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wildestrangerThis post will contain some spoilers for HP and the Deathly Hallows (or Deadly Hallows, as the Sectus booktokens said. I snickered a lot, as I am evil that way.), but the full review will have to wait until later. I also intend to write a thingy about Remus Lupin, and what I think about Remus/Tonks in HBP and DH, and why I am so very, very delighted with the latter book. In this case, it's not just because I am evil, although obviously that helps. *g* I did a lot of cackling with glee during Sectus – everyone will attest to this. My evil knows no shame.
And in short, I did enjoy the book immensely.
But back to Sectus. I arrived to London around one thirty on Thursday afternoon, and was picked up from the station by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pre_raphaelite1 and sethkyne_blue. We made our way to the Generator Hostel, which, as hostels go, was pretty awful (sharing showers with everybody else on the same floor) and I'm pretty sure I was overcharged for it as well. Fortunately, there was no time to complain about this (much, although I did try), as we were due to meet _emeraldgreen and fleshdress.
After a short delay, and a even shorter rainstorm (during which I gleefully informedpre_raphaelite1 and sethkyne_blue about English weather), we met up with _emeraldgreen, whom I'd had the pleasure of meeting twice before and who was as lovely and green-eye-shadowed as ever, and fleshdress, whom I hadn't met, and who was awesome like pie. A pie being eaten by Dean Winchester. Which (both pie and Dean) is mostly what we talked about for the next few hours, in a restaurant with a truly atrocious service but rather pleasant wine, until we all felt more calm and slightly drunk, and happy enough to go to Sectus. Although I did drag everyone to the gay bookshop first, where I purchased a Donald Stratchey mystery, as well as had a nice chat with the owner about how adorable Donald and Timmy were. :)
At Sectus, we had a look at the queue outside the building, and decided to go to the pub across the road instead. (This will be a theme throughout the event) We drank some more, chatted some more about Dean and his pie, and eventually made our way to the building, where we were given exciting Sectus bags. We also glanced fearfully at the two meet ups (Snarry and Harry/Draco, I believe) that were taking place on opposite sides of the room, and whose participants felt the need to shout at each other, loudly, quite often. Naturally, I mocked them for this.
The exciting Sectus bags included ribbons that were expected to wear (green for having read the book, pink for not), and not for the first time I was pleased to have been thoroughly spoiled (and what a despoiling it was *smirks), since I have issues with the colour pink and would have refused to wear it. My green ribbon also allowed me to recognise other people who had also been spoiled, and I had a lovely chat withmagic_at_mungos, where we talked about Remus and various other things. Around this point, I also met aillil and remeciel, who were both most delightful, and joined us later in the pub.
The programme started with a play, which I'm sure would have been very witty and entertaining had we in the back row been able to hear it. After this there was a lecture by Steve Vander Ark, but my companions and I felt that our evening would be best spent somewhere else, and so we adjourned to a nearby wine bar. After a hour or so there, we came back to the pub across the road, where a Remus/Sirius meet up was to take place.
We managed to secure seats after proving to some scary people in the next table that yes, we were here for the HP thing and in fact for the R/S thing as well. After a few moments I noticed that they were eyeing my green ribbon suspiciously, and making "get thee behind me satan" hand movements at me. Apparently they decided I was not as scary as that, though, since they made a point of asking me not to spoil them, as they didn't want to be spoiled. I made a point of smacking their bitch down and pointing out that my having been spoiled didn't in any way indicate that I wanted to spoil other people, and that as they had never met me, they had no reason to assume that I would. Good times. ;)
After this delightful encounter, our table started to fill up, and we met the lovelyspikeyboots, as well as a few other people whose name I can't remember (a certain amount of wine had been consumed). Around midnight (or later? I really can't remember) fleshdress and _emeraldgreen left to get some sleep, and soon pre_raphaelite1, sethkyne_blue and I followed their example and made our way back to our tiny room in the hostel.
The next morning, my roommates and I found ourselves disinclined to get up at the very early hour we had decided on (that is, 8.30), and chose to stay in bed until midday. As a result of this, we missed much of the morning programme, but did manage to go for the slash in the Goblet of Fire paper byunsymbolic, which was probably the most interesting and intelligent presentation in the whole conference (the only competition being unsymbolic's other paper on the Phallus of Doom, which, as titles go, was pretty unbeatable). We also went to a lecture on queerness in the children's literature, which was frankly rubbish, and then to a roundtable on HP and sexuality, which was fun but somewhat difficult to participate in as there were very many of us. The rest of the evening, however, we (that is _emeraldgreen, fleshdress, pre_raphaelite1, sethkyne_blue, aillil, spikeyboots, such_heights and I) spent at a nearby restaurant with an absolutely delightful and pretty young waiter, and much, much rose wine. Five bottles, I believe, and there were five of us drinking, although we had some food as well. We discussed Dean Winchester some more, and Regulus Black, and James Potter, and HP porn in general. We might have been a little loud, but our waiter kept smiling so prettily all the time anyway. And at the end of the evening spikeyboots told him that he had been lovely and that _emeraldgreen wanted to take him home with us.
