Mental Health and Fandom and Me

While this year there were no panels dedicated to mental health at C2E2, it was apart of the conversation. 

• Characters having panic attacks in novels and Readers discovering they were not alone.
• Discussions of characters who go to therapy in their canon storyline
• Creators opening up about there own struggles with Depression and Anxiety.  

While at least in my circle mental health is something which is discussed more and more, these are important conversations which we all need to have more often.

Note:  Everyone reading this know that brains tend to go wonky, it is nothing to be ashamed of, you are not alone, and there are people who want to help you. 

(A Chicago Hamilton Cast PSA about Mental Health)

I remember a C2E2 a few years ago where I was impressed hearing Wil Wheaton speak about his own struggles with mental health. His openness blew me away. 

(The below clip is a 5 min version, and the link is to a long but powerful piece on the topic) 

http://wilwheaton.net/2018/05/my-name-is-wil-wheaton-i-live-with-chronic-depression-and-i-am-not-ashamed/

So in the Spirit of Fandom here is my own story: (Sharing it in case it can help someone else)

I have had extended periods where if I was not clinically depressed I was way to close for comfort. Where like the 90's song I was "a young man sitting in an old man's bar waiting for their turn to die." Periods where I was like the character in Neil Gaiman's "The Day the Saucers Came"

But instead of waiting for the phone to ring, I was just sorta waiting for death to show up with a cup of tea and have this bit of life done. Personally, characters and fandom and creators have helped me through these periods. They are always in my head or in a fanfiction story or in an interview telling me it will be ok, telling me that I am never alone....

• No personally I have never done anything self-destructive, I read fanfiction, and I write about these issues and process these issue through writing, my writing is not a cry for help 
• It is not helpful when people respond with "OMG Are you all right? "... because if I have to worry about you worrying and me processing the processing does not happen as much
• It is important to reach out to people you think might need help but freaking out does not help. Asking something like How are you today?, Can I help with chores?, Here is something I cooked/baked for you?, Just a reminder you are amazing! All work a whole lot better.

Therapy:

Robbie Thompson has helped destigmatize therapy. The first time I saw him at the DePaul Pop Culture Conference on Supernatural he spoke about his own issues with anxiety and his own original reluctance to try therapy. He also included these issues in his run of the comic Silk (Which I highly recommend) As Robbie Thompson said in a great interview about his  Silk and himself and writing and life in general:

I mean, when I needed help, I was in denial about it, thinking—therapy, shmerapy. And I’m the son of a therapist! I’m so grateful I went, but it took a while to get me there.  https://bookriot.com/2016/04/13/silk-goes-therapy-interview-robbie-thompson/

I also remember asking him: How do you know if you are ready to go to therapy? He said for him there were things in his life he just could not get over himself and he knew he needed a little help. 

While it took a long while between that comment to me and actually giving therapy a go I know when I finally did go I framed it as I'm going because Robbie said it would help. And finding a therapist that was a good fit took time:

• Try #1 Only lasted one session because I could not take them seriously when they said that my various issues with life and career were because "There were no communication roles available because newspapers were dead and newspaper men had taken all the communication roles out there" and if you are going WTF that is pretty much what I thought myself
• Try #2 Lasted a few sessions but because I could not articulate any major issues to work through they did not know what to do with me and basically went we are done
• Try #3 Good fit and worked out well. About the 2nd or 3rd session I was like what is the point of this I don't really need to rehash what happened to me this past week I do that and process that on my own, at which point we started to just have cool conversations. And it was nice to have someone to chat to (including the fact that friends tended to freak out and worry when I processed through fanfiction of poetry).

Again Note:  Brains tend to go wonky, it is nothing to be ashamed of, you are not alone, and there are people who want to help you. 

