Con report: ClosetCon 2010
Back from ClosetCon, a very cool and unique expeience. Not nearly enough sleep, of course, and today I've got a bit of a headache, but am going to write up some sort of con report before I get too distracted doing the things I need to do.
If there are slashers amongst us who aren't clear on how the whole slash thing started--and I hope there are not--this is the history: back in 1967, this show came on TV called Star Trek. Two of its main characters had a very deep relationship and a ridiculous amount of chemistry, and a group of ladies began writing 'what if' scenarios in which we got to see some of the behind-the-scenes moments between them. Some of those moments included hot sex scenes. The ladies published zines, which at the time was a fairly labourious process involving snail mail post and Xerox machines. The people holding this convention are those ladies. They have been in fandom since before I was born. Fandom itself has taken on different forms; the process has streamlined and grown with the advance of technology so that we can all share our stories and art all over the internet in a blink, for which I am incredibly greatful--but it's also very cool to get a good look at the roots of fandom and kick it old school.
Also, hanging out with a bunch of geeky slasher girls for a weekend is never a bad thing.
Friday:
Left Aber in the afternoon. I was on the train with the WARPSOC (Wargames and Role Playing Society) people, who were off on a camping trip, hauling tents and swords and bows and arrows and such. It may come as a surprise that I don't actually know more than a couple of the WARPSOC folks, because--and I do not say this very often--they're a bit too geeky even for me. And I say this in a post about how I've just come back from a Kirk/Spock slash convention. So now you know it's possible. Anyway, I had a random thought, that they are probably looking around at all the people on the train thinking, 'ha, we are probably scaring the Mundanes!' (I know they are doing this, because let's face it, we all do) and little do they know where I'm off to spend my weekend.
Anyway, switching trains at Birmingham was a bit of a disaster because the one toward Cambridge was crowded. Really crowded. They opened the first class seats up for free, if you could grab one, but there were still people and luggage crowded into the aisles. I started feeling dizzy that way, so sat in the only remaining available space: the luggage compartment. Wheee, fun times. So I was a bit icky feeling by the time I got to Leicester, but I found a taxi and got to the con and checked in. (The taxi rank at Leicester train station, by the way, smells like spices and incense. It's lovely. I noticed this both times, on the way in and out. I think it's to do with the gent who keeps things organised, since it was stronger when he was around. Nice man.) Anyway, I checked in and got my room key, where I had a bit of a lie-down, and then proceeded to set up the room and take a few pictures like I've just got to Starfleet Academy and am getting settled in.
Besides, it seems fitting to start with a picture of a Closet.
Once I'd had a cuppa, I headed off to meet people, find tracionn and have a drink at the bar. The bartender this night was nice, and convinced me to try Brothers Toffee Apple Cider, which was brilliant. Toffee apples in liquid, alcoholic form? Excellent. Anyway, met up with tracionn (and got my awesome Starfleet shirt from her) as well as feanna, awarrington, rhaegal and some other most excellent ladies who are not on LJ. About 8pm we headed into the great hall for dinner, then had sort of an opening ceremony in which there was enough 'but you've all read XFic by XAuthor, and of course you all know this art!' that made me wish there was a study handbook you could get going in. I'm not new to the canon, but am definitely new to the fandom, and don't know much about zines beyond what I ended up learning this weekend.
rosemaryw also introduced the silent auctions and the raffle prizes during this, which were some fabulous collections of art, mugs, keyings, jewellery, and zines. The money from these goes to various charities that are picked beforehand. Fandom has a long tradition of good deeds, after all.
After the opening stuff, I went to a Vid showing, which was pretty cool. There was a good mix of TOS/Rebook K/S, even though the bulk of the con was overwhelmingly (and understandably) TOS. To give you an idea of how devoted these fans are, the vintage vids were made in the early 80s with a pair of VHS players and an 8mm pointed at a TV screen. The quality is not spectacular, but the effort put in shows. After a late night gleefully watching vids, I collapsed into bed, and had trouble getting to sleep in time to get any rest before a pretty early breakfast time.