Around ten, ten thirty (I think?)_emeraldgreen, fleshdress and I started to walk back towards the Sectus building, stopping at a local Tesco to buy more food and wine. We were able to acquire comfy seats, and settled in for a long wait with some coffee and jaffacakes. Sometime before midnight, fleshdress and I went to queue for our books – there was a long queue with lots of loud people, and I might have made a few not so quiet comments about them as we waited, as I find loud people annoying. At last we got our books, run downstairs, made a few flailing motions with our hands, and settled down to read.
The next six hours were fairly uneventful, although I did poke at_emeraldgreen every now and then (as she was sitting next to me), pointing out an amusing sentence in the book and whispering "there's going to be so much porn!". Some people kept shushing us and I refrained from showing them the finger.
We finished the bottle of wine fairly quickly (see, a theme!), and around five people started moving,fleshdress and _emeraldgreen because they wanted to go to bed, and pre_raphaelite1 because she is an unnaturally fast reader and had already finished the book. I finished my reading around six, then went for a walk with pre_raphaelite1, where we chatted about the book but mostly I cackled about Remus. Around seven, we collected sethkyne_blue and went back to the hostel to sleep.
We got up around noon, and decided that since we had already missed the one interesting panel ("Beg me for it": rethinking consent), we might as well ignore the conference and do something else. We arranged to meet the others at the British Museum, and had breakfast/lunch there.sethkyne_blue kept reading the book throughout this, as she had not yet finished. After a half an hour with the Elgin marbles, and some discussion of centaur porn (I was sad there were no postcards of this, as some of the images were truly…stirring), we met _emeraldgreen, fleshdress, aillil and spikeyboots for coffee, and then food. _emeraldgreen and I continued to drink rosé wine through all this, and I was pleased to have a companion in my alcoholism.
We went to see OotP, and probably scared the people sitting around us when we burst out laughing at the sight of Aberforth and his goat. There was much snickering at Snape and his "I will penetrate your mind and you will try to resist. Prepare yourself!" – talk. Which, to be fair, will never stop being funny.
After the film, we found ourselves longing for the relative discomfort of our beds, and retired back to our various hostels and such.sethkyne_blue and pre_raphaelite1 kept me up half the night perving over Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour (there were songs about his cock, I believe), but we were nevertheless able to get up at a decent time the next day, and to attend more of the conference. The Phallus of Doom, as mentioned above, was both intelligent and interesting, and made me pine for more academic books on the specularisation of the male body. magic_at_mungos hosted a Marauders' roundtable, which was fun but there wasn't quite enough time to talk about everything. There was also a roundtable on Harry/Draco, which I enjoyed, as there was much pervy suggestions and general hooting.
Next we retired to another restaurant for more food and (rosé) wine, and porny discussion. By this point, we had been joined bysuch_heights, who was utterly charming and lovely, and there was much talk of what fic everyone was going to write. There is a list somewhere, I hope, because I honestly don't remember what we planned, other than that _emeraldgreen promised to write Kreacher/Regulus, and fleshdress was easily persuaded into producing some James/Regulus showerporn.
After lunch I made another digression to the Gay Bookshop, bought two more Donald Stratchey mysteries, and then joined the others for a picnic in Regent's Park (and by picnic I mean rosé wine). People were writing additional porny comments onspikeyboots's copy of DH, and remeciel was making beautiful drawings, and I believe there was some talk of goat porn (there usually was). We met a few more people whose names I don't remember (mijan came to show us her wands, I believe), and generally, good times was had by all.
And that was it – I took a train back home later that night and managed to avoid all the flooding, which apparently had been ruining the countryside for the past few days. Some people blamed this on excessive crying by the Harmonians, but who knows?
I had a good time in Sectus, and I very much enjoyed meeting all the people noted here. I am also becoming increasingly aware that I am getting too old and cranky to enjoy talking to random strangers just because hey, they also like Harry Potter, especially when we often like Harry Potter in different ways, and show our enjoyment in very different fashion. So I’m not sure I'll want to attend more HP conventions – meet people I know and like, yes, absolutely, but things like this? Probably not.
And in short, I did enjoy the book immensely.
