Horrorfest III: Tales of Terror

A Second Life Convention presented by Bookstacks

Notice By Kghia Gherardi, Organizer

This month on the thirteenth, Bookstacks will commence Horrorfest III: Tales of Terror. You might not live to see the Ides of March this year! We will have a full schedule of events with numerous authors reading their works, including Mike Stackpole. The survivors will continue on the fourteenth when, amongst other events, Tobias Buckell will make one of his rare appearances in-world to read “Spurn Babylon.”

In other events you will be able to swap poetry with author Emerian Rich in the graveyard. Or learn about real life horrors with Mark Eller. Find out how to incorporate horror sound effects to your own shows. Sample Crap Mariner’s short shorts. Participate in a costume contest and attend a fashion show for the fashionably undead. And that’s not all! Bookstacks will be running all its normal events, usually with a twist…a twist of Terror.

Saturday, March 13
•9:00 am – Horrorfest opens with new and classic tales read by West of Ireland storyteller Gyro Muggins.
•10:00 am - Emerian Rich, author and host of the Horror Addicts podcast, hosts a workshop on creating horror sounds for podcasts…or simply to scare your friends next Halloween.
•11:00 am – Simeon Beresford serves as quiz master for a horrific game of Book Trivia. The winner of the game will take home 500 lindens, and the person in the best costume in the theme will also win 500 lindens.
•1:00 pm – Emerain Rich reads from the sequel to Night’s Knights
•2:00 pm – Science Fiction Saturday
•3:00 pm – NYT bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole will give you nightmares when he reads one of his scary tales
•4:00 pm – Join Emerian Rich for the annual sharing of scary poetry in the graveyard. There is more out there than “The Raven”
•5:00 pm – Crap Mariner offers his own take on terror with his 100 word stories and scary shorts
•6:00 pm – Author and host of the Hell Hole Tavern podcast, Mark Eller, will remind us that not all horror is fictional with his real life tales.
•7:00 pm – Live performance by Scream Machine*

Sunday, March 14 (please note: Daylight Savings Time begins in the US)
•11:00 am – Henry Snider reads from one of his stories about occult, parapsychology and esoteric studies
•1:00 pm – Off the Shelf interviews Mark Eller, author and host of the Hell Hole Tavern podcast
•3:00 pm – Poetry Libre’s Open Mic
•4:00 pm – Award-winning author Tobias Buckell reads “Spurn Babylon”
•5:00 pm – “Twenty Ten Horror and Chills Couture Event” – Fashion Show for the Fashionably Undead from the Infinite Focus Fashion Agency
* Scream Machine is brought to us by Grave Concerns Ezine

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Within fandom, as with the mainstream culture, assimilation into an ‘acceptable person’ is not a way to be safe.

For years I have participated in the panels and sundry other discussions about whether GLBT fans should blend into the background, or whether we should be more vocal, and make our presence known and felt. It was a struggle at first, but eventually we came to believe the price of silence too high for us to pay.

In other words, those who were naturally straight-acting, were encouraged not to change their persona at fan events, and those of us who were a bit more obvious in our sexual orientation and gender identity were encouraged to be ourselves. The only exception we stressed was for cosplay (dressing in costume and pretending you are what you are dressed as).

While we always used common sense, we found it was best to be open and upfront about our orientation and identity. The vast majority of negative experiences I have had at fan events were when someone found out I am gay, and felt like I had hidden it from them.

I am very inappropriate

I am more inappropriate and direct with people then the average person, and will often introduce myself: “Hello, I am Eric, and I am a gay man, may I presume you are heterosexual.”

It usually gets a laugh, and will often open the door for people to understand the awkward position GLBT people are placed in by society. If we are not open about our identity or orientation, it is assumed we were hiding it.

You don’t have to be as upfront as I am, but be careful not to lead people into believing you are covering it up. This self-serving sense of betrayal is often used as a thin veil to excuse a person’s homophobia. “Well, I just don’t know who you are anymore.” Whoever you are, always be yourself, be open, and be honest.

