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( my fan fic )

I am cheerful! I am all exclamation points!

I've been going on long nature walks full of awesome. Yesterday I talked with this older man who was birdwatching, and he handed his binoculars right over and identified birds for me! We agreed that Starlings are not so nice (European invaders) and that Eastern bluebirds are wonderful, and that the meadow is a magical place. Today I went for a walk in the rain and saw toads! I'm enjoying these walks so much that I decided I should make a walking club. Here is the Facebook invite; if you are local feel free to come! (If you're not on FB, send me an email or PM.)

Apartment hunting is cheering me up too, because now that I'm actually looking at apartments, it seems possible that I can live in a nice place for a reasonable price, near to my friends, that allows pets and has parking. It is ACHIEVABLE. And I will be so much happier in a nicer, quieter apartment, just a month from now.

I went to the Terrace last night and got very drunk with some fannish people. Usually getting drunk just makes me tired, but I got silly last night rather than tired, so that was nice.

Tonight is karoake and I intend to dress up for it. Whoo!

(x-posted)

I had a lovely time at Think GalactiCon in Chicago! I squeed about fanfic and vids to a lot of people, including people who are clearly not in fic culture (like lcohen), which was pretty funny. I talked more than I expected to.

Panels I attended:
*Species-defined gender roles in SF/F (link takes you to my notes)

*Infinite Diversity (Star Trek); a well-attended panel. I surprised myself by ranting about unethical ST doctors, for example Dr. Bashir in Sons of Mogh. Leah and I brought up the fanvid ...On the Dance Floor by sloanesomething.

*Gender and Sexuality in Fan Fiction. I talked a lot, but I don't remember what I said. I did give a shout-out to General_jinjur's Podfic archive; and I recommended Straight as a Circle by toomuchplor.

*Brown People Harshing My Squee?
About the costs (emotional and otherwise) of RaceFail and doing anti-racist work. Panelists were Candra, Karnythia, Jamie, and Pope Lizbet.

*Skipped the Sunday AM panels; ended up sitting in the commons area with a bunch of the TG concom and assorted people. I remember I did refer to vito_excalibur's parody of comic book art and said I'd post links:

These are from a couple of years ago:

How to Draw Women in Comics (According to Wizard), an LJ post with scans and commentary, by ratcreature.

Then look at vito_excalibur's brilliant reversal of it:
IM IN UR STUDIo DRAWING UR DooDZ

There are also some good parodies here at Girl Wonder (scroll down/go through the pages for pictures).

*Race, Ethnicity, and YA.
I was pleased that I'd heard of or read a lot of these books, which made me feel like YAY I know YA pretty well, but also very sad that there aren't MORE YA books about race and ethnicity. There are so few in this booming publishing market! Candra was keeping a list that will be posted eventually. Nnedi Okorafor was the other panelist (go read her book Zarah the Windseeker; it's awesome!).

Other vids I brought up:
Vogue by luminosity (a 300 fan vid/critique)
"White" and Nerdy by talitha (Psych, Gus)

Other fic I brought up:
Reading Against/Reading With: Mastering the Oppositional Discourse in Textual Healing", by emeraldwoman. ST: Reboot fic.
Daddy was a steel-driving man by livii. Sarah Connor Chronicles fic that address issues of trans identity.

ETA: I think access was pretty good at this con. The food was utterly fantastic! Good location that utilized a university in downtown Chicago--awesome.
I really liked the commons area that combined the dealers tables, food tables, registration, and social events. I *loved* the crafty stuff. (I skipped the main crafting event but did casual crafting on Friday.)
Also, bravo to karnythia for turning off the fluorescent lights for me at the Brown People Harshing My Squee panel.

This was a discussion rather than a panel; facilitated by Juliana. These are my somewhat disorganized notes. Feel free to point out any errors, or make any additions in comments. Sometimes I just wrote down authors or titles without any context!

*Buffy-verse: all the Slayers are female. I mentioned a fanfic I heard of, where a Slayer transitions to male but keeps his powers.

*Temeraire books by Naomi Novik. The Longwing dragons only choose female riders, but how do we know how the author is defining male and female? Maybe *most* of the Longwings choose female riders, but the occasional one wouldn't, and that might be regarded like queerness is in our culture. Someone also mentioned a fanfic dealing with a trans rider (FtM I think) who was supposed to inherit a Longwing. Also the dragons seem to think less about gender than the people do.

