The Shadowspinning

State of the Me

2009-07-28T19:13:21Z

Work: Still nothing (but with added rejection letters). Health: Still semi-crippled, exhausted depressed insomniac who faints. Relationship: Lovely, but hampered by money issues. Gaming: Going great, but above health stuffs may mean having to take time off. Family: Stressful. Friends: Still awesome.

So apart from family, money and health, I'm not doing too bad. O.o

Potentially Triggery Content

2009-07-02T11:49:22Z

I've been following the warnings imbroglio. I should mention at the start that I have nothing but respect for people who don't warn but are clear and obvious in stating that they do not warn. Kyuuketsukirui is a person whom is very good about this. I have nothing but respect for people who carefully and explicitly warn for material that is generally considered triggery. I have no respect for people who repeatedly state that if fans can't handle the heat of an unwarned fic, fandom isn't for them.

I do not understand why people are making the slippery slope argument. I do not understand why people think that sexual abuse - of any kind - should not be warned for. I am hurt by people mentioning self-harm as a "lesser" thing to warn for because it does not involve sex. I personally am triggered by ANY mention of self-harm, of any kind, though my own presents itself in "minor" ways (can you believe I actually tell myself off for that? for not being brave enough to pick up a knife, or a match, or jump off that nice, tall wall? I feel BAD about that, every time) I bash my arms into things hard enough to leave bad bruises (lumps under the skin kind of bruises) and scratch my skin til its raw and bleeding. That's minor. Just reading the words self-harm had me pressing my nails into my lip, and dragging my nails across it, just so I could sit still long enough to read the damn posts. Anorexia, though it is not something I suffer from (despite feeling I'm fat and eating little enough that I get very, very paranoid looks from people who love me), triggers the same reaction. I take full responsibility for allowing myself to get triggered by the meta on this subject because it was my choice. I knew what I was getting into. That's the key bit here - I KNEW what I was getting into, and could put what coping mechanisms I have into place so that I would not, say, bruise or scratch myself. And even then? Still doing a bit. Warnings - even not-warnings like "I don't warn" - allow me to prepare myself.

Can you imagine what might happen (what has happened) if I come across surprise!self-harm? I've come pretty damn close to that knife, that match, that fall. I've come pretty damn close to just getting on a train and keeping going. Can you imagine what might happen to someone who was raped? Someone who suffered systematic abuse as a child? And then people say that because the rules aren't clear, or because their artistic vision would be compromised, or that those who can be triggered are "using their victim privilege" to "oppress" people who don't want to warn, that's the reason they don't do it... I don't get it. I don't understand why anyone, knowingly or unknowingly, would want to cause harm to another person. That's pretty much what it comes down to.

I dislike some people's insistence that "if its not warned, get it checked". I have some relatively minor physical disabilities that none-the-less lead to me being unable to do things on my own. Like walk wherever I want alone. Or move things around. Or open my own damn med bottles. The endless, boring, tedious, depressing frustration of having to ask people for utterly necessary things - and people want to make other fans do that for their fun activity. I don't get it. I just don't.

I'm trying to get all the talking I need to do out in this post, because I actually don't have a support system for this. I'm sorry its not better. :-(

I've done this very badly, really. I can't get my thoughts together on things like this. There are some truly excellent posts on the subject that I strongly advise everyone reads. They're pretty easy to find once you start looking. :-)

shadowspinner @ 2009-01-23T01:13:00

2009-01-23T01:14:40Z

Someone in fandom has been outed? Bloody hell... If anyone reading this knows them, please pass on my good wishes if you can.

If anyone knows who did the deed, pass on my sincere wish that they grow a goddamn brain and conscience because that is not acceptable behaviour.

shadowspinner @ 2008-12-25T13:19:00

2008-12-25T13:20:43Z

Happy Christmas!

