Day in the Life of an Idiot

The title of this blog comes from the fact that for the longest time the Gaylaxicon programming page had the notes that I sent in for some panel proposals. On several of them, I simply wrote, "Lyda would prefer not to do this alone." It was very disconcerting to see that exact phrasing on the website. I was relieved when the program guide said "Lyda Morehouse and others," but it turned out that I was still required to do my own recruiting.

I did manage to find two victims recruits for the Yaoi/Yuri panel, though I'm not sure that made it any more coherent. I either need to stop offering to do this panel or be slightly more prepared. Several years ago, at a Marscon, when manwha and manhua were the hot new things, made a power point presentation. I had some hope that Gaylaxicon might be able to rustle up a video connection for my Mac so that, if I couldn't find other panelists, I could at least scroll through my manga review website: mangakast.wordpress.com. But, again, this is probably something that a person should discuss with programming IN ADVANCE, rather than the night of, so I wasn't really, truly expecting any joy. It was a long shot gamble, but I figured I'd ask anyway. Of course, Anton gave me his best "are you f*cking kidding me?" eyebrow arc, and then slow drawled, "We are a small con." So, yeah, no luck on that. But, he did, at least, rustle me up a second fellow panelist, so I mean, really, that was a equal to or possibly better than solution.

I had driven in on Friday night with Naomi, so we had a discussion about our various panels and I started to wonder if the same professions are considered 'hot' in Japan the way they are in the West. Naomi and I made a list of the sorts of professions that classically show up in porn. Plumbers, firefighters, cops. I was surprisingly unable to find any yaoi featuring plumbers. (I am, in fact, truly surprised. I have read yaoi featuring DENTISTS, after all, and janitors.) I am currently reading the ones I found about firemen. Maybe again, not surprisingly, the first title I found was bara (which, for the uninitiated are the manga that have beefcake, bear men, as opposed to the more common "bishie" boys.) There are a ton about police officers, but I thought I would try to hunt up a few more handyman types first, however.

Anyway, I got in decently early on Saturday. I slid into the last half of the interview with yhlee and I kind of got a HUUUGGGEEE boy crush on him, so I went to the dealers' room to buy as many books of his as I could carry. I feel kind of dumb because I had his first novel Ninefox Gambit in my possession when it was up for all the various awards, but somehow it went back to the library unread. I will now rectify that problem.

Then, I had the "We are all 1/2,000,000th of a Hugo Winner Now" which was about fan writing, not the recent Hugo/AO3 kerfuffle. I'm not sure any great thoughts were thunk on this panel, but the panelist were naomikritzer , pegkerr , myself, and Ellen Kuhfeld. The usual discussion about what fan fic is, who writes it, and what is awesome about it was had. I did break down at the end because someone asked about the horrible trope of the "time skip that ends with marriage and kids" (famous example being Harry Potter, but also, unfortunately for me, also Bleach, for which I have a LOT OF FEELS.) Then, after that, because I talked about the fact that I feel that so many of those are the creator(s) intentionally spraying NO HOMO on main characters who have been queer shipped by fandom, someone else tangentially brought up Avengers: End Game and the whole breaking of Stucky and I kind of had a small rant (and made two new friends! Hooray!)

After that, I stayed around to I listened to both "The Babadook is a Gay Icon and I'm Dating Mothman" as well as "Queering Fairy Tales." Both were very good panels and I was glad, especially, to have gotten to hear Michael Dahl, who I can't believe is local, because why have we not had him at Convergence or any of the other local cons???

I had a lot of time to kill before my last two panels of the day and I was EXHAUSTED, so, thankfully some friends of ours had a room at the hotel so we hung out with them and their two dogs for a long time chatting and semi-napping on their hotel kingsized bed. We went down to watch the recording of the Queens of Adventure Podcast. This was the definition of a HOOT.


Picture: Three gorgeous drag queens, an elf queen, a barbarian queen, and a wizard queen.

Then, I kept myself awake with sheer willpower until 10:45 PM when I had the panel "Writing Straight Sex and Romance When You Are SUPER Gay." Again, "Lyda would prefer not to do this alone," so I recruited one of the friends I was hanging out with haddayr and Naomi again. This was fun, probably because Anton came in at one point before we started and asked if we needed anything. I looked him dead in the eye and said, "OH MY GOD, ESPRESSO." Of course, no coffee shop was open at that hour, but Anton prides himself in getting the miracles done, so just as we were starting introductions in walks Anton with a cup full of five shots of espresso. I intermittently took TINY sips of that interspersed with water. And, suddenly, I was the loudest, most obnoxious person in the room. (I do feel bad about this, but this is a thing that happens to me. I call it my con persona. It's a bit of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, if Hyde is just sort of loud and bawdy.) But, I mean, I told some good stories about my experiences writing straight romance as a gold star lesbian, including the infamous "remember the penis" story. ( it's not that naughty, but some people have heard it a zillion times )

So, despite the fact that I previously did not think I would be functioning at that hour, that was fun.

