bironic

Hello! It's been a weird week. Four days ago I was in Switzerland. More on that soon. Since then it's been a headfirst dive into apartment hunting and a work assignment I had a hard time with. At least the assignment is done now.

I.

Trying to find a satisfying new place to live on short notice in peak season in a rent-inflated city is stressful and I do not recommend it. I haven't learned yet how to set manageable goals for the search, i.e. when it's okay to stop each day or each session. I'm also trying to define when a listing is worth compromising on vs. what I've done so far, which is keep holding out for better. Not counting the awesome-looking place that went off the market literally two minutes after I set up an appointment to view it. I am feeling many negative feelings and reminding myself to simply feel them and keep going.

II.

A break in the clouds. Last night stultiloquentia and I popped down to Readercon's free first evening, since neither of us could make the official con Fri-Sun. I really wanted to hear Stephen Graham Jones, this year's co-Guest of Honor with Tananarive Due, and see if he would sign the copy of Mapping the Interior that gretchening sent last year as a gift. (He did!) And as luck would have it, SGJ's Thursday panel included our local writer and film critic sovay and moderator Darcie Little Badger a.k.a. shiningcomic, both of whom I started following a couple of Readercons ago, plus teri.zin and Paul Tremblay.

The topic was "Being Vague to Make Space for Horror," about how ambiguity rather than clarity serves the genre. Different kinds of ambiguity. The horror of not being believed, in life and in fiction. The discomfort of not being able to put names to things, in life and in fiction. How ambiguity can arise from an author struggling with disbelief in the supernatural while writing it. (Tremblay: 'I don't think it'd be a six-foot ghost. I'd try to explain away whatever it was. I'd keep thinking about it later. I'd be unsettled.') Ambiguity as a different thing from confusion or authorial laziness. (SGJ: 'I always commit to one or the other in my head. [i.e. Is this thing real or not?] I pick whichever is more fun. And then I entertain the opposite in the story.') What authors know about their characters and what happens offscreen and before and after the story, and what they don't. What happens in the rarer cases when providing an answer works for the story. (Examples cited: Get Out, Cat People, Scream, Midsommar, Hereditary, Visible Filth.) The satisfaction of dissatisfaction. The value of being unsettled, dislocated, wondering.

The fresh reading of Mapping the Interior proved an excellent lens through which to appreciate the discussion.

I also bumped into kate_nepveu on the way out and tried to help her right a faltering easel. And that's pretty much everybody I could have hoped to recognize at the con except yhlee. Sorry to miss you this year. Be safe down there.

Of course, seeing Tananarive Due would have been excellent too. Alas. At least stultiloquentia was able to go to her panel during the same slot: "Afrofuturism and Solarpunk in Dialogue."

III.

Before jetting off on the work trip, I did finish both stories for nonconathon! Like, just before jetting off. I cranked out the rest of the second story across something like six hours and two thunderstorms with one break to look at an apartment, posted it, took a shower and left for the airport, where I polished a few rough spots from my phone.

Almost 9,000 words total. I think they both could have used more work, being unplanned first drafts written across multiple sittings. But they exist, and that is what matters. One of them—the down-to-the-wire one—has done quite well. The other, at least the recipient liked, or politely pretended to, heh. Could also be a consequence of being buried toward the back of the 232-story collection.

Reveals are this weekend, I believe. Will post some recs after. I haven't read any fics since returning to work but I did enjoy a bunch on the flight home, pre-downloaded, largely in the Original Works category.

I had a very nice time at the final Vividcon. Talked with many people I don't tend to see the rest of the year—there was a sizeable Boston-area contingent that it would have been fun to spend more time with, but I figured that could happen elsewhen—and met some new ones; attended almost all the panels; successfully co-modded one of them; and watched a lot of vids. Premieres and Club Vivid alone added up to 7 hours.