Irregularly scheduled post #whatever

2008-08-19T23:24:11Z

I'm not very happy at the moment. My health isn't great (again), and one part of that is things hurting enough I'm on a steady diet of crappy not-even-prescription painkillers. I'm barely earning money and god knows what new and interesting torture my employers will unleash next. I'm concerned about the long-term prospects of the relationship I'm in. A large part of my internet social life is currently doing its best to self-destruct (and for once its not my damn fault). One of my dearest friends on livejournal defriended me - I don't care whether she says "I love you, you know that" it still fucking hurts. Fanfiction isn't really... I'm not in a fandom at the moment, so fanfiction isn't doing much. I'm supposed to be attempting to start a part-time degree in September and I'm not even coping with the stuff I've got to do a the moment, so I figure there's imminent failure on the horizon. I'm really, really stressed. I just had a birthday, and got cards from my immediate family. That's it. Which, just... I don't know. Thats my fault, I guess. There are good things about life, but it sure as hell is hard to remember them sometimes.

EDIT: I would like to mention at this point that the painkillers are doing fuck all and I can feel my joints grinding against each other. This is not fun.

shadowspinner @ 2008-06-24T09:02:00

2008-06-24T08:04:00Z

I went to work yesterday! Score! :-D

shadowspinner @ 2008-05-28T00:52:00

2008-05-28T00:02:50Z

Hi! I have not been posting. Sorry about that.

I haven't been very well for a while, and by that I mean I haven't been well enough to go to work for over a month. Yeah, so, my internet social was also one of the things that died. Even more so than usual. (My real life social life hasn't really been alive, apart from the boyfriend, for quite a few year s now, so that doesn't really matter.)

I also haven't been terribly happy. Well, this weekend I perked up a bit but then I found out something earlier today that kind of put me back into miserable, so, nuff said.

On the plus side, London Expo was this weekend! I bought many Gundam Wing models that I'm looking forward to making, and two new t-shirts and assorted other things. Most importantly, I met and got autographs from Steve Niles, who is an awesome comics writer. He wrote Thirty Days of Night, among other things. (Horror fans may have caught the film...) He agreed with me that the movie turning the happy married couple into miserable separated people kind of sucked, and also that Stella was less awesome. Nice guy, plus he said that Ben Templesmith is going to be at London Expo in October, which if its true would be really really awesome because he's like my favourite artist ever.

Went into London today, was fun. Had my picture taken, the photographer is going to send a print and also wants to take my portrait. I suspect the bowler hat I was wearing may have had something to do with this. Screw you, everyone who has made Charlie Chaplin/Pete Doherty jokes. My hat is AWESOME.

I have a tiny, tiny city (its really more of a house)...

2008-02-20T10:33:39Z

... called Mirrorforge! Please click here to increase my population. :-)

I have to go into the office tomorrow, so I sort of need to get my work done on time today but I'm tiiiired because I haven't slept properly for daaaaays and I had to get up early to go to the doctors to find out if they could do anything about the irritating banging noise in my ear. (Answer: Yes, but only after I asked them to, you know, do more than just tell me what was wrong. Grr.) So I don't wanna do any work. Meh. /whine

shadowspinner @ 2008-02-18T03:00:00

2008-02-18T03:01:17Z

I love Paris now. So much. They have one of the most wonderful high street clothes shops in the history of ever. (Though, please, for the sake of your faith in shops, do NOT go to the London branch because you will only want to write angry letters about how they FAIL at putting a shop together outside of Paris. Also a website.) It has the most interesting and exciting high street fashion I've seen since Top Shop became not as good (speaking of Top Shop, their spring collection is rather good and I have hopes that this means they're returning to the days when there was a point in going there for anything other than Kate Moss' collection). I bought a brown pencil skirt and a black bodice with off-white lace and pink details and they're both gorgeous and flattering and hug my curves beautifully and I love them. I will take photos if I figure out that whole, you know, posting pictures thing.

