Saturday, Sunday, The RPG and The Panel
Saturday began with a leisurely breakfast and then settling
in to "Representations of the City in SFF". This made my inner architect nerd
sing. While at times I felt they strayed a little too far into architectural
debate and theory and could have related it to SFF a little tighter, it was
still a fascinating discussion about how cities are built and the impact city
and building design can have on the tone and feeling of a book. The authors on
the panel, Verity Holloway and Al Robertson, gave some great insight in to how
the small details of city design are incorporated in to their writing – the city
design informing character actions and the character actions describing city
design – whilst editor and marketing bod Jared Shurin introduced interesting
elements of how things like advertising and corporate ownership may fit in and
change a city dweller’s (or reader’s) experience.
The panellists: (l-r) Amy Butt, Al Robertson, Verity Holloway and Jared Shurin |
The RPG session
Then it was time to run Days of Future Craft, our beast of an RPG one-shot:
Twelve players, three characters, three time periods, three GMs, four NPCs, plus robots, crochet, poison and for some reason, Romans.
First off, let
me explain how this came to be. The person running workshops and craft related
things had an idea for some sort of craft related RPG but she wasn’t able to
write and run it. Somehow Nathan and me ended up taking this on board and
quickly roped in Carlos. We weren’t sure quite how we ended up running a 12
person, three hour, one off, craft related game with three GMs but there we
were. We fit in as many Skype plot writing meetings as we could in the weeks leading up to Nine Worlds and hoped that the rough notes accumulated actually
added up to something playable. What we had come up with was an ambitious game
of time travel and crafting gone wrong, in which three groups of players would
take on the same group of characters split in to their past present and future
selves and try and stop the end of the world. The big bad was known as The
Crafter and we were pretty sure that crochet had something to do with it. Oh
and there were robots.
I was nervous going in to it and also aware that this was taking
up a big chunk of my con. If it didn’t work not only would I worry about
letting down our players, I felt I would have given up a chunk of my time for
something rubbish. It’s pretty safe to say that this game was giving me a
little anxiety. However, as the players turned up and got on with the bizarre
task of creating their past present and future selves it started to look like
it might work. I was heading up The Past and though things were a little slow
to start off, we soon picked up the pace with poison and the unexpected
appearance or four Roman Soldier NPCs thanks of course, to player action. It was good.
As expected we ran over
time, rushing to fit the final mega encounter when past, present and future
came together for one last showdown. Ideally we would have had more time to
finish off properly, as it was the final encounter didn’t feel quite right, but
we had to end somewhere. Nevertheless the players seemed satisfied and pleased
with the outcome and, I think, had fun wielding their craft skills against The
Crafter.
It was with relief then that I walked away from the RPG and
to a well deserved sit down and cup of tea, relaxing and raiding the trader’s
stalls for books and lovely art (a book haul post may come later, but suffice to
say, I love the book buying opportunities of Nine Worlds). I could have sworn I went to another panel
that evening but I can’t for the life of me remember what. I think my head was
still scrambled from too many timelines and dinner.
AMereKat opening the cabaret accomanied by Creature. pic credit: Zooterkin |
Whatever happened in that fuzzy period, we made it back in
time for the BiFrost caberet. The BiFrost Caberet is a strange beast. It really
is a cabaret: numerous individual acts performing in short bursts and everything
from comedy filk (from the likes of the lovely A Merekat), to poetry, balloon
based magic and superb songs about feminism (from Alice Nicholls). It fell flat
once or twice – though the poetry was excellent and by no means should a
cabaret be entirely comic, poetry is a difficult one to fit in, in terms of
tone and mood. Sadly the final act was a let-down with little substance and
leaving most people uncomfortable and confused – a bizarre combination of drag
act and a Butlins-esque insistence on people joining in. I know that getting
acts for the cabaret is difficult and there is a need for diversity and
variety, but the selection process could do with being a little more vigorous.
Sadly, even with my now much loved scooter, I was just too
tired to stay for the BiFrost Disco even though I knew the music would be good
and the dancefloor welcoming. That sort of socialising just took more mental
energy than I had for the evening and so it was off to bed for a well needed
sleep.
Sunday
Sunday started with grand plans of attending Nick Bradbeer’s
talk on spaceship design, and I was looking forward to his enthusiasm and
specialist knowledge in the field of naval engineering. Unfortunately for us,
and good for him, it seemed everybody else had the same idea and we were just
too late to get a space. Instead I nipped off to BookTubing to learn more about
this mysterious niche of YouTube while my partner decided what he needed was
some inflatable shark Olympics. (I think that paragraph sums up the content
spectrum of Nine Worlds pretty well).
