Continuum XII - Sunday
Jun. 12th, 2016 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenSleep still wasn't that great; I went to bed early, I was tired... and I still couldn't sleep. (sigh)
But at least I woke up early enough that I could have a nice breakfast.
Costume of the day: Lady in the blue kirtle, and my hair braided on one side with a blue ribbon. Disadvantage of this costume is that the dress is very long and one has to be careful not to step on it. Pretty, though.
10AM: Where's Rey?
Good discussion on the bias in merchandising, why isn't there representation of female characters?
Comments that the industry is like a huge battleship that steams on and takes a long time to change directions. Well, that was the gracious reason, at least. Quoting of studies that have shown that if more than 17% of a group is women, and they speak, the men perceive that as "women taking over the conversation". The trope of the Gang of Five (Five Man Band) The Leader, the Lancer, the Smart Guy, the Big Guy, and the Chick. Also that those in charge are raised in a bubble where they never question the "normality" of such a four-to-one ratio.
11AM Doctor Who
Three out of the five panellists didn't turn up, and only one of them sent a message. (sigh) So Melissa and I just blathered on for an hour, with interactions from the audience as well. Mostly about recent Who, but ranged all over. And George Ivanov knew a heck of a lot more about Who than either of us... I should have invited him to come up and join the panel.
I skipped the GoH speech in favour of having a leisurely lunch, I also wandered over to Vic Market again and bought some dried fruit.
2PM Mary Sues
Me, Kylie Chan, Marlee Jane Ward, and Sue B. Sue B moderated. First she read out the original story from which the name "Mary-Sue" came, which had been written as a parody of that kind of story. It was hilarious.
I rabbited on as ever, with all my opinions. Interesting note: Kylie Chan said that she'd based her heroine on Mary-Sues because they are popular... then kind of back-peddled by saying that she based her on the "traits" of a Mary-Sue, but added more depth.
Discussion touched on wish-fulfilment, self-insertion, immature writing, lack of representation of females (again!) (and reference to the earlier panel, including mention of the gang-of-five trope). The lack of representation ties in in two ways: one, that female fans write such fanfic because they don't have enough female characters in canon to identify with. Secondly, because in a canon where there is only one female main character (gang-of-five effect), that one female character has to stand in for ALL WOMEN, which means that she has to be all things to all people; if she has flaws, then she is torn apart for them, and if she is perfect, she is damned as a Mary-Sue. There's also the idea that "a Mary-Sue is any female character that a guy doesn't like". Also touched on, that a Marky-Stu (a male version of a Mary-Sue) is like James Bond, which means that the fantasy is already being catered to for guys, so there's not a gaping hole needing to be filled. Also that is is less likely that a female character is going to be called a Mary-Sue if she isn't the only female in the ensemble. Also much dissing of the cliches typical of Mary-Sue characters, long-haired (auburn or blonde), unusual eye colour, long list of attributes which are supposed to make us admire her; signs of poor writing, basically. That the likelihood of a writer growing out of this phase depends a lot on the motives the person has for writing in the first place: if it is a purely social activity for the purpose of egoboo, then the person doesn't have any reason to want to improve, but if the person is interested in the craft of writing, then they will be motivated to improve and tell a better story; and that would be the case whether they are writing for a hobby or if they want to become a professional. That of course fanfic is full of Mary-Sues because Sturgeon's Law and that there are no gatekeepers to prevent them from being seen.
3PM: Fandom, Infighting, Drama & Journalism (rescheduled from Friday) Liz, Lauren, and ... I forget her name.
Cassandra Claire, Bad Penny... and a bunch of other names I've forgotten. And last of all, the Hugos, the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies.
4PM: Plotspirations. Me, Laura Goodwin, Belinda Crawford, Devin Madson and Steve Cameron. Lauda and I tossed a coin for who would be moderator. I lost, so I was moderator.
We had already agreed in the discussion beforehand, that it wasn't so much the ideas as what you did with them. But we still started off the panel with talking about ideas. Though most of them said ideas come from anything. Some (such as Steve) had the practice of writing down ideas as they came to them (Steve waved some notebooks at us), while others, such as Belinda, simply allowed the ideas to "ferment in the compost heap of my mind" because if it's a really good idea, it will come when it is needed. Another thing that came out more than once is that what works for one person may not work for another, and it's perfectly okay to have different ways of doing things.
Generally a good and interesting discussion, though there were points where I was thinking "oh no what do I ask them to talk about next?" Oh, I did have things to add to the discussion, but a lot of it was me-as-moderator asking them things.
5PM How to Destroy the World! A fun and somewhat silly panel about being an evil mad scientist and destroying the world WITH SCIENCE!
Dinner break, and this time I actually went off with a bunch of people and we had dinner in a Thai restaurant. Discussions of Doctor Who and Mornington Crescent ensued. The food was so slow in coming, though, that it was half-past seven by the time we got back, so I missed the Great Debate.
8PM: Comics: Taking control makes you evil
I'm kind of surprised that I wasn't completely lost and confused in the discussion, since I'm not into comics, but it seems I've absorbed enough popular culture that I could still follow the discussion for the most part, even though there were still mentions of comic-book heroes and villains that I'd never heard of.
After that, tired me went to my room and wrote this.
But at least I woke up early enough that I could have a nice breakfast.
