#concomics
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digitalmemoriez · 9 months ago
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untitled ꩜ gekkOtaku (2009)
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culturacosplay · 1 year ago
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i-am-vita · 1 year ago
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(I tried to post this last night but the app hates me. I don't know if that post got lost in the void and will reapear one of this days but just in case here it goes again).
So I went to the ConComics in Guadalajara. The tickets for the meet with Steve J. Ward were sold out for weeks and I was resigned to just see him hugging people from afar. I was NOT prepared for seeing him appeared on stage just at the end of the One Piece cosplay catwalk and give a live Q&A!!! He appeared just right there in front of me D:
Please ignore my histeric and undignified sounds.
For the photo with the cosplayers, he sat right in front of my friend cosplayed as Nami. All the other were trying to be as close to him as posible and she fought for staying in her place and succeeded. We're waiting for the official photos to be released.
For the Q&A he interacted with the public, was super fun and sweet. The AMOUNT of giggles and girls who lost it when he gave them the microphone for questions. Like 2 or 3 times, a girl got all asdsadsafd and wasn't capable of speak and he was all cute just smiling them and sitting at the stage with his hands on his face like "go on, you can do it".
I GOT TO ASK A QUESTION!
Thank god I did not lost it. I was sure I was going to forget english like some aquaintances who got to meet him for photo who were just capable to smile and nod like crazy when he asked them if they wanted a hug XDDDD
But I put it together and asked him which future scene from the anime he was eager to film. I'm pretty sure it was poorly structured but he got it and said he want to film the scenes of Mihawk and Perona because they're so different.
Sorry, I in fact did not have the guts to send him greetings from Tumblr XD And sorry if I don't have many videos or photos. I can't hold a phone and pay attention at the same time.
BTW the last Mihawk cosplayer was incredible!!! He even had an unsheathable cross knife!!!
.
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kyuqtq · 2 years ago
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Capprico of Nature, Caprice of Man
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Relationships: Tango & Bdubs, Tango & Zedaph, Tango & Keralis, Tango & Bdubs & Keralis
Tags: Apocalypse AU, Sea Monsters, Season 8 Groups
Summary: In a world long flooded, humanity has learned to survive on floating cityships. One such vessel is Big Eyes, crewed by Tango, Bdubs, and Keralis, and life is… hard. But hey, at least they have each other. 
How long can they really keep it up, though?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
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barricadescon · 4 months ago
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Thank you to everyone who made BarricadesCon 2024 a success! Whether you joined as an attendee, volunteered your time to moderate, or worked hard all year on a presentation or panel, your hard work and dedication is what drives our beloved BarricadesCon!
With that being said, we would like to announce we will be taking a gap year in 2025 to prepare for BarricadesCon 2026. 
We believe a one year break is the best way to take initiative in building up the con while also giving our ConCom some well-deserved rest and transition time.
This will also give time for potential panelists to develop meaningful research, to have time to start more long-term creative projects, and perhaps most importantly, to not feel rushed in doing so.
We would like to take this year to continue our work in boosting engagement, continue developing meaningful programming, and bringing those interested on board our Concom. If this is you, please consider joining our planning server here.
Questions? Ideas? Ask in our planning server! We can’t wait to see you all for BarricadesCon 2026!
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philon-awards · 5 months ago
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PHILON AWARDS 2024: Nominations are open!!
After last year's successful relaunch of this beautiful celebration of fannish creativity, KiScon is honoured to once again host the Philon Awards. Established by Jenna Sinclair and Shelley Butler in 1997, they originally were an annual event organised by The K/S Press to honour outstanding authors and artists in K/S fandom. With the permission and support of Jenna and Shelley, KiScon is happy to continue this tradition.
There are 8 categories:
Short fic (word count under 10K)
Long fic (word count 10K-50K)
Novella/novel (word count over 50K)
Podfic
Traditional Art
Digital Art
Poetry
Zines
For each category the voters will determine a Gold (first place) and a Silver (second place) winner.
Rules
Nominating and Voting:
Nominations are open until 31 August, 2024. Each fan can nominate up to 3 works per category, but you cannot nominate the same work twice.
For a work to make it onto the voting ballot, it needs at least 3 nominations. Before we add it to the ballot, we will get in touch with the creator to ask whether they are fine with this!
Voting is open from 10 September to 27 October, 2024.
The winners will be announced during KiScon 2024. Each winner will receive a certificate and a small prize.
Nominating and voting both take place via Google Forms, and you need to be logged in in order to submit the form; this ensures that people do not nominate or vote multiple times for the same work. If we suspect sockpuppet activity, we will get in touch for clarification. We keep the nomination and voting process completely confidential! Only the KiScon concom will see the submitted forms.
While *we* won't talk about who nominated what, *you* can still discuss your faves and promote them, if you feel comfortable doing so. Making fellow fans aware of great works and sharing why you love and want to nominate them, is encouraged.
You can submit the nominations form only once, but you can edit your responses if you need to add or change something (just follow the link in the email you receive after submitting the form). Please make sure to include every fanwork you want to see on the shortlist. You cannot edit your responses after nominations have closed.
To answer a question we received last year: yes, you can nominate (and vote for) your own work(s). We won't judge you. ;-)
Fanworks:
The work must focus on the pairing Kirk/Spock or Kirk & Spock. Slash (romantic and/or sexual relationship) and gen (friendship) are equally eligible. If a fic includes Kirk and/or Spock in relationships with other characters, be they canonical or original, this does not disqualify the work for the Philon Awards, as long as the focus is clearly on Kirk and Spock's relationship.
Art must feature Kirk or Spock or both of them; additional characters in the artwork are allowed, but no depiction of Kirk/Other or Spock/Other.
All universes are welcome: TOS (series and movies), TAS, and reboot, Discovery and Strange New Worlds. AUs and mirror universe are equally allowed. Crossovers between different Trek franchises or between Trek and other media are permitted, as long as Kirk and Spock are the work’s main characters.
RPF works (e.g. Shatnoy) are not eligible.
All ratings and genres are allowed. If a work among your nominations includes strong elements that would merit a warning on the AO3 (e.g. rape, major character death etc.), we'd appreciate a heads-up on the nominations form, so that we can make sure to include the warning on the shortlist.
The work must be complete. It can be part of a series, but the work itself must not be a WIP (missing chapters or a draft/unfinished sketch).
The work must have been created and published (print or online) after last year's nomination period. So everything from 1 September 2023 onwards until the end of the current nomination phase (31 August 2024) is eligible. Reprints or uploads of earlier works (e.g. a fic you wrote and published a few years ago and uploaded to the AO3 only recently) cannot take part in this contest. If a multi-chapter fic was started earlier, but the date of completion falls within the eligible range, then it can also be nominated.
For podfic the creation/publication date of the actual podfic counts, not of the written fic that inspired it.
AI-generated fic is NOT allowed.
Traditional art means that it was hand-drawn or hand-painted; scanning or photographing the finished work in order to publish it online is allowed, of course.
With digital art, we mean art that was created by a fan artist directly on a tablet or computer, or art that started out as hand-drawn and underwent significant digital alterations in the next steps. We do NOT allow AI-generated art! Manips based on still images or photos of the actors are not eligible in this contest.
Zines: Both e-zines and print zines published between 1 September 2023 and 31 August 2024 are eligible.
Last but not least: these awards are meant to be fun and a celebration of the K/S fandom. The shortlist will double as lovely rec list! We get to talk about our faves and let the creators know that we love their works.
You can fill in the nominations form embedded on the KiScon website, or (if your device does not display it properly) you can find it directly at this link.
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ichi--go · 1 year ago
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☾ For the IchiRuki Archive ☀ -> "Propuesta de Matrimonio Ichiruki (Bleach) en concurso de Cosplay Concomics Music" by Superchivagdl. Two cosplayers at an event acted out the iconic Fade to Black fight scene between Ichigo & Rukia, with a surprise proposal included at the end. ♡ Upload date October 17, 2009.
