VividCon 2007, part 1
I'm starting this post 28,000 feet in the air on Sunday night with tears streaming down my face. I've been crying on and off for the last three hours or so, ever since I had to say goodbye. It's kind of hard to cry like a baby discreetly on an airplane, but I'm trying. My new desktop background is one of the last pictures I took before saying goodbye--a group shot of my friends crowded around me--and I keep looking back up at their smiling faces even though it's making this post damn near impossible to write at more than a snail's pace (nor is it doing much for my whole discretion thing. The poor woman next to me is trying desperately to sleep, and I can't stop sniffling). I just...I wish I knew the words to describe what the last three days have meant to me. What this community means to me. What this hobby and our passion for it mean to me. What these people mean to me.
take me over when I'm gone
take me over, make me strong
I haven't felt this completely consumed by emotion in years. God, it feels a bit like being in love again, only it's spread out over a dozen people. I thought it was going to rip me in two to walk away from them tonight. I've found something I've searched for ever since I left Saddle Rock ten years ago. I've found my family. And I say that with absolutely no disrespect to the amazing people in my life already; it's not like that at all. This is different, separate. I can't stress that enough. But this weekend was like nothing I had ever experienced. I knew this would be unlike any convention I'd ever attended, but I had no idea it would be this intimate. I've had connections like this one-on-one or a handful at a time, but never en masse like this. Not with practically every single person I talked to. It's going to take me some time to fully process it.
And I'm sitting here thinking about it and as particular things trigger more tears, I'm realizing that I'm not crying because I'm sad, I'm crying because I'm so happy. This is only the beginning. I may be on a plane, but I'm not really going anywhere. I'm taking these people with me, not leaving them. The last three days were beyond even my very wildest dreams and expectations. Light years beyond. I almost can't believe it actually happened. But it did. I have 80 pictures to prove it. Even if I won't see them again for another year, it was real, all of it. The hugs, the hand-holding, the dancing, the singing, the cheering, the laughter, the smooches, the camaraderie, the cuddling, the praise, the support. The love. So, so much love. And from the very first moment, it felt like coming home. It was so effortless, so easy. I didn't even have to try. This is where I belong. I have found my people. But what fills my heart even more is that they seem every bit as excited to have found me, too.
God, it took me over half an hour to just write my damn introduction. I promised everybody one of my legendary con reports, and I will deliver, tempted as I am to flock this on the grounds of embarrassing emotional vulnerability. But it's too late for that now. I carried around a journal pad the entire weekend and took frighteningly copious notes that I'm typing up, so hopefully I won't leave out anything too important. My apologies to anyone reading this whom I left out. I didn't always know everyone's names in the room, and I should've made more of an effort to ask. Any omissions are completely unintentional and not to be taken personally. I should also mention that I'm not posting pictures because many of these people don't want their faces online. But I'll try to make up for that with details.
My VividCon 2007
Well, first some background for my poor non-vidding flisters who are wondering what the fuck I got myself into this time. As everyone and their mother knows, I've been deeply invested in vidding this past year. So much so that I attended the 6th annual VividCon in Chicago, which is a convention for vidders and vid-lovers to come together and celebrate this crazy thing we do. It's different from any other con I've been to in that it's a fan con, not one with celebrities. There were 125 people (contrast with DragonCon in 2 weeks, which has 50,000 and over a hundred celebrities). You may remember me posting in February that this con sold out in an hour and a half. That's how awesome it is. And much to my amusement, I was one of only 4 guys! Yes, that's a 30:1 ratio! (Pretty good odds for a shag! But, spoiler alert, no shagging was had. Not by me, anyway.) I remember back in January when I first heard of VVC, I wondered who the fuck would want to go to a vidding convention. Oh, the naivety of youth. I watched literally hundreds of vids this weekend and I loved every fucking second of it. Buying that ticket was probably the best decision I made all year.
Thursday
I actually had to work Thursday morning from 8-11 before catching my flight out. Of course, I spent two of those three hours writing posts for strangefandom, but whatever. I printed out my itinerary, hit the ATM, did a quick change, and caught the 11:30 bus for the airport. I actually skipped on the sidewalk, y'all, while singing "IIIII'm goin-ta Vi-vid-Connnn" repeatedly. I guess you could say I was mildly excited. My 1:30 o'clock flight was on-time and uneventful (yay!) despite the longest security line I've ever seen at SeaTac. I felt a little silly carrying a white fedora around with me (for my Club Vivid costume), but at least it didn't get beat up in the process. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw my flight itinerary--my locator code was LEEMKR. Knowing I was dressing up as Leemo on Saturday, and recognizing that O falls evenly between K and R in the alphabet, it was clearly a sign! I landed safely in Chicago at 7:30 and texted sdwolfpup to let her know I'd arrived. I took a cab to the hotel, and though the cab driver initially had no idea where the hell the hotel was, we made it just fine. Most people had gotten there earlier that day, so there were some scattered groups around already. Ironically, there were some local Seattle folks hanging in the lobby when I checked in (a few women I'd met at the fan lunch in June), so it was nice to see familiar faces right off the bat. I got my key and dropped my stuff off in the empty room before venturing out to the unknown. (dun dun DUN!)
I only knew two other attendees already: laurashapiro and SDW, both of whom I really can't say enough good things about. They were completely responsible for providing me the means and confidence to integrate myself into the vidding community, and were also who convinced me to attend VVC in the first place. I warned them that I might cling to them at first until I got my bearings, and they were (thankfully) perfectly fine with that. But uh oh, Laura doesn't have a cell phone and SDW wasn't answering hers, and I didn't know what rooms they were in (and apparently wasn't smart enough to check the front desk, I'm now realizing. My brain, FTW!) So, I was seemingly on my own to magically stumble onto folks to hang out with. Even though there were tons of people I wanted to meet, I had no idea where anyone was, or more importantly, what anyone looked like! (Vidders on the whole seem quite keen on keeping their faces offline. Probably cause what we do is illegal and all. Go figure.) I had a few vague descriptions, but I'm not that brave.
The one person I had a face for was dualbunny, who posted pictures in her con report last year. And lo and behold, as I walked down the hall toward the con area, who should be standing right there but Ms. Bunny herself! We did the mutual pointing-at-each-other-with-squinty-eyes thing thinking, "wait, that's you, right?" and had a big hello hug. And whaddaya know, the two lovely women with her were none other than heresluck and renenet! (Not to make too big deal out of this, because I totally can, but DB and HL are my two favorite vidders (stylistically) and have had the biggest influence on me (again, stylistically), so running into them first was kind of like Christmas and my birthday rolled into one.) I felt a little silly not having realized it was HL standing there as I walked up, since she'd been described to me, but everyone somehow failed to mention that she's a TOTAL HOTTIE. (You people really suck at the important details!) And in my moment of shock, I was too stunned and overwhelmed to give HL the long since promised running tackle-hug (which, now that I think about it, was never really a good plan since I didn't know what she looked like), so instead she picked me up and spun me around until she got dizzy *g* I know, as if I didn't adore her enough already, right? Once the room stopped spinning, I was introduced to DB's husband, Gerry, who had been so very patient while I squished and fangirled his wife, heh. This became a continuing theme throughout the weekend. (Both the DB fangirling and Gerry's patience with me, heh.)
I hadn't eaten a thing all day, so I was pleased to hear everyone was just on their way to dinner (and thrilled when they invited me along!) A group of ten or so of us walked to the restaurant in the hotel next door, Bistro 90. I was still shaking from excitement at this point, so much so that my whole body was tingling like I'd been hyperventilating. I suppose I was kind of emotionally hyperventilating, heh. Seriously, never in a million years would I have believed it if someone told me "oh yeah, within ten minutes of arriving at VVC, you'll be out to dinner with DB and HL." I'm pretty sure at one point I was literally holding my hands to my head to keep it from exploding. Most people hadn't registered yet (including me), so very few folks had nametags. I was still working up the courage to randomly introduce myself to people, so I didn't get all the names of our dinner companions, but they were a most lovely bunch. I do know I was sitting next to astolat and across from cesperanza with HL next to her and DB&G down at the far end of the table. I said almost nothing the whole meal, just drank like THREE CARAFES of water and soaked up the yummy conversations, revelling in the fact that I was really there. (My one note from dinner in my journal was: MY PEOPLE.) I somehow managed to eat some pork tenderloin and scaldingly hot mashed potatoes, but my stomach was running laps the whole time with excitement. I called Rachael to tell her I arrived safely and that I was happy, but that was probably the most coherence I had during that hour.
