nine worlds
Monday, 12 August 2013 19:37![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
So that may have been my best weekend ever. Not every panel was good, but some were amazing, and the general atmosphere was just brilliant. I am very happy, and very keen to go again next year.
I spent the whole con hanging out with some combination ofcarawj, cosmic_llin, silly_cleo, raven, such_heights, purplefringe, Kirstie, and a few others, which is part of why I enjoyed it so much, as they are all excellent people who I don't see often enough. ♥
Friday started off in nice relaxing fashion with various introductory tea parties - including Night Vale tea, and some lovely china teacups in (I think) the Feminism track. (I remembered later that I'd meant to stop by the Queers Dig Time Lords launch party, but forgot, whoops!)
The first actual panel I (when I say "I" in this post I almost always mean "we") attended was "Fandom 101: Nine Myths About Fanfic", nine speakers debunking nine myths, which was fun. After a quick dash to McDonalds, it was time forsuch_heights's "Fanvidding 101", a fascinating canter through the history of vidding, with examples: I loved seeing "Pressure", a 70s (I think) vid made with footage of the vidders making another vid (VIDCEPTION! etc); also, there was a Doctor Who/Sherlock mashup trailer for an imaginary show that I actually really wanted to see, which... doesn't always happen with those sorts of things. Finally, such_heights put on an awesome vidshow, full of vids I already loved and some really interesting new-to-me stuff: it was really cool to see ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
obsessive24's excellent Buffy vid Bachelorette on the big screen, and I am of course ALWAYS happy to watch Starships!.
(The lack of food options was something of a downside of the con: the only things nearby were a McDonalds and the hotel Starbucks, the latter of which was picked clean by Sunday afternoon; there was also the hotel restaurant, but with only half an hour between panels there wasn't really time for that, or to go further afield.)
I was staying in a hotel about fifteen minutes walk from the con, so of course I started Saturday morning by getting overconfident about how much time I had to get there and having to charge down the road (overtaking a fantastic Martha Jones cosplayer, and also Laurie Penny) to get to the con in time for the first thing I wanted to get to. This was "Charting In Excel", on the knitting track, which basically gave me exactly what I wanted out of it: some useful new info and the chance to hang out with other knitters and design fair isle TARDIS patterns. :D
Next up was "Hermione Granger: Feminist Icon?", a really excellent panel which basically turned into an intelligent discussion of Hermione and how great she is, and also feminism. Like all of the con's best panels, I felt liked the speaker and the audience were on the same page, and that their enthusiasm for and interest in the topic fed off each other to create a really positive experience. ♥amicu and Chris arrived for the day towards the beginning of this panel, though sadly I didn't end up getting to spend that much time hanging out with them. :(
Sadly the next two panels were somewhat disappointing, but after themsilly_cleo and I went to "Women's Worlds: Feminist Utopias in Literature", a very thoughtful panel that discussed utopian fiction, feminism and intersectionality. Unfortunately I couldn't hear all the panelists properly (partly my own fault, I considered moving nearer to the front but by that point in the day I really needed to prioritise sitting under the air conditioning), but that caveat aside, it was great, and I now have a list of things I need to read...
"Queer All The Things!", next, didn't quite live up to its panel description: the discussion was often interesting, but rather unfocused and a bit surface at times. But then I went to the screening of Wonder Women! The Untold Story of Superheroines, which was basically everything I hoped it would be. ♥ It discussed what Wonder Woman means to her fans, especially little girls, looked at her history in comics, and then used the 70s tv show as a jumping off point to talk about superpowered women in mainstream media more generally (BUFFFFFYYYYYYY! :D). I would have liked a little more on her later comics history (I was surprised not to see Greg Rucka among the interviewees), but otherwise, SO GOOD.
I left that on a high of FEMINISM and FEELINGS ABOUT SUPERHEROINES, and went downstairs to slap on some glitter and see Lashings of Ginger Beer Time at the Bifröst Queer Cabaret and Disco. :D Great end to Saturday!
