Worldcon 2019: Sunday through to after!
Monday, 21 October 2019 12:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spindizzySunday
Monday
After
- I'm not saying that I spent all of Sunday being a useless mess, but oh god I was such a useless mess.
- Like, full-on "I didn't go to a single panel and barely ate because I was that nervous."
- But justira was delivering their speech about the Games Hugo to the Business Meeting! It's a good speech, they put so much effort into this, and they had people come up afterwards to say "I don't generally approve of new Hugos and I don't play video games, but your speech convinced me." ALL POWER TO THE FANTASTIC justira AND ALL OF THE WORK THEY'VE DONE ON THIS HUGO!
- There was drama and I've been advised not to explain the drama because it would be needlessly picking a fight, but also I don't feel like I can let the day go by without ACKNOWLEDGING that the drama existed? Uggggggggggggggh.
- On the plus side, I did get to wear my wiggle dress for wandering around, which I LOVE because the wiggle dress makes me feel extremely professional. (I think it's because my cardigan is nearly as long as it so I can live my Short Skirt Long Jacket dreams.)
- justira and I didn't finish our speech the day of the Hugos, that would have been foolish! >_> We definitely didn't rehearse it and do the final refinements of our speech like three hours before the ceremony started, in the convention centre atrium, rewriting at speed on our phones! We are organised and professional humans!
- To the kind human sitting next to us who told us that our speech sounded good: THANK YOU AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR WELL WISHES.
-
itsreileyright's outfit made her look like the star of a fifties movie about murdering her husband for the insurance money, it was EXCELLENT.
- I don't know how it happened, but I ended up having a very nice chat with Ada Palmer's dad! Which is weird because I would 100% be too star-struck to speak to Ada Palmer herself. (He seems very nice, and very up for learning about things! ... I am incredibly jealous.)
- I got the proper "Y'all have a good day now," by an American and I don't know if that means I insulted the speaker's mother or if I'm allowed to feel as gleeful about it as I do.
- I don't know if I mentioned it here, but my dress was RED. Like, BRIGHT red. And it had CAPE SLEEVES, because let's face it: if you can't wear a dress with cape sleeves to the Hugos, where CAN you wear it? I unfortunately hadn't actually tried it on with my bra, so I didn't realise until it was too late that I really needed a plunge bra to go with it. OH WELL. Hoped everyone enjoyed looking at my bra again!
- Travis, justira's partner, was my +1 to the pre-Hugos party, and he had an AMAZING dress! It was made out of zippers, and he looked like justira's loyal toyboy from the timeline where they're the ruler of space.
- Everyone looked so beautiful! Like, Claire had a SPACE DRESS (with pockets!) and THE FANCIEST HAIRDO WITH FLOWERS AND BEES because she was collecting for
- ... Oh and I guess there were men there? Maybe they looked okay too, I wasn't really paying attention.
- (The food at the pre-reception was SO GOOD, I loved it! Like, there were lots of tiny fancy circle things that I couldn't identify, but there were like chocolate circles with cream and deliciousness?)
- I met MORE people that I know from the internet, including
- I am really sorry to the Maria who was in the queue near us when we were being shepherded around, I did mean to say hi!
- ... Scorpia was an usher and I swear to god I nearly tripped over a chair.)
- SO I GUESS THE HUGOS HAPPENED????
- justira was VERY excited about the harp bridge model being on stage, because they LOVED the harp bridge.
- "Honoured peoples" is my favourite gender-neutral greeting that can actually be used in a professional setting, good work presenters!
- (Afua Richardson is the embodiment of style, omg, and she was really nice!)
- The auditorium had PLUG SOCKETS AND TABLES for every seat, I loved it, that was so useful! And they specifically didn't cut the house lights entirely because they knew we'd all be livetweeting what was happening! Genius!
