sam_gamgee | ConneXions update

I know I posted some highlights the other day, but I've decided to follow the crowd and do a more in-depth report. And I don't think I've totally caught up on my sleep yet.

Friday

Unlike most of the attendees (or so it seems), I didn't show up to ConneXions until Friday afternoon. (Stupid classes.) I checked in around 4:00 and a few minutes later, upon finding out that only one elevator was working, struck up a conversation with some other attendees that were also waiting for the elevator. After dropping my stuff in my room and making sure I looked at least somewhat presentable, I went back down to the lobby to meet

nakedwesley and

ktnb, who I was going to be rooming with for the weekend. As I waited, I paged through the stuff in the con envelop, checking times and places of panels I wanted to go to, hours of the Dealer's Room and the Art Show, things like that.

When Katie (

ktnb) showed up, we chatted for about 15 minutes or so, discussing current fandoms, whether we were both going to go to the Master and Commander panel, and if we wanted to do dinner together while waiting for Kath before going up to the room so she could drop her stuff as well. (And I'm sorry we didn't wait longer for you, Kath. I feel very badly about stranding you!) I think most, myself included, would've been surprised that this was the first time that Katie and I had met, or even talked (aside from a few emails), since I found her to be very cool.

The Master and Commander panel was a lot of fun. We talked a bit about the slashiness of Aubrey/Maturin, and then about the movie and compared it to the books, then compared it to PotC and Hornblower. It was funny because someone went off on PotC and the slashiness Gov Swann/Norrington. (Which I hadn't seen before, but can easily buy.) And she said something to the effect of, "You can tell that he (Gov Swann) is totally interested in him (Norrington) when he's chatting him up to Elizabeth before the promotion ceremony. It's like, 'oh, just squee and get it over with!'." After the panel, a few of us hung around and somehow got onto the top of "ER" (which I don't watch, but it was fun listening to them). About halfway through the panel (about 5:30), I realized that I had left my wallet on one of the couches in the lobby *an hour before*. So I rushed downstairs, and found that some con people had found it and turned it into the front desk. (Thanks so much again,

unovis_lj and company!)

Then Katie and I wandered down to the food court and got some dinner from KFC. We chatted some more as we ate and had a good time.

We wandered back upstairs to the Boston Street Theatre for the icebreaker and the vid show. As we were waiting for things to start, I saw Kath sitting at one of the tables in out in the open area of the mezzanine chatting with some people. So I went out to say hi, since we still hadn't met up by that point. Found out her companions were

justhuman and

trkkr47. I hadn't known Trekker before, aside from reading her fic a day or two before on the G/X ficathon. She's also a lot of fun and I enjoyed hanging out with her over most of the weekend. I ended up chatting with them for most of the icebreaker hour, and happened to see

wesleysgirl,

thebratqueen,

wolfling, and

mpoetess as they came through to go into the theatre. The Friday night vid show was really cool. I think I saw one or two of the vids last year, since the show was for previously premeired vids, but I'm not totally sure. But I hadn't seen most of them and they were all *very*, *very* good. And I've found many of them online, and it appears that most will be online at some point soon, so I'll post which ones I loved the most later.

After the vids, I went back to the room with Kath and Katie and we hung out and got to know each other better. And Katie and I squeed over SV for a bit.

Saturday

Got up early Saturday morning to be ready for the Historical Slash panel at 9:00. It wasn't exactly what I had thought it would be, but it was interesting to hear how people go about doing research for stories, how much information to use, stuff like that. (Which is good in its own way, since I've been all about the research lately fic-wise.) After the panel was over, I hung out in the Art Show for a while and immediately fell in love with tw of Sockii's sketches - one of Pippin and one of Faramir. (And this actually has nothing to do with the fact that Pippin/Faramir is one of my OTPs, I just love the drawings.) Also saw a piece of artwork of SG-1's Jack/Daniel (the top one), which I really liked on an emotional level, but didn't buy since I'm not in that fandom (or, at least not yet according to

eternalmusings and

luvxander). Then wandered around in the Dealers' Room for a while, but didn't see anything that I really wanted. (And can I say how glad I am that I'm not in the fandoms for "Starsky and Hutch" and "The Sentinel"? It seems like *all* their fic is in zine form. Not that that's bad, just *dang*, that's a lot of zines.)

At 11, I went to the AtS s5 panel led by TBQ and Wolfling, which was a lot of fun. Most of the time was spent discussing Joss' issues.

At noon was the Kiefer/Lou panel that I was co-moding with Nancy (who's very cool). I knew it wasn't going to be a large turn out, based on last year's panel, but I wasn't expect for it to be just me and her. I know that one or two other people would've come, but they had other duties to perform then. But we had fun discussing the actors and she relayed some stories of meeting each of them. She also told me of Lou being in "The King and I" in North Carolina in July (to which I *really*, *really* want to go).

