Starting
KAG ships in toxic towns
One of the
most difficult aspects of Klingon fandom is that sometimes a few
people that get involved in it aren't all that sane and don't work
well with others. You may find yourself in a situation where the
"klingons" that were there before you were too serious about being
Klingon and turned the rest of fandom off. Thankfully I see
this mostly in other clubs besides KAG. A captain of a young and
promising ship came to me the other day and complained that local
fandom had given up trying to work with those insane Klingons and
let them go. I am very familiar with that as the founder of the IKV
RakeHell had to deal with a long laundry list of how bad the
Klingons were when she started the RakeHell in 1993-94.
How do you overcome this? What do you do? Because as a beginning
club you need to network, to find ways to get involved with local
fandom and their activities. Now the rubric is that "Klingons were
born to dominate and conquer," yes that's true, but when you are a
beginning ship with 3 or 4 people at the most, and you moved here
from out of state, how do you get going?
Obviously the end-goal that you want to get to is a place where you
can put on events and people get excited about them, whether they
are Klingon or not, but to do that you need to establish a few
things in the rest of fandom's minds.
1) You can be trusted not to be nuts.
2) You are a reliable partner
3) You are fun and entertaining
4) You give more than you get in social situations
You accomplish this by ironically, NOT being Klingon. Work with
other clubs, spread the praise around. If you are working a
PBS drive with the USS Armpit, and it's there idea, give them the
glory; don't claim it was your idea. Let the folks know that you are
the IKV NoseHair if the question comes up, and ask permission of the
USS Armpit to display your banner when you work events with them.
Eventually, if you do a good enough job, you will be the ones they
want not the Feddies, and the Feddies will be working for you.
As to not being nuts, do the Klingon roleplay well, but make sure
that people know that you know it's roleplay. Break character
easily, and exhibit awareness and concern for other people's
feelings.
Stay Patient! Assert yourself as needed but make yourself a reliable
and important member of local fandom!
Qob!
<[email protected]>
