~~ Nimbus! Nimbus~! NIMBUS!! art, rambling, squeeing, more rambling.

[reenka]

hee! heeeee!

well. first of all. i love this fandom!! w00t! (*does insane fangirl scream* ... yes, i've practiced those recently. hee.) you know, typing is slightly unnatural right now. ha!
    [wrote that tuesday morning. is wednesday afternoon now. alas.]

no internet access since late wednesday night, baby. got back around midnight monday and slept a lot. and i mean a lot. suuure i could've written an entry before now-- checked my friends list before...well i still haven't (scary thought). but. i'm all happy-fuzzy still. have been reading actual books (book 5 put me on a roll, apparently). mmm, nina kiriki hoffman. slashless. hee. although i -am- seeing incest, here. *giggles*

so as i said-- you guys rock. you really do. don't expect -too- much coherency. but.




hee. anyway. i love you guys. you rock so much my toes curl.
and speaking of toes curling..... i just have no words. this isn't even a post for anything but squeeing because as many things that there were that made me happy, alice has my eternal devotion, pretty much, because.... because...........




~~


it's hard to know what to say, what not to say, and... stuff. i am so happy to have seen that many hp geeks in one place, i cannot even describe it adequately. i took a nice 2-hour flight from jfk airport during which i spotted cassie claire and ruby & ali, but um, my only conversation with them was afterwards to say, "help! i'm lost and confused and how am i supposed to find aja to top everything else?!" --which you know, sort of set the tone. sort of. heeee. i thought i had to write a paper for my panel, and i hadn't actually finished or edited it beyond some sleepy poking at 3am. i barely slept, but there wasn't much improvement because that is seriously the worst thing i've ever written. hee. i'm thinking of posting it sometime, just out of self-pity (i did work on it).

i can't believe i hadn't even -printed- the paper by the time i got home to my mom's in nyc, who doesn't have a printer. i was... let us just say... freaking out. i was -happy-, but i was freaked. and i was supposed to be staying with kitsune13, but... when i got there, i couldn't reach her at her phone number, so i just sat in the lobby, crossing things out in my print-out ($9 at the hotel, how helpful). anyway, the orlando airport is v. spiffy. i was happy at all the sunlight-- and it's -warm-, v. v. warm. like, warm. you think nyc is warm?? no. no. -orlando-, that's warm. i finally found the night bus... oh joy. there was the organizer lady in the pointy hat-- i was like, SQUEE!! POINTY HAT!!... she gave out free cocoa and toothbrushes later. i wanted green (of course) but settled for orange. i am not a gryffindor but oh well. neither am i a slytherin. but for some reason i have slytherin pride. what the fuck?? -.-

anyway. i was so stoked to see all the girls (all girls that i could see)-- kindred spirits everywhere. hee. at least geeky spirits-- they were either chatting or reading. heeee. there was emily anderson sitting across from me-- well, at that point i only knew her as the girl with blue hair and pink glasses. then sushi (wikdsushi!sushi, not fatalseafood!sushi, though i didn't realize that till after i kind of said she had me friended, which she didn't realize she didn't) comes in and says she wants to sit with slashers, "my own kind". heee. i thought she said slackers, but went to sit near her anyway, after alice did. yes, alice-alice (alice! alice!). she said she didn't write fanfic but she drew a little. i still didn't make the connection (hah)-- i was like, oh, one of those people who draws a little. like me, right. i semi-listened to them chat about fanfic and slash and harry/snape and stuff, but of course i didn't join in. the story of my life (at nimbus, anyway). then msscribe came in and sat next to me, and asked what everyone's handle was-- and well... no one said, much. i think we were the only interesting people on the bus >:D< ok, no.