- The subtitles for the Hugos were... Sure a thing? Like, bless everyone involved, they were HORRIBLY inaccurate. I'm guilty of laughing at the start when I thought it was a person doing the subtitles, but when I realised they were automated... Oh no. (The guy running the show was VERY apologetic about the subtitles cutting out entirely during our speech, and I'm just there like "Mate, I respect that you thought your software could keep up with this accent, it's fine.") Like, the one it upset me for was the word salad that happened when
- Campbell: I know we've all seen the beautiful incredible moment that Jeannette Ng got on stage and announced "JOHN W. CAMPBELL WAS A FUCKING FASCIST" but holy shit the ceremony peaked in the first speech. Like, her entire speech was good! "You gave me a mic" and talking about the protests in Hong Kong and "My hat does a thing!" were all excellent beats that I still remember! And I respect the living fuck out of Jeannette Ng anyway! But holy shit that was amazing.
- THE LODESTAR EXISTS AND IS A REAL AWARD AND I AM SO HAPPY FOR forestofglory AND EVERYONE ELSE WHO MADE THAT HAPPEN.
- Best Fan Artist: I apologise to literally no one, not a SINGLE PERSON, for how loudly I screamed when
- Best Fan Writer:
- Best Fancast: I have never listened to Our Opinions Are Correct, but "If it didn't get overanalysed to death, did it really happen?" is the BIGGEST FUCKING MOOD. ... Also I want to take this moment to point out that hey, in 2014, the Puppies tried to go "We don't like how inclusive SFF is now," and look at where we are! The first five categories of the night won exclusively by people the Puppies would have screamed into their gutter about. The best revenge is us thriving.
- And then it was Best Fanzine, and. Um. HI INTERNET, WE DID THE THING. YOU DID THE THING. THE THING WAS DONE THROUGH SOME COMBINATION OF US WORKING REALLY HARD AND PEOPLE DECIDING THAT THEY LIKE US AND WANT US TO HAVE ANOTHER SHINY ROCKET, MAYBE?????
- Things I remember about the Hugo win: checking that my bra wasn't on show on stage, making a very dazed joke that justira and I didn't have enough hands to carry the awards, and adding "The people you can hear screaming right now? That's them, we want to thank them" to our speech. ... I've not been able to find a recording of the ceremony so I have no idea what we actually said. I hope it made sense. I hope people understood how grateful I was. ... Oh, and I saved a printscreen of our speech to my phone but I hit a button and couldn't find it the moment I got on stage. D: D: D: D:
- The backstage area had a sofa for people to collapse on as soon as they got off-stage and I think a very kind soul took the Hugo away from me because my entire me was shaking and I was going to drop it. And Ira and I sat there for a while, then went and hid in one of the bathrooms to scream a little in person and in the group chat, because holy shit apparently people like us?!
- I missed pretty much anything that happened between us leaving the stage and the In Memoriam section, because Ira was classy enough that they decided that we probably SHOULDN'T bimble in front of that screen.
- AO3 WON A FUCKING HUGO, WE HAVE NOMINATED IT FOR SO MANY YEARS AND IT WON IT WON IT WON! I love that the speech involved getting everyone who used AO3 to stand up, because WE DID IT, WE ARE ALL A TINY PART OF THIS BEAUTIFUL THING AND I JUMPED UP AND DOWN AND SCREAMED AND I WILL NOT BE ASHAMED.
- Quick rundown of the categories I had any opinions on: Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: I wasn't expecting Into the Spiderverse to win, but yesssssssssssssssssssssss, MILES AND SPIDER-GWEN GETTING THE RESPECT THEY DESERVE! Best Graphic Novel: MONSTRESS MONSTRESS MONSTRESS! Best Novella: I'm not mad that Artificial Condition won, because I liked it a lot! I just wanted The Tea Master and the Detective to win!
- PRETTY GOOD NIGHT, I THINK????
-
- And then from there, we ran away to the Hugo Losers Party, which... Had some ups and downs, shall we say?