Perspective

It seems my experience at Vividcon, both this year and overall—I just counted and I went 6 times in 9 years—fall into the middle of the road. At the closing panel, some attendees shared passionate stories about meeting life partners at the con, forging their strongest RL friendships, finding their people, being able to be out and open and themselves. Others who spoke outside the session, or were not there to speak, tried the con and found it unwelcoming or a poor fit or were driven away by the accessibility issues that came to a head in 2010. (That was the first year I attended, and I was not plugged in to anyone or anything enough to even be aware the debates were raging. I still don't fully understand what happened and don't know if that Fanlore link accurately conveys people's points of view. I do know that several friends got burned.)

I had some meaningful conversations at various VVCs that will stay with me for a long time, I saw some incredible vids in an irreproducible group environment, and I have made fan friends and acquaintances there that I have visited or can visit in different parts of the world, but I'm not sure I would say the con has changed my life. Nor has it left a bitter taste in my mouth. Perhaps that speaks to my naïveté.

I'm glad to have had the opportunities to go to panels that taught me how to think more deeply about and get better at vidding. I've given and received feedback on vids in a way that has strengthened my confidence and my sense of belonging to a community, alongside experiences at other cons and online through Festivids etc. I cherish that first year when I was able to meet a whole cluster of people I'd come to know and admire through Kink Bingo.

And I will always be grateful that the con allowed me to have one-on-one or small-group lunches with three of the four vidders whose work was the most inspirational and influential for me when I was starting out around 2009 and that I continue to love and study today: obsessive24, hollywoodgrrl and, as of this weekend, sol_se. newkidfan would round out the set.

Oddnesses

Well, there were a few odd moments.

At a group dinner one night, cesperanza mentioned in reference to, I believe, "The Greatest," although it could have been "Starships!"—I couldn't quite follow; the conversation kept rapidly shifting—that 'of course' the vid was going to be 'in every book ever' about, I don't know, vidding history? Or something? The subject matters less than how she said it as though it were obvious, when I hadn't known she'd even seen "The Greatest." It got me thinking about disconnects between what may appear to be community-wide conversations, and on- and offline conversations among influencers, and what any given individual fan, including a fanwork creator, is aware of. In this case: If you don’t share your response on Dreamwidth or AO3 or Twitter or Tumblr or by email or in person, I’m not going to know. If you don’t have a public conversation I can discover, I’m not going to know.

On a more jarring note, two separate panels showed clips from the same years-old vid that used footage from Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, without warning us. I wish I'd said something the first time, but I was too busy reconciling "sudden Holocaust" with "being at Vividcon." I heard there is some irony here in that the vid may have been involved in that 2010 debate about including warnings?

Lastly, this is not about the con or even about the person but I had a disorienting moment when someone made an offhand comment about my physical characteristics that marked the second time in the last year or so that a fan friend/acquaintance has implied that being Jewish makes me less white. (I am, boringly, really quite white.) I'm lucky things like this have happened rarely enough that I can still remember most of them, but that doesn't make it any more pleasant.

At the same time, I was invited to what has become an annual Shabbat dinner with friends on Friday night before Premieres, so, you know, things balance out.

Progress

Listing everyone I was glad to hang out with always feels like name-dropping, so how about we focus on the new people I met this year? Not only sol_se but also starlady, who made Galaxyrise, aurumcalendula, who's been churning out vids for various cons and 'fests since bursting onto the scene a couple of years ago, gwenfrankenstien, who made my Gods & Monsters Festivid this year, bethofalltrades, who's diving into a multi-Trek vidding project, and Kandy Fong, credited with starting this whole fanvidding thing with her Star Trek slide shows in the '70s.

I've been thinking about change over time. It took a while to work up the nerve to go to Vividcon, then to talk to strangers and to the people I was (am) a fan of, then to bring vids of my own. Now I do things like walk up to Kandy Fong in the con suite and strike up a half-hour conversation. A cohort of con staff and attendees knows who I am, and sometimes people even ask me questions about vids. This year I approached someone whose work is a level above mine and asked if she'd be willing to do developmental and editing beta work on a tricky project I'm kicking around. (She said yes!) I'd like to do more of that kind of thing going forward; learning not only from watching vids but also by reaching out to the vidders.


