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Escapade report: part one
Con report (part 1 of 2, because I am WORDY)
I wrote most of this offline while waiting for my shuttle--offline because the wireless signal in the hotel sucked monkey balls.
This was my second year at Escapade. I never ended up writing a con report last year, because despite the fact that I got to meet some cool people from my f-list (waves at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anoel) and make some new friends (waves at rsadelle) last year, overall I had found it an alienating experience. I am really introverted, and found it quite difficult to connect with people, and although I went to a couple of the Harry Potter panels and found them interesting, overall I wasn't really interested in the topics being discussed, and I had pretty much decided not to go again.
But thenslinkling, who I have adored from afar for quite a while now, decided to go, and so I went. And I'm very happy to have gone, not simply for the chance to meet and hang out with her and clari_clyde (though that was definitely the highlight of the con for me), but also because this year I found the panels very, very interesting.
Amazingly, my connecting flight out of San Francisco was not delayed (this is the first time I've had an on-time connection out of SFO in the last 6 or 7 times I've flown through there) and I arrived at Burbank at 4. It took the shuttle two hours to get to Ventura (making me so so so glad not to live in Southern California--yikes, I hate traffic!) and managed to meet up withclari_clyde for dinner. I was impressed by the new con hotel--it's right on the beach, and I arrived just in time for a spectacular sunset. Also, it is very close to central downtown Ventura, so we had lots of great choices for dinner (including a Peruvian/Thai restaurant, which I'm still sorry we didn't get to try), and we ended up eating in a very nice Indian place on Main Street. My observation, walking to main street, was that the town hall (at the top of the hill) in the moonlight looked like something that would get blown up in an episode of Buffy.
slinkling got in around 11 p.m. (which was 2 a.m. her time, poor thing) and we chatted for a while until we both collapsed from exhaustion.
Friday morning panels:
Fannish history
slinkling and I had breakfast downtown with kassrachel (who I was very excited to meet in person--and it turned out we had RL friends in common, which was fun) so they could brainstorm for their heroism panel, and then we were off to different panels. The first one I went to was "Wayback machine," which was listed as a discussion of debates from former Escapades, but turned into an absolutely fascinating discussion of fandom history in general, and what that history should look like. We all agreed there wasn't one fandom history--not even one media fandom history--which is why people were excited by the concept of using wikis for history, since it gave individual fans the opportunities to tell their own histories as they experienced it. An interesting point that got made was that the history of different conflicts is a central part of fannish history, and there was an attempt made to chart some of the fannish conflicts that predated fandom wank. kassrachel has much more detailed panel notes on this in her con report here.
Costs of heroism
The next panel I went to wasslinkling and kassrachel's panel on the costs of heroism. I just have to interject here that I was so impressed slinkling volunteered to mod at her very first con, and not only was she great but she kept bringing up Smallville examples into the conversation, and that made me blissfully happy. We had a very good discussion about who gets to be defined as a hero. Someone ( I wasn't taking notes or anything so I don't remember clearly who) raised some very interesting questions early on, like whether you get to be defined as a hero when you are on the losing side, or if you a firm believer in a false ideology, and I'm afraid those questions occupied me so much I didn't keep very good track of the conversation as a whole. One of the prominent themes that got discussed, though, was the shift from isolated heroes to heroes in community (like Buffy), and whether this represented a gender shift, a shift toward viewing audiences wanting to see our heroes as more flawed and human, a shift caused by long-running TV arcs, or something else. slinkling has more complete notes on this panel here and kassrachel has photos of the notes from the discussion itself here
I went to lunch with a large group of folks who seemed to be friends ofkassrachel's, though I'm afraid I didn't really get people's names. We wanted to buy sandwiches and eat on the very beautiful pier, but the sandwich place was closed so we ended up eating at the seafood restaurant on the pier. It was really lovely and the food was pretty good, though a bunch of people had to rush back for 1 p.m. panels. slinkling, clari_clyde and I lingered on the pier for a while, dodging crazy bicyclists and seagulls and reading all the informative plaques about the Channel Islands and basically just enjoying the beauty of the ocean.
Friday Afternoon panels
Harry Potter
Then I went to the "Whither Harry Potter Fandom" panel, where the consensus seemed to be that HP fandom is not going to wither up and die anytime in the near future, especially with the two (or possibly three) movies still to come out. We talked about things like all of the Epilogue fiction slash that has come out (I myself haven't read too much of this, but I do definitely love Albert Severus/Scorpius slash, and it really does have the best pairing name ever), and polled the room about the number of people who were in denial about the events of the epilogue ever happening. (It was about an even split, as I recall).