One of the women who'd registered passed around the con program, which I was ridiculously excited to see. Renenet had previously sent me most of the programs from prior years because they delighted me so (for whatever reason), and being in one was mindbogging! I could have fainted to see my name printed there in the tables with all these amazing vidders I respect so much. That's when I really had my first moment of, "wow...look at me. I really am one of them now. I'm a VividCon vidder." It was intoxicating. I looked at the Newbie Vidshow first (where "Save Yourself" was) and then flipped eagerly to Premieres. And holy crap, guess where my Starbuck vid sat in the show? 4th in the second half, right behind vids by Cesperanza, SDW, and the dynamic duo of sockkpuppett (Luminosity) and sisabet. Uh, that's like having your painting hanging next to Van Gogh, Monet, and fucking Da Vinci, you guys. It's a good thing I hadn't eaten by then, because I probably would've thrown up a little. How the fuck is a newbie like me supposed to follow that? But Laura and SDW were very kind with positive reinforcement over the weekend and assured me the placement was a compliment, so I tried to focus on that, heh. Still, combined with the thrill of seeing myself in the program at all, it was quite the mindfuck. Like, "whoa, shit. I'm really in deep now." But in a good way :-)
Right as we finished eating, SDW finally called me back (and, sweetheart that I am, I answered the phone with "where the hell are you?") She was with Laura and some other folks, and they were about to watch the first episode of Dante's Cove WITHOUT ME. (This would pretty much be grounds to hate her forever, btw.) After making her feel like shit for that (heh), she agreed to bring the group to come meet us. Little did I know that she had with her the second half of the gang I would then spend the entire weekend with. Looking back on it now, their arrival was even more pivotal than it felt at the time, which was already big in itself. As I saw the crowd approaching, I ran to the door to give Laura a big hug. We'd seen each other in June and July, but it's still never enough. Before I could turn to give SDW a hug, I was face to face with none other than absolutedestiny, who is pretty much a demi-god in my book and is single-handedly responsible for the reason my newer vids look so much shinier than my old ones. And you know any guy who greets me with a big hug is permanently on my good list. After hugging SDW I was then introduced to three lovely vidders I highly respected and was thrilled to meet: sisabet, pipsqueaky, and sweetestdrain, plus Sisabet's sister Cappy. Putting faces to these names was totally tripping me out in the best way. (They were real! Real people that I can talk to and hug! Omg!)
You know, now that most of this group has assembled (with more shortly on the way), I should probably go ahead and give you the name/abbreviation rundown of the people I'll be mentioning most often for the remainder of the post:
heresluck - HL
dualbunny - DB (with Gerry will be DB&G)
laurashapiro - Laura
sdwolfpup - SDW
absolutedestiny - Ian
pipsqueaky - Pips
sweetestdrain - Sweet
sisabet - Sis
f1renze - Flo
renenet - Ren
sockkpuppett - Lum
greensilver - Green
And for those of you who don't know, that's basically me saying, "hi, here is the list of almost all the big-name vidders that I've hero-worshipped for the last ten months. Which just so happens to be the same group of people I just spent three days hanging out with." I'm telling you, HEAD. EXPLODING.
While everyone was standing around talking after dinner, I found myself conveniently in conversation with SDW and DB, so I took the opportunity to call our mutual friend, the lovely brynnmck. The three of us left her a very silly voicemail, but luckily she called back as we were in line at the register. I had DB answer my phone to best emphasize what a crime it was that Brynn wasn't there with us. Hell, I felt like an asshole for getting to meet DB after only a few months when they've been online friends for five years! Sigh. But damnit, Brynn IS coming with us next year even if we have to cut her into little pieces and check her in our luggage. So, that was a fun phone call. She made me promise that SDW would drink, heh, and I gave her my word. What thoughtful friends we are! \o/
Once we'd all paid and played that scene, we headed back to SDW/Pips/Green's room (702) which pretty much became our hangout headquarters for the weekend. We all piled in ("we" being me, SDW, HL, DB&G, Laura, Pips, Sweet, Ian, Ren, and Cappy) and fastened our seatbelts for the wild ride that is Dante's Cove. And holy shit, you guys. This show is SO AWESOMELY BAD. Based on the vids and what we read in strangefandom, we had a pretty good idea of how crazy it was (what with the lovely blend of softcore gay porn and witchcraft), but it surpassed our wildest notions. Everyone is always covered in sweat! People's clothing appears as they walk into rooms or changes color in the ocean! Never buttfuck in front of jealous witches! It's classy to blow your boyfriend in the back of a cab! The show takes way too many people to make and yet managed to leave things out of the budget like "quality casting agents" and "people who can actually act" and "writers beyond a sixth grade level." It is so beyond ridiculous, and yet it's undeniaby compelling. We were immediately sucked into the vortex and almost drowned, I swear.
The first season is a whopping TWO EPISODES, 1.5 hours long each. SDW only brought the first episode, but it was fodder aplenty for fannish types such as us. We provided an MST3K-type commentary (trusting we weren't missing any really important dialogue in the process) and were constantly cracking up, though usually moreso at the show itself than any parody we could make of it. Twice I actually was in a fetal position on the floor in fits of hysteria. For posterity, here are some memorable moments:
- "bitchin parties, which we frequently have"
- "He's had a really hard life."
- "Hey, Mom!"
- "Make him leave, Mom, he's an asshole!"
- Drusilla gives you rabies
- the parasol of PAIN
- sand! jiggling! ass clenching!
- the credits, OMG. Sooo long, soooooo bad.
- the old man screaming from behind the door (my personal favorite)
- Ambrosius's pouty face that SDW imitated so well
- Kevin sleeping with the book over his face
- the donut on a string on the wall, which the lesbians clearly ate after (not-)fucking in the basement
- my commentary: "no glove, no love" and "she's taken lessons for years"
- Ian's line about how Tobey showing Kevin his mechanical train collection is a sign they've gotten closer
- Torgo (or Torso, as we called him here) and his little white shorts with the bulge you CAN'T. STOP. STARING AT.
It went on and on, I'm telling you. Neverending awesome. The "bitchin parties" thing became a great running joke throughout the weekend. Everything from Club Vivid to the mashup show became a 'bitchin party.' In fact, we decided that SDW and Brynn should name the con they're putting on this spring 'Bitchin Party, which we frequently have.' Awesome. And we all want to vid Dante's Cove now, so we joked that we should have a DC-only vidshow next year. That would be fucking amazing. A few of us are already conspiring to do a Club Vivid vid together that will blow y'all's fucking MINDS. And Ren was kind enough to make us small paper replicas of Dante's Inferno to lay over our faces when we slept that night. Awww.
After the episode ended, we were all too blown away by the awful to really carry on much of a conversation. Fortunately, Green and Sis came in and saved us from our awkward silence, and Ren gave Sis a gift: a Beyonce Barbie! Just listening to Sis and Cappy go back and forth about it was ridiculously entertaining. We started to tell Sis about Dante's Cove, so we just had to show her the first scene to make her understand. Yeah, FORTY MINUTES LATER we finally turned it off. (I'm telling you--vortex!) It was about 1:30 am at that point, so we called it a night. I finally got to meet my roommates for the first time (ring_wench, redina, and devon, who was already asleep). It was a little strange crawling into bed with a sleeping person I didn't know, heh, but it was fine. The actual sleeping, however, was not so fine. I crashed at 2:30 after a shower and then woke up fresh and wide awake ready to go at...4:45 AM. *headdesk* Not so awesome. And I could not fall back asleep for anything. I did remember to hang up my Club Vivid outfit in the closet, though, which was a perk. I ended up reading Annie on my Mind until 6, when I finally tried to sleep again. I slept from 6:30 to 8 for a grand total of 3.5 hours of sleep. And yet, I was totally fine all day Friday. Seriously. That's how fucking excited I was for what lied ahead of me.
Friday
Since I don't check bags when I fly anymore, I can't take many liquids with me, which meant contact solution and shaving cream. I desperately needed a shave, so I set out at 8 am to see if I could find some. As soon as I stepped out into the hallway, I saw HL stepping out of the room next door! Ha! We had no idea we were neighbors. Too funny. And she was on her way to the grocery store, of all things! She graciously accepted my self-invitation and we set off for Dominick's a few blocks away. It was fucking hot in Chicago, 80 degrees or so even in the morning, ugh. I was nursing an eczema attack on my hands, so that triggered some lovely and not at all gross commiseration conversation, heh. We had a laugh over how completely opposite (read, "scary") my eating habits are as she picked out produce that I'd have to be paid to eat. Shaving cream in hand, I emerged successful and tried to keep my fangirling to a minimum as we walked back. We arrived right at 9 as registration was opening, where I met the ever-lovely Luminosity, who is fabulous and so warm and welcoming. I was also approached by fan_eunice, whom I'd heard so many good things about around livejournal, so imagine my surprise when the first thing she does is rave about "Maneater"! Totally blew my mind. I also received a few great comments on my "Canada, which I dig" shirt from when Brynn and I did the cheer. It now has a bit of a marble swirl effect after finally washing it, but oh well. It adds character.
I was still waiting for my people to arrive (the first event wasn't until 11), so I sat at the reg table with Lum and people-watched. Even just going through my registration packet made me happy. I had a nametag! I was official! I am jarrow, hear me roar squee! I met several people who did strangefandom, and that turned out to be a great icebreaker when I'd recognize them or vice versa. deejay and I had a great conversation about it, and I was humbled at her involvement; I hadn't realized before this weekend what a big name she is in the history of vidding, so to have her be a part of our project really means a lot to me now. I also met anoel, jackiekjono, wolfling, and elynross, who is the head of VVC itself, plus several other attendees whose names I forgot to write down. All wonderful women who helped me feel very welcome. I also saw Kandy Fong, who made the first fanvid back in 1975 (a Kirk/Spock slideshow set to music). I was too shy to say hi, but it thrilled me to see she was there. I had no idea she was still active in the community. It warmed my heart :-)
Finally I decided to go see if my friends were up and about yet, so I headed up to 702 to snag SDW, Pips, and Green, who were on their way down as it was. I found Laura and Ian and spent some time giving Ian a shoulder massage at reg. I called it repayment for how amazingly helpful he's been to me this year. I also met Zen, and she and Lum and I had some great conversation as the reg rush died down. One particular vidder I'd been looking for was f1renze (Flo), who came to register while I was sitting there. I didn't want to bombard her so I waited until later to go introduce myself, but at least I could recognize her now. And I'd heard she was gorgeous, but wowza! Absolutely stunning.