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cicaklah · 3 months ago
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Hi, I'm on the concom for KiScon (a K/S convention) and we present awards (for K/S fic, art, and podcasts) called the Philon Awards, which are announced during the convention. I'm very pleased to let you know that your wonderful story “The yeomen of the garden (and laundry)” was nominated for a Philon award in the Long Fic category. We are contacting everyone nominated to get their permission to be on the shortlist for voting. So please let me know if this is OK! (And congratulations!)
Absolutely, thank you so much!
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bunbunlittleone · 1 year ago
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Beguiled was a whole lot of fun!! Thank you to all the lovely people I chatted with, the fabulous folks who came to classes, the stellar copresenters and collaborators, the incredible concom and volunteers, and everyone else who made the event great. I had a ton of fun dressing up this year, please vote for your favorite look! (thanks to @misscammiedawn for inspiration!!!)
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charmedhypno · 2 months ago
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Charmed! 2025 Covid Policy Update
Charmed! 2025 Covid-19 Policy
Charmed! is committed to hosting the safest event we possibly can as the world continues to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of this, the Convention Committee (“ConCom”) will continue to require up to date Covid vaccinations as well as masking for our attendees, staff, and volunteers at Charmed! 2025.
In addition, hand sanitizer stations will be available throughout Convention Space (“Con Space”) and our Dungeon Monitors (“DMs”) will be extremely proactive in reminding people to clean their equipment - if you need help please ask and it will be provided!
Please read the following policies carefully! They contain several important dates and deadlines – ignorance of these policies will not result in any exemptions.
Vaccination Policy
The newest Covid-19 vaccine update has been evaluated and released for use in the United States to people aged 6 months and older for Fall 2024. People can get the vaccination if it has been at least 2 months since their last vaccination for Covid-19. People who have not previously been vaccinated for Covid-19 are considered “up to date” with their vaccinations after receiving this single dose.
This vaccine update is free under most insurance plans in the United States (including Medicaid and Medicare), but is no longer offered for free by the United States government.
Free vaccinations may be available on a state-by-state basis; so check whether or not your state has a free adult vaccination program if you require a free option. People based in the United States can search for their local Health Department here: https://www.naccho.org/membership/lhd-directory
People who have been diagnosed with Covid-19 may wait 3 months before getting the updated vaccine.
In order to attend Charmed! 2025 in-person you must be up to date with your Covid vaccination: a person who is “up to date” with their vaccinations beginning September, 2024 is a person who has received the latest updated vaccine, released in September, 2024.
Vaccinations typically take around two weeks to reach full efficacy; therefore for the purposes of Charmed! 2025 vaccinations will be considered valid if they are received by or before Monday, January 6th, 2025.
In-person attendees of Charmed! 2025 will be required to show proof of “up to date” vaccination received in good time – that is, they must show proof that they have received the Fall 2024 vaccine update by or before January 6th, 2025. Proof may be in the form of one of the following: official paper vaccine card, electronic vaccine card, photocopy or digital representation of official vaccine card, website listing your name/vaccination date, dated email for an applicable vaccination appointment, a photograph of some part of the vaccination process (eg. the vial of serum), or other applicable media. If you are unsure that your form of proof will be valid, please contact us before arriving at the event. Proof of vaccination will be verified at badge pick-up.
You can contact us using one of the following ways: Email us at: [email protected] Contact us through Charmed! social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CharmedHypno Fetlife: https://fetlife.com/groups/121240?sp=1 Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/charmedhypno Bluesky: https://charmedhypnocon.bsky.social/ Discord: DM @Noelle - I have answers!
People who are unable to get the updated Covid-19 vaccine for a three month period ending with the final day of Charmed! 2025 (January 26th, 2025) due to a previous Covid-19 infection will be considered “up to date” for the purposes of in-person attendance. Please contact ConCom if you become Covid-positive within this window.
IMPORTANT: if you have a Covid-19 infection that results in you being able to get the updated vaccine within the two week time period before Charmed! 2025 begins – that is, January 8th through January 22nd – you will not be considered “up to date” with your vaccination and will be ineligible to attend Charmed! 2025 in person.
PLEASE NOTE: the three month waiting period is a CDC recommendation and it may be possible for people to get the updated vaccine within that time period.
In-person attendees at Charmed! 2025 will be required to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test taken within 48 hours of badge pick-up, (over-the-counter test is okay), in picture form in order to pick up their badge. Please do not bring a physical test with you to badge pick up - a picture on your phone is sufficient.
Mask Policy
In-person attendees at Charmed! 2025 will be required to wear well-fitting, high quality masks, such as N95s, KN95s, and FFP2s (or equivalent) at all times while in official convention space. This includes both the private convention area and Con Suite, as well as semi-public areas such as registration and the hallway outside of the upstairs classrooms.
If you are unable to acquire an N95 or similar mask, then pleated surgical masks are acceptable as a last resort.
Examples of unacceptable masks include: bandanas, gaiters, and scarfs.
Presenters and demo-bottoms may choose to remain unmasked only while actively presenting.
There are no mask exceptions for evening social events and dungeon play.
Masks may be raised, but not removed, in order to sip water and/or eat small snacks in Convention Space as needed.
A small number of masks may be available via Convention Operations for people who need them; however, we cannot guarantee this so please do your best to procure your own.
Testing Policy
In 2024, we did not require that attendees test daily but did highly recommend that they do so. For 2025, we are again highly recommending that people test daily before entering convention space. Over the counter tests are excellent at detecting a viral load in someone who is contagious, and are currently the best way for people to determine if they need to isolate themselves.
Convention Operations may have a small number of tests available for people who need them; please do not count on this and do your best to procure your own.
Policy Exemptions
Residents of countries that do not offer updated Covid-19 vaccines to the general population may be considered exempt from the requirement to be up-to-date by United States standards as long as they have received and can show confirmation that they received the primary course of vaccinations; that is, the original shot plus the two follow up shots.
We ask that people in non-U.S. countries who are eligible to receive updated vaccines continue to do so.
Attendees who are offered exemptions to the 2025 Covid-19 policy will be required to test daily while in attendance in person at Charmed! 2025 and to send verification of their negative test result to a member of ConCom before they are allowed entrance into official con space.
Failure to follow this policy may result in that person’s badge being pulled and them no longer being able to attend Charmed! 2025 in person.
We will continue to assess the status of attendees with possible medical exemptions on a case by case basis. If you are affected by this policy, please contact us as soon as you can via email at [email protected] or dm Noelle_8033 on Discord.
There are no exemptions to the masking policy.
Covid Infections & Isolation Policy
Attendees, including all staff members, volunteers, presenters, etc, will be required to report and self-isolate if they test positive for Covid-19 while attending Charmed! 2025.
For the purposes of Charmed! 2025, an attendee who is “self-isolating” will remain in their private room as much as possible and will not enter any shared hotel spaces with convention members, including but not limited to: official Convention Spaces (areas past our security check points), shared convention spaces (eg. the badge pick up area, the hallway outside of upstairs classrooms), and the Charmed! 2025 Consuite (the enclosed room outside of regular Con space that is across from the public fireplace seating area.)
ConCom reserves the right to expand this list during the Convention in order to accommodate the number of in-person attendees present at Charmed! 2025.
Out of an abundance of caution, an initial positive test result will be taken as confirmation of infection, regardless of subsequent testing.
**The identity of anyone that contracts Covid-19 while at Charmed! 2025 will be kept anonymous unless otherwise unavoidable, unless that person wishes to share their identity.
Failure to report and self-isolate will result in the infected attendee’s badge being pulled and potentially a ban from Charmed! in the future.**
Reporting & Contact Tracing Policy
Anyone becoming positive for Covid-19 while attending Charmed! 2025 will be required to report and self-isolate. They will need to identify to ConCom classes/areas where they have been, including private spaces, and ConCom will inform the attendee population that they may have been exposed to Covid-19.
**The identity of anyone that contracts Covid-19 while at Charmed! 2025 will be kept anonymous unless otherwise unavoidable, unless that person wishes to share their identity.
