In this post: Avengers fic recs, White Collar, and Terence Hill!

Fic recs! lettered has written two AMAZING Bruce Banner-centric Avengers stories you need to read. They're all at her DW/LJ/AO3, but here are some links.

A Fine Spur Uninterested in being an Avenger, Bruce goes back into hiding. Once more Natasha is sent to recruit him, but she has an agenda of her own. There's this total McGuffin action plot, and then this totally meta discussion on whether Black Widow is allowed to show emotion, cf multiple fannish discussions on the subject.

Her Bruce is tops. And her Natasha is... well, let's just say this fic explores some things amazingly well that need to be addressed.

The Hollow Men Steve goes to Uganda, ostensibly to fetch Bruce, who still doesn’t want to join the Avengers. Steve tries to figure out how to do the right thing; they both try to find their place in the world.

This story is, for me, about how the "right thing" is not always obvious and how superheroes in the real world are problematic and the beauty is that it's about lots of things we never talk about but I want to see discussed. And Steve. Oh god I love Steve.

Also, I was going to talk about how we're watching White Collar but she kind of said everything here EXCEPT for how Neal Caffrey totally reminds me of Terence Hill from the They Call Me Trinity movies. In that they're both irritatingly pretty in a way I don't tend to go for and which tends to get used to showcase how pretty they are EXCEPT in their cases, they're so goofy and allowed to look ridiculous that once I see them in action, I cannot escape. And they both have this devil-may-care, except see-what-I-did-there-aren't-I-awesome? attitude. Or maybe it's the icy blue eyes. ( Let's see if I can find some pics... )

Of course, Trinity and Terence Hill deserve a post of their own, but once I start I might not stop.

As lettered and I wait in Milkwaukee for our next flight, I will type up a few observations on our weekend at CON.TXT. It's my second fan convention, after last year's KiScon, and I had a fantastic time. I wish I'd had more time with each of the people I met, each of the people with whom dialogues began in various panels. There seemed to be so much to do, I never slowed down and took a "time out" just to get to know anyone better, and I wish I had. Even so, I'm not sure when I would have done that! Anyway I think individually we invited just about everyone to Seattle.

We knew about the con through stultiloquentia and it was great to meet her. We also hung out with and met viklikesfic, sarah, synecdochic, holli, hannah, recrudescence and shared a room with jjhunter. Forgive me--these are the names I got/can remember off the top of my head! But so many people had fascinating things to say, it just didn't seem like enough time.

The panels were great. I tend to enjoy the meatier ones more than the big squeeful ones, though those are fun too! But those where we could focus the discussion a little better--though they always wandered--and get into some of the issues were fantastic. That's why I was here--to find those conversations and those people who, when you say "I love Sherlock/Supernatural/Star Trek but what about the women?" don't remind you we're at a con that, at least nominally, is focused around slash. Because it wasn't. It was focused around wanting to have those discussions, both about how to represent things respectfully and the problems of loving canons that are problematic and at no point did I ever feel like anyone was saying either, "don't harsh my squee by thinking so loud" or "you shouldn't ever ever ever write X because it's always offensive." It was about finding the ways in which we can and should reach out and understand one another and interpret these texts for maximum fun, enjoyment and benefit.

So basically, I went to panels about The Avengers, BBC Sherlock, ALL Sherlock Holmes, speculative erotica, writing trans characters, the problems of canon contrariness, social justice and problematic characters/canons, anonymity/pseudonymity, gender and sexuality across cultures, AUs, the AO3, Doctor Who, and shifting genre in fandom and fanfic. And lettered and I "ran" a DIY Star Trek panel because there should always be MORE SHATNER. In two years, should we attend again (and we plan to but can't plan that far ahead), I really hope to be more organized and do more panels because I really enjoy it. And I have things to offer!

(As anyone there probably noticed I believe, considering how much I talked.)

The Disco Duck was really fun, especially with the "quiet" room for talking, and the vid show was fun but mostly fandoms I knew NOTHING about. (It did, however, make us start watching White Collar when we got back to our room, so... there's that.) I really hope that the problems with the hotel will be solved by next time, because the elevator situation as well as the fact there were NO public gathering spaces when the con sweet wasn't open was difficult. Overall, though, it made me want to be more involved fannishly so I can keep these conversations going in some way, though I'm still not sure HOW.

The other success of the weekend was, I must say, my first true foray into cosplay. I started out the weekend as Tintin, showed up to the dance in my British flag dress (and was called on not actually being British, so I'm SORRY), and then lettered and I showed up on Saturday to the Avengers panel as Bruce and a [pre-serum] Steve. It was great fun and not nearly as uncomfortable as costumes could have been, and I had a lot of fun doing it.

There's more to report, as we spent 2 1/2 days in DC seeing things, but it's been a great and extremely nerdy vacation and is enough, I think, to spread into two posts. Especially since ( I have pictures! )