(no subject)
First - can I just say, this 10-influential-books meme that's going around - I find it thoroughly intimidating. I mean, my 10-most-influential list, were I to dare even to try to comprise one, much less to list it here, for public consumption, would be comprised primarily of fantasy, books that aren't even on the same intellectual radar screen as those most of you are listing - things like, Edward Eager's Half Magic or Patricia McKillip's Riddlemaster series. Books that have stayed with me forever, that are fixtures of my internal landscape - worlds that I've lived in, for all practical purposes, since I've re-read the books so many times. There would be not a Faulkner or Eyre or Bronte or poem to be seen - although, hmmm, A Separate Peace might be on there - my slashy proclivities date way way back. About as un-intellectual as you could imagine. I'm just awed by you guys.
Mainly, though, I wanted to talk a bit more about some thoughts stemming from Connexions. My Connexions posts have addressed primarily the social and community aspects of the con. But I also have some thoughts about the substance of the con - the programming and the panels and the fandom-specific things. Like I said earlier, Connexions isn't all that much of a panel con for me. But I was on one panel, the topic of which was integrating "new-school" fans - fans like me, who came to fandom in the internet world, who started in web-based fandoms - and "old-school" fandoms; e.g., Pros and SH. I also attended a few others, including the dS and Pros panel.
I've mentioned in a few posts recently my worry and mild embarassment about revealing the fact that I care so much, that I'm so obsessed and passionate about fandom and my pairings. For me this stems partly from a lifelong issue: my occasionally almost pathological anxiety about stepping on toes, offending people, seeming presumptuous, overwhelming people, being a burden. So throughout my life I've tended to tiptoe into new things, hesitant of my welcome, not wanting to put people off. But this hesitancy is really pretty unnatural and artificial; underneath it, and pretty close to the surface, is what seems to be my natural and seemingly uncontainable intensity. This is the "real" me, I think, rather than the hesitancy; in the end, despite all my resolve to be restrained and deferential, I seem to be unable to contain my enthusiasm and intensity in any real way. I just can't stop myself - my first step or two may be a tiptoe, but then all bets are off - bull in a china shop, that's me.
This has always been a source of great distress for me - I'd go into social situations thinking, this time I'm going to be demure and couth, and somehow I'd get carried away and then afterwards would beat myself up relentlessly for - for what? for talking too much, feeling too much, caring too much, being too much - too intense, too impassioned, too overbearing. I still remember a dinner in college - I was a sophomore, my boyfriend was a freshman, and we were sitting with his friends at the dining hall table. They were all freshman guys, mostly obnoxious cocky kids from prep school backgrounds; I was the only woman at the table. We got into some kind of discussion - I can't recall now, but I have a vague recollection that it was about the use of the terms "oriental" and "Asian" (this was the mid-80s). The discussion was heated, but not, I thought, unfriendly or mean. But afterwards, my boyfriend took me (gently - he was a mild-mannered easygoing guy, for the most part) to task, telling me that I needed to be careful because I was just too ... strong, too intense, too forceful, for those guys; I overwhelmed them and put them off. I remember feeling utterly mortified and humiliated and totally worthless, like I was the most pushy, unfeminine person ever, like I was too much even for a bunch of cocky asshole guys who had no shortage of self-confidence - whereas paradoxically, I myself was often contorted inside with insecurity. I've never forgotten that.
So I've never succeeded, really, in containing my intensity or enthusiasm, and this is as true in fandom as it is in other areas of my life, if not more so. (One of the fascinating things to me is that in this slashy world - a world almost entirely comprised of women - my intensity seems to be less off-putting and less unusual than it has been in the more predominantly male-dominated academic, professional, and social worlds that I've moved in throughout much of my life.) I mean, I try very hard to be respectful and open-minded, and I have absolutely no problem freely handing out praise - I'm a pretty insufferably relentless cheerleader, I think - but I can't seem to stop myself from talking endlessly and intensely and enthusiastically about the pairings and fandoms that obsess me. And maybe part of the reason I worry that my enthusiasm is offputting is because I sometimes feel so relentlessly positive, like this is such a wonderful world and aren't we all shiny and happy - someone referred to it as the "eternal sunshine of the spotless fan." I mean, I know there's bad stuff around, tension and nastiness in the fannish world, cliques and backbiting, etc. etc. - I'm not blind to it, I'm not pretending it doesn't exist. But it just doesn't seem to cast any pall on the sunshiney glow I feel for all things fandom, on my enthusiasm and happiness to be here. I worry that that can be a bit grating.
Anyway, due South was the first fandom that I really participated in. I felt very unsure of myself and my place, but, predictably, I couldn't really stop myself from commenting in LJs and expressing my thoughts, and I couldn't restrain the squeeing fangirl in me - I wrote to authors and praised them and their fic and gushed pretty much endlessly, and possibly annoyingly. The thing is, though, that however offputting I might have felt myself to be, in dS I was welcomed with unconditionally open arms, by just about everyone, new and old fans alike. I found dS to be an incredibly warm and inviting and welcoming community - it seemed like there was plenty of room for me; I encountered little or no sense of there being an exclusive inner circle of fans who wanted to maintain their place and keep others out; people freely invited me in to be part of everything. I kept looking around, wondering when it would end, wondering when I'd step on someone's toes, wondering when people would start feeling threatened, wondering when I'd turn them off, drive them away - and it never happened. It's still never happened (I think!).
And as a result of my love for the pairing and the fandom, I've become a bit of a relentless pimp for dS. This hasn't so much been a concerted or intentional recruitment effort on my part as it is a natural outgrowth of my inability to contain my enthusiasm - I talk about it constantly, and I think my feelings show pretty clearly in my LJ posts, my crack_van recs, my comments to authors, even my website. I have absolutely no problem taking on the role of cheerleader and minion; I'm happy to talk endlessly about fic and episodes and chat and anything else having to do with this fandom. And the cool thing is, over the time I've been in dS - close to a year and a half - I've been lucky enough to see the fandom grow and thrive. It's not like it was dead or even dying when I discovered it - but it was languishing a bit; a number of authors had recently finished their dS stints and been lured elsewhere - particularly to the Sparkly; there weren't many new stories; the mailing lists were slow; LJ was only just beginning to take off. And now - well, most of you who are reading this know where dS is now, how it's thriving.
