Continuum XII - Saturday
Jun. 12th, 2016 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenDid not sleep that well; woke up at 2-ish, though I did go back to sleep again.
Costume of the day: Ravenclaw. With button-up collared shirt, Ravenclaw tie, black vest, and Hermione's wand. The latter being a Christmas present from Eldest Niece (technically, from Eldest Niece's family, but she was the Designated Buyer).
Was running late, so grabbed a McDonald's McMuffiny thing and brought it with me to first panel: "Books that Changed my Life". I was the first audience member there, so the panel were saying "Look! It's an audience!" (grin)
There were supposed to be three panellists, but one of them couldn't make it. Mind you, I think it would still have worked if it had been only George Ivanov, considering he had a stack of books there and didn't make it through all of them. But the interaction of him and Rjurik was fun. And I reinforced my resolve not to read anything by Robert Cormier - though Rjurik said I ought to read nothing but Robert Cormier until I've overcome my phobia about unhappy endings. Naw.
PARENTS IN SPEC FIC - my first panel as a panellist at this con. I think it was reasonably good; the discussion kept rolling, as we covered both the absence and presence of parents and parental figures in fiction -- and raised a few issues, including "If there traditionally is a mentor figure, why can't the mentor be a parent? Why does it always have to be someone else?"
And, yes, it does give child protagonists more agency if the parents are absent or dead, but it is used so much that the trope has become a cliche. We also touched on examples (such as "Spirited Away" and "A Pocket Full of Murder") where the child has to rescue the parent. Michael Prior gave an example of parent-as-mentor, with the complication that the "special power" had skipped a generation, so that the protagonist's father was trying to be a mentor without actually having the power itself, but knowing about it because the grandfather had had it. Interesting thought. Another point that Michael Prior made is that when you do have the parents not-absent, they don't have to be hovering over the child all the time, because they actually have lives of their own (good example: the Vorkosigan series).
So, pretty good stuff.
GoH Speech: more like "the History of Queenie Chan, with interjections from Kylie Chan". Nothing really ground-breaking or inspiring (unlike the last three Continuum cons).
Religion vs Science vs Philosophy: abstractly interesting, but not very deep or challenging. I think the person organising the programme must have been so afraid of controversy that they erred on the side of bland, because they chose people who wouldn't disagree on anything much. Why do I think that? Because there were no theists on the panel. Two atheist/agnostics, one pantheist, and one animist/pagan. Now, yes, that's a refreshing change from previous "religion" panels which basically had nothing but theists on them (Christians and Jews) but not having a single theist kind of left out a major point of view in regard to religion.
Mind you, Katherine Phelps could have done a panel all by herself, she had a lot of interesting things to say, got a bit rambling at times and had to be reigned in by the moderator.
Can't remember what I did at 3PM.
4PM: Writers and Doubt.
Pretty good discussion about Imposter Syndrome, and ways of getting back in the saddle when the self-doubt gets too much.
5PM: SF in Our Solar System
Lots of good and bad examples, and ponderings why SF stories are and are not set in our solar system.
Then it was dinner, and since I had no intention of going to the Maskobolo, I retreated to my room, ate some snacks for dinner, and watched National Geographic and Discovery Chanel docos. Hey, that's part of my fun.
Costume of the day: Ravenclaw. With button-up collared shirt, Ravenclaw tie, black vest, and Hermione's wand. The latter being a Christmas present from Eldest Niece (technically, from Eldest Niece's family, but she was the Designated Buyer).
Was running late, so grabbed a McDonald's McMuffiny thing and brought it with me to first panel: "Books that Changed my Life". I was the first audience member there, so the panel were saying "Look! It's an audience!" (grin)
There were supposed to be three panellists, but one of them couldn't make it. Mind you, I think it would still have worked if it had been only George Ivanov, considering he had a stack of books there and didn't make it through all of them. But the interaction of him and Rjurik was fun. And I reinforced my resolve not to read anything by Robert Cormier - though Rjurik said I ought to read nothing but Robert Cormier until I've overcome my phobia about unhappy endings. Naw.
PARENTS IN SPEC FIC - my first panel as a panellist at this con. I think it was reasonably good; the discussion kept rolling, as we covered both the absence and presence of parents and parental figures in fiction -- and raised a few issues, including "If there traditionally is a mentor figure, why can't the mentor be a parent? Why does it always have to be someone else?"
And, yes, it does give child protagonists more agency if the parents are absent or dead, but it is used so much that the trope has become a cliche. We also touched on examples (such as "Spirited Away" and "A Pocket Full of Murder") where the child has to rescue the parent. Michael Prior gave an example of parent-as-mentor, with the complication that the "special power" had skipped a generation, so that the protagonist's father was trying to be a mentor without actually having the power itself, but knowing about it because the grandfather had had it. Interesting thought. Another point that Michael Prior made is that when you do have the parents not-absent, they don't have to be hovering over the child all the time, because they actually have lives of their own (good example: the Vorkosigan series).
So, pretty good stuff.
GoH Speech: more like "the History of Queenie Chan, with interjections from Kylie Chan". Nothing really ground-breaking or inspiring (unlike the last three Continuum cons).
Religion vs Science vs Philosophy: abstractly interesting, but not very deep or challenging. I think the person organising the programme must have been so afraid of controversy that they erred on the side of bland, because they chose people who wouldn't disagree on anything much. Why do I think that? Because there were no theists on the panel. Two atheist/agnostics, one pantheist, and one animist/pagan. Now, yes, that's a refreshing change from previous "religion" panels which basically had nothing but theists on them (Christians and Jews) but not having a single theist kind of left out a major point of view in regard to religion.
Mind you, Katherine Phelps could have done a panel all by herself, she had a lot of interesting things to say, got a bit rambling at times and had to be reigned in by the moderator.
Can't remember what I did at 3PM.
4PM: Writers and Doubt.
Pretty good discussion about Imposter Syndrome, and ways of getting back in the saddle when the self-doubt gets too much.
5PM: SF in Our Solar System
Lots of good and bad examples, and ponderings why SF stories are and are not set in our solar system.
Then it was dinner, and since I had no intention of going to the Maskobolo, I retreated to my room, ate some snacks for dinner, and watched National Geographic and Discovery Chanel docos. Hey, that's part of my fun.
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no subject
Date: 2016-06-14 08:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-14 08:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-14 10:55 am (UTC)BTW, interesting panel write ups.
no subject
Date: 2016-06-14 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-06-12 11:49 pm (UTC)Any chance of pics of you in costume?
no subject
Date: 2016-06-13 05:30 am (UTC)I doubt it. Though some people were taking pictures of panellists; they may have tweeted them. I think the hashtag was #cont12 but I haven't checked.