Gaylaxicon report aka "Lyda Would Prefer Not to Do This Alone."

[lydamorehouse]

The title of this blog comes from the fact that for the longest time the Gaylaxicon programming page had the notes that I sent in for some panel proposals. On several of them, I simply wrote, "Lyda would prefer not to do this alone." It was very disconcerting to see that exact phrasing on the website. I was relieved when the program guide said "Lyda Morehouse and others," but it turned out that I was still required to do my own recruiting.

I did manage to find two victims recruits for the Yaoi/Yuri panel, though I'm not sure that made it any more coherent. I either need to stop offering to do this panel or be slightly more prepared. Several years ago, at a Marscon, when manwha and manhua were the hot new things, made a power point presentation. I had some hope that Gaylaxicon might be able to rustle up a video connection for my Mac so that, if I couldn't find other panelists, I could at least scroll through my manga review website: mangakast.wordpress.com. But, again, this is probably something that a person should discuss with programming IN ADVANCE, rather than the night of, so I wasn't really, truly expecting any joy. It was a long shot gamble, but I figured I'd ask anyway. Of course, Anton gave me his best "are you f*cking kidding me?" eyebrow arc, and then slow drawled, "We are a small con." So, yeah, no luck on that. But, he did, at least, rustle me up a second fellow panelist, so I mean, really, that was a equal to or possibly better than solution.

I had driven in on Friday night with Naomi, so we had a discussion about our various panels and I started to wonder if the same professions are considered 'hot' in Japan the way they are in the West. Naomi and I made a list of the sorts of professions that classically show up in porn. Plumbers, firefighters, cops. I was surprisingly unable to find any yaoi featuring plumbers. (I am, in fact, truly surprised. I have read yaoi featuring DENTISTS, after all, and janitors.) I am currently reading the ones I found about firemen. Maybe again, not surprisingly, the first title I found was bara (which, for the uninitiated are the manga that have beefcake, bear men, as opposed to the more common "bishie" boys.) There are a ton about police officers, but I thought I would try to hunt up a few more handyman types first, however.

Anyway, I got in decently early on Saturday. I slid into the last half of the interview with yhlee and I kind of got a HUUUGGGEEE boy crush on him, so I went to the dealers' room to buy as many books of his as I could carry. I feel kind of dumb because I had his first novel Ninefox Gambit in my possession when it was up for all the various awards, but somehow it went back to the library unread. I will now rectify that problem.

Then, I had the "We are all 1/2,000,000th of a Hugo Winner Now" which was about fan writing, not the recent Hugo/AO3 kerfuffle. I'm not sure any great thoughts were thunk on this panel, but the panelist were naomikritzer , pegkerr , myself, and Ellen Kuhfeld. The usual discussion about what fan fic is, who writes it, and what is awesome about it was had. I did break down at the end because someone asked about the horrible trope of the "time skip that ends with marriage and kids" (famous example being Harry Potter, but also, unfortunately for me, also Bleach, for which I have a LOT OF FEELS.) Then, after that, because I talked about the fact that I feel that so many of those are the creator(s) intentionally spraying NO HOMO on main characters who have been queer shipped by fandom, someone else tangentially brought up Avengers: End Game and the whole breaking of Stucky and I kind of had a small rant (and made two new friends! Hooray!)

After that, I stayed around to I listened to both "The Babadook is a Gay Icon and I'm Dating Mothman" as well as "Queering Fairy Tales." Both were very good panels and I was glad, especially, to have gotten to hear Michael Dahl, who I can't believe is local, because why have we not had him at Convergence or any of the other local cons???

I had a lot of time to kill before my last two panels of the day and I was EXHAUSTED, so, thankfully some friends of ours had a room at the hotel so we hung out with them and their two dogs for a long time chatting and semi-napping on their hotel kingsized bed. We went down to watch the recording of the Queens of Adventure Podcast. This was the definition of a HOOT.


Picture: Three gorgeous drag queens, an elf queen, a barbarian queen, and a wizard queen.

Then, I kept myself awake with sheer willpower until 10:45 PM when I had the panel "Writing Straight Sex and Romance When You Are SUPER Gay." Again, "Lyda would prefer not to do this alone," so I recruited one of the friends I was hanging out with haddayr and Naomi again. This was fun, probably because Anton came in at one point before we started and asked if we needed anything. I looked him dead in the eye and said, "OH MY GOD, ESPRESSO." Of course, no coffee shop was open at that hour, but Anton prides himself in getting the miracles done, so just as we were starting introductions in walks Anton with a cup full of five shots of espresso. I intermittently took TINY sips of that interspersed with water. And, suddenly, I was the loudest, most obnoxious person in the room. (I do feel bad about this, but this is a thing that happens to me. I call it my con persona. It's a bit of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, if Hyde is just sort of loud and bawdy.) But, I mean, I told some good stories about my experiences writing straight romance as a gold star lesbian, including the infamous "remember the penis" story.

Basically, the story goes like this. When I first started writing straight romance novels professionally, I knew I was going to have to write straight sex, something I have, as mentioned, ZERO experience. But, I figured, what's the big difference?? Sex is as much emotion as anything else, right? So, I write and then bravely hand out that chapter to my writers' group. They all look at me afterwards and said, "Lyda, this was pretty hot, but we're not sure it's sex." I was like, "What? Of course it is! There's shuddering and orgasms, so what the heck?" They said, "You forgot something important?" When I ask what that is, they said, "The penis." APPARENTLY, straight people expect The Member to make an appearance. Afterwards, I dutifully put a note over my writing desk that read simply: Remember The Penis.

So, despite the fact that I previously did not think I would be functioning at that hour, that was fun.

The slash reading, which I had honestly been dreading, went surprisingly well, as well. I actually managed to talk Naomi into staying and reading some of her AO3 work and some Good Omens fic, and that helped a lot. The problem in the past few years has been this: the first year we did this, when Kyell Gold was a co-guest of honor with me, it was amazing. I could barely speak, since I had never previously read any of my erotica out loud before in my LIFE and I was dying. But, it was funny kind of dying, and once things got read (including his AMAZING Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner smut) also weirdly HOT. Ever since then, I've been mostly on my own, which, I'm sorry to say, isn't as funny... part of it is that a solo act feels much more... well, masterbatory, if you know what I mean. BUT even with someone helping like Naomi, it was much better. She read a Goofus/Gallant piece she wrote that was fairly chaste, and, listening to it, I thought, this is good, but the audience is going to want something really, really, RREALLY smutty after this, so I dug through my Bleach soap opera and read the single smuttiest thing I have ever written in my life. For those in the know, it was the humbler scene. For those who don't know, here is the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876685 (if you're serious about reading this and are not a longtime reader of my never-ending Byakuya/Renji soap opera, do what I did at the reading, which is just start after the second break, marked with a hashtag, and start reading with the negotiations.) 

Then today was the Chuck Tingle, Tingleverse RPG game. I think that one probably needs a blog journal all of its own because it was smutty enough that it might all need to be under the cut.