Leave the ground.
By the by, to any new readers: I'm in New York City and love meeting people. Drop me a line and I'll happily come on over with cake. And if I promised anyone anything, or forgot to add you to my reading lists, let me know.
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It took me a long time to realize how small a con Muskrat Jamboree is, and even though I knew membership was capped, what cemented it was when I got to the con suite first thing Friday - wait, where's the dealers' room? Okay, where are the dealers' tables? Where are the dealers? Wait, you mean nobody's selling anyone anything? Wow, this is tiny!
Oddly, for all its tininess, there was still a lot that I didn't manage to do - drinks with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
melusina, for instance, and chances to catch up with other people I haven't been able to hug in quite a while. If I go to the next one, I'll know it's not the sort of high-energy intense con I'm used to going to; it's more of an extended hangout and sleepover, with all the good conversations and snarky TV commentary that entails. I've never been to a con and taken away that many people I needed to add to my internet-based reading lists.
And I got to pimp Team Fortress 2 again in Fandom Blind Dating, and got picked again. I wasn't kidding about the contests for fanvids. Seriously, guys, it's a pretty great fandom. Even the creators ship it.
Some People Go Both Ways was the first panel I went in for, and stayed with. It became one of the things I went to in order to explain the convention to random people - "Oh, we discussed stage performance versus authenticity, and whether or not that's representation, and how that goes, that sort of thing." Two things I remember in particular was the question of how to demonstrate bisexuality within a character who's in a monogomous relationship for the duration of the story, and the levels of subtext versus text to support a queer reading of a given character. Poly/threesomes/moresomes was more about established relationships, which I liked hearing about even if I've got no personal investment in the matter on any level, and the House/Wilson/Cuddy kidfic I mentioned is here.
Fourth Wall Not Found: Fando in a Social Media World was as much a retrospective and reflection on how things have changed as it was a chance to discuss how they might yet shift more in the future. The necessity of mediated Tumblr and Twitter accounts, the way creator presence comes and goes in a very tidal pattern, how there have always been the crazy fans overstepping boundaries and not knowing when to stop. Now, there's more of an invitation for a level of audience participation that hasn't ever been possible given modern technology, which seems to invite the illusion of blurred boundaries. Still. Valve did send me a hat, so I have my biases. The Community panel had a surprise Inspector Spacetime cosplay, and necessitated diagrams to illustrate the sedoretu relationship between Abed, Anne, Britta, and Troy. Much love for the show's love of the medium, much willingness to agree it got cancelled after the third season, much delight over how seriously it took its audience. Bring Back That Fannish Feeling was much the same of what we discussed at Con.TXT last time around, and it was still a nice group bonding session.
The Vid Show barely lasted an hour. The Dance Party was more than twice that, and I stayed on my feet for almost all of it. I almost left at the start - there wasn't anything to drink, I couldn't parse the songs, it was getting too loud - and then they started playing songs I recognized, and liked, and I got up and danced. And kept on dancing. I'm not sure who I danced with, or what I was doing, and I don't even have the excuse of being drunk since I'd pretty well sobered up by then, which makes it even better, because there wasn't anything giving me any sort of excuse. Excuses are boring!
Tumblr: best thing ever or end of fandom as we know it? was as much a chance for me to complain about fic in Tumblr tags - you can't archive it, not at all easily - as it was a chance to have a serious discussion about the fluidity of the platform's medium and its strange ability to bring people together without letting them talk to each other. Tropes and Fanon in Teen Wolf fic was pretty much a solid hour of laughing over absurdist ideas and sighing over how deeply depressing the source material really is. Sometimes both at the same time. Kink 201 had live demonstrations, one of which I participated in; it's a subject I find interesting for the sensory processing aspect rather than anything sexual, and on that level, I enjoyed myself even if I couldn't tell if I liked it or not.
Crossovers had about half its time on the differences beetween crossovers, mashups, fusions, recastings, and the assorted terminology, and the other half on the joys of Six Degrees of Canadian Actors. I still say crossing Sherlock and Community should result in a mystery-themed Community episode, either as part of a semester abroad or a straight-up fusion, because that's how Community rolls. I sat the next hour out, and came back for Brain the Size of a Planet, the robot panel. Basically, all the love for the robots. Yes, there was serious talk on slave societies, anthropomorphism, ownership, personhood, what constitutes being alive, if changing programming code is the equivalent of brain damage, the blurry spectrum of transhumanism, and how heartwarming it was when a bomb disposal team learned to think of their robot as a member of the team to the point where when they took the day off to go fishing, being that it was part of the team, the robot had to come too. Crossing the Streams, about balancing fandom and non-fandom in social relationships, had people from all over - some who were totally open about it, some who layered their lives, some who kept everything tight under wraps. There's no uniform right or wrong answer, only what's appropriate for a particular time and place.
After dinner at Rendezvous there was a Supernatural and vid party in someone's room - the four Gabriel episodes, plus whatever vids I had on my computer. The next morning, I finally got up early enough for the complimentary pastries, and just talked to people for a couple of hours. Which is really what fandom cons are for, at their essence: getting a chance to talk to people.
I'm not sure if I'll go to the next one - it felt like a lot of rushing and planning for such a small convention when there are others that offer a bigger bang for my buck - and I still very much hope to do so. Dance parties like that are not to be missed.
