mina_de_malfois (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mina_de_malfois) wrote2007-10-02 10:23 am
mina_de_malfois) wrote2007-10-02 10:23 am
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2.12 Mina de Malfois and the Significant Paralepsis
[Hello again. Those of you who pay particular attention to these things will have realized that we're nearing the end of 'season two.' To maintain symmetry with 'season one,' there will be a 2.13, but after that, as is customary, the author will be making an extended stay at a rest home taking a short rest. I'll still be online, and will be delighted to respond to emails or comments or what-have-you while I work up some outlines (usually jotted down in a kind of impromptu shorthand that, later on, will be incomprehensible even to me; I spend a lot of time staring at notes which read 'Have x tk to y abt cvlzn!' and wondering what the hell I was thinking of at the time of jotting.
This update is dedicated to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
notmonica. I'd also like to thank all those of you who are reading, most particularly those of you who've recognized yourselves or your friends in the Minaverse. You've all been terrifically good sports about it, and you're proof that fans can too laugh at ourselves.]
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. No specific resemblance is intended to any person or persons living, dead, or online. No BNFs were harmed in the making of this fic.
Permissions: Mina de Malfois is an original fictional creation. These stories and characters are the sole property of the author, but she lends them out for fanfic and fanart. A list of Mina de Malfois/Sanguinity things by other people can be found here.
I won’t dwell on the precise manner in which the barely-awake Warr1or proceeded to discomfit me. Suffice it to say that I fled to my room fairly soon after wakening him, and that for the next several days we avoided each other as far as was possible within the confines of PrinceC’s condo. What conversation we had was stilted and embarrassed, though I must in fairness add that it was also informed by a newfound respect on both sides. I won’t bore you with the details. He did give me a lift to Wands Across, though. That was nice of him.
And to tell you the truth, I was a bit apprehensive about Wands Across. No doubt I was worrying needlessly, but still. I’d tried delicately hinting that I needed up-to-date info on congoing behaviour standards and etiquette, but the most informative and least acrimonious response I’d gotten was a perplexing communique from a kindly-intentioned LotR fan:
Actually, my usual reference The Practical Guide to Fandom Participation, published by the World Fen Association in 2001 (it was the revised version of the Fandom Resource Guide published a decade or so earlier) which one got free with many fanzines (which hardly suggests it was aimed at the wealthy fan) has a section headed "Moots and Conferences" beginning with SciFi Cons (which include horror) and which has eight subheadings, Worldcon (otherwise known as The World Science Fiction Convention), Philcon (the first of the local cons (held in Philadelphia, clearly (in 1936))), Galaxyfest (which takes place (appropriately enough) in Vulcan), DragonCon (which is one of the ‘popular culture’ cons spanning a range of fandoms) and finally GenCon (which is a gaming con - and many of these events are inexplicable owing to the subcultures involved being somewhat twitchy about the things they get up to in private). Specific issues involving pros at events (and while I've always thought angstfic takes the issue of prostitution to absurd extremes I'd say this current debate takes the cake on that matter) have included death threats (rescinded in a dramatic redirect), actors wearing matching clothes at conferences, scary security guards (possibly heavily whiskey-soaked), and venom cocks (debated and defended in an endless circle of logic (or lack thereof) for weeks afterwards, so that even those who hadn’t been present came to loathe the book, the author, and the editors associated with it).
You can see how that wasn’t quite what I’d been looking for (however helpful it’d been (meant) to be).
Arc had, I learned once I arrived, arranged for me to share a room with a fellow BNF. It must have been insight rather than thrift which had informed her decision, because just then I really needed the level of comfort and understanding that can only be found among one’s own kind. I need hardly tell you what balm it was to my weary fannish soul to be in the company of one who, when told I was being plagued by petty fandom jealousies, nodded knowingly at once without demanding a tedious account of specific instances. I know I’ve said I try to avoid close friendships with other Big Name Fans, but the BNF in question was delightful, really, and I expected great things from our voluntary co-incarceration. Enthusiasms would be shared, BNFs would be shaved, and probably at the height of things clothing would be burnt.