Failure to report and self-isolate will result in the infected attendee’s badge being pulled and potentially a ban from Charmed! in the future.**
Charmed! 2025 is committed to providing as safe an environment as possible for our attendees. This may mean that our vaccination/mask requirements are stronger/stricter than those of other events or organizations. We understand that this can be frustrating, and we appreciate your adherence to these policies that are for the benefit of every attendee at Charmed! 2025.
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cookiemom6067 · 3 months ago
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Hi, I'm on the concom for the KiScon convention, and I'm very pleased to let you know that 2 of your wonderful podfics were nominated for Philon awards in the Podfic category: “milk and honey (written by spaceisgay)” and “The 1,000 Hour Sleep (written by spqr).”
We are contacting all the nominees to get their permission to be on the shortlist for voting. So please let me know if this is OK! (And congratulations!)
Thank you - I'm honored.
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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years ago
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What the fediverse (does/n't) solve
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No matter how benevolent a dictatorship is, it’s still a dictatorship, and subject to the dictator’s whims. We must demand that the owners and leaders of tech platforms be fair and good — but we must also be prepared for them to fail at this, sometimes catastrophically.
That is, even if you trust Tim Cook to decide what apps you are and aren’t allowed to install — including whether you are allowed to install apps that block Apple’s own extensive, nonconsensual, continuous commercial surveillance of its customers — you should also be prepared for Cook to get hit by a bus and replaced by some alt-right dingleberry.
What happens next is a matter of technology and law. It’s a matter of whether you have to give up your media and your apps and your data to escape the no-longer-benevolent dictatorship. It depends on whether the technology is designed to let you move those things, and whether the law protects you from tech companies, or whether it protects tech companies from *you, by criminalizing jailbreaking, reverse engineering, scraping, etc.
As thorny as this is, it’s even harder when we’re talking about social media, because it’s social. Sociability adds a new and pernicious switching cost, when we hold each other hostage because we can’t agree on when/whether to go, and if we do, where to go next. When the management of your community goes septic, it can be hard to leave, because you have to leave behind the people who matter to you if you do.
We’ve all been there: do you quit your writers’ circle because one guy is being a jerk? Do you stop going to a con because the concom tolerates a predator? Do you stop going to family Thanksgiving because your racist Facebook uncle keeps trying to pick a fight with you? Do you accompany your friends to dinner at a restaurant whose owners are major donors to politicians who want to deport you?
This collective action problem makes calamity of so long life. At the outer extreme, you have the families who stay put even as their governments slide into tyranny, risking imprisonment or even death, because they can’t bear to be parted from one another, and they all have different views of how bad the situation really is:
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/12/the-oppermanns-book-holocaust-nazi-fascism/672505/
The corporate person is a selfish narcissist, a paperclip-maximizing artificial lifeform forever questing after its own advantage. It is an abuser. Like all abusers, it is keenly attuned to any social dynamic that it can use to manipulate its victims, and so social media is highly prized by these immortal colony-organisms.
You can visit all manner of abuses upon a social network and it will remain intact, glued together by the interpersonal bonds of its constituent members. Like a kidnapper who takes your family hostage, abusers weaponize our love of one another and use it to make us do things that are contrary to our own interests.
In “Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media,” Cat Valente is characteristically brilliant about this subject. It is one of the best essays you’ll read this month:
https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start
Valente is on the leading edge of creators who were born digital — whose social life was always online, and whose writing career grew out of that social life. In 2009, she posted her debut novel, “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making” to the web for free. Two years, and many awards, later, Macmillan brought it out in hardcover:
https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/10/valentes-girl-who-circumnavigated-fairyland-sweet-fairytale-shot-through-with-salty-tears-magic/
“Stop Talking to Each Other” is a memoir wrapped around a trenchant, take-no-prisoners critique of all the robber-barons who’ve made us prisoners to one another and fashioned whips out of our own affection for one another and the small pleasures we give each other.
It begins with Valente’s girlhood in the early 1990s, where Prodigy formed a lifeline for her lonely, isolated existence. Valente — a precocious writer — made penpals with other Prodigy users, including older adults who assumed they were talking to a young adult. These relationships expanded her world, uplifting and enriching her.
Then, one day, she spotted a story about Prodigy in her dad’s newspaper: “PRODIGY SAYS: STOP TALKING TO EACH OTHER AND START BUYING THINGS.” The headline floored her. Even if Valente wanted to buy the weird grab-bag of crap for sale at Prodigy in 1991, she was a 12 year old and had no way to send internet money to Prodigy. Also, she had no money of any sort.
For her, the revelation that the owners of Prodigy would take away “this one solitary place where I felt like I mattered” if she “didn’t figure out how to buy things from the screen” was shocking and frightening. It was also true. Prodigy went away, and took with it all those human connections a young Cat Valente relied on.
This set the pattern for every online community that followed: “Stop talking to each other and start buying things. Stop providing content for free and start paying us for the privilege. Stop shining sunlight on horrors and start advocating for more of them. Stop making communities and start weaponizing misinformation to benefit your betters.”
Or, more trenchantly: “Stop benefitting from the internet, it’s not for you to enjoy, it’s for us to use to extract money from you. Stop finding beauty and connection in the world, loneliness is more profitable and easier to control. Stop being human. A mindless bot who makes regular purchases is all that’s really needed.”
Valente traces this pathology through multiple successive generations of online community, lingering on Livejournal, whose large community of Russian dissidents attracted Russian state-affiliated investors who scooped up the community and then began turning the screws on it, transforming it into a surveillance and control system for terrorizing the mutual hostages of the Russian opposition.
Valente and her friends on the service were collateral damage in the deliberate enshittification of LJ, band the Russian dissidents had it worse than they did, but it was still a painful experience. LJ was home to innumerable creators who “grew audiences through connections and meta-connections you already trusted.”
Most importantly, the poisoning of LJ formed a template, for how to “[take] apart a minor but culturally influential community and develop techniques to do it again, more efficiently, more quickly, with less attention.”
It’s a template that has been perfected by the alt-right, by the Sad Puppies and the Gamergaters and their successor movements. These trolls aren’t motivated by the same profit-seeking sociopathy of the corporate person, but they are symbiotic with it.
Valente lays out the corporate community’s lifecycle:
Be excited about the internet, make a website!
Discover that users are uninterested in your storefront, add social features.
Add loss-leaders to “let users make their own reasons to use the site” (chat, blogs, messaging, etc), and moderate them “to make non-monster humans feel safe expressing themselves and feel nice about site.”
The site works, and people “[use] free tools to connect with each other and learn and not be lonely and maybe even make a name for themselves sometimes.”
The owners demand that users “stop talking and start buying things.”
Users grow disillusioned with a site whose sociability is an afterthought to the revenue-generation that is supposed to extract all surplus value from the community they themselves created.
The owners get angry, insult users, blanket the site with ads, fire moderators, stoke controversy that creates “engagement” for the ads. They sell user data. They purge marginalized community that advertisers don’t like. They raise capital, put the community features behind a paywall, and focus so hard on extraction that they miss the oncoming trends.
“Everyone is mad.”
“Sell the people you brought together on purpose to large corporation, trash billionaire, or despotic government entity who hates that the site’s community used those connective tools to do a revolution.”
The people who “invested their time, heart, labor, love, businesses and relationships” are scattered to the winds. Corporate shareholders don’t care.
Years later, the true story of how the site disintegrated under commercial pressures comes out. No one cares.
The people who cashed out by smashing the community that created their asset are now wealthy, and they spend that wealth on “weird right-wing shit…because right-wing shit says no taxes and new money hates taxes.”
This pattern recurs on innumerable platforms. Valente’s partial list includes “Prodigy, Geocities, collegeclub.com, MySpace, Friendster, Livejournal, Tumblr,” and, of course, Twitter.
Twitter, though, is different. First, it is the largest and most structurally important platform to be enshittified. Second, because it was enshittified so much more quickly than the smaller platforms that preceded it.