I saw Laura sitting on the floor talking to a group of women I didn't know, so I snuck up behind her and quietly pulled her into a backwards hug. When I saw whom I'd sat down next to in the process, I think my eyes popped out of my skull. It was none other than killabeez, the name I was probably most intimidated by of everyone there. (Her vids are legendary.) And so of course she turned out to be the sweetest woman ever, and it further reinforced that I'm a douche for ever feeling like I'm not worthy of approaching these people and having a conversation. It was funny, as soon as I said, "oh my god, you're Killa!" Laura said, "prepare to be fangirled." Heh. She knows me so well. But it's all her fault, since she's the one who showed me Killa's vids in the first place. At that point I headed into the con suite for the first of many glasses of Sprite, and I saw Flo sitting with Sweet, so I made my way over and introduced myself. And she's ridiculously sweet too, of course, as I'm quickly learning all these VVC folks are. My shirt brought up the Ray cheer, so we had fun talking about that for a bit even though it meant I then eventually would have to show her the cheer, heh. Finally it was 11 o'clock, so we went into the vidshow room for a quick moderator training. Laura sat on my lap because she luvs me.
We then had another 45 minutes to kill before the first panel, so I offered to show Flo and Sweet the cheer on my laptop in my room. (And see, Brynn, if you'd come to VVC, you could've been there to stop me! Muaha!) I snagged SDW, HL, Ren, and annavtree on our way because really, the cheer is best viewed in a group setting where I can have as many people laughing at me as humanly possible. And everyone seemed thoroughly pleased and entertained and even sat through the blooper reel. It was good times. We headed back to the con area (a whopping 30 feet down the hall) and kept our eyes peeled for the one person left we were determined to find: thefourthvine. And then suddenly she appeared! (Also, people grow wings sometimes.) I was so pleased to meet her, for she is of course the Queen of Strange Fandom. \o/
At noon we filed into the vidshow room for the first event, a combination panel/vidshow called "The Genealogy of Vidding" led by rache (wickedwords). You know, I've done some reading on lj about the different schools of vidding and how/when the various aesthetics cropped up, but it always confused the hell out of me and didn't seem distinctive enough to *me* to really be separate entities. But with visual examples and pointed comments in combination with what Laura showed me back in July, it suddenly started to make sense. I could see the patterns and changes in style. I'm not at a point where I could describe them myself or identify vidding schools on sight, but what I saw there clicked in my brain, and that was a big step for me. It was a light-bulb hour. I felt like I was happily enrolled in vidding college and wanted to take course after course. There is a rich and fascinating history of vidding that I'm only just starting to dig into and discover. For example, it never occured to me before that old technology mandated laying down all the clips first before adding the music (the opposite of what we do now with computers). It didn't matter that I didn't know any of the fandoms in the vids I saw, it didn't matter that they were grainy old VCR-quality. I got something out of all of them and enjoyed the whole process. I even recognized two vids ("So Pure" and "Dante's Prayer") that Laura had showed me at her house, so I was able to glean more the second time around. It was a very rich experience that served as a fantastic start for my weekend. I made a point of thanking rache later that day.
And even aside from the academic aspect, that first panel warmed my heart just sitting in the room with those people. I was seated with SDW, Flo, Pips, and Sweet, and we were right behind DB&G, Ian, Liz, and Cappy. There we were with over a hundred other people all there for the same reason. Vidding is such a solitary experience for me much of the time, so it's hard to feel like there really are others out there doing this thing I do. I met a few at the fan lunch in June, but nothing on a scale like this. These people were so full of love and respect and passion for this art, and it showed. It was an incredible feeling, so surreal. The lights go down and you can hear a pin drop. The intensity in the room is palpable. It's electric. Everyone is silent, everyone pays attention, everyone applauds for every vid no matter what they thought of it. This convention sold out in 90 minutes, and not a one of us had anywhere we would have rather been than watching vid after vid after vid and eating up every frame. It still gets me where I live just thinking about it. How had we all come to be in one place together in celebration? How was this really happening?
At 1:00 I went to SDW's panel, "Why Vid?" It ended up being a packed house with some fantastic conversation. SDW did a great job presenting questions that elicited a multitude of interesting answers. I sat with ring_wench, DB&G, and Flo, and even got brave enough to speak up a few times. But just listening to everyone else was so exciting to me, hearing statements that could have easily come from my own mouth. I soaked it up, believing that all these people really do go through the same heartwrenching and rewarding process that I do, that we all more or less take away the same positive things from vidding no matter what different specific steps we may take in getting there. My one note in my journal for this panel was, "THESE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND ME." This experience right after the Genealogy vidshow had me on cloud fucking nine. My only regret was that it'd taken me so long to find vidding and to find these people. But having seen dozens of women who have been in the community for literally a decade or more, I'm trusting nobody's going anywhere for awhile. Vidding gets under your skin. And I think it was around this time that I realized for all the talent, for all the skill, for all the experience and praise and history here, this has got to be the least pretentious collective of artists I've ever known. It blows my mind.
2:00 was back to the vidshow room for Ian's masterpiece playlist entitled "Life, the Universe, and Everything". I sat with Pips and Ren, who said this show was totally made for her :-) I had feared all morning that I was going to crash around this time (what with only being on 3 hours sleep), so I ran to go grab a Coke before the show started. I forgot, though, that we can't bring drinks into the vidshow room, so I had to chug the whole thing in about 10 seconds. Oops. I blame the radioactive element of my vidwatching experience on the sugar and caffeine. Or maybe the vids really were just that sparkly and amazing. It's very possible; Ian knows his shit. He opened the show with one of his own vids, "Realize," that I hadn't seen before. I've loved every one of his vids that I've watched, but this might be my new favorite. I had no idea what the source was and I didn't care. Fucking gorgeous and moving vid. And holy shit, at one point two characters SPROUTED WINGS and I thought I was going to choke on my own repressed laughter. Where was SDW when I needed her? ALSO, PEOPLE GROW WINGS SOMETIMES.
The entire show was fantastic from start to finish, definitely my favorite of the whole weekend. It really does make a difference watching a vid on a huge projector screen versus a 400x300 box on your computer. It's night and day. Vids I'd seen multiple times were totally different experiences, like Sweet's "Circles" and Ren's "Man in Motion" and HL's "Out Here" and Laura's "Not Only Human," which about got me misty-eyed. (Wow, now that I look at the playlist, almost every vid showed was by one of my friends. Yay!) And I actually did cry at DB's "God is a DJ," which ended the show. But most of you know what the vid means to me, so you shouldn't be too surprised. Granted, it's never made me cry before, but the emotion of the weekend was in my veins, considering that vid set everything in motion that got me to VVC in the first place. When it was over, I turned to Pips and said, "and of course, I'm the only person who actually cries at a dance vid," and she was crying too! Ha! It wasn't until Saturday that we decided we shared a brain, but we should've been clued in at that point. We saw DB afterward and gave her a big sandwich hug. It's so nice having an actual huggable outlet for vid squee. Hugs are my language.
I had five minutes before the next show started, so I ran to the bathroom and called Rachael to tell her that I was having such a wonderful time and was pretty overwhelmed with awesome. I ran back and snagged a seat with SDW, Pips, and HL for the two-hour "Nearly New" vidshow. By now Pips and I had decided we were vidshow BFF/OTP and promised to sit together from there on out. Nearly New has all the vids that were released online or at other cons within the last year, plus premiering vids that couldn't fit in the main Premieres show. I was particularly excited about this show because my friend Nicky (obsessive24) had a premiering vid, plus her good friend bradcpu released an amazing Faith vid that I was excited to see on the big screen. Unfortunately it was put up against Ian's Tech Panel of D00M, so I wasn't able to attend that at all because the two vids were in different halves of the show. But I'm pretty sure they mostly tackled things at a basic level and then a really advanced one, and I'm somewhere in between, so it's okay.
The second vid in the show was to a song I've been planning on vidding for months, so that was pretty frustrating. I might still do it, but it'll be at least a year out, maybe two. My interest in it is a little fizzled now even though it's heartbreakingly perfect for what I want to do. I knew a few vids in NN, namely chasarumba's "Vibrate," SDW's "You Can Call Me," Brad's "Living Dead Girl," Lum's "Blood Fugue," gwyn_r's "Digging in the Dirt," ring_wench's "Fell On Black Days," and HL's "In the Mirror." Those were lots of fun on the big screen! "Living Dead Girl" got probably the biggest response from the crowd, and deservedly so. I'm so glad Nicky pointed me to that vid a few weeks ago; I get more out of it every time I see it. So very few Buffy or Angel vids these days seem fresh and new to me, and that one definitely does. And I was so pleased to see that Nicky's Carnivale vid ("Jesus for the Jugular") got a positive reaction, knowing how worried about it she'd been. It opened the second half with a real punch. When the screen went black afterward, you could hear a collective "whoa" as the applause and cheers started.
Funny thing about NN--at the very beginning we were told that SDW's vid (which was in the middle of the playlist) would be shown at the end because the dvd had a flaw. Okay, no problem. But when the playlist came to her vid, it did actually start playing for a few seconds...then stopped...then started again...then died. She maimed the projector with her Paul Simony trumpets! Al broke the show! It was several minutes before the staff got the projector up and running again, and the vid picked right back up where it left off. "Your vid, let me show you it." Heh. SDW was so good-natured about it and took it in stride (whereas I would've been freaking the fuck out). What a champ. And then when the second half got going, Nicky's vid totally KILLED the projector! They had to go pull Ian out of his own tech panel and have him fix it, hehe. It was at least ten minutes, but they got it going again. A faulty cable or something. All worked out!
