MJ Con Report Or How I Travelled Thousands Of Miles To Talk About Threesomes

[laliandra]

It’s only been a month! I! No, I have no excuses, I am the failiest blogger ever to fail at blogging. Aaaand now the word blog has stopped sounding like a word to me.

On with the con report!

YOU GUYS I WENT TO A FANDOM CONVENTION AND IT WAS THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER.

I was staying with brimtoast in New York (you know, as you do) which will be part of another thing which I will totally get round to writing up and then novembersmith drove a Very Long Way and braved the wilds of New Jersey to come bop around NYC and the thriftstores therein with us for a few days, before driving the three of us to Boston for muskratjamboree 

Oh yes, fangirl roadtrip! During which we listened to the Libertines and decided they are the most perfect The Social Network soundtrack band ever and that someone should make a vid to Can't Stand Me Now immediately and also The Fantasticks cast recording, with brimtoast telling us the story in between the songs. novembersmith did an extremely heroic job because it was dark and snowing A LOT and it turns out that it’s quite a long way to Boston *hopelessly English*.

We were supposed to be meeting shiningartifact and swiiftly at the hotel where the con was happening and where the five of us had a room. Fangirl sleepover! But, heartbreakingly shiningartifact hurt her back just a few days before and couldn’t come. The pining, it was epic. But we found ourselves a lovely swiiftly lurking in the lobby and then proceeded to not sleep, as we had planned to, but to go through her welcome pack, eat chips and then I read out the opening page in French for reasons that made a lot of sense at the time...

Which may be part of the reason that we all got up blearily late and I was still in the shower and novembersmith only half dressed when it was time to go down for breakfast and the welcome and icebreaker thing. So we missed those :/. But on the plus side it meant that when we did wander down we migrated to the craft table, which turned out to be a brilliant plan! Now, I am not an artistic person, at least not with Visual Mediums, but it turns out that I cannot resist the lure of photos of people I fangirl. And glitter pens. We ended up hanging out for about an hour and making some very useful signs for future panels.

Also novembersmith helped make a Very Special Picture of Gerard Way and brimtoast put googly eyes on Lord Voldemort which turned out to be too terrifying to exist *shudders*

I made this!

The way MJ worked was that there were two panels every hour, so had you had to pick one that you were attending, which was sometimes nigh on impossible. Okay, so panel lists and reaction to follow. This might get long, kids.



Wait, Where Are You All Going? Fannish activity spread outside of LJ: Baby’s first panel! This was a pretty cool History of Fandom, actually, from ‘zines to the AO3. There was, as I’d predicted, a long session in the middle of it where people tried to explain tumblr. It quietly defied explanation, apart that that fuckyeah tumblrs are the easiest resource for stuff, and that there are a lot of 14 year olds there, BEWARE. Then someone asked about effective ways of using delicious and I was like, “OH! I CAN DO THIS" so I told them of my super-effective way which is 1. Find someone whose taste you like. 2. Stalk the hell out of their delicious page.

We also talked about the Archive of Our Own, which I was very surprised to find out didn’t seem to be universally known and understood. But there was a general YAY feeling about it being a fannish built space and there were some members and coders there and I pretty much clapped everything that they said. It was a really nice introduction to MJ, even if I didn’t get to ask whether I can take credit for the word “tumblurker”

140 Characters or Less: Twitter and Fandom Even though I pretty much use twitter exclusively as a free international texting service (and, of course, to talk about boobs), it was really interesting to see what other people use it for. Thankfully the panel ended before I got up the courage to tell the story of how I sometimes text the internet instead of my boyfriend.

Awesome fangirl Commenter 1: Someone needs to give celebrities a kind of handbook on how to use twitter.
AFC2: That awkward moment when you realise that someone you thought was really cool is actually really fucking dull. Or conservative.
AFC3: IT’S LIKE THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF A FOURTH WALL. We are happy over here, you guys stay over there. Kay?

Also every time anyone mentioned Pete Wetnz there was a sort of mass *wincefacepalmgiggle* thing.

Who's That Monster in the Mirror - It's Me! (Vampires & Werewolves) :D:D:D this panel was so much fuuuuuun. It was also the first time I would experience the awesome trend of comments going “I like this because of [INTERESTING META]” “I like this because IT’S SUPER HOT.” Things we like about vampires and werewolves - people learning to love monsters because of not in spite of who they are, outsiders, found families, packs, soulmates, marking, ANGST, tropes and reversing tropes (<3), the tranformative power of acceptance, power dynamics, more power dynamics, metaphors.Marmfish, you will be pleased to learn that “everything is better with chains” seems to be universally respected opinion. And at the end there was a quiz! To win tiny stuffed wolves or bats!

We need a cool panel name. Like Strike Force. Or Hawaii Five-0.

