WisCon!

[dira]

1. I went! I was on panels and everything! Check out #QueeringText and #UsingTumblr for the upshots of the ones I was on.

2. The other upshot of the Queering the Text panel: I may or may not have said I would write fic where Stiles wakes up as a girl in the same body she went to sleep in.

3. Saturday night I got unexpectedly fantastically drunk on the homebrew at the--uh, I have no idea which party that was. But their hard cider was really great! And then I vaguely recall being down in the lobby having a lot of feelings about The Hockey Sweater, wolf puppies, and Commodore Jole and his sailboat.

Then I felt like I was going to throw up, and iulia took me upstairs and very patiently shepherded me through not throwing up, getting into jammies, hydrating, getting into bed, and so on. She even plugged in my phone, you guys. She's the greatest.

4. I should probably mention that a bit earlier on Saturday night we watched the hockey game together and in the course of pretending to punch Iulia in the face for celebrating a Chicago goal I came perilously close to actually punching her in the face. /o\

5. Further annals of marriedness: Iulia and I wore matching jerseys all day Saturday (Red Wings, Lidstrom and Yzerman) and Sunday (Blackhawks, Toews and Kowalski). People were confused when we no longer matched on Monday.

6. We roomed with fairestcat and commodorified, both of whom put more effort into clothes and makeup for any given evening of parties than I put into clothes and makeup for an entire year, which was fascinating to watch.

7. Cat and Marna were both on the panel I got up early enough to go to on Sunday morning after being magnificently drunk Saturday night: What We Write About When We Write About Rape. The panel description:

From bodice rippers to psychic wolves to magical healing cocks — what are some of the tropes writers use to talk about rape and rape culture? What is the appeal of approaching these topics from a fantastical point of view, whether it be through genre fiction, erotica or fanfic? And how do we use fiction to subvert cultural narratives about sexuality and consent?

So I was there mainly for psychic wolves, because, uh, I find myself writing a lot of dub-con lately and I would like to talk to people about what is up with that--there are a lot of these tropes in fic that we keep returning to, that, as I think ellen_fremedon or fairestcat said, problematize consent that doesn't need to be problematic. I'm curious to talk about why that is, what we're doing there.

Probably inevitably, though, the panel took a sharp and irrevocable turn into "What We Read About When We Read About Rape," and involved a lot of people talking about the narratives that did or didn't work for them as readers, so it was a whole other thing.

8. Haiku earring party! I wrote and Iulia betaed a haiku to earn Iulia a pair of earrings (I don't wear earrings but like writing haiku; Iulia likes earrings but is not always into writing haiku, so the division of labor works out well.)

9. Viiiiid paaaaarty! Which was awesome and full of vids and fangirls and also just made me pine for VividCon. Can it be time for VividCon right now?

10. Sunday night turned into lots of fangirls on the floor in somebody's hotel room, passing around whatever drinks people had left at that point in the con (Fruit Loops vodka made an appearance), which is always pretty much my favorite part of any con. ♥

Comments

[kate_nepveu]

1. I was so sorry I missed Queering the Text because of airlines. I whined about it anyone who mentioned it all weekend.

7. Why not do the panel now?

[dira]

Same reason I wasn't on the panel--I really don't feel equipped to moderate that discussion, especially not online. I'm not opposed to talking about it with people, but I'm not ready to Have The Panel, you know?

[kate_nepveu]

Perfectly reasonable! I don't have time right now, but maybe someone else will.

[kass]

Can it be time for VividCon right now?

How about now?

Now?

:-)

[dira]

Soooooon. :D

[lannamichaels]

2. The other upshot of the Queering the Text panel: I may or may not have said I would write fic where Stiles wakes up as a girl in the same body she went to sleep in.

I would so love to see this, if you wrote this.

[dira]

It's on my list! With ... everything. I did come out of WisCon newly determined to finish my Aral/Jole series in the foreseeable future....

[ollipop]

YesyesyesyesYESyesyes! Da, oui, ne, YES.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only Jole-stalker left here, in a sea of wolfie friends. But I would read the hell out of anything you chose to write about Jole and the sailboat, or more conversations between Jole and Cordelia (pls?) or Jole on Sergyar, or just about anything. Also, of course, Jole/Aral. Of COURSE we are keeping our fingers crossed for hot Jole/Aral sex. I had a long conversation with Jole in my head this morning. I blame you, in a good way.

I'm glad to read that you had such a good time at WisCon! Are you allowed to wear Red Wings and Blackhawks jerseys sequentially? And, your thoughts on the hockey outcome?

[dira]

Hee, yay! Good to know someone is still waiting for the rest of those stories. :)

And, well, no one stopped me from wearing my jerseys sequentially, though iulia did have her bi-fannish identity cruelly erased a few times. (I'm not a Hawks fan, I just have a jersey and wore it in solidarity with her.)

