#and i genuinely find having to write tweet threads exhausting. if i break my thoughts up like that

[makersruin]

twitter is so funny for constantly getting into best media literacy matches on a site where youre not allowed to type more than 280 characters at a time. meanwhile i spent my limitless characters here on tumblr to post abt emet selch's erectile dysfunction

[unwoundbobbin]

Nine Worlds 2018 - Sunday & Homeward

This write up is bought to you by a pack of Nerds, so who the hell knows how coherent it will be by the end.

(Actual footage of me)

From Saturday!

Sunday:

Our Last Best Hope for Science Fiction: 25 Years of Babylon 5

A look at a ground breaking sci-fi series, celebrating a show we love and how it grew from a something set on a space station to something truly special.

(Two Centauri, a starfleet officer, and a Morden(?) walk in to a panel...)

This is the panel I missed the talk on Golems for, and much as I wanted to see the Golems, this was 100% worth the trade, because I’ve never met that many people who are in to B5 before, and it was a really funny and thought provoking panel with some beautiful moments in it, including the moments of silence when we remembered those from the Babylon 5 family who have gone beyond the rim.

There was also discussion of favourite moments from Babylon 5. Mine has to be this, from the Centauri’s final assault on the Narn Homeworld. Peter Jurasik’s acting is superb here, but I love that the writers and director made a place in that episode to show the flipping of Mollari when he realises what he’s done - how out of control and repelled he feels by what should be a moment of triumph. And the moment he starts to work his way back towards some sort of redemption.

I think my favourite quote of the whole thing was by the person cosplaying as Londo Mollari:

"Behold minbari Jesus - his name is Jeff" 

(This psycop lurked for the entire panel. It’s as perfectly creepy and wonderful as it sounds. When I mentioned that on twitter, it devolved in to a Babylon 5 pun war...)

When I came out of the B5 panel, the one person I’d seen with a brain slug had become a collective. And they continued to grow in number throughout Sunday. Props to the person who spent an entire year making brain slugs to give away to strangers at Nine Worlds.

(The frightening brain slug collective. They continued to multiply throughout the day. Possibly the creepiest cosplay of the weekend, just because they continued to multiply.)

History’s Hidden Heroes III

Following two years of back-to-back success, the ‘History's Hidden Heroes’ session returns to its original format of ten to fifteen minute mini-talks by individual presenters discussing their favourite figures lost - or pushed aside - from mainstream history. Introduction by EK McAlpine, with talks from Tara, Avery, and Reiley.

This session was run by EK, and the speakers were Avery Delany, Tara Brown, and Reiley Daniels who all spoke about people in history who were part of the LGBTQ community, including some who were trans (though not remembered that way), some who were gender non-conforming, some who were openly queer at a time when that was (more) dangerous than now.

Avery spoke about trans masculine people in history, including a pioneering doctor, James Barry (note - while that Wiki article generally avoids using any pronouns at all, there is a source from the time quoted that misgenders Barry, so be careful if that would cause you any distress).

My favourite quote from Avery was “Do some queer history“, but I also really appreciated something I didn’t get the exact words of, but amounted to the idea that someone wouldn’t live as a gender different to the one they were assigned at birth for over 50 years if they did not actually identify as that gender. I really wish I’d got the actual words, because that quote stuck with me as much as anything.

Tara Brown spoke about three women of colour who were pioneers in blues and jazz - and sexuality, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Gladys Bentley.

One of the most interesting, and awful, takeaways from this talk was the brief discussion about how there is some difference in the historical record as to the sexuality women presented, and that this is due to McCarthyism which basically forced at least Gladys Bentley to present herself as no longer a lesbian. It made me so cross to think of a person as comfortable in their sexuality as Bentley having to forcibly change themselves because of the massive risks that being out and proud served in the backwards looking 1950s America.

Reiley spoke about a quack physician called Charles Hamilton (misgendered practically everywhere on the internet), and the importance of checking multiple sources and subjecting them to due scrutiny.

If anyone enjoyed this panel is interested in other hidden heroes from sources that aim at diversity in who and what they talk about (and use content notices), I highly recommend @missedinhistory, Sawbones, and @rejectedprincesses.