But third, and most importantly, because Twitter’s enshittification is not solely about profit. Whereas the normal course of a platform’s decline involves a symbiosis between corporate extraction and trollish cruelty, the enshittification of Twitter is being driven by an owner who is both a sociopathic helmsan for a corporate extraction machine and a malignant, vicious narcissist.
Valente describes Musk’s non-commercial imperatives: “the yawning, salivating need to control and hurt. To express power not by what you can give, but by what you can take away…[the] viral solipsism that cannot bear the presence of anything other than its own undifferentiated self, propagating not by convincing or seduction or debate, but by the eradication of any other option.”
Not every platform has been degraded this way. Valente singles out Diaryland, whose owner, Andrew, has never sold out his community of millions of users, not in all the years since he created it in 1999, when he was a Canadian kid who “just like[d] making little things.” Andrew charges you $2/month to keep the lights on.
https://diaryland.com/
Valente is right to lionize Diaryland and Andrew. In fact, she’s right about everything in this essay. Or, nearly everything. “Almost,” because at the end, she says, “the minute the jackals arrive is the same minute we put down the first new chairs in the next oasis.”
That’s where I think she goes wrong. Or at least, is incomplete. Because the story of the web’s early diversity and its focus on its users and their communities isn’t just about a natural cycle whereby our communities became commodities to be tormented to ruination and sold off for parts.
The early web’s strength was in its interoperability. The early web wasn’t just a successor to Prodigy, AOL and other walled gardens — it was a fundamental transformation. The early web was made up of thousands of small firms, hobbyists, and user groups that all used the same standard protocols, which let them set up their own little corners of the internet — but also connected those communities through semi-permeable membranes that joined everything, but not in every way.
The early web let anything link to anything, but not always, which meant that you could leave a community but still keep tabs on it (say, by subscribing to the RSS feeds of the people who stayed behind), but it also meant that individuals and communities could also shield themselves from bad actors.
The right of exit and the freedom of reach (the principle that anyone can talk to anyone who wants to talk to them) are both key to technological self-determination. They are both imperfect and incomplete, but together, they are stronger, and form a powerful check on both greed and cruelty-based predation:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/#let-my-tweeters-go
Small wonder that, from the beginning, the internet has been a fight between those who want to build a commons and those who wish to enclose it. Remember when we were all angry that the web was disappearing into Flash, the unlinkable proprietary blobs that you couldn’t ad-block or mute or even pause unless they gave you permission?
Remember when Microsoft tried, over and over again, to enclose the internet, first as a dial-up service, then as a series of garbage Windows-based Flash-alikes. Remember Blackbird?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbird_(online_platform)
But standard protocols exert powerful network effects on corporations. When everyone is adhering to a standard, when everything can talk to everything else, then it’s hard to lure users into a walled garden. Microsoft coerced users into it by striking bargains with buyers at large companies to force its products on all their employees, and then by breaking compatibility with rival products, which made it hard for those employees to use another vendor’s products in their personal lives. Not being able to access your company email or edit your company documents on your personal device is a powerful incentive to use the same product your company uses.
Apple, meanwhile, seduced users into its walled garden, promising that it would keep them safe and that everything would just work, and then using its power over those customers to gouge them on dongles and parts and repair and apps.
Both companies — like all corporations — are ferocious rent-seekers, but both eventually capitulated to the internet — bundling TCP and, eventually, browsers with their OSes. They never quit trying to enclose the web, via proprietary browser extensions and dirty tricks (Microsoft) or mobile lock-in and dirty tricks (Apple). But for many years, the web was a truly open platform.
The enclosure of online communities can’t be understood without also understanding the policy choices that led to the enclosure of tech more broadly. The decision to stop enforcing antitrust law (especially GWB’s decision not to appeal in the Microsoft antitrust case) let the underlying platforms grow without limits, by buying any serious rival, or by starving it out of existence by selling competing products below cost, cross-subidizing them with rents extracted from their other monopoly lines.
These same policies let a few new corporate enclosers enter the arena, like Google, which is virtually incapable of making a successful product in-house, but which was able to buy others’ successes and cement its web dominance: mobile, video, server management, ad-tech, etc.
These firms provide the substrate for community abusers: apps, operating systems and browser “standards” that can’t be legally reverse-engineered, and lobbying that strengthens and expands those “Felony Contempt of Business Model” policies:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership
Without these laws and technologies, corporations wouldn’t be able to block freedom of exit and freedom of reach. These laws and technologies let these corporations demand that the state obliterate anyone who gives users the tools to set their own terms for the communities they built.
These are the laws and technologies that transform network effects from a tool for openness — where even the largest, most vicious corporations must seek to pervert, rather than ignore, standards — into a tool for enclosure, where we are all under mounting pressure to move inside a walled garden.
This digital feudalism is cloaked in the language of care and safety. The owners of these walled gardens insist that they are benevolent patriarchs who have built fortresses to defend us from external threats, but inevitably they are revealed as warlords who have built prisons to keep us from escaping from them:
https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/
Which brings me to the Fediverse. The Fediverse’s foundation is a standard called ActivityPub, which was designed by weirdos who wanted to make a durably open, interoperable substrate that could support nearly any application. This was something that large corporations were both uninterested in building and which they arrogantly dismissed as a pipe dream. This means that Activitypub is actually as good as its architects could make it, free from boobytraps laid by scheming monopolists.
The best-known Fediverse application is Mastodon, which has experienced explosive growth from people who found Musk’s twin imperatives to cruelty and extraction sufficiently alarming that they have taken their leave of Twitter and the people they cared about there. This is not an easy decision, and Musk is bent on making it harder by sabotaging ex-Twitter users’ ability to find one another elsewhere. He wants the experience of leaving Twitter to be like the final scene of Fiddler On the Roof, where the villagers of Anatevka are torn from one another forever:
https://doctorow.medium.com/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms-9fc550fe5abf
With Mastodon’s newfound fame comes new scrutiny, and a renewed debate over the benefits and drawbacks of decentralized, federated systems. For example, there’s an ongoing discussion about the role of quote-tweeting, which Mastodon’s core devs have eschewed as conducive to antisocial dunks, but which some parts of Black Twitter describe as key to a healthy discourse:
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2022/12/21/Mastodon-Ethics
But quote tweeting wasn’t initially a part of Twitter. Instead, users kludged it, pasting in text and URLs for others’ tweets to make it work. Eventually, Twitter saw the utility of quote-tweeting and adopted it, making it an official feature.
There is a possibility that Mastodon’s core devs will do the same, adding quote-tweet to the core codebase for Mastodon. But if they don’t, the story isn’t over. Because Mastodon is free software, and because it is built on an open standard, anyone can add this feature to their Mastodon instance. You can do this yourself, or you can hire someone else to do it for you.
Now, not everyone has money or coding skills — but also, not everyone has the social clout to convince a monolithic, for-profit corporation to re-engineer its services to better suit their needs. And while there is a lot of overlap between “people who can code,” and “people who can afford to pay coders” and “people whom a tech company listens to,” these are not the same population.
In other words: Twitter is a place where you get quote-tweeting if the corporation decides you need it, and Mastodon is a place where you get quote-tweeting if the core devs decide you need it, or if you have the skills or resources to add it yourself.
What’s more, if Mastodon’s core devs decide to take away a feature you like, you and your friends can stand up your own Mastodon server that retains that feature. This is harder than using someone else’s server — but it’s way, way easier than convincing Twitter it was wrong to take away the thing you loved.
The perils of running your own Mastodon server have also become a hot topic of debate. To hear the critics warn of it, anyone who runs a server that’s open to the public is painting a huge target on their back and will shortly be buried under civil litigation and angry phone-calls from the FBI.
This is: Just. Not. True. The US actually has pretty good laws limiting intermediary liability (that is, the responsibility you bear for what your users do). You know all that stuff about how CDA230 is “a giveaway to Big Tech?” That’s only true if the internet consists solely of Big Tech companies. However, if you decide to spend $5/month hosting a Mastodon instance for you and your community, that same law protects you.