SGA: Crackfic
I went to this panel because I have read a bit in SGA, and am entertained by the crack, but although I found the discussion pretty entertaining, I didn't know about 90% of the stories being referenced (there are really stories where the whole cast turns into socks? Really? I mean, I had heard of the penguin-fic, and I've actually read the dolphin fic, but socks is a whole other level of crack.) I am pretty interested in the English schoolgirl AU that was mentioned, though, if anyone can hook me up with a link. And perhaps the NASCAR one too, since that was so highly recommended.
Supernatural
The last panel I went to Friday was one on Supernatural, asking what direction the show seems to be going in. Argh. This was the one panel of the weekend that really drove me insane. I didn't go to any of the many SPN panels at Escapade last year, because I wasn't into the fandom yet, and though I've been avidly watching and reading SPN fic and meta for the last six months or so, this was really my first formal SPN fannish experience, and...wow. Let's just say that certain of my friends who have in the past tried to persuade me not to defect to SPN fandom because in their perception it is full of woman-hating would have had their perceptions confirmed by this panel.
Ok, to be fair it wasn't generalized woman hatred, it was specific Bela-hatred. And it's not like I've never had passionate hatred of specific female characters myself, in the past, and I know there's a big difference between hating one woman character and hating all the female characters on the show. It's just really hard to listen to when it's targeted to a character I really like, and everyone speaking up seemed not only to hate her but to actively want her to die. I think what upset me most was that the people who were loudest in the Bela-hate seemed to be assuming not just that they personally disliked the character but that all "real" SPN fans obviously wanted her dead. I did at one point say "not all of us hate Bela" but I got talked over, and really since I am so new in SPN and the consensus in the room seemed so strong I just ended up staring at the floor for most of the rest of the panel, seething.
I know that one small group of outspoken people doesn't represent all of SPN fandom--they may not even have represented the opinion of everyone in the room--but it still upset me. I spent a lot of time laying in bed Friday night wondering if the fact that I seem to gravitate to characters most other fans despise says something about my desire to have an oppositional position in fandom, or what.
Other than the eruption of Bela hate, and a lot of conversation about season 3 not being as good as other seasons, I can't remember a lot of themes from this panel--it had a very hands-off moderator, so the conversation kind of devolved into lots of side conversations about various things, including one about how awful it was that Smallville got renewed when Lex isn't coming back, and it was sure to suck now. At that point I almost decided not to go to the Smallville panel, since I feared it too would devolve into bashing certain female characters and complaining about season 8, butclari_clyde and slinkling persuaded me to go, anyway, and I ended up being glad I did. But that's in part two of the report.
I wrote most of this offline while waiting for my shuttle--offline because the wireless signal in the hotel sucked monkey balls.
This was my second year at Escapade. I never ended up writing a con report last year, because despite the fact that I got to meet some cool people from my f-list (waves at
anoel) and make some new friends (waves at rsadelle) last year, overall I had found it an alienating experience. I am really introverted, and found it quite difficult to connect with people, and although I went to a couple of the Harry Potter panels and found them interesting, overall I wasn't really interested in the topics being discussed, and I had pretty much decided not to go again.But then
slinkling, who I have adored from afar for quite a while now, decided to go, and so I went. And I'm very happy to have gone, not simply for the chance to meet and hang out with her and clari_clyde (though that was definitely the highlight of the con for me), but also because this year I found the panels very, very interesting.Amazingly, my connecting flight out of San Francisco was not delayed (this is the first time I've had an on-time connection out of SFO in the last 6 or 7 times I've flown through there) and I arrived at Burbank at 4. It took the shuttle two hours to get to Ventura (making me so so so glad not to live in Southern California--yikes, I hate traffic!) and managed to meet up with
clari_clyde for dinner. I was impressed by the new con hotel--it's right on the beach, and I arrived just in time for a spectacular sunset. Also, it is very close to central downtown Ventura, so we had lots of great choices for dinner (including a Peruvian/Thai restaurant, which I'm still sorry we didn't get to try), and we ended up eating in a very nice Indian place on Main Street. My observation, walking to main street, was that the town hall (at the top of the hill) in the moonlight looked like something that would get blown up in an episode of Buffy.slinkling got in around 11 p.m. (which was 2 a.m. her time, poor thing) and we chatted for a while until we both collapsed from exhaustion.Friday morning panels:
Fannish history
slinkling and I had breakfast downtown with kassrachel (who I was very excited to meet in person--and it turned out we had RL friends in common, which was fun) so they could brainstorm for their heroism panel, and then we were off to different panels. The first one I went to was "Wayback machine," which was listed as a discussion of debates from former Escapades, but turned into an absolutely fascinating discussion of fandom history in general, and what that history should look like. We all agreed there wasn't one fandom history--not even one media fandom history--which is why people were excited by the concept of using wikis for history, since it gave individual fans the opportunities to tell their own histories as they experienced it. An interesting point that got made was that the history of different conflicts is a central part of fannish history, and there was an attempt made to chart some of the fannish conflicts that predated fandom wank. kassrachel has much more detailed panel notes on this in her con report here.Costs of heroism