Saturday:
Breakfast and very bad coffee. After that an art show, which began with the two guest artists, Caren and Gayle, showing some of the things they brought with them (which is gorgeous), and then went to everyone who'd remembered to bring something showing it off. I'd planned on taking the sketch of Chris Pine that nix_this drew for me, even though it is not specifically Kirk art, but left it sitting on my bookshelf when I ran of for the train. But I got to see a lot of other awesome art, so that was all right.
Then there was a Bring 'n' Buy, in which we all dashed madly for the table of goodies to see what we could grab. I have two local friends who wanted to go but couldn't (well, one isn't local normally as she's in Germany, but is in Aber this month, so close enough) and I wanted to get them presents, so found a couple vintage zines in the 'money for charity' box and bought Spock's World for myself--I've wanted that one for ages, partly because it's Diane Duane, of whom I'm a fan anyway.
The Goodies Table:
The first panel of the day was discussion of a simple question: would you read the slash if there were no sex in it? Predictably, answers varied, even amongst a pretty small group--some people are there for the romance, some the porn, some the plot-with-relationship-thrown in. This is a conversation easily recognisable by everybody who's been in fandom for any length of time, I think. Someone said, 'well the best, of course, is when you have something really well-written with a good story and hot sex scenes,' to which I can only say, 'amen', and also, 'no kidding'. ;) Reaffirming our love of sexytimes, we headed off to lunch.
During this time, we also made a black hole. Well, metaphorically. Analogously. (I may have just made that word up.) rhaegal was planning a 'Science of Star Trek' panel, and part of the demonstration involved a trampoline posing as a black hole, and a lot of bouncy balls as planets.
I loved this, but of course I would; we know I love the space stuff. I am also a fan of her approach, of instead of complaining that X thing can't happen, to find a way to explain how it could, even if that explanation is a bit far-fetched. We talked about warp drive, and black holes, and what you see in space. There was a stargazing session set up for that night as well, but it was looking dangerously as if it were about to rain.
I skipped the next panel-talk-thing because it was on Boston Legal, which I haven't seen, and because I was getting a bit giddy and though some quiet time in the zine library with a good story might be just the thing for a wet afternoon. I like reading fic on my computer, but it is pretty cool to be able to curl up with it the way you do a book, too.
Then we hit up the art again; Caren did a presentation on sort of the evolution of K/S fanart from the early zines and paintings up to photomanips and such. There was some lively discussion on whether digital art really counts, and a lot of gorgeous pictures (including some by you, dear friends). Sat around chatting more with the aforementioned GQMFs, until we realised it was nearly time for the big dress-up dinner, and as I wanted to clean up first, and rhaegal was planning to paint herself green, we should get on with things.
I got cleaned up and dressed up--hey, the con registration said anything from fancy dress to dress uniform, and I took it literally! Most people were dressed quite smartly but not in costume, though there was a great Irene Adler and a very distinguished Vulcan elder. And then me and rhaegal as token Starfleet cadets. We looked pretty awesome.
(My one complaint about the costume is that the girl who made it used a guys' jacket pattern, so it's not really cut for the feminine form. But I got a friend in the Film & TV department to make it and the workmanship is amazing, so I really have no complaints at all.) Anyway, we had some drinkies and some food, though I was a bit traumatised by the Salmon of Death. When one serves salmon, is it really necessary to post its head on a pike above the platter? Do we need to warn other salmon away? Were the fake eyes really necessary? I don't have a picture of this because I was traumatised. I do, however, have a picture of feanna making pervy sculpture out of my gorillapod:
The celebration was finished off with cake. But not just any cake. Slashcake! Pictures by guests artists Caren and Gayle had been used to decorate the tops of the cakes, which each of them got to then cut.
Caren's slashcake:
Gayle's slashcake:
(I have a picture of the cutting, too, but am not sure of their opinions on being in LJ pictures and am keeping it to people I'm reasonably certain won't mind. Unfortunately this cuts out a few other nice ones, as there are visible people who I know do mind, and I'm much too lazy to go blurring things out at the moment.)