Hockey, sigh. I mean, most years your team doesn't win, right? That's just math. And I've been following the Wings for 17 seasons or so, and while they did win in four of those, they also lost in thirteen of them. It's what happens; it's disappointing but that's all. I found myself doing the equivalent of the post-game handshake line with my friends on twitter who are Hawks fans, where they would make a cautiously sympathetic sort of noise and I would say, yeah, we're cool. *g*

[j00j]

We TOTALLY talked about your Aral/Jole in the "Family Values!!" panel.

[dira]

Yes! I heard that it came up and was very proud. And a bit motivated. :)

[riverlight]

That sounds so so so much fun! I'm sorry I missed it.

2. The other upshot of the Queering the Text panel: I may or may not have said I would write fic where Stiles wakes up as a girl in the same body she went to sleep in.

This is brilliant. BRILLIANT.

Also, iulia is the best. So are you!

[dira]

I'm sorry you missed it too! You would have had such a blast, I hope you can come next year!

Also, yeah, I am really excited to write that one! It's just ... behind a lot of other things in line. :)

[riverlight]

Yeah, me too! Fingers crossed. I seem to have been saying that for years, but someday. :)

Yeah, WIP lists: never-ending! But we wouldn't have it any other way.

[dira]

I remember when I was younger being afraid that I would run out of ideas to write. Ahahahaha ha ha ha. ha. /o\

[trinity_clare]

That genderswap Stiles fic is an amazing idea and you should totally write it. /unhelpful

[dira]

I am also dangerously entranced by the idea where Stiles has always been trans but in vicious/terrified denial until he gets bitten, and becoming a werewolf also fixes his body--to be female, which he's never accepted he's always wanted. But I think that one is longer and more complicated than the genderswap, so ... maybe not.

[trinity_clare]

And this on top of the issue of...would becoming a werewolf fix Stiles's ADHD brain, or does his brain not need fixing? Plus the gray canon of the bite suppressing rather than curing stuff -- Erica has a seizure when she gets venomed (because she cant control her muscles? idk. overthinking Teen Wolf for $500, Alex). Throwing a sex change on top of all that would be awesome, but might be impossible.

[dira]

Yeah, it obviously bears no particular relation to what is ~plausible~ within the canon world. It just seems like a shame not to use the canonical mythos of transformation to effect a transformation. *g*

[trinity_clare]

Agreed agreed agreed. :D

[spatz]

2. The other upshot of the Queering the Text panel: I may or may not have said I would write fic where Stiles wakes up as a girl in the same body she went to sleep in.

DO WANT. Wow, that would be awesome.

Oh, you're going to VividCon, too? I'm going for the first time this year, on the excuse I can also visit my friend who just moved to Chicago. *shifty eyes* That was totally the reason.

[dira]

Hee, yay VividCon, for whatever reason! I live not-too-far from Chicago, so it's my local fannish con and I try to go every year--I had to miss a few years ago due to my baby brother's wedding, but most years I'm there. :)

Also, sigh, I need more time for writing fic. TOO MANY IDEAS.

*flail*

[joatamon]

Wait wait wait. Was there ever actually a Blackhawks player called Kowalski or is this a RL jersey reference to Hawks and Hands?

Either way OH MY GOD I NEED TO GET ONE OF THESE. I NEEEEEDS IT. WHY DID THIS NEVER OCCUR TO ME BEFORE? Hawks and Hands \o/

Re: *flail*

[dira]

Ahahhaha, I was wondering if anyone would notice that--it is indeed a #67 Ray Kowalski Blackhawks jersey!  A bunch of people teamed up and bought it for me as a present after I posted Hawks and Hands, and I don't get a lot of opportunities to wear it--so when Iulia said she was wearing her Toews jersey for Sunday, I said I'd wear mine in solidarity. :D

I'd love it if there were more people wandering around in Kowalski jerseys, though! I keep waiting for someone not in fandom to ask me about him when I'm wearing the jersey so I can say "Yeah, he played for them a couple of years in the 80s and then came out of retirement for one more season in 95-96, don't you remember him?"

Re: *flail*

[jesse_the_k]

I'm noticing it, since i just woke up from my post-con Big Sleep.

I've never understood why non-players would wear a player jersey, but I'd pay real money for the Kowalski edition (and the cleaner, better-smelling Fraser accompaniment.)

I'm really sad that the Writing Rape panel turned into the Reading Rape panel, for (at least two) reasons:

WisCon may be well-known for its democracy, but sometimes I want to hear *just from the writers*. I'm never gonna write and I'm always gonna read. This puts me in an ongoing intimate relationship with an unreliable narrator, until I learn more about how they write.

There's such a pent-up demand for testimony re: our personal experience of rape. Clearly we are not done talking about that, and we need spaces to do it in.

Re: *flail*

[dira]

One of the things that I think contributed to turning the Writing Rape panel into the panel it became was that it wasn't 100% about fanworks, and the panelists weren't 100% fanwriters, so it was hard to be like "Hey, so why do we all keep writing sex pollen, ladies? What is that saying about what's going on in our ids with regard to rape?" because that shared context wasn't all there.