Connotations

[mandragora]

was a small slash con that took place in Nottingham this weekend. It was a huge amount of fun. So many, many laughs.


moonlettuce's welcoming speech. I was the first recipient of her spiel, which went something like, "Hi, I'm Claire. Welcome to our con. We hope you have a really good time and please come again." This was accompanied by the official handing over of the welcome pack. I complained that I wasn't feeling the lurve, so Claire added a hug to the welcome speech. Which meant that she had to hug everybody. *g* If she didn't, complaints were made. Bitter, bitter complaints...

Claire's explanation to the hotel staff about what the con was about. The cowardly sensible temaris 'delegated' the duty to Claire, who solemnly told Reception about media fandom, and homo-erotic subtext and the fact that some of us like to read and write fiction about it, ending with, "So, basically, it's a gay-porn con!" To which the response was, "Cool." Nice hotel staff.

Which was just as well when it came to dinner. They really weren't geared up for us, but were astonishingly good humoured about the whole thing. We walked into the dining room, and decided that the collection of tables in twos and fours just would not do, so re-arranged them into one long table, without a murmur of protest from the staff. Service was haphazard, although it was apparent that they were trying their best. A few people ordered a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc to drink, prompting a blank look of incomprehension from the waitress, and a "What's that then?" (it turned out that it was her first day at work). Eventually the wine arrived. It was a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. Ooops! But the crowning touch was when the manager explained that the reason why not everyone had got their food yet was because they'd run out of supplies and had to run out to buy some more! But, really, they were so nice about the whole thing that no one had the heart to say anything because they really did go all out to try and make us feel welcome. Well, us and the four stag dos that were at the hotel as well. There were more than a few bewildered men wandering around. *g*

Realising that the walls were paper-thin. alsoa and I were reading zines in bed at night to the accompaniment of the sounds of our neighbours enjoying themselves big time. Twice. The second time alsoa was heard to complain, "I wish they'd shut up, so I can concentrate on my gay porn!"

Collapsing in giggles when reading aloud to alsoa a bad (very bad) HL D/M zine story that had Dominant Duncan and Weepy Methos to the nth degree. I couldn't resist a faux-Scottish accent that was in keeping with the dialogue as written, leading alsoa to exclaim, "No, that's not how it's really written, is it?" Alas. It was.

stageira and seiyaharris bravely attempting a pimping session for the Sparkly Boys by showing us concert footage. Cue mass hilarity all round, 'cos it was so very, very, well, dorklike, really. I mean, the outfits, the moves, the music (okay, maybe not really the music, I couldn't hear it very well over the laughter). But as msmanna pointed out the fiction is actually doing the Boys a favour, 'cos it makes them out to be much cooler than they are in real life. *g*

Some really good fun, enjoyable discussion panels. There wasn't one where there weren't a lot of laughs no matter the subject, including such potentially explosive topics as 'Fandom Menace' featuring past fandom kerfuffles and the RPS panel. We proved that it is possible to have a civilised, funny and enjoyable discussion about RPS no matter what everyone's views were on it. And kudos to the NSyncers, who had to put up with an awful lot of ribbing. Because, dude! That concert footage. *g* They coped with the piss-taking with wit and good humour.

Good topics of discussion, too, including lit-slash versus image slash, coming out of the slash closet, femme slash and why there isn't enough of it, Plots R Us and original slash. I ducked out at lunchtime on Sunday, so sadly missed some great-sounding panels in the afternoon.

Dressing up for dinner on Saturday night. Everyone agreed that we should look 'moderately tidy' and all lived up to this high standard. *g*

And of course, the people. It was great to see some familar faces and meet some new. As truly a nice, witty, good humoured bunch of people as you could ever hope to meet.

Here's hoping that the con committee are mad good enough to volunteer to organise another one soon.

Rock on Connotations 2!