But back to Sectus. I arrived to London around one thirty on Thursday afternoon, and was picked up from the station by
pre_raphaelite1 and sethkyne_blue. We made our way to the Generator Hostel, which, as hostels go, was pretty awful (sharing showers with everybody else on the same floor) and I'm pretty sure I was overcharged for it as well. Fortunately, there was no time to complain about this (much, although I did try), as we were due to meet _emeraldgreen and fleshdress.After a short delay, and a even shorter rainstorm (during which I gleefully informed
pre_raphaelite1 and sethkyne_blue about English weather), we met up with _emeraldgreen, whom I'd had the pleasure of meeting twice before and who was as lovely and green-eye-shadowed as ever, and fleshdress, whom I hadn't met, and who was awesome like pie. A pie being eaten by Dean Winchester. Which (both pie and Dean) is mostly what we talked about for the next few hours, in a restaurant with a truly atrocious service but rather pleasant wine, until we all felt more calm and slightly drunk, and happy enough to go to Sectus. Although I did drag everyone to the gay bookshop first, where I purchased a Donald Stratchey mystery, as well as had a nice chat with the owner about how adorable Donald and Timmy were. :)At Sectus, we had a look at the queue outside the building, and decided to go to the pub across the road instead. (This will be a theme throughout the event) We drank some more, chatted some more about Dean and his pie, and eventually made our way to the building, where we were given exciting Sectus bags. We also glanced fearfully at the two meet ups (Snarry and Harry/Draco, I believe) that were taking place on opposite sides of the room, and whose participants felt the need to shout at each other, loudly, quite often. Naturally, I mocked them for this.
The exciting Sectus bags included ribbons that were expected to wear (green for having read the book, pink for not), and not for the first time I was pleased to have been thoroughly spoiled (and what a despoiling it was *smirks), since I have issues with the colour pink and would have refused to wear it. My green ribbon also allowed me to recognise other people who had also been spoiled, and I had a lovely chat with
magic_at_mungos, where we talked about Remus and various other things. Around this point, I also met aillil and remeciel, who were both most delightful, and joined us later in the pub.The programme started with a play, which I'm sure would have been very witty and entertaining had we in the back row been able to hear it. After this there was a lecture by Steve Vander Ark, but my companions and I felt that our evening would be best spent somewhere else, and so we adjourned to a nearby wine bar. After a hour or so there, we came back to the pub across the road, where a Remus/Sirius meet up was to take place.
We managed to secure seats after proving to some scary people in the next table that yes, we were here for the HP thing and in fact for the R/S thing as well. After a few moments I noticed that they were eyeing my green ribbon suspiciously, and making "get thee behind me satan" hand movements at me. Apparently they decided I was not as scary as that, though, since they made a point of asking me not to spoil them, as they didn't want to be spoiled. I made a point of smacking their bitch down and pointing out that my having been spoiled didn't in any way indicate that I wanted to spoil other people, and that as they had never met me, they had no reason to assume that I would. Good times. ;)
After this delightful encounter, our table started to fill up, and we met the lovely
spikeyboots, as well as a few other people whose name I can't remember (a certain amount of wine had been consumed). Around midnight (or later? I really can't remember) fleshdress and _emeraldgreen left to get some sleep, and soon pre_raphaelite1, sethkyne_blue and I followed their example and made our way back to our tiny room in the hostel.The next morning, my roommates and I found ourselves disinclined to get up at the very early hour we had decided on (that is, 8.30), and chose to stay in bed until midday. As a result of this, we missed much of the morning programme, but did manage to go for the slash in the Goblet of Fire paper by
unsymbolic, which was probably the most interesting and intelligent presentation in the whole conference (the only competition being unsymbolic's other paper on the Phallus of Doom, which, as titles go, was pretty unbeatable). We also went to a lecture on queerness in the children's literature, which was frankly rubbish, and then to a roundtable on HP and sexuality, which was fun but somewhat difficult to participate in as there were very many of us. The rest of the evening, however, we (that is _emeraldgreen, fleshdress, pre_raphaelite1, sethkyne_blue, aillil, spikeyboots, such_heights and I) spent at a nearby restaurant with an absolutely delightful and pretty young waiter, and much, much rose wine. Five bottles, I believe, and there were five of us drinking, although we had some food as well. We discussed Dean Winchester some more, and Regulus Black, and James Potter, and HP porn in general. We might have been a little loud, but our waiter kept smiling so prettily all the time anyway. And at the end of the evening spikeyboots told him that he had been lovely and that _emeraldgreen wanted to take him home with us.Around ten, ten thirty (I think?)