Part two: Panel notes and vid recs.

It's periodic crunch time at work, so a proper post / con report will have to wait a bit longer. For now:

vividcon was lovely. I had some good conversations with a few people I'd expected to catch up with and a few I had not; went to most of the panels; saw only a fraction of the vids screened but still came away with several favorites; stayed on an even emotional keel the whole weekend; and returned with renewed vigor for creative pursuits…

…most notably this extensive auction vid that's been in progress since the spring. After VVC I finally processed all the DVD footage I've been collecting, figured out how to get a bunch of MKV files into Adobe Premiere (tried absolutedestiny's FFmpeg tutorial for format conversion but gave up in favor of DirectShowSource in the more familiar Avisynth), and skimmed two seasons of American Horror Story with drglam's guidance. I'd been putting that off along with The Walking Dead & Z Nation because horror TV is not always my thing, but it went fine. Forging onward.

Meanwhile, I made the mistake of perusing equinox_exchange requests on the AO3 and ended up with a vid idea that I don't have time to make, except I started making it. *facepalm* I don't even go here, as they say, but I think the concept is beautiful, and the draft is making me have an emotion. Fortunately, what at first seemed like an intimidating endeavor is coming together faster than expected.

Still, my primary focus needs to be the auction vid, and I'll be away three of the six weekends between now and Equinox go-live, so we'll see if this other vid gets done in time or if the DS9 vidlet began a tradition of posting treats three months late.

Happy actual 50th anniversary day!

Previous post: cast member one-on-ones

iggyw & I went to something like 18 panels over the course of the con (Khaaaaan). Many of them we only attended portions of; the schedule had three or four tracks that tended to overlap one another either entirely or by 15-30 minutes out of 60, which I suppose was useful for some people but also made it hard to stay for an entire presentation/discussion without feeling like you were missing something equally interesting. And yet there were dead zones at other times. *shrug*

I went to most of the talks I'd wanted to go to. Some of them met or exceeded expectations while others disappointed. An overall critique is that there were way too many white dudes up on stage. I only remember one panel with a female moderator, the leader of the Black Tribbles podcast team. No coincidence that that was a great session. Oh, and one lecture was half husband and half wife. A few other panels—but too few—had women on them. Disappointing, and reflected neither the demographics of the fandom or even of the con attendees nor the people who've worked on the shows (the "Writing for Trek" panel featured zero women, for instance). Likely the Feminist Fandom, Queer Trekkers and Women of Trek panels had greater presenter diversity, but I unfortunately missed them due to what they were scheduled against. Which is itself another kind of slight by the con organizers, putting them up against the big cast panels lots of people wanted to go to.

That said: Six of the panels we attended featured cast members; will write about those separately. The rest included:

FRIDAY

( The History and Future of Star Trek novels )

(  Fanbros: TNG vs DS9 )

( Galaxy Quests: The Humor of Star Trek and Beyond )

( Thriving on Limitations: Behind the Scenes of The Wrath of Khan )

( The First Convention and How It Helped Resurrect Star Trek )

( The Evolution of Star Trek's Fandom )

SATURDAY

( Growing Up Trek )

( Writing for Star Trek )

( Meet Writer-Producers from Star Trek: Discovery )

( Black Tribbles: Star Trek Into Blackness  )

( ST IV table read  )

And then there was the cosplay contest, but there's only one panel left to describe and there's not much to say, so let's do that first and then get back to the awesome costumes.

