Geeking Out

I know I've been bad about posting things lately, Imaginary Readers, and I don't really have an excuse, other than a week in the North Woods without internet access, but I'm okay with that. Frankly, as I'm sure you've noticed, I tend to use this space as an outlet for my angst, which works, but means that I post more when I'm not doing so well, and, almost surprisingly, I've been feeling pretty good so far this summer. Having something productive to do every day (lab work) is good for me, as it keeps me from wallowing in self-pity at home all day, and when you add in having [Keeper Of All Knowledge] and [Totally a Cat] in town for the summer and hanging out with them, it makes for what is probably the best summer I've had in a long time, so far at least. Don't worry, Imaginary Readers, I am trying to still post things here, but I just haven't had much to say lately that isn't super repetitive of my previous meanderings, and I think it is better for now to only say things when I have something to share, rather than to force something more frequently. Anyways, on the the main event of this post.

Us with Tamora Pierce (middle)

This past weekend, [Keeper of All Knowledge], [Totally a Cat], and I went to CONvergence, a local sci-fi/fantasy convention here in the Twin Cities that serves pretty much the entire upper mid-west outside of Chicago, and it was awesome! While we had thrown around the idea of going when we were idly planning stuff to do this summer, we decided that we had to go when we found out that Tamora Pierce was one of the guests of honor this year. Sometime last year we all discovered that we had a mutual love of her books, to the point that we had a Tamora Pierce reading group last summer lovingly named "Ladies of the Knight" because we are just that cool, although I only made it through Song of the Lioness, the first quartet, and the first two books of the Wild Magic quartet before giving up on my reread. One thing that was quite apparent from the panels that we went to on her work and just our experience with it in general, is that she seems to have the quietest fandom ever. Over and over, people said that they thought that they were the only ones who liked her books, and they were pleasantly surprised to find that they had a decent sized following. This is unfortunate, because it's always better to have people to talk to about the stuff that you love, but understandable to me, in that, although she is one of my favorite authors, and the Tortall books were an important force in my adolescence, I rarely talk about them when discussing things like favorite books and fantasy series. I'm not sure why this is, other than an inherent assumption that no one else has heard of them, which perpetuates the problem. Her books are awesome, particularly for young girls who are into fantasy, because they are populated with strong female characters, who are sorely lacking in YA books, and I strongly recommend them to anyone who hasn't read them before.

Two Caps and a bunch of War Bond girls

Also, Tamora Pierce is hilarious to listen too. She's a great speaker, and can only be described as feisty. She never shies away from controversial topics, and makes her opinion quite clear. We were super excited to meet her, and managed to be the first ones in line for the book signing, without getting their ridiculously early or anything. I got one of [SisterBot]'s books signed, as well as one of my own, which pretty much means that she can never be mad at me again. We also got our picture taken with her after a panel on her characters, which was equally cool, and had the mystery of how to pronounce her name cleared up: the emphasis is on the first syllable, not on the 'o.'

Just some of the many Avengers present

While all the Tamora Pierce stuff was super awesome, the rest of the weekend was pretty amazing too. We went in costume, because it's more fun that way, with [Totally a Cat] going as first the Eleventh Doctor then as Liz X from that one episode of Doctor Who, [Keeper of All Knowledge] going as Zoe from Firefly, and me as Kel from Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small series. People really get into the costumes, and there were some amazing ones, like the Madam Vastra costume that definitely made [Totally a Cat] and I squeal for about 30 seconds, and the super awesome Captain America who looked strikingly like Chris Evans, and spent the entire time in character as Cap, telling people to buy War Bonds and saluting people when he left. The main thing that struck me about the costumes was the sheer abundance of boobs. I really shouldn't have been surprised, given the types of things that female characters tend to wear in comics and other media, but the sheer number of corsets and what can only be described as bikinis on display was quite impressive, if somewhat distracting. There were some truly impressive displays of boobs defying gravity itself, as well as many other examples of somewhat questionable costumes, where I was left wondering if they were really a character from something or had just elected to wear bondage gear. Also, furries. This isn't to say that I have any particular problem with bondage gear or furries or any of the other somewhat strange things that people did, as CON is a safe place to let all of your particular geek flags fly, including some of the kinkier ones, and geeky and kinky do tend to go hand in hand, but there were times when I was left wondering about whether people had just used something like bondage gear to approximate the leather straps on a particular character's outfit, or if they had just decided to eschew costumes for their leather codpieces, because sometimes it was confusing.

The aforementioned squeal worthy Madam Vastra (from Doctor Who)

We also ran into [Nice Vest] and [The Cool CA] there, and we hung out with them a bunch, because we really haven't seen them much this year, and they're pretty cool. They had come with a whole group of people, and had at least three different costumes each, so they didn't repeat day to day. The panels and events were fun, and [Nice Vest] directed us towards an unscheduled sing-a-long screening of Once More With Feeling, the musical episode from Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, which was awesome, and at night the place basically turned into one giant party, with sketchy bottles of what was presumable mostly alcohol being passed around freely, although we didn't end up staying all that late. It was totally worth the ticket price ($60 because we bought them early enough) and the price of the hotel room we split, and they provided enough real food that outside of the ticket and the hotel, there was no need to spend more money unless you wanted to buy something in the merch room, where the wares were both high quality and reasonably priced. It was a super fun weekend, and we have already begun to come up with ideas for costumes for next year, because planning is necessary. Everybody was super nice, because when you put geeks in Minnesota you can't really have a nicer group en masse, which definitely enhanced the experience. I can't believe that I haven't gone before, and I'm super excited to go again. Really, if you haven't already, you should definitely check CONvergence out if you're in the Twin Cities area, because it is super awesome. Okay, I'll stop gushing now.