Costume of the day: Lady in the blue kirtle, and my hair braided on one side with a blue ribbon. Disadvantage of this costume is that the dress is very long and one has to be careful not to step on it. Pretty, though.
10AM: Where's Rey?
Good discussion on the bias in merchandising, why isn't there representation of female characters?
Comments that the industry is like a huge battleship that steams on and takes a long time to change directions. Well, that was the gracious reason, at least. Quoting of studies that have shown that if more than 17% of a group is women, and they speak, the men perceive that as "women taking over the conversation". The trope of the Gang of Five (Five Man Band) The Leader, the Lancer, the Smart Guy, the Big Guy, and the Chick. Also that those in charge are raised in a bubble where they never question the "normality" of such a four-to-one ratio.
11AM Doctor Who
Three out of the five panellists didn't turn up, and only one of them sent a message. (sigh) So Melissa and I just blathered on for an hour, with interactions from the audience as well. Mostly about recent Who, but ranged all over. And George Ivanov knew a heck of a lot more about Who than either of us... I should have invited him to come up and join the panel.
I skipped the GoH speech in favour of having a leisurely lunch, I also wandered over to Vic Market again and bought some dried fruit.
2PM Mary Sues
Me, Kylie Chan, Marlee Jane Ward, and Sue B. Sue B moderated. First she read out the original story from which the name "Mary-Sue" came, which had been written as a parody of that kind of story. It was hilarious.
I rabbited on as ever, with all my opinions. Interesting note: Kylie Chan said that she'd based her heroine on Mary-Sues because they are popular... then kind of back-peddled by saying that she based her on the "traits" of a Mary-Sue, but added more depth.
Discussion touched on wish-fulfilment, self-insertion, immature writing, lack of representation of females (again!) (and reference to the earlier panel, including mention of the gang-of-five trope). The lack of representation ties in in two ways: one, that female fans write such fanfic because they don't have enough female characters in canon to identify with. Secondly, because in a canon where there is only one female main character (gang-of-five effect), that one female character has to stand in for ALL WOMEN, which means that she has to be all things to all people; if she has flaws, then she is torn apart for them, and if she is perfect, she is damned as a Mary-Sue. There's also the idea that "a Mary-Sue is any female character that a guy doesn't like". Also touched on, that a Marky-Stu (a male version of a Mary-Sue) is like James Bond, which means that the fantasy is already being catered to for guys, so there's not a gaping hole needing to be filled. Also that is is less likely that a female character is going to be called a Mary-Sue if she isn't the only female in the ensemble. Also much dissing of the cliches typical of Mary-Sue characters, long-haired (auburn or blonde), unusual eye colour, long list of attributes which are supposed to make us admire her; signs of poor writing, basically. That the likelihood of a writer growing out of this phase depends a lot on the motives the person has for writing in the first place: if it is a purely social activity for the purpose of egoboo, then the person doesn't have any reason to want to improve, but if the person is interested in the craft of writing, then they will be motivated to improve and tell a better story; and that would be the case whether they are writing for a hobby or if they want to become a professional. That of course fanfic is full of Mary-Sues because Sturgeon's Law and that there are no gatekeepers to prevent them from being seen.
3PM: Fandom, Infighting, Drama & Journalism (rescheduled from Friday) Liz, Lauren, and ... I forget her name.
Cassandra Claire, Bad Penny... and a bunch of other names I've forgotten. And last of all, the Hugos, the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies.
4PM: Plotspirations. Me, Laura Goodwin, Belinda Crawford, Devin Madson and Steve Cameron. Lauda and I tossed a coin for who would be moderator. I lost, so I was moderator.
We had already agreed in the discussion beforehand, that it wasn't so much the ideas as what you did with them. But we still started off the panel with talking about ideas. Though most of them said ideas come from anything. Some (such as Steve) had the practice of writing down ideas as they came to them (Steve waved some notebooks at us), while others, such as Belinda, simply allowed the ideas to "ferment in the compost heap of my mind" because if it's a really good idea, it will come when it is needed. Another thing that came out more than once is that what works for one person may not work for another, and it's perfectly okay to have different ways of doing things.
Generally a good and interesting discussion, though there were points where I was thinking "oh no what do I ask them to talk about next?" Oh, I did have things to add to the discussion, but a lot of it was me-as-moderator asking them things.
5PM How to Destroy the World! A fun and somewhat silly panel about being an evil mad scientist and destroying the world WITH SCIENCE!
Dinner break, and this time I actually went off with a bunch of people and we had dinner in a Thai restaurant. Discussions of Doctor Who and Mornington Crescent ensued. The food was so slow in coming, though, that it was half-past seven by the time we got back, so I missed the Great Debate.
8PM: Comics: Taking control makes you evil
I'm kind of surprised that I wasn't completely lost and confused in the discussion, since I'm not into comics, but it seems I've absorbed enough popular culture that I could still follow the discussion for the most part, even though there were still mentions of comic-book heroes and villains that I'd never heard of.
After that, tired me went to my room and wrote this.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2016-06-12 11:39 pm (UTC)eyes of unusual colur - check
Supposedly perfect and intelligent - check (though the character then goes on to behave like a complete idiot.)
no subject
Date: 2016-06-14 08:53 am (UTC)