Escapade!

[ride_4ever]

On my way to Escapade in LA -- the world's longest-running annual slashcon -- for its 30th anniversary! \o/

Comments

[viridian5]

I got to go to Escapade once in 2002 and had a great time. Met so many fan authors I loved in person and went to dinner with them. First time someone really fangirled me about my fics in an RL meeting too.

But then I got a job where February was their major crush time month so I couldn't take a vacation then during the two years working there. Then I got a new job doing a ton of work where I didn't often feel like I could get away for a few days at a time because my work would keep piling up undone while I was away. Then I got struck down by my brain compressing, had to stop working in the aftermath, and have been too poor ever since. The last time I had a vacation was 2009 when my Social Security back money finally arrived, and that was me driving to Massachusetts and staying in a friend's apartment, so my only expenses there were just a few tolls and the gasoline to drive there and back, and some meals.

(I also went to Connexions twice pre-everything that happened in the second paragraph but didn't enjoy it either time as much as I did Escapade.)

[ride_4ever]

I've been to ConneXions once and Escapade four times. I'm very committed to Escapade (I'm in charge of the Escapade Welcommittee).

Wish I'd been going to cons when you were there. Would have loved to tell you IRL of my <3 for your fic and to share stories about time spent in NOLA. (I <3 your "Borderlands -- One for Sorrow" series so much that I had commissioned a fanartist to do art of it and I had it displayed at Escapade last year when I did the "all due South art show".)

[viridian5]

I'm so sorry it took me a while to get back to you on this, but I spent a lot of time asleep during February....

I loved my one Escapade: it was so fun and welcoming and had many panels I enjoyed. With ConneXions my fen friends and I would sometimes take off to go shopping at the local mall or whatever for lack of content that interested us. It didn't help that my first ConneXions had a lot of panels that had a mail 'zine people (real fandom) vs. these spoiled, entitled kids on the internet who can get their slash fast and for free and don't appreciate it vibe. Also that when one person officially connected to the con found goth me and my two friends wandering around afterhours without our passes because it was afterhours, she told us we should always, always wear our passes, especially since we "didn't look like fans."

That would've been fun! Thank you so much. What did that art look like?

[ride_4ever]

If you PM me with an email address for you, I'll send you a pic of the fanart that I commissioned Sekhmet (AKA Joyce of Requiem Publications) to do for your "Borderlands -- One for Sorrow".

Bummer about your ConneXions experience...fen judging each other as "real fandom" or not, judging each other as "looking like fans" or not. If time and health should allow you to attend another con, I hope you will choose Escapade (and LMK if there's anything I can do from my Escapade Welcommittee position to increase the likelihood of that).

[viridian5]

Done!

Thanks. I would if I could. There are the health issues, but the big problem is money. I have difficulties just getting by on what Social Security gives me--and there are several other ways the system is set up to keep disabled people in poverty--so a round-trip airplane ticket from New York to California and back, the convention fee, a hotel room for a few nights, and dining out for meals for those days are quite beyond me. (The only reason I got to attend Comic Con in NYC a few times was that I was volunteering to do a few hours working a booth and could just use the subway to get there, and those folks haven't asked for my services in the last several years so....) It sucks.