Nearly New ended at 5 and we headed down to the Outback in the hotel (!!) for a light dinner. There was no way I was going to let the weekend go by without sharing cheese fries with SDW. I sat in the middle of the table and went back and forth listening to the two conversations around me (Flo, DB&G, Ian, and Sweet on my left, and Ren, SDW, Pips, Green, and HL on my right.) Ren and SDW started discussing a collaborative Farscape vid, but Ren was having trouble explaining her idea without the song for reference. Lo and behold, Sweet overheard them from the far end of the table, pulled out her ipod, and handed them the very song they needed. I love fandom.
At 6 they started serving finger foods in the con area before Club Vivid, the big dance party. People were starting to come down as they got changed, but I waited until the last ten minutes before changing so I could make an entrance. What can I say, I like the attention. I did get to witness Pips, SDW, Flo, and Sweet rehearsing the infamous Joxer Dance in the hallway, which was ridiculously entertaining. It's harder than you think! Those Xena choreographers sure knew their stuff. Finally at about 7:05 I ran to get changed. I originally was going to wear a suit to Club Vivid, but while shopping I found something much, much better. See, as 1 of only 4 guys at VVC, I figured I would be a bit of a stud on campus, so to speak. So taking that a step further, I decided to go all out and be a pimp. A vid pimp. After all, the general theme of Club Vivid is sparkly, and what's more sparkly than bling?
I actually sent that second picture to my mother last week, and she wrote me back saying, "where did I go wrong?! Look at my son and his pimptastic ways!" I ♥ my Mommy. Yes, I am wearing a shiny purple shirt that still smells like its previous owner, white pants, white shoes ($5 granny shoes from Value Village, actually), two types of bling, rockstar shades, a white fedora with black ribbon stripe, and of course, the all-important zebra-trimmed velvet pimp cape. So, you can see why I wanted to keep this outfit a secret. As I walked down the hall, I got a bunch of great reactions of the 'one hand over the mouth and the other pointing at me' variety. Someone said I had the best costume of the con, yay! It turns out it's not so bad making a complete ass out of yourself after all. My friends were particularly tickled by my get-up, which made me very happy. Flo and Sweet quickly took me in arms because every pimp needs hos. And lordy, did everyone look fantastic! DB was dressed as Starbuck again, this time in her s3 black civvies. Totally hot. Gerry was dressed as Gaius Baltar and Ian was in an orange Chief Tyrol suit, so we definitely had the BSG contingent. There was also a woman I didn't know dressed as Number Six in the red dress, and she looked great. HL was wearing the dangerous corset and leather pants I'd been forewarned about, and everyone all-around was shiny and gorgeous. I was proud to be their pimp, mmhmm.
So, Club Vivid! Basically, it's a dance party where every song played has a vid accompanying it. Ian puts the show together spectacularly with no breaks between vids for continuous music joy. The wall between the vidshow and panel rooms had been taken down, and a long, wooden dance floor was put in. There were screens on each end of the room so you could watch the vids whichever way you were facing. There were xmas lights strung across the ceiling and glowstick bracelets for all to wear (I took a purple, of course). As soon as we made our way out onto the floor, the Joxer Dance kicked off the night. I actually attempted to dance with everyone, though I mostly just looked like an idiot trying to keep up. It was hella fun, though. (Who doesn't love a good conga line?)
The very first vid was SDW & Laura's, "Let's Go Crazy." I'd seen this vid a few months back, but it was great finally getting to dance with everyone to it and sing along. Next was a fantastic vid to that new remix of "Everybody Dance Now" (it's called "Rock This Party") to the movie Happy Feet. Club Vivid + dancing penguins = PURE GLEE. And guess what vid was third? None other than my Will & Grace vid! (Ian is so good to me.) I did \o/ and screamed when it came up, I was so excited. Everybody danced and Laura and I bumped tummies and SDW and I touched fingers and people laughed and it was AWESOME. Several people complimented me on it later, which was icing on the cake. Remind me to have a vid in CV every year. That was such a great experience. And this year had a whopping 36 vids premiering in CV, which I believe was significantly more than any previous year. Yay for new vids!
After busting ass on those first three songs, I had to get a drink and take a quick break. And hey, I'd paid $25 for an open-bar wristband, why not use it? While I was out there, I randomly started up conversation with nightchik, and when I mentioned I vidded Harry Potter, she checked my nametag again and said, "oh my god, you made Maneater!" Turns out she and some friends had a big fangirl night and my vid was a big hit! Yay! I can't tell you how much I DON'T get sick of squeeish feedback. There was quite the line for the bar, though, and that rum and coke cost me 3/4 of DB's sequel to "God is a DJ." I was SO disappointed! I walked in right at the end. Fortunately it's on my con dvd, but still! So bummed! Fortunately she had another vid soon after, a Harry Potter vid to the music from "Snakes on a Plane," and that was fantastic. I felt better after that :-) My favorite vid in CV, actually, was one I had no idea about--Lum's GENIUS idea to vid the movie 300 to "Vogue." It's absolutely fucking gorgeous. It was in my top 3 vids of the weekend. Holy shit. It blew my mind.
I admit I did very little vid-watching during CV. I was there to dance with my friends. I took a slew of pictures (seriously, at least 40) and apparently shattered the record for CV photography to date. There was just too much shiny happy fun not to document it! I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of people I didn't know, so it's really a ton of pictures of the same 8 people, but hey, you can never have too many pictures, I say. A big highlight of the night for me was during "Tainted Love" when Pips and I started singing dramatically to each other. I wasn't looking around, but I got the sense that we had a crowd around us watching. (I did feel bad taking audience away from the vid!) It was a fucking riot, and we overheard HL say afterward that she's shipping us now, HA. But it's okay, I'm shipping her with DB. I got 30 seconds of video of them dancing together, and I swear the floor was smoking beneath them. HOT, I'm telling you.
People took turns in my hat, so I got a series of solo shots of everyone wearing it. I constantly circled around the floor making sure I danced with everyone I knew (reminding myself that though Sweet reminded me of my cousin, she was in fact NOT my cousin, so it was okay to dance with her). Pips, Laura, Lum, SDW, HL, DB, Flo, Sweet, Ren, Ian, Elyn, and Sis all granted me the honor of at least one dance with them. Ian and I in particular made quite a splash together. (Of course, I'm on a dance floor with 100 women and I gravitate toward the only guy I can find. Dear god, could I possibly get any gayer.) We had a blast, and Ian was such a good sport with me. Whenever a woman came and danced with us, I complimented her on dancing with half the men at the convention! I told Ian at one point that we should do a bit of an auction to raise money for the con: see how much money all the women would pay to see us make-out. Sadly that never came to pass, but hey, maybe next year. We already had some takers; I think it'd be a huge hit! Speaking of hits, I was so pleased when Cappy brought down the Beyonce doll on my request so I could dance with the superstar.
There were so many great songs to dance to, and after that one drink break, I went nonstop for the next 2.5 hours. Other highlights for me were Footloose, Hey Ya, Copacabana, Heart of Funkness (Jungle Boogie), and Move Your Feet, which was actually my request to Ian for the night. For the months leading up to VVC, I always pictured dancing to Move Your Feet with everyone, so having that dream come true felt amazing. The night closed with the back-to-back punch of "God is a DJ" and "Can't Stop the Rock," and we gave it our all. By the end of the night we were all drenched in sweat (a la Dante's Cove!) and pretty gross, but god, it was so much fun. I'd heard what a blast it was, and it greatly surpassed my expectations. It was indeed A BITCHIN PARTY (which they frequently have!) Remember I was still on three hours sleep and had only eaten a few cheese fries all day, yet I danced until the very last note at 11 o'clock. Nothing was going to stop me from soaking up every minute of joy with these people. Absolutely nothing.
After the glory ended, I dashed back to the room for a quick change (because, yeah, eww) before heading up to 702 with the gang (DB&G, Pips, Sweet, Flo, Ian, Laura, SDW, Ren, Elyn, anoel, Eunice, Sis, ring_wench, and HL). Someone had procured the tape from a vidshow we'd all missed that morning during SDW's panel, "Can't Live With 'Em, Can't Trade 'Em for Food," which was lots of funny relationship vids. I knew several in the bunch already: Laura's "Monster," SDW's "Moving Right Along," and Laura & Pips's "Goody Two Shoes," but they were all good vids. Lots of laughter abounded (particularly during "Code Monkey" and "Jolene") and fun was had by all. DB finally found her misplaced sparkly cigar (for her Starbuck outfit) that was grape flavored this year. I thought it smelled yummy but Laura took one whiff and said, "smells like grape asscrack to me." HA. I was on the couch with one arm around Flo and the other around Pips, and since Ian was on the other side of Pips, my hand rested on his shoulder. He took my hand and held it, and I leaned over and asked him to be my VividCon boyfriend. He promptly responded, "okay," which was much more of a heartfelt moment than it just looks in text. Flo had to transcribe the conversation in my notes for me since my hands were otherwise occupied, so she spiced it up by adding "::smooch::" and "::crotch grab::" I'm telling you, these fannish women sure do love their slash.
