CONvergence 2024: Everyone’s Invited is just around the corner, and I am very much looking forward to it. It will be great to see friends and acquaintances, go to panels and learn/experience things, be on panels and share my knowledge, and all the fun things one can do at a convention! I hope to see you there!
Well, it’s almost Independence Day Weekend, and that means that it is almost time for CONVergence 2023: All Dressed Up. I am looking forward to it; I haven’t been to CONvergence since 2019, since just before the pandemic. I am eternally grateful to be able to go to CONvergence once again, to see those whom I don’t get to see often, to go to panels and learn/experience things and share my knowledge. It promises to be a grand time.
Hi, folks! Minicon 56 is a week away. This will be my first in-person convention since CONvergence 2019, and first convention since CONvergence 2020. I am looking forward to Minicon - I get to see friends whom I don’t get to spend much time with the rest of the year, I get to go to panels and learn things, and I get to be on panels and share my knowledge and experience on subjects that I find interesting.
Last season, I started to take some time to sit down and talk to fellow POC folx in the geek community about our experiences. Now that we’re in season 2, the discussions continue. Today we have a returning special guest - writer and cosplayer, Sonni de Soto (she/her). You can find Sonni with the following links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sonni_de
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sonni_de_soto/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/sonnidesoto
Content Warning - Mentions or Discussions of:
COVID-19
Eyes
Religion
Spoiler Warning:
The Good Place
The adventure of cleaning up audio and improving show notes from previous panels continues in today’s episode of Justin on Panels. We are still working through MarsCon 2018, with the panel “Race and Culture in the Honorverse”. Please note: MarsCon 2018 was seven months before the release of Uncompromising Honor (HH14). Shadow of Victory (SI4) was the most recent novel in the current timeline.
Content Warning: Slavery does get discussed in this panel, and there are white men trying to whitesplain it away.
David Weber's Honor Harrington series presents a very diverse gambit of humans in a far future when race does not seem to matter as much as politics. Juxtaposed against our own realities, how does this fundamentally affect our perception of the Honorverse?
With: Justin Grays, Stephanie Stensland
The adventure of cleaning up audio and improving show notes from previous panels continues in today’s episode of Justin on Panels. We are still working through MarsCon 2018, with the panel “Cleavage Optional: Gender, Cosplay, and Genderbending Cosplay”.
Content Warning: Blackface does get mentioned during this panel.
How is the cosplay experience different for women and men? Why is genderbent cosplay so popular? What fans aren't doing it and what characters aren't being genderbent? What does this mean for trans and non-binary characters and fans?
With: Bridget Landry, Justin Grays, Kris Heding
The adventure of cleaning up audio and improving show notes from previous panels continues in today’s episode of Justin on Panels. We are still working through MarsCon 2018, with the panel “Star Trek”. Please note: at the time of recording, only season 1 of Star Trek: Discovery had been released.
A talk about the last 52 years of Star Trek, 6 Shows, and the 13 movies. Yes there will be spoilers for Star Trek Discovery.
With: Tony Artym, Elizabeth Erickson, Justin Grays, Joan Marie Verba, Stephanie Stensland
There were a couple of panels at Minicon 54 that I attended and wrote up in my retrospect post. Over the years, I have been referring back to that post and telling people which panel to look at. It has occurred to me that the panels that I’ve referred to the most need their own individual posts, and so I’m reproducing them here.
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At Minicon 2019, I attended a number of fantastic panels and took some notes at most of them. These notes reflect my thoughts as the panelists were speaking, and may not align with what the panelists meant to say.
There were a couple of panels at Minicon 54 that I attended and wrote up in my retrospect post. Over the years, I have been referring back to that post and telling people which panel to look at. It has occurred to me that the panels that I’ve referred to the most need their own individual posts, and so I’m reproducing them here.
—————
At Minicon 2019, I attended a number of fantastic panels and took some notes at most of them. These notes reflect my thoughts as the panelists were speaking, and may not align with what the panelists meant to say.
The adventure of cleaning up audio and improving show notes from previous panels continues in today’s episode of Justin on Panels. We are still working through MarsCon 2018, with the panel “Gem Watch”.
Discussion of the recent episodes of Steven Universe. What are your theories about events on Homeworld? What will this bring to Beach City?
With: Kathryn Sullivan, mod.; Justin Grays
Content Warning - mentions of:
Death
PTSD
Stress
Toxic Masculinity
Toxic Relationships
Trauma
Spoiler Warning: Steven Universe
Over the last four years, I have been promising to finish cleaning up the audio from the various panels that I have been on and improve the show notes. Now that GraysMatter Podcast is up and running, I have taken the time to also revisit these panels. Please join me in experiencing Justin on Panels.
Starfleet's Prime Directive is evidence that Borg, Dominion, & Klingons are not the only ethnocentric civilizations in Star Trek. Let's talk about how and why deciding what's best for another culture is problematic regardless of intentions, even in space.
With: Justin Grays, Stephanie Stensland
Over the last four years, I have been promising to finish cleaning up the audio from the various panels that I have been on and improve the show notes. Now that GraysMatter Podcast is up and running, I have taken the time to also revisit these panels. Please join me in experiencing Justin on Panels.