After the cake, we were happy to find out the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared up somewhat. rhaegal had brought her telescope, and we were going to have a look around the night sky. The Perseids were falling, and Saturday night was a conjunction of Venus, Mars and Saturn. Unfortunately there was so much light pollution in the car park that it was hard to get a good look at anything, though she tried to locate galaxy M51 for us to have a peek at. The best we really managed to see were a few constellations and flashes of meteorite. Also discovered the iPad app Starmap, which is fabulous, though still not enough to make me want to buy an iPad. (For the duration of the stargazing session, however, watching the Orion cadet with the PADD looking at starcharts was pretty geekily awesome.)
The bar was sadly closed when we got back inside, and a lot of people went to bed. A few late-nighters stayed up, and feanna and I tried to plan a bit for our panel the next day on the future of fandom, until we had to crash.
Sunday:
Gave up trying to be up for breakfast, and mostly wanted to stay in bed--but there was more fun to be had, and didn't want to miss it! Early on though I started feeling that tension that comes of knowing you have a train or a flight to catch later in the day, especially since I wasn't sure when we'd be ending the con and I was cutting it pretty close to get back to Aber on a Sunday night. The morning panel was on Reboot, and whether people liked it or hated it. Unsurprisingly, there were strong feelings on both sides, but it was really kept pretty civil (mostly by Caren's moderator abilities, in some cases). But ultimately nobody has to like all aspects of canon, and surely that's the point. I have a lot of things to say about Reboot at any given time, but this is not the place for that post (and mostly I concentrate on 'but Chris Pine is so PRETTY'! I am amazed I have not moved on from crushing on that boy yet).
There was a little bit more library time, and another talk which I missed because I was just getting worn out. It was about whether you can be a fan without being 'in fandom', which is always a good thing to think about, and something else I'll deal more with in some other post. Then feanna and I had our panel, which was about the future and evolution of fandom, and we pointed out the awesomeness of the K/S Archive, Delicious bookmarks, and a couple of our favorite vids. 'The Test' and 'Mind Meld' went over well, and we felt relieved. Everyone headed out to the garden for a photo session, then we had some lunch and a final panel, a lovely discussion about what it is that gives this particular fandom so much staying power (forty years!) and whether people drift off to other things for a while before wandering back. While most do, there actually was a handful who've never drifted into any other fandom, though they do step back sometimes for RL things, but have had this same OTP for basically ever. Just in case you were wondering whether it could be done.
Closing ceremonies--raffle and silent auction results, in which I predictably didn't even get close but it's okay, I never do--and some lucky winners got lovely things. (tracionn took home a bag full of prizes.) Then it was time for goodbyes and train catching, and rhaegal gave me a lift back to the train so I could begin the long journey home. (I watched vids and part of reboot on the train, just to keep the theme going.)
It's always a bit of a shock, when you're totally immersed in something for a few days, to rejoin the outside world; I think this happens doubly with things like ren faires and sci fi conventions, where you have to gradually remember that these things do not play into your everyday life. I was totally ready to go on being a Starfleet cadet for a few more days, just like I'm never quite ready to stop playing Hogwarts or pirates or medieval warriors. And when it's something like a whole con devoted to a single slash pairing, it's so incredibly freeing to just be able to talk about nothing else for days--sure, eventually you'd stop anyway, but most of the time we don't get the chance, because people get kind of annoyed if we talk about it constantly. And fair enough.
And the thing is, that's what I love fandom for. I've been a lot less actively over the past few years, and some of that's a time thing, but some of it's that there are things that happen that make me want to avoid it, or just isn't that interesting. There's a reason most of my involvement these days is pointless squeeing on ontd_startrek. I like being giddy and stupid and gleeing about how your OTP is so very MFEO, analysing all the little looks and subtexty lines, grasping at loose ends and guessing what happens behind the scenes. So it was brilliant to have a chance to do that, and to see the evidence that you can not only be a slasher your whole life, but that the friends you make doing it can last a very long time. Even if I pretty much knew that already.
