finnchesters Meet-Up 07 and promised links

[kat_lair]

Oh my god, I have finally recovered from Saturday’s party… Which was awesome, by the way, thanks for asking :-) The weather could not have been better, the last guest left around midnight, the food or drink didn’t run out (far from it), and for some inexplicable reason people came in with gifts (it was just a random garden party so I felt slightly weirded out by the money filled envelopes but it’s not like it isn’t needed so…)

Anyway, I believe I promised some sort of mini-report of my Supernatural meet-up which took place 4-5 August. There are some truly illustrious pictures in existence (most of them feature some pretty impressive cleavage) though unfortunately not in here, because downloading and uploading them would kill my pitiful modem connection. For those interested I can share some of them later, just nag me in September once I’m back abusing university’s broadband.

If I had to summarise the event with one word, that would be incestgayporn awesome.

I set off to Tampere on Saturday morning, full of meet-up jitters and nervous excitement. However, they vanished quickly when I met up with oikku for coffee and last minute organisation of our planned entertainment.

After a couple of hours of shuffling papers around and sharing tales of our respective fandom histories, we took a bus over to maladroitoracle, who had kindly offered to host the meeting. It’s a brave thing to do to let eight strange and excitable fan-girls into one’s flat, so many thanks to her for taking a risk on us…

The three of us set up the living room and equipment ready for the games etc. and promptly bonded over our shared love for the show. We also geeked out by making a banner with which to greet the rest of the participants. It proudly proclaimed “Salt ‘n Burn” and thusly guaranteed instant recognition by those in the know.

There was a lot of bus riding during the weekend. I’m pretty sure the passengers on the Hervanta-city centre line are still suffering from post-traumatic stress and that maladroitoracle (whose regular commute the line is) has invested in black hair dye and huge sunglasses…

We went to the railway station to collect hugemind, frikatilhi, phemie, isobell and lexandros, and all of us got slightly distracted by leering at a bachelor party wearing some sort of bizarre brown monk outfits with inappropriately long splits on the side… Then it was back to the meet-up headquarters!

Food, drink and games were all a success. During the introductions we discovered among other things that Bobby would be good to have around in a cabin in a middle of a forest, and Sam would sing Total Eclipse of the Heart in a karaoke bar, and that Dean secretly likes fluffy bunnies.

Amusingly, the hit game of evening was “Whose Plaid Shirt?” picture guessing game with strategically covered screenshots that only showed the shirt but not who was wearing it. The enthusiastic way we all crowded around the laptop to analyse who the plaid-clad slope of shoulder and span of chest on display belonged to, was frankly somewhat disturbing. Though hugely fun!

For dinner we trekked back to the city centre, once again traumatizing a bus-full of innocent commuters. In honour of the Winchester dietary code of grease and salt, we pigged ourselves at the American Diner where the last member of our elite group, neppu, joined us. After burgers and chips and drinks full of sugar and additives, we trooped over to a nearby bar, dragged a couple of tables together and talked loud and long about incestgayporn the state of fandom, ghost stories, writing fics, leaving feedback, and the intricacies of anal sex. Classy, I tell you. I was also happy to discover other fandoms in common with lot of the people, namely Doctor Who/Torchwood, Life on Mars, and SGA. Always a pleasure when someone shares so many of your obsessions… Some people were loyal in their drink choices and grabbed Coronas and other beer, though I kept to girly alco-pops that Dean would have mocked mercilessly and Sam stolen mouthfuls from behind my back. Still, even that was enough to keep me nattering on endlessly about various things that may or may not have interested other people… *sigh* It’s hard to believe, but I was actually the shy, quiet girl in school. Personally, I blame gayporn fandom.

Finally, around midnight I think (I’m a leeeeeeeeetle bit hazy on the details here), we parted ways with isobell and lexandros who went to their hotel and frikatilhi and phemie who went to frikatilhi’s flat. What happened at those places after this point I don’t know and am afraid to contemplate. The rest of us took a night bus back maladroitoracle’s flat, piled into her room and giggled like schoolgirls. Because I’m a giant dork I whipped out a memory stick with some of my favourite Supernatural fanvids and shamelessly pimped them to the others. It was a bit like one of those opinion panels you hear on radio where people rate new songs, except with more inappropriate comments and leering. Also, let me tell you that watching fanvids at 1 am in a dark room with four other fangirls is a rather, uhm, intimate and, er, liberating experience. Had the moral police come by they would have arrested our asses like that *snaps fingers*

The next day dawned bright and beautiful and by the time we made it outside the temperatures were hitting +25 C. Originally there hadn’t been any official programme planned for the Sunday, but because everyone got along so well and were clearly blessed with brains as well as awesome breasts looks, an impromptu picnic had been agreed on during the Saturday night.

Thus, armed with drinks and food, we settled on lovely park by the Tammerkoski Bridge, prolonging the inevitable as far as possible. The conversation never stopped it seemed and a lot of time was spent talking about favourite fics and authors. Finally, it was time say goodbye and go our separate ways.

What an amazing Meet-Up and what amazing people I met! Next year, if I'm in the country, I am so there! In the meanwhile, the offer stands and visitors are welcome...

Okay, ladies. These are the things I remember talking about. Because my mouth apparently never stopped moving during weekend, you may have to remind me of what else I may have promised to provide and/or do…

 

Here are the fanvids I pimped during Saturday night:

• Anything for Love by mkitty3 (longer rec by me here)
• Bang, Bang by Aurielle aka he_will_save_me  – New, different, interesting. I liked.
• Bricks by Luminosity aka sockkpuppett – I think this kicks ass, others seemed to disagree…
• Filthy Gorgeous by Jules (longer rec coming up in the next editon of Themed Vid Recs of Doom)
• Hemorrhage by wistful_fever (longer rec by me here)
• Protégé Moi by charmax (longer rec by me here)
• Evil Brings the Sexy Back by Jules (longer rec by me here)

 

There was some talk about picspams. These are all mine but I showed/mentioned them so…

• Jared Padalecki – Emo rent boy
• Jensen Ackles – Sex-on-legs

And especially for neppu…

• Hugh Laurie picspam #1
• Hugh Laurie picspam #2

 

Fics – again, I only remember mentioning these three, but that means shit all. Feel free to poke me for more recs.

• A Priori by memphis86 – (Sam/Dean) Amnesia fic for people who don’t like amnesia fics. Long, clever, painful, so very good.
• The Turn of the Wheel series by eighth_horizon – (Sam/Dean) The best wing-fic ever. In the history of ever. Long, delicious, slow building and with a kick-ass plot. I can’t recommend this enough. (Still missing the final instalment, link goes to author’s website)
• Wolfpack and its sequels (internally linked) by tabaqui – (Sam/Dean) Truly chilling, yet amazingly exhilarating and sexy. Utterly believable version of how things could have gone.

 

Other stuff

• I mentioned several times narration_girl: a journal dedicated to a dissertation on “metanarratives of online fandom.” Over the weekend we talked about why we like slash, how we got into fandom in the first place, the function of feedbacking fics etc. and all are topics widely discussed in the various posts over at narration_girl’s journal so those interested should go check it out and join in if you want.
• Those hankering for more fanvids, including a lot of other fandoms besides Supernatural may want to peruse my Themed Vid Recs of Doom.
• I also talked about the Embrace the Cliché Project, entangled_now, iniq, and myself are putting together, so go donate your favourite clichés over there.

 

WHAT DID I FORGET? TELL ME!