Indeed, while running a server that’s open to the public does involve some risk, most of that risk can be contained by engaging in a relatively small, relatively easy set of legal compliance practices, which EFF’s Corynne McSherry lays out in this very easy-to-grasp explainer:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/12/user-generated-content-and-fediverse-legal-primer
Finally, there’s the ongoing debate over whether Mastodon can (and should) replace Twitter. This week on the Canadaland Short Cuts podcast, Jesse Brown neatly summarized (and supported, alas) the incorrect idea that using Mastodon was no different from using Gab or Parler or Post.
https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/843-god-save-the-tweets/
This is very, very wrong. The thing is, even if you like and trust the people who run Gab or Parler or Post, you face exactly the same risk you face with Twitter or Facebook: that the leadership will change, or have a change of heart, and begin to enshittify your community there. When they do, your only remedy will be the one that Valente describes, to scatter to the winds and try and reform your community somewhere else.
But that’s not true of the Fediverse. On Mastodon, you can export all your followers, and all the people who follow you, with two clicks. Then you can create an account on another server and again, with just two clicks, you can import those follows and followers and be back up and running, your community intact, without being under the thumb of the server manager who decided to sell your community down the river (you can also export the posts you made).
https://codingitwrong.com/2022/10/10/migrating-a-mastodon-account.html
Now, it’s also true that a particularly vindictive Mastodon server owner could summarily kick you off the server without giving you a chance to export your data. Doing so would arguably run afoul of the GDPR and state laws like the CCPA.
Strengthening these privacy laws would actually improve user rights — unlike abolishing CDA 230, which would simultaneously make the corporate owners of big services more trigger-happy when it comes to censoring content from marginalized groups, and make it all but impossible for those groups to safely run their own servers to decamp to when this happens.
Letting people set up their own communities, responsible to one another, is the tonic for Valente’s despair that the cycle of corporate predation and enshittification is eternal, and that people who care for one another and their communities are doomed to be evicted again and again and again and again.
And *federating these communities — creating semi-permeable membranes between them, blocking the servers for people who would destroy you, welcoming messages from the like-minded, and taking intermediate steps for uneasy allies — answers Brown’s concern that Twitter is the only way we can have “one big conversation.”
This “one conversation” point is part of Brown’s category error in conflating federated media with standalone alternatives to Twitter like Post. Federated media is one big conversation, but smeared out, without the weak signal amplification of algorithms that substitute the speech of the people you’ve asked to hear from with people who’ve paid to intrude on your conversation, or whom the algorithm has decided to insert in it.
Federation is an attractive compromise for people like Valente, who are justly angry at and exhausted by the endless cycle of “entrepreneurs” building value off of a community’s labor and then extracting that value and leaving the community as a dried-out husk.
It’s also a promising development for antitrust advocates like me, who are suspicious of corporate power overall. But federation should also please small-government libertarian types. Even if you think the only job of the state is to enforce contracts, you still need a state that is large and powerful enough to actually fulfill that role. The state can’t hold a corporation to its promises if it is dwarfed by that corporation — the bigger the companies, the bigger the state has to be to keep them honest.
The stakes are high. As Valente writes, the digital communities that flourished online, only to be eradicated by cruelty and extraction, were wonderful oases of care and passion. As she says, “Love things. Love people. Love the small and the weird and the new.”
“Be each other’s pen pals. Talk. Share. Welcome. Care. And just keep moving. Stay nimble. Maybe we have to roll the internet back a little and go back to blogs and decentralized groups and techy fiddling and real-life conventions and idealists with servers in their closets.”
“Protect the vulnerable. Make little things. Wear electric blue eyeshadow. Take a picture of your breakfast. Overthink Twin Peaks. Get angry. Do revolutions. Find out what Buffy character you are. Don’t get cynical. Don’t lose joy. Be us. Because us is what keeps the light on when the night comes closing in.”
Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg
CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
Heisenberg Media (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk_-_The_Summit_2013.jpg
CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
[Moses confronting the Pharaoh, demanding that he release the Hebrews. Pharaoh's face has been replaced with Elon Musk's. Moses holds a Twitter logo in his outstretched hand. Moses's head has been replaced with the head of Tusky, the Mastodon mascot. The faces embossed in the columns of Pharaoh's audience hall have been replaced with the menacing red eye of HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The wall over Pharaoh's head has been replaced with a Matrix 'code waterfall' effect.]
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kiscon · 3 months ago
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Cosplay Contest:
It's time to polish those Starfleet boots and bust out the turquoise eye shadow – our traditional KiScon cosplay contest wants you to join! As it behooves a hybrid con, our cosplay fun will also combine the in-person and online parts of the con. If you are an in-person attendee, show off your amazing cosplay live at the Saturday night (2 Nov) banquet! If you are an online attendee, you can either show off your cosplay live via Zoom (mind the time zone! con time = Seattle!) or by posting pics or videos of your cosplay in the #cosplay-competition channel on our KiScord (only visible to con attendees). We will include you in our cosplay parade by showing your pics/videos on the big screen. Rules for the competition:
One entry per person; this is especially important for everyone who joins us online. Don’t post pics in the channel of five different cosplays you made, but focus on one. If you were at the con in-person, you could only wear one costume at a time too. Feel free to show up in various cosplays all throughout the weekend, but for the competition only one will count.
Your cosplay can be sewn by yourself, tailor-made, or bought – the important point is how you transform into the character of your choice. It must be a costume of sorts; Trek T-shirts do not count for this competition. (But we love to see them during other panels.) 
TOS costumes were never prude, but please steer clear of excess nudity at the con; we do not want to make attendees uncomfortable. (When in doubt, please ask the concom first: [email protected]
If you post pics or videos of your cosplay instead of presenting it live on Zoom, please only submit recent pics ( = from the year 2024). While we all love the Horta costume or Spock's space suit you wore to a con in 2010, it would not be eligible for the competition in 2024. 
We will determine the winners (1st, 2nd, and 3rd place) at the end of the Saturday night session via poll. Non-competitive cosplay is also heartily encouraged all weekend long, both in-person and online. :-)
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vex-verlain · 5 months ago
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Escapade Online 34.5 will take place next weekend (July 13th and 14th, 2024)! If you enjoy fandom and slash, please consider registering for this online slash convention! (Registration is $20; here's the expected programming.)
Online cons are so important to those of us who are disabled or otherwise unable to travel. I had been participating in fandom for over 20 years before I attended my first virtual convention in 2021. Though I realize the importance of in-person conventions, I hope online conventions are here to stay—especially since the two can peacefully co-exist!
More information about Escapade can be found below the cut.
Escapade is a fan-run convention for slash fans that has been taking place in person for more than 30 years, with fans meeting in hotels up and down the southern and central Californian coast. Since 2021, there has been at least some virtual component of the con, allowing fans from all over the world to attend. In addition to the traditional in-person convention, Escapade's concom hopes to also have a mid-year online con going forward, but in order to do that they need people to attend!
There are currently three panel tracks: fandom-specific, meta/general, and tech/workshop/alternative.
Fandom-specific panels focus on a particular canon. Some of the fandoms represented at last year's online convention were D&D: Honor Among Thieves, Interview with the Vampire, Kinnporsche, MCU, The Old Guard, Our Flag Means Death, The Professionals (1977), Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System, Star Trek, Ted Lasso, Teen Wolf, Transformers, and The Untamed.
Meta/general panels cross fandom lines or focus on fans and fandom. "Bechdel Variations," "How to Keep Your Fandom Alive & Vibrant," and "The Writers’ Strike and Fandom" are a few of the meta/general panels from last year's online convention.
Tech/workshop/alternative panels are more instructive (vidding, fan/web integration, writing, etc.) or don't quite fit into the other two categories. "Accessibility in Fandom," "Fanfic Book Binding," and "Manage Your Ebooks with Calibre" are a few of the tech/workshop/alternative panels from last year's online convention.