*A Companion to Wolves by Monette and Bear
*Babel 17 by Samuel Delaney</i>
*Glass House by Charles Strauss
*Cetaganda and Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold
*Xenogenesis books by Octavia Butler
*The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
*The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
*Richard K. Morgan
*"Torch of Honor" or perhaps the sequel--switching gender
*Grant Morrison's "The Invisisbles" (comics)
*Terry Goodkin (faily) binary magical powers between men and women
*Dune - the Bene Gesserit have secret powers around reproduction, but their ultimate goal is still male power
*China Mieville's books: the Kepri have a large division between male and female. The females are sentient and the males are basically cockroackes.
*Terry Pratchett - male and female dwarves looks the same. Monstous Regiment and Men at Arms were mentioned, but there are many Discworld books.
*Emma Bull, Finder
*Laurie Marks, the "Logic" books. Women and men are truly equal in these books, seen as soldiers and farmers and co-parents.
*Scott Sigler
*The concept of covens vs. singular male wizards. Or if male wizards are in a group, they are a secret society trying to do harm of some kind.
*Gate to Women's Country (faily, gender-essentialist)
*I ranted about my loathing for the "Hominid" trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer. They have some cool interesting concepts (all the Neanderthals are bisexual), but do a lot of gender-essentialist things and want to address the "problem of male violence".

*Star Trek. The trill are genderless, but have the experiences of male and female hosts. Some species use pheromones to control men, which is the ultimate sexual power.

*Transformers - why are they all male? Why can't they just TRANSFORM into female?

*Godzilla is female in the newest movie adaptation

*AIs as gendered vs. gender-neutral

Overall, I thought this was a very good discussion! Good depth.

Look at this fucking hotel room! It is like a fucking cruise-liner spaceship in the Fifth Element! Ruby Red is going to show up any moment!

( cut for pictures )

If you want me to interview you--post a comment that simply says, "Interview me." I'll respond with questions for you to take back to your own journal and answer as a post. Of course, they'll be different for each person since this is an interview and not a general survey. At the bottom of your post, after answering the Interviewer's questions, you ask if anyone wants to be interviewed. So it becomes your turn-- in the comments, you ask them any questions you have for them to take back to their journals and answer. And so it becomes the circle.

Wonderful questions from wintercreek

1. Tea or coffee or something else?

I have recently come around to tea: iced tea, chai, greens, herbals, mint, chamomile, and others. I like to hang out at a tea house, which helps my appreciation, and I'm so happy to have started liking tea because it gives me more beverage options! I don't like coffee-- it's bitter.

2. Roadtripping with podfic: what are your observations? Are there podficcing conventions you noticed that could use some changing? Practices that one podficcer has that others should adopt? General awesomeness of podfic?

It was fantastically awesome and made our 7.5 hour trip go really fast! We actually looked forward to the drive in order to hear some stories we had picked out. I liked the readers who included the fic headers such as warnings. Our biggest problem was hearing the fic, which is a technology problem involving the iPod, the car stereo, road noise, fuzzing out due to being near stop lights and such; I'm not sure what's to be done about that. We had the stereo and iPod up as loud as they would go and still I had to giggle silently so I wouldn't giggle over the sound of hilarious fic!

I am relatively new to pod fic and I just loved it in this context. Most of the stories I had read before but not heard before, and it enhanced my love of them to hear them read aloud. Car trips are my favorite way to listen to things; even music I don't listen to all that much outside of driving. So this was an ideal opportunity to get some podfic time! I'm reflecting a bit now on the openness of sexuality in fannish communities and how awesome that is--- women listening to smut together and not finding it weird. I didn't have anything like this before fandom! I'm so glad to have it now.

3. Talk to me about photography. Does it affect how you see the world even when you don't have a camera in your hands?

Photography has nurtured my natural tendency to observe the beauty of the world around me, which is something I love about it. I notice natural light; when I'm waiting for my tea order I might think, ooh, the light is nice here, and I'll take my camera out. It's also turned my eye toward the beauty of the city in a way I like, since I'm deeply a nature and country person and it's taken me a while to learn to live in, and love, the city.