SUNDAY

( Trek Talks: NASA  )


So, yes, the ( cosplay contest! )

Last but not least: Next post will be about the cast panels. \o/

Once upon a time elipie and I had separate ideas to put together a kink-themed vid show for vividcon. Unlike me, elipie remembered to submit the idea when the time came. But she graciously took me on as a co-mod when I realized what had happened, and after a couple of weeks of merged lists, spreadsheets, IM sessions and gnashing of teeth, we settled on our 20 vids.

We wanted to feature vids that portray kinks and kinkiness in a positive light; tried for a variety of kinks, tones, styles, fandoms, vidders, pairing/moresome types and character demographics*; limited the list to one vid per vidder; and made sure to include at least some vids that hadn't been created for Kink Bingo, so the list wouldn't all be familiar to kink-vid fans who followed the community. elipie also cajoled anoel and thirdblindmouse into making premieres for the show on short notice! Definitely watch both of them; they are great. One has pain- and consent-play femslash and the other has alien sex!

*Some of these efforts panned out better than others, but I think we're both generally happy with the final list -- and hope you are too.

( Playlist )


And the shortlist of runners-up. Some we had to remove because we were limited to 20 vids even if they fit within the allotted time; some were alternates.

( runners-up )


Bonus vids that screened during Vividcon that it's too bad we couldn't include:

Switch Screens by lola (UnREAL) - voyeurism woo

Anything For You by Willion (Furry fandom) - such a sweet story about finding one's inner furry kink/identity



etc. etc. etc., so many other great kink vids out there, but also please make more. ♥

Thanks to everyone who pitched ideas to us in person, on DW and/or on Twitter. You helped strengthen the playlist, introduced us to new works by unfamiliar artists, and sometimes made us laugh (everyone be glad/sad we didn't put in the mechanical tentacle porn set to "Inspector Gadget").

One of the local Little Free Libraries had a copy of The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman and that finally motivated me to start reading His Dark Materials after all these years. People were super into them around the time we were going to Harry Potter aca-cons and of course there've been a million fannish AUs but I never got around to trying the series, other than going to see that forgettable film adaptation.

After an uncertain start, I got really into it, especially the human-dæmon relationships. I hadn't realized how into it until I found myself choking up at the descriptions of ( spoilery ). Also I hadn't realized how explicitly Pullman described what happens between dæmons when their humans get frisky together. Many years late to this party.

I bought the other two books yesterday and will read them in & around the new Harry Potter one that I pre-ordered but haven't picked up yet.

Obv. there are things to enjoy and things to critique and thinky stuff about Pullman's reaction to C.S. Lewis and the Church but we are not here for in-depth analysis right now. Work is rough these days as we undergo managerial transitions and as a result my entertainment has swung toward pleasure and comfort. See also: I've taken a break from vid-research movies and just rewatched the Twilight series. Well, that's sort of for vid research too, but a different project, and I wasn't taking notes. And I rewatched the beginning of the terrible-but-I-don't-care TV show Roar from 1997, because my heart.

Was sad to miss con.txt this weekend and all the friends who go with it. At least there's only a week and a half 'til Vividcon. Hang in there, self: Hugs and vids and conversation and mini-vacation are nigh.

stultiloquentia clued me in to Readercon, an SF/F book-focused con that takes place locally: this year in Quincy. For my own mental health, I decided at the last minute to take a day off work and give it a try. Then it took more than a week to summon enough energy and semi-articulateness to write a post. Sorry about that.

Highlights:

- Meeting Rosemary Kirstein, author of the ongoing Steerswoman series! She spoke on a panel about how to motivate female protagonists besides trauma. No blockbuster notes from that session, but I went up afterwards along with a few other attendees to say how much I liked her books. She was nice. She mentioned how difficult it's been to pick up the next draft after her health scares etc., and agreed with a laugh that it's hard to sign an e-book since the series is largely out of print. Also I learned that it's Kir-stine, not Kir-steen.

