amanuensis1 | Convention Alley! Slashgirls! And Drabbles!

Well, I just got back from Convention Alley--actually that's not true; this is/was being written longhand on the last day of the convention--and, oh, man, it was everything I had hoped it was going to be. I'm not writing a "trip report" as such, because those chronologic "and then we did this"-es need to be funny to be fun (I don't get off on people's vacation photos either). So this is just a squee over how amazing it was to get to meet the Convention Alley Contingency of Smut Slashers (TM) (Motto: We're Here For The Porn). In alphabetical order, I met

cluegirl,

dementordelta,

gmth,

josanpq,

kaiz,

neotoma,

nimori,

sinick, and

titti, and my god, the FANGIRLING I did. Everyone of them is clever and fun and FABULOUS and of course I knew this, but you have to understand: this was my first experience with meeting people in person that I'd only known as online friends, and I really did not know how one's online personality would show in person. Just didn't know! (Including mine, of course.)

And all of them were the most beautiful, sweetest, coolest, best people I could imagine. The group I wanted to hang with forever. They were all so cool, I couldn't get through an opening sentence without stopping after two words and gulping and starting over. (It got better the second day.) I became terrifyingly sure that that meant I must have been the token uncool group member, just because of statistics. (I learned from

cluegirl that the term for that is "safety monkey," sort of the Peter to the Marauders, and she declared that our group just plain lacked one, so we could all take turns, just to keep the group dynamic stable. ^_^)

I did a giant amount of what I kept calling "fangirling at a 45-degree angle," which meant that it was hard to look at someone face-on while gushing about how much I loved their stories and their art and such, and so I sort of had to do it while we were walking together and I had my face turned in their direction--fangirling at a 45-degree angle, see. Takes some of the tongue-tied-ness out of the fangirling.

So there was much squeeing and fangirling and bonding and oh so much discussion of HP (Yes, of course there was an actual conference. Whose lectures we went to, and they were pretty good, some very good--especially Steve VanderArk, HP Lexicon Master Extraordinaire, who was a fabulously entertaining speaker-- but I'll let someone else give you that dirt), and we all hung out and looked at

nimori and

cluegirl's art--Clue drew me Rituals and Traditions Harry/Draco porn! Right there! Squee! (Now I have to get my scanner software working so that I can show you!) And Nim's original pencils are so beautiful--you know that Harry/Snape illo that graces the After Class Yahoo Group page? The original of that shows Harry's arched eyebrow more clearly so that you can see his smile is wicked, not wistful, and Snape is NOT looking at the cauldron, trying to ignore Harry, but has his eyes directed at Harry, glaring. Wonderful! And she's drawing me Tigers to Butter art, eee!

And then on Saturday we had not merely live Drabble Night, but live-and-in-person Drabble Night, and lemme tell ya, Drabble Night will never be the same, man. It was sublime. We were in a hotel room, which is why we got the idea to do Bible Verses as a theme, and

gmth looked up most of them, and that's why I'll always remember that as "The night we wrote slash and Gina read the bible." Hee. She said how much fun it was to watch our faces in frowny concentration, and "Aha!" moments, and "wait, wait, I'm almost done" writing mode. And most of us wrote our drabbles throwback-esque-ly longhand on paper--which is why I paid zero attention to word count and one of my drabbles turned into a mini-ficlet. And we read them aloud, of course. Everyone who wrote, everyone, slew me dead with at least one of their drabbles. You need to go read everyone's when they post them (yes, we told drabble night newbies like

kaiz and

neotoma and

sinick that they had to post them!). And, oh, yeah, mine are here, behind the cut--the only part of this post that I'm cutting, ha.

Harry/Snape. "Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body." (challenge by

gmth)

"What the hell was in that?" Harry took the goblet from Snape's unresisting left hand, sniffed. "Aconite. Jesus."

"It's not your business."

"The fuck it's not. How long have you been doing this?" Harry was already on his way to the workbench.

"Leave that." Snape's voice was a rasp, had none of its usual command--which might have stopped Harry under other circumstances.