-
It took me a long time to realize how small a con Muskrat Jamboree is, and even though I knew membership was capped, what cemented it was when I got to the con suite first thing Friday - wait, where's the dealers' room? Okay, where are the dealers' tables? Where are the dealers? Wait, you mean nobody's selling anyone anything? Wow, this is tiny!
Oddly, for all its tininess, there was still a lot that I didn't manage to do - drinks with
melusina, for instance, and chances to catch up with other people I haven't been able to hug in quite a while. If I go to the next one, I'll know it's not the sort of high-energy intense con I'm used to going to; it's more of an extended hangout and sleepover, with all the good conversations and snarky TV commentary that entails. I've never been to a con and taken away that many people I needed to add to my internet-based reading lists.And I got to pimp Team Fortress 2 again in Fandom Blind Dating, and got picked again. I wasn't kidding about the contests for fanvids. Seriously, guys, it's a pretty great fandom. Even the creators ship it.
Some People Go Both Ways was the first panel I went in for, and stayed with. It became one of the things I went to in order to explain the convention to random people - "Oh, we discussed stage performance versus authenticity, and whether or not that's representation, and how that goes, that sort of thing." Two things I remember in particular was the question of how to demonstrate bisexuality within a character who's in a monogomous relationship for the duration of the story, and the levels of subtext versus text to support a queer reading of a given character. Poly/threesomes/moresomes was more about established relationships, which I liked hearing about even if I've got no personal investment in the matter on any level, and the House/Wilson/Cuddy kidfic I mentioned is here.
Fourth Wall Not Found: Fando in a Social Media World was as much a retrospective and reflection on how things have changed as it was a chance to discuss how they might yet shift more in the future. The necessity of mediated Tumblr and Twitter accounts, the way creator presence comes and goes in a very tidal pattern, how there have always been the crazy fans overstepping boundaries and not knowing when to stop. Now, there's more of an invitation for a level of audience participation that hasn't ever been possible given modern technology, which seems to invite the illusion of blurred boundaries. Still. Valve did send me a hat, so I have my biases. The Community panel had a surprise Inspector Spacetime cosplay, and necessitated diagrams to illustrate the sedoretu relationship between Abed, Anne, Britta, and Troy. Much love for the show's love of the medium, much willingness to agree it got cancelled after the third season, much delight over how seriously it took its audience. Bring Back That Fannish Feeling was much the same of what we discussed at Con.TXT last time around, and it was still a nice group bonding session.
The Vid Show barely lasted an hour. The Dance Party was more than twice that, and I stayed on my feet for almost all of it. I almost left at the start - there wasn't anything to drink, I couldn't parse the songs, it was getting too loud - and then they started playing songs I recognized, and liked, and I got up and danced. And kept on dancing. I'm not sure who I danced with, or what I was doing, and I don't even have the excuse of being drunk since I'd pretty well sobered up by then, which makes it even better, because there wasn't anything giving me any sort of excuse. Excuses are boring!
Tumblr: best thing ever or end of fandom as we know it? was as much a chance for me to complain about fic in Tumblr tags - you can't archive it, not at all easily - as it was a chance to have a serious discussion about the fluidity of the platform's medium and its strange ability to bring people together without letting them talk to each other. Tropes and Fanon in Teen Wolf fic was pretty much a solid hour of laughing over absurdist ideas and sighing over how deeply depressing the source material really is. Sometimes both at the same time. Kink 201 had live demonstrations, one of which I participated in; it's a subject I find interesting for the sensory processing aspect rather than anything sexual, and on that level, I enjoyed myself even if I couldn't tell if I liked it or not.
Crossovers had about half its time on the differences beetween crossovers, mashups, fusions, recastings, and the assorted terminology, and the other half on the joys of Six Degrees of Canadian Actors. I still say crossing Sherlock and Community should result in a mystery-themed Community episode, either as part of a semester abroad or a straight-up fusion, because that's how Community rolls. I sat the next hour out, and came back for Brain the Size of a Planet, the robot panel. Basically, all the love for the robots. Yes, there was serious talk on slave societies, anthropomorphism, ownership, personhood, what constitutes being alive, if changing programming code is the equivalent of brain damage, the blurry spectrum of transhumanism, and how heartwarming it was when a bomb disposal team learned to think of their robot as a member of the team to the point where when they took the day off to go fishing, being that it was part of the team, the robot had to come too. Crossing the Streams, about balancing fandom and non-fandom in social relationships, had people from all over - some who were totally open about it, some who layered their lives, some who kept everything tight under wraps. There's no uniform right or wrong answer, only what's appropriate for a particular time and place.
After dinner at Rendezvous there was a Supernatural and vid party in someone's room - the four Gabriel episodes, plus whatever vids I had on my computer. The next morning, I finally got up early enough for the complimentary pastries, and just talked to people for a couple of hours. Which is really what fandom cons are for, at their essence: getting a chance to talk to people.
I'm not sure if I'll go to the next one - it felt like a lot of rushing and planning for such a small convention when there are others that offer a bigger bang for my buck - and I still very much hope to do so. Dance parties like that are not to be missed.
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Sure! When and where?
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The dance party at Vividcon, Club Vivid, is kind of my platonic ideal of a dance party. Fans, dance vids, amazing music, love all around. <3 It's slightly more my speed than the one at MJ -- I think I miss the dance vids, and a lot of my closest friends are at VVC -- but the general principle of awesome music + fangirls + dancing is common to both, and it's a thing I adore. (There's no dealer's room at VVC, either, fwiw.)
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