- Meeting Kelly Link (author of Get in Trouble: Stories, among others)! She took part in a big, fun panel about "bad influences"—more on that in the next post—and agreed to sign books for two of us afterwards. Hilariously/embarrassingly, a combination of weeks-long brain struggles and being in passive panel-listening mode meant that I totally blanked when she asked me a few questions, like whether I write, what sources I've written fanfiction for and what town in Texas my friend lives in who recommended the book. *facepalm* At least her signing the other guy's book gave me the moments needed to recall a few books and TV shows I've written fic for lately; then we talked for a minute about The Vampire Diaries and how that introduced her to online fandom. She wore deep blue lipstick.

- Joining stultiloquentia on Saturday for lunch she arranged with people who turned out to be kate_nepveu, who runs Con or Bust, and yhlee, founder of festivids, whose book Ninefox Gambit just came out. (I haven't read it yet but have it on order at the library.) I'd learned from the #readercon hashtag that yhlee was coming and I'd hoped to meet him, so lunch was serendipitous. And they knew my vids (!!!). An unexpected moment of LJ/DW/AO3-style fannish connection at a con focused on pro SF/F authors and editors and publishers. We talked SGA, metatagging, vidding, panel moderation, math and English education, storytelling in different media, recs for a project stulti's working on... They were both a delight to meet, if briefly. ♥ our people ♥

- Panel about robot narratives as slave uprisings, with bonus etymology + awesome Seder reference. Details to follow.

- Seeing Catherynne M. (Cat) Valente on a panel after our book club read Deathless. It seems Samuel R. Delaney was also a Readercon guest, but I missed him. :( :( Also Junot Diaz, obviously, but he's local and so I've been adjacent to him on many occasions, heh.


Lowlights:

- Personal: I'd thought that, if anything, being around so much enjoyment and analysis of science fiction and fantasy texts would boost my motivation to get back to my own writing. Instead, I felt something closer to despair at the whole endeavor of publishing. So many authors and books I'd never heard of, current and past, even in my favorite genre; so many people struggling for their work to be recognized, or who've published numerous books to little effect… I asked myself, as I do every so often: What's the point? What are the chances of conceiving a compelling story, and telling it so well, that it rises above the voluminous mediocrity and makes a lasting mark? Is there a point to writing a book if it doesn't? Did I just go to a bad combination of panels for thinking about these questions? Does Readercon attract mostly a certain level of author that made this stand out to me? Is part of my brain simply trying to talk me out of attempting a novel one day because not trying is better than failing? When did I stop believing that I could produce something extraordinary?

(And yet, the satisfaction of producing a fic or a vid or a creative product for my job is often enough in itself, which suggests that it would be the same for a book, and I get all "eeee" inside when a single stranger compliments something I've made, especially if I trust their judgment. It's all very confusing.)

- Cultural: As a first-time attendee who didn't do her homework, I had no connection to the communities of panelists or attendees and only afterwards began to learn about other people's histories with the con (fx, I'd forgotten that Readercon was the one with the notorious harassment case), about what was going on around me, behind the scenes and in panels I didn't attend. I only witnessed a few of the instances of racism, sexism and lack of discussion on intersectionality that other attendees wrote about at length. I'd accepted that the con was book-focused, only to learn that others were expressing their frustrations with its reluctance to embrace other SF/F media and with some panelists' literary snobbery.

Further reading:

https://sabrinavourvoulias.com/2016/07/11/readercon-27-confronting-the-fails/
https://mikkikendall.com/2016/07/13/readercon-low-point-lessons/

- The aforementioned mental health/biochemical stuff meant I missed Sunday's programming—panels on magic in space, blue collar SF and short story anatomy—the latter two of which seem to have been notable. Sad face.


Next post: Panel notes

I had a great time at Vividcon this weekend. It was my third time going, over a span of six years, and each one has felt more comfortable than the last. I learn more about the history of vidding and vidders and pick up more skills and get to know more people, or get to know people better.

