#convention attendee

[rayrayrazorfang]

I FORGOT TO POST STUFF FOR METROCON OH MY GOD SORRYYYYYYYYY AAAAUUHHH OKAY i will. put these here and then run away quickly. sdjsdksldjskd.

[oifaaa]

Realising that my idea of what it means to be in a fandom might be a little skewed so help me out here what is your baseline qualification for being part of a fandom

[silverfoxstole]

Paul as Dr Jake Strathearn in Annika, Series Two Episode Four (2023).

[sukimas]

assigned male at tumblr for attending the thingamabob and doohickey convention

[graysongraysoff]

not to be a soft bitch but i truly did almost tear up at the all-staff meeting today when they told us there will be a sensory room at our big big show this year for anyone who needs a place to step away from the hustle and bustle for a bit, courtesy of our dei committee

i know i don't talk about having an autistic brother a lot but sensory accommodations always make me a little emo bc i had to watch my brother grow up with basically no sensory accommodations at all, especially not at big events like this, and it made a lot of experiences that should have been really fun for him needlessly stressful and upsetting, and it makes me so happy to see more awareness of and willingness to accommodate less like "obvious" disabilities and needs

[isfjmel-phleg]

If I did write more papers and it didn't matter what media I analyzed: potential topics

The Secret Garden is about healing from emotional neglect, not from grief/loss, and why this is important

Putting The Secret Garden and Marianne Dreams in conversation with each other (and maybe throw Tom's Midnight Garden in the mix too for good measure)

Tenthragon and what exactly is going on psychologically with this incredibly messed-up family

Archer's Goon and family dynamics

Diana Wynne Jones's pattern of stories about empowering exploited protagonists, and the one time she reverses this theme

Enemy Brothers and Avatar: The Last Airbender and intrapersonal moral conflicts of young people raised/brainwashed in toxic cultures

Military children and their equivalents in children's literature/media: themes of disconnection and looking for a home

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the concept of multiple intelligences

Multiple POVs as a literary device for building empathy, as exemplified in The Candymakers

Button-Bright from the Oz books is neurodivergent--but in what way and what is Baum saying with this creative choice

Young Justice 1998 and adolescence as a time of confronting mortality

Young Justice 1998 and exploited children/teenagers: purposes for this creative choice, implications, themes, etc. (which leads us into...)

DC's use of clone characters to explore themes of identity, individuality, and overcoming abuse (with varying degrees of success)

DC's treatment of sexually abused boys/men and its problematic implications

[aliitvodeson]

I find the Burning Man shit insane, because people on hear are saying "oh it's the super rich, it's luxury, they deserve to be miserable or die because it's all the billionaires out there"

Meanwhile the average ticket is $500 plus a vehicle fee of $150, and if you think $650 for a week stay at a place is "billionaire behaviour"..... I don't actually know how to talk to you, because it's really really not

[officialdashcon2024]

How old are you? Do you have any con planning experience?

Are you calling me a sussy baka? Smh my ballz can’t believe you don’t trust a stranger on the internet

[chimpukampu]

Last weekend Retro Gaming con was a BLAST!

It was my first time joining a very niche event, and my booth was kinda out of place coz it was so pinkish and girly, but never once I felt unwelcomed there! I was so overwhelmed by people liking my stuff especially when they learned that I made everything by hand 😭

I was even approached by a local toymaker and asked for an art collab 🥺

I felt like I was running my own poll of Who's the Most Popular Zelda characters 🤣

For those who are curious, TOTK Link won 1st place, followed by ALBW Zelda (she got an edge coz one buyer thought she was Sailor Moon lol). OOT Link and TP Link are fighting for 3rd place while TP Zelda falls on the 4th. I think if I made some WW and ALTTP characters, the ranking might end up differently lol

Next con will be in January and after that well, that depends if I get another invite or lead again 😆

[altruistic-meme]

every day i come to the conclusion that my sister is a Lot to deal with sometimes. and it sucks bc she's the family member im closest to but more and more lately she's just been... idk. obnoxious is the only word i can think of. and it's not even necessarily to or about me, it's just in general.

[rayrayrazorfang]

I CANT BELIEVE I FORGOT TO POST THESE PICTURES I CANT EVEN WITH MYSELF RIGHT NOW UGH BUT these are from NakaKon2024!!!!!!!!! im the nepeta, and if you are/know any of these people then TELL ME SO I CAN GIVE PROPER CREDZ!! loved every1 that i saw and i cant wait for MetroCon ^^

[laf-outloud]

"I'm still leaning towards the idea that it was Drake or his agent who set the pricing."

