neadods | 221B Con Wrapup

I started to liveblog 221B Con on LJ, but the phone keyboard/predictive texting teamed up to make me crazy.

The convention is moving ever more into social media. Livejournal was mentioned occasionally, but in a manner that made it sound like LJ had been discovered in a Leicester parking lot. Dreamwidth wasn't mentioned at all (sorry y'all!) but I'm going to crosspost fannish stuff here in an effort to broaden my own social media presence. The vast majority of attention went to twitter and tumblr. If you didn't have a tumblr, you didn't quite exist; everyone was introducing themselves by tumblr handles. And in-con communication was mainly via twitter. Three Patch Podcast tweeted when they were handing out limited-edition badge ribbons and parties; the Homeless Network (a new group) tweeted lost-and-founds and prize giveaways. The concom itself officially tweeted to John Finnemore during the Cabin Pressure panel.

So, I've unlocked the bookish_nea twitter and created the madenthusiasms tumblr. I don't expect to be doing massive amounts on either but... I built a fannish reputation on LJ; now it's time to start over.

Attendance was slightly down from last year - I know quite a few people who bought memberships and then couldn't go just from Tin Box alone - and the costuming wasn't as quite outrageous in the halls. No woman in pink on the floor; no Reichenbunny fall. But there was a Mycroft in a goldfish suit that is rather seared into my mind. And Ben Syder, guest star for the Asylum Sherlock Holmes movie, gamely posed with an inflatable T-Rex. (He also gave an excellent live podcast to the Baker Street Babes and snickered his way through a live commentary on the Curious Case of the Steampunk Dinosaur.)

There are always panels that sound great that you miss - I'm sorry I missed Neurodiversity in Sherlock Holmes, the Mrs. Hudson panel, and Rare Pairings in particular - but some great ones. And massive props to 221B Con, because there was a lot of thought to diversity on panels. The Women in Sherlock one was mainly run by women of color and that rattled my suburban whitebread assumptions nicely. (Example: I did not know that the actress who plays Janine is half Pakistani, thus never put the thought that one of the panelists put into the passing mention that Milverton's guard was a white supremacist.) That panel was one of the best kind - the one you stick your nose in thinking "I'll move on shortly" and get sucked into.

Massive props to the folks running the Fandom Unraveled and crafting circle panels; they not only talked about Ravelry (I'm going to have to stop lurking there) but had free patterns, learn-to-knit kits, and even a yarn tasting. There was a thing from The Fibre Company that was alpaca/silk/cashmere/camel hair that I have to check out.

AbudantlyQueer was there and gave a talk on Sebastian Moran that is apparently now up on YouTube. I was on The Woman (waving the flag for my Janine=Irene theory, plus a little Moriarty hate), Canon 101, Welcome to Night Vale, and Audio Sherlock Holmes. I was not on the Russian Sherlock Holmes panel and that's a good thing - last year I talked about the narrative; this year there was a cultural anthropologist talking about the underlying cultural markers.

Add-ons kept being added on. Cara McGee runs the tea and Three Patch Podcast runs the con suite, and this year there was a game room (M got serenaded as she passed with a Frozen song rewrite "Do you want to play a board game?") and the Homeless Network which gave away Cabin Pressure & Homeless Network bracelets and amplified lost-and-found notices and otherwise ran around being fun and useful.

Sherlock Fluxx got an airing at the tea party and in the bar after the con.

And then... it was time to go home. TSA got into my bag, nibbled a few M&Ms, and checked out the Johnlock porn. Since they didn't zip my bag up all the way, I hope the graphic omegaverse knotting illustration haunts whoever pried for the rest of their lives.

ETA: 221B Addenda. I want to just say, that although TSA were jerks, we had one of those constantly joking stewards on our plane and that always makes an unpleasant experience so much nicer. Jokes included:
- saying "trick or treat" when coming through with the trash bag
- "We're going to come through to check if your socks match your outfit... and check your seatbelts."
- (after explaining how to get life vest and 2 ways to inflate it) "And if that doesn't work -- you're having a bad day, aren't you?"
- (during the oxygen mask speech): "Pull on the cord to activate the flow of alcohol." ... "If you are traveling with small children... why?" "If you are traveling with a small child or someone acting like one [etc] So put on your own mask before you help your husband."

We had a hard landing, so he added "After Captain America and the Boy Wonder bounce us to the gate..."

And when the first belt was unclicked (ahead of time) "Uh uh! Not yet! Wait for it. Waaaaiiiit for iiiiit..."