think we left at the right time
May. 28th, 2008 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redxdollxshoesShawn and I came back from our trip to Wiscon on Sunday night. There was much pouting and dragging feet about this because we really didn't want to leave early. Unfortunately, I couldn't get out of work on Memorial Day, and I made some good money, so I can't complain too much. Even though we missed the dessert salon and the parties and more hang out time with friends we never get to see enough. There's always next year.
Highlights included:
1. The Friday night party where Shawn built a spaceship out of a wine bottle and tin foil. Will post pictures possibly tomorrow. The theme was Robot Liberation, which caused Shawn and I to sing this song for the rest of the night:
2. Shawn's dad having one of her (for those of you new to my lj, Shawn's dad is a MTF trans, a lovely woman, and we're very proud and supportive of her) amazing paintings in the art show (it was the one of the naked Barbie in space, if you didn't know this).
3. The Farmer's Market! We totally brought a cooler with us specifically for this. We brought back squeaky cheese curds, homemade jam, tomato basil cheese spread, and homemade applesauce. Yum.
4.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
heathergalaxy's panel about what a vegetarian/vegan world would look like. It was very thought-provoking, although I find it annoying that every veggie discussion eventually gets derailed by questions of, "But what about protein? Where in god's name do you get your protein?!?!"
5. It was too nice out to be inside all day, so I took a walk around Madison and looked at all the stores. Didn't see clothes that I wanted to buy, but I went into their apothecary and loved it. It was kind of like the Merz Apothecary, where I worked for a couple years, but it was a bigger space so it was nice and spread out instead of all shoved into this tiny little space. I bought a green tea clay mask that I'll probably try out today.
6. I think my favorite panel was Fairy Tales for a New Generation of Girls. It featured retellings of fairy tales by five different authors, and there was a nice discussion about why fairy tales are still so compelling, the original dark versions compared with the Disneyfied versions, and all the different ways of subverting them. I use a lot of fairy tale imagery in my own writing, so it was a lot of fun.
7. There were other panels that ranged between good and meh that I'm not getting into. In any case, we ended the trip in a large group getting Japanese food forkesyrah's birthday. We even split a bottle of plum wine that was delicious.
We were sad to leave, but it turns out it was actually a good thing we did. An especially killer strain of stomach flu circulated the convention, and we managed to avoid it. Between leaving early or traveling back home a day later sick as a dog, I'll take leaving early.
It turns out we also missed drama. Extreme Drama! I was considering not posting it, because it's the kind of thing that's better to ignore, but it really pissed me off. I'm not going to post any links because the whole thing was just infuriating, but here's my own retelling of what happened. Feel free to not click the link if you're sick of the story and would prefer it just go away.
So this hateful wench comes to Wiscon for the second time. Apparently, she thinks that everyone there is "a huge bitch", but she likes to go anyway because it fuels her hatred of women for the rest of the year. I should probably point out that according to her lj interests, she's into feminism, sci fi, vegetarianism and a slew of other things that would normally make her seem like a cool person. She's not a normie coming to make fun of the freaks, I think she's just gotten caught up in the Power of Snark. There is a fine line between snark that is funny and snark that is just plain mean, and she's fallen to the dark side.
She takes pictures of everyone at the panels, specifically people who are fat. She puts little frowny faces over them to "disguise" their identities. (I totally got my own frowny face in the pic she took of the veggie panel! Hello, Tiny Jess! You knit that sock!) She goes to two fat-positive panels, apparently for the sole reason of taking pictures of the attendees and then writing about how disgusting she finds everyone and that she hates all this fat-positive stuff.
Then she goes to the veggie panel, and describes the three female mods as "extremely skinny, pierced girls." Okay, so it's bad to be fat, but if you're a healthy size (which the three girls were) suddenly you're "extremely" skinny? Also,heathergalaxy has a tiny septum piercing and I think one of the other girls might have had pierced ears. Ooh...how extreme and counterculture! I don't know if I can take someone seriously if they have their ears pierced. She specifically points out someone overweight in the crowd and says "I don't think a vegan diet is working for this guy." Um, I don't remember that guy jumping up and describing himself as vegan or vegetarian.