Something I've been very conscious of is putting up photos of people on the internet (see WisCon 32, cough cough), and I've been actively trying to apply this to my own self-image as well: post photos of myself, and allow others to do so. Don't be overly critical of those photos. I'm working on this. I do untag photos of myself on Facebook for reasons of vanity, but not often. As a feminist I try to own the way I look; I try to give and take the advice of being as kind to myself as I am to my friends, and to love the way I look. It's a process, and photography has helped, because I do take self-portraits. I think the way a photographer looks at other people, and themselves, can come through in their photographs, in subtle and unconscious ways-- it's best to examine that, and feminism has helped me with this, in conjunction with photography.

4. How do you find new fic to read? Rec lists, newsletters, Delicious, other?

When I was brand new to slash fandom, about 2 years ago, I relied heavily on rec lists, sga storyfinders, and intensively reading the same few authors that I knew I liked. Originally I asked for recs from fullygoldy and for a little while, she was the one person I knew to ask! These days, my fandom buddies and I pass around recs via email, and I watch my reading list/friends list for new fic and recs. I also read sga_noticeboard, but it's rare that I read outside of my favorite authors or recs from friends. Occasionally challenges and festivals will change that and introduce me to new authors--and I hope others are reading my stuff this way too!

5. What are the best and worst things about the Kindle?

I have an intense love for my Kindle the way some people love their iPods, their car, or their computer. It is gorgeous and it is my baby! I would say the best thing for me is that I can increase the text size, making text much easier to read than most print books, and that I can carry hundreds of books and fics with me wherever I go, all in 10.2 ounces.

So, generally speaking, the best thing about the Kindle is its disability friendliness. It's light to hold and carry, making it easier for those who can't hold or carry heavy books. It's easier on the eyes than computer screens, because it's not backlit. One can turn the page from both sides at the touch of a button, making it easier for those with hand impairments to turn the pages. The "Whispernet" wireless technology makes it so one can download a book in under a minute, so, if someone can't get to the bookstore because she or he is just too tired, or in too much pain, or immobile, or lives too far away, or the bookstore is closed because it's 2 AM, well, one can just download the book. PDFs, text, and HTML files are also available via emailing them to the Kindle. Also there is a text-to-speech feature! It isn't great in quality, but it is wonderful in that is universally incorporated in all Kindles!

I haven't found a personal "worst" yet. I have heard plenty of people express negative feelings about the Kindle, and many of these are around valid and important issues. Sometimes I feel like people are just saying, "I like paper books too much", and that's fine, that's their perogative, but-- I view that as a teachable moment about disability, which is when I launch into the above spiel. Paper books are not accessible to everyone. Paper books also don't need batteries and they have and will be around for millenia, so I don't feel like the one needs to be a threat to the other; I don't think it's an either/or.

Many people (including me) have genuine issues with Amazon as a company, fear the death of independent booksellers because of increased use of Amazon and eBooks, and feel that the high price of the Kindle is a barrier to access. I trust that the price will come down with time-- as we've seen with iPods and computers. I still buy paper books, even if I don't always read them (I really do prefer to read on the kindle). I support my local indie bookstore as best as I'm able. I seek sources of eBooks that are not Amazon, if I can, and I look for free ebooks. (If anyone knows of sources, do let me know!) Cory Doctorow does have some good things to say about free ebooks and pirating-- usually people who use the free items and who pirate are also the people who *buy*. They are the most loyal customers.

But, I'm still mulling over some of these ethical issues, and I look forward to seeing how some of this works out over time.

Please let me know if I misquote or misrepresent you, if you do or don't want your LJ name used, etc. Feel free to add stuff or correct me. I am posting this while drinking, be advised-- I may do some editing later.

It's refreshing to see a science fiction show with disabled characters that aren't instantly healed, aren't around for one one special episode, and are human, main cast characters that aren't defined by their impairments. When the disabled characters are on screen, they are not only there to serve the purposes of able–bodied characters. In fact BSG seems to be presenting us with interesting characters who are living for years with illness and disability, something rarely seen even in mainstream TV. The show is doing some things right. However, is the show presenting us with "faux diversity"—it looks good on the surface, but in fact relies on harmful stereotypes? We'll talk about impairment vs. disability, accessibility, and interdependency.