Me: *gets lei put around her neck as she enters*
Me: Are you guys fed up of people making “yay we get leid in this panel” jokes yet?
giddygeek : NEVER.

Bweeee H50! Like the show, this panel was ridiculous fun. The thing I liked most about it was actually that it went against all my expectations. It’s a show that has a really big slash pairing and I thought that’s all we’d talk about, but actually most of the time was spent talking about how great most of the female characters are, how refreshingly it shows divorce, how many characters of colour there are and how kickass they all are and the great group/team/found family dynamics there are (someone said they were like a real life island of misfit toys).

We did talk about the slash, obviously. Comments of Win: “Danny is just a tiny cupcake of raaaage” “Steve gets all crazy and Danny just ploughs through him... Wait...” “HE RANG HIM WHILE HE WAS LITERALLY RAISING WOOD”

Harry Potter in 2011: I still can't believe [character] is dead!!

drlense (the mod): Sooo, who was your favourite character?
bethbethbeth : I’m married to Snape on the astral plane.
drlense : Ok, now, see, who thought Snape was an asshole?
Many people: *put up their hands*
drlense : And who loved Snape?
Most of the same people: *put up their hands*

Oh Harry Potter fandom. You were my first, I’ll always love you, you are vast and unknowable and home. It was great to just hang out and talk about something you love, still, always, after all this time. Also people made some pretty awesome jokes and I got to tell the story of how I found fandom through facebook. Which is charmingly cyclical and also made people feel old *g*



After the panels we piled into the lift to find the The Social Network watching party.
novembersmith : Did you check for the room number?
Me: I was just following this person with the glittery “Social Network Party!” sign
zeenell : Er, hello!

The viewing party was probably one of my highlights of the whole weekend. There were delicious mudslides, which as far as I could tell are wonderful but lethal cups of various spirits mixed with ice cream. It was just a room of happy people, all laughing and being delighted to meet each other and fangirling each other and piling onto beds to watch a brilliant movie with brilliantly slashy subtext.

The Social Network: *starts to get pretty sad*
novembersmith : Lal! This is the point where we hold hands.
Me: *strickenface* YES I AGREE *clutches*
swiiftly : *takes novembersmith 's other hand from over on the other bed*
elipie : I know we have just met, but I think I need to clutch your hand also.
Me: I think so too!

So then everyone held hands to get us through the tough times. We may also have yelled at the screen some. These things happen. Afterwards we had to watch happy vids. Essentially, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard a bunch of fangirls sing along to Bad Romance while slightly tipsy and falling off beds laughing and dancing.

Then we went to get ready for the vid party! And by get ready I mean drink candy coloured drinks straight from the bottle and wander around in various states of undress. Because we are the classiest.

While waiting for the show to start we - possibly in a horse, stable door situation - had something to eat. I remember gesticulating a lot with a stick of celery. We also alarmed the random other people sitting at our table.

Me: You and your dead boys.
novembersmith : I know, I know. I just like writing about them...
swiiftly : But it’s ok!
Me: Because there’s no necrophilia!
novembersmith: EXACTLY.
Me: And no-one has actual sex with a dragon.
(please note, these are things that novembersmith has put in fic summaries/disclaimers.)
Girl At Our Table: Ohhhhkaaaaay. *looks at life, looks at choices*

There were a few technical difficulties which brooklinegirl dealt with a good deal less panic than I would have, and there a mass sing-along of a song about pirates. I don’t even know. But it was awesome. The vidshow was epic, I LOVE FANVIDS SO MUCH YOU GUYS. Even the ones for fandoms that I didn’t know. Watching vids with fangirls is such a great experience, listening to everyone laugh and cheer their favourite characters and also be utterly destroyed by this Harry Potter video. Seriously, the lights came back up just afterwards and everyone was just clutching each other and sniffling.

Then it was time to dance! I very much enjoyed that my dancing parters were also of the DANCE IN THE MOST DRAMATIC AND INTERPRETIVE WAY EVER school of movement, which is the best way of dancing ever, okay. Highlights were definitely doing the most energetic point at everyone dance with brimtoast , swiiftly and mistresscurvy  to If I Had You, the whole room bouncing for the whole of Planetary Go! (with added fabulousness from K), brimtoast and I learning the dance routine to Guilty Pleasure in about 3 choruses and yelling bed based Panic! lyrics at swiiftly .

There was a slight room keycard incident after the show but we managed to use our problem solving skillz for the win, and also I found an ice machine and vending machine with ginger ale in a hidden area around the corner from our room. My very important priorities, let me show you them.