This was evident from the dS panel at Connexions - the room was filled to bursting. There were plenty of "long-term" fans and authors, some of whom haven't been that active in the fandom recently, some of whom have - people like arrallara, miriam_heddy, rowanfairchild, carlacoupe, bethbethbeth, ardent_muses, the_star_fish, katallison, cmshaw, trixiesfic, and even some who had left the fandom at the time of the Ray Wars and are now returning, like tiranog, who was one of the panelists. There were also lots of "medium-term" fans like myself, people who have been riding this new wave for a little while but who didn't live through the Ray wars. And then there were people who seemed to be total newbies but who apparently are drawn to the wonderful slashiness of the show and the energy and friendliness of the fandom. I'd venture to say that the room was heavily weighted toward Ray K fans, but there were definitely a number of people who "swing both Rays" - as well as a number of noted Ray/Ray fans! - and the atmosphere was mostly one of respect and tolerance - the one person who dared to suggest that F/K was the only true pairing (a sentiment that various F/K fans may share, but these days generally are polite enough not to voice out of respect for others' opinions) was pretty thoroughly ignored. The panelists - Tiranog and stormheller - did a nice job of guiding the discussion, keeping it orderly and enthusiastic, and encouraging wide participation.
The main topic of the panel was, why this resurgence in popularity, why is dS flourishing as it is. I've got to admit, I found the insights on this point to be pretty underwhelming. There was a lot of talk about how wonderful the source material is, the quality of the show and its slashy content - but the show was just as wonderful and just as slashy a year ago, and the fandom was languishing then. People mentioned the DVDs, but I'm skeptical - these may be responsible for a resurgence of interest in Ray V, but they don't explain the flow of newcomers into the fandom, the vast majority of whom are RayK fan. There was talk about how wonderful the fans are, how welcoming the community is - but that begs the question of why the community has evolved from a pretty tense and divided one to one that is much more friendly and welcoming, why all these wonderful new fans are flocking to the fandom. And there was discussion of how LJ permits more "personal" connections than mailing lists - but this doesn't explain why dS in particular is thriving right now.
So the panel became a bit of a paean to the wonder that is dS, which was nice but not particularly interesting or insightful. I have my own theory about why dS has experienced this upsurge in popularity, which I somewhat hesitantly expressed. The reason for my hesitancy is that it comes out sounding an awful lot like squeeing fangirl hero worship. In my view the fandom took a huge upswing primarily as a result of the efforts and sheer force of enthusiasm of a single individual - cesperanza. Now, I freely admit that I'm a huge fan and great admirer of Ces, personally as well as of her work. But putting that aside for the moment, it's pretty undeniable that she is a person of great determination and great force of will, seemingly tireless, and she has a huge "voice" in fandom. No person can singlehandedly make or break a fandom, at least not one as extensive as this - but when a person like that puts her mind to it, decides my fandom will flourish, goddammit, and goes about it systematically and inclusively, I think she can have a huge impact on a fandom. Ces created ds_flashfiction last April, and that, I think, was the initial impetus, at least, for the revival of dS. Enthusiasm begain to increase - older authors who hadn't written in a while were inspired to revisit an old love, newer authors who might have been intimidated by the consistently high caliber of dS fiction found themselves with an easier, less intimidating way into the fandom. And then a few months later Ces established ds_flashback as a way to spotlight and remind people of all the great dS fic out there. Later Ces took over operation of the ex-Wood archive. And throughout it all, though she is an avowed F/K fan herself, she made it very clear how supportive she was of all pairings, of Vecchio, and even - gasp! - of gen and het.
Now, Ces may have been the instigator, but she was not alone in this effort. Other enthusiastic fans took similar steps - I'll always be grateful to bluster, in particular, for starting ds_discourse and then the #discourse chat group. Other LJ communities appeared, people began discussing dS on LJ - I like to think that my own website played at least a small role, though it didn't appear until much later in the game. Once the wave builds in force it carries people along with it - the momentum of a thriving fandom draws more people in. That's when you get people saying - dS is having a resurgence because it's thriving and alive and there are so many wonderful fans. But the point is, someone had to take steps to make it that way; someone had to say, someone had to think, someone had to believe - my fandom is wonderful, my fandom is going to flourish, and just you try to stop it!
Of course, this isn't enough to make a fandom thrive. There are a variety of other factors, too - I mean, all the efforts in the world might not suffice to make a fandom popular if the source material appeals to only a very limited set of fans, or the slashy potential is difficult to see. The point, though, is that individuals matter. Fandoms' popularity seems to come and go in cycles, in waves - but still, I think individuals who take responsibility, who make an effort, can make a huge, enormous difference. It's easy to think that we, as individuals, have no real power, no ability to impact things; that there are too many of us, one person can't really affect the course of events - but I think that's not true; as in all other human endeavor, ultimately it is the efforts of individuals that matters. Feeling powerless and ineffectual causes paralysis; people wait passively for someone or someones else to take some action, and fandoms languish, when really, a single person can make a difference, it eems to me.
This leads me to Pros, and to my own panel at Connexions. Anyone who knows me at all or who's been following this journal knows that I've become a big Pros fan recently. Due South is first in my heart - but I've got to admit, Pros is right up there. I'm totally besotted with those guys. But I'm a bit confused about the role I can play, if any, in the Pros fandom - whether there's a place for me. I find myself frustrated on all sides in Pros - not really welcomed by the old-time fans, not able to put my finger on a community of newer fans, not knowing where I stand, but wanting desperately to be part of it. With this in mind, I suggested a panel at Connexions on integrating fans like me - fans coming from "new-school," web-based fandoms like dS, TS, Stargate, HP, whatever - into the "old-school," traditionally zine-based fandoms, like Pros, SH, MfU. Someone called Mary Anne E., whom I'd never met before but who considers herself an old-school Pros fan, volunteered to co-panel.
Unfortunately, the decks were stacked a bit against my panel: first, it was scheduled for 9:00 am on Saturday - cruel and unusual punishment, that is! - and second, it was at the same time as the SH panel, whose attendees would have been a perfect audience for my panel (and which I'd like to have attended myself!). I'd have loved to hear from people likeTiranog, a definite old-school SH fan and writer who has started writing in HP and has had to adapt to the decidedly new-school character of that fandom - including getting her own LJ; and Flamingo, who is bringing her fandom online and, in her relentless pimping efforts, has had to deal with some of the issues of integrating newer fans. But those two were leading the SH panel.
So no old-school SH fans, and as far as I remember, no old-school representatives of Pros or MfU either, attended the panel, which was a shame. Other than my co-panelist, all the attendees were new-school fans with some involvement in - or interest in becoming involved in - old-school fandoms (and thanks to my #discourse friends for dragging themselves out of bed just for me - you guys are the best!). We had a pretty interesting and active discussion, within that limitation - I had a fantastic audience, full of smart women with interesting ideas and great insights. We talked about the importance of being respectful and courteous of the existing fan culture, of being aware how threatening it can feel to "old" fans for "new" people to come along with their new ideas and their energy and their suggestions for change. We talked about how "new-school" concepts - the trends toward LJ over MLs, toward net- rather than zine-published fic, etc. - have drawbacks as well as positives, and the need not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, not to reject cornerstones of old-school fandom - e.g., zines - simply because they are old school. Common sense, courtesy, respect, enthusiasm - all those go a long way toward keeping old-school people happy and attracting new-school people, who can help reinvigorate and revitalize a fandom.
