mijan | SQUEE! Two Terminus proposals accepted so far...

So far, I've had two of my Roundtable proposals accepted by the Terminus vetting board. Who's interested in attending these?

1. Presentation title: Harry/Draco: The Next Great Adventure
Program book name: Mijan
Format: roundtable
Time: 90 minutes
Summary: The Harry/Draco ship has sailed since the earliest days of the Harry Potter fandom. With every book, we've tackled new canon, welcomed new authors, created new classics, and redefined the ship. This new era of slash for our corner of fandom is unique. With the close of canon (and a "nod" from the epilogue), we can build our sandcastles without fear of another tide washing them away. What challenges will our ship face from a closed canon, an open sandbox, an unstable LiveJournal, new fanfic fests, and the ever-changing population of the fandom? Join us to share your thoughts!
(I'm setting this up to be a sort of "Shippers' Summit". I'm just providing a framework and structure. I don't plan to control the show. I want this to be a real open shipper discussion forum. We always have meetups at conventions, but when have we ever had an official "summit" meeting to actually discuss stuff? I'm hoping people like this idea.)

2. Presentation title: Harry Potter: The Missing Years
Program book name: Mijan
Format: roundtable
Time: 50 minutes
Summary: Let's pretend, for an hour, that the epilogue exists. What could have happened in the three or four years between the Battle of Hogwarts and the time when Harry and Ginny must have consummated their relationship in order to begin producing children? Did Harry go on a three year vacation to Tibet to forget about everything? Did he dive into Auror training and bury his memories in work? Did he finally see a therapist for an obvious case of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome? Did he have a steamy fling with Draco? What do we think happened? What do we WISH happened?

I've still got two proposals in limbo, waiting for approval. Personally, I think these two will be the most fun... if they accept them:

Proposal #1, Roundtable: Sadistic Authors and the Characters We Love (to Torment).

Presentation Summary: Why do we do such horrible things to the characters we love? During this roundtable, we'll discuss author psychology, the reader psychology, and even scrutinize the cruel things JKR did to the characters in the canon books. We'll examine some of the common (and not-so-common) ways in which we torment our characters, including (but not limited to) the Unforgivable Curses, classic torture, major illness, serious injuries, handicaps, self-inflicted injury, and even sadomasochism. Then, we'll dig deeper to ask why we do this, and why we seem to love our characters' suffering so much.

Proposal #2, Roundtable: Using Fanfic for Sexual Exploration.

Summary: The fanfic is steamy and the details are explicit. The author, however, has little or no relevant personal experience. How does that work? In this discussion, we will look at how fanfic authors often write about sexual experiences they've never had, or would never dare to have. Why do teenage virgins write explicit sex, heterosexuals write slash, and vanilla people write kinks they'd never dare try? Is this simply a safe form of exploration? Is it a substitute? Is it simple self-expression? Come share your thoughts, questions, insights, and personal perspectives. No graphic sexual discussion will be allowed.

And to top it all off... I submitted some scenes from Eclipse to potentially be read at Author and Artist night. Who would come to listen to a fanfic reading?