The first person I saw when I wandered downstairs was Mrs.Sev., and I confess I cringed a little when she hailed me. Hers is not the sort of company that increases one’s public cred. But I’d have died rather than let her see I felt that way, so I made my way over to her fairly promptly though with some trepidation. Who knew what fathoms of madness she was currently plumbing? I entered the conversation tentatively, careful to avoid such delicate subjects as funerals or the lack thereof, the probability of corpses being left to rot in tourist sites frequented by schoolchildren, and just how badly one’s inner child could be hurt by works of fiction. As it turned out I needn’t have bothered, because not long into the conversation she shared her personal Good News. The Dark Schoolmaster, she informed me breathlessly, was alive and well and living in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. ‘How nice,’ I said weakly. ‘I’ll have to mention that to Archivist12. Maybe she can keep an eye out for him the next time she’s visiting family, or something.’
I hurried the conversation away from the location of the fictional dead man as soon as I decently could. I mean, far be it from me to trample on the complex feelings of determined non-mourners, but I had an important message of my own to impart, and it was this: I was attending the con in as incognito a fashion as I could manage. Mrs.Sev, and any of her fellow hetfen as might be present, must on no account identify me to the congoers at large. Obviously nothing could be done about those attendees who had already, in one capacity or another, met me in the flesh, but if the thing were at all possible I wanted to avoid having my general readership gawking at me. I have a firm enough grasp of the behaviour of fen-en-masse towards BNFs to be leery about publicly outing myself as anybody they’d heard of, and so following a discussion with my conference roommate I was sporting a carefully-chosen pseudonym on my ID badge, and I hadn’t a single emblem of any of my known fandoms anywhere on my person. It made me feel a little odd, being dressed as a mundane. As soon as I could get to the hucksters’ room I intended to buy myself a few t-shirts or something from fandoms I don’t actually belong to--though I won’t name them here; I don’t want any fans feeling I’m singling them out just to snub them, poor dears.
Mrs.Sev agreed readily, seeming to enjoy the prospect of secrecy, and of course my roommate had already pledged she’d maintain the utmost level of discretion she could manage. So that was bound to be all right. But it wasn’t easy, pretending to be nobody in particular, especially when readings of my own works were being performed. I mean, I suppose there was a level of amusement inherent in pretending not to be present while various volunteers took the place of ‘Mina, who can’t be with us,’ but I felt a bit wistful. Not quite wistful enough to risk exposure, mind you, but I will say that I was enjoying the private meet-ups with my personal friends rather more than I was enjoying sitting at the back of various lecture rooms wearing the wrong clothes and feeling invisible.
Thank heavens there was a continual parade of Mina-aware visitors to our room. The most noteworthy of these was PrinceC, whom I’d only seen at a distance before now, but whom I’d been more than eager to see up close. When I swung open the hotel-room door to find that he was touchingly young, somewhat shy, and, most reassuring of all, very slightly marred by acne, my feelings were indescribable. The perfect darling--and what utter silliness on my part to have ever been intimidated at the prospect of meeting him! He did manage to discombobulate me slightly by inquiring, and more than once, whether I’d be participating in the con’s charity fundraiser. No one had seen fit to inform me that BNF kisses were being auctioned off, and a rather stunning but self-evidently very young man wasn’t necessarily the messenger I’d have chosen for that bit of news. I honestly can’t say whether I was relieved not to have been invited to participate, or disappointed.