But the real problem, as I see it, is: what does someone like me, a "new" fan, do when it seems like many (not all!!! by no means all!!!) of the old-school fans just don't want people like me in their fandom? I mean, the contrast between the broad, inclusive, enthusiastic welcome I received in dS and the pretty wary, flat, reluctant reception my fairly limited (but very enthusiastic - too enthusiastic?) overtures in Pros have received in some Pros fora could not be greater. It's all very well and good for me to consider how to bring new ideas into old fandoms in the most respectful way, how to get the most out of what's there while trying also to explore how the newer developments could benefit the fandom - but if the existing fans are simply set against any change, if they don't really care whether the fandom gets new blood or is revitalized or reinvigorated or stays vibrant and thriving, or if they're impossibly divided themselves and simply not friendly to people who don't agree with their views of fandom - well, what good are all a newbie's hopefulness and good intentions then?
Not that I'm saying that this is how the entire Pros fandom is ... but I've definitely gotten some of those vibes. In the panel, my co-panelist, who seemed to be a very nice person, stated flat out that net-published fanfic is of lower quality than zine fanfic because the authors are interested only in immediate feedback, which they get even if their work is bad or poorly edited. Now, it seems reasonable to assume that she isn't someone who's opposed to new people in the fandom - she offered to co-moderate this panel, after all, and she is currently writing in PotC. Yet she still made this statement with a totally straight face. It stunned me - both for its insensitivity and its utter fallaciousness, as we sat there in a room filled with some of the cream of dS writers, people who publish almost entirely on the net and who would never dream of posting a fic without multiple editing and beta passes, whose work puts much zine-based fic to shame - and I think it is illustrative of some of the difficulties of integrating new school fans into old school fandoms. It's such a blanket statement, and it shuts out a whole - huge! - sector of fandom unconditionally, without leaving open even the possibility that there are benefits to net-posting fic.
The truth is, there is plenty of crap out there in zines, regardless of the fact that they have "editors" - and I do mean crap, things my dS friends would be embarassed to post online under their names. There is also plenty of crap online. In fact, it's almost certainly true that there is more bad fic online than in zines, simply because there is more fic online. But there is no inherent reason that online fic has to be worse than zine fic, and certainly it is a complete and total fallacy - not to mention incredibly insulting to a huge body of authors - to assume that people who choose to post their fic online rather than in zines are doing so because they don't care about proper grammar or good writing, or they have less pride in their work, or they're only out for instant gratification and don't care about quality. That attitude - that the "new" stuff is by definition worse than the old way of doing things - is so alienating and so limiting. I've engaged in a number of debates on this subject on various SH and Pros MLs, and many of the people who hold this view (often the longest-term fans) simply are not amenable to having their minds changed, or their opinion modified even slightly (although I don't want to be misleading - there are many, many people on these lists who don't fall into this category).
The thing is, things like LJ and net-published fic aren't going away, no matter how opposed people are or how deeply they hide their heads in the sand. So it seems to me that the best way for old-school fans to preserve what they value is for them to take control of the new technology themselves, establish the LJ communities and the websites and the archives themselves, and at the same time try to hang onto what's best about the "old" way of doing things - zines, mailing lists, etc. And also for them to welcome newbies openly and show them what is good about their fandom, what is worth preserving, so that people coming into the fandom will value - and want to preserve - the same things, as well as bringing new ideas. But it sometimes seems to me that what's happening instead, at least in Pros - keeping in mind my fairly limited view of the fandom and that I am grossly generalizing - is that to the extent this kind of growth and change is happening, it's the (relative) newbies who, out of desperation to make connections in the fandom and lack of any other alternative, are taking the initiative. And by definition, this can have the effect of excluding and leaving behind the old-school fans - not necessarily because that is what the newbies want, but because the old-school fans have shut themselves out through their refusal to accept any new ideas or developments.
So anyway, my own panel left me feeling a little bit - well, helpless and hopeless and sad, like I should just give up, resign myself to not finding a Pros community and to the fandom's inevitable decline. For me fandom is all about community - you can't have a fandom of one - and there's nothing worse than feeling alone with your enthusiasm for a fandom, with feeling excluded or unwelcome or just extraneous, with feeling like you just don't belong. But - immediately after my panel was the dS panel. And as I described already, the dS panel made me feel hopeful about the significant role that enthusiastic individuals can play in keeping a fandom alive and helping it thrive. Pros is old and established and has a lot of history - but fandoms are always reinventing themselves. I mean, look at Flamingo in SH! She has put so much energy and passion and love into revitalizing that fandom, with great success - the SH room party raved for 12 hours, with people going in and out constantly, episodes and vids playing, newbies and old fans alike mingling and talking and squeeing over Starsky's ass. The old-school fans were so damn enthusiastic, so excited about sharing their love for these guys, so eager to talk about it and squee about it and make everyone see, and love, their guys.
I mean, in no way, shape, or form am I a fixture in Pros the way Flamingo is in SH - not even close; just about no one in Pros knows my name - but still, I figure there's no reason I can't use my energy to spearhead, or at least encourage, a Pros revival. I really really desperately wished that someone at Connexions would have a Pros event similar to the SH one - but maybe next time I should be the one to make that happen - I'll throw the Pros room party, I'll play vids and DVDs all day long, I'll print out screencaps and post hot pics of B&D all over the walls. Maybe no one will come, or maybe real old-school fans will be scornful or dismissive (though would they be at this kind of con anyway?) but hell, why should that stop me? I'll enjoy myself, at least, and I'm not going to turn off my enthusiasm or stop trying to drag people into the fandom, regardless of the level of support or welcome I get from the old-school fans.
Wait, what am I saying - the truth is, even if I wanted to turn off my enthusiasm, experience has shown me that that's an impossible task for me - I can't contain myself in any significant way. I'd be acting in the same enthusiastic way even if I didn't consciously want to use my enthusiasm to help revive the fandom - even if I wanted to, I probably wouldn't be able to really stop myself from talking about Pros endlessly, trying my very best to spread the gospel of Bodie and Doyle (at the very least among my #discourse friends, and if for no other reason than so that I'll have someone to squee about Pros with)! It's just nice for me to think that my natural behavior could be a positive force.