After the vidshow we were all pretty beat, so we called it a night. I took a much-needed shower and smiled at the realization that I wasn't even halfway through the weekend yet. It felt like I'd been there forever. I crashed around 1:30. Unfortunately, I woke up early AGAIN (around 6 this time) and had another hour of insomnia reading before I went back to sleep. I'm glad I did, too, because I felt like shit when I first woke up. My body was starting to complain about how hard I was pushing it, but the two extra hours of sleep did the trick and I felt fine come 9 o'clock.
Continued in next post. I actually broke LJ's limit. HA.
take me over when I'm gone
take me over, make me strong
I haven't felt this completely consumed by emotion in years. God, it feels a bit like being in love again, only it's spread out over a dozen people. I thought it was going to rip me in two to walk away from them tonight. I've found something I've searched for ever since I left Saddle Rock ten years ago. I've found my family. And I say that with absolutely no disrespect to the amazing people in my life already; it's not like that at all. This is different, separate. I can't stress that enough. But this weekend was like nothing I had ever experienced. I knew this would be unlike any convention I'd ever attended, but I had no idea it would be this intimate. I've had connections like this one-on-one or a handful at a time, but never en masse like this. Not with practically every single person I talked to. It's going to take me some time to fully process it.
And I'm sitting here thinking about it and as particular things trigger more tears, I'm realizing that I'm not crying because I'm sad, I'm crying because I'm so happy. This is only the beginning. I may be on a plane, but I'm not really going anywhere. I'm taking these people with me, not leaving them. The last three days were beyond even my very wildest dreams and expectations. Light years beyond. I almost can't believe it actually happened. But it did. I have 80 pictures to prove it. Even if I won't see them again for another year, it was real, all of it. The hugs, the hand-holding, the dancing, the singing, the cheering, the laughter, the smooches, the camaraderie, the cuddling, the praise, the support. The love. So, so much love. And from the very first moment, it felt like coming home. It was so effortless, so easy. I didn't even have to try. This is where I belong. I have found my people. But what fills my heart even more is that they seem every bit as excited to have found me, too.
God, it took me over half an hour to just write my damn introduction. I promised everybody one of my legendary con reports, and I will deliver, tempted as I am to flock this on the grounds of embarrassing emotional vulnerability. But it's too late for that now. I carried around a journal pad the entire weekend and took frighteningly copious notes that I'm typing up, so hopefully I won't leave out anything too important. My apologies to anyone reading this whom I left out. I didn't always know everyone's names in the room, and I should've made more of an effort to ask. Any omissions are completely unintentional and not to be taken personally. I should also mention that I'm not posting pictures because many of these people don't want their faces online. But I'll try to make up for that with details.
My VividCon 2007
Well, first some background for my poor non-vidding flisters who are wondering what the fuck I got myself into this time. As everyone and their mother knows, I've been deeply invested in vidding this past year. So much so that I attended the 6th annual VividCon in Chicago, which is a convention for vidders and vid-lovers to come together and celebrate this crazy thing we do. It's different from any other con I've been to in that it's a fan con, not one with celebrities. There were 125 people (contrast with DragonCon in 2 weeks, which has 50,000 and over a hundred celebrities). You may remember me posting in February that this con sold out in an hour and a half. That's how awesome it is. And much to my amusement, I was one of only 4 guys! Yes, that's a 30:1 ratio! (Pretty good odds for a shag! But, spoiler alert, no shagging was had. Not by me, anyway.) I remember back in January when I first heard of VVC, I wondered who the fuck would want to go to a vidding convention. Oh, the naivety of youth. I watched literally hundreds of vids this weekend and I loved every fucking second of it. Buying that ticket was probably the best decision I made all year.
Thursday
I actually had to work Thursday morning from 8-11 before catching my flight out. Of course, I spent two of those three hours writing posts for strangefandom, but whatever. I printed out my itinerary, hit the ATM, did a quick change, and caught the 11:30 bus for the airport. I actually skipped on the sidewalk, y'all, while singing "IIIII'm goin-ta Vi-vid-Connnn" repeatedly. I guess you could say I was mildly excited. My 1:30 o'clock flight was on-time and uneventful (yay!) despite the longest security line I've ever seen at SeaTac. I felt a little silly carrying a white fedora around with me (for my Club Vivid costume), but at least it didn't get beat up in the process. I couldn't help but laugh when I saw my flight itinerary--my locator code was LEEMKR. Knowing I was dressing up as Leemo on Saturday, and recognizing that O falls evenly between K and R in the alphabet, it was clearly a sign! I landed safely in Chicago at 7:30 and texted sdwolfpup to let her know I'd arrived. I took a cab to the hotel, and though the cab driver initially had no idea where the hell the hotel was, we made it just fine. Most people had gotten there earlier that day, so there were some scattered groups around already. Ironically, there were some local Seattle folks hanging in the lobby when I checked in (a few women I'd met at the fan lunch in June), so it was nice to see familiar faces right off the bat. I got my key and dropped my stuff off in the empty room before venturing out to the unknown. (dun dun DUN!)
I only knew two other attendees already: laurashapiro and SDW, both of whom I really can't say enough good things about. They were completely responsible for providing me the means and confidence to integrate myself into the vidding community, and were also who convinced me to attend VVC in the first place. I warned them that I might cling to them at first until I got my bearings, and they were (thankfully) perfectly fine with that. But uh oh, Laura doesn't have a cell phone and SDW wasn't answering hers, and I didn't know what rooms they were in (and apparently wasn't smart enough to check the front desk, I'm now realizing. My brain, FTW!) So, I was seemingly on my own to magically stumble onto folks to hang out with. Even though there were tons of people I wanted to meet, I had no idea where anyone was, or more importantly, what anyone looked like! (Vidders on the whole seem quite keen on keeping their faces offline. Probably cause what we do is illegal and all. Go figure.) I had a few vague descriptions, but I'm not that brave.
The one person I had a face for was dualbunny, who posted pictures in her con report last year. And lo and behold, as I walked down the hall toward the con area, who should be standing right there but Ms. Bunny herself! We did the mutual pointing-at-each-other-with-squinty-eyes thing thinking, "wait, that's you, right?" and had a big hello hug. And whaddaya know, the two lovely women with her were none other than heresluck and renenet! (Not to make too big deal out of this, because I totally can, but DB and HL are my two favorite vidders (stylistically) and have had the biggest influence on me (again, stylistically), so running into them first was kind of like Christmas and my birthday rolled into one.) I felt a little silly not having realized it was HL standing there as I walked up, since she'd been described to me, but everyone somehow failed to mention that she's a TOTAL HOTTIE. (You people really suck at the important details!) And in my moment of shock, I was too stunned and overwhelmed to give HL the long since promised running tackle-hug (which, now that I think about it, was never really a good plan since I didn't know what she looked like), so instead she picked me up and spun me around until she got dizzy *g* I know, as if I didn't adore her enough already, right? Once the room stopped spinning, I was introduced to DB's husband, Gerry, who had been so very patient while I squished and fangirled his wife, heh. This became a continuing theme throughout the weekend. (Both the DB fangirling and Gerry's patience with me, heh.)
I hadn't eaten a thing all day, so I was pleased to hear everyone was just on their way to dinner (and thrilled when they invited me along!) A group of ten or so of us walked to the restaurant in the hotel next door, Bistro 90. I was still shaking from excitement at this point, so much so that my whole body was tingling like I'd been hyperventilating. I suppose I was kind of emotionally hyperventilating, heh. Seriously, never in a million years would I have believed it if someone told me "oh yeah, within ten minutes of arriving at VVC, you'll be out to dinner with DB and HL." I'm pretty sure at one point I was literally holding my hands to my head to keep it from exploding. Most people hadn't registered yet (including me), so very few folks had nametags. I was still working up the courage to randomly introduce myself to people, so I didn't get all the names of our dinner companions, but they were a most lovely bunch. I do know I was sitting next to astolat and across from cesperanza with HL next to her and DB&G down at the far end of the table. I said almost nothing the whole meal, just drank like THREE CARAFES of water and soaked up the yummy conversations, revelling in the fact that I was really there. (My one note from dinner in my journal was: MY PEOPLE.) I somehow managed to eat some pork tenderloin and scaldingly hot mashed potatoes, but my stomach was running laps the whole time with excitement. I called Rachael to tell her I arrived safely and that I was happy, but that was probably the most coherence I had during that hour.
One of the women who'd registered passed around the con program, which I was ridiculously excited to see. Renenet had previously sent me most of the programs from prior years because they delighted me so (for whatever reason), and being in one was mindbogging! I could have fainted to see my name printed there in the tables with all these amazing vidders I respect so much. That's when I really had my first moment of, "wow...look at me. I really am one of them now. I'm a VividCon vidder." It was intoxicating. I looked at the Newbie Vidshow first (where "Save Yourself" was) and then flipped eagerly to Premieres. And holy crap, guess where my Starbuck vid sat in the show? 4th in the second half, right behind vids by Cesperanza, SDW, and the dynamic duo of sockkpuppett (Luminosity) and sisabet. Uh, that's like having your painting hanging next to Van Gogh, Monet, and fucking Da Vinci, you guys. It's a good thing I hadn't eaten by then, because I probably would've thrown up a little. How the fuck is a newbie like me supposed to follow that? But Laura and SDW were very kind with positive reinforcement over the weekend and assured me the placement was a compliment, so I tried to focus on that, heh. Still, combined with the thrill of seeing myself in the program at all, it was quite the mindfuck. Like, "whoa, shit. I'm really in deep now." But in a good way :-)
Right as we finished eating, SDW finally called me back (and, sweetheart that I am, I answered the phone with "where the hell are you?") She was with Laura and some other folks, and they were about to watch the first episode of Dante's Cove WITHOUT ME. (This would pretty much be grounds to hate her forever, btw.) After making her feel like shit for that (heh), she agreed to bring the group to come meet us. Little did I know that she had with her the second half of the gang I would then spend the entire weekend with. Looking back on it now, their arrival was even more pivotal than it felt at the time, which was already big in itself. As I saw the crowd approaching, I ran to the door to give Laura a big hug. We'd seen each other in June and July, but it's still never enough. Before I could turn to give SDW a hug, I was face to face with none other than absolutedestiny, who is pretty much a demi-god in my book and is single-handedly responsible for the reason my newer vids look so much shinier than my old ones. And you know any guy who greets me with a big hug is permanently on my good list. After hugging SDW I was then introduced to three lovely vidders I highly respected and was thrilled to meet: sisabet, pipsqueaky, and sweetestdrain, plus Sisabet's sister Cappy. Putting faces to these names was totally tripping me out in the best way. (They were real! Real people that I can talk to and hug! Omg!)