Anonymity’s not an easy trick to pull off for a fanfiction author as well known as I am, you know. I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone slipped up. As it turned out, it wasn’t some giddy fangirl who let the cat out of the bag, but my fellow BNF and roommate--odd, because she’s usually the very soul of discretion. I can’t imagine what led her to say, right in the middle of introducing a reading of one of my works by a dear friend, ‘Though of course, Mina herself is--but I’d better not say anything about that.’ Naturally, within hours the rumour that I was attending Wands Across, and that, indeed, I’d been present at that very reading, was simply everywhere. I went all dithery, torn between stepping forward and leaving altogether. Arc, I decided, would know what to do. If I could find Arc, that is.
That night I went along to the hotel bar with Mrs.Sev and a pack of her fellow-travellers, none of whom had the slightest notion of who I was and all of whom therefore assumed I shared their particular mania. One of them kindly equipped me with a sprig of dittany, which I dutifully fastened to my collar, as was the fashion amongst their set. I spent several hours well-steeped in the lore and legends of the Dark Schoolmaster, and the only thing that kept me from leaping to my feet and blaspheming against their credo was the hope, to which I clung with increasing desperation, that Arc would show up and rescue me. I mean to say, it’s one thing to love a character, but quite another to be consumed by fictitious passion to the point where innocent bystanders worry they’re about to be subject to carnal displays of your devotion. It was a far, far madder pash than one is usually exposed to.
And there was no sign of Arc from first to last, though somewhere past midnight I blinked with astonishment at the sight of Xena hand in hand with my least favourite profic author. I wondered briefly if hallucinations were a side effect of con-going, but heads were turning and gasps gasping, so other people saw it too. She caught my eye and ploughed her way through the crowds to our table, slimeball still in tow. He was making eye contact with her chest, and was slack-jawed and pop-eyed as a result. ‘Hail,’ she said to me grimly when she got within shouting distance. ‘How goes the music, the service at the feast, and etc.?’
I couldn’t hear the music, hadn’t tasted the food, and tried for several futile seconds to find something worthwhile to say about the service before giving up and shrugging. ‘Where’s Arc?’ I bellowed.
‘I have no idea,’ she said, ‘but she’s left me to see to it that our guest of honour makes it to his reading tomorrow, so I’ll be locking him in his room soon. Or tying him to his bed.’ I looked suitably horrified by every bit of that communication.
‘Should I take a cold shower first?’ the guest author asked Xena, with a stunningly vulgar leer.
‘No,’ she told him witheringly. ‘Can’t you just have a second martini? That usually has the same net effect.’ She released him long enough to pull an envelope from somewhere inside her jacket, a procedure which I honestly expected to cause him to expire from apoplexy. ‘Arc left you a message,’ she said, handing it over to me. It was still warm.
She re-clasped an authorial hand in hers and started leading the hack towards the bar, prompting a fresh outbreak of startled glances and conspiratorial nudges from the crowd. One eager young podcaster approached in full-blown interview mode, and his first question coincided with a perfectly-timed lull in the general uproar. ‘Why are you holding hands with him?’ the kid asked, and I leaned forward to hear her response.
‘Because this way I know where one of his hands is,’ she said irritably, and continued barwards. The whole thing was beyond strange. Xena was on martini-drinking terms with Mr. Vicksburg? Arc was micro-managing guest authors? They’d never said anything about it to me.
I waited until I was back in my room, and took the added precaution of locking myself in the bathroom, before opening the note from Arc. It’s funny: I’d somehow allowed myself to hope that she’d have magically deduced that I was having qualms about whether or not to remain incognito for my last day at Wands Across, and would have accordingly sent me some kind of helpful advice. And I was almost right. What she’d sent me was advance warning that tomorrow night’s final event, the auctioning-off of BNF kisses, would include me. She’d put my name up for bidding, that is; a place was reserved for me at the BNF table, and for those last few hours of the con I was assured of my full share of notoriety and, incidentally, of any residual humiliation that might be attached to having to publicly kiss the highest bidder. My name, she’d pointedly added, was on the already-printed list of those up for grabs, and I quickly calculated that the humiliation of kissing some strange fan would almost certainly be significantly less than that of having everyone deduce I was a coward. There could be, in other words, no chickening out, not unless I wanted to be a laughingstock.