Klingon Drag Queen

Last year, our first klingon drag queen attended Shore Leave. She was stunning and took the time to make each piece of the costume by hand to express her gender identity and passion for klingons. Unfortunately, she also experienced an inordinate amount of sneers and cat calls as she went through the convention.

Our group also features a number of male-to-female transgenders who often come in costume. They have not faced some of the same hurdles the rest of the community have. When I talked to one who asked to remain anonymous, she told me that her biggest problem at the conventions were that people assumed she merely wore a costume.

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Here is a list of conventions coming up this weekend:

• Time and the Fantastic (3/18-22) – Orlando, Florida
• CoastCon XXXII (3/20-22) – Biloxi, Mississippi
• EyeCon: Supernatural (3/20-22) – Orlando, Florida
• FantaSciCon ‘09 (3/20-22) – Chattanooga, Tennessee
• Lunacon (3/20-22) – Rye Brook, New York
• MidSouthCon 27 (3/20-22) – Memphis, Tennessee
• Millennicon (3/20-22) – Cincinnati, Ohio
• New England Webcomics Weekend (3/20-22) – Easthampton, Massachusetts

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One of my absolute favorite aspects of fandom is the costuming and roleplaying, and I would have to say they are the two most maligned and stigmatized things that we do.  Let’s start with the most accepted by the popular culture and proceed to the least understood.

Computer Roleplaying Games

Mass appeal of video games have normalized RPGs on the computer, and why not.  Final Fantasy, Mass Effect, and Knights of the Old Republic were all such brilliant games, it is hard to see how they couldn’t have had a mass market appeal, but in the one place where Roleplaying should flourish, it is all but extinct.

There was once a type of game known as the Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG).  The problem is that these too entered the popular culture, and they spawned a new bane: badge collectors.  A sizable number of the MMORPG players became obsessed with their statistics, what badges they earned, and what loot they could get.  The software companies saw these players as their core audience and in some cases, there only audience.

The games were increasingly designed for these players and not for the fans of story.  Coinidentally, the acronym was shortened from MMORPG to simply MMO.  Players have done what they can to keep roleplaying alive, but they are generally isolated to a specific server or guild, and they are not aided by the software designers who more and more are crafting games that challenge your prowess with a keyboard and mouse and don’t require any thought whatsoever.

This is one of the reasons I am so excited about Star Wars: The Old Republic and Stargate Worlds.  They are trying to bring story into the games and make it front and center.  I wish them the best of luck.

Table Top Role Playing Games

Table top RPG fans are the geeks that geeks love to hate.  Don’t believe me?  Listen carefully to a lot of the podcasts out there.  It won’t take you too long to find people having a geeky conversation about their favorite tech and occationally mocking TTRPG players.

Table Top games are not  as easy to play as their computerized bretheren, but they are a lot more fun.  There are more requirements to play:

• The Rule Books
• Friends who have free time to come over
• Dice
• Creativity
• Imagination

I didn’t stutter at the end, and no, I am not padding the list.  Creativity is the ability to think originally, and imagination is the ability to see with the minds eye events as they are described to you.

I think those last two more than anything else makes people not like tabel top games.  Personally, I love them.  I run an Earthdawn game at the house every Sunday.  Nothing brings friends together for a good time like a shared adventure built from the collective imaginations of everyone there.

Live Action Role Playing

Live Action Role Playing (LARPing) is penultimate expression of role playing.  There are numerous systems for LARPing and they all generally involve renting a location, playing in a park, or the storyteller’s home.  Most LARPers dress up in elaborate costumes and carry props to aid in game play.

I used to play Vampire: The Masquerade both as a table top game and as a LARP, and I have to say, the LARPs were always more fun.  We played at local conventions and I ran a chronicle that spanned various players homes, parks, and a few businesses who allowed us to use their establishment.