The slash reading, which I had honestly been dreading, went surprisingly well, as well. I actually managed to talk Naomi into staying and reading some of her AO3 work and some Good Omens fic, and that helped a lot. The problem in the past few years has been this: the first year we did this, when Kyell Gold was a co-guest of honor with me, it was amazing. I could barely speak, since I had never previously read any of my erotica out loud before in my LIFE and I was dying. But, it was funny kind of dying, and once things got read (including his AMAZING Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner smut) also weirdly HOT. Ever since then, I've been mostly on my own, which, I'm sorry to say, isn't as funny... part of it is that a solo act feels much more... well, masterbatory, if you know what I mean. BUT even with someone helping like Naomi, it was much better. She read a Goofus/Gallant piece she wrote that was fairly chaste, and, listening to it, I thought, this is good, but the audience is going to want something really, really, RREALLY smutty after this, so I dug through my Bleach soap opera and read the single smuttiest thing I have ever written in my life. For those in the know, it was the humbler scene. For those who don't know, here is the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876685 (if you're serious about reading this and are not a longtime reader of my never-ending Byakuya/Renji soap opera, do what I did at the reading, which is just start after the second break, marked with a hashtag, and start reading with the negotiations.) 

Then today was the Chuck Tingle, Tingleverse RPG game. I think that one probably needs a blog journal all of its own because it was smutty enough that it might all need to be under the cut.

This last weekend was Gaylaxicon, which I was quite honored to be one of the GoHs of this year.  When I arrived and checked-in/registered, I thought that the con was likely off to a VERY BAD START when I discovered that there were NO condoms (or lube!) in the swag bag.  I spent the next several hours complaining about this, btw.  Loudly.  Luckily, most people ignored me.  Because, really, it turns out (as I actually knew from last time Gaylaxicon was in town) this was not THAT KIND of con.  Gaylaxicon is all about content... or at least mostly... granted I probably said "penis" more at this con than I do at most, but when I did, believe you me, it was in the pursuit of higher knowledge/intellectualism.

There was a lot about the con I enjoyed tremendously. I got to be a squeeing fan grrl all over J. Michael Tatum, who is not only the voice actor who portrays Sebastian in the Anime "Black Butler" (among other roles--you may also know him from "Ouran Host Club",) but also ridiculously cute and funny all on his own and, it turned out, on the one panel I was on with him, he's REALLY SMART AND THOUGHTFUL, too.  I know, right?  How unfair!   That's really all I remember of Friday night, ie embarrassing myself by babbling, "ohmygodohmygodohmygod, you're so coooooooooooooooool" to a complete stranger, and also saying something about as articulate in my Guest of Honor welcoming speech.  I should also say that I had a previous interaction with Gary Russell on the Thursday night GoH dinner, in which I became convinced that he was constantly sneering at me (though particularly when I talked about Marvel Comics).  Turns out, he was only British.

Saturday I had a really phenomenal panel about women writing M/M slash, which was something I came to the con wanting to talk about.  I'm not sure we concluded anything about why queer women like to write boy on boy porn, but we did figure out that it's more complicated than you'd initally think.  I also encouraged everyone to attend the midnight slash panel, and lured them all there by a promise that one of the other GoHs, Kyell Gold, would be reading his Wiley E. Coyote/Road Runner.  I think I did a bunch of other awesome things and talked to a lot of other amazing people, but really that midnight reading will be forever seared into my head as probably one of the most awkward-embarrassing-fantastic nights of my life. 

The midnight slash reading was really well attended.  Which meant that getting started reading porn was REALLY DIFFICULT for me.  I have been known, in fact, in the past, to employ a stunt reader.  This time, since Kyell was telling me to be brave, I finally (probably after a half hour of dithering embarrassment) did.  It worked out really well as what I read was kind of sweet/sexy foreplay ("Other Duties as Assigned") , his was a fairly explicit pay off, and then my second piece was kind of funny/sexy afterglow ("Too Many Captains Spoil the Plan").  So, hopefully the audience felt they got a full experience.  I suspect folks must have because we were only scheduled to go for an hour, but we didn't leave the room until 2:00 am.  It was incredible.  Kyell's husband recorded his portion of the slash reading and if/when they post it anywhere, I will post a link here, too.  Apparently, my facial expressions during some of it were kind of precious.  (I was very nervous/excited and TOTALLY INVESTED in the story.) 

Sunday was my busiest day and also kind of a blur, but I remember some more panels and more hanging out with all sorts of wonderful people.

Oh, and for the record, after this con, if anyone disses a furry in front of me, they're in for an earful.  As my friend naomikritzer said to me, "F*ck the Geek Heirarchy," the furries I met this weekend were AWESOME.  Also, they wear tails sometimes.  GET OVER IT.  In fact, I have agreed to attempt some Komamura slash for the folks at the slash reading who liked my Bleach fic.  (Bleach has a furry character, a captain who is a wolf/fox demon.)

Then suddenly it was all over and I was back home and being asked to cook dinner and do the dishes.