Paris has a traffic system that is insane and wonderful, and watching cars drive around the roundabout that surrounds the Arc d'Triumph is fascinating because if anything like that happened in London there would probably be a thirty car pile-up along the lines of ROCKS FALL. EVERYONE DIES.
First day: *abject terror*
Second day: Hey, this isn't so bad.
Third day: OMG this works perfectly! The traffic keeps moving! I'm not dead! I love Paris woo!
Please note: Too long in Paris may result in near-death experiences when you return to, say, London where the drivers are inclined to accelerate when they see a pedestrian in the road rather than politely slow down.

This has now been edited. Stupid lj. Limiting how much I can post.

shadowspinner @ 2008-02-18T02:54:00

2008-02-18T02:55:41Z

My flist was free of hate over Valentine's! Freeeeeeeeee!

I am still enjoying my quiz writing job, for anyone who remembers the post I made a very, very long time ago, though the shiny of being paid to read books has worn off somewhat. I now get excited when I read a book that I don't get paid for. Plus my misc health problems have been rearing the ugly heads since the end of the year and I'm far too much of a wimp to get all of my work done while they're doing that, so I'm barely earning any moeny at all. The money I got paid at the end of January was five hundred pounds before tax. *weeps* I'm living off savings already, what with Valentine's Day and all.

Speaking of Valentine's! I went to Paris! I have left the UK and I can remember it! (Sadly, my lack of remembrence has nothing to do with, say, alcohol-induced black spots or anything fun like that. I was just very little at the time.) I confess I freaked badly on the first day. My brain basically went *sproing* at the whole not-England thing. I'm very bad at coping with not-London, to be honest. I went to Coventry a little before Christmas and was basically all wide-eyed and oooh, they dress differently out here. But on the second day I recovered! I got a grip on my shreds of sanity and beat my xenophobia into submission! I went to the third floor of the Eiffel Tower and bought souvenir presents for my family! And I went SHOPPING!

This won't post if I do it all in one go, so I'm trying it in two parts. Apologies for the spam!

shadowspinner @ 2008-01-22T22:25:00

2008-01-22T22:27:43Z

Heath Ledger is dead. I hope his family is okay.

... What will this do to the Batman film continuity? (Yes, I am indeed a bad person.)

ETA: Turns out he was also acting in Terry Gilliam's latest thing... Why is it that the talented people who do interesting stuff can't stop doing stupid shit that ends up with them being dead?

shadowspinner @ 2007-12-25T14:28:00

2007-12-25T14:28:16Z

Happy Christmas!

shadowspinner @ 2007-12-20T08:33:00

2007-12-20T08:34:27Z

In the absence of anything interesting to say:

You Know a Lot About Christmas

You got 5/10 correct

You know tons about the history and traditions surrounding Christmas.
When you celebrate the holidays, you never forget their true meaning - or all the little fun details.

Random Christmas fact: "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is the first Christmas carol. It dates back to the 12th century.

How Much Do You Know About Christmas?

What The Holidays Mean to You

For you, the holidays are a very spiritual time. You have as much holiday fun as everyone else - but you never forget what you're celebrating.

You celebrate the holidays in a minimalist style. You are likely to only give one great present and decorate your house with a few special items.

During the holidays, you feel magical. You love all of the decorations and how happy people are. You like to sit back and take it all in.

You think the holidays should be decadent and indulgent. You never mind gaining a few holiday pounds... it's worth it!

Your best holiday memories are of childhood foods and traditions. You secretly still wish you believed in Santa Claus.

What Do the Holidays Mean to You?

You Are Valentine's Day

You are a true romantic who places the ultimate importance on love.
You are warm hearted, and you find it easy to care for people.
Love is what drives you - and you have a love to give.
You enjoy making someone's day. You're full of surprises.

