con.txt!

This past weekend I went to Con.txt in Maryland. Some highlights:

-I met stultiloquentia! She was on a short list of "people I must meet before I die". I don't mean now I'm ok to die or anything, but it was cool.
-Friday you could comicbook cosplay? I didn't see many people doing it, but my_daroga was Tintin and sarah was Captain America and they were amazing. Plus, the next day I was Bruce Banner and my_daroga was pre-serum Steve Rogers, which you can see here. That's my, "I'm always angry" face.
-My favorite panel was probably viklikesfic's "dealing with social justice" panel. That's not what it was called. Anyway, in it, the group came up with a list of how to deal with fanfic that is offensive to one group or another due to treatment of a minority or handling of a subject. It was a very open, honest, and helpful discussion about a topic that can often be difficult to talk about. I was doing final edits on this fic about Steve Rogers at the time, and I'd been having so many thoughts about what is appropriate to address in fanfic, the place of fanfic, why we write it and what we do with it, in conjunction with writing this fic that this panel was really, really enlightening and helpful.
-ravenna_c_tan had an HP party and fed us butterbeer! And I met incapricious, who is awesome. Hello!
-holli's love of Steve Rogers was also a highlight. Also, her dresses.
-jjhunter recited Pablo Neruda to us. No one wrote a Sherlock Holmes/Pablo Neruda crossover, though.
-viklikesfic is awesome and knowledgeable on many issues, and also a great lunch date ;o)
-synecdochic is as open and amazingly precocious in person as she is online.
-cesy gave us lots of info about AO3, and about legality of fanfic. She's so articulate and willing to answer questions; she put a human face on the OTW for me that is both beautiful and eminently worthy of respect.
-One of my favorite parts was Disco Duck, which was a dance. I'm not keen on dances, but eventually a contingent wandered over to The Quiet Room where I sat on a smooshy couch and we talked about fanfic and literature and sci fi and Avengers and sundry.
-Ahhhh I met so many other people, some just in passing, all of whom were amazing.
-On Sunday, lots of people were headed out, and a lot of the panels I went to were small. I found this delightful, as topics tended to wander, and a lot of the panels just turned into big fannish discussions about Whatever. I love fannish discussions about Whatever; they are some of the best kind.
-We found Star Trek fans, even though there was no dedicated ST panel. There was even a Kirk/Spock vid at the vid show.
-Speaking of the vid show we saw a White Collar vid and then we had to watch the show. Our lives are so hard.
-my_daroga got bit by a squirrel. This wasn't part of the con, but it's worth mentioning.
-For a long time leading up to this con, I didn't know it was a slash con. I thought it was a . . . context con. You know, where you talk about fannishness and the treatment of issues and groups, and how to interpret and why we interpret and also cock. I really liked this con because it was all of those things, and it was full of really interesting people saying really interesting things. This was the first fannish con I've been to--the others have all been a bit more commercial. I have to say I prefer this kind, although the biggest disappointment is that there just isn't more time to talk about all the things that delight and interest me, and meet all the people who have so many intelligent and relevant things to say. It does make me hope to go to the next one.

So . . . we started watching White Collar . . .

At con.txt, we watched this vid (Tonight [I'm Fucking You], vid by talitha78), a White Collar vid, that sort of made my_daroga and I look at each other and say, "Why isn't this in our lives?" Then jjhunter (ETA: I thought it was sarah!) described the premise, and I just wanted to say, how come no one told me?

The premise is this cracky, very attractive thing: art forger/con artist dude has to "work together" with FBI agent to crack down on felons. From the vid, it was obvious the art forger/con artist dude was the very pretty, smiley, "who moi?" sort of dude bouncing about on the balls of his feet waggling his eyebrows every which way. It was also obvious that the FBI agent dude was a) totally smokin', b) a bit scowly, c) fucking him tonight. So in my head it was this very Spike/Angel, delightful!bouncy!cute!hilarious!badboy slash upstanding!righteous!angry!glowery!asshole. This might be one of my favorite ships. Then jjhunter also mentioned, "And FBI Agent's wife is the best. You only ever want threesomes because no one can leave her out." Okay that might not be an exact quote. So, like I said, sold.

( Except for how, so far, this show isn't actually what I imagined but maybe it's better? )