i only realized i didn't need to finish my paper (frantically... somehow... or other) by the end of the day. met kat (kitsune13, heretofore referred to as kat, heheh) and my other roommate, who are both extremely cool and probably preserved some semblance of mental balance. highlight was probably the draco panel members' meeting at the fountain, wherein i actually got to make my points and so did they (hee! aja! cassie! kat! cedar! GUYS! how cool was that? hee). oh yah, that was after the introductory marauders panel, which was attended by everybody, pretty much-- all 600 of us. heeee. gwendolyn grace (minister of magic) was remus, cedar was peter, ebony was james, and i forget who sirius was -.-
    it was distinguished by cedar's unique take on peter, hehehe. i don't remember -what- she said, but just-- defending peter in the first place is something that seems like a worthwhile challenge. *giggles* i was v. happy. i didn't say anything at that or any other panel or presentation-- but i enjoyed them all enormously. may i just say (again) that all you guys are just extremely cool. because yes. except that person at the post-mortem who was kind of curmudgeony and missed the point entirely, but you know, we can't all be perfect >:D< anyway, everyone was constantly enjoying themselves and that meant -i- couldn't help but enjoy myself ~:)
    there were so many opportunities to enjoy myself that i didn't take. lots of decisions and choices and too many things to do and... someone said at one point that they wish they had a time turner. i think i wish went with a close friend who could've dragged me to things and not taken no for an answer. hee. ishuca, that means you >:D<
    there was a switchblade kittens concert thursday night i didn't go to. there was a h/d vs. h/s vs. d/s impromptu panel-type-thing with sushi and cassie claire that i didn't go to. there were many opportunities to get drunk that i missed, all in all. woe.

the first complete panel i went to was the canon interpretation panel (how to define canon? or something like that), just because peg kerr was on it and you know, published! fantasy! author! yeay! i mostly attended the fandom culture panels and the character ones-- ron, r/hr vs h/hr, snape, slash, draco. i did go to a strange amount of hermione presentations (from the gender and identity track)-- she's a favorite among some academics, apparently. it's so fun to go to those because people get excited and they're more informal and stuff. i hope there are more of the character ones next time. it was weird seeing things from ron's and snape's pov (just for me, obviously), but i like it. snape's was saturday. hee. flourish was the moderator, and i am now her fangirl. she sat there in her pink flamingo hat (you had to see it-- no, really, you should've gone just to see her in her pink flamingo hat, i'm telling you) and was more mature and balanced than everyone else. am also fangirl of meghan mercier (especially after her subsequent hermione presentation). she is so funny and easy with audiences and i envy that. heh heh.

no but seriously, the snape panel was gr8. apparently, no one feels the need to gloss over snape's sadistic tendencies and they could accept that and go on, so it's not like the draco panel, where it was like, "but draco SUCKS and he's a little SHIT" and me and cassie and aja were like, "um... but he has promise?". which, okay, is good for 5 minutes but then you have to think, "can we move on now?". the snape panel doesn't bother to pretend like snape's being a sadistic git is something one has to -debate-, so they just went on speculating about his past and future and so on, shamelessly. heeee. and the hat, man. the HAT. i was tittering hysterically at something or other the whole time, honestly. what a contrast to the draco panel, where i was barely keeping myself together, doodling and taking notes 'cause i am really bad at public speaking and... well... everyone else was wanting a say, and i'm bad at being pushier than other people. so i kind of said some stuff... apparently some people thought it was helpful. <3 to you all, obviously.

anyway, the shipping war panel and the snape and ron panels were soooo much better controlled (though i guess that means there was no blood). *sniffle* but it's okay~:) i'm not bitter >:D< and i mean that. the opportunity to sit there with cassie and aja and kat and talk to people about draco just rocked my world, seriously. i was traumatized, but. hey, i'd be traumatized with a perfect panel too, considering something like 200 people were there listening.
    someone with a "press" badge said, maybe draco's been on the side of light the whole time and just couldn't admit it. ahahahahah. i pretty much died. i felt like saying, DUDE! DUDE!! what alternative fanfic universe have you crawled out from under? hee.