Who doesn’t enjoy getting dressed up and spending a night as someone else?

One aspect of the LARPs I’ve played that made them so fun was that they were locked to the locations they took place.  The story was handled through notes given to the players to explain what happened between sessions, and a couple players who agreed to play according to the scripted motives I provided for them.  To this day, some of my favorite memories took place at LARPs.

We were a part of a LARP network where storytellers coordinated large scale events between cities, and at conventions our players would play through pivitol stories.  The largest LARP event we threw had 500 players in attendence.  3,00o players made up the network.  We coordinated through a email list.

LARPs are emense fun, and I miss them terribly.  I had hoped that MMOs would provide a platform for virtual LARPs, but so far, they haven’t.

Costuming

Some people just love dressing up.  They don’t roleplay at all, they just wear the costume for enjoyment.  For some, it is an uniform.  For others, it is an expression of their identification with the character or race they are recreating.  And others do it for the challenge of recreating the costume.

Steampunk is an entire movement built around costuming for the sheer fun of it.

Fans who Play together Stay together

Most of the deep, personal relationships I have developed with fans over the years has been between fans I have roleplayed with.  We share an experience that is truly unique to the players who were there.  Memories of events that are not replecatable in real life.

All these years later, I still run into people at the conventions who remeber the night my Taleison should have seen his reflection in the mirror and went mad.  We talk about it like a moment from a movie or series that we loved, but our connection to the event is so much more personal because we were there when it happened.

So if you haven’t before.  I hightly recommend to gather up your friends and play a game with them.  Feel free to choose the type, but make sure it is one that will build those memories that will last a lifetime.

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Back in December, I took on Meg Guroff in my post, Fandom is not Obsessive Weirdoism! for saying:

One distinctly modern form of obsessive weirdoism is fandom: becoming so devoted to a work of art that you want to augment or even inhabit it. Out of this impulse was born the Klingon Language Institute (www.kli.org), the phenomenon of “fan fiction” (unauthorized stories by civilians advancing new plotlines of beloved films and TV series) (The Urbanite Magazine),

She responded by saying:

Hey, thanks for the shout-out, but anyone who reads the essay—or even just the rest of the sentence you truncated—would know that your outrage is misplaced. This passage is not an attack on fandom, it’s a defense of it. I’d invite the curious to read the essay for themselves or visit my (built, obsessive, weird) site at powermobydick.com. Best wishes.

Originally posted as a comment by Meg Guroff on dashPunk using Disqus.

The rest of the sentence I truncated simply said: “and also, one might argue, my ever-growing Moby-Dick website, which now includes not only a full annotation but also links to artwork, poems, movies, and even cartoons based on the book (The Urbanite Magazine).”  I am glad she enjoys working on a fan site, and I am sorry if I offended her by intimating she had attacked fandom, but the fact remains that characterization of fandom as obsessive and weird obfuscates the fact that what we are seeing is the birth of a new culture, not merely a niche cultural phenominon.

History of Fandom

Hugo Gernsback forged the modern Science Fiction genre in 1926 when he founded Amazing Stories magazine.  In the letters section, he published the addresses of the fans who wrote in.  Readers began to organize themselves into local clubs.  In 1934, Hugo founded the Science Fiction League, a correspondence club where local clubs could apply for membership.

Chicago’s Science Correspondence Club published the first known science fiction fanzine, The Comet, in 1930.  The first convention was held nine years later when at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, when the World Science Fiction Society held the first WorldCon.

Fred Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth, members of a New York fan club called The Futurians, wrote the oldest known filks in the 1950’s by taking the music from folk protest songs and changing the lyrics.

It wasn’t until the  1970 that the conventions grew in popularity as a result of Speculative Fiction taking on the role of mythology.  More people found Speculative Fiction gave them a set of values, goals, and practices. Through our conventions, filksings, fanfic, and fanfilm, we have developed a culture that is uniquely ours.