Panelists M: Joanna Lowenstein, Me, J J Pionke, Erin Ranft

( spoiler warning )

Please let me know if I misquote or misrepresent you. Also feel free to add anything I forgot, correct me, etc.

Since last year, a group of Madison locals has met monthly to read works mentioned at the con. Come discuss how to build and nourish a book club that continues the conversations we begin here. We'll cover how to find interested individuals, select readings, integrate politics and literary analysis, and enjoy egalitarian intellectual inquiry (while getting through the infinite to–be–read pile).

Panelists M: jesse_the_k, John M Gamble, Me, Juliana Perry, Gretchen Treu, Gremlin


John and Gremlin represented think_galactic's book club in Chicago, and the rest of us represented beer_marmalade book club in Madison. We mostly talked about logistics: how the clubs formed and function, where we meet, how many people attend, how did we recruit, how do we select books.

Think Galactic club:
* plans their reading list a year at a time (something that apparently shocked our moderator)
* asks each person to start of with "name, overview opinion on reading, any points you want to discuss"
* tends to avoid brand new books to keep the cost low for poorer members; we may inadvertently have been shutting some people out by reading newer books (although we do work hard at making loaners available).
* meets at a bookstore

Beer and Marmalade club:
* votes among 3 books at the end of each meeting
* usually selects from WisCon guests of honor, Tiptree Winners, Carl Brandon short-listers, and WisCon regulars
* meets at a bar, monthly
* has a social hour before the meeting, and tries to keep discussion to about an hour

Both clubs have read short stories and graphic novels. (In fact, we've read a lot of the same books!)

Jesse pointed out that meeting anywhere with food is an access barrier to people with food allergies, and meeting in people's houses in often an access barrier to people in wheelchairs. Meeting somewhere where people feel like they *have* to order food can be a cost barrier.

Someone in the audience asked if we'd consider reading SF/F that's not explicitly feminist. Gretchen joked about how Beer and Marmalade has proposed reading John Ringo books and Twilight, just for a lark. Think Galactic is reading Heinlein! But we try to keep our focus on the stuff that we *want* to read.
Personally, I'd say that having a narrow focus has really benefited Beer and Marmalade and kept interested and enthusiasm up in our book club.

Beer and Marmalade didn't have to explicitly recruit-- we mostly used LJ and word-of-mouth. Our LJ comm has moderated membership because there were some privacy concerns, while the Think Galactic comm is open to everyone.

Someone asked if we'd consider pod-casting the club. That was actually suggested at Beer and Marmalade, and we didn't do it. Again there were privacy concerns: people didn't want to have to censor what they said about the books. I think the club is in some sense a "safer space" for people to talk about personal and political issues, and that's valuable.

Here are some insults and epithets that are ungendered and not ableist.

From dharma_slut-- (I've taken out a few that I dislike for one reason or another, click the link for full list):

blundering, brutish, feckless, foolish,

heedless, impulsive, inadvertent, inconsiderate,

indelicate, insensitive, instinctive, mechanical,

negligent, oblivious, outrageous,

rash, rude, selfish, senseless, tactless,

thoughtless, uncaring, unconscious, undiplomatic,

unheeding, unintended, unmeant, unmindful,

unpremeditated, unreasoning, untactful,

unwise, vacant, witless, abrupt, abusive,

bad-mannered, barbarian*, barbaric*, barbarous*, blunt,

boorish, brusque, brutish, cheeky,

churlish, coarse, crabbed, crude, curt,

discourteous, graceless, gross, gruff, ignorant,

impertinent, impolite, impudent,

inconsiderate, insolent, insulting, intrusive,

loutish, low, obscene, offhand, peremptory,

raw, scurrilous, short, surly, uncivil,

uncivilized, uncouth, uncultured*, uneducated,

ungracious, unmannerly, unpolished, unrefined,

vulgar...

----

Others:

Ridiculous, silly,

sour, spoiled, putrid, rancid,

raw, uncooked, smells like wet dog,

unproofed, full of weeds, untilled, had no beta reader, unsexy,

goofy, grimy, out of proportion, out of tune, out of balance,

not on the level, unfair, all hat and no cattle,

And just plain BAD.

*see comments

ETA adding more: cracked leather, trims no trees, tarnished

WisCon run-down!

