bironic: Neil Perry gazing out a window at night (Default)
[personal profile] bironic
Okay, we're going to have to do this in parts because it is taking too long to write and it would be too long to digest anyway.

[livejournal.com profile] con_txt! Happened this weekend, as it does every two years in D.C.; this was my second time. There were many enjoyable panels, a party, a vid show, and meals with friends and new acquaintances. The local crew was there (cinco, alpheratz, v_greyson, ellen_fremedon, coyotegestalt, recrudescence, deelaundry, holli, kinetikatrue), and corbae, who I forget is not actually local, and linaerys came down from NY, which was great even though I didn't get to see her much. Most dearly missed from my personal experience was synn, who's on a long business trip across the sea. And kassrachel, but that is tempered somewhat by the likelihood of seeing her at Vividcon in August.

And that is enough about names. Let us talk panels.

First, I must say that Small Fandom Speed Dating won my heart on Friday as anticipated—and from the sound of it, also the hearts of many others who attended; it's been requested to become a permanent part of the con programming. [livejournal.com profile] ellen_fremedon and [livejournal.com profile] sanj set it up to run like The Dating Game: One contestant per round stepped up to be matched with a new fandom, three randomly selected audience members -slash-"pimps" sat behind them holding cards with their favorite small fandoms written on them, and the contestant proceeded to ask questions like, "If I were playing a drinking game while watching/reading your canon, what would be worth a shot?" or "How can I cross it over with Star Trek?" or "If the main characters were stranded on a desert island, what books would they bring?" or "I like to play Kink Bingo. What are the top five kinks I can find in your canon?" (ellen and sanj had written up a list of prompt questions for those who needed the aid.) After a set number of questions, the contestant would pick one of the three and exchange contact information for future pimping. Then the next contestant stepped up and blindly picked the cards of the next three "pimps."

As you may guess, hilarity ensued. In the first round, for instance, where the small fandoms were Grimm, Sky High, and New Mutants, the drinking game question elicited answers such as every time "someone makes up a German word," "comes back from the dead," and "makes a face that looks like they're having an orgasm but they're not." It was in general an entertaining way for audience members to learn about new fandoms as well.

I got to pimp twice: Once for Roar (winner!) and once for Odyssey 5 (beat out by far by Miami Vice). I also got to be a contestant, and was matched with the comic Top Ten as pimped by [livejournal.com profile] holli. (Also ran: Primeval and Russian Sherlock Holmes.) So now I have three graphic novels to read, and a season of Sebastian Roché and baby Heath Ledger in punk chain mail to share with Leah/djkittycat.

It was a bit nerve-wracking to get up in front of a room without knowing what questions would be thrown at me, but of course the atmosphere was friendly and fun. Roar went very well, and some of my answers made people laugh, which is appropriate for a show so ridiculous; Odyssey 5 really didn't get an opportunity to shine with the questions that were asked, but no matter. Dee discovered later that one of my off-the-cuff Roar answers made the quote board in the con hallway, hee:



In short, it was a ton of fun.




Most of the panels I went to over the three days of programming were meta or pan-fandom, but I did attend one show-specific panel and two impromptu single-fandom/single-actor "DIY" discussions. So let us cover those now.


Community 201: Queer (Meta) Narratives in the Contemporary Sitcom with ellen_fremedon - Contains general spoilers through season 3

After a group expression of delight over the show, ellen opened the panel with a question about how to categorize it. The decision was that it is a "meta genre" show. Comment: "In what other series would you have a Pulp Fiction episode that turns out to be a My Dinner with Andre episode?" Explaining a Community joke ends up involving explaining scenes from four episodes and a half dozen pop culture references. We're talking about a show that spent three seasons setting up a Beetlejuice joke.

ellen being ellen, we covered a few of the show's many Doctor Who references. For instance, sad face that there's only room for one person in the new Dreamatorium; but ellen posited that if you read it as a zero cabinet (?), where Abed's/The Doctor's team builds him a safe happy place after he had to jettison the full one, then it's actually heartwarming. There are TV Tropes recaps and Fandom Confessions tumblrs for Inspector Spacetime. Nice that the showrunners even probably intended or at least wanted that. ellen also covered some of the reasons/clues toward why she was actually expecting an alternate timeline crossover in the season finale, such as that the two air conditioning booths resembled Ten and the Master's Sun Chamber, and she was waiting for someone to knock four times before the finale ended. Also that throughout the season, characters kept being played by other characters. Conclusion: Maybe it's where the showrunners were going, but it had to be changed when the fourth season was uncertain.