Of course, newness and enthusiasm are all very good, but I do believe it's very important to have continuity and connection - I want to be connected to the old-school community, to the extent I can; I want to take advantage of the knowledge and experience and long-term passion of old-school fans, and I respect how they are steeped in the fandom culture. And even if some of the current old-school fans aren't too receptive, perhaps newness and enthusiasm will help refresh the fandom for some of those who are on its edges but who still care about it. My friend meri_oddities, who runs the Pros online archive, pimped me into Pros last October. She, however, has not been active in Pros for a while, despite the fact that she loved it deeply - schisms and divisions and unfriendliness in the fandom jaded her and, ultimately, caused her to lose her own enthusiasm. I see her very regularly, though, and - as usual - I gush constantly, I can't contain my excitement about these guys, and she tells me that my passion is causing her to remember hers. Paradoxically, I'm pimping my own pimp back into the fandom! Which is a wonderful, wonderful feeling.
And I really don't want to exaggerate - some of this ranting is just my own frustration speaking, frustration at not being able to find in Pros the type of community and sense of belonging I have with dS. I mean, it's certainly not like all the existing fans are unwelcoming or unamenable to change or unfriendly. I've had a number of really nice correspondences and online interactions with Pros fans I met on lists or elsewhere, and I enjoy following the crying_sodomy yahoo group. And hell, maybe it's my own fault - maybe I haven't tried hard enough or looked in the right places, or maybe I've just put people off, I don't know. Maybe I need to just stop whinging (Britspeak! Ha!) and get off my butt and do something.
But anyway, this brings me to the Connexions Pros panel, which was on Sunday. I was about 10 minutes late to the panel, because I was in the Con Suite chatting with katabaturinsky - about Pros! But I got there eventually, and my little harem of Pros pimpees - brooklinegirl, dsudis, estrella30, byob_kenobi, all #discourse friends for whom I've made Pros pimping DVDs and with whom I'd love to squee about Pros - were there, which was very sweet of them. It was a small panel - in fact, the contrast with the dS panel the day before was staggering. Pros does seem to be in the trough of the fandom popularity cycle - although to be fair, this might have been at least partly attributable to the fact that the panel was at 1:00 on the last day of the con.
Nonetheless, despite the rather slim turnout, it was a fun panel for me. blktauna led it, and she and the other fans that attended seemed, at least, to be pleased to have some newbies there. I couldn't tell if this particular group knew each other, felt themselves to be a community, or if they were mostly random Pros stragglers (like me!) who happened to join together at this con - but either way, they were generous in offering me recommendations and suggestions and enthusiastic about sharing fandom history and discussing the best episode moments. It was fun for me to chat with people who are as convinced as I am of the utter, undeniable slashiness of the show - understated it may be, at least compared to SH, with which it's most often compared, but subtle it is not. The more I watch the more amazed I am at the subtext. This was only reinforced for me later in the day, when Tauna ever-so-kindly replayed The Bullshitters for me on her laptop - and I almost fell out of my chair I was so hysterical. It perfectly captures the feel and motion of Pros, plus the snogging-in-the-gravel scene is so exactly right - I mean, the slash really is just that obvious if you pay even the slightest attention. I was very entertained, and very grateful to Tauna for taking the time.
So though not a lot happened at the Pros panel, and it wasn't really "exciting" (except insofar as I am always excited about Pros these days!), it was nice, and I was thrilled to be there, and I left with renewed hope and a renewed commitment to find a way to revitalize that fandom, or at least to be part of the revitalization efforts, and to keep relentlessly trying to become more involved (maybe I should start by participating in one of the scheduled crying_sodomy chats ....). And this commitment was reinforced by the conversation I'd had with Katya Baturinsky before the panel. Katya has a marvelous website highlighting her five fandoms - and it's clear from this that she and I have very similar tastes in pairings - plus she has an enviable way with words. Like me, she appears to love F/K first and best - in her fabulous essay If My Fandoms Were Men, she says about dS: If it were a man, DS would be the great love of my life, the one I'd kill or die for. I'd go down on him in public, anywhere, anytime; I'm addicted, and I'll take as much of him as I can get. ...
But she also has a deep and abiding passion for the other cop buddy pairings, and especially Pros. Here's how she describes Pros:
And then there were the Brits, the professionals of CI5, who put their lives on the line every day in their quest to keep England safe and smelling ever so faintly of roses and lavender. Bodie, with his shady past (ex-merc, ex-Paras, ex-SAS, ex-lots of other things he won't discuss) and heart of mush (but only for Doyle) under that pseudo-tough-guy exterior; and Doyle - former Met copper, one-time art student, he of the marksman's eye, foul temper, indecently tight jeans, and rampaging guilt complex. Together they formed Cowley's best team, and certainly his most decorative. They spent most of their off-hours together; didn't seem to understand the concept of personal space; stole each other's one-night stands and heartily disliked each other's serious girlfriends; answered each other's sentences and bickered away like an old married couple; and inevitably went to pieces when either of them was hurt or threatened. In other words, they were the perfect slash pairing.
This is precisely how I see them. Chatting with Katya is always wonderful, and I'd missed her most of the con; so I was really glad to have the chance to talk with her on Sunday. Katya is reasonably hooked into the current Pros fandom, plus she has a bit of history there, plus her taste in Pros fic just about exactly matches up with mine (I'm eager for her to update her rec page), plus she's just so much fun - it was wonderful to gush and squee with her, and it left me feeling hopeful that (1) there's still life in the fandom; (2) there's a place for me and the other newbies who are only now discovering and falling in love with it; and, most important, (3) I am not alone! That's the worst possible feeling in fandom - being alone with one's obsession, feeling like one does not belong.
So overall, from a fandom perspective this was a pretty satisfying con for me. I got to indulge my dS obsession fully and completely - I was surrounded by dS people from beginning to end, and I had no fears that I was talking about it too much or too intensely - I was with my people for this one! Brooklinegirl, Estrella, byob, Dira, Lynn - with these folks I could never talk too much about Ray and Fraser - in fact, I could never talk enough; our appetite for this stuff is insatiable!
With respect to Pros - well, it was great, though I didn't get quite enough . I mean, I squeed a lot - just ask the people I spent most of the weekend with - but I did exercise a tiny bit of restraint, because sometimes wondered if I was just plain talking about Bodie and Doyle too much, and I worried that no one else was really interested. But I just couldn't seem to keep myself from gushing, and for the most part I felt pretty free to do so, and my obsession was reasonably well indulged. Really, I can't complain!