I was on 3 panels:
--Rethinking Disabling Metaphors (Hot topic, apparently!)

--Disability and Battlestar Galactica

--Taking WisCon Home: Book Clubs

They all went really well! Good audience participation, good fellow panelists and mods, and I think I had good things to say.

I only went to 3 others: Fanfic and Slash; The Vidshow panel; and "Robots Past and Future". All were quite fun.

One of the best parts of WisCon is always meeting people and hanging out with friends. trouble gave me a giant hug and was an instant friend. I bounced up and down at haddayr and asked her how to pronounce her name. "Ha-DAR", she said, "Like the Jem'Hadar." I may have swooned a bit! I met raanve and wrdnrd, who I felt like I already knew. I met ch0me_kitten who is totally awesome and said smart things during the BSG panel. I had lunch with Tempest, who talked about her Mary Worth fanvids. I fangirled some people, but less than I have in the past. I hung out a lot with littlebutfierce, laceblade, were_duck, general_jinjur, futuransky jesse_the_k, and probably a bunch of others. Totally awesome people everywhere! And badgerbag gave me a hug!! I'm glad that at least some of these people are local, but I wish they all were! Thank goodness for the internet. And I'm glad I signed up to go to Think GalactiCon!

Overall I felt a *lot* better than I did last year. I remember leaving a meal last year and having to go stand outside to get some fresh air. I remember having headaches every day. This year, I think I only had a headache on Friday during the white allies dinner. Big win! There was one night I didn't go to any parties. I'm glad I paced myself, because I stayed up until four at the infamous Beer and Marmalade kegger.

Can't wait until next year! Whoo!

I actually think the fire hydrant was better, but who am I to argue with the members of photog_xp? This was for "Bug's Eye" theme.
:D

I went home for the weekend, and spent much of that time lying in the sun reading, which was AWESOME. I'm waaaaay behind on reading LJ/DW.

I also saw UP, which was mostly awesome. As with PIXAR generally: great story, great characters, amazing animation, and a lot of laughs. The rather crowded theater laughed through most of the movie, and the pacing was spot-on. Overall I highly recommend it. I saw it in 3D.

( Some issues: pro and con, with my WisCon-glasses on, spoilery )

*stealing a tag from toft_froggy

Please let me know if I misquote or misrepresent you.

There is another write-up by sophy here.

Insults and epithets are pervasively framed as physical and mental differences, such as "they are blind to needed change and deaf to reason." These unconscious metaphors strongly influence how people with actual disabilities are perceived—by the world and by ourselves. This highly–interactive session will include role play and brainstorming to identify these disabling metaphors, deconstruct their logical errors, and invent more accurate, yet still powerful alternatives.

Panelists M: jesse_the_k, elisem, Me, Georgie L. Schnobrich

This panel was really fun, with great panel and audience participation. We started with a "language amnesty" declared by our mod, meaning we were going to throw around words that might offend some of us, and talk about why they are offensive, and come up with new words that might replace them.

Sometimes in arguments or discussions, we might object to a statement by saying something like:
How lame!
That's crazy talk!
That's retarded!

Jesse asked us what words "burn our cookies the most". Elise doesn't like "stupid" because it is part of a general privileging of a certain type of intelligence, and being smart doesn't automatically mean one is right, or ethical, etc. She also doesn't like "lame" and suggested that it's so prevalent because it has become an accepted replacement for "gay" on the playground-- a word you won't get punished for.

Georgie doesn't like how "crazy" is an automatic dismissal, a way of making one's self feel comfortable again when one is uncomfortable.

The audience came up with many others: spaz, psycho, short bus, retarded, blind, deaf, dumb, idiot, moron, cretin (the last three are words that used to be medical terms for the developmentally disabled). Some discussion ensued about kids using words on playgrounds, and how do we stop these insults-- by coming up with new metaphors, or by generally making society more accepting of disability? (I don't think it's an either/or-- I think it's tied together, and we do both at once.)

There was also some discussion of the appropriate use of terms-- when is it OK to say crazy or paranoid. Certainly running upstairs to get away from the axe-wielding man in the horror movie is not wise and perhaps even crazy behavior. Thinking every car on the road is out to get you is paranoid. But overusing these terms can be insensitive and also might take away from their real clinical meaning (as with depression). Also someone mentioned how people will say "OCD" as a way of joking about being clean, but that's insensitive to people who do have OCD and know that it's not a happy fun thing to have.