- First off: proof that I am getting better: Hugos Loser's Party in Helsinki, I was CONVINCED I was having a heart attack, but having done the Scooby Doo thing and pulled off the mask to discover it was Old Man Anxiety all along, DIDN'T SPEND THE FIRST HALF HOUR OF THIS PARTY PRAYING THAT I WASN'T ACTUALLY DYING AND ABOUT TO INCONVENIENCE EVERYONE.
- justira and I traded in our +1s for different ones; they were part of the grand effort to get the AO3 representatives into the party, and I took
- Okay, so, due to a comedy of errors, justira and the group that was heading to the bus, so we're standing outside the convention centre like "... What do we do?" And this lady (whose face I was pretty sure I recognised even though I couldn't place her) was like "Oh, are you going to the party? I'm getting a taxi there, we can go together!" So we do, and the three of us chat while we're on our way there, and about five minutes into the trip I'm just like "... Wait a second. You're Dr Jeannette Epps. You gave out the Best Novel award. You're an astronaut. You've been to space." And that is how an astronaut paid for our taxi to the Losers Party I guess???
- (She was SO COOL, omg! And apparently "Literal actual astronaut" is the only thing that gets Lex to go "Okay no, that's worth being excited about.")
- Okay, but, the actual party. You may have seen some of the drama about this, but here is my awareness of what went off. We get to the Guinness Storehouse, there's a cluster of people around the door, and a bouncer explaining that the building is full to capacity. I'm like "Oh, okay, the bus must have arrived and Ira's inside, cool, I don't mind waiting!" ... And then the bus pulls up, full of people under the mistaken impression that any of us are getting into this party. There's no provision for the spoonies or anyone else who can't stand outside at night for any great length of time, so Ada Palmer takes charge of them. As far as I can tell, no one gets shirty with the bouncers, who are just doing their jobs, but also the bouncers can't tell anyone how long the wait would be. (Upstairs, unbeknownst to us, apparently GRR Martin is overheard telling guests not to worry about leaving to make space for people to come in.)
- Eventually, someone manages to make their way out of the building, collars a group of us and starts shepherding up inside. I know that we and AO3 crew tried to get some of the finalists who hadn't won taken in ahead of us, because y'know, it's IN THE NAME who this party is for, dude isn't having it. We do manage to bring Dr Epps along, and cheer when the guy checking names stop being an arse about her.
- And from there, I had NO CLUE what was going on. We got taken up in the Storehouse! I assumed but foolishly didn't check that everyone got in! I like the "industrial, but colour" look it had going on, I like the cute wallet/notebook cover thing that CoNZealand gave to all the finalists, I liked that there was tiny food and free drinks! I did not like that seats were a luxury and the main room was too loud for me and my anxiety, but I got to see my friends and hug them lots! We got to choose our own shamehats, which meant that I ended up with an AMAZING TIE that I gave to
- And additional proof that I'm getting better: there was a live band who played Wild Rover, because what else could they play, and... It didn't hurt? It was my dad's favourite song, we played it at his funeral, and it didn't hurt.
- I'll be honest, I called it early because I am old and boring, and justira called it because they had to be on a plane in like four hours or something. But we got back to the convention centre safely! Hugs were had!
- Hey. Hey internet. We won a Hugo.
Monday
- Monday was BUSY AS HELL. Packing, checking out of the hotel, spending most of the running around EVERY SINGLE TOURIST TRAP I COULD THINK OF IN DUBLIN on a hunt for snowglobes and something consumable for Lex's present. I ended up stopping by the Guinness Storehouse, but it turns out that it's 25 euroes to get into the building, and I love my humans but I don't drink so I'm not paying to go round a brewery. Instead, I went to the Teeling Distillery that scarimonious recommended, where they not only didn't charge you to get into the shop, but also had literal actual Whiskey in the Jar, which I obviously had to buy for Jill and Lex because PUNS. (I was very apologetic to the guy in the shop because I only knew the Dubliners version, and it turned out that he was surprised because people usually know the Metallica version. You know. That well-known folk band.)
- You know where I found a snowglobe, eventually? DUTY-FREE AT THE AIRPORT. Which is where I found her LAST snowglobe as well.