At one I went down to the food court and grabbed some lunch, and ended up talking to someone for a while about SV before doing a mini-marathon of panels. Went to the SV panel after that, which was interesting, since the topic was on insanity in the SV 'verse. Was a tiny bit late to the LotR panel at three, since I went to get a drink and some chocolate from the con suite, but it was a lot of fun. And if I'm remembered for anything at this con (which isn't very likely), it's putting the image of pimp!Gandalf into

annavtree and a couple other people's heads. At four, I went to the "Slash and GLBT Rights" panel - which wasn't anything like I expected (which isn't to say that it wasn't good). Then I went back to the room to hang out and get changed before the banquet.

The banquet was a lot of fun. I sat with Kath, Katie, and Trekker and we played with the little dolls on the table. And since we could change the faces, I was being silly and said, "Let's put in Daniel (from SG-1) and Jim (from "Sentinel")." (Instead of the originals of Kirk and Spock.) The food was pretty good.

The entertainment that night was a fen version of "Match Game". It was a lot of fun to see the different answers that people gave. Such as...Statement - "Frodo shocked the Shire when he announced that he and Sam were ___." Most answers were somewhat normal - "getting married", "expecting", etc. Though

minotaurs was funny - "just friends." (And that probably would shock the Shire.)

The Saturday night vid show was for new vids that hadn't been shown anywhere else. These vids also rocked. There were a couple from Dementia Ink and Diana Williams again, as well as one from

wolfling, among others. (Will post specific recs for these as well later.)

After the vid show, went up to Nancy's room for the QAF(US) room party, since I've been considering getting into the show for a while. Didn't watch any episodes, but it was fun hearing them talking about the show and showing screen caps. Then I wandered a few doors down to the "Starsky & Hutch" (can we say "slashiest show ever?") room party and watched about an episode and a half with them.

Then I wandered back to my own room and fell asleep. (Luckily after making sure that the clock was set forward an hour.)

Sunday
Got up early again, even though I wasn't going to a 9 am panel. Did get checked out early though, and then went down to the Art Show to see if I could bid again on the Faramir piece, to find out that bidding had ended the night before. I figured I'd lost the sketch, but decided to go to the auction anyway, since it might be fun. (And because the only panel I had considered going to was "I'm My Own Fandom", and with most of the fandoms I'm in - I'm not.)

Went to the auction, which was a lot of fun. Only a handful of the artwork was for auction, since the pieces needed to have at least two bids to be eligible. Therefore, I still had a chance on the Faramir sketch, whereas the Pippin one was pretty much mine, since I was the only one to bid on it. Ended up winning the Faramir sketch.

At eleven, went to the Antagonistic Pairings panel, which seemed to center a lot on Harry Potter, but it was still interesting.

Grabbed some lunch at noon, so nothing special there. Then headed over to the dealer's room with the rest of the time I had left and picked up practically every Kiefer/Lou zine I could find (except for the two I already had and the one I didn't have enough money for), which had been graciously pointed out to me the day before by someone (I think

taffimai, but I'm not totally sure). Also ordered a copy of Diana Williams' songvids from Agent With Style and picked up a couple of really neat pictures - one of Nicholas Brendon, one of Tony Head, and one of Boromir and Faramir.

Went to the SV panel at 1, which centered (at first, anyway) on Lex and what might turn him and Clark against each other. And as far as the canon goes right now, we were stumped. Discussion had centered for a bit around Lex's possible action or inaction regarding Lionel, since he supposedly has a terminal liver disease. (I say it that way because someone brought up that all the info on the page aside from where it says that the case is terminal, is for a healthy liver.) So we started referencing it as his 'nonterminal, terminal disease'. Then we just moved on to more general talk about the show and Michael Rosenbaum.

Went to the PotC panel at two, which was a lot of fun.

At three attended the "When Fandom was New" panel, which was really cool. Martha and Nancy talked about how fans dealt with getting zines around, meeting other fen and such pre-internet, both as a regular fan and as a slash fan.

Stayed for the Dead Dog panel at four. It was mostly a feedback panel about the con. I didn't have much to say, but it did give me a bit of closure.

Afterwards, hung out and chatted with Kath,

wolfling,

mpoetess and

taffimai about a bit of everything.

Went to the con suite to refuel one last time before I departed for home and found someone had left lollipops in the shape of penises in both milk chocolate and white chocolate. And some of the milk chocolate ones had a bit of white chocolate on them to look like precum. So I grabbed a white chocolate and a milk chocolate. (I couldn't resist.)

Left around 6:30ish or so to come home. Went down with about $130-140 and came back with $0.53. (I kid you not.)

But I really enjoyed it and wish that it was longer or something.

ConneXions update

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