cosmic_llin (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cosmic_llin) wrote2013-08-12 01:51 pm
cosmic_llin) wrote2013-08-12 01:51 pm
Entry tags:
Nine Worlds Con Report
Had the most amazing weekend at Nine Worlds! Here's a rundown:
We arrived on Friday at around three (me,carawj and silly_cleo , and usuallyhats who arrived around the same time - our friend Kirstie came along on the Saturday and Sunday) and headed straight for all the tea and cakes we could get our hands on! I think it was in the Queer High Tea that we bumped into purplefringe, raven andhappydork , but we also visited the Big Geeky Feminist Drop-in and Tea and Consequences in the fanfic room. Right from the start it was a really great atmosphere - many of the content tracks were happening on the same long corridor, which was full of people in costume or geeky t-shirts bopping up and down, saying hi to their friends, complimenting each other's gorgeous cosplays and exchanging ideas about the upcoming programming.
The first actual panel I attended was Fandom 101: Nine Myths About Fanfic, which was funny, good-natured, and a good introduction to many of the themes of the fanfic track over the course of the weekend. Next I went tosuch_heights 's Fanvidding 101 panel, which was a total delight - there was a great balance between hearing about the origins and history of vidding, and getting to actually see the vids mentioned. Plus she played They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard as an example at one point, and shockingly something like half of the room had never seen it before! Interesting and eye-opening to see that what some people consider core fannish experiences aren't necessarily on other people's radars. It was a good reminder that there are as many different perspectives on fandom as there are fans, and that point was really driven home over the weekend as a whole.
We headed home early for various reasons, and arrived a bit before ten on Saturday. Our first port of call was Live Action Muggle Quidditch - I'd been expecting a demonstration rather than an opportunity to actually play, but I was semi-reluctantly roped in and ended up having a great time. My go at being the Seeker demonstrated that I'm really not fit enough to run around chasing things at the moment (especially with the added inconvenience of trying not to lose the grappler that was part of my Myka Bering costume) but I was a bit more successful as a Chaser and scored a few goals - memories of netball coming back to me. Anyway apparently London now has a community team - I can definitely think of worse ways to get some fresh air and exercise.
After that I headed to Hermione Granger: Feminist Icon? on the Harry Potter Academia track. This was a really excellent panel. Anna Llewellyn did a terrific job of moderating - she had a lot of good questions and ideas to bring up and she kept the conversation on track with skill. Although she clearly had a lot of really good points to make she was really happy to let the many fans in the room share their own thoughts and opinions, and it ended up being a really interesting and wide-ranging discussion.
The Problematic Issues in Fanfic panel that followed that had a hard act to follow, but still I think it could have been better. I think the panel initially meant to cover more ground, but discussion of racefail and fetishisation of m/m sex got a little out of hand. Although it was a general panel covering many issues, given some of the things on the agenda I think it would have been helpful to have more diversity on the panel. For instance, the panelists pointed out the existence of non-Western media fandom communities but didn't seem to take into account that fannish communities can overlap, and that members of those communities might be in the room. At times it did feel a bit 'us and them', as if the panel were assuming a certain default type of fan. Having said that, a lot of good points came up (from both the panel and the audience) and there were some moments of really interesting discussion.
Following that I headed to one of the funnest panels of the weekend - Disney Princess: making a cosplay princess dress on a budget. The presenter from Cosplay UK was friendly, funny and really good with the several small children in the audience (one of whom, incidentally, had an amazing Tiffany Aching cosplay). I learned absolutely loads and had tons of fun!
I'd been planning to attend the Mary/Sue: Writing Female Characters (original and canon) panel, but I was so hungry that I ended up skipping it to get a sandwich. I heard later that it was really good, but while it was going onpurplefringe and I hung out in the lobby discussing Robin Hobb and our cosplay bucket lists.
My next panel was Queer All the Things, which dealt with the role of fanworks as a way of representing marginalised sexualities and gender identities. I enjoyed it and I heard a lot of good ideas but I would have liked a more focused and in-depth discussion.
Teenage Kicks: Writing for Young Adult Audiences was an interesting panel with some cool ideas about what exactly makes YA what it is, what counts as YA, who it should be aimed at, what the content should be, and what we can learn from the phenomenal success of series like Twilight and The Hunger Games.