And now I suppose it is back to that pesky real world thing; I do still have a PhD to write. And I have a whole backlog of fic to read, if I ever have time again.
If there are slashers amongst us who aren't clear on how the whole slash thing started--and I hope there are not--this is the history: back in 1967, this show came on TV called Star Trek. Two of its main characters had a very deep relationship and a ridiculous amount of chemistry, and a group of ladies began writing 'what if' scenarios in which we got to see some of the behind-the-scenes moments between them. Some of those moments included hot sex scenes. The ladies published zines, which at the time was a fairly labourious process involving snail mail post and Xerox machines. The people holding this convention are those ladies. They have been in fandom since before I was born. Fandom itself has taken on different forms; the process has streamlined and grown with the advance of technology so that we can all share our stories and art all over the internet in a blink, for which I am incredibly greatful--but it's also very cool to get a good look at the roots of fandom and kick it old school.
Also, hanging out with a bunch of geeky slasher girls for a weekend is never a bad thing.
Friday:
Left Aber in the afternoon. I was on the train with the WARPSOC (Wargames and Role Playing Society) people, who were off on a camping trip, hauling tents and swords and bows and arrows and such. It may come as a surprise that I don't actually know more than a couple of the WARPSOC folks, because--and I do not say this very often--they're a bit too geeky even for me. And I say this in a post about how I've just come back from a Kirk/Spock slash convention. So now you know it's possible. Anyway, I had a random thought, that they are probably looking around at all the people on the train thinking, 'ha, we are probably scaring the Mundanes!' (I know they are doing this, because let's face it, we all do) and little do they know where I'm off to spend my weekend.
Anyway, switching trains at Birmingham was a bit of a disaster because the one toward Cambridge was crowded. Really crowded. They opened the first class seats up for free, if you could grab one, but there were still people and luggage crowded into the aisles. I started feeling dizzy that way, so sat in the only remaining available space: the luggage compartment. Wheee, fun times. So I was a bit icky feeling by the time I got to Leicester, but I found a taxi and got to the con and checked in. (The taxi rank at Leicester train station, by the way, smells like spices and incense. It's lovely. I noticed this both times, on the way in and out. I think it's to do with the gent who keeps things organised, since it was stronger when he was around. Nice man.) Anyway, I checked in and got my room key, where I had a bit of a lie-down, and then proceeded to set up the room and take a few pictures like I've just got to Starfleet Academy and am getting settled in.
Besides, it seems fitting to start with a picture of a Closet.
Once I'd had a cuppa, I headed off to meet people, find tracionn and have a drink at the bar. The bartender this night was nice, and convinced me to try Brothers Toffee Apple Cider, which was brilliant. Toffee apples in liquid, alcoholic form? Excellent. Anyway, met up with tracionn (and got my awesome Starfleet shirt from her) as well as feanna, awarrington, rhaegal and some other most excellent ladies who are not on LJ. About 8pm we headed into the great hall for dinner, then had sort of an opening ceremony in which there was enough 'but you've all read XFic by XAuthor, and of course you all know this art!' that made me wish there was a study handbook you could get going in. I'm not new to the canon, but am definitely new to the fandom, and don't know much about zines beyond what I ended up learning this weekend.
rosemaryw also introduced the silent auctions and the raffle prizes during this, which were some fabulous collections of art, mugs, keyings, jewellery, and zines. The money from these goes to various charities that are picked beforehand. Fandom has a long tradition of good deeds, after all.
After the opening stuff, I went to a Vid showing, which was pretty cool. There was a good mix of TOS/Rebook K/S, even though the bulk of the con was overwhelmingly (and understandably) TOS. To give you an idea of how devoted these fans are, the vintage vids were made in the early 80s with a pair of VHS players and an 8mm pointed at a TV screen. The quality is not spectacular, but the effort put in shows. After a late night gleefully watching vids, I collapsed into bed, and had trouble getting to sleep in time to get any rest before a pretty early breakfast time.