You know, now that most of this group has assembled (with more shortly on the way), I should probably go ahead and give you the name/abbreviation rundown of the people I'll be mentioning most often for the remainder of the post:
heresluck - HL
dualbunny - DB (with Gerry will be DB&G)
laurashapiro - Laura
sdwolfpup - SDW
absolutedestiny - Ian
pipsqueaky - Pips
sweetestdrain - Sweet
sisabet - Sis
f1renze - Flo
renenet - Ren
sockkpuppett - Lum
greensilver - Green
And for those of you who don't know, that's basically me saying, "hi, here is the list of almost all the big-name vidders that I've hero-worshipped for the last ten months. Which just so happens to be the same group of people I just spent three days hanging out with." I'm telling you, HEAD. EXPLODING.
While everyone was standing around talking after dinner, I found myself conveniently in conversation with SDW and DB, so I took the opportunity to call our mutual friend, the lovely brynnmck. The three of us left her a very silly voicemail, but luckily she called back as we were in line at the register. I had DB answer my phone to best emphasize what a crime it was that Brynn wasn't there with us. Hell, I felt like an asshole for getting to meet DB after only a few months when they've been online friends for five years! Sigh. But damnit, Brynn IS coming with us next year even if we have to cut her into little pieces and check her in our luggage. So, that was a fun phone call. She made me promise that SDW would drink, heh, and I gave her my word. What thoughtful friends we are! \o/
Once we'd all paid and played that scene, we headed back to SDW/Pips/Green's room (702) which pretty much became our hangout headquarters for the weekend. We all piled in ("we" being me, SDW, HL, DB&G, Laura, Pips, Sweet, Ian, Ren, and Cappy) and fastened our seatbelts for the wild ride that is Dante's Cove. And holy shit, you guys. This show is SO AWESOMELY BAD. Based on the vids and what we read in strangefandom, we had a pretty good idea of how crazy it was (what with the lovely blend of softcore gay porn and witchcraft), but it surpassed our wildest notions. Everyone is always covered in sweat! People's clothing appears as they walk into rooms or changes color in the ocean! Never buttfuck in front of jealous witches! It's classy to blow your boyfriend in the back of a cab! The show takes way too many people to make and yet managed to leave things out of the budget like "quality casting agents" and "people who can actually act" and "writers beyond a sixth grade level." It is so beyond ridiculous, and yet it's undeniaby compelling. We were immediately sucked into the vortex and almost drowned, I swear.
The first season is a whopping TWO EPISODES, 1.5 hours long each. SDW only brought the first episode, but it was fodder aplenty for fannish types such as us. We provided an MST3K-type commentary (trusting we weren't missing any really important dialogue in the process) and were constantly cracking up, though usually moreso at the show itself than any parody we could make of it. Twice I actually was in a fetal position on the floor in fits of hysteria. For posterity, here are some memorable moments:
- "bitchin parties, which we frequently have"
- "He's had a really hard life."
- "Hey, Mom!"
- "Make him leave, Mom, he's an asshole!"
- Drusilla gives you rabies
- the parasol of PAIN
- sand! jiggling! ass clenching!
- the credits, OMG. Sooo long, soooooo bad.
- the old man screaming from behind the door (my personal favorite)
- Ambrosius's pouty face that SDW imitated so well
- Kevin sleeping with the book over his face
- the donut on a string on the wall, which the lesbians clearly ate after (not-)fucking in the basement
- my commentary: "no glove, no love" and "she's taken lessons for years"
- Ian's line about how Tobey showing Kevin his mechanical train collection is a sign they've gotten closer
- Torgo (or Torso, as we called him here) and his little white shorts with the bulge you CAN'T. STOP. STARING AT.
It went on and on, I'm telling you. Neverending awesome. The "bitchin parties" thing became a great running joke throughout the weekend. Everything from Club Vivid to the mashup show became a 'bitchin party.' In fact, we decided that SDW and Brynn should name the con they're putting on this spring 'Bitchin Party, which we frequently have.' Awesome. And we all want to vid Dante's Cove now, so we joked that we should have a DC-only vidshow next year. That would be fucking amazing. A few of us are already conspiring to do a Club Vivid vid together that will blow y'all's fucking MINDS. And Ren was kind enough to make us small paper replicas of Dante's Inferno to lay over our faces when we slept that night. Awww.
After the episode ended, we were all too blown away by the awful to really carry on much of a conversation. Fortunately, Green and Sis came in and saved us from our awkward silence, and Ren gave Sis a gift: a Beyonce Barbie! Just listening to Sis and Cappy go back and forth about it was ridiculously entertaining. We started to tell Sis about Dante's Cove, so we just had to show her the first scene to make her understand. Yeah, FORTY MINUTES LATER we finally turned it off. (I'm telling you--vortex!) It was about 1:30 am at that point, so we called it a night. I finally got to meet my roommates for the first time (ring_wench, redina, and devon, who was already asleep). It was a little strange crawling into bed with a sleeping person I didn't know, heh, but it was fine. The actual sleeping, however, was not so fine. I crashed at 2:30 after a shower and then woke up fresh and wide awake ready to go at...4:45 AM. *headdesk* Not so awesome. And I could not fall back asleep for anything. I did remember to hang up my Club Vivid outfit in the closet, though, which was a perk. I ended up reading Annie on my Mind until 6, when I finally tried to sleep again. I slept from 6:30 to 8 for a grand total of 3.5 hours of sleep. And yet, I was totally fine all day Friday. Seriously. That's how fucking excited I was for what lied ahead of me.
Friday
Since I don't check bags when I fly anymore, I can't take many liquids with me, which meant contact solution and shaving cream. I desperately needed a shave, so I set out at 8 am to see if I could find some. As soon as I stepped out into the hallway, I saw HL stepping out of the room next door! Ha! We had no idea we were neighbors. Too funny. And she was on her way to the grocery store, of all things! She graciously accepted my self-invitation and we set off for Dominick's a few blocks away. It was fucking hot in Chicago, 80 degrees or so even in the morning, ugh. I was nursing an eczema attack on my hands, so that triggered some lovely and not at all gross commiseration conversation, heh. We had a laugh over how completely opposite (read, "scary") my eating habits are as she picked out produce that I'd have to be paid to eat. Shaving cream in hand, I emerged successful and tried to keep my fangirling to a minimum as we walked back. We arrived right at 9 as registration was opening, where I met the ever-lovely Luminosity, who is fabulous and so warm and welcoming. I was also approached by fan_eunice, whom I'd heard so many good things about around livejournal, so imagine my surprise when the first thing she does is rave about "Maneater"! Totally blew my mind. I also received a few great comments on my "Canada, which I dig" shirt from when Brynn and I did the cheer. It now has a bit of a marble swirl effect after finally washing it, but oh well. It adds character.
I was still waiting for my people to arrive (the first event wasn't until 11), so I sat at the reg table with Lum and people-watched. Even just going through my registration packet made me happy. I had a nametag! I was official! I am jarrow, hear me roar squee! I met several people who did strangefandom, and that turned out to be a great icebreaker when I'd recognize them or vice versa. deejay and I had a great conversation about it, and I was humbled at her involvement; I hadn't realized before this weekend what a big name she is in the history of vidding, so to have her be a part of our project really means a lot to me now. I also met anoel, jackiekjono, wolfling, and elynross, who is the head of VVC itself, plus several other attendees whose names I forgot to write down. All wonderful women who helped me feel very welcome. I also saw Kandy Fong, who made the first fanvid back in 1975 (a Kirk/Spock slideshow set to music). I was too shy to say hi, but it thrilled me to see she was there. I had no idea she was still active in the community. It warmed my heart :-)
Finally I decided to go see if my friends were up and about yet, so I headed up to 702 to snag SDW, Pips, and Green, who were on their way down as it was. I found Laura and Ian and spent some time giving Ian a shoulder massage at reg. I called it repayment for how amazingly helpful he's been to me this year. I also met Zen, and she and Lum and I had some great conversation as the reg rush died down. One particular vidder I'd been looking for was f1renze (Flo), who came to register while I was sitting there. I didn't want to bombard her so I waited until later to go introduce myself, but at least I could recognize her now. And I'd heard she was gorgeous, but wowza! Absolutely stunning.