What makes you celebrate: Being with the person you love on a special day

At holiday get togethers, you do best as: The sentimental one

On a holiday, you're the one most likely to: See it as romantic and special

What Holiday Are You?

shadowspinner @ 2007-11-28T16:20:00

2007-11-28T16:21:50Z

I want to write an entry but I can't think of anything to write about right now. I suspect later posts may involve kits for making gundams.

shadowspinner @ 2007-10-10T16:06:00

2007-10-10T15:08:36Z

Hello not-English types! In the interest of cultural exchange (otherwise known as 'we have this thing over here, and we do it in a particular way, but I haven't a clue whether you have this thing and do it the same way, so please tell me because I'm nosy'), what would you think a 'raffle' or a 'tombola' was?

shadowspinner @ 2007-10-10T13:53:00

2007-10-10T13:04:09Z

I've been feeling more than a little off for days. Really tired, and generally crappy. This is not good for me doing, you know, work. I'm still feeling off. I go into the office on Thursdays. I haven't finished my work. Thursday is tomorrow. I'M DOOMED.

In other news, Cine-Excess is apparently running again next year. I'd give you a link, but their website has mysteriously vanished. Basically, its an academic cult film conference designed to bring together academics, creators and fans to be one big happy family. I'm not sure that part works out too well and there's perhaps too much of an emphasis on horror rather than all of cult cinema, but the papers are in general v. interesting - and you never know, we might even get some stuff about sci-fi this year! *hopeful thumbs up* Last year it was £150 for the whole thing (not including bed and board, though I recall being provided with a free lunch) or I believe £80 per day. I'm quite excited about it, and since it runs at the same time as Sci-Fi-London, the sci-fi film festival, I get to see interesting films at the same time! Yay!

shadowspinner @ 2007-09-14T20:06:00

2007-09-14T19:09:31Z

I have no PayPal account. :-( So you should all go bid in Sweet Charity to make up the deficit. (Charity! Fandom! What's not to love?)

PS. Have you ever seen such a half-assed pimp is this? Trust me, the auction is so awesome.

shadowspinner @ 2007-08-31T23:44:00

2007-08-31T22:47:13Z

This is a tad, er, short notice, but um, London Film and Comic Con is happening this weekend! Will be fun!

And now for something completely different. Taxes!

2007-07-30T22:02:41Z

As I assume you all know, I recently (well, four months ago) started working as a freelance quiz writer. Yes, I get paid to read books, I am living the dream. B-)

This turned out a little nerve-wracking when, shortly before I finished my third month of work, I found out I had to register as self-employed within three months ~~under pain of death~~ or receive a £100 fine. (Yes, I'm cheap. But, you know, that's like $200. Not small potatoes.) I panicked a little, but it seems I have got the form in on time since they are now regularly sending me friendly and informative letters about all the money ~~they're cruelly taking from my starving mouth~~ I'm going to give to the nice tax people so the country runs properly.

Also bills for arrears, because the direct debit for National Insurance apparently doesn't cover much of the time I wasn't, um, registered for. I now have to trot off to the Post Office to give them money to send to the government, sigh. What confused me about this bill that they didn't appear to be asking me for enough money (I thought this because of my (very shiny) spreadsheet that does those sorts of calculations for me). Upon further investigation, I discovered that I had mistakenly thought the two classes (2 and 4) of National Insurance I had to pay were debited from my account at the same time. Not so! Instead, the (simpler, £2.20 a week) Class 2 National Insurance Contributions are debited from my account regularly, but the (complicated, percentage of earnings) Class 4 National Insurance Contributions are something I have to save until the end of the year and stick on my tax return. I'm terrible at saving money OH NOES. The upshot of this is my (lovely, wonderful, most fun you can have with your clothes on) spreadsheet now has a shiny and new column to house Class 4 NICs, while the Class 2 NICs get to keep their spot, the lucky things.

It was interesting to me, okay? I like spreadsheets. And taxes. And this is all new to me. So its interesting and shiny and new. Also, this gave me an excuse to use my Excel logo icon. It so rarely gets an airing.

shadowspinner @ 2007-07-30T22:34:00

2007-07-30T21:45:08Z

There's a shitstorm brewing because of a Harry Potter kinks community refusing to change 'miscegenation' to 'interracial' (a neutral term with no added racist history), with the added problem that in this community, miscegenation is inclusive of interspecies (saying that interracial relationships/marriage is equivalent to bestiality WTF?) I agree with the people who are pissed off wholeheartedly. I'm pretty pissed off. The community is being stupid.