In society and in the media, a number of myths have revolved around polyamory. Though polyamory is becoming more generally accepted, the media shows it as a white phenomenon. Explore and discuss how the polyamorous experience is portrayed and how it differs from reality.
With: Kyle Andrew, Justin Grays
So, as longtime listeners may be aware, the usual format of this podcast is for me and two or three of my co-hosts to talk about society and current events from a perspective other than your stereotypical podcaster - that is, not from a cishet white male. But another thing that I’ve been meaning to do is to sit down and talk to fellow POC folx in the geek community about our experiences.
And so with that in mind, today we have a special guest - writer and cosplayer, Sonni de Soto (she/her). You can find Sonni with the following links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sonni_de
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sonni_de_soto/
Over the last four years, I have been promising to finish cleaning up the audio from the various panels that I have been on and improve the show notes. Now that GraysMatter Podcast is up and running, I have taken the time to also revisit these panels. Please join me in experiencing Justin on Panels.
The panel from CVG 2017 is back! Everybody makes mistakes sometimes. Maybe you've worded something poorly or were misinformed on a topic. Maybe you just didn't think a decision through and something went the wrong way. It happens. But how we react in these situations is what matters most.
With: Rachel Cleveland, Kyle Andrew, Michelle Chmura, Jennifer Jones, Justin Grays
Content Warning: Mentions of:
Abuse
Anxiety
Divorce
Imposter Syndrome
Inappropriate Touching
Mental Health / Mental Illness
Racism
Sexism
Over the last four years, I have been promising to finish cleaning up the audio from the various panels that I have been on and improve the show notes. Now that GraysMatter Podcast is up and running, I have taken the time to also revisit these panels. Please join me in experiencing Justin on Panels.
Creating actual diversity requires a great effort to avoiding unintentionally tokenizing your characters. Tokenism, even when unintentional, is what leads to adding "diversity” for the sake of diversity. How do we engender true diversity in sci fi and comics?
With: Justin Grays, Rob Callahan, S.N. Arly, Tyler Tork, mod.
Content Warning:
Mention of the slur for Romani people
Transracial/Transcultural adoption
In this episode, we discuss topics ranging from conventions and politics to COVID-19 and memes.
This episode is not sponsored. We are not medical providers, and nothing we say should be construed as medical advice.
FaeBun (she/her)
Justin (xe/xem) - https://www.justingrays.org/
Michelle Chmura (she/her) - https://twitter.com/avocadabro & https://residentialrobot.tumblr.com/
Content Warning - Mentions of:
Aging
COVID-19
Death
Fibromyalgia
Military
Physical Therapy
Richard Dawkins
Weight & Weight Loss
Over the last four years, I have been promising to finish cleaning up the audio from the various panels that I have been on and improve the show notes. Now that the GraysMatter Podcast is up and running, I have taken the time to also revisit these panels. Please join me in experiencing Justin on Panels.
The desire for realism is high in the cosplay community, but when does it go to far? Is it okay to change skin tone to emulate a character of a different race? Is it necessary? What is the difference between looking like another race and another species?
Panelists: Justin Grays, Stephanie Stensland (mod), Sarah Molasky, Morgan Strickland, Charlene Holm
Content Warning:
Blackface
Racism
Now, let’s be clear on this - I will not be attending. This is only about me and the specific situation that I am in, and no one else. Other people have their own decisions to make, and I am not trying to influence that. This is just to explain why I am not going, because many people keep asking me why and I find it easier to have a central spot to provide an answer.
Those of you who are going, though, I have two requests:
Please take a lot of pictures! I hope to see what it is like this year. I am sad that I am not going.
Please volunteer or donate to CVG! CONvergence needs community support to stay afloat, and I for one would love to see it make a comeback in 2022.
Black Fan, White Fandom: What it was like in the days before representation was as prominent, even though we have a long way to go. Panelists: Taylor Aaron Cisco, Briana Lawrence, Justin Edward Grays. Liaison: Shannan Paul
Although COVID-19 has postponed CONvergence: The Stuff of Legends to 2021, we still were able to move forward with having an online convention. CONvergence Online was a free to attend event where we can digitally gather and enjoy the convention weekend; we were still able to hold room parties and participate in panels over Zoom. You can listen to or download an audio version of the panel here, or watch on the CONvergence YouTube channel.
Although COVID-19 has postponed CONvergence: The Stuff of Legends to 2021, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be a CONvergence in 2020. This weekend will be CONvergence Online - a free to attend event where we can digitally gather and enjoy the convention weekend! I hope to see you all there!
I will be on a panel with Taylor A Cisco on Friday the 21st at 6PM: Black Fan, White Fandom - “A discussion of how PoC kept their geek torches burning in the days when representation was non-existent.” If you have any early questions that you would like us to consider during our discussion, please feel free to fill out the form below. I cannot guarantee that your question will come up, but even if it doesn’t, I will do my best to answer your question in a post after the convention!