The Future of Nine Worlds

It's time for a chat about Nine Worlds and where it's going. If you have strong thoughts about what you'd like to see the event become, and would like to get involved in making things happen, this is your in-person opportunity to talk about the options and understand how we got where we are.

Went to this, and I honestly don’t have a lot to say about it - not a lot a could say about it because I’m very much not the right person to speak about what happened in the majority of the session.

I will say that the announcement that Nine Worlds was re-constituting after this year’s con felt like a blow to the gut.

(This was an incredibly powerful moment, and to know that even though the current director is stepping back a future nineworlds is possible meant so very much.)

(Main point by what may turn out to be the future team was that Nine Worlds is too precious to lose)

CN for discussion of police at con, and a failure act appropriately to the stated concerns of a con-goer (and more concerned people who did not speak about it at the Future of Nine Worlds panel). When this section is over there will be a delightful gif of Wonder Woman deflecting bullets so scroll below her if you will find this section challenging.

What happened next is best summed up by Alecto101 in this post which I urge you all to read (also please read this followup thread by the same person). Her recollection of what happened at that panel is extremely accurate. I was there, and that is what happened. It was not dealt with adequately by anyone there in an official capacity. Most people who wanted to say something in follow up raised the fact that Alecto101 had not had her question and concerns adequately addressed, and when the people on the stage did so, it was in an inappropriate way that put the emotional and intellectual workload back on the person who had rightly raised legitimate concerns.

I have absolutely no patience with the people who immediately strawmanned (Oh, you don’t want police there at all - you can’t exclude attendees based on job) - I was there and at no point did Alecto101 suggest that.

What I’m trying to say is something EK said much more eloquently: “Concerns about how police participate in 9W and the separation of their jobs and their everyday lives as fans are ABSOLUTELY valid and not the same as “ban cops”.“

The developments since have been a little more positive, and I’m hoping that the reconstitution can be used as a way to build in representation of PoC from the beginning rather than trying to add on later. The way 9W works for members of the LGBTQ or disabled communities needs to be the way it works for the BaME community too, or it is not diverse (I’ve paraphrased here. I’m pretty sure I’ve just mangled the original quote. I can’t remember who said it but it wasn’t originally me).

For followup, I recommend reading Avery Delany’s thread here and this thread on the official Nine Worlds twitter account. This web page from Nine Worlds is also very important reading. If you have the physical, emotional, and mental spoons to do so, please consider signing up to be part of the future.

Finally, if you’re thinking about writing to Alecto, please first consider this tweet from the official Nine Worlds Team: “We do not want people to interact with the blogger on our behalf. We do not need defending. We do not want them pursued again for conversations they don’t want to continue. Their opinions are valid and we are glad to have heard them. “ and just DON’T.

After that I had more con crash, and tried to manage it myself in the quiet room, before worrying that my nose blowing was going to upset those who had sensory overload and needed genuine quiet, and ran away to my room where E wrapped me in a blanket and fed me biscuits until I was human again. She is awesome and I’m totally in her debt. (Thread here of what I struggled with wrt the quiet room - I am not saying it should go away BTW - I don’t know what the right answer is, just that I found it challenging for my own particular issues)

The end of the con was then barrelling towards me at a terrifying speed. I went off site for food with some friends, and then we all formed half of a team for the unofficial “The Not The End of the Con Quiz” as team Last Best Hope for Victory, and we only went and bloody won! Massive props to @knittedace and @laalratty who basically carried our team through two rounds pretty much on their own (even though one of our team who shall remain nameless nearly submitted “Aragorn” as the name of the giant spider in Harry Potter, which was caught before we submitted for marking, but they shall not live it down... for a while anyway :))

(Team Last Best Hope for Victory. Actual quiz victors!)

Went to bed at midnight after several rounds of Slash, which was really the perfect end to a great con (even if I did keep crashing).

(Me on my way home. I look pretty knackered there, but it doesn’t even touch how completely mentally (and to some extent physically) exhausted I was, and still am. Completely worth it though.)

I may have listened to this on the journey home and sobbed. Like I said on my Friday post, it’s somehow become the song of the con for me.