Pattern of Behavior

Fans don’t just watch the shows they love, or read the books, they devour them.  We take in these stories, critique them, and rush to share and discus them with our friends.  We often watch the shows or read the books multiple times to see if we missed something.

We flock to conventions to meet the stars, creators, and authors of the works we love, and to spend time reveling in the series we love.  We roleplay, craft fan works, and some even engage in cosplay and LARPing (Live Action Role Playing).

Characteristic Features

It is not hard to spot a fan.  The t-shirts we were, the calendars on our walls, the tchotchkes on our desks, and the phrases we like to use.  Many of us use fanspeak around mundanes and not realizing it until we see that confused look on their face, and realize we need to translate into English.

Shared attitudes, values, and goals

The one thing I have always found most intriguing about fans is how a true fan is not hard on new fans, and wants to make sure everyone is having a good time.

Most of us grew up with Star Trek, and took to heart the idea of IDIC (Infinite Diverity in Infinite Combination) to heart.  Where ever we are, we try to bring IDIC, foresight, and community with us.  Life is to be enjoyed, and nothing cuts off the fun quicker than bigotry, ignorance, or that one guy who is looking to have a good time at the expense of everyone there if necessary.

Fan culture is always developing.

Dear Meg

I wish you the best of luck with your Moby Dick site, and I hope I didn’t upset you further.  My complaint with your article was merely that you used the phrase “Obsessive Weirdoism.”

Any culture is “Obsessive Weirdoism” when viewed from the outside.  You have a fannish heart, and I think it is time you stopped talking in a way that excuses your fannish tendencies to the mundanes.  You are a fan.  Be out and proud about it.

At any rate, I am a little jealous, I can see the merit in Moby Dick, and I can understand from where your passion derives, but I don’t think I will ever share it.  You see something most of us don’t.  That is a gift.  Relish it.

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To mark the 10 year anniversary of the Project: Shadow Manifesto, we thought it was time to overhaul it again, but this time to open up the project to all of the like-minded fans out there who are tired of the status quo, and who are hungry for something new.

Brian and I drafted the original Project: Shadow Manifesto in 1999 as an outline we saw in professional publishing.  The original draft was heavy on problems, light on vision, and even lighter on solutions.  We took years investigating the limited options available at the time, built the original Project: Shadow, and I started writing.

In 2004, we revised the manifesto, and re-launched Project: Shadow.  The new draft focused on the solutions possible through new technologies.  The world/culture presented us with newer challenges.

We are fans.

We love our music, stories, characters, and settings.
We know about what we love.
We participate in what we love.
We support what we love.
What we love supports us.

At heart, a fan is not someone who enjoys a movie, a song, a band, a book, or a show.  A fan feels an intense connection with the object of their love.  Fans decorate their homes, offices, and desktops with items that announce their allegiance with their favorite bands, movies, shows, and books.

The problem with our popular culture is that it doesn’t blink at a sports fan wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with their favorite team, or even a replica jersey, but wear a Star Wars shirt or dress like a goth and they think they have the right to mock you.

What is the difference between a fan wearing a jersey to a game or fan bringing a light saber to a movie?  Or for that matter, what is the difference between a sports fan painting themselves up to go tailgating or a fan dressing as their favorite character at a convention?

Perception.  Pop Culture has classified sports fans as acceptable and speculative fiction fans as geeky.  I have to say, it is just as geeky to now all of the stats for everyone who has ever played for a particular sports franchise as it is to know the stats for every creature in the Monster Manual.  The only real difference is one fan accepts they are a geek, and the other pretends their geekiness is proof they are a jock.

The disapproval is the least of the problems facing today’s fan.

From Storytellers to Copyright

Problem: People are natural storytellers.  We hear a story, embellish it, and pass it on.

Solution: We tell each other stories, sing songs, write books, make videos, and create art to share these stories with each other.

Every story we tell is not original.  We like to tell the same stories over and over.  We borrow stories from any where and retell them in our own vernacular.  It is intrinsic to who and what we are to share stories with each other.