In a slight tangent, I’ve just noticed how much internet specific language I’m using here, and it was definitely one of the things I enjoyed about MJ, getting to use all of these words that are day-to-day to me, but never get to say out loud in social situations. I mean, sometimes people used terms that other people didn’t get but it was just so, idk, freeing and lovely and easy to say things like “jossed” and “flist” and “fridged” and “bulletproof kink” and so on and so forth. Also people weren’t surprised when I finished a sentence with “I can’t even...” which confuses my boyfriend on a regular basis.

Anyway! Saturday!


Canon and Fanon within RPF I went this panel by myself and you know what, I didn’t feel a bit nervous about it. I guess, maybe the second best thing I will take away from this whole thing (second to getting to hang out with my best friends) was that I’m more confident that I thought? Who knew! This was a pretty fun panel, although I felt like my views were slightly at odds with other peoples sometimes, in that I got in to the mindset of being able to separate how I think about famous people I fangirl in a RPF context and how I think about them outside of that very easily. Like, yay you have a gorgeous wife! And your career is going so well! I’m SO happy for you! I also like to read fic about you and your good dudefriend :D. Not that I don’t get The Guilt, now and then. There was a lot of talk about what actually counts as canon and whether that actually matters, especially with something like bandom where the canon is so vast. Mmm, meta.

Troy & Abed in the Morning: How Community Examines & Transforms Pop Culture This was the only slot where I was genuinely torn about what I wanted to go to, because the other panel that was on at the same time was a panel about Ladies and I do so love me some female character meta. But I had done a massive catch up with brimtoast and her boyfriend in preparation for the Community panel. We started out by just quoting things, which was hilarious and wonderful. And then we talked about how awesome the show is and how interesting it is that the shows creators really want to take risks, which is great, how they manage to balance character development with setting up what are essentially tiny skits and one-off gags, and how we’d pretty much ship anything. You should all be watching Community, is what I’m saying here. GO.

We decided to skip out on the panel after lunch and have a nap. It was a pretty awesome decision, I have to say. And novembersmith posted an LJ entry about her kickawesome Social Network AU tagged with “make waaaaay, for Prince Wardooooo”

So obviously

Me: *sings* Prince Wardo! Fabulous so, that’s Prince Eduardo...
novembersmith : *joins* heard your hacker was a sight, lovely to see!
Me: *finishes with* now come see his hair that defies gravityyyyyyyy!
brimtoast : I love that this is your secret talent.
Me: It’s less a secret and more just not a skill that pays the bills.

Steve McGarrett, Eliot Spencer, and John Watson Walk into A Bar: Crossovers and Why We Love Them I was late to this panel and my girls had all gone to the bandom panel and everyone was already in groups, but I was quickly adopted because fannish people are good like that. Anyway, each group had to pick two shows out of a hat, and we got Community and Leverage, and had 5 minutes to come up with a crossover premise. One of the other groups had Dr Who and Inception and their pitch was “Captain Jack and Eames have lesbian sex in a dream”.

One True Fics: Narrative Kinks and the Multifandom Experience Ugh, this panel was so great, less of a panel and more of a group session in Calling Out Things We Love. Like, someone would say “Fake Boyfriends!” (just to pick a trope at random *g*) and everyone would go “OMG, YES” and then someone else would say “have you read this fic?” and there would be a mass siiiiiiiigh. Someone called it an Id festival, so satisfying and awesome. I mentioned how I love steampunk (duh) and what happens after happily ever after and was like, HAVE YOU READ THE DOMESTIC VERSE I MEAN SERIOUSLY. Also there was someone who was like, “I don’t want characters to just sit around chatting, give me fast paced plot” and me and novembersmith were entirely baffled. Oh, and someone else mentioned DADT in passing and brimtoast was like, “Jossed in real life!” and our corner of the room had a tiny celebration. Marvellous.

Blurring Gender Lines in Fandom This panel was quite different to the previous but, oh, it was so good. At the beginning the mods desfinado and mistresscurvy (who were pretty stellar) went through the terminology that we’d be using and so on - genderswap (alwaysagirl) sexswap (woke up a girl!), transgender and crossdressing. The discussion was probably one of the best of the con. Okay, so, genderswap is one of my favourite things - adding a girl to a male dominated environment, getting more women into male dominated fandoms and especially into position of power, stripping down a character and seeing what makes them them. Also, it means that there is more really good het out there (Anon: Ladyparts are sexy! More boobs!) . Someone also made the great - if extremely depressing, frankly - point that writing genderswap you can write a completely awesome female character and no-one calls her a Mary Sue. The sex-swap, same, really, only with the added “and then guys get to experience what being female in society is like. How do you like them apples” ;)

The discussion of transfic was also really interesting. Someone brought up the point that these stories are really satifying because of the emotional payoff that you get through seeing someone go through that kind of journey. Again, fandom being used to tell stories that just don’t get told very often in mainstream media was something we talked about and it’s something I am always proud of. Fandom contains multitudes, from the silly to the important.

