Terminus recap

[rm]

I will preface this by saying this post may be blunter than is considered politic in fandom. I will also preface this by saying I am really glad I went.

The Bad

- The sound mixing on the Wizard Rock was terrible. It was also too loud. I also don't know why the lights in the room couldn't have been dimmed. I only attended about 20 minutes of the concert for those reasons.

- Overall, I thought the programming was much weaker than it was at Phoenix Rising. There was less academic-quality work, fewer topics that interested me and more people who just weren't prepared. I heard this comment from many, many people and they were really angry about it. I was busy enough with my own work and Chicago that it didn't really affect me, but I go to these conference to have ideas and learn and discuss, and I did feel deprived of that in official contexts.

- Debating the narrative significance of Dumbledore's homosexuality is fine. So is debating the way JKR has handled the reveal and what this knowledge imparts to us about the wizarding world and JKR's worldview when rereading through this light. Unfortunately, I've heard from many sources about a panel I was admittedly not at, that the panel that should have addressed this was merely rather bigoted and homophobic instead. Did we learn nothing from the horrible Blaise Zabini drama? The disruption of your personal fantasy is not a justification to be boorish and hateful.

- The hotel layout was confusing and de-centralized the conference in a way that was a bummer.

- The opening banquet was just as bad as last year -- poor acoustics, loud audience and a lack of understanding about how to command a room.

- The conference, overall, felt shallower to me, largely because with a closed canon we've stopped trying to solve problems, both in JKR's mysteries and in ourselves through characters that now have their own full and complete stories which are in many cases not the ones the readers hoped for or resonated with.

- The conference also felt younger, which was largely a result of the people who were young teens and came on board with the books around the release of GoF now being legal adults and coming to their first con.

- Planning anything remotely spur of the moment with large groups at a con is not a great idea. We managed it pretty well, but I think everyone would have been less stressed if we'd been less inclined to attempt it. There is nothing wrong with being both alone and lonely at a con. They are good moments to have -- because amongst the squee and the fun and the friends, there are dark places inside ourselves that bring most of us here. Honor them. Truly.


The Good

- This was a delightfully queer conference. Not just with the lesbians like last year, but with queer men and women, a significant genderqueer and trans representation and people being incredibly gregarious and friendly. It was wonderful and felt mature and joyful and was incredibly refreshing.

- The ball was spectacular. The ballroom was beautiful, the DJ was decent, and I was very moved by a celebration we really did understand as the end of something.

- Great hotel location.

- Much better handling of the gluten-free issue.

- Much better check-in process.

- Spectacular roommate situation.

- The fireworks.

- The DW/TW peeps.

- Having a random person come up to me to compliment I Had No Idea I Had Been Traveling

- The Indian girl in a saree who ran up onto the balcony around the ballroom when this song that has a bhangra thing in it came on and started dancing traditionally. She was joyous and beautiful and very good. More importantly, everyone in that room stopped and cheered and then watched rapt. For a fandom that's had a lot of racial drama over the years, this was fucking beautiful.

- There truly was a lot of joy at the con this year, but it came from the place and the people and the moment in time far more than the con itself.

- No straight girls expressed their desire for me from a place of anger (this happened a lot last year and it was uncomfortable).

- People remembered me. And it was also great knowing I could always find people I already knew to spend time with if I needed to (the NYC contingent was huge, but I'm glad I went adjacently as opposed to in the midst of that).

- I had great audiences for my papers and panels. Not just in size, but in meaningful comments, helpful criticism, gracious compliments and just plain awesomeness.

- Jewel-Osco.


The Weird and Complex

- The "fangirl" situation. We need a better term for this, because I feel like what we mean when we say that derides both women and fans, and that is not my intention. As someone who does what I do and is also a fan, I probably have more discomfort and confusion about this issue than anyone. I'm not saying it's wrong to be moved to tears by meeting someone, but I do think if you are, you need to examine way. There are, actually, plenty of valid reasons for it, but there was a seemingly mindless Beatles-level hysteria directed at many programming participants (mostly wizard rockers), and I think it's probably uncomfortable for them and the rest of the fan. Certainly the following people around thing is. At the same time, the love is very moving. I don't know the answer to any of this, but I think it makes things complicated for everyone.

