I'm back from Writercon wehre I had a fantastic time. Thanks for all the well-wishes for Josh. He's doing a lot better; it's still unclear if he has any nerve damage, but he's mobile and the pain is getting more manageable. (As a side note, somebody please write the story about realistic levels of pain for wounds. Sheppard does not just go and go and go after getting shot several times. Just saying.)

I will eventually make a more personal and namedroppy post about the social aspects of Writercon, but I wanted to start with a post about some of the panels I went to before I forget them.

IS FANDOM GONNA HAVE TO CHOKE A BITHC? LANGUAGE AND GENDER IN FANFICTION
Moderator: mosca
Panelists: enigmaticblues, Kristina Busse, denny_dc

This was a really good panel, and as all good weighty discussions should be, one that raised more questions for me than it answered. The panel initially proposed to talk about the language used in the source texts we fan, our own fics, and our fannish socializing and infrastructure. Unfortunately because of time constraints, the last talking point wasn't really covered. I would have loved a conversation on the implications of the language we use when we squee, when we post to comms, when we communicate outside of what our fics have to say. One of the thing things that I have noticed in my fannish interactions is a real shift toward the use of and the awareness of gender neutral pronouns, which I appreciate. Although many of us are women, I have a kneejerk negative reaction to the default assumption that fandom is a wholly feminine space because it feels very exclusionary to me. This does not mean that I do not recognize and celebrate that fandom is a place where women have created power and agency for themselves; it does mean that I am uncomfortable with the narrow definition of fandom as a community that is by, for, and about women.

Back to the panel: Who gets to use sexist language? Can women, in real life interactions and in fic, reclaim sexist language much in the same way that minorities and queer people have reclaimed words used to hurt them? And in mad props to alixtii for the best question asked at a panel I attended: at one point would language stop being reclamation or an accurate representation of the way a certain character acts or thinks and become mere perpetuation of the problem?

Nina talked about genderfuck stories and said some really interesting things about them.
1. They don't reflect trans reality and aren't really intended to, although that is changing.
2. If a woman is writing, they are often a form of venting about aspects of our lives that we don't like.
3. She read a quote for which I did not catch attribution and couldn't write fast enough to get all down, but essentially, the idea was that womanhood is a thing to be performed, a masquerade, and one of the draws of genderfuck is to transfer desire and expectation onto the male body (the "unmarked body"). Maybe one of y'all can link me to the actual quote used?
4. Nina also discussed the homophobia, misogyny, and heteronormativity that are often part and parcel of slash, particularly Old Skool Slash.

There was also a brief mention of We're Not Gay, and I just want to take a moment to reiterate how much I hate that trope. LOL I know it's an old stand-by for slash, but I just hate it. I think if you experience same-sex attraction and sexual activity then you are at least bisexual and possibly gay. I get that the trope is supposed to make the OTP special--what could be more special than changing one's sexual orientation, right? It's supposed to prove that they are so inevitable and magical that nothing can stand in the way of their epic LOVE, but mostly it seems to me to be a way to get two guys to have sex without acknowledging homosexuality at all. Although I have read it before and enjoyed, that enjoyment is usually despite the WNG trope rather than because of it.

denny_dc started her portion of the panel with a list of insulting terms, some of which I already knew like using "gay" as a perjorative. I had not realized that dreadlocks actually is a term originally used by colonizers of Caribbean peoples to describe their hair (dreadful locks).

ENOUGH KISSING, GET ON WITH THE MAIMING! GEN-FIC
Moderator: redeem147
Panelists: Debra Doyle (who I actually think was not there), general_jinjur, bastardsnow

This panel really made me want to read House of Leaves as SPN. Like really, really, really, really bad. Really bad.

There was a discussion of bob and gron and porny gen and I brought up queerly_gen on Dreamwidth (which only Jinjur seemed to have heard of) and essentially I thought the entire discussion was hampered by a lack of consensus about what gen really means and what its conventions are.

One of the panelists used the phrase "slash minus one" to describe stories that have slashy elements but seem very light on them or don't include sex and I think Dasha's "Salt of the Earth" was cited as an example. I think this story falls neatly into slash according to my personal definition (full discussion in comments). I also have never heard the phrase "slash minus one" and was tempted to ask during the discussion if anyone would ever use "het minus one" as a descriptor. My feeling is no. I suspect that were a story to contain a Buffy and a Spike who pined for each other and yet never consummated their relationship, that story would be called het.

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME: HOW THE INTERNET BUILDS COMMUNITIES AROUND FANFIC
Moderator: scarlettgirl
Panelists: Kristina Busse, shaddyr, kalichan, and versaphile

scarlettgirl was an excellent moderator. I mean, really really good. There was a plan and a structure and I was impressed with the way this panel worked in terms of each panelist's contribution building on the one that came before. shaddyr started out with an excellent discussion of pre-internet fandom, versaphile told us all about the vagaries of archiving (and OMG, y'all, the amount of work that goes into making fandom an accessible place for us all is astonishing), kalichan talked about reccing, the lovely mod discussed newsletters and what goes into maintaining a successful one (again with all the work!), and Nina finished with a discussion of OTW and how it is addressing a lot of the issues brought up in the other panelists' talks.

I've got one more panel to discuss but I think I'm calling it quits for the night. Sister-in-law is here and SHE IS AWESOME! I just introduced her to SPN and I think there's more of that on the plate for tonight. She's being too heavily influenced by Josh's opinion that Sam has cro-magnon forehead. Off to remedy that!

Ardhanarishvara by Auburn and Mona (aka auburnnotlisa); McShep and various; Adult

This is still a WIP, but it appears that it is likely to be finished very soon. There are twenty six chapters thus far (and though most of them are linked internally I think at one point I did have to click on the tag function to get to the next chapter which is no biggie) so it's a lovely meaty read.

This is also a gender switch fic, which I have never liked. Even when a story is well written, I usually just don't buy girl!Sammy or girl!Rodney. It's not a genre that's ever worked for me until I read this fic (bearing in mind that I know I haven't been exposed to the whole of gender switch fic and there's probably plenty others out there I'd like if I gave them a chance). So even if gender switch isn't your bag either, I'd urge you to give this fic a try.

( Lengthy and spoilery discussion )