I agree. I wouldn't be surprised if Drake was even advised by a certain someone (*cough* Jensen *cough*) to demand the max possible amount of money he could. As you said hellers and AA's aren't smart with their spending habits so it makes sense. Still that's not going to save TW.

Also I think it's a smart idea for Walker and WIndy actors to charge less because more fans will be able to afford photo ops and autos with them? Maybe that's a deliberate move on their part?

It's possible he was advised by Jensen, but then, why wouldn't he have told JoJo the same thing? @walker-extended-universe posited that Creation possibly upped the cost because Drake is charging more for his appearances, which could also be likely.

I think the reason the Walkerverse actors are charging less (with the exception of Mitch who deserves to charge more based on his reputation and resume alone), is that they see conventions as a side-gig that puts a little extra money in their pocket, but it's not something they depend on to pay the bills. Whereas, with Drake... it's very possible he needs the income from the cons.

[girlinafairytale]

the sheer audacity to wear a rainbow bracelet and pretending to be an ally while being a genocide denier.

DNC attendees cover their ears as names of dead Palestinian children are read as they leave the convention.

Via left at London

[queenmochabun]

Parinath!

Posted using PostyBirb

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall Free

"The Food and Drug Administration approved new mRNA coronavirus vaccines Thursday [August 22, 2024], clearing the way for shots manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to start hitting pharmacy shelves and doctor’s offices within a week.

Health officials encourage annual vaccination against the coronavirus, similar to yearly flu shots. Everyone 6 months and older should receive a new vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends.

The FDA has yet to approve an updated vaccine from Novavax, which uses a more conventional vaccine development method but has faced financial challenges.

Our scientific understanding of coronavirus vaccines has evolved since they debuted in late 2020. Here’s what to know about the new vaccines.

Why are there new vaccines?

The coronavirus keeps evolving to overcome our immune defenses, and the shield offered by vaccines weakens over time. That’s why federal health officials want people to get an annual updated coronavirus vaccine designed to target the latest variants. They approve them for release in late summer or early fall to coincide with flu shots that Americans are already used to getting.

The underlying vaccine technology and manufacturing process are the same, but components change to account for how the virus morphs. The new vaccines target the KP.2 variant because most recent covid cases are caused by that strain or closely related ones...

Do the vaccines prevent infection?

You probably know by now that vaccinated people can still get covid. But the shots do offer some protection against infection, just not the kind of protection you get from highly effective vaccines for other diseases such as measles.

The 2023-2024 vaccine provided 54 percent increased protection against symptomatic covid infections, according to a CDC study of people who tested for the coronavirus at pharmacies during the first four months after that year’s shot was released...

A nasal vaccine could be better at stopping infections outright by increasing immunity where they take hold, and one is being studied in a trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

If you really want to dodge covid, don’t rely on the vaccine alone and take other precautions such as masking or avoiding crowds...

Do the vaccines help prevent transmission?

You may remember from early coverage of coronavirus vaccines that it was unclear whether shots would reduce transmission. Now, scientists say the answer is yes — even if you’re actively shedding virus.

That’s because the vaccine creates antibodies that reduce the amount of virus entering your cells, limiting how much the virus can replicate and make you even sicker. When vaccination prevents symptoms such as coughing and sneezing, people expel fewer respiratory droplets carrying the virus. When it reduces the viral load in an infected person, people become less contagious.

That’s why Peter Hotez, a physician and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, said he feels more comfortable in a crowded medical conference, where attendees are probably up to date on their vaccines, than in a crowded airport.

“By having so many vaccinated people, it’s decreasing the number of days you are shedding virus if you get a breakthrough infection, and it decreases the amount of virus you are shedding,” Hotez said.

Do vaccines prevent long covid?

While the threat of acute serious respiratory covid disease has faded, developing the lingering symptoms of “long covid” remains a concern for people who have had even mild cases. The CDC says vaccination is the “best available tool” to reduce the risk of long covid in children and adults. The exact mechanism is unclear, but experts theorize that vaccines help by reducing the severity of illness, which is a major risk factor for long covid.

When is the best time to get a new coronavirus vaccine?

It depends on your circumstances, including risk factors for severe disease, when you were last infected or vaccinated, and plans for the months ahead. It’s best to talk these issues through with a doctor.

If you are at high risk and have not recently been vaccinated or infected, you may want to get a shot as soon as possible while cases remain high. The summer wave has shown signs of peaking, but cases can still be elevated and take weeks to return to low levels. It’s hard to predict when a winter wave will begin....