On Sunday morning I was on the "Chicks Unravel Time" panel, and as anyone who spoke to me beforehand may have gathered, I was SOMEWHAT TERRIFIED. But as soon as the panel got going, my fears melted away and I had an AMAZING time. My fellow panelists -raven and Una McCormack, plus Liz Myles, who raven and Una spotted in the audience and dragged up on stage with us - were excellent and the audience was really enthusiastic and supportive. We talked about our essays (which covered a fairly wide range of the show: series 4, 19, and 26, and the Tenth Doctor specials), the book, women in Doctor Who and what we want from the future of the show, and basically it was my happy place. ♥ ♥ ♥ This fandom has SO MANY great people in it; even when some people in it are being terrible (seriously, don't click that link if you don't like being furious) and I'm a little disenchanted with the show itself, I love being a part of it so so much. Also later I was in a lift and someone told me she was a New Who fan who hadn't watched the Classic series but having been to our panel now wanted to give it a try. BEST FEEDBACK EVER.
AND THEN THE FEMSLASH PANEL (feat.silly_cleo, raven, such_heights and Roz Kaveney). This was so great! Both audience and speakers were full of passion and enthusiasm for femslash, and had lots of interesting things to say about femslash and queer women in the media, and it was just a really great space. ♥
After those two brilliant panels, it was probably inevitable that "Kinda Gay: LGBT Representation in Genre TV" was a little disappointing.silly_cleo (who was also on the panel for this one) was great, especially on the topic of queerbaiting, and there was some good discussion, but overall it was lacking the - I don't want to say "synergy" but I think I'm going to have to - between panelists and audience that the panel before had. (Also someone said that Sherlock was canonically established as asexual, which I don't think is true, is it?)
After all that, lobbyconning seemed like a plan. This was the point at which we discovered that Starbucks had sold all the sandwiches etc already; luckily I still had plenty of snacks, because I couldn't face a third McDonalds meal in as many days... Then lots of us headed for the Sarah Jane Adventures panel, on the grounds that even if it wasn't that great, it was worth trying because SJA. This turned out to be excellent logic! It was a really warm panel, I felt, with guests Joe Lidster and Gary Russell talking about their time making the show; their love for it really came through. There were some really moving moments, talking about Lis Sladen, of course, and also about the genesis of the decision to make Luke gay (I am so so sad they never had a chance to actually do this on screen), and also there was a lot of hilarity. It was a really great way to end the con. If the con had to end, which is a thing that I don't really approve of.
I eschewed my carefully researched travel arrangements for getting to Victoria in favour of hopping on the tube withcarawj, cosmic_llin, silly_cleo, purplefringe and Kirstie, thereby extending the con a little further. ♥ Then I noodled about at Victoria for a bit, getting food and reading the book about Janeway that cosmic_llin had kindly lent me, before getting on the 11pm coach back to Bristol. I spent the journey listening to ![[twitter.com profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
veritypodcast (which made me want to buy the revisited Visitation DVD, DAMN THEIR EYES ;)) and a couple of episodes of Welcome to Night Vale, which seemed like an appropriate way to wind down from a brilliant weekend.
I am very enthusiastic about possibly doing some more cosplaying next year (I went as Claudia Donovan on Saturday, and Beryl Hutchinson on Friday): I want to cosplay as Steph!Robin, I think, and there was also talk of a group "cosplay as a character with the same name as you" thing which sounded like a lot of fun. Is it next August yet?
I spent the whole con hanging out with some combination of
carawj, cosmic_llin, silly_cleo, raven, such_heights, purplefringe, Kirstie, and a few others, which is part of why I enjoyed it so much, as they are all excellent people who I don't see often enough. ♥Friday started off in nice relaxing fashion with various introductory tea parties - including Night Vale tea, and some lovely china teacups in (I think) the Feminism track. (I remembered later that I'd meant to stop by the Queers Dig Time Lords launch party, but forgot, whoops!)