In a particular post (which I agree with, on the whole), there's an example which sounds like it comes from another wank. If it does come from the wank I think it comes from, it is, in fact, also pretty fucking offensive. I don't want to ask for clarification (it might not, it might relate to something else, or a general trend, in which case it wouldn't be offensive) because if I do? I will be accused of racism, entitlement, Missing The Point... Fuck that. I agree with them. I don't want to get into that argument. I just wish I wasn't stuck with thinking they were deliberately being offensive towards me.

No, I'm not going to be specific. I just wanted to whine about it in my own little corner of the internet.

shadowspinner @ 2007-07-18T15:07:00

2007-07-18T14:11:02Z

Heroes is starting next week on terrestrial television, here in the UK. The Radio Times (a television/radio listings magazine), as is their custom, has done a promotional feature with a big cast picture. As far as I can tell, there are two (major?) characters missed out from this picture, and that's the (non-white) kid and the only non-white female character. Bad form, promotional picture, bad form.

(I will not use this space to bitch about how despite having a reasonable amount of racial diversity, the show FAILS at having a decent man/woman ratio. Three female characters? Please.)

shadowspinner @ 2007-07-06T23:18:00

2007-07-06T22:19:14Z

Please, livejournal, please please please let me post.

ETA: Fuckin' A, it let me post. Yay! Won't let me post anything long, but oh well.

shadowspinner @ 2007-06-05T21:33:00

2007-06-05T20:34:57Z

So, shadowspinner, your LiveJournal reveals...

You are... 1% unique and 13% herdlike
(partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy star wars).
When it comes to friends you are popular. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please.

Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is conventional.

Your overall weirdness is: 36

(The average level of weirdness is: 27.
You are weirder than 76% of other LJers.)

Find out what your weirdness level is!

shadowspinner @ 2007-05-31T14:18:00

2007-05-31T13:33:18Z

There's currently a head-count going on for fannish journals. Go, join, whatever. If nothing else its kinda fun watching the membership go up and up and up. From 6500 to ~~nearly 25000~~ ~~over 25000~~ ~~over 26000~~ over 27000 in a day is... ~~not bad~~ getting pretty scary, actually. Go and be counted! Watch the numbers rise!

ETA: People appear to be very upset that Six Apart and Livejournal took two days to make a public announcement with regards to the suspension fiasco. Come on people, two days? Is not that long. Seriously. Sure, it would've been nice if we'd heard back sooner, but two days is not that bad.

There's this band, known as The Twang. This is one of the funniest bands I've come across in a while. They're a German country band who do countryfied versions of popular songs, including Oops I Did It Again, White Wedding, Ace Of Spades, Sympathy for the Devil, and Clint Eastwood. Its hilarious! Seriously, go check 'em out. They're also on iTunes music store.

Latvia, upon joining the EU, decided to celebrate by creating a giant spoon. A giant spoon! *loves*

London Expo was, as always, good. Not quite as good as last time or the time before - it was smaller this time, for some reason (maybe it'll be bigger in October), and Anime and Manga continue to push the rest of us poor media fans into a progressively smaller area. Sigh.

Still, I enjoyed it and bought new stuff. Eight volumes of anime (what? I never said I didn't like the stuff), the first four volumes of Full Metal Alchemist (with free tin!) and the last four volumes of Vampire Princess Miyu, which has upgraded my DVD's-to-watch backlog from 'scary' to 'worryingly huge'. I got a biiig poster of Batgirl, animated-style. Am very pleased. Also got a model of a Harryhausen creation, a weird dragon model kit thing, a Faith action figure, a King Kong figurine (for a quid!), and... other stuff. It's all a haze of avaricious joy, to be honest. Also bought some Civil War art for the boy, and a Hermione wand for my sister.

