Survived CON

[lydamorehouse]

I can't even begin to express all the amazing that was CON this year.  I had So. Much. Fun.

I also think that I may have made a dildo reference with Tamora Pierce, which is just... awkward.  In  fact, I'm fairly certain that when/if I get the CONvergence DVD, I'm probably going to be pretty horrified by some of the things that came out of my mouth.  This is the only drawback to having caffiene as my drug of choice.  Too much coffee can make me stupid (usually funny, but sometimes only because I'm willing to say something no one really should have. EVER.)  Also, I think this problem can be summed up by the fact that the single most retweeted line of mine involved me saying, "OMG, I got so much money for that short story; wait, let me take my clothes off."  (Which makes no sense out of context, but kind of shows you the state of my over-caffinated brain.)

I met some amazing people who talked me into having a fan twitter account, so I now have Yet Another Secret Identity to keep track of, but, much to my complete surprise, I kind of like Twitter in small doses.  It's so much easier to follow seven people than seventy. 

Oh, and I'm pretty sure I failed the secret pro party.  For one, I invited fans.  Our squeeling scared off all the boys, but I also feel bad that my friends naomikritzer and jiawen probably ended up feeling left out as well.  I did have a couple of panels from hell, which I should recount at some point in great and grisly detail but the gist of both of them can be summed up thusly: TOO MUCH TESTOSTERONE and OMG-at-least-read-the-genre-you're-bashing-or-I-will-go-commando-on-your-a$$. 

In general, if I had a thinky-thought about CONvergence this year it is to wonder if there was a little blowback (as it were) towards women and womanly-things thanks to the theme, which was "Women of Wonder." 

Now, sadly I must return to the Real Life (tm).  What a let down!  For one, I have no minion (yes, I got a minion as a perk of being of Guest of Honor,) and, thus, no one to fetch me things and/or generally take care of MY needs.  I'm now back to caring for others and doing the dishes.

Comments

[naomikritzer]

You need a dishwashing minion.

[lydamorehouse]

Yeah, or, like, a dishwasher. ;-)

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

I was on the Women Writers panel with Tamora (in which we spent about half of it trying to define "strong female characters" as opposed to the buttkicking female characters until someone in the audience mentioned how Tom Stoppard's plays usually had women who were basically props, so the opposite of that) and the moderator asked if women and men wrote differently and Tamora just mocked the shit out of that question to the point that when I answered with a very qualified yes, I might as well have been pausing to go "Please don't hurt me Ms. Pierce." every few seconds.

Of course, because of that panel I was bummed that I didn't get to see your panel on Strong Female Characters as I was busy disagreeing with Romeo on the Reboot Panel at the same time.

[lydamorehouse]

Oh, well, SOMEONE has to disagree with Romeo. I think that's part of the CONvergence contract, actually.

I also got hissed at by _both_ Tamora Pierce and Emma Bull, so... uh, FTW, I guess. :-)

Good con.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite teachers from LIU said that her doctoral adviser was famous for sitting next to the graduate students as they read their proposals, theses, etc. and going "No. No. Wrong..."

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

OMG-at-least-read-the-genre-you're-bashing-or-I-will-go-commando-on-your-a$$

I think I was on that panel...

[lydamorehouse]

Why yes, I believe you were! Thanks for being a voice of sanity!

[jiawen]

I was mostly just happy you were getting to squee with fellow fanfic fans. It was good seeing your happiness level rise.

[lydamorehouse]

Oh, and I was so crushed by previous panels, wasn't I? I'm glad you weren't mad. We should have coffee, though, so we can really talk.

[revolutionaryjo.livejournal.com]

In general, if I had a thinky-thought about CONvergence this year it is to wonder if there was a little blowback (as it were) towards women and womanly-things thanks to the theme, which was "Women of Wonder."

You know, this occurred to me as well during the weekend. While the con itself was celebratory of women in fandom and their interests, I heard of more cases of my friends having arguments about such things than any other year that I can recall.

I think that's the result of shining a light on the topic and having more public conversations about feminist issues in the space than usual. The individuals who typically get by without having to address or discuss it didn't get that luxury this year. I'm not surprised some people would be confrontational or defensive about it. It can be threatening to be exposed to a different world view. So kudos to CONvergence for choosing the theme and scheduling so many panels that put the topic front and center. Visibility is vital to change. Even if it means I need to argue about it now and again.

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear further thinky thoughts you have on the subject if you ever get the time, now that you don't have a minion. :)

[lydamorehouse]

*sigh* No minion.

I'll put my mind to it, but I think you summed up a lot of what I was thinking, which was that I heard more people (women/female-identified) complaining about people (men/male-identified) getting in their faces about issues regarding gender disparity.