So all these words, and I managed to talk only about the Pros and dS panels - all my good intentions to discuss the vid show, Harry Potter, and other aspects of the con notwithstanding. But I think it's time for a break, and I need to reflect upon the extreme hotness of my wonderful icon from heuradys (see brooklinegirl's post here for an explanation of the caption). Since this post was largely about Pros and my enthusiasm therefor, it seemed like this perfect opportunity for its debut. Thanks, H - you're amazing :-)
Mainly, though, I wanted to talk a bit more about some thoughts stemming from Connexions. My Connexions posts have addressed primarily the social and community aspects of the con. But I also have some thoughts about the substance of the con - the programming and the panels and the fandom-specific things. Like I said earlier, Connexions isn't all that much of a panel con for me. But I was on one panel, the topic of which was integrating "new-school" fans - fans like me, who came to fandom in the internet world, who started in web-based fandoms - and "old-school" fandoms; e.g., Pros and SH. I also attended a few others, including the dS and Pros panel.
I've mentioned in a few posts recently my worry and mild embarassment about revealing the fact that I care so much, that I'm so obsessed and passionate about fandom and my pairings. For me this stems partly from a lifelong issue: my occasionally almost pathological anxiety about stepping on toes, offending people, seeming presumptuous, overwhelming people, being a burden. So throughout my life I've tended to tiptoe into new things, hesitant of my welcome, not wanting to put people off. But this hesitancy is really pretty unnatural and artificial; underneath it, and pretty close to the surface, is what seems to be my natural and seemingly uncontainable intensity. This is the "real" me, I think, rather than the hesitancy; in the end, despite all my resolve to be restrained and deferential, I seem to be unable to contain my enthusiasm and intensity in any real way. I just can't stop myself - my first step or two may be a tiptoe, but then all bets are off - bull in a china shop, that's me.
This has always been a source of great distress for me - I'd go into social situations thinking, this time I'm going to be demure and couth, and somehow I'd get carried away and then afterwards would beat myself up relentlessly for - for what? for talking too much, feeling too much, caring too much, being too much - too intense, too impassioned, too overbearing. I still remember a dinner in college - I was a sophomore, my boyfriend was a freshman, and we were sitting with his friends at the dining hall table. They were all freshman guys, mostly obnoxious cocky kids from prep school backgrounds; I was the only woman at the table. We got into some kind of discussion - I can't recall now, but I have a vague recollection that it was about the use of the terms "oriental" and "Asian" (this was the mid-80s). The discussion was heated, but not, I thought, unfriendly or mean. But afterwards, my boyfriend took me (gently - he was a mild-mannered easygoing guy, for the most part) to task, telling me that I needed to be careful because I was just too ... strong, too intense, too forceful, for those guys; I overwhelmed them and put them off. I remember feeling utterly mortified and humiliated and totally worthless, like I was the most pushy, unfeminine person ever, like I was too much even for a bunch of cocky asshole guys who had no shortage of self-confidence - whereas paradoxically, I myself was often contorted inside with insecurity. I've never forgotten that.
So I've never succeeded, really, in containing my intensity or enthusiasm, and this is as true in fandom as it is in other areas of my life, if not more so. (One of the fascinating things to me is that in this slashy world - a world almost entirely comprised of women - my intensity seems to be less off-putting and less unusual than it has been in the more predominantly male-dominated academic, professional, and social worlds that I've moved in throughout much of my life.) I mean, I try very hard to be respectful and open-minded, and I have absolutely no problem freely handing out praise - I'm a pretty insufferably relentless cheerleader, I think - but I can't seem to stop myself from talking endlessly and intensely and enthusiastically about the pairings and fandoms that obsess me. And maybe part of the reason I worry that my enthusiasm is offputting is because I sometimes feel so relentlessly positive, like this is such a wonderful world and aren't we all shiny and happy - someone referred to it as the "eternal sunshine of the spotless fan." I mean, I know there's bad stuff around, tension and nastiness in the fannish world, cliques and backbiting, etc. etc. - I'm not blind to it, I'm not pretending it doesn't exist. But it just doesn't seem to cast any pall on the sunshiney glow I feel for all things fandom, on my enthusiasm and happiness to be here. I worry that that can be a bit grating.
Anyway, due South was the first fandom that I really participated in. I felt very unsure of myself and my place, but, predictably, I couldn't really stop myself from commenting in LJs and expressing my thoughts, and I couldn't restrain the squeeing fangirl in me - I wrote to authors and praised them and their fic and gushed pretty much endlessly, and possibly annoyingly. The thing is, though, that however offputting I might have felt myself to be, in dS I was welcomed with unconditionally open arms, by just about everyone, new and old fans alike. I found dS to be an incredibly warm and inviting and welcoming community - it seemed like there was plenty of room for me; I encountered little or no sense of there being an exclusive inner circle of fans who wanted to maintain their place and keep others out; people freely invited me in to be part of everything. I kept looking around, wondering when it would end, wondering when I'd step on someone's toes, wondering when people would start feeling threatened, wondering when I'd turn them off, drive them away - and it never happened. It's still never happened (I think!).
And as a result of my love for the pairing and the fandom, I've become a bit of a relentless pimp for dS. This hasn't so much been a concerted or intentional recruitment effort on my part as it is a natural outgrowth of my inability to contain my enthusiasm - I talk about it constantly, and I think my feelings show pretty clearly in my LJ posts, my crack_van recs, my comments to authors, even my website. I have absolutely no problem taking on the role of cheerleader and minion; I'm happy to talk endlessly about fic and episodes and chat and anything else having to do with this fandom. And the cool thing is, over the time I've been in dS - close to a year and a half - I've been lucky enough to see the fandom grow and thrive. It's not like it was dead or even dying when I discovered it - but it was languishing a bit; a number of authors had recently finished their dS stints and been lured elsewhere - particularly to the Sparkly; there weren't many new stories; the mailing lists were slow; LJ was only just beginning to take off. And now - well, most of you who are reading this know where dS is now, how it's thriving.
This was evident from the dS panel at Connexions - the room was filled to bursting. There were plenty of "long-term" fans and authors, some of whom haven't been that active in the fandom recently, some of whom have - people like arrallara, miriam_heddy, rowanfairchild, carlacoupe, bethbethbeth, ardent_muses, the_star_fish, katallison, cmshaw, trixiesfic, and even some who had left the fandom at the time of the Ray Wars and are now returning, like tiranog, who was one of the panelists. There were also lots of "medium-term" fans like myself, people who have been riding this new wave for a little while but who didn't live through the Ray wars. And then there were people who seemed to be total newbies but who apparently are drawn to the wonderful slashiness of the show and the energy and friendliness of the fandom. I'd venture to say that the room was heavily weighted toward Ray K fans, but there were definitely a number of people who "swing both Rays" - as well as a number of noted Ray/Ray fans! - and the atmosphere was mostly one of respect and tolerance - the one person who dared to suggest that F/K was the only true pairing (a sentiment that various F/K fans may share, but these days generally are polite enough not to voice out of respect for others' opinions) was pretty thoroughly ignored. The panelists - Tiranog and stormheller - did a nice job of guiding the discussion, keeping it orderly and enthusiastic, and encouraging wide participation.