I saw Laura sitting on the floor talking to a group of women I didn't know, so I snuck up behind her and quietly pulled her into a backwards hug. When I saw whom I'd sat down next to in the process, I think my eyes popped out of my skull. It was none other than killabeez, the name I was probably most intimidated by of everyone there. (Her vids are legendary.) And so of course she turned out to be the sweetest woman ever, and it further reinforced that I'm a douche for ever feeling like I'm not worthy of approaching these people and having a conversation. It was funny, as soon as I said, "oh my god, you're Killa!" Laura said, "prepare to be fangirled." Heh. She knows me so well. But it's all her fault, since she's the one who showed me Killa's vids in the first place. At that point I headed into the con suite for the first of many glasses of Sprite, and I saw Flo sitting with Sweet, so I made my way over and introduced myself. And she's ridiculously sweet too, of course, as I'm quickly learning all these VVC folks are. My shirt brought up the Ray cheer, so we had fun talking about that for a bit even though it meant I then eventually would have to show her the cheer, heh. Finally it was 11 o'clock, so we went into the vidshow room for a quick moderator training. Laura sat on my lap because she luvs me.
We then had another 45 minutes to kill before the first panel, so I offered to show Flo and Sweet the cheer on my laptop in my room. (And see, Brynn, if you'd come to VVC, you could've been there to stop me! Muaha!) I snagged SDW, HL, Ren, and annavtree on our way because really, the cheer is best viewed in a group setting where I can have as many people laughing at me as humanly possible. And everyone seemed thoroughly pleased and entertained and even sat through the blooper reel. It was good times. We headed back to the con area (a whopping 30 feet down the hall) and kept our eyes peeled for the one person left we were determined to find: thefourthvine. And then suddenly she appeared! (Also, people grow wings sometimes.) I was so pleased to meet her, for she is of course the Queen of Strange Fandom. \o/
At noon we filed into the vidshow room for the first event, a combination panel/vidshow called "The Genealogy of Vidding" led by rache (wickedwords). You know, I've done some reading on lj about the different schools of vidding and how/when the various aesthetics cropped up, but it always confused the hell out of me and didn't seem distinctive enough to *me* to really be separate entities. But with visual examples and pointed comments in combination with what Laura showed me back in July, it suddenly started to make sense. I could see the patterns and changes in style. I'm not at a point where I could describe them myself or identify vidding schools on sight, but what I saw there clicked in my brain, and that was a big step for me. It was a light-bulb hour. I felt like I was happily enrolled in vidding college and wanted to take course after course. There is a rich and fascinating history of vidding that I'm only just starting to dig into and discover. For example, it never occured to me before that old technology mandated laying down all the clips first before adding the music (the opposite of what we do now with computers). It didn't matter that I didn't know any of the fandoms in the vids I saw, it didn't matter that they were grainy old VCR-quality. I got something out of all of them and enjoyed the whole process. I even recognized two vids ("So Pure" and "Dante's Prayer") that Laura had showed me at her house, so I was able to glean more the second time around. It was a very rich experience that served as a fantastic start for my weekend. I made a point of thanking rache later that day.
And even aside from the academic aspect, that first panel warmed my heart just sitting in the room with those people. I was seated with SDW, Flo, Pips, and Sweet, and we were right behind DB&G, Ian, Liz, and Cappy. There we were with over a hundred other people all there for the same reason. Vidding is such a solitary experience for me much of the time, so it's hard to feel like there really are others out there doing this thing I do. I met a few at the fan lunch in June, but nothing on a scale like this. These people were so full of love and respect and passion for this art, and it showed. It was an incredible feeling, so surreal. The lights go down and you can hear a pin drop. The intensity in the room is palpable. It's electric. Everyone is silent, everyone pays attention, everyone applauds for every vid no matter what they thought of it. This convention sold out in 90 minutes, and not a one of us had anywhere we would have rather been than watching vid after vid after vid and eating up every frame. It still gets me where I live just thinking about it. How had we all come to be in one place together in celebration? How was this really happening?
At 1:00 I went to SDW's panel, "Why Vid?" It ended up being a packed house with some fantastic conversation. SDW did a great job presenting questions that elicited a multitude of interesting answers. I sat with ring_wench, DB&G, and Flo, and even got brave enough to speak up a few times. But just listening to everyone else was so exciting to me, hearing statements that could have easily come from my own mouth. I soaked it up, believing that all these people really do go through the same heartwrenching and rewarding process that I do, that we all more or less take away the same positive things from vidding no matter what different specific steps we may take in getting there. My one note in my journal for this panel was, "THESE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND ME." This experience right after the Genealogy vidshow had me on cloud fucking nine. My only regret was that it'd taken me so long to find vidding and to find these people. But having seen dozens of women who have been in the community for literally a decade or more, I'm trusting nobody's going anywhere for awhile. Vidding gets under your skin. And I think it was around this time that I realized for all the talent, for all the skill, for all the experience and praise and history here, this has got to be the least pretentious collective of artists I've ever known. It blows my mind.
2:00 was back to the vidshow room for Ian's masterpiece playlist entitled "Life, the Universe, and Everything". I sat with Pips and Ren, who said this show was totally made for her :-) I had feared all morning that I was going to crash around this time (what with only being on 3 hours sleep), so I ran to go grab a Coke before the show started. I forgot, though, that we can't bring drinks into the vidshow room, so I had to chug the whole thing in about 10 seconds. Oops. I blame the radioactive element of my vidwatching experience on the sugar and caffeine. Or maybe the vids really were just that sparkly and amazing. It's very possible; Ian knows his shit. He opened the show with one of his own vids, "Realize," that I hadn't seen before. I've loved every one of his vids that I've watched, but this might be my new favorite. I had no idea what the source was and I didn't care. Fucking gorgeous and moving vid. And holy shit, at one point two characters SPROUTED WINGS and I thought I was going to choke on my own repressed laughter. Where was SDW when I needed her? ALSO, PEOPLE GROW WINGS SOMETIMES.
The entire show was fantastic from start to finish, definitely my favorite of the whole weekend. It really does make a difference watching a vid on a huge projector screen versus a 400x300 box on your computer. It's night and day. Vids I'd seen multiple times were totally different experiences, like Sweet's "Circles" and Ren's "Man in Motion" and HL's "Out Here" and Laura's "Not Only Human," which about got me misty-eyed. (Wow, now that I look at the playlist, almost every vid showed was by one of my friends. Yay!) And I actually did cry at DB's "God is a DJ," which ended the show. But most of you know what the vid means to me, so you shouldn't be too surprised. Granted, it's never made me cry before, but the emotion of the weekend was in my veins, considering that vid set everything in motion that got me to VVC in the first place. When it was over, I turned to Pips and said, "and of course, I'm the only person who actually cries at a dance vid," and she was crying too! Ha! It wasn't until Saturday that we decided we shared a brain, but we should've been clued in at that point. We saw DB afterward and gave her a big sandwich hug. It's so nice having an actual huggable outlet for vid squee. Hugs are my language.
I had five minutes before the next show started, so I ran to the bathroom and called Rachael to tell her that I was having such a wonderful time and was pretty overwhelmed with awesome. I ran back and snagged a seat with SDW, Pips, and HL for the two-hour "Nearly New" vidshow. By now Pips and I had decided we were vidshow BFF/OTP and promised to sit together from there on out. Nearly New has all the vids that were released online or at other cons within the last year, plus premiering vids that couldn't fit in the main Premieres show. I was particularly excited about this show because my friend Nicky (obsessive24) had a premiering vid, plus her good friend bradcpu released an amazing Faith vid that I was excited to see on the big screen. Unfortunately it was put up against Ian's Tech Panel of D00M, so I wasn't able to attend that at all because the two vids were in different halves of the show. But I'm pretty sure they mostly tackled things at a basic level and then a really advanced one, and I'm somewhere in between, so it's okay.
The second vid in the show was to a song I've been planning on vidding for months, so that was pretty frustrating. I might still do it, but it'll be at least a year out, maybe two. My interest in it is a little fizzled now even though it's heartbreakingly perfect for what I want to do. I knew a few vids in NN, namely chasarumba's "Vibrate," SDW's "You Can Call Me," Brad's "Living Dead Girl," Lum's "Blood Fugue," gwyn_r's "Digging in the Dirt," ring_wench's "Fell On Black Days," and HL's "In the Mirror." Those were lots of fun on the big screen! "Living Dead Girl" got probably the biggest response from the crowd, and deservedly so. I'm so glad Nicky pointed me to that vid a few weeks ago; I get more out of it every time I see it. So very few Buffy or Angel vids these days seem fresh and new to me, and that one definitely does. And I was so pleased to see that Nicky's Carnivale vid ("Jesus for the Jugular") got a positive reaction, knowing how worried about it she'd been. It opened the second half with a real punch. When the screen went black afterward, you could hear a collective "whoa" as the applause and cheers started.
Funny thing about NN--at the very beginning we were told that SDW's vid (which was in the middle of the playlist) would be shown at the end because the dvd had a flaw. Okay, no problem. But when the playlist came to her vid, it did actually start playing for a few seconds...then stopped...then started again...then died. She maimed the projector with her Paul Simony trumpets! Al broke the show! It was several minutes before the staff got the projector up and running again, and the vid picked right back up where it left off. "Your vid, let me show you it." Heh. SDW was so good-natured about it and took it in stride (whereas I would've been freaking the fuck out). What a champ. And then when the second half got going, Nicky's vid totally KILLED the projector! They had to go pull Ian out of his own tech panel and have him fix it, hehe. It was at least ten minutes, but they got it going again. A faulty cable or something. All worked out!
