Tampa Vulkon
July 18-20, 2003
Hilton Westshore - Tampa, FL

Vulkon totally rocked. I miss everyone so badly right now. (My only consolation is that I'm going to DragonCon next month; I can't wait to attend the fanfic panels there.)

I dropped my photos off as soon as I got back yesterday (before I unpacked or anything) so I should have them back this evening (and will, of course, start scanning asap). Here's hoping they turn out well. (I took enough! Something like 96 photos, most of which were of people hanging out, not of celebrities posing.)

So now for my con report. (It's all blurring together already! Hope I don't forget anyone...) Let's see...

Jane (jaydk) and I left NYC on Friday morning. (I had only slept for about 3 hours the night before because some people I knew from the Uranium 235 show stopped by and stayed over watching U235 vids until around 2am. Which was very cool, but would have been better just about any other day, since I still had to pack and then get up early. Luckily I managed to get some sleep on the plane.) As Jane and I walked into the shuttle to go to the baggage claim in Tampa, someone grabbed my hair from behind. I shrieked and spun around, and discovered it was Chen (chenanceou)! It turns out she and Jerry had been on the same plane with us. Then at the baggage claim we saw Mercedes McNab, and realized that she too had been on our plane (with her adorable little dog that she brought on the plane with her).

When we arrived at the con hotel, we found our room (and our roommate Jen, who was very cool) and then attended some panels. The fanfic one at 4pm was pretty good (it was "The Place of Fanfic in Fandom" or something like that). Then Alane and Nimue from BAPS did an "Angel for Dummies" panel to catch people up for that show. It was actually really good, even though I'm already familiar with Angel, because rather than summarizing the show by episode or by season, they did a timeline of Angel's pre-series history and used parallels with his history to explain the major events in the series. It was actually a really cool perspective since I'd never considered Angel's history chronologically (since the various flashbacks have been spread out all over the place). It definitely gave me a better understanding of the character and some interesting insights into the themes of the show. Alane did a great job talking, and Nim's accompanying sketches were hilarious.

After that we headed up to our room to get ready for the cocktail party, and missed the "Is Buffy Anti-Feminist" panel. (I'm so pissed at myself for that. Stupid, stupid Laura.) It sounds like it was great, though, and I talked to a lot of people about it afterward, so it wasn't a total loss for me. I'm so very glad that such issues were raised and discussed by such intelligent and thoughtful people.

On the way to the cocktail party and once there, I met a ton of awesome people. As soon as I saw harmonyfb, I screamed and gave her a hug. (Sorry. I'm weird.) She's awesome. I talked to chrisjournal about websites and databases, and I talked to rachelanton73 about her Spillowgel and her Spike/Willow series (both of which I love; I wish I'd had more time to talk with her over the weekend). I met estepheia, who is so completely cool. (We had many good conversations over the weekend; I love her thoughtful views of the characters and relationships, especially her focus on friendships over romance.) I saw jodyorjen and her husband Jeff, who are very cool people. I saw kellyhk, who was seated near me at the con, and said hi to bubonicplague (who I don't think was actually at the cocktail party). Who else ...? Man, there were so many people there. Lots of people were saying to each other "Oh, you're so different in person," "Oh, you're not at all how I pictured you," but I didn't have that feeling at all. Not that I knew how people would look in advance, but it was like, once I met them, it fit perfectly. Just like, the tone of their voice, their mannerisms, their behavior, etc., matched their online personality. It made perfect sense, and was really cool.

Oh, and of course, James Marsters was there. He was surrounded by a mob of people as soon as he walked in, so basically 20 people got to chat with him, and the rest stood on the sidelines. It was better in Cleveland, where the photo session provided the perfect opportunity to rotate people through after their 45 seconds with James, so that everyone got a chance to meet him. When he finally sat down, I did end up sitting next to him for a bit, since I was standing right by the table (poor Kelly had to stay there until he left since he was sitting in her chair with her handbag underneath!). He recognized me and seemed happy to see me, which was neat (though of course he recognized a ton of people), and I asked him about his movie. (He didn't say anything new, though I heard later that he clarified that he won't be kissing Sean Bean or Derek Jacobi).

I got kinda drunk at the cocktail party (I'm 21 now! It's legal!), which is pretty pathetic given how few drinks I had. (Well, I'm new at this). Thankfully I didn't do anything terribly stupid, and I did end up having a really cool conversation about Highlander. Jane and I went to bed early, around midnight, because we were both so tired.