- I HATE GOODBYES SO MUCH but I also love hugs? So I tried to get around and hug everyone, but I might have missed a few people!
- It turns out that the AO3 Hugo is going to be part of the travelling Worldcon exhibit, which is pretty cool! If you ever go to Worldcon, please say hi to your 1/4293759562387th of a Hugo!
- Oh yeah, SO YOU REMEMBER HOW I MENTIONED THAT EXTRA BAGGAGE SPACE.
- FOURTEEN AND A HALF KILOGRAMS.
- NO REALLY.
- AND THAT WASN'T EVEN WITH EVERYTHING IN, BECAUSE I HAD TWO SMALL CABIN BAGS WITH MORE BOOKS AND MY EREADERS AND MY BEAR IN.
- (Yes, I turned thirty this year. Yes, I have a specific bear that I take travelling with me. The guy sitting next to me on the plane was very amused.)
- Apparently there was Some Kind Of Sport Event on at the weekend, which explains why the trams were rammed.
- The plane was delayed, but I got to read more of Taste of Marrow, so that worked out!
- Lex picked me up from the airport!!! I got to see Lex! He'd been at the Magic grand prix or whatever we're supposed to call it in Birmingham, where he played A LOT of side events and got enough to get some boxes of cards AND picked me up an AWESOME CHANDRA SHIRT, because Chandra is my tiny flame-throwing bisexual patronus. It's pretty much the only way that he's been able to reclaim his pyjamas, that I obviously had to steal.
- Me: Obviously, I am Completely Fine and Immune to both Con Crud and Con Crash.
Me, after I spent a week lying on the sofa doing literally nothing because my brain was fried: Maybe I was wrong.
After
- That's... Mostly it, I think? I saw a bunch of cool people, I bought a lot of books, I got a shiny rocket in the post (because funnily enough, customs get a bit funny about you take metal rocket-shaped things onto planes?
- There has been follow-up drama though, and some of it has been funny! Like that guy who tried to yell at AO3 about making jokes about how we all have 1/20472837549th of a Hugo, so naturally everyone has doubled down. And some of it, was... Less funny.
- Me: I got subtweeted by George R. R. Martin, that means I'm famous now, right?
- (Q: Wasn't that a 6000 word essay explaining what was going on with the Hugo Losers Party?
A: Did I fucking stutter?) - I am trying to talk about this in a way least likely to get picked up by Certain Online Gossip Rags, but the long and the short of it is apparently that a few years ago, the Hugo Losers Party got fused with a party that GRR Martin was throwing, and it's continued on like that for a while. Cool, fine, GRR Martin is richer than god, let him throw a party! Except that according to the post he wrote, he... Was quite grumpy that the Hugo finalists wanted to go to the party with their name on it? But didn't actually tell the community to throw their own party and let him throw his separately again?
- In the same article (which I'm not linking to, because why give them more clicks), he also takes a swipe at the fan categories and how they're sporting bigger teams that feel entitled to a rocket and invite each, and I just
- Like, I can only speak for me, but I never had expectations. Never expected to win, never expected a rocket of my own (seriously, I was so sure that we were going to get one and it would live with renay or bookgazing), never expected a party – like, fuck it mate, I'd be happy to buy a cake at a supermarket and scream in a pub with my friends about how awesome they are, and... I don't know. I think I'm taking it more personally than I want to because I am very aware of how much space I take up? And I try not to bother people with any of the Lady Business stuff or the Hugos stuff. I don't always succeed, but I try, and reading that felt being told that I was still taking up too much space. Which isn't on anyone but me, obviously, because it's not like it was a personal insult or whatever, but it still hurt.
- Q: Hey Susan, it's been two months, how many of the books that you bought at Worldcon have you actually read?
A: Hahahaha, you're adorable.
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Date: 2019-11-02 06:38 pm (UTC)Heeeee you're a delight. Congratulations on your Hugo!!!!!
Oh Ada Palmer and Jeanette Ng and everybody <3