Nearly New ended at 5 and we headed down to the Outback in the hotel (!!) for a light dinner. There was no way I was going to let the weekend go by without sharing cheese fries with SDW. I sat in the middle of the table and went back and forth listening to the two conversations around me (Flo, DB&G, Ian, and Sweet on my left, and Ren, SDW, Pips, Green, and HL on my right.) Ren and SDW started discussing a collaborative Farscape vid, but Ren was having trouble explaining her idea without the song for reference. Lo and behold, Sweet overheard them from the far end of the table, pulled out her ipod, and handed them the very song they needed. I love fandom.
At 6 they started serving finger foods in the con area before Club Vivid, the big dance party. People were starting to come down as they got changed, but I waited until the last ten minutes before changing so I could make an entrance. What can I say, I like the attention. I did get to witness Pips, SDW, Flo, and Sweet rehearsing the infamous Joxer Dance in the hallway, which was ridiculously entertaining. It's harder than you think! Those Xena choreographers sure knew their stuff. Finally at about 7:05 I ran to get changed. I originally was going to wear a suit to Club Vivid, but while shopping I found something much, much better. See, as 1 of only 4 guys at VVC, I figured I would be a bit of a stud on campus, so to speak. So taking that a step further, I decided to go all out and be a pimp. A vid pimp. After all, the general theme of Club Vivid is sparkly, and what's more sparkly than bling?
I actually sent that second picture to my mother last week, and she wrote me back saying, "where did I go wrong?! Look at my son and his pimptastic ways!" I ♥ my Mommy. Yes, I am wearing a shiny purple shirt that still smells like its previous owner, white pants, white shoes ($5 granny shoes from Value Village, actually), two types of bling, rockstar shades, a white fedora with black ribbon stripe, and of course, the all-important zebra-trimmed velvet pimp cape. So, you can see why I wanted to keep this outfit a secret. As I walked down the hall, I got a bunch of great reactions of the 'one hand over the mouth and the other pointing at me' variety. Someone said I had the best costume of the con, yay! It turns out it's not so bad making a complete ass out of yourself after all. My friends were particularly tickled by my get-up, which made me very happy. Flo and Sweet quickly took me in arms because every pimp needs hos. And lordy, did everyone look fantastic! DB was dressed as Starbuck again, this time in her s3 black civvies. Totally hot. Gerry was dressed as Gaius Baltar and Ian was in an orange Chief Tyrol suit, so we definitely had the BSG contingent. There was also a woman I didn't know dressed as Number Six in the red dress, and she looked great. HL was wearing the dangerous corset and leather pants I'd been forewarned about, and everyone all-around was shiny and gorgeous. I was proud to be their pimp, mmhmm.
So, Club Vivid! Basically, it's a dance party where every song played has a vid accompanying it. Ian puts the show together spectacularly with no breaks between vids for continuous music joy. The wall between the vidshow and panel rooms had been taken down, and a long, wooden dance floor was put in. There were screens on each end of the room so you could watch the vids whichever way you were facing. There were xmas lights strung across the ceiling and glowstick bracelets for all to wear (I took a purple, of course). As soon as we made our way out onto the floor, the Joxer Dance kicked off the night. I actually attempted to dance with everyone, though I mostly just looked like an idiot trying to keep up. It was hella fun, though. (Who doesn't love a good conga line?)
The very first vid was SDW & Laura's, "Let's Go Crazy." I'd seen this vid a few months back, but it was great finally getting to dance with everyone to it and sing along. Next was a fantastic vid to that new remix of "Everybody Dance Now" (it's called "Rock This Party") to the movie Happy Feet. Club Vivid + dancing penguins = PURE GLEE. And guess what vid was third? None other than my Will & Grace vid! (Ian is so good to me.) I did \o/ and screamed when it came up, I was so excited. Everybody danced and Laura and I bumped tummies and SDW and I touched fingers and people laughed and it was AWESOME. Several people complimented me on it later, which was icing on the cake. Remind me to have a vid in CV every year. That was such a great experience. And this year had a whopping 36 vids premiering in CV, which I believe was significantly more than any previous year. Yay for new vids!
After busting ass on those first three songs, I had to get a drink and take a quick break. And hey, I'd paid $25 for an open-bar wristband, why not use it? While I was out there, I randomly started up conversation with nightchik, and when I mentioned I vidded Harry Potter, she checked my nametag again and said, "oh my god, you made Maneater!" Turns out she and some friends had a big fangirl night and my vid was a big hit! Yay! I can't tell you how much I DON'T get sick of squeeish feedback. There was quite the line for the bar, though, and that rum and coke cost me 3/4 of DB's sequel to "God is a DJ." I was SO disappointed! I walked in right at the end. Fortunately it's on my con dvd, but still! So bummed! Fortunately she had another vid soon after, a Harry Potter vid to the music from "Snakes on a Plane," and that was fantastic. I felt better after that :-) My favorite vid in CV, actually, was one I had no idea about--Lum's GENIUS idea to vid the movie 300 to "Vogue." It's absolutely fucking gorgeous. It was in my top 3 vids of the weekend. Holy shit. It blew my mind.
I admit I did very little vid-watching during CV. I was there to dance with my friends. I took a slew of pictures (seriously, at least 40) and apparently shattered the record for CV photography to date. There was just too much shiny happy fun not to document it! I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of people I didn't know, so it's really a ton of pictures of the same 8 people, but hey, you can never have too many pictures, I say. A big highlight of the night for me was during "Tainted Love" when Pips and I started singing dramatically to each other. I wasn't looking around, but I got the sense that we had a crowd around us watching. (I did feel bad taking audience away from the vid!) It was a fucking riot, and we overheard HL say afterward that she's shipping us now, HA. But it's okay, I'm shipping her with DB. I got 30 seconds of video of them dancing together, and I swear the floor was smoking beneath them. HOT, I'm telling you.
People took turns in my hat, so I got a series of solo shots of everyone wearing it. I constantly circled around the floor making sure I danced with everyone I knew (reminding myself that though Sweet reminded me of my cousin, she was in fact NOT my cousin, so it was okay to dance with her). Pips, Laura, Lum, SDW, HL, DB, Flo, Sweet, Ren, Ian, Elyn, and Sis all granted me the honor of at least one dance with them. Ian and I in particular made quite a splash together. (Of course, I'm on a dance floor with 100 women and I gravitate toward the only guy I can find. Dear god, could I possibly get any gayer.) We had a blast, and Ian was such a good sport with me. Whenever a woman came and danced with us, I complimented her on dancing with half the men at the convention! I told Ian at one point that we should do a bit of an auction to raise money for the con: see how much money all the women would pay to see us make-out. Sadly that never came to pass, but hey, maybe next year. We already had some takers; I think it'd be a huge hit! Speaking of hits, I was so pleased when Cappy brought down the Beyonce doll on my request so I could dance with the superstar.
There were so many great songs to dance to, and after that one drink break, I went nonstop for the next 2.5 hours. Other highlights for me were Footloose, Hey Ya, Copacabana, Heart of Funkness (Jungle Boogie), and Move Your Feet, which was actually my request to Ian for the night. For the months leading up to VVC, I always pictured dancing to Move Your Feet with everyone, so having that dream come true felt amazing. The night closed with the back-to-back punch of "God is a DJ" and "Can't Stop the Rock," and we gave it our all. By the end of the night we were all drenched in sweat (a la Dante's Cove!) and pretty gross, but god, it was so much fun. I'd heard what a blast it was, and it greatly surpassed my expectations. It was indeed A BITCHIN PARTY (which they frequently have!) Remember I was still on three hours sleep and had only eaten a few cheese fries all day, yet I danced until the very last note at 11 o'clock. Nothing was going to stop me from soaking up every minute of joy with these people. Absolutely nothing.
After the glory ended, I dashed back to the room for a quick change (because, yeah, eww) before heading up to 702 with the gang (DB&G, Pips, Sweet, Flo, Ian, Laura, SDW, Ren, Elyn, anoel, Eunice, Sis, ring_wench, and HL). Someone had procured the tape from a vidshow we'd all missed that morning during SDW's panel, "Can't Live With 'Em, Can't Trade 'Em for Food," which was lots of funny relationship vids. I knew several in the bunch already: Laura's "Monster," SDW's "Moving Right Along," and Laura & Pips's "Goody Two Shoes," but they were all good vids. Lots of laughter abounded (particularly during "Code Monkey" and "Jolene") and fun was had by all. DB finally found her misplaced sparkly cigar (for her Starbuck outfit) that was grape flavored this year. I thought it smelled yummy but Laura took one whiff and said, "smells like grape asscrack to me." HA. I was on the couch with one arm around Flo and the other around Pips, and since Ian was on the other side of Pips, my hand rested on his shoulder. He took my hand and held it, and I leaned over and asked him to be my VividCon boyfriend. He promptly responded, "okay," which was much more of a heartfelt moment than it just looks in text. Flo had to transcribe the conversation in my notes for me since my hands were otherwise occupied, so she spiced it up by adding "::smooch::" and "::crotch grab::" I'm telling you, these fannish women sure do love their slash.
After the vidshow we were all pretty beat, so we called it a night. I took a much-needed shower and smiled at the realization that I wasn't even halfway through the weekend yet. It felt like I'd been there forever. I crashed around 1:30. Unfortunately, I woke up early AGAIN (around 6 this time) and had another hour of insomnia reading before I went back to sleep. I'm glad I did, too, because I felt like shit when I first woke up. My body was starting to complain about how hard I was pushing it, but the two extra hours of sleep did the trick and I felt fine come 9 o'clock.
Continued in next post. I actually broke LJ's limit. HA.