I am the Kat that Walks By Itself

There is a week to go before Continuum XIII, and I will be there, and on the Sunday afternoon, I will have a table at the "Craft Market" they are doing as part of the convention.

I am trying not to panic about the things I have to get done before then; I keep on telling myself "What gets done will get done, and what doesn't get done, won't get done." If worst comes to worst, I won't be wearing any costumes. If second-worst happens, I'll toss in a whole bunch of costume accoutrements without actually planning what I'm wearing. Because costumes come second to preparing for the craft market. I've been crocheting scrunchies like mad, bending aluminium cuff bracelets... and that's been the easy stuff. I want to have as great a variety of stuff as possible, to see what sells. Of course, it may be that NOTHING sells. Ah well.

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Sleep 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.

( okay I'm going to cut this time )
After that, tired me went to my room and wrote this.

So. Continuum XII.
Saw three four people that I know: Adrienne, Lauren, Elaine, and George.

Two fascinating panels, which ended up referencing each other a little: Anti-Heroes, and Masked Heroes. Partly because some of the same people were on both panels.

Is Batman an anti-hero or not? (the panel was divided on this). Are anti-heroes always broken? Self-interested? Have heroism thrust upon them, because they are caught in the middle of the situation, they don't go looking for it; implication: anti-heroes have less agency than heroes, since heroes - even if they are reluctant to start with - always choose to Fight The Good Fight in the end. That heroes have morals and anti-heroes have goals; that is, for an anti-hero, the end justifies the means, they are willing to get their hands dirty if they deem it necessary. The trend in modern media to make all heroes less black-and-white and more shades of grey (one panellist likened it to taking all the white and colouring it in with grey crayon).
Do we like anti-heroes more than heroes because they are more like ourselves, more human, less perfect? Or do we like them because they do the things we wouldn't dare do, say the things we wouldn't dare say? If an anti-hero is characterised by a mix of heroic and non-heroic traits, then different cultures would have different kinds, since they have different ideas of what "heroism" is: ref US culture, which values individualism and rebelling against The Man, versus Japanese culture, where anyone who is anti-authority is always a villain.
Was Gaius Baltar (new BSG) an anti-hero? Or did it not count because anything heroic he did more by accident than design, because the only person he cared about was himself? The crew of the Serenity as an example of a group who, collectively, are an anti-hero, because the mix of people there pull them in that direction. Was Mal was really a bad guy, who was only out for a profit? Or does the fact that he would do anything for his crew (his family-of-choice) mitigate that? Or is he an anti-hero because we know from his past that he used to be a hero, and now he's broken. Does it also depend on point of view? "The difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is the side you're on." Except that there tend to be certain acts -- such as the killing of children -- which put someone beyond the pale, even if their motives, in their own minds, justify those acts because of the goal they are aiming for. Or is that only in fiction?
(Strangely enough, nobody mentioned Snape. Not even me. Then again, I had other comments/questions which I made.)

Masks as symbols, masks as revealing the true nature of the person because anonymity gives them the freedom to be themselves, masks handed on as a legacy, with the role they represent being more important than the person who plays it (examples: The Phantom, Thor). Do we care more about the mask than the man, or is it impossible to care about the mask unless we care about the man behind it? For the sympathy we have with the masked hero is because we know his motives, his backstory. If we didn't know about Bruce Wayne's past, would we think that Batman was just a vigilante jerk? What about the characters in that universe who don't know who he is? (Answer: yes, some of them hate him)
Masks where we see the eyes, and masks where we don't. The eyes being the windows of the soul, the touch of humanity. Is Spiderman such a quirky character because he needs to be lighter in order for the readers to sympathise with him, since his mask doesn't show his eyes?
The difference between masks that are chosen, and those where the mask (or alter-ego) creates the superhero (for example, Thor and Thor's hammer).
What about Superman and Wonder Woman? They don't have masks... or do they? Their mask is their "everyday" persona, Clark Kent and Diana Prince.
What about the Doctor? Are all his faces masks? Then again, all of our faces are masks, because we never show our true selves to anybody except those who are closest to us.
Last example: Kylo Ren, not a hero, but someone who certainly hides behind a mask, trying to live up to the legacy it represents, that of Darth Vader.