i hung out with kat and a bit with antenora, mostly. yah. i saw andrea and i was like, SQUEE! and no one else was hogging her, so yes. i said hi to a bunch of people, but apparently just because you have people friended and are glad to see them doesn't mean you automatically hang out together. a few people came up to me to say hi-- hi earthquake1906 and mark356 and vlamidala and lady_morsmordre and nefeleo (NEFELEO, who looks just like one of her drawings, with the boots and everything)-- heeee! i pretty much died seeing everyone. so many slashers. but not -all- slashers. and we all look alike, united in the squeeing~:)
    i wish i had more social skills. i spent a lot of time wibbling and wishing i had more balls and drawing. drawing, drawing, drawing. i probably could've maybe hung out with aja & cassie & ruby (more)... since kat did... even found random new people. but alas, such is not reena's way. reena quietly sits in a corner and waits for things to happen. heh.
    out of people i hadn't known before, besides being t00bily impressed by flourish and queerasjohn (whom i saw at registration and immediately recognized without any hint but his voice and swagger-- okay, he only sort of swaggers, but still, how could he be anyone else?), i have also decided that aegeus is rather cool, even though all he did was smile at me cryptically (or not-so-cryptically), post-draco-panel. he's the kind of person you can't help but like, immediately. but then, almost all of you are that kind of person. uh-oh, i feel another mental group-hug coming on -.-

also, wish i had talked to jlh (clio) more (or at all), because she also was/is one of those people i immediately felt comfortable around (this doesn't happen to me often, even if i like you). she came up to me after the panel and said i didn't seem nervous (ahahaha) and more like i didn't care and was drawing and then i just casually said things (apparently intelligent things) which was Good. and i was reassured. so yes.

had impromptu draco-in-slash panel after the draco and the slash panels, but didn't actually -talk- about draco-in-slash. mostly debated the merits of slash and what slash was. i never knew there was so much room for spirited debate there... but mostly, i was still woozy from being up there. sat and doodled. then there was the fiction alley birthday party... which i went to, because i wub you guys and i would do unnaturally un-reena-like things for you, like go to parties. i should've gotten drunk. i should've danced. i should've at least have gotten up and mingled. but. wound up drawing things (nude ginny things) and having them passed around, and having priscellie (and alice) look at my notebook. which-- dude! kat insists i'm good, but i... i mean... compared to the Talent. i mean. yah. but still. squee!

saturday night was the movie showings-- i only went to the general, not the ones sponsored by slash!nimbus. i was actually squeeing and screaming at pretty much -everything-, just like everyone else (lucius? SQUEE!! dobby? SQUEE! tom? SQUEE!! ron/hermione??! SQUEEEE! mrs. norris? SQUEEEE!! harry/hermione? SQUEEEEEEE! DRACO??! *SCREAM*! and so on). emily said she was watching me more than the movie. hee. they were selling cute pillow-covers for $2 and i got one (and a pillow from my room) and kind of lay on it, pumping my fist in the air, by the end. hee. like a half-dead rat. but it was fun, man. i did a lot of screaming. i just couldn't handle yet another 4 hours of it-- and the slashers were louder. i was -tired-. i could -not- handle gwendolyn grace's mic and filks and the raffle and the screaming at that point. but. people were puppy-piling on the inflatable armchair, so there's that~:)

and then it was sunday. sigh. there wasn't much, not even lunch, just a post-mortem "what went wrong and what went right" meeting which the die-hards attended. i stared at aja and eq and alice and nefeleo and kat and john some more. heh. people at my table discussed snape some more. i was quiet and didn't say much and doodled some more. *laughs* it was at this point that alice gave me my fanart, as seen above (and i DIED, pretty much, since yes, -everybody- seemed to be walking around with doodles from people, but i think they actually -asked- for them-- and whoa, does magsby draw a mean percy). i immediately drew sad!draco for alice, which she kissed when i handed it to her. heeee. the last thing i did was draw some h/d for aja before finally going to meet my 24-hour greyhound ride since no one was snagging me and begging me to go with them. heh.