Saturday morning I dragged myself out of bed early for the fanfic panel, though I ended up missing the first half anyway. (I'm just not meant to be awake before noon on a weekend). I did catch the last half, though, which was excellent. There were such wonderful people on the panel (Mint Witch, Kelly, Colleen, HarmonyFB, Kita, Kimi, and more that I forget because my brain is exhausted today). It was so damn cool to hear all these amazing writers talking about fanfiction. Honestly, I'd rather do away with all the squeeing over pretty celebrities (not that the celebrities weren't fun) and have more time for discussion and panels and in-depth conversations. My favorite part by far was all of the cool people I met, not the brief brushes with the famous people.

I got to the auditorium in time for Mercedes McNab's presentation (she seems like a real sweetheart). James's talk was good, though there were some nightmarishly stupid questions. ("Will you read my fanfic?" "No." "Well, I'm going to give it to you." "Well, I won't read it." "I'm going to give it to you anyway." "I'm sorry, I appreciate the effort, but I'm just honestly not going to read it." "I'm going to give it to you." Gah! And another stupid AR question; drop the fucking topic already!) The best part, though, was that he didn't say "If a man is bad, he'll be bad to you" (I think by this point, half the audience was ready to recite it along with him in a sarcastic voice, so it's lucky that he didn't say it). AND, he said that Buffy used Spike shamelessly in season six. Yeah! Not that I think he's done a total reversal or anything, but he was a lot more respectful of the fact that we're there because we're fans of his character, not because we want to get lectured about our dating lives.

I didn't get Mercedes McNab to sign anything, because they only had one bad photo of her left, but I got James to sign another trading card (the porch scene at the end of FFL *sigh*). I just asked how he's enjoying the con, he said he likes it, I said how Florida is much better than middle-of-nowhere NY, he agreed, the end. I feel increasingly goofy at the ridiculousness of the situation every time I talk to him.

After the autographs, Jane and I went to the food court at the mall (where I got a real vegan meal! A pita with hummus and tabbouli and olives and carrots, it was great. Thank you so much to whoever told me about the restaurant; I forget who it was but that helped a lot. The rest of the weekend I ate fruit salads and box mixes.) The mall was really weird; it had valet parking. Jane and I were both freaked out by the suburban conformity. It definitely made us appreciate the diversity of NYC.

Then we headed back to the hotel, where I was going to go to some panels, but ended up hanging out and chatting with a bunch of people instead. I finally saw Kimi (nashvillain615) who is absolutely one of the coolest people on the planet. Then I sat by the pool for hours just talking with people. Andy Hallett came by for a bit before the banquet (which I wasn't attending), and then he and James Leary came out afterwards. Both got very drunk. (I think Leary missed his autograph session the next morning; why am I not surprised?) mustangsally78 also got drunk and entertained us for quite a while; she's also incredibly cool. (I was afraid that she hated me because she had ignored my email about archiving "Buffy Summers and the Spiders from Mars," but the first thing she did was tell me that she's working on breaking it into sections so that I can archive it. So yay! She doesn't hate me! And she's incredibly smart and funny, just like you'd expect from reading her fic.) She made us promise not to report the contents of the discussion, but much of it was NC-17.

My only regret is that I'm so shy, especially in groups, so I had a hard time speaking up. I mostly just sat there and watched. I hope I wasn't too annoying. I did get to talk to a lot of people one-on-one which was much more comfortable for me.

At some point I went up to my room, and on the way up I saw Mercedes McNab (who had just taken her dog out for a walk). Then when I was coming back down, I stepped into the elevator and found myself alone with her (she'd dropped the dog off in her room). I was in the process of getting out a piece of gum, so I offered one to her to be polite, and she accepted. Then I couldn't think of anything to say, so I relied on the default of asking her about her dog. (I think she must've gotten really sick of talking about him!)

We were out on Saturday night by the pool till around two or three in the morning. Then I got up early on Sunday for the first speakers (James Leary, Iyari Limon, and that guy from Reptile Boy), though I missed the first half. (I missed the slash enactment, dammit!) But what I saw was entertaining and cool. Then Andy Hallett came on, and he was fucking awesome. He's just absolutely hilarious and has such perfect comic timing. Among other things, he called his mother and had the whole crowd sing "Happy Birthday" to her over the phone. I was sad that he only had an hour to speak; he could've kept us entertained all day.