There’s not much more to say, really, aside from reassuring those of you who must be weak with dread on my behalf that nothing terrible happened. As it turned out? My own personal highest bid didn’t come from a stranger at all. And, oh...that kiss. But, really, I don’t think I’m ready to elaborate further on that. Some things are private, you know.
footnotes
This update is dedicated to
notmonica. I'd also like to thank all those of you who are reading, most particularly those of you who've recognized yourselves or your friends in the Minaverse. You've all been terrifically good sports about it, and you're proof that fans can too laugh at ourselves.]Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. No specific resemblance is intended to any person or persons living, dead, or online. No BNFs were harmed in the making of this fic.
Permissions: Mina de Malfois is an original fictional creation. These stories and characters are the sole property of the author, but she lends them out for fanfic and fanart. A list of Mina de Malfois/Sanguinity things by other people can be found here.
I won’t dwell on the precise manner in which the barely-awake Warr1or proceeded to discomfit me. Suffice it to say that I fled to my room fairly soon after wakening him, and that for the next several days we avoided each other as far as was possible within the confines of PrinceC’s condo. What conversation we had was stilted and embarrassed, though I must in fairness add that it was also informed by a newfound respect on both sides. I won’t bore you with the details. He did give me a lift to Wands Across, though. That was nice of him.
And to tell you the truth, I was a bit apprehensive about Wands Across. No doubt I was worrying needlessly, but still. I’d tried delicately hinting that I needed up-to-date info on congoing behaviour standards and etiquette, but the most informative and least acrimonious response I’d gotten was a perplexing communique from a kindly-intentioned LotR fan:
Actually, my usual reference The Practical Guide to Fandom Participation, published by the World Fen Association in 2001 (it was the revised version of the Fandom Resource Guide published a decade or so earlier) which one got free with many fanzines (which hardly suggests it was aimed at the wealthy fan) has a section headed "Moots and Conferences" beginning with SciFi Cons (which include horror) and which has eight subheadings, Worldcon (otherwise known as The World Science Fiction Convention), Philcon (the first of the local cons (held in Philadelphia, clearly (in 1936))), Galaxyfest (which takes place (appropriately enough) in Vulcan), DragonCon (which is one of the ‘popular culture’ cons spanning a range of fandoms) and finally GenCon (which is a gaming con - and many of these events are inexplicable owing to the subcultures involved being somewhat twitchy about the things they get up to in private). Specific issues involving pros at events (and while I've always thought angstfic takes the issue of prostitution to absurd extremes I'd say this current debate takes the cake on that matter) have included death threats (rescinded in a dramatic redirect), actors wearing matching clothes at conferences, scary security guards (possibly heavily whiskey-soaked), and venom cocks (debated and defended in an endless circle of logic (or lack thereof) for weeks afterwards, so that even those who hadn’t been present came to loathe the book, the author, and the editors associated with it).
You can see how that wasn’t quite what I’d been looking for (however helpful it’d been (meant) to be).
Arc had, I learned once I arrived, arranged for me to share a room with a fellow BNF. It must have been insight rather than thrift which had informed her decision, because just then I really needed the level of comfort and understanding that can only be found among one’s own kind. I need hardly tell you what balm it was to my weary fannish soul to be in the company of one who, when told I was being plagued by petty fandom jealousies, nodded knowingly at once without demanding a tedious account of specific instances. I know I’ve said I try to avoid close friendships with other Big Name Fans, but the BNF in question was delightful, really, and I expected great things from our voluntary co-incarceration. Enthusiasms would be shared, BNFs would be shaved, and probably at the height of things clothing would be burnt.