i'm sure i missed some things. but this is already extremely long, so. we (the american fans) should meet more often than once in two years (hello, nimbus '05). we really should. i mean, i know hp_newyork never really took off, but. man, i'm motivated. aja and ivy are coming to nyc at some point, right? we should do a fandom-meet thing of some sort. with discussion or t00bing or whatever. because... well... i don't want to wait 2 years. we could have an informal canon & slash discussion meet sometime... i dunno... not good at planning. but yes.

i think i awe easily when it comes to meeting fellow fan-artists 'cause i'm not very secure in my drawing ability like i kind of am with my writing ability. but also because i can understand it, it's not incomprehensible magic to me. and it's more impressive knowing how hard it is to get certain things right, to have these things seem effortless. art is semi-effortless to me, but then there are all these things i just avoid trying hard enough for.

the funny thing is that i was more overwhelmed at the sight of alice and nefeleo and magsby and alicey than cassie or aja or antenora, even though i was so happy to see them, i was happy to see them as -them-, not as representations of their art. magsby and company were sketching together everywhere. they are really frighteningly good. i couldn't even speak. i saw alicey drawing the twins from the second matrix movie and just said "meep!" . i at least said "hi" to most other people. alicey just kind of looked at me like, "eh?" (but with an english accent.)
    i am such a silly fangirl, really. i think if they asked me-- if they even -now- asked me-- to write a lengthy harry/hermione or draco/snape epic in return for art, i'd do it without a second thought.

but, ruby asked me to scan my nimbus drawings, and people (even the god-like artist people) seemed to like them, so here:




on friday, i drew squeeing!draco at the fandom vernacular panel-- where i saw tinderblast, who seems to know a lot of the fandom but i don't of know her, which is weird.
    don't remember when i drew the lily/james, but it doesn't matter, the resemblances are minimal -.-
    drew semi-nude!draco
    and pissed!harry during the slash panel;
    nude!draco right before the fiction alley birthday bash (which i remember fondly for nmalfoy's dj'ing, the time warp and the beatles and a bunch of things which made lots of fangirls wiggle-- always appreciated-- 'cause, you know, fangirls have surprisingly nice butts, actually).
    i drew the ginny and tom weirdness for vlamidala while everyone was dancing, heh.
    i managed to do an h/d with bits of lyrics thrown in, but it kind of sucks. i was distracted :?
    post-party, drew fred and george for kitsune13 because she's lovely and she seems to want me to. heh. i'd never drawn any weasley besides ron before nimbus and now-- i'm actually contemplating writing incest. this girl is a bad influence >:D< but the presentations were just amazing. a surprising amount of people want to hear about incest in the potterverse. hee. not that i'm -that- surprised-- we're all pervy as all get-out. except for the old academic-type people (who are not kat or bharati, my other roommate), but they kept to themselves. heh.

on saturday, i drew smooth-bastard!james from the pensieve scene while (alone) at lunch... kept having lunch alone. meep. felt like i was the only one being alone, otherwise it would've been fine of course. james kind of sat on my brain, for some reason.
    did pensieve!lily at the same time, but am not too happy with her expression. she looks kind of angsty rather than angry.

on sunday, i drew harry and draco on the night bus--
    and again. i suppose i felt weird since i hadn't drawn any until the last day-- my slashy mojo felt depleted.
    i'd done charming-sucker!harry during the post mortem, which all in all is the thing i'm happiest with. i think much as i love pissy!harry, when he smiles (rarely, in my pics), he actually looks like -harry- to me. heh.
    and the draco in boxers was for epicyclical while waiting for my bus home, i dunno why.

and then my memory fades into endless hours spent crammed into a small bumpy space, frantically concentrating on patricia mckillip. but that's another story.