On Greendale's purpose of validating people. The Dean is shamelessly kinky. Fun (if confusing to reference—what do you mean by "Dean/Dean"?) pairings of Dean/double!Dean, Dean/competing community college Dean, and Dean/Vice Dean. He's being increasingly validated. Jeff is throwing him a bone. So to speak. "I love the love the show shows for TV as a medium." And Abed is there, reinforcing the importance of narrative. He is increasingly held up as right. There's been a mainstreaming of geekery across the characters. Troy was totally a feral fan in high school, and now he's been validated too.

Fandom needs to take over the show, especially without guarantee that next season will be good. We should arrange a virtual season! The series finale should be a Community parody. Our brains would explode. It would have to be like Being John Malkovich. Abed will have to go inside his own head.

At the last Muskrat Jamboree, people brainstormed things they wanted to happen. Most of them did happen. New brainstorm! Formats for next season's episodes:
  • Love Boat
  • Upstairs, Downstairs
  • Groundhog Day
  • "Lower decks" ep
  • Three's Company
  • Amnesia
  • Future ep, or time-traveling study group from the future
  • Bizarro version of study group – hopefully genderswapped! Or – Sliders! Or Quantum Leap
  • Silent ep or all voiceover
  • Tristram Shandy – another way to explode our brains
The recursive, brain-exploding format discussion and the meta genre discussion informed the group's answers to the question: Why isn't there more fic for this show?
  • Hard to match tone
  • Hard to write comedy, esp for a show that's already funny
  • Not enough broken parts/gaps
  • Very visual
  • It's so much of its medium
  • Need deep knowledge of the canon and of popular culture
  • Very distinct character voices, and many characters
Conclusion: You'd have to play with fanfic tropes to write a fic about a TV show that plays with TV tropes.

Miscellany:
  • Reference to thingswithwings' meta about the unfortunate merging of Britta as personal failboat and Britta as holder of progressive/feminist sociopolitical beliefs. But at least they never slut-shame her.
  • Earlier, ellen wasn't happy with the Troy/Abed bromance teasing but happily it has only gotten queerer
  • Showrunner Dan Harmon, early on: All ships are possible on this show.
  • We are disappointed with the Chang plot direction. Maybe we don't like it because he's the only purposefully mean character
  • Ken Burns ep: poking fun at the Troy/Abed fight but also acknowledging that yes, a rift between best friends does feel that important
  • The asylum made more sense than that Greendale is an actual community college



Tom Hardy party (DIY panel)

To name the "mods" would be to name half the group, so let's just say that sitting at the table with me were [livejournal.com profile] v_greyson, [livejournal.com profile] recrudescence and [livejournal.com profile] linaerys, and later Leah. General lunchtime enjoyment of Tom Hardy (he played Eames in Inception) candid photos, past and upcoming film roles, speculation about how much of his face we'll see when he plays Bane in Batman this summer, and an unrelated ad for gelato featuring two sexy "priests" with the tagline, "We believe in salivation."



Star Trek (DIY panel) with kris/mydaroga and joy/lettered

A freeform lunchtime discussion about our favorite Trek series/movies and a bit of history of Kirk/Spock as it began in TOS and evolved after Reboot, with brief forays into "you kids get off my lawn." Whereas the original and longstanding reference to Kirk/Spock has been K/S, since Reboot some fans have been using the term "Spork" or "Spirk." Deliberately used as a mark for Reboot fans to differentiate themselves from TOS fans? The librarian in kris finds this problematic for consistency/continuity/cataloguing. Reboot also provided support (at long last) for the Kirk/McCoy pairing that many TOS fans had been waiting for more community love for. …Awkward phrasing, sorry. I have post-con brain.

Still speaking of changes over time. Meta can help us reconcile different, rebooted, and/or conflicting canons – although some justifications still don't make us like that canon more. e.g. It makes sense why the reboot universe needed to militarize Starfleet, but mod prefers the original ethos of scientific and cultural exploration. Also: In the 60s, people were afraid of the future and war, wanted reassurance that there could be peace, science, anti-imperialism. We're not getting that message as much, but we still want it. We want to know that we can be more than we are.

Miscellany:
  • Later Treks lack the wacky exuberance of WE'RE IN SPACE YAY TINFOIL (with some exceptions, like Q) – they have more gravitas.
  • Garak/Bashir offered different dynamics from most of the Trek pairings that came before
  • Theory that in TOS Spock and Uhura broke up right before Kirk came on board
  • Fun to watch Takei/Burton/Dorn/Wheaton/etc. interactions on Twitter
  • "Just a Guy" universe crosses Highlander with Voyager. There is also a Duncan/Methos/Guinan story somewhere
  • Resource: [livejournal.com profile] trek_news




Whew. Next post, we will do some of the meta panels, and probably the vid show! For now, I need a nap to head out to see Riverdance tonight. Thank goodness for telework tomorrow.

ETA: Part two now posted.

