Con.Txt report

[corbae]

I was very much looking forward to Con.Txt this year. It was my second-ever fan con (as opposed to large anime cons or D*C) back in 2012, and I had a blast then.

I drove up Thursday and got caught in terrible storms a few times, so I arrived later than I'd meant to. I got all my things hauled in, parked my car, and got dinner, and arrived back at the hotel in time for registration to open. I spent some time there working on my bingo card & catching up with friends.


Friday Panels
I cosplayed as Quicksilver vers. Days of Future Past, because he is sometimes evil and definitely a twin. My shiny shiny silver jacket was unfortunately shedding, so I left it in the room, possibly making me hard to identify. My hair was silver, though!

I missed the first two panel slots on Friday in favor of making up pictionary clues & getting delicious Ethiopian with alpheratz. My first panel was Tolkien: Six Degrees of Middle-earth, which I co-modded with zana16.

I fell headfirst into Hobbit fandom early this year & was excited to see a Tolkien panel suggested for the con. I think we had a good discussion--I need to read the Silmarillion, now!--and we came up with a nice recs list you can see here.

Next I went to Gear Head: Is It For You?, modded by Dorinda, which was interesting. I am a fan of sex bots & the general questions of humanity/consent that crop up around robots/cyborgs/androds/&c in fic. It would have been cool to delve more deeply into those issues, but the panel unfortunately ran out of time before we could.

My last panel for Friday was Fun With Inverted Tropes, v_greyson's brainchild which she invited me to help co-mod, and it was so much fun. Our panel write-up is available here, and contains a great reclist.

Dance Party
I had an awesome time at the dance party, especially during the huge hits that everyone sang along to. I apparently need to re-learn the Hustle so that I can teach the correct line dance instead of just always doing the Electric Slide. We hurried upstairs after the party and made it to the hockey room party just in time for the beginning of overtime #1.


Saturday Panels
My first panel on Saturday was Werewolf Torts and Undead Annuities, modded by the delightful v_greyson and alpheratz. I'd heard v_greyson talk about werewolf torts a few times before, so I knew this panel was a must-see. bironic has a good panel write-up in her general con post here. I was mostly too busy laughing to take good notes /o\

Next was Dubcon Fucking: How Does it Work?, led by ellen_fremedon and deelaundry, which covered some interesting ground.

Afterwards I went to mod my last panel of the weekend, Fannish Pictionary, with alpheratz. We owe a huge debt to shihadchick for both the original idea & the help she graciously offered us while we were planning it. Everyone was a great sport, even in the face of the more impossible clues, and our audience guessed every last picture correctly, even the one that contained both Jenny Flint (Doctor Who) and the Watcher (Marvel), two of the more obscure characters we used.

(I got extra mileage out of one of the clues at trivia this week! My team used "Professor X gives Darth Vader telepathic orgasms to keep him too blissed out for evil" as our name and it won us a free beer.)

I once again skipped a few panel sessions, so my next panel was the Small Fandom Dating Game run by ellen_fremedon. As an audience member I was intrigued by several of the fandoms, and I did my best to convert people to the Hobbit (larger than panel and Yuletide standards, perhaps, but my gods and I maintain that it is a small fandom) when it was my turn to go up. I realized after the fact that I should have nominated Megan Turner's Queen's Thief books. Missed opportunities!

Vid Show
I always love vid shows and this one was no exception. It renewed my determination to watch Shelter and was the reason I've now seen all of Haven S1.

I especially enjoyed Problem (Bucky/Steve) and Wrecking Ball (Thor/Loki) by talitha78; Make A New Dance Up (Piper/Alex) by anoel; Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt (Troy/Abed) by laurashapiro; Trouble (Louis/Lestat) by bironic; Wishin' and Hopin' (Elizabeth/Peter/Neal) by zeborah; and Hope for the Hopeless (Zach/Shaun) by heresluck.

Game Show
ellen_fremedon ran a fiendishly difficult game show after the vid show and I was on one of the teams. We learned that we are not good at TV show trivia but are quite good at guessing impromptu Marvel cosplay.


Sunday Panels
First up was Tag, You're It: Tagging for Fun and Profit, modded by deelaundry and starlady, where I advocated for Pinboard & melannen taught us all what "freeform tag" means on the Ao3 & how to avoid them.

Afterwards I attended Rule 34 in a Magical Universe, modded by mascot, where it was once again impressed upon me that Teen Wolf has basically All The Kinks and the Hobbit fandom has very, very few.

Next was v_greyson and cinco's Bi-invisible? Non-monosexual Representation in Fandom panel, which I'd been looking forward to. It was really great to have a chance to talk about the (lack of) representation of people like me, and to be pointed to more positive portrayals. They have a great write-up of the panel, complete with resources, here.

My very last panel of the con was Hockey RPF: Wait, Slashing's a Penalty?, modded by mardahin and celli, where we got to handle hockey gear and discuss just how disgusting the penalty box is. Their notes are here.

I helped a bit with breakdown and then went to get coffee with sansets, who wasn't able to attend the con (she helped with breakdown despite this!). We'd just been joined by a group of awesome people (coyotegestalt, kinetikatrue, sofiaviolet, solarcat, and burnishedvictory) when I realized that the sun was setting & I needed to head out.


Hopefully Upcoming Posts?
1. Hobbit recs for alpheratz & V's friend
2. Vids I like

Comments

[siegeofangels]

Yay, thank you for the writeup! Super interesting to read.

[corbae]

Thank you ♥ It was a good con.

[v_greyson]

:) awesome writeup. and you were an awesome co-mod and we were totally badass at inverting all the tropes. Yay :D

[corbae]

Now I am all :DDD about modding things, which means I need to come up with a decent idea for MJ next year.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed seeing you, and I enjoyed this write-up as well! Next year in Jerusalem Boston, perhaps?!

[corbae.livejournal.com]

Likewise! Seeing friends will always be the best part of cons for me.

Barring major life changes I should be at MJ next year, and hopefully VVC, too!