_emeraldgreen, fleshdress and I started to walk back towards the Sectus building, stopping at a local Tesco to buy more food and wine. We were able to acquire comfy seats, and settled in for a long wait with some coffee and jaffacakes. Sometime before midnight, fleshdress and I went to queue for our books – there was a long queue with lots of loud people, and I might have made a few not so quiet comments about them as we waited, as I find loud people annoying. At last we got our books, run downstairs, made a few flailing motions with our hands, and settled down to read.The next six hours were fairly uneventful, although I did poke at
_emeraldgreen every now and then (as she was sitting next to me), pointing out an amusing sentence in the book and whispering "there's going to be so much porn!". Some people kept shushing us and I refrained from showing them the finger.We finished the bottle of wine fairly quickly (see, a theme!), and around five people started moving,
fleshdress and _emeraldgreen because they wanted to go to bed, and pre_raphaelite1 because she is an unnaturally fast reader and had already finished the book. I finished my reading around six, then went for a walk with pre_raphaelite1, where we chatted about the book but mostly I cackled about Remus. Around seven, we collected sethkyne_blue and went back to the hostel to sleep.We got up around noon, and decided that since we had already missed the one interesting panel ("Beg me for it": rethinking consent), we might as well ignore the conference and do something else. We arranged to meet the others at the British Museum, and had breakfast/lunch there.
sethkyne_blue kept reading the book throughout this, as she had not yet finished. After a half an hour with the Elgin marbles, and some discussion of centaur porn (I was sad there were no postcards of this, as some of the images were truly…stirring), we met _emeraldgreen, fleshdress, aillil and spikeyboots for coffee, and then food. _emeraldgreen and I continued to drink rosé wine through all this, and I was pleased to have a companion in my alcoholism.We went to see OotP, and probably scared the people sitting around us when we burst out laughing at the sight of Aberforth and his goat. There was much snickering at Snape and his "I will penetrate your mind and you will try to resist. Prepare yourself!" – talk. Which, to be fair, will never stop being funny.
After the film, we found ourselves longing for the relative discomfort of our beds, and retired back to our various hostels and such.
sethkyne_blue and pre_raphaelite1 kept me up half the night perving over Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour (there were songs about his cock, I believe), but we were nevertheless able to get up at a decent time the next day, and to attend more of the conference. The Phallus of Doom, as mentioned above, was both intelligent and interesting, and made me pine for more academic books on the specularisation of the male body. magic_at_mungos hosted a Marauders' roundtable, which was fun but there wasn't quite enough time to talk about everything. There was also a roundtable on Harry/Draco, which I enjoyed, as there was much pervy suggestions and general hooting.Next we retired to another restaurant for more food and (rosé) wine, and porny discussion. By this point, we had been joined by
such_heights, who was utterly charming and lovely, and there was much talk of what fic everyone was going to write. There is a list somewhere, I hope, because I honestly don't remember what we planned, other than that _emeraldgreen promised to write Kreacher/Regulus, and fleshdress was easily persuaded into producing some James/Regulus showerporn.After lunch I made another digression to the Gay Bookshop, bought two more Donald Stratchey mysteries, and then joined the others for a picnic in Regent's Park (and by picnic I mean rosé wine). People were writing additional porny comments on
spikeyboots's copy of DH, and remeciel was making beautiful drawings, and I believe there was some talk of goat porn (there usually was). We met a few more people whose names I don't remember (mijan came to show us her wands, I believe), and generally, good times was had by all.And that was it – I took a train back home later that night and managed to avoid all the flooding, which apparently had been ruining the countryside for the past few days. Some people blamed this on excessive crying by the Harmonians, but who knows?
I had a good time in Sectus, and I very much enjoyed meeting all the people noted here. I am also becoming increasingly aware that I am getting too old and cranky to enjoy talking to random strangers just because hey, they also like Harry Potter, especially when we often like Harry Potter in different ways, and show our enjoyment in very different fashion. So I’m not sure I'll want to attend more HP conventions – meet people I know and like, yes, absolutely, but things like this? Probably not.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 06:45 pm (UTC)I rather miss all our rosé. Clearly it's time for a trip to the supermarket. I also think you need congratulating on not killing the people who kept shushing us. Such restraint!
♥
no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 03:11 am (UTC)And yes, drink more wine. It will make life better. *g*
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Date: 2007-07-31 08:32 pm (UTC)LOL! I had the exact same experience -- at the showing I went to, I think I was the only one who picked up on that detail.
Glad to hear you had fun at Sectus!
no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-02 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-04 12:47 am (UTC)Yes, I always find it strange when I meet other fen and find myself with little to say, particularly when it's always possible to have a lively discussion with a non-fandom fan. I guess it's because non-fandom fans tend to be excited about the novelty of being able to discuss HP at all, and also they're excited about canon. Fandom people tend to pour energy into their interests beyond canon, so it's all too easy to lose the common point of connection.
That said, out of 400 people there's bound to be someone I can talk to, so I don't see myself withdrawing from live meetups any time soon. Particularly as I was too busy to speak to more than about 5 people to any depth at Sectus (and two of those were on Sunday night).