This year's new experience was encountering again and again people's love for Starships. It just fills my heart with joy that it makes people so happy, and it's surreal (but also a thrill) to, for example, hear it mentioned as an annual Club Vivid favorite, or to learn that it was included in a suite of vids that helped convince a college to archive older fanvids. Although I have not yet learned how to react to effusive compliments, eep.

( Social-type highlights of the con: cosplay, Shabbat, conversation, and more )

( Panels )

And with that, I am out of brain. Choosing to blame all the adjectives and "to be" constructions in this post on the fact that I haven't had a full night's sleep in a week! Vid recs to follow at some point here.

ETA: Other people's con reports: giandujakiss, kass, sheafrotherdon, jetpack_monkey, ghost-lingering on the fandom-specific panels

I had a great weekend at con_txt. It was so nice to see friends again, and to make some new acquaintances.

I was concerned about the programming because I haven't been feeling enthused about any particular canon on the docket in a communal-fannish way lately, and because mass squee can be scary; but there turned out to be plenty of meta panels and entertaining moderators to make the experience enjoyable.

I also appreciate how, while con.txt is a slash con by definition, those of us who do not exclusively enjoy slash are welcomed and able to have discussions about a variety of sexual identities and relationship types in fandom (and life), plus gen topics.

In case you are interested, I jotted down some notes. Nothing fancy or thorough. con-txt.net has panel descriptions and mod names.

( Werewolf Torts and Undead Annuities )

( Small Fandom Dating Game )

( Fannish Pictionary )

( Vid Show )

( Monetizing Fandom )

( Inverting Tropes )

( D/s in Fandom )

( Not My Fandom's OTP )

( Awesome Robots )

( Checking in on the Fannish Diaspora )

( Small Fandom and Between-Fandom Support Group )

( Dubcon F***ing: How Does It Work )

( Rule 34 in a Magical Universe )

( Bi-invisibility )

Also attended a panel about tagging and another about AUs.


Note to self: Action items:

- DS9 essential episodes list for corbae (post likely to follow)
- Riddick recs list for monkey_pie (ditto)
- Read bmouse's Garak/Bashir collection
- Check out stuff from Small Fandom Dating Game
- Figure out naming issue and start a new Twitter to keep in touch with fan friends?
- Grin and bear it open a Tumblr account???

1. I wasn't planning to go to Vividcon this year because of stuff, but seeing the programming post today is making me second-guess the decision. Most appealing to me are the panels on song choice, music theory for facilitating audio editing, and making fancy credits with Aftereffects and Photoshop. Also one on how vidder motivation and intention influence outcome and can differ from audience reception. And there is this vid show:

Out of This World - Vids in spaaaaaace! A vidshow for fannish sources located in outer space, or concerned with space travel/exploration. Aliens, spaceships, and supernovas, oh my.

Spaaace. I know the vid show playlists are posted online, so it's not that so much as missing the panel discussions. People like anoel take thorough notes, though, so there's some hope of being filled in...

2. Forecast snowstorm today was a bust ("Snowquester" --> "Noquester," quipped the Capital Weather Gang). Again. I mean, it snowed for about eight hours, but it's been above 40 for days and is heading for 50 as we speak, so nothing stuck. As opposed to everywhere west, NW and SW of here. Sigh. Thus continueth the D.C. record for consecutive days with fewer than 2 inches of accumulation.

ETA: This. This is what it's like to live in this city when the word "snow" is mentioned.

3. As a consolation while working from home, I hung those pictures mentioned yesterday. They are, against my nature, not even in straight lines! Credit again to Apartment Therapy for its resources on laying out and hanging a gallery wall. I went with the "arrange your frames on the floor, outline them on a big piece of paper and stage that on the wall, then nail through the paper" method.

 

4. Now boredom looms, and on boredom's heels comes depression, so best not to go too far down that path. What will fill time now that the housing rush is subsiding?

*eyes vidding computer*

*or possibly the TV*

*or, actual good life choice, returning to better eating/cooking patterns*