The first person I saw when I wandered downstairs was Mrs.Sev., and I confess I cringed a little when she hailed me. Hers is not the sort of company that increases one’s public cred. But I’d have died rather than let her see I felt that way, so I made my way over to her fairly promptly though with some trepidation. Who knew what fathoms of madness she was currently plumbing? I entered the conversation tentatively, careful to avoid such delicate subjects as funerals or the lack thereof, the probability of corpses being left to rot in tourist sites frequented by schoolchildren, and just how badly one’s inner child could be hurt by works of fiction. As it turned out I needn’t have bothered, because not long into the conversation she shared her personal Good News. The Dark Schoolmaster, she informed me breathlessly, was alive and well and living in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. ‘How nice,’ I said weakly. ‘I’ll have to mention that to Archivist12. Maybe she can keep an eye out for him the next time she’s visiting family, or something.’
I hurried the conversation away from the location of the fictional dead man as soon as I decently could. I mean, far be it from me to trample on the complex feelings of determined non-mourners, but I had an important message of my own to impart, and it was this: I was attending the con in as incognito a fashion as I could manage. Mrs.Sev, and any of her fellow hetfen as might be present, must on no account identify me to the congoers at large. Obviously nothing could be done about those attendees who had already, in one capacity or another, met me in the flesh, but if the thing were at all possible I wanted to avoid having my general readership gawking at me. I have a firm enough grasp of the behaviour of fen-en-masse towards BNFs to be leery about publicly outing myself as anybody they’d heard of, and so following a discussion with my conference roommate I was sporting a carefully-chosen pseudonym on my ID badge, and I hadn’t a single emblem of any of my known fandoms anywhere on my person. It made me feel a little odd, being dressed as a mundane. As soon as I could get to the hucksters’ room I intended to buy myself a few t-shirts or something from fandoms I don’t actually belong to--though I won’t name them here; I don’t want any fans feeling I’m singling them out just to snub them, poor dears.
Mrs.Sev agreed readily, seeming to enjoy the prospect of secrecy, and of course my roommate had already pledged she’d maintain the utmost level of discretion she could manage. So that was bound to be all right. But it wasn’t easy, pretending to be nobody in particular, especially when readings of my own works were being performed. I mean, I suppose there was a level of amusement inherent in pretending not to be present while various volunteers took the place of ‘Mina, who can’t be with us,’ but I felt a bit wistful. Not quite wistful enough to risk exposure, mind you, but I will say that I was enjoying the private meet-ups with my personal friends rather more than I was enjoying sitting at the back of various lecture rooms wearing the wrong clothes and feeling invisible.
Thank heavens there was a continual parade of Mina-aware visitors to our room. The most noteworthy of these was PrinceC, whom I’d only seen at a distance before now, but whom I’d been more than eager to see up close. When I swung open the hotel-room door to find that he was touchingly young, somewhat shy, and, most reassuring of all, very slightly marred by acne, my feelings were indescribable. The perfect darling--and what utter silliness on my part to have ever been intimidated at the prospect of meeting him! He did manage to discombobulate me slightly by inquiring, and more than once, whether I’d be participating in the con’s charity fundraiser. No one had seen fit to inform me that BNF kisses were being auctioned off, and a rather stunning but self-evidently very young man wasn’t necessarily the messenger I’d have chosen for that bit of news. I honestly can’t say whether I was relieved not to have been invited to participate, or disappointed.
Anonymity’s not an easy trick to pull off for a fanfiction author as well known as I am, you know. I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone slipped up. As it turned out, it wasn’t some giddy fangirl who let the cat out of the bag, but my fellow BNF and roommate--odd, because she’s usually the very soul of discretion. I can’t imagine what led her to say, right in the middle of introducing a reading of one of my works by a dear friend, ‘Though of course, Mina herself is--but I’d better not say anything about that.’ Naturally, within hours the rumour that I was attending Wands Across, and that, indeed, I’d been present at that very reading, was simply everywhere. I went all dithery, torn between stepping forward and leaving altogether. Arc, I decided, would know what to do. If I could find Arc, that is.