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kyuqtq · 2 years ago
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CONCOM Chapter 5
Biting the Hand That Feeds
Relationships: Tango & Bdubs, Tango & Zedaph, Tango & Keralis, Tango & Bdubs & Keralis
Tags: Apocalypse AU, Sea Monsters, Season 8 Groups
Summary: In a world long flooded, humanity has learned to survive on floating cityships. One such vessel is Big Eyes, crewed by Tango, Bdubs, and Keralis, and life is… hard. But at least they have each other.
Chapter Summary: Something is wrong.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/45502690/chapters/116340103
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barricadescon · 5 months ago
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Barricades 2024 Final Schedule!
The time is near! Barricades 2024 is happening THIS WEEKEND, July 12-14 , all online!
We have the final schedule available on the website at barricadescon.com or right here, on this post! A more detailed schedule including descriptions is available in text under the Keep Reading break!
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BarricadesCon 2024 Program
A full programming schedule of all the panels, their content, their presenters, their times, and whether they will be recorded. 
All times are in UTC, and can be converted to your local time zone at this link.
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Key to types of Panels:
Convention Administration panels: Panels run by the Con Committee, to open and end the convention.
Guest of Honor: Special panels from our guests of honor. This year, our guests of honor are Jean Baptiste Hugo, a descendant of Victor Hugo who will discuss his project photograph his ancestor’s house; Christina Soontornvat, the author of the award-winning Les Mis retelling “A Wish in the Dark;” and Luciano Muriel, playwright of the 2018 musical play “Grantaire.” 
Fan/Academic Panel Presentations: Panels on history, fandom, or analysis of Les Mis. Scholars will share historical research, fans will share hobby projects, and the audience may get an opportunity to ask questions. 
Social Meetups: Casual unstructured time to meet up over video call and chat!
Social Games: Games and activities.
Friday, June 12th
Discord Server Opens: Friday Morning UTC
Read through the rules, explore the channels, and chat with other congoers.
Welcome Session 
Friday, 17:00-17:30 UTC
Session Type: Convention Administration
Presented by: Convention Committee 
Recorded: No
In this session, Concom 2024 will kick off BarricadesCon 2024 and welcome everyone. Concom will also walk everyone through some basic information and FAQs to help ensure a fun and interesting con for everyone.
The Cats of Les Misérables
Friday, 17:30-18:00 UTC 
Session Type: Social Meetup
Presented by: Melannen
Recorded: No
A laid-back social panel to meet your fellow attendees, share pictures of your pets (or have them join you in the panel!) and chat about pets and Les Mis fandom generally.
(Guest of Honor) From Paris to Bangkok: a Thai-inspired retelling of Les Misérables
Friday, 18:00-19:00 UTC
Session Type: Guest of Honor
Presented by: Christina Soontornvat
Recorded: Yes
Christina Soontornvat’s Newbery Honor-winning children’s novel, A Wish in the Dark, is a Les Misérables adaptation set in a magical Thai-inspired world. Christina will discuss the inspiration for the book, how she decided when to be faithful to the original, and how Hugo’s powerful themes of compassion and forgiveness resonate across age ranges and cultures.
Learn more about Christina’s work at soontornvat.com.
The Yellow Passport: Surveillance and Control in 19th Century France 
Friday, 19:00- 20:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: David Montgomery, creator of the Siecle History Podcast
Recorded: Yes
Les Misérables takes place in a France of police spies, intercepted mail, travel restrictions and other elements of a 19th Century police state. What exactly were these ways French governments surveilled and controlled their citizens? How did they work? And how did people get around them? 
Meetup: Fan Creators
Friday, 19:00-20:00 UTC
Session Type: Social Meetup
Presented by: Eli
Recorded: No
Come meet fellow fan creators! Casual unstructured time to chat with other fans. A good place for people who spend a lot of time on Ao3.
Break 
20:00-21:00 UTC
Early Transformative Works: The First Les Miserables Fanart, Fanfics, and AUS
Friday, 21:00-22:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: Psalm
Recorded: Yes
This presentation will give you an overview of the earliest works inspired by Les Misérables – including illustrations, comics, poems, pamphlets, and novels. Which ones will stand the test of time? And what can these works tell us about the book’s reception and impact? Come learn about the forgotten, but fascinating first transformative works about Les Misérables.
Black and Pink International
Friday, 21:00-22:00 UTC
Session Type: Panel Presentation
Presented by: Darryl Brown Jr. (he/him), Senior Director of Programs and Advocacy, Black and Pink National. Kenna Barnes (she/they), Advocacy Manager, Black and Pink National
Recorded: Yes
This year, Barricades Con is donating all profits to Black and Pink International.
Black & Pink National is a prison abolitionist organization dedicated to abolishing the criminal punishment system and liberating LGBTQIA2S+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS who are affected by that system through advocacy, support, and organizing. Programming includes wrap-around services for those coming out of the carceral system such as but not limited to workforce development, transitional housing, newsletters to inside members and penpal matching, nationwide Chapters, youth-led research about young people living with HIV, and programming for and by people who do sex work.
Sex work as an issue sits clearly at the intersection of reproductive justice, prison abolition, and trans and queer liberation. Black trans women who engage in sex work face some of the highest rates of policing and surveillance, directly interfering with their ability to access safety and autonomy. We know that when we center the needs of Black trans women, especially those who engage in sex work, we are inherently able to address the needs of other system-impacted people along the way.
The Sex Worker Liberation Project (SWLP) is a collaboration between Black and Pink National and a network of current and former LGBTQIA2S+ people who do sex work across the country. This sex worker led group moves with the intention of building community, providing resources, and cultivating self advocacy tools.The SWLP is on a mission to tackle the urgent and multifaceted issues confronting sex workers, with a specific emphasis on the challenges faced by Black and Brown LGBTQIA2S+ sex workers.
Meetup: Brick Readers 
Friday, 22:00-23:00 UTC 
Session Type: Social Meetup
Presented by: Mellow
Recorded: No
Come meet up and hang out with your fellow Brick readers! Let’s talk about weird nonsense from the book. 
Beat by Beat: a Les Mis 2012 Deconstruction
Friday, 22:00-23:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: Eli
Recorded: Yes
To quote Eli: “As an avid Les Mis fan and also someone with an MFA in screenwriting, I find the script for the Les Mis 2012 movie absolutely fascinating. The choices they made, the added brick scenes, the added song, the pacing, the dialogue, the shots selection—all of it contributes to a very interesting adaptation that our fandom owes a huge debt of gratitude to (whether we like it or not 🥲). I would like to take an audience through the 9 major beats of a screenplay, apply it to Les Mis 2012, and share my thoughts on what the filmmakers did right for this adaptation and what they did wrong. I’ll compare it to the Les Mis musical (the direct source material) as well as the Brick (the secondary source material) for insight on the choices they made!”
History Researcher Meetup
Friday, 23:00-24:00 UTC
Session Type: Social Meetup
Presented by: David Montgomery
Recorded: No
A chance for history researchers to meet up and discuss their research!
Atonement: A Theatrical Piece for One Actor, Based on Segments from Hugo’s Les Miserables
Friday, 23:00-24:00 UTC
Session Type: Panel Presentation
Presented by: Alexiel de Ravenswood
Recorded: Yes
This theatrical piece is a dramatic adaptation of scenes from Book 1 of the novel, focusing on the Bishop of Digne. Following the piece, actor Alexiel de Ravenswood will engage in q&a on the creative process and the themes explored.
Saturday, June 13th
Guest of Honor: The Photography of Jean Baptiste Hugo
Saturday, 15:00-16:00 UTC
Session Type: Guest of Honor
Presented by: Jean Baptiste  Hugo
Recorded: yes
Jean Baptiste Hugo is the great-great-grandson of Victor Hugo. He has extensively photographed Hugo’s home in exile on Guernsey, which Victor Hugo decorated following his own aesthetic philosophies–in particular, the journey from darkness into light, which we see reflected throughout Hugo’s literary career. M. Hugo will share his photographs and discuss Hauteville House as a physical realization of his ancestor’s ideas.