After that I caught some of Bifrost: the Nine Worlds Queer Cabaret and Disco. I saw Lashings of Ginger Beer Time perform, which is always awesome, and I loved the new song Kinky Androromantic Transmasculine Asexual. (Pretty sure I got that right...) The huge enthusiastic crowd and the positive reaction to Lashings was proof of just how big a crossover there is between queer and geek communities. Plus we got to sing along.
Sunday started with the Chicks Unravel Time panel, which was a definite highlight. There was a lot of love in the room for Doctor Who and for its female fans and contributors and everyone was enthusiastic and excited about the topic - it felt like talking to my friends about Doctor Who, but on a larger scale (to be fair it pretty much was...). I came out of it feeling really good and excited about the show, which I haven't really been in a while.
Following that was Putting the Fem in Slash: Queer Female Visibility in Fanfic. This was another one of my absolute favourite panels. It felt very welcoming, friendly and fun, but at the same time nobody - panelists or audience - seemed afraid to get into some meaty questions about just what the reasons are for the general lack of femslash and what we can do about it.
After that excellent panel I think Kinda Gay: LGBT Representation in Genre TV suffered a little in comparison - it was still really interesting and a lot of good points came up, but I felt sometimes we were dancing around the issues or digressing while people just listed their favourite queer TV characters (some of that was fun - it's always nice to hear about new shows I could be watching!) but there was a bit too much of it for me personally. Plus it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth when someone on the panel implied that since there was now a "canon asexual character" (inaccurate as far as I know) in Sherlock, representation of asexuality is no longer relevant.
I took a break then to flop exhaustedly in the lobby before heading to the Sarah Jane Adventures panel. I wasn't sure how interesting it would be but I was really pleasantly surprised. I learned some cool things I hadn't known about the show, and it was actually really nice to reminisce about a show and fandom I've been kind of shying away from recently because it makes me sad. It was a fun atmosphere and a nice note to end on as my final panel of the weekend.
Overall it was a terrific weekend, and although there were things I thought could have been better, there was nothing I outright hated or thought shouldn't have been in the con. I hope everyone else who attended felt as welcome and safe as I did.
Next year though I definitely plan to stay in or at least near the con hotel. We had an hour's journey back and forth and we ended up missing some really cool-sounding stuff that way. I'm already planning what costumes to make and what sort of things I want to see. Roll on August 2014!
We arrived on Friday at around three (me,
carawj and silly_cleo , and usuallyhats who arrived around the same time - our friend Kirstie came along on the Saturday and Sunday) and headed straight for all the tea and cakes we could get our hands on! I think it was in the Queer High Tea that we bumped into purplefringe, raven andhappydork , but we also visited the Big Geeky Feminist Drop-in and Tea and Consequences in the fanfic room. Right from the start it was a really great atmosphere - many of the content tracks were happening on the same long corridor, which was full of people in costume or geeky t-shirts bopping up and down, saying hi to their friends, complimenting each other's gorgeous cosplays and exchanging ideas about the upcoming programming.The first actual panel I attended was Fandom 101: Nine Myths About Fanfic, which was funny, good-natured, and a good introduction to many of the themes of the fanfic track over the course of the weekend. Next I went to
such_heights 's Fanvidding 101 panel, which was a total delight - there was a great balance between hearing about the origins and history of vidding, and getting to actually see the vids mentioned. Plus she played They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard as an example at one point, and shockingly something like half of the room had never seen it before! Interesting and eye-opening to see that what some people consider core fannish experiences aren't necessarily on other people's radars. It was a good reminder that there are as many different perspectives on fandom as there are fans, and that point was really driven home over the weekend as a whole. We headed home early for various reasons, and arrived a bit before ten on Saturday. Our first port of call was Live Action Muggle Quidditch - I'd been expecting a demonstration rather than an opportunity to actually play, but I was semi-reluctantly roped in and ended up having a great time. My go at being the Seeker demonstrated that I'm really not fit enough to run around chasing things at the moment (especially with the added inconvenience of trying not to lose the grappler that was part of my Myka Bering costume) but I was a bit more successful as a Chaser and scored a few goals - memories of netball coming back to me. Anyway apparently London now has a community team - I can definitely think of worse ways to get some fresh air and exercise.
