Con report day 1 (tl;dr)
Mar. 8th, 2008 12:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragojustineCon day one:
Awesome hotel. When they say beach, they aren't kidding around! Also, very convenient validated parking. Score!
Wandered around idiotically for a bit before I managed to find the consuite to check in. I had assumed that registration would start Friday afternoon, with maybe some low key things Friday afternoon and real stuff starting after, say, 4, so I got there at four. Turns out panels had been going since 10 that morning and I missed, like, half of the panels I was really looking forward to. Missed the con introduction, the Wayback Machine, the Costs of Heroism, Slashability, "Where has all the Subtext Gone?," the House panel, a historical research panel, the Harry Potter panel, the showing of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, AND the first half of the SPN speculation panel (yes, obviously, I could have attended only six of those ten. But still). The "Costs of Heroism" panel in particular had some spectacular notes leftover from what looked like a fantastic and well-run conversation. And the "Truth in Advertising" panel left no notes but "Stage Gay" and "gay-face" (uh, by analogy to blackface?), leaving me kind of wishing I had been a very very small fly on the wall for that one too. Even if it would have been half bandom.
*smack* Okay, so when they say the con starts Friday, they don't mean "Friday as people trickle in during the day from flights." Was there a panel schedule somewhere on the website or something? Because I looked EVERYWHERE.
Quick observation: Skewed much older than Wincon, leading to lots of people discussing incredibly old-school fandoms (Blake7, Starsky and Hutch, Highlander- you know). I quite enjoyed that, actually, though I did find myself doing a lot of crowd-scanning for anyone obviously under 30.
The second half of the SPN panel was nothing ground breaking, but some fun chitchat plus one or two people I recognized from Wincon.
Immortality panel: ton of discussions of fandoms I don't know (and in many cases, hadn't even heard of) and really this incredible breadth of different viewpoints and interesting questions asked and I REALLY kind of wish I had actually taken my notes during it, rather than seven hours later. These are not complete notes, just a skeleton and things that were interesting to me:
Immortal characters in various fandoms, by category- vampires (tons of fandoms here that I know nothing about because I've never done the vampire thing)
Highlander's Immortals
Human characters of various kinds of immortality- eg regeneration (Wolverine, Heroes Peter and Claire, Jack Harkness)
Non (but nearly)-human characters- the Doctor
Godlike non-humans- ie, the gods in Xena, Touched by an Angel's angels, Star Trek's Q, SPN's Trickster
Non-human races- Tolkien's elves, Cylons, artificial intelligences ie Data
Psychological implications of these different categories- "was once human" versus "never was human," "never dies" versus "dies but comes back" versus "reincarnated but remembers" versus "doesn't age but can be killed."
The ways we as a species defy death, in different cultures: Great works, children, reincarnation, afterlife.
HUGE question: The COST. What do these characters lose for their immortality?
-ability to have children
-ability to create
-ability to live normal, domestic life
-ability to attach to/love mortals who will simply age and leave you
More recently, immortality seems to be presented as its own price.
Question: Can/do immortal characters change and grow? (difference between changing and just adapting. Contention: many of these examples seem to demonstrate that an immortal character can only remain vital if he does change- was this supported?)
Question: Why so many immortal characters now? Something in the water? (Wish fulfillment? Aging baby boomers? Empty space left by secular culture?) Are all these fandoms around immortal characters essentially myth-making? (Answer: Duh!)
-My personal contention: Especially the recent rash of "Immortality is its own punishment" examples take human kind's deepest and most fundamental wish-fulfillment and then problematize it. Constantly stressing the tension between the "gift" and the "curse" sides of immortality- so much more than aging boomer wish fulfillment! Working through complicated issues with death and eventually coming to some very positive and very mortality-affirming conclusions. (Does that make sense to anyone but me?)
Question: Why do we, as fans/writers, like the device so much?
-Pretty boys that can be TORTURED AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE! So pretty when they bleed.
-Not just perpetual life, but perpetual youth- frozen at their sexual peaks.
-Wealth of wisdom, experience, backstory to draw on- hundreds of years of it!
-All of history as a playground for fic.
-Immortality as a way of "othering" characters- making them fundamentally not human, and they playing with exactly HOW they aren't human (and what that says about humanity- I REALLY wanted to talk about Tolkien's elves in this context!)