Harry had picked out the jar in just a moment of searching. "This is almost empty. How much of it are you up to? Does Dumbledore know?"

"Dumbledore has more to worry about that my methods of pain relief."

"You still didn't answer my question. How long?"

Silence. Then: "Since his resurrection."

"Fuck." Harry had his hands on the table, as if he knees would buckle otherwise. "And aconite is the only thing that helps."

"Effectively."

Harry looked sideways at him. "No, you don't. Tell me. What else?"

Snape's lips were pursed, but it was clear he hadn't the fight in him tonight. "Orgasm."

Harry flushed.

"Wouldn't--er--wouldn't that be--easier? Than aconite?" He flushed harder.

The purse of Snape's lips...thinned. "The limb that the pain renders ineffective, you idiot, is my arm."

Harry couldn't flush any harder. So all he said was, "Oh." He dropped his gaze to the worktable.

He kept it there as he said, "Could I...suggest something?"

Three nights later, Snape was doing rather better. And the level in the aconite jar had remained steady.

Any two Death Eaters. "These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast." (challenge by

cluegirl and

nimori)

Snape rose from the bed. He did not bother with the grey puddle of his robe upon the floor, but moved naked to the window.

"Albus, I do not think I can keep up the charade any longer."

His partner sighed from the bed. "If you cannot, you cannot."

"Are you disappointed in me?" Snape's voice was that of the twenty-one-year-old who had appeared, bleeding and desperate, at Albus's door sixteen years previous.

"No, my boy. This moment has been anticipated."

Snape turned to look at him.

"Hand me my spectacles and I shall show you what I mean."

Snape reached for them upon the table, touched them--and fell bonelessly to the floor.

He could still hear every word, see the skewed-angle view of Albus as he rose...and of the dark-cloaked figure who appeared at Albus's side, as they both came to stand over him.

"You see, Tom," said Albus. "I told you I was not lost to you forever, my dear."

Lucius/Dobby. "Let the rich man glory in his humiliation, because like the flowering grass he will pass away." (challenge by

gmth)

(The following is a result of immediately flashing on the obviously Slytherin answer to the Sorting Quiz question that stated, "What would you do with a house-elf if you had one?" and being unable to go with any other idea.)

"Suck harder, you twat," growled Lucius, spreading his legs beneath the computer desk as Chapter Three of Cybele's Quill and Ink scrolled across the monitor.

Beneath the desk, Dobby complied, pulling fresh tissues from the box. The bastard might not be granting Dobby clothes any time soon, but he'd have his revenge. Dobby had a magnet the size of a hotel bible stored in his cubbyhole, and he swore it would be under that hard drive before the week was out.

Any Marauders (plus Snape, if wished). "They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not one." (challenge by

gmth)

"Look," said Remus, closing his book, "don't vex me so much, Sirius. You know it's the full moon in three days and I get dodgy."

Sirius put the Screaming Sugar Whistle down. "Oh--sorry, mate. We'll all be there with you, you know."

"Yes, but that's in three days. I'm all worked up now." He pushed the book aside, stood, and moved to sit next to Sirius on his bed. "If you want to be a help, that is."

"Moony--it's the middle of the day." Sirius did not move away, but neither did he lean into Remus, either. "Anyone might come in."

"You're worried about that?" The hurt was completely undisguised in Remus's voice. "I have to conceal that I'm a werewolf, a fucking dark creature, and you're worried someone might call you a poof?"

Sirius didn't sigh, but his hesitation said enough. Nevertheless he reached for the bed curtains, and the last thing that an observer might have heard before the silencing spell was Remus's "Good boy."

***

"Look," said Remus, "don't vex me so much, Peter. The full moon's in two days and I'm all worked up." He smiled. "You could help me burn it off."

So it was insanely wonderful. And yes, if you are a "meeting online friends for the first time" virgin as I was, I'll reassure you, yes, your I-shouldn't-have-to-explain-this feelings that you do love these people and they are your friends, not your "online friends" but your FRIENDS--you have it exactly right. You do. And I've never been so happy.