GeekGirlCon and the Carol Corps
Kelly Sue DeConnick said “you’re my friend from Tumblr! How do you pronounce your name?”
“Tereshkova, like the Russian cosmonaut.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t notice that!”
I explained about the bleach pen and my Carol Corps tank top and asked her to sign big since it bleeds out. (“It’s like arts and crafts.”) As she was signing she said she really liked what I post.
“You seem like Carol”, she told me.
I just managed not to actually spill any tears and said that was the nicest thing I’d heard in several weeks.
She told me a story about a woman who’s learning martial arts and every time she breaks a board, she decorates its pieces with Carol art. Kelly Sue said ... oh, I forget how she put it, but basically we’re two of a kind.
So I asked if we could take a picture, and she said okay we’re doing duck face selfies. Which we did. Then Matt Fraction said, "Wait, I have to take a picture. I have to document the documenting." So he took a picture of me taking a picture of me and Kelly Sue DeConnick.
The table lineup was such that Matt Fraction was seated before Kelly Sue. I didn’t realize he would be there, so I didn’t bring my Hawkeye comics. I did tell him about the van in front of our house and how much I love Hawkguy and that panel in particular. He thanked me and was generally very nice to talk to.
There was a photographer who was taking shots the whole time I was trying not to break out crying, and after she heard what Kelly Sue said about me, she asked for my blog. I gave her my card, and I don’t know if she will send photos but I sure hope so.
Then there was a small Carol Corps gathering, with 4 Carols and ~5 civilians. We decided on the plural noun (a whizbang of Carols) and came up with the Carol Corps hand sign. (You pose like Carol, with one fist raised and the other on your hip. Then you fistbump. Then you raise your opened hand up to the sky and make sparkle fingers.) Photos of the four of us keep turning up and I keep thinking how fabulous|perfect|aggressive|amazing we are. I loved being part of a gathering like that. I’ve never been in a group of fans of one specific property/character before. It was just ... it was a thing. We got to show the DeFractions what we’d come up with and get a group shot with Kelly Sue. Though I don’t know whose camera it was on... no, wait. I do; it’s on Fraction’s phone. He got one of us laughing (because he’d told us “say destroy the patriarchy!”) and one serious because Kelly Sue said she wasn’t into smiles and wanted serious girl gang expressions.
We will be the stars we were always meant to be.
Any time I'm uncertain, or tired, or just don't want to do something, all I have to do is tell myself "Kelly Sue thinks you're like Carol."