Saturday:
Breakfast and very bad coffee. After that an art show, which began with the two guest artists, Caren and Gayle, showing some of the things they brought with them (which is gorgeous), and then went to everyone who'd remembered to bring something showing it off. I'd planned on taking the sketch of Chris Pine that nix_this drew for me, even though it is not specifically Kirk art, but left it sitting on my bookshelf when I ran of for the train. But I got to see a lot of other awesome art, so that was all right.
Then there was a Bring 'n' Buy, in which we all dashed madly for the table of goodies to see what we could grab. I have two local friends who wanted to go but couldn't (well, one isn't local normally as she's in Germany, but is in Aber this month, so close enough) and I wanted to get them presents, so found a couple vintage zines in the 'money for charity' box and bought Spock's World for myself--I've wanted that one for ages, partly because it's Diane Duane, of whom I'm a fan anyway.
The Goodies Table:
The first panel of the day was discussion of a simple question: would you read the slash if there were no sex in it? Predictably, answers varied, even amongst a pretty small group--some people are there for the romance, some the porn, some the plot-with-relationship-thrown in. This is a conversation easily recognisable by everybody who's been in fandom for any length of time, I think. Someone said, 'well the best, of course, is when you have something really well-written with a good story and hot sex scenes,' to which I can only say, 'amen', and also, 'no kidding'. ;) Reaffirming our love of sexytimes, we headed off to lunch.
During this time, we also made a black hole. Well, metaphorically. Analogously. (I may have just made that word up.) rhaegal was planning a 'Science of Star Trek' panel, and part of the demonstration involved a trampoline posing as a black hole, and a lot of bouncy balls as planets.
I loved this, but of course I would; we know I love the space stuff. I am also a fan of her approach, of instead of complaining that X thing can't happen, to find a way to explain how it could, even if that explanation is a bit far-fetched. We talked about warp drive, and black holes, and what you see in space. There was a stargazing session set up for that night as well, but it was looking dangerously as if it were about to rain.
I skipped the next panel-talk-thing because it was on Boston Legal, which I haven't seen, and because I was getting a bit giddy and though some quiet time in the zine library with a good story might be just the thing for a wet afternoon. I like reading fic on my computer, but it is pretty cool to be able to curl up with it the way you do a book, too.
Then we hit up the art again; Caren did a presentation on sort of the evolution of K/S fanart from the early zines and paintings up to photomanips and such. There was some lively discussion on whether digital art really counts, and a lot of gorgeous pictures (including some by you, dear friends). Sat around chatting more with the aforementioned GQMFs, until we realised it was nearly time for the big dress-up dinner, and as I wanted to clean up first, and rhaegal was planning to paint herself green, we should get on with things.
I got cleaned up and dressed up--hey, the con registration said anything from fancy dress to dress uniform, and I took it literally! Most people were dressed quite smartly but not in costume, though there was a great Irene Adler and a very distinguished Vulcan elder. And then me and rhaegal as token Starfleet cadets. We looked pretty awesome.
(My one complaint about the costume is that the girl who made it used a guys' jacket pattern, so it's not really cut for the feminine form. But I got a friend in the Film & TV department to make it and the workmanship is amazing, so I really have no complaints at all.) Anyway, we had some drinkies and some food, though I was a bit traumatised by the Salmon of Death. When one serves salmon, is it really necessary to post its head on a pike above the platter? Do we need to warn other salmon away? Were the fake eyes really necessary? I don't have a picture of this because I was traumatised. I do, however, have a picture of feanna making pervy sculpture out of my gorillapod:
The celebration was finished off with cake. But not just any cake. Slashcake! Pictures by guests artists Caren and Gayle had been used to decorate the tops of the cakes, which each of them got to then cut.
Caren's slashcake:
Gayle's slashcake:
(I have a picture of the cutting, too, but am not sure of their opinions on being in LJ pictures and am keeping it to people I'm reasonably certain won't mind. Unfortunately this cuts out a few other nice ones, as there are visible people who I know do mind, and I'm much too lazy to go blurring things out at the moment.)