Reflecting on Directing Les Mis
Saturday, 16:00-17:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: Cait
Recorded: yes
In Cait’s words: “I directed an amateur production of Les Mis at the end of last year, and would love to talk about how that went and share snippets from the show and behind the scenes. This will include talking about adapting Les Mis for the space and budget, approaches to certain scenes, dual casting lead roles, and probably raving about my lovely cast.”
The Fallibility of History in Les Misérables 
Saturday, 16:00-17:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: Syrup 
Recorded: yes
Throughout Les Misérables, Hugo often reminds readers that what they are reading is derived from some form of documentation or hearsay. While this serves to provide credibility to the tales he is sharing, there are certain moments where Hugo opts out of describing exact details, despite his efforts at a historically-accurate record. In this panel, I will take a look at these instances where Hugo either addresses or obfuscates these events, and how by doing so, he reveals the fallibility of history, and highlights how history documentations are not always as reliable as they seem. Thesis: By crafting Les Misérables as a form of historical documentation, Hugo reveals the fallibility of history, and readers are able to understand how history and history documentation are not always as reliable as they seem.
Break  
Saturday, 17:00-18:00 UTC
What Horizon: Tragedies, Time Loops, and the Hopefulness of Les Amis
Saturday, 18:00-18:30  UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: Percy
Recorded: yes
In Percy’s words: “I have directed a staged reading of the play and will have video clips to show! My play is focused on the rebellion and Les Amis; it aims to give the barricades the attention they often lack in adaptation and develop the individual characters of the insurgents. I’m working to make this episode of the Hugo novel and its historical context accessible to audience members who may not be familiar with the source material, while hopefully also bringing something new to the story for longtime fans.
One aspect of the story I’m particularly interested in examining is the persistent sense of hope associated with the barricades, despite the insurgents’ eventual defeat and the previous failure of the July Revolution. Linking the seemingly cyclical process of revolution and restoration, the metatheatrical tradition of tragedies aware of their own repetition in performance before the audience, and the nature of Les Misérables itself as a story that has been told and retold countless times, I hope to show the audience the worth of the insurgents’ struggle and the importance of their continued efforts. Many adaptations construe the rebellion as futile or as solely a tragic story, so I would like my adaptation to counter that idea, as Les Amis grapple with the meaning of their sacrifice and the impacts of their actions.
In a presentation, I would discuss these ideas with reference to Hugo’s original text and the ways in which the rebellion has been changed in adaptation, as well as other works that inspired me (namely Hadestown and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead). I’d discuss the choices I made in my adaptation process and show clips from the staged reading, touching on the different characters and the historical setting as well as the overarching themes with which I engaged.”
Cosette: A Novel, The (Fanmade) Sequel to Les Misérables
Saturday, 18:30-19:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: IMiserabili
Recorded: yes
This presentation is  a deep-dive into the 1995 fanfiction “Cosette” by Laura Kalpakian. It will include a short background on the author and the publication, a summary of the plot, an analysis of represented historical events in the work, character analyses and comparisons to the source material and other Les Mis adaptations, and memorable quotes. 
Musical Eponine and Grantaire in song and lyric edits: Personal research on their development
Saturday, 18:00-19:00 UTC
Session Type: Panel Presentation
Presented by: Ruth Kenyon
Recorded: yes
In Ruth’s words: “I’m an older musical Les Misérables fan who has watched the show develop from its beginnings at the Palace Theatre. I have a special interest in how the lyrics and the characters have changed over time. As plenty of people know now, I am also writing a book on the musical using these experiences. I’m working on Eponine’s chapter at the moment, and while I know fans have a lot of love for as she is now, I feel quite upset to see what happened to her as she was developed from the original French version of the musical. She seems to have lost quite a lot of emotional agency along the way. Grantaire has also changed over time; he was cut before the previews and there was a big re-write of his character when the show went to Broadway, but I really like what they have done with his character. I’ll provide examples of all this detail with material from my book and (trying) to sing bits of lyrics to explain what has happened to the characters.”
Barricades as a Tactic: How Do They Work?
Saturday, 19:00-20:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: Lem
Recorded: No
This session will explore the tactical and strategic uses of barricades, with an eye towards what to consider when writing both canon-era fanfiction and modern AUs. After all, the strategic goals towards which the barricades were used in canon-era urban warfare were often quite different from the strategic goals of similar-looking tactics in contemporary protest movements. Core components of the session will be a map-based analysis of July 1830, a comparison with June 1832 highlighting strategic goals and considerations canon-era characters would have, and an exploration of various parallels among contemporary protest tactics (which may or may not *look* like barricades).
Meetup: Musical Fans
Saturday, 19:00-20:00 UTC
Session Type: Social Meetup
Presented by: Erin
Recorded: No
A casual place to meet up with other fans and discuss the musical!
Break
Saturday, 20:00-21:00 UTC
Why is There a Roller Coaster in Les Mis? The Strange History of the Russian Mountains
Saturday, 21:00-22:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: Peyton Parker/Mellow
Recorded: Yes
In Les Miserables there is an actual canon scene where Fantine rides a roller coaster. How did a roller coaster end up in Paris in 1817? And why did this ride, one of the world's first wheeled Roller Coasters, make a cameo in Victor Hugo’s novel?
It’s “Les Mis Meets Defunctland.”
We’re going talk about the earliest origins of the Russian Mountains, the fascinating history behind how they came to France, their many connections to the political turmoil of the time period, what they felt like to ride, why they were shut down, how they fell into obscurity, and why Victor Hugo included them in Les Miserables. It’s time for a roller coaster digression.
Fanfic Round Robin
Saturday, 22:00-23:00 UTC
Session Type: Social Game
Presented by: Featheraly
Recorded: No
Participate in a round robin to help write a fic together!
Obscure(-ish) Les Mis Adaptations To Watch
Saturday, 23:00-23:30 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: Pureanon
Recorded: Yes
Les Mis has been adapted many times over the years, and this means there’s a lot of adaptations to enjoy. Because of this, a lot of adaptations are underviewed or underappreciated. I’d like to use this panel to discuss some of my favorites/the most unique — 1925, 1948, 1967, and 1995. These are all very different, and aside from all being ones I enjoy, they’re fascinating looks at how different countries and different time periods adapt this story. 
The adaptations I’ve chosen are both some of the best and some of the worst out there, but they’re all unique. 1925 is one of the most faithful adaptations out there, and it uses the medium of silent film to full effect. 1948 has Valean get shot at multiple times in the opening minutes, and the revolutionaries fight with BARRELS in the barricade. 1967 is half one of the best Anglophone Les Mis adaptations ever, and half the drunkest. 1995 is more of an adaptation of how people react to Les Mis as a story than a straightforward adaptation, and it’s one of the most beautiful and unique versions out there. I intend to show a clip from each adaptation, so people can get a little taste of what each adaptation is like.
Recovery: a Fanfic Live Read
Saturday, 22:30-23:00
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: Eli, Barri
Recorded: Yes
A full cast will live read a Les Mis fanfic written specifically for the con.
Compared to Some People Grantaire is Doing Just Fine (No, Really)
Saturday: 22:00-23:00
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: Ellen Fremedon, Pilferingapples
Recorded: Yes
Grantaire and Marius are the two characters on the fringes of the Friends of the ABC, connected to the group by social ties rather than sincere political belief. In this panel, Pilf and Ellen will discuss the two characters as narrative foils, touching along the way on the problem with Great Men, bourgeois inaction, what it means to have the republic as a mother, and dying for love–plus those two pistols in Marius’s pocket.
Preliminary Gaities
23:00-24:00 UTC
Session Type: Social Game
Presented by: Rare, Percy, and ShitpostingFromTheBarricade
Recorded: No
Preliminary Gayeties is the chapter where Grantaire gets drunk with Joly and Bossuet before the barricades.  It is perfect for a drinking game. 