It goes on like this. Hatehatefathatehateskinnyhatehatebitcheshate. Eventually this posting is found. Was it in her own lj? Perhaps where she could have even locked it and everyone on her friends list could agree with her and tell her how clever she is? No, she posts it onto something awful, a website I've heard about and have been more than happy to ignore. Eventually she takes it down (after getting kicked out of the con), but someone else had already reposted it, and the something awful subhumans have been having a great time commenting. They've even searched wiscon and found flickr pictures, many of which are of my friends. As hard as it is seeing pictures that are actually quite cute of my gorgeous, happy, dancing friends dragged through the mud, I have decided just to laugh it off. I really have to doubt the pulchritude of people who casually throw around the "n" word and make fun of kids and people in wheelchairs, and my friends are light years ahead of them in attractiveness. "Oh noes! A bunch of internet douchebags that we wouldn't touch for world peace are making fun of us! Whatever shall we do?"
I went to the Hateful Wench's lj. Shawn told me she'd made a public apology, but I didn't see it. All I saw was something along the lines of, "Okay, I know I did a bad thing and I've lost a lot of friends, but stop sending me death threats!" I've got to say, I don't see anyone from Wiscon sending "death threats", but I've heard that there are a lot of other people from something awful who were pissed at what she did, and they seem like more of a death threat kind of crowd. One of her friends commented, "I'm obese, but I hate the fat positive movement and I think that everything you said was right!" That's sweet of him to support his friend, but the problem is not what she wrote, it's where she posted it. Also, that she purposely went into panels that many people considered to be a safe space and publicly humiliated them. Seeing how she started off the whole thing describing everyone as "a huge bitch", I'm really hoping this whole experience held up a mirror for her to really see herself.
Okay, off to start the day (at 1:30PM). Must put down the squeaky cheese curds!
Highlights included:
1. The Friday night party where Shawn built a spaceship out of a wine bottle and tin foil. Will post pictures possibly tomorrow. The theme was Robot Liberation, which caused Shawn and I to sing this song for the rest of the night:
2. Shawn's dad having one of her (for those of you new to my lj, Shawn's dad is a MTF trans, a lovely woman, and we're very proud and supportive of her) amazing paintings in the art show (it was the one of the naked Barbie in space, if you didn't know this).
3. The Farmer's Market! We totally brought a cooler with us specifically for this. We brought back squeaky cheese curds, homemade jam, tomato basil cheese spread, and homemade applesauce. Yum.
4.
heathergalaxy's panel about what a vegetarian/vegan world would look like. It was very thought-provoking, although I find it annoying that every veggie discussion eventually gets derailed by questions of, "But what about protein? Where in god's name do you get your protein?!?!" 5. It was too nice out to be inside all day, so I took a walk around Madison and looked at all the stores. Didn't see clothes that I wanted to buy, but I went into their apothecary and loved it. It was kind of like the Merz Apothecary, where I worked for a couple years, but it was a bigger space so it was nice and spread out instead of all shoved into this tiny little space. I bought a green tea clay mask that I'll probably try out today.
6. I think my favorite panel was Fairy Tales for a New Generation of Girls. It featured retellings of fairy tales by five different authors, and there was a nice discussion about why fairy tales are still so compelling, the original dark versions compared with the Disneyfied versions, and all the different ways of subverting them. I use a lot of fairy tale imagery in my own writing, so it was a lot of fun.
7. There were other panels that ranged between good and meh that I'm not getting into. In any case, we ended the trip in a large group getting Japanese food for
kesyrah's birthday. We even split a bottle of plum wine that was delicious.We were sad to leave, but it turns out it was actually a good thing we did. An especially killer strain of stomach flu circulated the convention, and we managed to avoid it. Between leaving early or traveling back home a day later sick as a dog, I'll take leaving early.