Mary Ann Mohanraj was in the audience and made some great comments about how it can be sad to lose some of these terms, because they are rich terms with a lot of meaning-- she used "gypped" as an example. But she doesn't really need another term for "cheat" (why not just say cheat?), and the political gain is worth it.

Then we came up with many new terms to replace the ones on our list. Silly, ridiculous, foolish. "Let's talk more like Jane Austen", Georgie said at one point, making the audience laugh. Elise suggested that when you have to insult someone, why not just call an asshole an asshole?

Someone has a list of these terms (heyiya?) but I don't! An audience member said why not use occupational terms like cooking or gardening?
You're just planting weeds!
That's burnt stew! You can't even boil water!
Rancid, putrid, spoiled, uncooked
Some already exist: doesn't have a row to hoe, can't hold water
Out of tune
Sand in the gears
buggy (as with computers)
blue screen of death
epic fail
"the potato salad of your reasoning is rancid" was an audience favorite.

antarcticlust suggested "ridiculous" as a replacement for "retarded" because it conveniently starts with the same letter.

At the end we talked a bit about reclaiming negative terms. People within the group always have more freedom to use terms (like "gimp" and "crip") than those outside of it. I talked about "crutch" as a metaphor, which is an idea I picked up from somebody on my f-list.

"You're using X as a crutch" is usually used as a negative, as a criticism, as if crutches are bad, and as if they are optional. First of all-- crutches are *good*. They help people with disabilities get around. Secondly, people don't use them unless they need them! This metaphor gets at dependency as a bad thing (why aren't you standing on your own two feet), when in reality, crutches are just tools, like hammers. On the other hand, giving someone a lift, a leg up, or a boost, all are good metaphors! So I propose that we all start using the metaphor "good crutch." For example, Elise said, "I was really happy to have work as a crutch to help me through a grieving process." Later in the weekend, general_jinjur referred to her OTW buttons as a good crutch for assisting her in talking to people.

Also later in the weekend, Cat H. mentioned "brainstorm" as ableist language, because it a) refers to epilepsy, and b) privileges thinking quickly.

Thanks to all our great audience members and panelists! I know Jesse and I were planning on talking about how "somatic metaphors" are allowed and are not necessarily ableist ("I see your point"), but we never got to that.

This was my 3rd WisCon and my best WisCon so far! Really excellent! I have much to say but am now collapsed on my couch.

I have pictures that will be uploaded to Flickr, but locked, unless you tell me to unlock them. Some I will probably post here, locked.

I had a wonderful time. My panels went really well. The beer_marmalade party was EPIC. Goeff Ryman, cofax7, brdgt, were_duck, all did Keg stands. ("What's a keg stand?" I asked innocently. Then mystickeeper mocked me. It was awesome.

HELLO NEW FRIENDS!

Tie for winning picture of the week at photog_xp!

Hi friends-list!

Does anyone use a screenreader, or know of anyone who does, and would be willing to volunteer some time? We would like to check our WisCon publications for accessibility for the visually impaired, and the best way to do this is to have someone who actually uses the technology give it a go and beta the documents for us. The documents are PDFs of the Souvenir book (36 pages), the existing parts of the Pocket Program Book (which is almost done I think), and possibly other documents in the packet such as the restaurant guide. You could volunteer for one or several or all of these things, read them, and let us know about any problems so we can (hopefully) fix them in time for WisCon, where they will be available in e-packet form.

Thank you!!

(and feel free to pass this on/link it)

Happy Birthday were_duck! The coolest Fangirl around!

May 1st was Blog Against Disabilism Day. I read some good posts:

haddayr: It depends on the kind of stare

msf_staff: Kasey's Guide to Offering a Disabled Person Assistance Without Being Irritating

HAM.BLOG The Drug Thing; Invisible Illness Bingo (via Jesse_the_K)

Help me come up with three suggestions for my "regular" book club tonight? It meets at 8 pm CDT. I seem to be having trouble making decisions (BIG AND SMALL). The only book I kind of want to read right now is His Majesty's Dragon. And traditionally this club has been more non-genre in their choices.

ETA We chose Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Thanks for your suggestions!