No guests I was particularly into, though Amanda Tapping and Vic Mignola (I... think that's his name, he played Ed Elric of FMA) drew big crowds, and the comicsy people seemed to be popular too. There were daleks! DALEKS! There is NOTHING better than talking to daleks. NOTHING. Oh! And I got this graphic novel, Brodie's Law, and the lovely creators who were on the stall did a sketch and signed it. Oh, happy day! Oh, joyous celebration!

I was very good, I didn't buy any Gundam Wing action figures. Not even one! I did buy the Venom and Carnage Marvel Bearz, but, well, my powers of resistance just aren't that good.

I'm ignoring my deadline. If I don't think about it, it isn't there. Friday is no longer the day after Thursday, okay? I don't have to go into work tomorrow. Yes.

Cine-Excess

2007-05-04T00:24:04Z

Cine-Excess! This is a rather interesting new cult film conference, created in association with Sci-Fi-London (sci-fi film festival) and Brunel University's Cult Film Archive to celebrate the launch of the world's first MA in Cult Film and TV at Brunel University. This makes me happy. It's really quite interesting, and not so academic and jargon filled that it flies over my head. Yay! So far I've been to the opening day.

Woke up, had bath. Mmm, bath. Waaaaaarm. Was feeling pretty good. Went to train station, thought very bad things at National Rail when I found out that on Saturday? There are no trains going from that station. Hello thirty minute walk at - oh, god, way too early in the morning. But! There were trains today! And will be tomorrow, thank god. So I marched forth with determination. Got there in loads of time to register, which was really quite surprisingly painless. Spent the next hour wandering around the venue (Apollo West End, a rather nice cinema with quite a lot of glowy lights - mmm, glowy lights so shiny) and reading my way through the various bits of paper I'd been handed. Also receiving highly suspicious texts from aforementioned boyfri- okay, I hate that word. He is also known as "Matt". He - apparently - may have a surprise for me. I do not trust surprises as far as I can throw them. Am considering practising throwing stuff in event of not liking surprise. Hmm.

Finally! It was time to go in. Picked an excellent seat, if I do say so myself. Even if the incredibly bright piercing-spotlight-type tiny little circular ceiling lights did do a the light, it buuurnss my eyeeessss on me. Feel that this is inappropriate lighting for a place where people get abrupt changes of lighting as is. Did not consider heckling the organisers during their opening words for more than a few seconds. Feel proud of self.

John Landis was the guest of honour. He awesome speech maker. Me like him. I have considered kidnapping him to bring out occassionally as a conversation piece, but I think his wife might be a little upset.

There was one rather interesting story, which I shall relate to you now, because I'm just that nice. John Landis, John Carpenter and David Cronenenenberg were doing a kind of group interview to publicise - a film, can't remember which one - and the interviewer, he asked John Carpenter why in his films, women who took their tops off or had sex or whatever were murdered while the virginal girl survived, and apparently he was like, no, I didn't do that, and then he thought about it and there was this look of dawning realisation and horror on his face - film-makers just don't think, do they? David Cronenberg then defused the whole thing with a joke about how in Canada, they absolutely butchered girls who took their tops off. It was their way. John Landis agreed that they totally did that at his school in LA, too, and the interview moved on. The fact that one of the most defining rules in horror films was created by accident and is deeply regretted - priceless.

Unfortunately, the dude over-ran like nobody's business. Did not care at the time, but I think the poor bastard who was on after him, and pretty much everyone after that, did. The man after him was someone known as "Matt Hills" - completely different Matt - who had what I would refer to as a "really annoying voice". *ahem* He was doing a (depressingly curtailed) speech on whether or not 'cult' could be considered a genre, and what, precisely, 'cult' was. It was quite interesting, though the most jargon-heavy portion of the proceedings. I'm sure it would have been more interesting were it not for the constraints of time. *sheds a tear*

I then moseyed away to the other big-cinema-room-thingy (BCRT) for Panel 1, shamelessly scorning Panel 2. Panel 1's title was Cult Auteurs/Cult Icons, though I would've thought that the word panel implied, well, a panel, but I am apparently wrong wrong so very wrong, and what a panel actually means is that three people at some point give speeches completely on their own on a stage and then maybe answer questions addressed only to them and not to any of the others at the the end.