It turns out we also missed drama. Extreme Drama! I was considering not posting it, because it's the kind of thing that's better to ignore, but it really pissed me off. I'm not going to post any links because the whole thing was just infuriating, but here's my own retelling of what happened. Feel free to not click the link if you're sick of the story and would prefer it just go away.
So this hateful wench comes to Wiscon for the second time. Apparently, she thinks that everyone there is "a huge bitch", but she likes to go anyway because it fuels her hatred of women for the rest of the year. I should probably point out that according to her lj interests, she's into feminism, sci fi, vegetarianism and a slew of other things that would normally make her seem like a cool person. She's not a normie coming to make fun of the freaks, I think she's just gotten caught up in the Power of Snark. There is a fine line between snark that is funny and snark that is just plain mean, and she's fallen to the dark side.
She takes pictures of everyone at the panels, specifically people who are fat. She puts little frowny faces over them to "disguise" their identities. (I totally got my own frowny face in the pic she took of the veggie panel! Hello, Tiny Jess! You knit that sock!) She goes to two fat-positive panels, apparently for the sole reason of taking pictures of the attendees and then writing about how disgusting she finds everyone and that she hates all this fat-positive stuff.
Then she goes to the veggie panel, and describes the three female mods as "extremely skinny, pierced girls." Okay, so it's bad to be fat, but if you're a healthy size (which the three girls were) suddenly you're "extremely" skinny? Also,
heathergalaxy has a tiny septum piercing and I think one of the other girls might have had pierced ears. Ooh...how extreme and counterculture! I don't know if I can take someone seriously if they have their ears pierced. She specifically points out someone overweight in the crowd and says "I don't think a vegan diet is working for this guy." Um, I don't remember that guy jumping up and describing himself as vegan or vegetarian. It goes on like this. Hatehatefathatehateskinnyhatehatebitcheshate. Eventually this posting is found. Was it in her own lj? Perhaps where she could have even locked it and everyone on her friends list could agree with her and tell her how clever she is? No, she posts it onto something awful, a website I've heard about and have been more than happy to ignore. Eventually she takes it down (after getting kicked out of the con), but someone else had already reposted it, and the something awful subhumans have been having a great time commenting. They've even searched wiscon and found flickr pictures, many of which are of my friends. As hard as it is seeing pictures that are actually quite cute of my gorgeous, happy, dancing friends dragged through the mud, I have decided just to laugh it off. I really have to doubt the pulchritude of people who casually throw around the "n" word and make fun of kids and people in wheelchairs, and my friends are light years ahead of them in attractiveness. "Oh noes! A bunch of internet douchebags that we wouldn't touch for world peace are making fun of us! Whatever shall we do?"
I went to the Hateful Wench's lj. Shawn told me she'd made a public apology, but I didn't see it. All I saw was something along the lines of, "Okay, I know I did a bad thing and I've lost a lot of friends, but stop sending me death threats!" I've got to say, I don't see anyone from Wiscon sending "death threats", but I've heard that there are a lot of other people from something awful who were pissed at what she did, and they seem like more of a death threat kind of crowd. One of her friends commented, "I'm obese, but I hate the fat positive movement and I think that everything you said was right!" That's sweet of him to support his friend, but the problem is not what she wrote, it's where she posted it. Also, that she purposely went into panels that many people considered to be a safe space and publicly humiliated them. Seeing how she started off the whole thing describing everyone as "a huge bitch", I'm really hoping this whole experience held up a mirror for her to really see herself.
Okay, off to start the day (at 1:30PM). Must put down the squeaky cheese curds!
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-28 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-28 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-28 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-28 06:50 pm (UTC)Why do some people think that the world revolves around them, and that all their comments are fascinating? Sheesh!
no subject
Date: 2008-05-28 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-28 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-28 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-28 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-28 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-29 02:15 pm (UTC)Despite that (and the killer death flu we missed), it was a great time. Hopefully next year will be wench-free.