The evening ended with a bang (or was it a belly laugh?) with George Ivanov hosting a game-show "Whose Monologue is it anyway?" After the first-round contestants had a lot of difficulty, someone suggested that each half of the room be the "team" of each contestant: first the contestants would try to answer, and if neither of them got it, then their teams would try to answer. Mind you, there were some questions which nobody got, and other questions where half the audience was quoting along with the monologue, but most of them were somewhere in-between. I volunteered to be a contestant in the second round, because it looked like fun, and I thought I could do better than the first-round contestants, surely. Then my heart sank a bit when the category was announced: Movies. Because I haven't seen any of the Marvel movies at all. But fortunately, the monologues were a mix of older and newer stuff, and my team were also great for the ones where I had no clue. And the second half of round two was TV shows. There was one question, where I knew that I'd heard the monologue before, I recognised it clearly, but I could not remember for the life of me what show it was. Turned out that one was Babylon 5. Other ones I answered more easily, and I ended up winning my round. Apparently where will be "a ton of crapola" for us tomorrow at reception (George unfortunately left the prizes at home). But, much better than that, Ben (of Night Terrace) declared that the winners would all get a copy of the first season of Night Terrace, yay! I haven't listened to it, but I remember hearing good things about it, so that will be cool.

Huh. I hadn't intended to go into so much detail. The above took me more than an hour to write. Humph.

I need sleeeeeeeep!

Okay, I'm asking for your help, y'all, for ideas on how I could make a specific costume idea, given that I'm going to a convention in a week, only have one weekend to do stuff in beforehand, don't have time to sew anything, will have to make do with things I have... because it's just too much of a fun idea not to try to do it.

Thing is, my eldest niece gave me, for Christmas, a plushie Darth Vader, which I'd forgotten about until I had to start clearing out my partially unpacked suitcase to prepare for packing for the convention. And it occurred to me that, it would be great fun to dress up as a teenage-or-child version of Kylo Ren (aka Ben Solo) with the plushie as the main prop for it, considering how much Kylo Ren hero-worshipped him.

So what could I wear that would scream "I am Kylo Ren" to fans looking at me?
I do have black trousers and turtleneck, so that would do as a base, but what else? A toy lightsaber would be obvious, except that it might violate the convention's no-weapons policy. And I'd have to actually find and buy one first!

Another question would be what to do with my hair, it being very long. If I put it into two pigtails, I could be a genderswapped Ben, since the idea would be to look like a little kid and pigtails definitely look like a little kid.

Ideas, ideas please?

Belated convention report for Continuum 11, which took place over the Queen's Birthday weekend. Possibly not as detailed as reports I have done previously. We shall see.

( Friday 5th June 2015 )
( Saturday 6th June 2015 )
( Sunday 7th June 2015 )
( Monday 8th June 2015 )
( Collected Recs )

I did sleep better this time, due to pushing the doona down so it only covered my legs. That appeared to get the temperature balance right. I was a little later to breakfast this time, so I missed both the 9am and 10am panels. Oh well. It was delicious.
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back to Saturday
on to Monday

Spent the morning packing, or, to be more precise, most of it was writing lists of what to pack, and then packing it.

Costume: Ravenclaw (somewhat improvised)
blue-green trousers, blue-green turtleneck; sleeveless pale green shirt with a collar, so I could wear my Ravenclaw tie - yes, those years of private school winter uniforms were useful for one thing: I still know how to tie a tie. Black waistcoat over the top. I was originally wearing a light green tracksuit-jacket over that, but the hotel is so well heated that I was too hot, so I took it off. Time turner around my neck on its new longer chain. Wand up my sleeve (but I think that damaged it, because it started wobbling later, alas)

I found the rego desk after wandering wrongly into the dealers' room. Happy known faces (Lizbee obv.) Took my con-bag up to my room to go through it, and transfer my carefully highlighted info from my printed-out version of the program to both the full program and the tiny pocket program. Though of course no program survives intact once it makes contact with reality.
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After I'd finished, I retreated to my room and wrote this.

on to Saturday
on to Sunday
on to Monday

Since I did not choose to pay the high cost of internet through the hotel, I haven't been posting reports of Continuum 9, which happened over the long weekend just passed. However, I did write stuff in my netbook, mostly on the days they happened, so I shall use that as a basis for this.
( Continuum 9 Day 1, Friday 7th June 2013 )
( Continuum 9 Day 2, Saturday 8th June )
( Continuum 9 Day 3, Sunday 9th June )
( Continuum 9 Day 4, Monday 10th June )