The main topic of the panel was, why this resurgence in popularity, why is dS flourishing as it is. I've got to admit, I found the insights on this point to be pretty underwhelming. There was a lot of talk about how wonderful the source material is, the quality of the show and its slashy content - but the show was just as wonderful and just as slashy a year ago, and the fandom was languishing then. People mentioned the DVDs, but I'm skeptical - these may be responsible for a resurgence of interest in Ray V, but they don't explain the flow of newcomers into the fandom, the vast majority of whom are RayK fan. There was talk about how wonderful the fans are, how welcoming the community is - but that begs the question of why the community has evolved from a pretty tense and divided one to one that is much more friendly and welcoming, why all these wonderful new fans are flocking to the fandom. And there was discussion of how LJ permits more "personal" connections than mailing lists - but this doesn't explain why dS in particular is thriving right now.
So the panel became a bit of a paean to the wonder that is dS, which was nice but not particularly interesting or insightful. I have my own theory about why dS has experienced this upsurge in popularity, which I somewhat hesitantly expressed. The reason for my hesitancy is that it comes out sounding an awful lot like squeeing fangirl hero worship. In my view the fandom took a huge upswing primarily as a result of the efforts and sheer force of enthusiasm of a single individual - cesperanza. Now, I freely admit that I'm a huge fan and great admirer of Ces, personally as well as of her work. But putting that aside for the moment, it's pretty undeniable that she is a person of great determination and great force of will, seemingly tireless, and she has a huge "voice" in fandom. No person can singlehandedly make or break a fandom, at least not one as extensive as this - but when a person like that puts her mind to it, decides my fandom will flourish, goddammit, and goes about it systematically and inclusively, I think she can have a huge impact on a fandom. Ces created ds_flashfiction last April, and that, I think, was the initial impetus, at least, for the revival of dS. Enthusiasm begain to increase - older authors who hadn't written in a while were inspired to revisit an old love, newer authors who might have been intimidated by the consistently high caliber of dS fiction found themselves with an easier, less intimidating way into the fandom. And then a few months later Ces established ds_flashback as a way to spotlight and remind people of all the great dS fic out there. Later Ces took over operation of the ex-Wood archive. And throughout it all, though she is an avowed F/K fan herself, she made it very clear how supportive she was of all pairings, of Vecchio, and even - gasp! - of gen and het.
Now, Ces may have been the instigator, but she was not alone in this effort. Other enthusiastic fans took similar steps - I'll always be grateful to bluster, in particular, for starting ds_discourse and then the #discourse chat group. Other LJ communities appeared, people began discussing dS on LJ - I like to think that my own website played at least a small role, though it didn't appear until much later in the game. Once the wave builds in force it carries people along with it - the momentum of a thriving fandom draws more people in. That's when you get people saying - dS is having a resurgence because it's thriving and alive and there are so many wonderful fans. But the point is, someone had to take steps to make it that way; someone had to say, someone had to think, someone had to believe - my fandom is wonderful, my fandom is going to flourish, and just you try to stop it!
Of course, this isn't enough to make a fandom thrive. There are a variety of other factors, too - I mean, all the efforts in the world might not suffice to make a fandom popular if the source material appeals to only a very limited set of fans, or the slashy potential is difficult to see. The point, though, is that individuals matter. Fandoms' popularity seems to come and go in cycles, in waves - but still, I think individuals who take responsibility, who make an effort, can make a huge, enormous difference. It's easy to think that we, as individuals, have no real power, no ability to impact things; that there are too many of us, one person can't really affect the course of events - but I think that's not true; as in all other human endeavor, ultimately it is the efforts of individuals that matters. Feeling powerless and ineffectual causes paralysis; people wait passively for someone or someones else to take some action, and fandoms languish, when really, a single person can make a difference, it eems to me.
This leads me to Pros, and to my own panel at Connexions. Anyone who knows me at all or who's been following this journal knows that I've become a big Pros fan recently. Due South is first in my heart - but I've got to admit, Pros is right up there. I'm totally besotted with those guys. But I'm a bit confused about the role I can play, if any, in the Pros fandom - whether there's a place for me. I find myself frustrated on all sides in Pros - not really welcomed by the old-time fans, not able to put my finger on a community of newer fans, not knowing where I stand, but wanting desperately to be part of it. With this in mind, I suggested a panel at Connexions on integrating fans like me - fans coming from "new-school," web-based fandoms like dS, TS, Stargate, HP, whatever - into the "old-school," traditionally zine-based fandoms, like Pros, SH, MfU. Someone called Mary Anne E., whom I'd never met before but who considers herself an old-school Pros fan, volunteered to co-panel.
Unfortunately, the decks were stacked a bit against my panel: first, it was scheduled for 9:00 am on Saturday - cruel and unusual punishment, that is! - and second, it was at the same time as the SH panel, whose attendees would have been a perfect audience for my panel (and which I'd like to have attended myself!). I'd have loved to hear from people likeTiranog, a definite old-school SH fan and writer who has started writing in HP and has had to adapt to the decidedly new-school character of that fandom - including getting her own LJ; and Flamingo, who is bringing her fandom online and, in her relentless pimping efforts, has had to deal with some of the issues of integrating newer fans. But those two were leading the SH panel.
So no old-school SH fans, and as far as I remember, no old-school representatives of Pros or MfU either, attended the panel, which was a shame. Other than my co-panelist, all the attendees were new-school fans with some involvement in - or interest in becoming involved in - old-school fandoms (and thanks to my #discourse friends for dragging themselves out of bed just for me - you guys are the best!). We had a pretty interesting and active discussion, within that limitation - I had a fantastic audience, full of smart women with interesting ideas and great insights. We talked about the importance of being respectful and courteous of the existing fan culture, of being aware how threatening it can feel to "old" fans for "new" people to come along with their new ideas and their energy and their suggestions for change. We talked about how "new-school" concepts - the trends toward LJ over MLs, toward net- rather than zine-published fic, etc. - have drawbacks as well as positives, and the need not to throw out the baby with the bathwater, not to reject cornerstones of old-school fandom - e.g., zines - simply because they are old school. Common sense, courtesy, respect, enthusiasm - all those go a long way toward keeping old-school people happy and attracting new-school people, who can help reinvigorate and revitalize a fandom.
