Fandom – Page 2 – Wis[s]e Words

Futurecon — September 17-20

Published on August 17, 2020Leave a comment

William Gibson once said that the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed. Geographical location and wealth could indeed limit access to considerable advances in technology. However, imagination is a more subtle power. It does not know borders or languages. From Beijing to Lagos, from Rio de Janeiro to Los Angeles, ideas are flourishing in the form of stories.

An online science fiction convention that has been intended from the start to be an online convention, which takes advantage of the ability of the internet to connect people worldwide. Why did it take a global pandemic for this to happen?

I’m glad it did however, because both the schedule as the invited guests look mighty tasty. According to one of the organisers, Cheryl Morgan, everything will be available on Youtube, in English, for free. It’s unclear whther there will be interactive Discord channels or other ways to participate in the con if you’re not on the panels. UPDATE: looks like there will be.

Futurecon is important because it’s an experiment in how to make science fiction more global. Or rather, how to learn to connect the various strands of global science fiction in a way that does so without needing a centre and its periphery. Traditional Worldcon fandom has always been revolving around American science fiction, with even UK and other English speaking countries being of secondary interest. As its name suggest, it also harbored under the illusion that it was the entirety of world fandom. With Futurecon we have what I think is the first English language attempt to make this boast true. A world fandom in which fans in China can find common interests with fans in South America and Africa, without having to rely on the goodwill of US/UK fandom. Where there’s equal attention paid to writers from Ghana even when they don’t publish in English.

My ConZealand schedule

Published on July 27, 2020Leave a comment

Had the world not taken a turn for the worse in January this year, I would’ve in Wellington now, in a very nice apartment that I had already booked just before everything shut down, ready for Worldcon to start. I’m still not sure I’ll ever get the money back from the flights I’d already booked as well, but ConZealand is going ahead anyway and I still will be on two panels. They’ll just be virtual ones, over Discord and Zoom, not that much different from how I’ve been doing my work the last five months already.

First up: My Favourite Anime: Our panellists reveal some of their favourite anime, and what draws them to it. 15:00, Friday 31 Jul 2020 NZST (50 minutes).

Second: The Decade in Anime: The highlights, the lowlights, and the unforgettable moments of 2010s anime. 14:00, Saturday 1 Aug 2020 NZST (50 minutes). Only disadvantage is that it overlaps a little bit with the Hugos.

Time wise, New Zealand is ten hours ahead of me, so that 15:00 and 14:00 starting time means I have to be up at 5AM and 4AM already. A small price to pay for being able to chatter on about anime.

Transphobia has consequences

Published on July 25, 2020Leave a comment

Sales of J. K. Rowling’s books in the US fell twenty percent short of the industry average:

Last month, sales in print books in fiction overall rose 31.4% in the U.S. from May, according to figures from NPD BookScan, with fiction titles in adult, young adult and juvenile sectors all seeing similar double-digit growth. The author of the “Harry Potter” series, by contrast, saw her print book sales in the U.S. rise just 10.9% in June. “Harry Potter” sales — including licensed titles not authored by Rowling — rose even less, just 7.7% for the month. While the BookScan figures do not account for other points of sale — like eBooks, sales to libraries and direct publisher sales — they do point to a remarkably sudden and sharp drop in print sales for Rowling’s books.

It seems that despite her habit of suing people for pointing out her transphobia, enough people have cottoned on to hurt her sales. Once again proving that the vast majority of people do not have any truck with transphobes.

Any hedgehog can be buggered

Published on March 28, 2020Leave a comment

The Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest doing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy while its members are stuck at home is lovely:

But thanks to a certain traumatic performance at a long ago Clarecraft Discworld Event I keep hearing this:

Any hedgehog can be buggered
It just takes a little will
Just locate the proper entrance
And apply a little skill.

Then shave off those blasted prickles…
They’re quite painful on your crotch.
Don’t do this in public places
If you don’t want crowds to watch!

AO3 blocked in China

Published on March 1, 2020Leave a comment

On Twitter, Izzy reports that Archive of Our Own is now blocked in China:

THREAD: Sad day for Chinese internet users: Ao3, archive of our own, was reportedly blocked on Feb 29, 2020. I can’t begin to describe its importance to its Chinese users. It’s not mainstream like douban, but in China it‘s a refuge for literature created by and for women.

Censorship in China is capricious at the best of times, but according to Izzy, people suspect this was the result of a deliberate campaign by fans of the Chinese idol Xiao Zhan, who has a fair bit of fic written about him. Not so much that they wanted to take AO3 offline, as rather that the offending stories would be removed and/or the writers punished. However, you can protest as much as you want that nobody ever wanted AO3 to be blocked and that saying that these fans caused it is a lie, but you have to take the consequences of your actions. If you complain to the Chinese censors about a website, get it on their radar, what did you expect would happen? They can’t force AO# to actually remove these stories, nor are they known for their subtlety handling a ‘problem’. This was always going to happen.