And basically anyone beholden to character counts. I write a lot of grants and even though I’ve spent 90% of my life using two spaces and like it better, I switched to one space simply as a practical matter for applications with character limits.

I LOVE serial comma fights. I’m ambivalent and will do whatever my office’s style guide says (I grew up not using it, but learned to incorporate it in the last few years).

NY livin’! I miss it.

I also love her for joining the natural hair admiration we had going on in line for autographs afterwards.

Lauren Ridloff was amazing. On a stage full of more experienced actors, she was a revelation and a natural. So happy to see her acknowledged!

I heard about the fallout first but not the context. Then I read the context and ... ?????????????

I’ve seen all of those but Civil War, and I wouldn’t mind watching that. So I might catch Infinity War once the furor has died down a bit (my nerd crew said they’d vet it for me).

Tauruses. Nobody can hold a grudge like we can.

Rome was my first big solo vacation and it was fantastic. Thanksgiving week is a great time to go—the temperature is pretty moderate and it’s outside of the busy season but things are still open. Eating solo got tricky, so I kept to smaller cafes and ate on the early side. And true to what everyone told me, the men…

The Rick Steves guide was so helpful. I used the podcasts for guided tours which worked out really well. And it’s where I learned to take the guidebook out of its binding and just travel with the sections you need for the day.

Loved Trastevere! It’s a great little place to wander and it’s so chill.

That’s true and they give you the disclaimer. So it’s not an option for anyone trying to get pregnant. My previous doctor didn’t want to prescribe it because he required it with birth control pills and I didn’t want anymore fiddling with my hormones. But it works for me even though my androgen levels aren’t that out…

With The Avengers, I didn’t think the plot or the characters were hard to understand or anything. It’s more the the enjoyment of how everything plays out comes largely from the investment in having seen how they got there from the previous movies. In that sense, it rang more hollow for a new viewer because you lack…

This is what I try to emphasize to people when they are shocked and upset about how ambivalent I am about Marvel movies (all superhero movies really). It’s not because they’re flawed, it’s because they’re meant to be like a 19 hour movie. If you don’t like that, it’s cool, but don’t blame the movie for a personal…

I saw her at a con once where she got into an uncomfortable exchange about what kind of compensation you give to your staff for a venture like BGN. I don’t have the best impression of her, and none of her responses are surprising to me, but she did have a lot of quality contributors go through BGN—from what I’ve…

My doctor prescribed spironalactone which is a blood pressure med in conjunction with my PCOS meds. Within a month, I barely recognized my own legs because the hair growth had slowed to a crawl. And I used an electric razor on it no problem.

A lot. But it also depends on what pool of fandom you’re looking at. There are a decent number of volunteer-based regional cons that have cropped up in the last several years throughout the country and and semi-large longer running cons where folks from marginalized groups are taking the lead and now have the…

There are cons run on a smaller scales and regionally that are trying to fill this gap. For example, BlerDCon had its skeptics, but they put on a successful con.

I don’t think you can do a convention on that scale without it being professionally run or run by reliable people with many successful cons under their belt and a deep bench of experienced volunteer staff (like Worldcons). Even small conventions are an absolute bear for folks with the best of intentions.

Thanks for this really great rundown. It’s been hard wrapping my head around all of this. I really wanted it to work out. I had heard gossipy stirrings about behind the scenes nonsense, but that’s all cons, really. And it’s also sad because this happened to a similarly themed con in the area a couple of years ago.