Problem: The only constant in the world is change.

Solution: We ask ourselves the question, “What if,” and share the answer with each other.

Problem: Artists and Writers need to make a living singing their songs, writing their books, making their videos, and creating their art.

Solution: We establish systems of Copyright.

The Cultural Cycle

Before the era of Copyright, stories, heroes, melodies, and lyrics belonged to the people.  Stories were told, and retold.  Numerous visions of each story competed against each other.  The best were remembered, collected, retold, embellished, and built upon.  The rest were forgotten.

Who told the first story about Hercules? Or Jason? or Troy?  Who started the legends of King Arthur? or Beowulf?  The first tales and their countless reiterations have been lost, but the best, most iconic stories survived.

Of all of Shakespeare’s plays, only a few comedies have no obvious sources, and even they rely upon well established patterns and archetypes.

This is the Cultural Cycle that keeps important stories alive.  Each generation must retell the tales of the preceding generations in their own context to keep them relevant.  This cycle has been broken.

• Problem: Companies lobby to prevent Intellectual Property from reentering the commons of the culture.
• Problem: Companies control the instruments of culture, making it harder to engage culture creatively.
• Solution: Fans retell these stories as not for profit tales, films, and  songs.
• Solution: Fans organize themselves into clubs and conventions.

These solutions are are not enough.  Fanfiction and film relies on the good will of the copyright holders and the fact that the fans do not make money from their works to slip through the thinnest of loop hole in copyright.  As a result, pop culture is unaware of the cultural developments and retelling of these new stories.  The subculture may be enriched by them, but the culture as a whole is not.

The Creative Commons and the Cult of the Dollar

Problem: Publishers and producers focus more on the commercial and popular value of a work, and the creative energy of the work suffers.  Readers/viewers will not become fans, and fans will not continue to accept passionless works of Speculative Fiction.

Solution: Placing honesty over consumerism, we fans must stake out our own home to create and share the works we love.  We must stand between the darkness and the light:  This is the purpose of Project: Shadow.

Problem: The Companies and Rights holders lashed out against the fair use of their properties.

Problem: Some Rights Holders have lulled fandom into a false sense of security by not suing and even encouraging those who produce fanworks

Creative Commons is one of many proposed solutions to this problem.  Others have lobbied for copyright reform.  Neither of these is a solution to the problems.

Copyright reform is a doomed enterprise while corporate lobbyists have the power they do over the congress.  While it is a goal to work for, it is just not realistic in the short term.

Creative Commons is closer to a solution, but the adoption rate has not been sufficient to even start chipping away at the problem.

The reason Creative Commons is an uphill battle is that it is a major evolution in the way rights holders handle permissions to use their work, and exists without an intermediary form.  Existing rights holders have not adopted it because they are unwilling to give up all the rights entailed under Creative Commons.

I approached the Creative Commons Foundation with a proposal for a Fan Works License:

Some of the rights holders I have talked to are reluctant to use the CC because they are concerned they are giving up too many rights to their works.  A Fan Works License would allow rights holders to clearly state what they will allow others to do with their characters, content, and settings.

It would be a bit more complicated than a standard CC, stating whether others may make original text, video, music, or art projects based on their works.  It would also allow them to set the content rating they would allow fan works to have.  This could be aligned with the MPAA ratings or the ESRB ratings system or an original system.  The reason for this is so a young adult novelist could set a max rating of PG-13, allowing others to know what standards they would apply to determine whether a fan work is legitimate or not.

The other terms would be the same as in the standard CC.

You may not think something like this is necessary, but the current state of fan works is hazy.  While few have been sued in the last couple years, at any time, rights holders could decide to start suing again.  By creating a license that covers works with the same characters and settings rather than a particular book or movie, I believe we could get more rights holders to use the license to allow for the creation of fan works, which is a step on the road to open up works to the commons.

