I love Dawnshard so much! Rysn's fantasy discord server for paraplegic ladies. Rushu being such a glorious ADHD nerd at all times. The wisdom under the Lopen's goofiness when he talks to Talik and Rysn about their shared experiences of being othered by the Alethi and the able-bodied, respectively. Rysn and Cord both independently having conversations with people where they talked about discovering that they wanted risk and adventure. (👀 please Mr. Sanderson, let them sail around the world together and kiss!!) Rysn crying because Vstim called her a friend. Cord being ready to trick and/or fight any god who comes for Rysn when they've only been friends for like a day. Chiri-Chiri making tiny, adorable roars to protect Rysn. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and when your hammer is trade negotiation, you sit down across from a guy who's 300 cremlings in a trench coat and make a sales pitch for not killing you.
Brennan and Sam's description of the elote street corn almonds intrigued me so much that I had to try them myself and folks? They were not exaggerating. It is the most uncanny food experience I've ever had. The food scientist at Blue Diamond responsible for this deserves a Nobel prize I think? It is wet, somehow. The flavor dust alchemizes into buttery corn juice the instant it hits your mouth; it is wild.
Someone sharper than I probably caught this on their first watch and not their 6th but I just realized each scene in the mv represents every album she's released since 2020 in order--
Fearless TV
RED TV
Midnights
Speak Now TV
1989 TV
The Tortured Poets Department
The Life of a Showgirl
(The fact that there are actually 3 TLOAS looks is reviving my crackpot theory that this is just the first of 3 sister albums that will each spotlight a different producing partner tbh but I am probably wrong about that lol)
(But also IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT "showy/choreographed/professional," "loose/fun/party," and "quiet/introspective/dark" are the Max Martin, Jack Antonoff, and Aaron Dessner vibes, respectively, no??)
It's not that I think Alexander Skarsgård is a BAD choice to play Murderbot; it's more that I feel like he's what the average viewer would EXPECT to see behind Murderbot's armor (intense-looking white cis man) and I kind of wish they'd picked someone more surprising, you know?
But on the other hand, I feel like most of the human characters in the books are canonically women, nonbinary, and/or POC so I get that they may have felt it "necessary" to cast a conventionally hot white guy in the lead because that's what Hollywood thinks they need to do to get people to eat their vegetables (watch stories about people who aren't conventionally hot white guys).
Just saw your reblog of my Michael Burnham, Arthurian Knight post and I wanna geek out about the academic conference at Dragon Con!
This will be only my second year going so it's still massively overwhelming. Last year I presented on the star wars track (getting to present on the Jedi games as a scholar was an incredible experience and that paper is going to end up published early next year!) and had my schedule by now but this year, because I'm on the Trek side, I think it's harder to schedule so I haven't been finalized quite yet!
Whatre some of your favorite experiences at Dragon Con? What should I look for off the beaten path, so to speak?
I also realize half of my ask is talking about myself, but I didn't know how else to like...share interests? Feel free to message me too or instead!
Oh my gosh, hi! I'm so sorry for being so late responding to your message! Congrats on your paper getting published; that's so exciting! I will answer the DragonCon experiences question here because I'm incapable of not being a DC booster all the time and I always want everyone to know how great and weird it is 😄
I am local to Atlanta and have been going off and on since 2003. (I was in middle school and it was a Formative Experience, let me tell you!) That being said, I'm not sure I have a good sense of what's off the beaten path? There's just so much stuff and so many people, it's hard to know what's relatively obscure, so sorry in advance for the long answer and if any of this is actually Old News to you!
The main drum I'm always beating is telling people to go to the fan panels instead of the big celebrity stuff. I also often hear people say they only go for the vendors hall and I'm always like nooooo, this breaks my heart, man. Please find just one panel on a thing you like and go to it! Make a friend! Learn a new thing! DragonCon is special because it's NOT as vendors-and-celebrities-centric as other cons of the same scale. It's your scrappy, independent, fan-run con at a suburban Ramada Inn where everyone just goes to hang out with other nerds but scaled up like 15,000%. It's about being in joyful community with other weirdos! It's about the carnivalesque of it all! Go have some FUN! Don't just buy stuff!
But more specific things to check out, some tracks that I find have great programming but might not be everyone's first thought are Alternate & Historical Fiction, Puppetry, Science, and Space. Trek Track also has an excellent reputation both for programming and for treating its volunteers well, so hopefully you'll have a good experience with them as a panelist!
For performances, if you have any love for theater or audio dramas, the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company's shows are cool. If you like music, I think it's always worth scoping out the bands coming and dropping in on a concert if you vibe with any of them. I hear great things about the Philharmonic concert and the Late Night Puppet Slam but have never been to either--I still have quite a long DragonCon bucket list myself in spite of having been so many times before. There is just So Much!
All the con cults are a delightful bit of the subculture. I love to recommend this video essay about them: https://youtu.be/UzLju0-BEoU?si=yjm046xjBNwoOPNh
I also love the con tradition that cropped up in more recent years of exchanging badge ribbons and "swag". If you're not familiar with the Swag-'n-Seek thing, some people hide little tchotchkes or handmade gifts around the host hotels, typically in planters or other out of the way nooks. Others may hand them out to people who recognize their costume/tshirt/otherwise signal they're in the same fandom. As a very shy person, I love this because it makes me feel bolder about chatting with strangers if I can start by giving a ribbon or a bracelet.
If you're into doing cosplay at all, can't recommend going to a group photoshoot enough! I did so last year for the first time for the Locked Tomb one and it was the highlight of the weekend for me. If you only want to SEE cosplay, of course it's everywhere, but the Serious Cosplayers typically hang out in the hotel lobbies to show off their big builds, plus there's one or two costume contests every night where you'll see incredible stuff. Hanging around near the Marriott to people-watch folks going to the Bunny Hutch on Thursday night is also a fun time. Idk if you saw the post the con shared on Instagram of the person in the Heat Miser bunny costume, but that just *chefs kiss* epitomizes DragonCon for me lol. It's creative; it's funny; it's a bonkers choice of costume even without the bunny element; it's gender-fucky; it's sexy but so weird about it that it doesn't feel like objectification. On a different note, I think it's Sunday evening that the lantern elf choir (LOTR elf cosplayers recreating a scene from Fellowship of the Ring) makes their procession through the hotels, and it's genuinely haunting to experience.
Also this is the opposite of off the beaten path, but I do think everyone should go to the parade at least once! It's best experienced 1-2 floors up off the street if you can find a parking deck on the route, or if you're lucky enough to have a hotel room that fits the bill.
And if you venture into the vendors hall, my favorite vendors I always hit up are The MacBath (literary/geeky themed bar soaps--hand to God, I haven't shaved with anything but her Aragorn shave soap in 7 years) and Tea & Absinthe (nice tea blends and tea-brewing accessories).
Johnny O'Neal mentions Lightweaving and Seeking in the same sentence as examples of magical abilities that are built to be able to work with other magic systems and I am once again tapping my "Marsh deserves to worldhop to Roshar and become a Truthwatcher" sign!