- I sat on a stage next to Melissa Anelli. I was the warm-up act. And it was perfectly fine. People were awesome and attentive and bought my books. She brought me an audience, so how could I possibly begrudge her the reception she got? It was very moving. However, wow. It's very hard to sit on a dais next to someone in the midst of that sort of reception especially when you've been giving presentations yourself from about 9am on. Because you have to look interested and neutral and it's extremely complicated. I think it was great practice for me for Dragon*Con and I think it also helped me understand a bit more about why SDCC would have really worn me down.

- Celiac disease. Still making me crazy. This time, I was felled by mustard. Also, I am starting to understand why people on the lj celiac community are so nuts. Despite Chicago being filled with chain restaurants with GF menus, even good grocery stores don't seem to carry many products and I felt like I had to explain more and ask more questions to waiters than would ever be necessary in New York.

- Can anyone from Chicago address for me the weird miscommunication I had in a deli when I asked for a hamburger and they thought I wanted ground pork? This also happened to me in Australia. I didn't expect it in America.

Comments

[demotu.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing that! Gender stereotypes... frustrates me to no end, though in my own life I've been privileged enough not to be burdened by it (in fairly academic circles - I was always grouped in with the other male students in terms of class participation and marks and whatnot), since while I have no problems with my body as female, I've always felt that my mind is pretty damn androgynous, maybe skewed towards the male side. Hence studying things like physics, I suppose.

Drag interests me personally, most, from the POV of how being perceived as male/female influences how people interact with you - I have friends who sort of sit at the visual boundary, and the stories they tell are fascinating. I'd love to see if I could pass for a man (well, boy, at this stage, esp. w.r.t. facial hair) and how that would affect both how I am perceived and how people perceive me.

That's good advice on the hips (and makes me think of how Jack stands)! Shoulders would be my, ah, strong point, since I have pretty broad ones (*mutters about the nuisiance that is buying shirts*).

[rm.livejournal.com]

In a club or other dark environment I can usually pass for a man in his early-20s now. The simple fact is that people see what they expect to see.

One of the freakiest recent discoveries is the way men who don't know each other interact when walking towards each other -- neither party will move out of the way! It's this constant, exhausting, aggressive act of trying to achieve dominance through playing chicken on the sidewalk. It's given me such profound sense of compassion for men (you have to do this? all the time? are you serious?), it's been really interesting. And it really, really helps inform my writing.

[demotu.livejournal.com]

I immediately quoted the second paragraph of that to my boyfriend, and he basically said "yep", and that generally, men will move out of the way of someone more intimidating than them. He's... reasonably intimidating (looks like a cop, basically) so he says he doesn't usually think about it, because others get out of his way, but if someone more intimidating than him comes up, then he notices, because he's the one who moves.

And wow, yes, does that ever sound exhausting. My system - and most women's, I think is the ten-second-oh-look-someone's-coming-which-way-will-we-move-how-can-this-work sort of dance. Which I suppose is exhausting in it's own way, but much less so, to be sure.

I think, interacting in spaces that, if they are gendered, are mostly academic and therefore not really representative of everyday life, I sometimes forget that there is a big difference between how men interact and how women do.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Right, so what happens to me, is a man seems me, in drag, and won't move out of the way because I'm not reading as female (manners!) and not taking up as much space as them (I'm narrow, and only 5'6"), and because I'm female, I'm used to a mutual decision or the man moving. And then when I clue in, my brain is all "fuck you, my balls are bigger" and _damn_ are they pissed when they have to move. It's sort of fun.

[demotu.livejournal.com]

Which probably reads as impossibly arrogant to them, a sort of "who the hell does he think he is?" because you're messing with accepted social order.

How wonderfully bizarre.