They responded with a simple, “CC probably isn’t going to be expanding the license offerings, and in fact, over the past few years CC has been reducing the number of licenses.”

I do not believe that a fanwork or Creative Commons license is the ultimate solution, but as a possible stepping stone toward an open culture.

Progressive Speculative Fiction

• Problem: Modern and Post-modern fiction is antithetical to hope, imagination, and community
• Problem: Success is easier through snark, hate, and discrimination.
• Solution: We will promote, support and create Progressive Speculative Fiction.

What is Progressive Speculative Fiction?

Progressive Speculative Fiction is a story told in any medium which has a “What if” at its core and is filled with hope for the future and promotes a sense of community.

How can disaster fiction be progressive?

Watch a Godzilla movie or either The Day the Earth Stood Stills.  If there is nothing worth saving, then there is no tragedy.  The heroes must at least try to save someone or something worth saving.

How can horror be progressive?

Watch nearly any horror film made prior to 1990 or for the best example read The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker or anything by Anne Rice.  If life is not worth living or there is nothing worth defending, where is the horror.  If life is worthless, then death is merely a release from a nightmare.  There is nothing scary about it.  If there is no free will, nothing is lost by imprisonment or possession.  If sanity is not worth preserving, why bother.

What works are Progressive Speculative Fiction?

There are too many to mention all of them, but to offer a spectrum:

• The Matrix/ The Matrix Reloaded/ The Matrix Revolutions/ The Animatrix
• The Dark Knight
  
• Final Fantasy – The Spirits Within
  
• The Lord of the Rings
• Dune
  
• Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, and The Tale of the body Thief
• Godzilla

Just to name a few.

Mythos

• Problem: The word “Myth” has become a marketing term.

Homogenized works are released more often by the industry every year.  Focus groups and market analysis have replaced quality work, but since the cultural cycle is broken, industry has no alternative.  It is safer to release works like the ones that sold last year than it is to seek out new talent/ideas that would be more of a risk.

They know what the fans want.  We want myths, stories that speak to us on a deep level while entertaining us.  Myths are hard to make.  It is easy to add in a wizard or a starship and call it mythology.  Fans see through it, but the masses are looking for little more than sex, violence, and humor.  Speculative Fiction has been watered down to little more than:

• imitation space opera
• knock-off cyberpunk
• repackaging of the rings
• martial arts boom-boom
• torture porn

They, then, wrap it in a shiny box, slap the word myth, saga, legend, or reboot on it, and wait for the masses to spend their money on it… and they usually do.

We do not need another company driven by profit margins, or another author whose self-important propaganda obscures the art.

We need writers and artists that love what they are doing.

We need fans who are not afraid to speak their minds.

We need places in our towns/cities and online where we can meet and share the few gems that we find from the industry and from the independent artist, writers, and filmmakers who are still following their bliss rather than the dollar.

That is why we are here.  Project:  Shadow and dashPunk will provide a platform for writers, artists, filmmakers and fans to “follow their bliss.”  We are dedicated to finding and promoting the best Speculative Fiction out there: the little/well known writers, filmmakers, artists and works, fostering their talents, and helping them to not only follow their hearts, but to share that vision with others.

But we cannot do it alone!

Fandom Strikes Back

• Solution:  We must seek out and support the writers, artists, and producers that encourage and support fan works.
• Solution:  We must get writers, artists, and producers on the record about their position regarding fan works.
• Solution: We must live according to our values of hope, imagination, and community.
• Solution: We must build a community around hope, imagination, and community, and reject the rote cynicism that defines the faux-fandom that loves to tear things down rather than build things up.
• Solution: We must spread the stories, videos, songs, and art that speak to us.

Together, We can make dashPunk and Project: Shadow more than an idea or a website, but a vibrant community of fans who share the things we love with each other.

Together, we can make it easier to find and share the things we love and find new things to love.

Together, we can build a community of fans who support and engage one another for our mutual benefit.