But the real problem, as I see it, is: what does someone like me, a "new" fan, do when it seems like many (not all!!! by no means all!!!) of the old-school fans just don't want people like me in their fandom? I mean, the contrast between the broad, inclusive, enthusiastic welcome I received in dS and the pretty wary, flat, reluctant reception my fairly limited (but very enthusiastic - too enthusiastic?) overtures in Pros have received in some Pros fora could not be greater. It's all very well and good for me to consider how to bring new ideas into old fandoms in the most respectful way, how to get the most out of what's there while trying also to explore how the newer developments could benefit the fandom - but if the existing fans are simply set against any change, if they don't really care whether the fandom gets new blood or is revitalized or reinvigorated or stays vibrant and thriving, or if they're impossibly divided themselves and simply not friendly to people who don't agree with their views of fandom - well, what good are all a newbie's hopefulness and good intentions then?
Not that I'm saying that this is how the entire Pros fandom is ... but I've definitely gotten some of those vibes. In the panel, my co-panelist, who seemed to be a very nice person, stated flat out that net-published fanfic is of lower quality than zine fanfic because the authors are interested only in immediate feedback, which they get even if their work is bad or poorly edited. Now, it seems reasonable to assume that she isn't someone who's opposed to new people in the fandom - she offered to co-moderate this panel, after all, and she is currently writing in PotC. Yet she still made this statement with a totally straight face. It stunned me - both for its insensitivity and its utter fallaciousness, as we sat there in a room filled with some of the cream of dS writers, people who publish almost entirely on the net and who would never dream of posting a fic without multiple editing and beta passes, whose work puts much zine-based fic to shame - and I think it is illustrative of some of the difficulties of integrating new school fans into old school fandoms. It's such a blanket statement, and it shuts out a whole - huge! - sector of fandom unconditionally, without leaving open even the possibility that there are benefits to net-posting fic.
The truth is, there is plenty of crap out there in zines, regardless of the fact that they have "editors" - and I do mean crap, things my dS friends would be embarassed to post online under their names. There is also plenty of crap online. In fact, it's almost certainly true that there is more bad fic online than in zines, simply because there is more fic online. But there is no inherent reason that online fic has to be worse than zine fic, and certainly it is a complete and total fallacy - not to mention incredibly insulting to a huge body of authors - to assume that people who choose to post their fic online rather than in zines are doing so because they don't care about proper grammar or good writing, or they have less pride in their work, or they're only out for instant gratification and don't care about quality. That attitude - that the "new" stuff is by definition worse than the old way of doing things - is so alienating and so limiting. I've engaged in a number of debates on this subject on various SH and Pros MLs, and many of the people who hold this view (often the longest-term fans) simply are not amenable to having their minds changed, or their opinion modified even slightly (although I don't want to be misleading - there are many, many people on these lists who don't fall into this category).
The thing is, things like LJ and net-published fic aren't going away, no matter how opposed people are or how deeply they hide their heads in the sand. So it seems to me that the best way for old-school fans to preserve what they value is for them to take control of the new technology themselves, establish the LJ communities and the websites and the archives themselves, and at the same time try to hang onto what's best about the "old" way of doing things - zines, mailing lists, etc. And also for them to welcome newbies openly and show them what is good about their fandom, what is worth preserving, so that people coming into the fandom will value - and want to preserve - the same things, as well as bringing new ideas. But it sometimes seems to me that what's happening instead, at least in Pros - keeping in mind my fairly limited view of the fandom and that I am grossly generalizing - is that to the extent this kind of growth and change is happening, it's the (relative) newbies who, out of desperation to make connections in the fandom and lack of any other alternative, are taking the initiative. And by definition, this can have the effect of excluding and leaving behind the old-school fans - not necessarily because that is what the newbies want, but because the old-school fans have shut themselves out through their refusal to accept any new ideas or developments.
So anyway, my own panel left me feeling a little bit - well, helpless and hopeless and sad, like I should just give up, resign myself to not finding a Pros community and to the fandom's inevitable decline. For me fandom is all about community - you can't have a fandom of one - and there's nothing worse than feeling alone with your enthusiasm for a fandom, with feeling excluded or unwelcome or just extraneous, with feeling like you just don't belong. But - immediately after my panel was the dS panel. And as I described already, the dS panel made me feel hopeful about the significant role that enthusiastic individuals can play in keeping a fandom alive and helping it thrive. Pros is old and established and has a lot of history - but fandoms are always reinventing themselves. I mean, look at Flamingo in SH! She has put so much energy and passion and love into revitalizing that fandom, with great success - the SH room party raved for 12 hours, with people going in and out constantly, episodes and vids playing, newbies and old fans alike mingling and talking and squeeing over Starsky's ass. The old-school fans were so damn enthusiastic, so excited about sharing their love for these guys, so eager to talk about it and squee about it and make everyone see, and love, their guys.
I mean, in no way, shape, or form am I a fixture in Pros the way Flamingo is in SH - not even close; just about no one in Pros knows my name - but still, I figure there's no reason I can't use my energy to spearhead, or at least encourage, a Pros revival. I really really desperately wished that someone at Connexions would have a Pros event similar to the SH one - but maybe next time I should be the one to make that happen - I'll throw the Pros room party, I'll play vids and DVDs all day long, I'll print out screencaps and post hot pics of B&D all over the walls. Maybe no one will come, or maybe real old-school fans will be scornful or dismissive (though would they be at this kind of con anyway?) but hell, why should that stop me? I'll enjoy myself, at least, and I'm not going to turn off my enthusiasm or stop trying to drag people into the fandom, regardless of the level of support or welcome I get from the old-school fans.
Wait, what am I saying - the truth is, even if I wanted to turn off my enthusiasm, experience has shown me that that's an impossible task for me - I can't contain myself in any significant way. I'd be acting in the same enthusiastic way even if I didn't consciously want to use my enthusiasm to help revive the fandom - even if I wanted to, I probably wouldn't be able to really stop myself from talking about Pros endlessly, trying my very best to spread the gospel of Bodie and Doyle (at the very least among my #discourse friends, and if for no other reason than so that I'll have someone to squee about Pros with)! It's just nice for me to think that my natural behavior could be a positive force.