I really wasn’t sure what to expect from the BookTubing
panel – it wasn’t something I had heard of and I wasn’t sure what shape the
discussion would take. It turned out to be interesting and a lovely, lively and
friendly talk. BookTube it turns out is a niche corner of YouTube in which
people review books and produce literary vlogs. I would have liked a bit more discussion
about how YouTube fits in to the changing world of reviews and media as people
move away from the traditional press, but it remained, but the technical talk
about how it all worked, who produced and who watched still filled the hour
well. At the very least I’ve come out of it with several new YouTube channels
to follow and a reassurance that being a slow reader is legitimate and audiobooks
are absolutely as valid as printed texts.
Split Worlds cosplay |
After that session I changed in to my only real cosplay of
the con, my Irene Peonia Retincula gown from the Split World’s novels by Emma
Newman. It’s a lovely gown and one I have not much reason to wear. It’s the
sort of gown that looks elegant even on a scooter, and definitely when stood
up, swooshing the long train behind me. Nine Worlds has a lovely system for
rewarding cosplay. Unlike other cons which may have a parade or contest for
cosplayers, which can cause stress and anxiety and disproportionaly awards
those with more money or professional costume makers, Nine Worlds issues every
attendee with five tokens. People can wear cosplay throughout the weekend and
other attendees can hand over a token as a show of appreciation. What this
means is that the stunning and pro-made costumes get rewarded alongside those
that are thrown together out of a wardrobe but perfectly recreate or capture
the spirit of a character. You can reward people for those rare and obscure
characters that only you and the wearer seem to know as well as the character
you don’t recognise but whose magnificent mask and paint job leave you staring.
Once you have collected 15 tokens you can collect a small prize and badge from
the info desk. No fanfare, just appreciation. It’s a democratic and friendly
system that I adore. So you can imagine how pleased I was that in the few short
hours I wore my Split Worlds gown I was given a handful of tokens. Not enough
for a badge but that quiet show of appreciation from friends and strangers was
enough to leave me with a warm glow.
Next up in proceedings (and still gowned) was a choice
between bisexuality in SFF and 3D Printing Gets Smart. I opted for Promiscuous
Unicorns since it’s a topic close to home (and I had seen an excellent talk on
the possibilities of 3D printing earlier in the year at Eastercon). I’m still not
sure that was the right decision.
Promiscuous Unicorns: Representations of bisexuals in SFF AKA: That Panel
This panel was, sadly, the low point of the weekend for me.
It just didn’t work. Some people have described it as “hissing bisexuals” and
other such terms which would imply that is was deeply problematic and
offensive. I don’t entirely agree with that view but there is no denying that
it was not the insightful, creative and radical talk it could be. So what were
the problems?
Firstly we need to acknowledge that all content at Nine Worlds
is provided on a volunteers and amateur basis – people suggest and volunteer to
run sessions and do so with support from the also volunteer (but often experienced)
content runners. Running a panel isn’t an easy task – it requires preparing
your subject and working with a group of other people, some of whom you may not
know well if at all. It takes preparation, confidence and people skills. If any
of that is lacking, your panel can fall apart. Additionally you need to make
sure you have the right people on your panel, balancing experience, knowledge,
diversity and voice carefully: while you don’t need everybody to have academic
qualifications or be working in the field, you do need to make sure that
whatever qualifications they do have are suitable and work well with everybody
else.
This panel was let down on several of those points: the
chair was lacking in the confidence to direct the discussion and curtail overzealous
panellists, the contribution of some of the panellists wasn’t clear and, some
voices were apt to drown out others. This resulted in a panel that was short of nuance, was repetitive, and often strayed in to personal territory without
reference back to the topic at hand, specifically bisexuality as represented in
SFF.
The problem with talking about problematic tropes is you
have to talk about those problematic tropes. It means talking about how
bisexuality is often linked to promiscuity, to a lack of morality, to a lack of
fidelity. Bisexuals are sex workers, playboys and wildcards. Or at least they
are in much of the media we are presented with. A nuanced discussion is able to
talk about why these depictions are problematic whilst acknowledging that those
behaviours themselves are not wrong or immoral (well, perhaps with the
exception of the immorality). Furthermore we are dealing with a topic that is
not static. The language of LGBTQAI has changed and continues to change over
the decades. The goals, ambitions, acceptance and face of bisexual politics and
lifestyle has shifted and changed and of course is not a homogenous mass that
has been uniformly agreed upon but changes with the individual. It’s important to understand the history in
order to understand how these tropes have developed and why they have become
problems. But it is also important to balance that history with the many varied
opinions and voices of now. Sadly that fine path wasn’t well negotiated in the
panel – too much time was spent focusing on the issue of promiscuity and sex
work and how that was bad in terms of tropes and representation, when it is
often the only representation of bisexual people. And though the panellists did
state that there was nothing inherently wrong with a polyamorous or promiscuous
bisexual person and that it is merely the ever present trope that is a problem,
the repetition of these arguments and the panellists constantly returning to
undesirable examples meant that nuance was lost.