James's Q&A on Sunday was excellent (I guess they got the stupid fangirl questions out of the way on Saturday, except for the "Will you sing?" which he gracefully declined). I was surprised by how personally revealing he was; he said his age without embarrassment on Saturday and talked about his son on Sunday. Very, very cool. I'm not going to summarize everything he said, but chase820 has a great report in her journal here. (And how pissed am I that I completely missed talking to Chase!!??) I think he genuinely had a good time on Sunday, because the questions were really insightful and interesting. (He actually exclaimed "Oh shit!" when they told him it was time to get offstage).

In the autograph line I asked him his favorite Star Wars movie (I'm a huuuuge dorky Star Wars fan, and I love that he is too). He said the first one (which so doesn't surprise me, though mine is The Empire Strikes Back by far) and that he was one of the first 500 people to ever see it (no fair! I wasn't even born then!). Then mustangsally78 went through the line with her Spikebot (yes, she really has one). His torso started to fall off while he was in line, so I helped her put him back together. Then Chris had me take photos (but I didn't realize there were only 5 left, so I used them all before he started signing. I'm sorry!!!! Don't ever ask me to take important photos.) The expression on JM's face was pretty damn funny. (Sally has the photos here and her report here).

So after that, I wandered around and finally ate lunch with Jane (I had a giant platter of fruit. I'm so sick of fruit after this vacation!) Then I found a bunch of other people going to dinner, so I went with them and just hung out. (Let's see ... who was there? Chris, Kimi, Steffi/Estepheia, Mikelesq, Bob, um, I'm blanking, but a bunch of others too. I mostly talked to Estepheia, who is so awesome.) Then we headed back to the hotel because we were all supposed to gather in the lobby at 9.

At 9pm was the surpise birthday party for Jerry/surprise baby shower for Kelly. (Each thought that it was a party for the other.) So we had cake (with very hazardous trick candles!) and gave gifts and took photos and all hung out for a long time. It was a great way to get everyone together at one place, especially in comparison to Cleveland where we all just wandered aimlessly on Sunday night. Kita and Mint Witch showed up after we'd taken the big group photo (they'd gone out to bars or something). I ended up talking to Kita, who is so incredibly cool. I was always kind of scared of her online since she's so anti-redemptionist, but she's actually awesome and we got along really well. I asked her to explain the appeal of Angel to me and she did, and actually made me reconsider (just a little bit) my dislike of him. She's a really smart, thoughtful, fun person with strong opinions, so it was great to have a conversation with her. Eventually they came over to tell us that the bar was closing, and I realized we were the members of our group left in the room. I hadn't even noticed. So then we went outside and joined everyone else by the pool. (Where I immediately retreated into my typical silent-in-groups demeanor. I'm sorry. I suck. Though in my defense the main topic of conversation was vids, which I know almost nothing about; I'm just not a visual person. I know "Closer" (*guh*) and "Rebel Yell" and that's pretty much it.) A bunch of us ended up staying out till around 3am since we couldn't bear for the weekend to be over. I think it was Kimi, Mint Witch, Kita, me, Chris, Christy, and maybe a couple of others.

That morning I wasn't up in time to say goodbye to everyone. I'm especially sorry I missed saying goodbyes to Kimi and Chris, 'cause you guys both rock and were so incredibly nice to me all weekend. Jane and I had breakfast with a nice group, though, including Cindy (shaddyr) and Chen and Jerry. (And I know I'm missing people, which I promise I'm not doing on purpose, my brain is just exhausted after a busy weekend with little sleep.) We caught the 11am shuttle to the airport (which was packed ... who all was on it? Me, Jane, Chen, Jerry, Kita, Mint Witch, Colleen, Cindy/Shaddyr ....) We said our goodbyes once we got to the airport, but then it turned out our terminals were all right near each other so we met up again at security and hung out for a bit longer. Then we finally had to say our real goodbyes (*sniffle*) as we went to our separate planes. (Chen and Jerry were on the flight with me and Jane, though, so we didn't have to say goodbye to them until we got to New York). Then we got a cab back to the city, which dropped Jane off at her place and took me home. (Where I dropped off my suitcase, then immediately went out to drop my photos off at Duane Read and then got a huge ton of food from Angelica's). And then I read LJ for hours and caught up with my friends list. And updated my website, and finally slept.