In keeping with personal tradition, Rare, Percy, and ShitpostingFromTheBarricade will bring you a second year of our dramatic reading of the “Preliminary Gayeties” chapter of the brick. all while following specified drinking game rules (including classics such as “drink for brick quotes that appear commonly in fanfiction,” “pretentious classical references,” and “drink/eat when characters drink/eat”), and enjoying snacks mentioned in the chapter as they are mentioned. Everyone is invited to participate by reading, eating, and drinking along with this activity!
Sunday, June 14th
Publishing, Podcasting, and Promotion
Saturday, 15:00-16:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: David Mongomery, Alexiel de Ravenswood, Nemo Martin
Recorded: Yes
Whether it’s fanart, Tiktok videos or deep historical analysis, lots of us have THOUGHTS about Les Mis we’d like to share with the world. This panel discussion features creators sharing their advice on how to share your work with the world in a range of mediums.
Femme/butch: Dynamics of Gender and Attraction in Les Mis
Saturday, 15:00-15:30 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: Eléna
Recorded: Yes
In Eléna’s words: “This is a presentation about parallels between femme/butch dynamics and les mis! The focus is on Marius, Cosette and Eponine and their individual gender presentation and attraction. There will be a focus on the original text, but I will also talk about headcanons & representation in the fandom space! I’m a femme myself, but I’ll try to incorporate butch and transmasculine viewpoints!”
Lee’s Misérables: Jean Valjean, Confederate Hero
Saturday, 15:30-16:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Panel Presentation
Presented by: Sarah C. Maza
Recorded: Yes
Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables (1862) was as big a success in the United States as elsewhere in the world upon publication, hailed throughout the young nation as the commanding masterpiece of modern French literature. Why would a novel that celebrates violent insurrection and radical republican ideals be so warmly received in America? One of the (many) answers to that question is that the novel appeared in the midst of the Civil War, and that it provided engrossing reading to the many soldiers stuck in place for weeks or months in camp, hospitals, and prisons. Most surprising, though, is the evidence of Les Misérables’ appeal to Confederate soldiers (who jokingly called themselves “Lee’s Misérables”), as Hugo was on record as an ardent abolitionist. My paper will illustrate and explain the paradoxical appeal of Hugo’s novel in the South in two contexts: first, I will draw attention to the ways in which Confederate nationalists likened their cause to the European Revolutions of 1848; and second, I will explain the novel’s resonance within what Wolfgang Schievelbusch has called the “culture of defeat,” the emotional resonance, in some historical contexts, of narratives of doomed causes and heroic failure.
Guest of Honor: Luciano Muriel, playwright of “Grantaire”
Sunday, 16:00-17:00 UTC 
Session Type: Guest of Honor
Presented by: Luciano Muriel
Recorded: Yes
Panel about the details of the creative process behind the show Grantaire, from the discovery of the character during the playwright’s first reading of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables to the opening night of the staging at the Teatro Pradillo of Madrid. Why Grantaire? Why a dramatic monologue? Why include Amaral songs? What did the awards and subventions entail? All the answers to these and many other questions.
Break
Sunday, 17:00-18:00 UTC
1848 in Chile: The Society of Equality and the Siege of La Serena
Sunday, 18:00-19:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academc Presentation
Presented by: Duncan Riley
Recorded: Yes
While the Revolutions of 1848 are traditionally seen as a European event, they had a powerful influence in Latin America. In Chile in particular, university students who studied in France during the revolutions would lead a movement to oust the conservative dictatorship that had ruled the country since the 1830s. Inspired by the poetry of Alphonse de Lamartine and the ideals of utopian socialism, a group of Chilean intellectuals and artisans founded “The Society of Equality,” a cross-class political club dedicated to creating a democratic and participatory republic. Inspired by these ideals, in 1851 the citizens of La Serena, a mining town in northern Chile, declared their independence from the central government. Members of the Society of Equality transformed La Serena into the torchbearer of their vision of a new “democratic republic” that would restore civil liberties and grant greater autonomy to Chile’s provinces and municipalities. In defense of these principles, La Serena endured a months-long siege by government forces. The conflict inscribed itself within broader international dynamics of revolution and empire, as the British Royal Navy Intervened on the side of the government, while French immigrants built barricades to defend La Serena from invasion. Ultimately, then, La Serena and the Chilean Revolution of 1851 provide a fascinating window into the transatlantic exchanges of ideas that drove movements of democratic reform in both Europe and Latin America during the Revolutions of 1848.
The Unknown Light Examined
Sunday, 18:00-19:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Presentation
Presented by: Madeleine
Recorded: Yes
In the tenth chapter of Les Misérables, Bishop Myriel sets out to perform the last rights of Conventionnel G, a man reviled by all of Digne for having served on the body that voted to execute the king during the French Revolution. The bishop and the dying man debate the nature of equality, divine authority, and resistance to oppression. G’s fierce defense of the French revolution and Myriel’s staunch condemnation of political violence represent diametrically opposed philosophies, but the two men have more in common than first appears. They are both men of faith, in their own way, called to serve by their profound love for humanity. Intensely shaken by this realization, the bishop kneels before the dying sinner and asks his blessing.
What does this role reversal signify? How do Myriel and G’s conceptualizations of God and morality compare, and why does Hugo seek to reconcile them? To answer these questions, this panel investigates the thematic implications of this chapter. We’ll dissect the characters’ debate, discussing the historical and religious context that informs their moral frameworks—and Hugo’s depiction of them. Drawing on analysis by literary scholars, we’ll situate Hugo’s portrayal of the bishop and the conventionnel within this same context, evaluating the extent to which G is based on the Abbé Grégoire. We’ll also examine the impact of this chapter on Bishop Myriel’s characterization and symbolic role in the novel. Lastly, we’ll explore how “The Bishop in the Presence of an Unknown Light" serves as a political and philosophical thesis for Les Misérables.
Revolutionary Rants: “Les Misérables” Onstage from an International Perspective
Sunday, 20:00-21:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic Presentation
Presented by: Tessa, Anne, Kaja, Marie, Apollon
Recorded: Yes
What started out as an open call online to gather fans from around the world to rant about the musical version of Les Mis has turned into a group of musical fans from four countries getting together to discuss our different perspectives of various international productions of the show. Topics include our favorite cast albums, how our favorite character interactions are staged in various productions we follow (including Enjoltaire), our favorite actors from the different productions, and our favorite memorable moments from the show. And we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the major impact the 2012 movie had on us as well!
Paint & Sip
Sunday, 20:00-21:00 UTC
Session Type: Social Game
Presented by: Psalm, Potatosonnet
Recorded: No
A short presentation on the artwork of Victor Hugo, his medium and subject matter, followed by crafting time inspired by Hugo’s work.
Les Mis Letters: Building a Book Club
Sunday, 21:00-22:00 UTC
Session Type: Fan/Academic presentation
Presented by: Mellow, Eccentrichat
Recorded: Yes
There are 365 chapters in Les Miserables. Les Mis Letters is an email subscription that sends you one chapter of Les Mis daily for a year.
Rachel and Mellow have been running the “Dracula-Daily” inspired Les Mis readalong since 2023! Mellow will speak to the behind the scenes process of setting up a Substack and discord server, while other readers will speak to the experience of reading Les Mis for the first time in this format or the small projects they’ve put together while following along.
Les Mis Singalong
Sunday, 21:00-22:00 UTC
Session Type: Social Game
Presented by: Megan
Recorded: No
Let’s let loose by belting out our favorite Les Mis songs together! All singing abilities welcome and encouraged, it’s virtual after all 😀 It will be musical-heavy but we’ll be sure to throw in some other fan favorites!
Closing Session 
Sunday, 22:00-22:30 UTC
Session Type: Convention Administration
Presented by: Convention Committee
Recorded: No
Closing remarks by the convention committee, marking the official end of the convention.
Dead Dog
Sunday, 22:30-24:00
Session Type: Convention Administration
Presented by: Convention Committee
Recorded: No
 “Dead Dog” is a fandom slang term for a laidback “afterparty” that happens when a convention has officially ended. 
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