I also had a really hard time not mentioning an Inception fic every five minutes because at some point someone was going to turn around and say, “OKAY, we get it, Inception fandom is a Very Special Snowflake, please remove your hearteyes from our vicinity.”

Also. novembersmith : There’s this great Social Network fic where Eduardo wakes up as a girl...
Everyone: Mmmhmm, mmmhmm, tell us more.
novembersmith : And he freaks out and Mark is really understanding...
Everyone: *falls about laughing* our suspension of disbelief only goes so far!

novembersmith and I were hosting the last panel, The More The Merrier, Threesomes, Foursomes and Moresomes (best title or best title) which was kind of an amazing and terrifying propect all at once. Luckily I was the luckiest co-mod ever to mod because I had novembersmith there with me to make a bulletpoint list and stick to it, to raise great talking points and come up with great examples, and to draw amazing stick figures.

She was also dressed like a sexy librarian and shushed people by giving them a (sexy) Look of Death over her glasses.

We started off by saying, let’s think of some canons that we have OT3s, etc in. And then I remembered that we should start by introducing ourselves and saying hi. So then we asked for suggestions of fandoms :D I went all around the semi-circle of people (ahaha, oh god, a semicircle of about 50-maybe-more seated people all staring at me oh GOD) calling on people with their hands raised and then had to go right back round again. Twice. The list of fandoms we ended up with was kind of epic. There were a couple (like Singin’ In The Rain) where people said it and the entire group went “Ohhhhh, YES.” Or I may be projecting a bit but seriously. We talked about why OT3s are made of win (novembersmith : More of everything you love! It’s just basic math Me: Maths. But yes!)

Also there was the part where I was like, let’s talk about examples and then pimped the hell out of White Collar and its lovely trio dynamics and then we didn’t have time to talk about anything else in detail but never mind, because White Collar is awesome, even though I would have liked to have mentioned the way AI8 did interesting things with polyamory not of the “everyone has sex!” variety. Not that I object to that kind, mind you. Man, I hope my Dad has stopped reading this blog. MOVING ON. Then at the end we were like, oh man, the pronoun issue *everyone weeps*

Excellent Person: I use action figures to work out where everyone’s limbs go.
Me: A pro-tip, ladies and gentlemen!

The great thing about shipping an OT3 is also that it solves stupid love trianges that are annoying and pointless. It doesn’t always work (amazonziti , I think, used Twilight as an example. Because the girl is just a prize, you see *ick*)

A list of excellent and smart things that people said about the rise of polyamourous ships in fandom:

That it’s like the new slash, writing about something that you never see in mainstream media. (Me: I mean, these days no one writes slash to be alternative *g*)
That fandom is way more open-minded these days. Not that it doesn’t have a long way to go, but, you know, progress.
There are more awesome ladies that no-one wants to sideline. (YES SCORE VICTORY)
That there are some really great group dynamics being written (found families, still one of my favourite tropes, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this)

brimtoast : *says something amazing about how it’s sort of about making alternate ways of being in love more visible and acceptable to the world?*
Everyone: <3_<3
novembersmith and I: AND ON THAT NOTE.

And then MJ was over D:

Except that it wasn’t for us because we skipped out on the evening activities to go hang out with shiningartifact on her bed and eat munchie mix and giggle. It was the best times, . The next day we had to say goodbye to swiiftly (with much sadness! D:) and then put brimtoast on a bus so that she could go get some work done, and me and novembersmith went to be creepers around Harvard. But that's for another post...


So, yeah, MJ. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. So much love and kudos to brooklinegirl and mrsronweasley for organising it (while also moving house, wtaf, these women are superheroes). The level of planning and detail that went into it was incredible and it all went so smoothly.

I think the defining thing I will take away was how positive it was, in every possible way. You couldn’t move for people complimenting each other. Someone was always telling someone else that they just loved their cool geeky tee shirt or their hair or tattoo or their tights (:D). People saw usernames on name tags and ran up to say “I love your fic/art/post/general existance!” Seriously, someone hugged novembersmith for writing Anatomy of a Fall and me and brimtoast got all *proudtear* IT WAS AMAZING. And when someone said something funny, or clever or cool in a panel, and people were always saying funny, clever, cool things in panels, everyone was so appreciative. And it does bear repeating, the comments in the panels were of an incredibly high standard, I could hardly stand it. Fangirls are fucking hilarious, and they are damn smart and they are hella interesting.

And it was also positive because it really did feel like, I don’t know how to say this without sounding really cheesy, but it was just really open. Like, everyone got to talk about their kinks and their queerness and their stupid things that they just really, really love, they love them so much that it makes them make crazy hand gestures and squeaky noises and they can’t, they can’t even. And everyone else? Everyone else just said, HELL YES. ME TOO.

And on that note... <3