My pet observation/theory: Many many non-human immortal characters (especially mechanical or created ones- Data, Cylons- but also not- Q) are obsessed with humanity or even with becoming human. They often seize on mortality specifically as a fundamental human characteristic, or even as the fundamental thing that will always keep them from being truly human. Terribly interesting, to me, the way we make mortality THE essential characteristic of humanity, in opposition to Gods, machines, etc. The other things that are taken as fundamental characteristics are often tied up in (or conceived as stemming from) mortality- reproduction/child rearing, great works, concern with a personal legacy for the future. Given how much of fiction is concerned with "what makes us human" type questions, of course we 'other' characters by making them immortal. My own question: If there really is a rise in immortality as a concern/fictional device these days, is this because we are perceiving death as somehow more and more central to humanity? Why? Advances in modern medical technology? Advancing AI? Advancing secularism? Tried to articulate this at the panel, failed miserably.
Wrap up questions- Immortal characters we most identify with? What about female immortal characters? etc.
I'm sure there was more (and TONS about vampires and Highlander that I tuned out), but that's what I've still got seven hours later. This was a FANTASTIC panel and I'd love to give a HUGE thank you to the four who moderated it- well done!
Torchwood pizza party! Where I was a total kluz and dropped stuff everywhere and kicked over someone's beer and my GOD, I do not even know. Ran into the handsome Minotaur again. (He is handsome. Also funny. Also good-natured, which I think you would have to be to be a gay man at a 98% female slash con?) Then two episodes of Torchwood, which was entertaining though not as, you know, CHATTY as I expect from watching something with a whole roomfull of fans.
Wandered for several hours between the con mixer and the He/He madlib game. In STITCHES. So damn funny.
In one madlib, managed to get Jack Harkness and Dean Winchester together in a six-person hot tub on the Love Boat. I STILL want my damn Jack Harkness/Dean Winchester porn! Seriously, I WILL pay $10 to whoever writes it for me. I can't write it myself, it's just too hot for me to manage. Seriously, the very idea makes my brain MELT.
Anyway, really, SERIOUSLY fantastic stuff. MUST play this at the next Wincon. Also, met many fantastically entertaining people whose lj names I did NOT get but I will seek them out and get them. I promise.
Awesome hotel. When they say beach, they aren't kidding around! Also, very convenient validated parking. Score!
Wandered around idiotically for a bit before I managed to find the consuite to check in. I had assumed that registration would start Friday afternoon, with maybe some low key things Friday afternoon and real stuff starting after, say, 4, so I got there at four. Turns out panels had been going since 10 that morning and I missed, like, half of the panels I was really looking forward to. Missed the con introduction, the Wayback Machine, the Costs of Heroism, Slashability, "Where has all the Subtext Gone?," the House panel, a historical research panel, the Harry Potter panel, the showing of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, AND the first half of the SPN speculation panel (yes, obviously, I could have attended only six of those ten. But still). The "Costs of Heroism" panel in particular had some spectacular notes leftover from what looked like a fantastic and well-run conversation. And the "Truth in Advertising" panel left no notes but "Stage Gay" and "gay-face" (uh, by analogy to blackface?), leaving me kind of wishing I had been a very very small fly on the wall for that one too. Even if it would have been half bandom.
*smack* Okay, so when they say the con starts Friday, they don't mean "Friday as people trickle in during the day from flights." Was there a panel schedule somewhere on the website or something? Because I looked EVERYWHERE.
Quick observation: Skewed much older than Wincon, leading to lots of people discussing incredibly old-school fandoms (Blake7, Starsky and Hutch, Highlander- you know). I quite enjoyed that, actually, though I did find myself doing a lot of crowd-scanning for anyone obviously under 30.
The second half of the SPN panel was nothing ground breaking, but some fun chitchat plus one or two people I recognized from Wincon.
Immortality panel: ton of discussions of fandoms I don't know (and in many cases, hadn't even heard of) and really this incredible breadth of different viewpoints and interesting questions asked and I REALLY kind of wish I had actually taken my notes during it, rather than seven hours later. These are not complete notes, just a skeleton and things that were interesting to me:
Immortal characters in various fandoms, by category- vampires (tons of fandoms here that I know nothing about because I've never done the vampire thing)
Highlander's Immortals
Human characters of various kinds of immortality- eg regeneration (Wolverine, Heroes Peter and Claire, Jack Harkness)
Non (but nearly)-human characters- the Doctor
Godlike non-humans- ie, the gods in Xena, Touched by an Angel's angels, Star Trek's Q, SPN's Trickster
Non-human races- Tolkien's elves, Cylons, artificial intelligences ie Data
Psychological implications of these different categories- "was once human" versus "never was human," "never dies" versus "dies but comes back" versus "reincarnated but remembers" versus "doesn't age but can be killed."