The first actual panel I (when I say "I" in this post I almost always mean "we") attended was "Fandom 101: Nine Myths About Fanfic", nine speakers debunking nine myths, which was fun. After a quick dash to McDonalds, it was time for
such_heights's "Fanvidding 101", a fascinating canter through the history of vidding, with examples: I loved seeing "Pressure", a 70s (I think) vid made with footage of the vidders making another vid (VIDCEPTION! etc); also, there was a Doctor Who/Sherlock mashup trailer for an imaginary show that I actually really wanted to see, which... doesn't always happen with those sorts of things. Finally, such_heights put on an awesome vidshow, full of vids I already loved and some really interesting new-to-me stuff: it was really cool to see obsessive24's excellent Buffy vid Bachelorette on the big screen, and I am of course ALWAYS happy to watch Starships!.(The lack of food options was something of a downside of the con: the only things nearby were a McDonalds and the hotel Starbucks, the latter of which was picked clean by Sunday afternoon; there was also the hotel restaurant, but with only half an hour between panels there wasn't really time for that, or to go further afield.)
I was staying in a hotel about fifteen minutes walk from the con, so of course I started Saturday morning by getting overconfident about how much time I had to get there and having to charge down the road (overtaking a fantastic Martha Jones cosplayer, and also Laurie Penny) to get to the con in time for the first thing I wanted to get to. This was "Charting In Excel", on the knitting track, which basically gave me exactly what I wanted out of it: some useful new info and the chance to hang out with other knitters and design fair isle TARDIS patterns. :D
Next up was "Hermione Granger: Feminist Icon?", a really excellent panel which basically turned into an intelligent discussion of Hermione and how great she is, and also feminism. Like all of the con's best panels, I felt liked the speaker and the audience were on the same page, and that their enthusiasm for and interest in the topic fed off each other to create a really positive experience. ♥
amicu and Chris arrived for the day towards the beginning of this panel, though sadly I didn't end up getting to spend that much time hanging out with them. :(Sadly the next two panels were somewhat disappointing, but after them
silly_cleo and I went to "Women's Worlds: Feminist Utopias in Literature", a very thoughtful panel that discussed utopian fiction, feminism and intersectionality. Unfortunately I couldn't hear all the panelists properly (partly my own fault, I considered moving nearer to the front but by that point in the day I really needed to prioritise sitting under the air conditioning), but that caveat aside, it was great, and I now have a list of things I need to read..."Queer All The Things!", next, didn't quite live up to its panel description: the discussion was often interesting, but rather unfocused and a bit surface at times. But then I went to the screening of Wonder Women! The Untold Story of Superheroines, which was basically everything I hoped it would be. ♥ It discussed what Wonder Woman means to her fans, especially little girls, looked at her history in comics, and then used the 70s tv show as a jumping off point to talk about superpowered women in mainstream media more generally (BUFFFFFYYYYYYY! :D). I would have liked a little more on her later comics history (I was surprised not to see Greg Rucka among the interviewees), but otherwise, SO GOOD.
I left that on a high of FEMINISM and FEELINGS ABOUT SUPERHEROINES, and went downstairs to slap on some glitter and see Lashings of Ginger Beer Time at the Bifröst Queer Cabaret and Disco. :D Great end to Saturday!
On Sunday morning I was on the "Chicks Unravel Time" panel, and as anyone who spoke to me beforehand may have gathered, I was SOMEWHAT TERRIFIED. But as soon as the panel got going, my fears melted away and I had an AMAZING time. My fellow panelists -
raven and Una McCormack, plus Liz Myles, who raven and Una spotted in the audience and dragged up on stage with us - were excellent and the audience was really enthusiastic and supportive. We talked about our essays (which covered a fairly wide range of the show: series 4, 19, and 26, and the Tenth Doctor specials), the book, women in Doctor Who and what we want from the future of the show, and basically it was my happy place. ♥ ♥ ♥ This fandom has SO MANY great people in it; even when some people in it are being terrible (seriously, don't click that link if you don't like being furious) and I'm a little disenchanted with the show itself, I love being a part of it so so much. Also later I was in a lift and someone told me she was a New Who fan who hadn't watched the Classic series but having been to our panel now wanted to give it a try. BEST FEEDBACK EVER.AND THEN THE FEMSLASH PANEL (feat.