There was some contentious statements about the nature of
bisexuality, the idea that maybe we are all a little bit bisexual, a concept
that is ripe for discussion and has neither been declared discredited or valid,
an impossibility considering there is no over-riding Council of Bisexuality to
judge and declare on the matter. However it is contentious and raises a lot of
questions not just about sexuality but gender theory. It can and does make a
lot of people, me included uncomfortable and can be argued to contribute to the
erasure of bisexuality. If everybody who isn’t Definitely Straight or
Definitely Gay is “a little bit bi” then it undermines the idea of bisexuality
as a distinct concept. It can also undermine other sexualities – those people
who have fought for the right to call themselves gay or lesbian being told that
maybe they are actually a little bit bi like everybody else.
But, as in this blog, it is an issue that grows and meanders
easily taking us off track and away from the original discussion. When the
notion comes up repeatedly in a talk on the representation of bisexuality it is
bound to cause ripples.
There were a number of smaller sticking points too, largely the language used and personal opinions on what is difficult to say and what people want to see. All panels will have small things you disagree with, after all we are generally dealing with subjects that don't have hard fast rules, but along side the other issues discussed, those small points make a big hill.
Ultimately the panel didn’t go well. Was it a room full of
hissing bisexuals and problematic statements deserving of metaphorical stoning?
No. But was it a good panel? Far from. It is fair that people came out with
feathers ruffled and a sense of disappointment. We could have had a nuanced and
educated critique of bisexual representation in media with choice examples and
discussion of what is done badly and how we can improve. Instead we had the
same tired old statements delivered without care and littered with
opportunities to upset and annoy. There was no advancement of thought, no sense
of progress or learning, just stale irritation and the sense that the female
author on the left should have been allowed to speak more.
The final foray
We only had time left for one panel and sadly the
contentious bisexuality panel had left me feeling flat and lacking in
enthusiasm. A final raid on the traders to gather yet more books and art helped
lift my spirits as well as the unending joy of being in a bubble of like minded
people who really understood what it was like to be the odd one out back in the
real world but here treated each other as equals, friends and with respect. The
general atmosphere of Nine Worlds really is special. It is refreshing and
restorative, a place where many people feel they can truly be themselves and
can express themselves, and merely exist in safety and without the risk of
ridicule, attack or harm from outsiders. The effort they go to not just make it
a safe space for geeks and nerds but for different ethnicities, skin colours,
genders, sexualities, ages and disabilities is a marvellous thing and not to be
dismissed lightly. Whatever my grievances with the bisexuality panel, being in
that wholesome environment made it better. Also books. All the books.
Some successful retail therapy and demonstrating the carry capacity of the scooter. |
The final panel for me this event was “Robots AI and the
Labour Market”. If I am honest this is my jam, this is exactly the sort of
panel I adore and love that I get the opportunity to go to. I love the hard
science and the hard facts that can be found in speculative fiction and I love
how we can examine that from a real world perspective. The panel was chaired by
Sarah Groenwegen, who had earlier chaired the Policing in Urban fantasy panel,
so I was encouraged that this would be a well moderated and technical panel.
This woman knows her stuff. The rest of the panel was made up of a combination
of authors, physicists, computer programmers, mathematicians and engineers. This
was a heavyweight panel for a heavy subject.
It was fascinating and especially
relevant considering recent stories breaking from Google and Microsoft, to say
nothing of the UKs current economic situation. They talked in realistic terms
about how AI and robotics were actually already changing the way we work and
live and how integrated these systems are. It makes for extrapolation to
speculative fiction and tricky task, managing to keep things interesting but
not ignoring the very mundane way we already live with such technology. They
talked of the pitfalls inherent in the tech, especially that fact that any AI
or robot is only as clever or clued up as the programmers or data it has to
learn from. As we are learning, if the data you feed to an AI is steeped in
systemic racism, the results the AI gives you will be just as prejudice – there
is no inherent impartiality in AI and robots as long as humans are involved.
There was interesting talk then about the creation of utopias and dystopias,
how AI could be used in different political and social models and the impact that
would have on our lives: more time for creativity and arts? Would we be
wealthier or poorer? How would the crumbling class system be impacted and who
would be the new underclass? What of the “lives” of the AI’s themselves?
It was, for me an AI and speculative fiction enthusiast, a
superb way to round out the convention.
A quick change in to “normal” clothes once more, some hugs
and good byes and my Nine Worlds came to an end as we checked out of the hotel
for another year.
All in all it is a wonderful experience. The accessibility
is fabulous and the effort people go to to make sure everybody can join in is
marvellous. Hiring the scooter for the event is what, metaphorically kept me on
my feet. Being able to park up and walk in to some panels or roll up and
reverse into a designated space was a great feeling as, unlike in the outside
world, I was never a bother or an exception. The range of topics being
discussed and the level of interaction is marvellous and there is more or less
something for all tastes. Splitting my time between running content and purely
attending did dampen my experience somewhat and there are some panels I regret
missing. Of course there are high spots and low spots when it comes to the
quality of a panel, that is almost inevitable but honestly it’s something I can
live with and at the very least it gives us something to talk about.
I love this con. I’ll be going back. You should think about
going too. I’ll see you there.
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