: Someone made me Season 1 and 2 of Malcolm in the Middle on DVD, and I completely forgot to buy them a cider in return. Like a prat. Also there was vaguely Doc Ock/Peter movieverse porn in the free con pack. Score!

Favourite quote: "...and you never write sex. Those boys are crying out for a bit of buggery, but no, another blow job." I don't think anything will ever beat it.

That was fun. And only vaguely shameful. I'm totally going to try to get more involved this year. And wear a different top for the Moderately Tidy Dinner.

DVDs have been helping lately. Have you started watching American Gothic yet, Jekesta? YOU TOTALLY SHOULD. Oh. I'd forgotten how much I love Dr Matt. With his accent. And his hair. And all the crazy, constant subtext he has with Lucas Buck (Buck with a B). Lucas so wants into his pants. It's not even funny. Except when it is. And there are hilarious outtakes on the Green Wing Series 2 DVD, including a scene from the Coma episode which is so much like what Guy would do, and so like what he actually did during the episode, that I pretend it is just excised canon, and OH IT MAKES ME HAPPY! Even if I am falling slightly more in love with the therapist with every watch. He's great, is Jake. He could sort out Guy's problems in NO TIME FLAT. Or just turn him into a traumatised, shuddering ball. And then have sex with him. Yay.

This post wasn't meant to be totally taken over by a Connotations con report in the middle. But there you go.
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