After the cake, we were happy to find out the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared up somewhat. rhaegal had brought her telescope, and we were going to have a look around the night sky. The Perseids were falling, and Saturday night was a conjunction of Venus, Mars and Saturn. Unfortunately there was so much light pollution in the car park that it was hard to get a good look at anything, though she tried to locate galaxy M51 for us to have a peek at. The best we really managed to see were a few constellations and flashes of meteorite. Also discovered the iPad app Starmap, which is fabulous, though still not enough to make me want to buy an iPad. (For the duration of the stargazing session, however, watching the Orion cadet with the PADD looking at starcharts was pretty geekily awesome.)
The bar was sadly closed when we got back inside, and a lot of people went to bed. A few late-nighters stayed up, and feanna and I tried to plan a bit for our panel the next day on the future of fandom, until we had to crash.
Sunday:
Gave up trying to be up for breakfast, and mostly wanted to stay in bed--but there was more fun to be had, and didn't want to miss it! Early on though I started feeling that tension that comes of knowing you have a train or a flight to catch later in the day, especially since I wasn't sure when we'd be ending the con and I was cutting it pretty close to get back to Aber on a Sunday night. The morning panel was on Reboot, and whether people liked it or hated it. Unsurprisingly, there were strong feelings on both sides, but it was really kept pretty civil (mostly by Caren's moderator abilities, in some cases). But ultimately nobody has to like all aspects of canon, and surely that's the point. I have a lot of things to say about Reboot at any given time, but this is not the place for that post (and mostly I concentrate on 'but Chris Pine is so PRETTY'! I am amazed I have not moved on from crushing on that boy yet).
There was a little bit more library time, and another talk which I missed because I was just getting worn out. It was about whether you can be a fan without being 'in fandom', which is always a good thing to think about, and something else I'll deal more with in some other post. Then feanna and I had our panel, which was about the future and evolution of fandom, and we pointed out the awesomeness of the K/S Archive, Delicious bookmarks, and a couple of our favorite vids. 'The Test' and 'Mind Meld' went over well, and we felt relieved. Everyone headed out to the garden for a photo session, then we had some lunch and a final panel, a lovely discussion about what it is that gives this particular fandom so much staying power (forty years!) and whether people drift off to other things for a while before wandering back. While most do, there actually was a handful who've never drifted into any other fandom, though they do step back sometimes for RL things, but have had this same OTP for basically ever. Just in case you were wondering whether it could be done.
Closing ceremonies--raffle and silent auction results, in which I predictably didn't even get close but it's okay, I never do--and some lucky winners got lovely things. (tracionn took home a bag full of prizes.) Then it was time for goodbyes and train catching, and rhaegal gave me a lift back to the train so I could begin the long journey home. (I watched vids and part of reboot on the train, just to keep the theme going.)
It's always a bit of a shock, when you're totally immersed in something for a few days, to rejoin the outside world; I think this happens doubly with things like ren faires and sci fi conventions, where you have to gradually remember that these things do not play into your everyday life. I was totally ready to go on being a Starfleet cadet for a few more days, just like I'm never quite ready to stop playing Hogwarts or pirates or medieval warriors. And when it's something like a whole con devoted to a single slash pairing, it's so incredibly freeing to just be able to talk about nothing else for days--sure, eventually you'd stop anyway, but most of the time we don't get the chance, because people get kind of annoyed if we talk about it constantly. And fair enough.
And the thing is, that's what I love fandom for. I've been a lot less actively over the past few years, and some of that's a time thing, but some of it's that there are things that happen that make me want to avoid it, or just isn't that interesting. There's a reason most of my involvement these days is pointless squeeing on ontd_startrek. I like being giddy and stupid and gleeing about how your OTP is so very MFEO, analysing all the little looks and subtexty lines, grasping at loose ends and guessing what happens behind the scenes. So it was brilliant to have a chance to do that, and to see the evidence that you can not only be a slasher your whole life, but that the friends you make doing it can last a very long time. Even if I pretty much knew that already.
And now I suppose it is back to that pesky real world thing; I do still have a PhD to write. And I have a whole backlog of fic to read, if I ever have time again.