After that I headed to Hermione Granger: Feminist Icon? on the Harry Potter Academia track. This was a really excellent panel. Anna Llewellyn did a terrific job of moderating - she had a lot of good questions and ideas to bring up and she kept the conversation on track with skill. Although she clearly had a lot of really good points to make she was really happy to let the many fans in the room share their own thoughts and opinions, and it ended up being a really interesting and wide-ranging discussion.
The Problematic Issues in Fanfic panel that followed that had a hard act to follow, but still I think it could have been better. I think the panel initially meant to cover more ground, but discussion of racefail and fetishisation of m/m sex got a little out of hand. Although it was a general panel covering many issues, given some of the things on the agenda I think it would have been helpful to have more diversity on the panel. For instance, the panelists pointed out the existence of non-Western media fandom communities but didn't seem to take into account that fannish communities can overlap, and that members of those communities might be in the room. At times it did feel a bit 'us and them', as if the panel were assuming a certain default type of fan. Having said that, a lot of good points came up (from both the panel and the audience) and there were some moments of really interesting discussion.
Following that I headed to one of the funnest panels of the weekend - Disney Princess: making a cosplay princess dress on a budget. The presenter from Cosplay UK was friendly, funny and really good with the several small children in the audience (one of whom, incidentally, had an amazing Tiffany Aching cosplay). I learned absolutely loads and had tons of fun!
I'd been planning to attend the Mary/Sue: Writing Female Characters (original and canon) panel, but I was so hungry that I ended up skipping it to get a sandwich. I heard later that it was really good, but while it was going on
purplefringe and I hung out in the lobby discussing Robin Hobb and our cosplay bucket lists.My next panel was Queer All the Things, which dealt with the role of fanworks as a way of representing marginalised sexualities and gender identities. I enjoyed it and I heard a lot of good ideas but I would have liked a more focused and in-depth discussion.
Teenage Kicks: Writing for Young Adult Audiences was an interesting panel with some cool ideas about what exactly makes YA what it is, what counts as YA, who it should be aimed at, what the content should be, and what we can learn from the phenomenal success of series like Twilight and The Hunger Games.
After that I caught some of Bifrost: the Nine Worlds Queer Cabaret and Disco. I saw Lashings of Ginger Beer Time perform, which is always awesome, and I loved the new song Kinky Androromantic Transmasculine Asexual. (Pretty sure I got that right...) The huge enthusiastic crowd and the positive reaction to Lashings was proof of just how big a crossover there is between queer and geek communities. Plus we got to sing along.
Sunday started with the Chicks Unravel Time panel, which was a definite highlight. There was a lot of love in the room for Doctor Who and for its female fans and contributors and everyone was enthusiastic and excited about the topic - it felt like talking to my friends about Doctor Who, but on a larger scale (to be fair it pretty much was...). I came out of it feeling really good and excited about the show, which I haven't really been in a while.
Following that was Putting the Fem in Slash: Queer Female Visibility in Fanfic. This was another one of my absolute favourite panels. It felt very welcoming, friendly and fun, but at the same time nobody - panelists or audience - seemed afraid to get into some meaty questions about just what the reasons are for the general lack of femslash and what we can do about it.
After that excellent panel I think Kinda Gay: LGBT Representation in Genre TV suffered a little in comparison - it was still really interesting and a lot of good points came up, but I felt sometimes we were dancing around the issues or digressing while people just listed their favourite queer TV characters (some of that was fun - it's always nice to hear about new shows I could be watching!) but there was a bit too much of it for me personally. Plus it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth when someone on the panel implied that since there was now a "canon asexual character" (inaccurate as far as I know) in Sherlock, representation of asexuality is no longer relevant.
I took a break then to flop exhaustedly in the lobby before heading to the Sarah Jane Adventures panel. I wasn't sure how interesting it would be but I was really pleasantly surprised. I learned some cool things I hadn't known about the show, and it was actually really nice to reminisce about a show and fandom I've been kind of shying away from recently because it makes me sad. It was a fun atmosphere and a nice note to end on as my final panel of the weekend.
Overall it was a terrific weekend, and although there were things I thought could have been better, there was nothing I outright hated or thought shouldn't have been in the con. I hope everyone else who attended felt as welcome and safe as I did.
Next year though I definitely plan to stay in or at least near the con hotel. We had an hour's journey back and forth and we ended up missing some really cool-sounding stuff that way. I'm already planning what costumes to make and what sort of things I want to see. Roll on August 2014!