Where do I find vaccines?

CVS said its expects to start administering them within days, and Walgreens said that it would start scheduling appointments to receive shots after Sept. 6 and that customers can walk in before then.

Availability at doctor’s offices might take longer. Finding shots for infants and toddlers could be more difficult because many pharmacies do not administer them and not every pediatrician’s office will stock them given low demand and limited storage space.

This year’s updated coronavirus vaccines are supposed to have a longer shelf life, which eases the financial pressures of stocking them.

The CDC plans to relaunch its vaccine locator when the new vaccines are widely available, and similar services are offered by Moderna and Pfizer."

-via The Washington Post, August 22, 2024

[the-cimmerians]

It's 2024. I have been participating in fandom for 40 years. This is a ramble commemorating some history I've experienced along the way.

In 1984, I attended my first convention, and made a beeline for the one long row of covered tables in the Dealer's Room that was, according to the whispered lore of my friends, 'the one'. "um", I said, very suavely and coherently, except for how it was totally the opposite of those things, "I'm here for the... for the, uh. For-"

"Come around here," the man behind the table said with exhausted ennui, so I went around, and he lifted up the table skirt next to him and pointed to rows and rows of boxes underneath the line of tables. "It's all under here."

It was all under there. Along with about five older ladies with glasses, graying hair, cardigans. Flipping through slash zines and chatting in whispered voices like old friends (which of course they were). I noticed one of them had the good sense to be wearing kneepads. I was still too young and ablebodied to need kneepads when crawling on a carpeted floor, but I immediately found her preparedness skills to be both impressive and hot. "You're new," one of the ladies whispered to me--a bit warily, which made sense. "Are you sure you're in the right place?"

In the faint light (the kneepads lady had also come prepared with a flashlight, additional practicality hotness points for her) I grabbed a comb-bound book with a heavy line art piece on the cover, featuring a musclebound Captain Kirk getting righteously and enthusiastically plowed by a stern-yet-ebullient Spock. "This," I said, pointing helpfully at the cover, like I was trying to make myself understood in a language I had only the vaguest knowledge of. "I'm here for this."

Outside at the convention, most of the attendees were wearing large homemade circular pins that shrieked 'K/S is BS!!!'1. But underneath the table, we reveled in the forbidden.

***

In 1985, I fell very hard for Starsky & Hutch fandom. Which was simply referred to at the time as 'the other fandom', because there were only two. We were upstarts. Many fannish elders predicted that it was just a phase.

***

The 'circulating library' was a massive stack of barely-legible pages that smelled strongly of mimeograph ink. When you were on the list, you would write stories while you waited for your turn, and when the big box was mailed to you, you would read everything (new finds, old favorites), add your own sloppily-typed or hastily-mimeographed stories, and then mail the whole thing to the next person. For me, at the time, it was an extremely expensive indulgence--but my favorite one.

***

By 1990, slash fandom had grown enough that I no longer knew everyone in it, which was both thrilling and a bit daunting. A young woman at a convention waited for me after a panel I was part of (I think it was 'writing impactful smut' or something like that), and said she had a question she didn't want to ask in a group setting. I'd heard that before. I said that's fine, go ahead and ask; and she came out with: "Why do you have to be gay?"

I blinked. "Is... that a problem?"

She looked annoyed. "Yes, because your stories are on all the recommendation lists and in all the top zines, but if you're gay and I read something you wrote and I get hot from it that makes me gay, and I'm not gay."

"Wow." I grinned, I couldn't help it. It probably made me look very predatory-dyke-about-to-score-a-toaster. Whatever, it was enough to make her back away from me fast.

When I thought about it later that night, I wondered what it would be like not to be the only queer person in slash fandom.

***

By 1997, slash started appearing on the internet. Many fannish elders claimed it was the death knell of slash fandom, or dismissed it as 'just a phase'.

***

Anyway, I wrote all this for myself as a commemoration of sorts, but if you took the time to read it--thank you. Love you, fandom. I always will.

1 In those days, m/m fandom was known as 'slash', which grew from the fannish shorthand where 'K&S' meant a story of Kirk and Spock having adventures or tribulations or what have you, and 'K/S' meant a story of Kirk and Spock getting it on (Kirk divided by Spock or Spock into Kirk--it was mathy fannish humor and I was into it then and I still am now). Slash was decidedly unpopular in the fannish world in 1984, and there was a concerted effort to force slash authors, artists, and fans out of 'mainstream' fannish public life. Hence, under the table.