The ways we as a species defy death, in different cultures: Great works, children, reincarnation, afterlife.
HUGE question: The COST. What do these characters lose for their immortality?
-ability to have children
-ability to create
-ability to live normal, domestic life
-ability to attach to/love mortals who will simply age and leave you
More recently, immortality seems to be presented as its own price.
Question: Can/do immortal characters change and grow? (difference between changing and just adapting. Contention: many of these examples seem to demonstrate that an immortal character can only remain vital if he does change- was this supported?)
Question: Why so many immortal characters now? Something in the water? (Wish fulfillment? Aging baby boomers? Empty space left by secular culture?) Are all these fandoms around immortal characters essentially myth-making? (Answer: Duh!)
-My personal contention: Especially the recent rash of "Immortality is its own punishment" examples take human kind's deepest and most fundamental wish-fulfillment and then problematize it. Constantly stressing the tension between the "gift" and the "curse" sides of immortality- so much more than aging boomer wish fulfillment! Working through complicated issues with death and eventually coming to some very positive and very mortality-affirming conclusions. (Does that make sense to anyone but me?)
Question: Why do we, as fans/writers, like the device so much?
-Pretty boys that can be TORTURED AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE! So pretty when they bleed.
-Not just perpetual life, but perpetual youth- frozen at their sexual peaks.
-Wealth of wisdom, experience, backstory to draw on- hundreds of years of it!
-All of history as a playground for fic.
-Immortality as a way of "othering" characters- making them fundamentally not human, and they playing with exactly HOW they aren't human (and what that says about humanity- I REALLY wanted to talk about Tolkien's elves in this context!)
My pet observation/theory: Many many non-human immortal characters (especially mechanical or created ones- Data, Cylons- but also not- Q) are obsessed with humanity or even with becoming human. They often seize on mortality specifically as a fundamental human characteristic, or even as the fundamental thing that will always keep them from being truly human. Terribly interesting, to me, the way we make mortality THE essential characteristic of humanity, in opposition to Gods, machines, etc. The other things that are taken as fundamental characteristics are often tied up in (or conceived as stemming from) mortality- reproduction/child rearing, great works, concern with a personal legacy for the future. Given how much of fiction is concerned with "what makes us human" type questions, of course we 'other' characters by making them immortal. My own question: If there really is a rise in immortality as a concern/fictional device these days, is this because we are perceiving death as somehow more and more central to humanity? Why? Advances in modern medical technology? Advancing AI? Advancing secularism? Tried to articulate this at the panel, failed miserably.
Wrap up questions- Immortal characters we most identify with? What about female immortal characters? etc.
I'm sure there was more (and TONS about vampires and Highlander that I tuned out), but that's what I've still got seven hours later. This was a FANTASTIC panel and I'd love to give a HUGE thank you to the four who moderated it- well done!
Torchwood pizza party! Where I was a total kluz and dropped stuff everywhere and kicked over someone's beer and my GOD, I do not even know. Ran into the handsome Minotaur again. (He is handsome. Also funny. Also good-natured, which I think you would have to be to be a gay man at a 98% female slash con?) Then two episodes of Torchwood, which was entertaining though not as, you know, CHATTY as I expect from watching something with a whole roomfull of fans.
Wandered for several hours between the con mixer and the He/He madlib game. In STITCHES. So damn funny.
In one madlib, managed to get Jack Harkness and Dean Winchester together in a six-person hot tub on the Love Boat. I STILL want my damn Jack Harkness/Dean Winchester porn! Seriously, I WILL pay $10 to whoever writes it for me. I can't write it myself, it's just too hot for me to manage. Seriously, the very idea makes my brain MELT.
Anyway, really, SERIOUSLY fantastic stuff. MUST play this at the next Wincon. Also, met many fantastically entertaining people whose lj names I did NOT get but I will seek them out and get them. I promise.