Date: Jun. 17th, 2012 09:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] zulu.livejournal.com
Sounds like a great con! Always good to get in a room with Community fans and just bask in the cross-referencing. I'll be interested in hearing about the meta!

Date: Jun. 18th, 2012 01:05 pm (UTC)
ext_2047: (Default)
From: [identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com
Coming soon to an LJ near you. :) Yeah, the Community panel was definitely about basking and glee and delving into what might be coming next - I felt bad for any casual fans in the room or people who wanted to learn what Community was all about. But only a little bad, heh.

Date: Jun. 18th, 2012 02:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] daasgrrl.livejournal.com
Not a huuuge fan, but Top 10 is fun. I prefer the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, though, if we're talking Alan Moore and 'superheroes' *g*

I always thought Kock had a certain ring to it. God, pun totally not intended /o\

It took me ages to work out why Tom Hardy had such a fangirl following. I'm not sure I even noticed him in Inception!

Date: Jun. 18th, 2012 01:11 pm (UTC)
ext_2047: (Default)
From: [identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com
I remember noticing him in Inception because I saw the movie after watching the million and one Arthur/Eames fics pop up, but I also remember not being impressed. Turns out I like Tom Hardy a lot more in any of his other movies that I've seen (The Reckoning, Rocknrolla, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, even his bitty role in Layer Cake... ugh, except maybe the disaster that was ST: Nemesis) than as Eames.

Re: Kock, that came up too (there is a pun for you in return!), but apparently is used more as a joke and less commonly than Spork/Spirk? I hadn't heard it before the panel, or had forgotten hearing about it, so TBH I may have snorted.

We will see re: Top Ten! holli did a great job of pimping various aspects of the books that I may enjoy (vampire mobsters! Joan of Arc with a random tiny spaceship!), so I am intrigued. Bet the library has League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, although I have a vague memory of possibly having read a volume many years back thanks to a coworker.

Date: Jun. 18th, 2012 11:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] daasgrrl.livejournal.com
I first saw (or technically, noticed) Tom Hardy in Stuart: A Life Backwards, which is... not exactly the most attractive of roles. While he did a great job, that's who I see when I see him, and I don't think I will EVER be able to shake it off, lol.

Date: Jun. 19th, 2012 02:59 am (UTC)
ext_2047: (wilson smile)
From: [identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com
Eh, looking at it from the perspective of someone who's grown to like him in other roles, I think he looks lovely in that clip, but I haven't seen the whole movie. Regardless: Hmmmmmmm, I wonder who else you might have been looking at in that movie instead?

Date: Jun. 19th, 2012 03:06 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] daasgrrl.livejournal.com
Hmmmmmmm, I wonder who else you might have been looking at in that movie instead?

*snicker* WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY? But if you like Tom Hardy even there, then I'm just going to concede right now *g*

Have you got just one minute (the rest is just rambling)? Because I don't know if you've seen this, but TH has less of a filter than RSL, and that's saying something XD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5SbV8VQBvE&feature=related

Date: Jun. 20th, 2012 02:15 am (UTC)
ext_2047: (Default)
From: [identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com
*g* I did watch that when you posted a link to it, and thought it was hilarious. I hear he's had some choice moments on talk shows as well.

Con.Txt report! (ish)

Date: Jun. 18th, 2012 02:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] livejournal.livejournal.com
User [livejournal.com profile] alpheratz referenced to your post from Con.Txt report! (ish) (http://alpheratz.livejournal.com/645453.html) saying: [...] wrote up a great report on that one [...]

Date: Jun. 18th, 2012 02:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] alpheratz.livejournal.com
Really awesome report! You were smart to type this up during the panels. :D

Date: Jun. 18th, 2012 02:39 pm (UTC)
ext_2047: (Default)
From: [identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com
Thanks! The pre-typed notes are going to help as well with the other parts that are coming...

Date: Jun. 19th, 2012 02:05 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cincodemaygirl.livejournal.com
Omg, your writeups are amazing--I am happy to hear (because I didn't see this? idek?) that you were typing notes, because if you hadn't I was going to have to be SO VERY JEALOUS of your memory! Is it okay if I link your writeups in my own (mainly for Community, so far)? This is great!

Date: Jun. 19th, 2012 02:10 am (UTC)
ext_2047: (Default)
From: [identity profile] bironic.livejournal.com
Sure, of course! Yeah, I started the weekend with a notebook but then started typing up those notes and new notes, figuring it'd save time in the write-ups. ...Not sure if that turned out to be true, but whatever! It's exactly because I have a terrible memory for this much detail that I have to note-take at cons - there's so much I want to remember about the discussions, and unlike when arguments (in the academic sense, not the wank sense) originate in LJ/DW posts, there's nothing to go back to later to reference unless you make something (or know someone else is going to make something), you know?

/obvious

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