The poor woman (Anika Ervin-Ward) who was doing a thing on Tim Burton and how his work related to the Cold War Generation was clearly terrified, totally un-relaxed, and was basically reading off pieces of paper. Didn't lead to a terribly engaging presentation, I have to say, though some of the things she said about the Cold War and other conflicts influencing 'misunderstood monster' media - superheroes being created by radioactivity somewhat neutralising the threat of nuclear bombs, that sort of thing.

Sarah Thomas' deconstruction of Peter Lorre's various acting techniques and tricks was fascinating, looking at how he reused elements of his performances and navigated the tricky role of being a cult actor and therefore not quite able to be a character actor because of being very well-known, and yet never quite being a star. Also, slightly slashy/rpsy comment in there about how the way Peter Lorre was looking at Humphrey Bogart in a particular scene in Casablanca was as much about the relationship between the two actors as the two characters. I was very restrained. I didn't even try to wolf whistle. Mainly because I can't.

Linnie Blake's look at hillbilly horror was really quite fun, looking in particularly at the how and why of modern mutant monsters. I enjoyed it thoroughly, particularly when she talked about how her focus films, House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects referenced and played with conventions of their particular sub-genre, using archetypal characters, themes, and events to create what she argued were two of the finest new examples of their kind. Quite delightful, I thought.

The Q&A was- uninteresting. I was quite relieved that the facilitator asked Anika a question right before the cinema kicked us out as none of the audience had done so and she was looking a little despondent.

Then I quickly slunk out of that BCRT and into another for Panel 4, shamefully scorning Panel 3, entitled Cult Consumers: Fandom and Audience Research. I... I... It wasn't this part of fandom, I swear! It was different! Not us at all! I still feel guilty.

But Panel 4, O Glorious Panel 4, that was titled Cult Bodies: Gender, Sexuality, Self. How could I not? Particularly when, and I quote, one of the papers was titled Love Will Tear Us Apart: The Destruction of the Male Body in Werewolf Cinema. I mean, come on, what about that does not say waaaaatch thiiiis? And it was excellent. All about how in films such as Werewolf of London (1935), The Wolf Man (1941) and An American Werewolf in London (1981) the male werewolf is represented as simultaneously murderous and sympathetic, fighting against the urge to destroy the thing he loves the most (and oh boy howdy did I enjoy that bit, as the speaker, one Alison Peirse, posited that Dr Glendon, the new werewolf, and Dr Yogami, the were what bit 'im, were mates, and that is why Glendon is so distinctly upset by killing Yogami - ah, true love, so sweet, if, er, tragic and involving of murder). She went on to talk about how the focus has moved on somewhat to female werewolves in more contemporary films such as Cursed (2005), Dog Soldiers (2002) and Ginger Snaps (2000), and how this is still about the destruction of the male body, though more through the actions of the female Other than due to their own transformation. Also some quite interesting thinky thoughts on female agency and how their transformation is portrayed etc. V. interesting all in all. Loved it.

Then there was a paper which wasn't terribly interesting, all about how gay men have appropriated Carrie as a symbol etc etc misogyny blah blah drag as expression of extreme femininity etc etc culturally imposed shame and guilt bored now.

After that finished, Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna of Re-Animator fame (Jeffrey Combs, eee!) did a talk thing, which was mainly memorable for their theory that Frankenstein stories are mpreg. No, seriously. How it's all about creating life without a woman being involved, and masturbation, and, yeah, basically mpreg. Also a bunch of stuff about horror as a genre that, well, I had little interest in. If you want more, ask. Will attempt to talk about next two days also. Sleep now. zzzzzzzzzzzzz

ETA: Now with added spell-check!