The next panel I went to was
slinkling and kassrachel's panel on the costs of heroism. I just have to interject here that I was so impressed slinkling volunteered to mod at her very first con, and not only was she great but she kept bringing up Smallville examples into the conversation, and that made me blissfully happy. We had a very good discussion about who gets to be defined as a hero. Someone ( I wasn't taking notes or anything so I don't remember clearly who) raised some very interesting questions early on, like whether you get to be defined as a hero when you are on the losing side, or if you a firm believer in a false ideology, and I'm afraid those questions occupied me so much I didn't keep very good track of the conversation as a whole. One of the prominent themes that got discussed, though, was the shift from isolated heroes to heroes in community (like Buffy), and whether this represented a gender shift, a shift toward viewing audiences wanting to see our heroes as more flawed and human, a shift caused by long-running TV arcs, or something else. slinkling has more complete notes on this panel here and kassrachel has photos of the notes from the discussion itself here I went to lunch with a large group of folks who seemed to be friends of
kassrachel's, though I'm afraid I didn't really get people's names. We wanted to buy sandwiches and eat on the very beautiful pier, but the sandwich place was closed so we ended up eating at the seafood restaurant on the pier. It was really lovely and the food was pretty good, though a bunch of people had to rush back for 1 p.m. panels. slinkling, clari_clyde and I lingered on the pier for a while, dodging crazy bicyclists and seagulls and reading all the informative plaques about the Channel Islands and basically just enjoying the beauty of the ocean. Friday Afternoon panels
Harry Potter
Then I went to the "Whither Harry Potter Fandom" panel, where the consensus seemed to be that HP fandom is not going to wither up and die anytime in the near future, especially with the two (or possibly three) movies still to come out. We talked about things like all of the Epilogue fiction slash that has come out (I myself haven't read too much of this, but I do definitely love Albert Severus/Scorpius slash, and it really does have the best pairing name ever), and polled the room about the number of people who were in denial about the events of the epilogue ever happening. (It was about an even split, as I recall).
SGA: Crackfic
I went to this panel because I have read a bit in SGA, and am entertained by the crack, but although I found the discussion pretty entertaining, I didn't know about 90% of the stories being referenced (there are really stories where the whole cast turns into socks? Really? I mean, I had heard of the penguin-fic, and I've actually read the dolphin fic, but socks is a whole other level of crack.) I am pretty interested in the English schoolgirl AU that was mentioned, though, if anyone can hook me up with a link. And perhaps the NASCAR one too, since that was so highly recommended.
Supernatural
The last panel I went to Friday was one on Supernatural, asking what direction the show seems to be going in. Argh. This was the one panel of the weekend that really drove me insane. I didn't go to any of the many SPN panels at Escapade last year, because I wasn't into the fandom yet, and though I've been avidly watching and reading SPN fic and meta for the last six months or so, this was really my first formal SPN fannish experience, and...wow. Let's just say that certain of my friends who have in the past tried to persuade me not to defect to SPN fandom because in their perception it is full of woman-hating would have had their perceptions confirmed by this panel.
Ok, to be fair it wasn't generalized woman hatred, it was specific Bela-hatred. And it's not like I've never had passionate hatred of specific female characters myself, in the past, and I know there's a big difference between hating one woman character and hating all the female characters on the show. It's just really hard to listen to when it's targeted to a character I really like, and everyone speaking up seemed not only to hate her but to actively want her to die. I think what upset me most was that the people who were loudest in the Bela-hate seemed to be assuming not just that they personally disliked the character but that all "real" SPN fans obviously wanted her dead. I did at one point say "not all of us hate Bela" but I got talked over, and really since I am so new in SPN and the consensus in the room seemed so strong I just ended up staring at the floor for most of the rest of the panel, seething.
I know that one small group of outspoken people doesn't represent all of SPN fandom--they may not even have represented the opinion of everyone in the room--but it still upset me. I spent a lot of time laying in bed Friday night wondering if the fact that I seem to gravitate to characters most other fans despise says something about my desire to have an oppositional position in fandom, or what.
Other than the eruption of Bela hate, and a lot of conversation about season 3 not being as good as other seasons, I can't remember a lot of themes from this panel--it had a very hands-off moderator, so the conversation kind of devolved into lots of side conversations about various things, including one about how awful it was that Smallville got renewed when Lex isn't coming back, and it was sure to suck now. At that point I almost decided not to go to the Smallville panel, since I feared it too would devolve into bashing certain female characters and complaining about season 8, but
clari_clyde and slinkling persuaded me to go, anyway, and I ended up being glad I did. But that's in part two of the report.