Of course, newness and enthusiasm are all very good, but I do believe it's very important to have continuity and connection - I want to be connected to the old-school community, to the extent I can; I want to take advantage of the knowledge and experience and long-term passion of old-school fans, and I respect how they are steeped in the fandom culture. And even if some of the current old-school fans aren't too receptive, perhaps newness and enthusiasm will help refresh the fandom for some of those who are on its edges but who still care about it. My friend meri_oddities, who runs the Pros online archive, pimped me into Pros last October. She, however, has not been active in Pros for a while, despite the fact that she loved it deeply - schisms and divisions and unfriendliness in the fandom jaded her and, ultimately, caused her to lose her own enthusiasm. I see her very regularly, though, and - as usual - I gush constantly, I can't contain my excitement about these guys, and she tells me that my passion is causing her to remember hers. Paradoxically, I'm pimping my own pimp back into the fandom! Which is a wonderful, wonderful feeling.
And I really don't want to exaggerate - some of this ranting is just my own frustration speaking, frustration at not being able to find in Pros the type of community and sense of belonging I have with dS. I mean, it's certainly not like all the existing fans are unwelcoming or unamenable to change or unfriendly. I've had a number of really nice correspondences and online interactions with Pros fans I met on lists or elsewhere, and I enjoy following the crying_sodomy yahoo group. And hell, maybe it's my own fault - maybe I haven't tried hard enough or looked in the right places, or maybe I've just put people off, I don't know. Maybe I need to just stop whinging (Britspeak! Ha!) and get off my butt and do something.
But anyway, this brings me to the Connexions Pros panel, which was on Sunday. I was about 10 minutes late to the panel, because I was in the Con Suite chatting with katabaturinsky - about Pros! But I got there eventually, and my little harem of Pros pimpees - brooklinegirl, dsudis, estrella30, byob_kenobi, all #discourse friends for whom I've made Pros pimping DVDs and with whom I'd love to squee about Pros - were there, which was very sweet of them. It was a small panel - in fact, the contrast with the dS panel the day before was staggering. Pros does seem to be in the trough of the fandom popularity cycle - although to be fair, this might have been at least partly attributable to the fact that the panel was at 1:00 on the last day of the con.
Nonetheless, despite the rather slim turnout, it was a fun panel for me. blktauna led it, and she and the other fans that attended seemed, at least, to be pleased to have some newbies there. I couldn't tell if this particular group knew each other, felt themselves to be a community, or if they were mostly random Pros stragglers (like me!) who happened to join together at this con - but either way, they were generous in offering me recommendations and suggestions and enthusiastic about sharing fandom history and discussing the best episode moments. It was fun for me to chat with people who are as convinced as I am of the utter, undeniable slashiness of the show - understated it may be, at least compared to SH, with which it's most often compared, but subtle it is not. The more I watch the more amazed I am at the subtext. This was only reinforced for me later in the day, when Tauna ever-so-kindly replayed The Bullshitters for me on her laptop - and I almost fell out of my chair I was so hysterical. It perfectly captures the feel and motion of Pros, plus the snogging-in-the-gravel scene is so exactly right - I mean, the slash really is just that obvious if you pay even the slightest attention. I was very entertained, and very grateful to Tauna for taking the time.
So though not a lot happened at the Pros panel, and it wasn't really "exciting" (except insofar as I am always excited about Pros these days!), it was nice, and I was thrilled to be there, and I left with renewed hope and a renewed commitment to find a way to revitalize that fandom, or at least to be part of the revitalization efforts, and to keep relentlessly trying to become more involved (maybe I should start by participating in one of the scheduled crying_sodomy chats ....). And this commitment was reinforced by the conversation I'd had with Katya Baturinsky before the panel. Katya has a marvelous website highlighting her five fandoms - and it's clear from this that she and I have very similar tastes in pairings - plus she has an enviable way with words. Like me, she appears to love F/K first and best - in her fabulous essay If My Fandoms Were Men, she says about dS: If it were a man, DS would be the great love of my life, the one I'd kill or die for. I'd go down on him in public, anywhere, anytime; I'm addicted, and I'll take as much of him as I can get. ...
But she also has a deep and abiding passion for the other cop buddy pairings, and especially Pros. Here's how she describes Pros:
And then there were the Brits, the professionals of CI5, who put their lives on the line every day in their quest to keep England safe and smelling ever so faintly of roses and lavender. Bodie, with his shady past (ex-merc, ex-Paras, ex-SAS, ex-lots of other things he won't discuss) and heart of mush (but only for Doyle) under that pseudo-tough-guy exterior; and Doyle - former Met copper, one-time art student, he of the marksman's eye, foul temper, indecently tight jeans, and rampaging guilt complex. Together they formed Cowley's best team, and certainly his most decorative. They spent most of their off-hours together; didn't seem to understand the concept of personal space; stole each other's one-night stands and heartily disliked each other's serious girlfriends; answered each other's sentences and bickered away like an old married couple; and inevitably went to pieces when either of them was hurt or threatened. In other words, they were the perfect slash pairing.
This is precisely how I see them. Chatting with Katya is always wonderful, and I'd missed her most of the con; so I was really glad to have the chance to talk with her on Sunday. Katya is reasonably hooked into the current Pros fandom, plus she has a bit of history there, plus her taste in Pros fic just about exactly matches up with mine (I'm eager for her to update her rec page), plus she's just so much fun - it was wonderful to gush and squee with her, and it left me feeling hopeful that (1) there's still life in the fandom; (2) there's a place for me and the other newbies who are only now discovering and falling in love with it; and, most important, (3) I am not alone! That's the worst possible feeling in fandom - being alone with one's obsession, feeling like one does not belong.
So overall, from a fandom perspective this was a pretty satisfying con for me. I got to indulge my dS obsession fully and completely - I was surrounded by dS people from beginning to end, and I had no fears that I was talking about it too much or too intensely - I was with my people for this one! Brooklinegirl, Estrella, byob, Dira, Lynn - with these folks I could never talk too much about Ray and Fraser - in fact, I could never talk enough; our appetite for this stuff is insatiable!
With respect to Pros - well, it was great, though I didn't get quite enough . I mean, I squeed a lot - just ask the people I spent most of the weekend with - but I did exercise a tiny bit of restraint, because sometimes wondered if I was just plain talking about Bodie and Doyle too much, and I worried that no one else was really interested. But I just couldn't seem to keep myself from gushing, and for the most part I felt pretty free to do so, and my obsession was reasonably well indulged. Really, I can't complain!
So all these words, and I managed to talk only about the Pros and dS panels - all my good intentions to discuss the vid show, Harry Potter, and other aspects of the con notwithstanding. But I think it's time for a break, and I need to reflect upon the extreme hotness of my wonderful icon from heuradys (see brooklinegirl's post here for an explanation of the caption). Since this post was largely about Pros and my enthusiasm therefor, it seemed like this perfect opportunity for its debut. Thanks, H - you're amazing :-)