Alone, none of us can stand up to the corporate powers who control the music, video, text, and art that we love, but together, our voice will be heard.

Fandom is a vibrant culture with its own music (filk), events (conventions), games, and myths.  Until now, we have gathered periodically, or in disparate groups. 

Now is the time to bring the great multitude of fan bases together.

Now is your time!  Copy this Manifesto.  Print it, post it, email it, share it!  Tell a friend, and most importantly Make your voice heard.

Download

• Project: Shadow Manifesto (PDF) (62.12 KB)
• Project: Shadow Manifesto (DOC) (47.5 KB)
• Project: Shadow Manifesto (RTF) (22.32 KB)
• Project: Shadow Manifesto (TXT) (13.1 KB)

Project: Shadow Manifesto by Project: Shadow is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at dashpunk.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://dashpunk.com/about/.

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Margaret Guroff  is health editor of AARP The Magazine. In her first story for Urbanite, she takes out her inability to build an annotated Moby Dick website out on all fans who are not so swift to give up.

One distinctly modern form of obsessive weirdoism is fandom: becoming so devoted to a work of art that you want to augment or even inhabit it. Out of this impulse was born the Klingon Language Institute (www.kli.org), the phenomenon of “fan fiction” (unauthorized stories by civilians advancing new plotlines of beloved films and TV series) (The Urbanite Magazine),

Merriam-Webster defines Obsession as:

a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling ; broadly : compelling motivation (M-W)

What she fails to see is that fandom is a nascent culture:

a: the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also: the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time <popular culture><southern culture> c: the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization <a corporate culture focused on the bottom line> d: the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic (M-W)

Fandom began to form in 1960’s and 70’s, as Speculative Fiction began taking on the role of mythology.  It gave a set of values, goals, and practices that have developed and grown over time.

Through our conventions, filksings, fanfic, and fanfilm, we have developed a culture that is uniquely ours.  Like all subcultures, it is misunderstood and mocked by the dominate culture.  The very idea that we are merely obsessing over favorite stories is an insult not only to us, but to every culture.  These characters are our heroes, and these stories are our folktales.

The problem we are having is that all of the foundations of culture now ( not just those of fandom) are copyrighted and sold by corporations that neither understand nor care that they wield so much power.  Just because our mythology is copyrighted does not change the power these stories have over our lives.  In fact, it only increases our outrage when our stories are treated with the same disdain that corporate media has for the mythology of the Greeks, Romans, or even the beloved stories of the Christian Bible.  The Corporation cares only for its own profits, not the effect it has on culture.

While our interest in these stories may seem obsessive to some, I wonder how they feel about those who share other folktales, or folk songs.  I wonder if she shares this same disdain for others who do not subscribe to her culture.  People mock what they don’t understand, and it is clear she just doesn’t understand.

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New York Comic Con (NYCC) announces that J. Michael Straczynski will be their Guest of Honor at the 2009 convention (scheduled for 6-8 February 2009 in New York City’s Jacob Javits Convention Center). Straczynski is best known for creating the television series Babylon 5, and, more recently, writing the feature film Changeling, which premiered 24 October starring Angelina Jolie (SFScope)

I really wish I could attend, or maybe I don’t.  I would love to see Joe, but after all of the horror stories I heard last year about the price gouging I am not sure whether I would go or not.

I can only hope they get theri act together.  Can only hope they do a better job this year.

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When an army of slave Leia’s gather in one room at Dragon*con, how many fans suffer heart attacks?  …or at the very least forget the language they speak with regularity and loose the ability to look away?

(via Ihnatko)

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clipped from geeksofdoom.com Absolutely, I believe Buffy died twice. I think that would be a great thing to do because I would have to go learn all the things that I knew before… If we ever did make another installment of this movie, we would both [Tudyk and Fillion] be in it. I don’t know how he’d [director Joss Whedon] do it but he’s very good at bringing them back from the dead.”

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