I’m Telling You Right Now: I Will Fight You With My Flailing, Skinny Arms If You Mock These People
Posted by Sunday on Mar 9, 2008 at 11:13 pm in Daily Space
Once upon a time there were two girls. One of them was named BattleGate and the other one was named Subspace. One day Subspace was in an argument with a co-worker because Subspace wanted to listen to the Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack and the co-worker wanted to listen to the new Madonna album. BattleGate, an innocent bystander, overheard this and later asked Subspace: “So, you like science fiction?”
And that, folks, is history.
Well, wait. There’s more to the story. Not long after that, BattleGate asked Subspace if she wanted to go to a thing called Norwescon. Both of the girls were very shy and as you introverts know, making any new friend is as big a deal as asking someone on a date; things are hesitant, awkward, and there’s a terrible, lasting and fragile moment where you are absolutely certain that you’ve just made a fool of yourself and you’ll have to go back onto your diet of Suzy Qs and self-loathing. But fate smiled upon the two girls, and BattleGate brought her man-friend and Subspace, in lieu of a man-friend, brought her dad (listen - if anything I have ever said has ever granted me more nerd-cred than that last confession, I’d like to see it) and they all crammed into a tiny
microcar of some foreign persuasion and thundered to a fantastic realm called SeaTac.
It was at Norwescon that Subspace and BattleGate realized they were the mythical Best Friends Forever. Like all true love, it was unspeakable and sacred. But what they really, really discovered was this: while watching the nerdiest of the nerdy, the dorkiest of the dorky, the geekiest of the geeky, they saw one another blush with a lightly embarrassed but mostly proud defiance. This is me, they seemed to challenge each other. Can you handle it? And more importantly, are you willing to take a shiv for it? That last part is largely hypothetical.
I’m going to switch to first person now, because I’m tired.
From that day forth I felt I’d passed a silent, secret test. Not just with BattleGate, but with myself. There is a boundary with scifi/fantasy/comi-cons that is too easily crossed, where you imagine yourself different from these people, you believe that you have perspective. But there is no purgatory between mocking and participating: you either are or you aren’t. An instant of mockery and I’d feel no hesitation hissing “traitor” at you before running off to sign you up for Scientology newsletters online. We might not all be comfortable being a chubby Slave Leia or a profoundly obscure Anime Cosplayer, but for those of us that are, I got your back.
All photos on this page taken by Apelad at Megacon 2008. All hail Apelad!
I’ve only been to one nerd convention. The only one around here is a really crappy one that may have died this last year, I’m not sure. But I went with a friend who dressed up as Chi’ana.
That’s a really good Chi’ana! Even the wig is really good, and that’s the hardest part to get down.
My dream is to go to to the giant, expensive Grand Slam Summit. Every year I tell myself that I am going to do it, and then life gets in the way. 2008 is out. Maybe 2009.
That’s no wig! It was just a temporary silver coloring.
Even Chi’ana is allowed a bad hair day every arn or two.
Yes, please. Hail me.
(Long time lurker, first time poster.)
Hell yes I’d take a shiv for it SpaceBuddy, and for you too. It was truly a secret sci-fi treehouse blood brothers oath we took that day, wasn’t it?
Next time I say we do this:
BTW- I don’t know if I’m disappointed you didn’t post the Manu picture or relieved. Ha!
My travels deep into the dork forest are well documented but even I have met with those far too deep inside to truly understand them. My most profound example is always from the first sci-fi con I went to where we ran into a guy (a few times) who spent the evening slumped in the elevator mumbling in German. Oddly I ran into him in another city later that year where he was loosely associated with my brother’s group of friends and found out that his evening of drunken German was yet another of his social/psychological experiments. He had also spent some time that year being “blind” and “deaf.” He was freaky-genius and basically a case of self destruction waiting to happen. That year, by the way, we were both 15. Neither of us were in school. I sometimes wonder whatever happened to him.
But the person that I WENT to the con with? Absolutely friends forever with all shiv responsibilities taken without question. To this day we judge all boots based on how much they resemble ST:TOS boots.
Meanwhile, I am hoping that you will indulge me on this item: http://cmdrsue.blogspot.com/2008/03/number-123.html