silly_cleo, raven, such_heights and Roz Kaveney). This was so great! Both audience and speakers were full of passion and enthusiasm for femslash, and had lots of interesting things to say about femslash and queer women in the media, and it was just a really great space. ♥After those two brilliant panels, it was probably inevitable that "Kinda Gay: LGBT Representation in Genre TV" was a little disappointing.
silly_cleo (who was also on the panel for this one) was great, especially on the topic of queerbaiting, and there was some good discussion, but overall it was lacking the - I don't want to say "synergy" but I think I'm going to have to - between panelists and audience that the panel before had. (Also someone said that Sherlock was canonically established as asexual, which I don't think is true, is it?)After all that, lobbyconning seemed like a plan. This was the point at which we discovered that Starbucks had sold all the sandwiches etc already; luckily I still had plenty of snacks, because I couldn't face a third McDonalds meal in as many days... Then lots of us headed for the Sarah Jane Adventures panel, on the grounds that even if it wasn't that great, it was worth trying because SJA. This turned out to be excellent logic! It was a really warm panel, I felt, with guests Joe Lidster and Gary Russell talking about their time making the show; their love for it really came through. There were some really moving moments, talking about Lis Sladen, of course, and also about the genesis of the decision to make Luke gay (I am so so sad they never had a chance to actually do this on screen), and also there was a lot of hilarity. It was a really great way to end the con. If the con had to end, which is a thing that I don't really approve of.
I eschewed my carefully researched travel arrangements for getting to Victoria in favour of hopping on the tube with
carawj, cosmic_llin, silly_cleo, purplefringe and Kirstie, thereby extending the con a little further. ♥ Then I noodled about at Victoria for a bit, getting food and reading the book about Janeway that cosmic_llin had kindly lent me, before getting on the 11pm coach back to Bristol. I spent the journey listening to I am very enthusiastic about possibly doing some more cosplaying next year (I went as Claudia Donovan on Saturday, and Beryl Hutchinson on Friday): I want to cosplay as Steph!Robin, I think, and there was also talk of a group "cosplay as a character with the same name as you" thing which sounded like a lot of fun. Is it next August yet?
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no subject
Date: 12 Aug 2013 20:30 (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Aug 2013 10:18 (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 Aug 2013 21:58 (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Aug 2013 10:20 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Aug 2013 19:14 (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 Aug 2013 21:47 (UTC)It really was. :D
no subject
Date: 12 Aug 2013 19:17 (UTC)Oh man, Beryl Hutchinson is so great, that's fabulous. Did you take pictures? :)
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Date: 13 Aug 2013 10:15 (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Aug 2013 20:28 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Aug 2013 10:23 (UTC)Also, thank you for the postcard! Groovy sixties Wonder Woman is awesome. ♥
no subject
Date: 14 Aug 2013 17:56 (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 Aug 2013 19:18 (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Aug 2013 10:17 (UTC)The Girl-Thing Who Went Out For Sushi - Pat Cadigan
The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas - Ursula Le Guin
Always Coming Home - Ursula Le Guin
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand - Samuel Delany
The Wild Girls - Ursula Le Guin
no subject
Date: 13 Aug 2013 10:32 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Aug 2013 10:21 (UTC)no subject
Date: 12 Aug 2013 19:50 (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Aug 2013 10:18 (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 Sep 2013 01:31 (UTC)I hadn't seen that "Bachelorette" video before and it was pretty great. Now I want to see that Wonder Woman movie...
no subject
Date: 16 Sep 2013 10:33 (UTC)Wonder Women! was excellent, I definitely recommend seeing it if you get a chance!