That night I went along to the hotel bar with Mrs.Sev and a pack of her fellow-travellers, none of whom had the slightest notion of who I was and all of whom therefore assumed I shared their particular mania. One of them kindly equipped me with a sprig of dittany, which I dutifully fastened to my collar, as was the fashion amongst their set. I spent several hours well-steeped in the lore and legends of the Dark Schoolmaster, and the only thing that kept me from leaping to my feet and blaspheming against their credo was the hope, to which I clung with increasing desperation, that Arc would show up and rescue me. I mean to say, it’s one thing to love a character, but quite another to be consumed by fictitious passion to the point where innocent bystanders worry they’re about to be subject to carnal displays of your devotion. It was a far, far madder pash than one is usually exposed to.
And there was no sign of Arc from first to last, though somewhere past midnight I blinked with astonishment at the sight of Xena hand in hand with my least favourite profic author. I wondered briefly if hallucinations were a side effect of con-going, but heads were turning and gasps gasping, so other people saw it too. She caught my eye and ploughed her way through the crowds to our table, slimeball still in tow. He was making eye contact with her chest, and was slack-jawed and pop-eyed as a result. ‘Hail,’ she said to me grimly when she got within shouting distance. ‘How goes the music, the service at the feast, and etc.?’
I couldn’t hear the music, hadn’t tasted the food, and tried for several futile seconds to find something worthwhile to say about the service before giving up and shrugging. ‘Where’s Arc?’ I bellowed.
‘I have no idea,’ she said, ‘but she’s left me to see to it that our guest of honour makes it to his reading tomorrow, so I’ll be locking him in his room soon. Or tying him to his bed.’ I looked suitably horrified by every bit of that communication.
‘Should I take a cold shower first?’ the guest author asked Xena, with a stunningly vulgar leer.
‘No,’ she told him witheringly. ‘Can’t you just have a second martini? That usually has the same net effect.’ She released him long enough to pull an envelope from somewhere inside her jacket, a procedure which I honestly expected to cause him to expire from apoplexy. ‘Arc left you a message,’ she said, handing it over to me. It was still warm.
She re-clasped an authorial hand in hers and started leading the hack towards the bar, prompting a fresh outbreak of startled glances and conspiratorial nudges from the crowd. One eager young podcaster approached in full-blown interview mode, and his first question coincided with a perfectly-timed lull in the general uproar. ‘Why are you holding hands with him?’ the kid asked, and I leaned forward to hear her response.
‘Because this way I know where one of his hands is,’ she said irritably, and continued barwards. The whole thing was beyond strange. Xena was on martini-drinking terms with Mr. Vicksburg? Arc was micro-managing guest authors? They’d never said anything about it to me.
I waited until I was back in my room, and took the added precaution of locking myself in the bathroom, before opening the note from Arc. It’s funny: I’d somehow allowed myself to hope that she’d have magically deduced that I was having qualms about whether or not to remain incognito for my last day at Wands Across, and would have accordingly sent me some kind of helpful advice. And I was almost right. What she’d sent me was advance warning that tomorrow night’s final event, the auctioning-off of BNF kisses, would include me. She’d put my name up for bidding, that is; a place was reserved for me at the BNF table, and for those last few hours of the con I was assured of my full share of notoriety and, incidentally, of any residual humiliation that might be attached to having to publicly kiss the highest bidder. My name, she’d pointedly added, was on the already-printed list of those up for grabs, and I quickly calculated that the humiliation of kissing some strange fan would almost certainly be significantly less than that of having everyone deduce I was a coward. There could be, in other words, no chickening out, not unless I wanted to be a laughingstock.
There’s not much more to say, really, aside from reassuring those of you who must be weak with dread on my behalf that nothing terrible happened. As it turned out? My own personal highest bid didn’t come from a stranger at all. And, oh...that kiss. But, really, I don’t think I’m ready to elaborate further on that. Some things are private, you know.