C2E2 Day 2 In Review: Superhero Improv

Cosplay: The Doctor

My Doctor found a sweet kid as the doctor 

And one as rose and then another rose was passing by

Panels:

David Tennant:

• This one filled quick, the con opened at 10:00 I was upstairs in line for the panel by 10:10 and I only snuck in. 
• Told a bit of the story of being selected to be the doctor. Because he was working with Russel T Davis on another project he had been campaigning pretty hard trying to be a guest star on Doctor Who and kind of getting the cold shoulder. 
• At one point, he was invited over to watch some of the first edits of the first episodes and over snacks and the first episodes on VHS basically was told because of unforeseen factors we are looking for a new doctor want to consider it
• Russel did tell David to really think about it because he knew David was a crazy fan as him and basically said to remember it is a bit of a be careful what you wish for. It would be odd actually doing something he dreamed of doing as a child. 
• At first, Tennant said No for a few days until he realized then he would have to see someone else in the role and always be like that could have been me.
• He talked about his podcast, which sorta started as a joke/no serious and then his agent was setting up meetings and then it happened 
• He did not give advice to Jodie about playing the doctor but advice around the consequences of being the doctor. As he said the past doctors are their own self-help group because few other roles make you instantly known worldwide.
• He discussed being in Jessica Jones and had read some of the comics but as he said "Comic Book Continuity is a bit Contradictory"
• If he could have anyone be his doctor's companion it would be his family
• And that he loved Neil Gaiman good omens because he kept the weird and made it weirder and others would try to make the story more straightforward. 

Representation in the Spider-Verse and Why it Matters

• This was a packed panel :)
• The panel talked a lot about Into the Spider-verse movie which I have not seen yet (Hay the library is only getting it this week, forgive me :) )
• It was highlighted like at other panels on inclusion how much a difference it makes and how meaningful it is to see yourself in a film and feel seen/understood/important
• One panelist who was Irish (sorry don't know he name) talked about a character who is Irish and how when he was doing press in Irland interviews kept wanting to talk about it because as he said most Irish characters are leprechauns. (Which reminded me how so many groups still need representation so whatever groups you belong to put into your work. Diversity can include you too.)
• Spider-verse was prised for causal inclusion, little things which were not focused on but were true to the experience of 1st generation children in America.
• There was a lot of discussion around technical aspects of the film and how impressive it was
• There was also great praise for Miles Morales being portrayed "so 13, doing his best but still struggling", the guys said it was an accurate portrayal "of the awkwardness of that point in the process (of puberty)" and that at that time boys are "awkward and a mess because they truly are chemically imbalanced".
• There was also praise for portraying the challenges of finding adult male role models for many POC kids. 
• Also, many of the panelists were connected to Silk (great comic you all should read especially Robbie's volumes which deal with things like going to therapy but this is another blog post in the future)
• Finally, it was highlighted that writing is a skill and you need to put in the hours however you can even if that means working after midnight as you juggle three other jobs.

Superhero Improv:

We played a bunch of fun Improv games. Dealing with action and words and staying focused. One game we played which is useful in real life was a storytelling game. First-round someone said something and then the other person started the next sentence with No. The next round the second person said Yes but, and the third round the second person said yes and. The yes and actually led to stories and while it was framed around working with people doing improv in real life Yes and thinking goes a lot further. 

C2E2 Day 2 In Review: Dance Party and a Marriage Proposal (Not Mine)

Cosplay: Hamilton

Here is my Hamilton giving Batman a piece of his mind

(Yes it is blurry, hard to take a photo of a photo

And I never got the digital version, my email must have eaten it)

Panels:

The Future is Now

• Ideas that the future is connected to the past and the future changes based on what we do
• Random History fact before 1985 women could vote in England and then they were written out
• "As someone who makes things make things about the thing you love" 
• For parts of her current series of books Mary Robinette Kowal talked about writing place holders such as "They jargoned the jargon by jargon" and then sent it to some of her astronaut friends to basically play mad libs (This seems like a great way to write a draft you can fill in the jargon, character, place later)
• "Any act of creation is an inherently political act"
• "Be the weird you want to see in the world"
• All writing is therapy/processing/responding
• There is a cycle of focusing on Nature then Tech then Nature in stories

Beyond Wakanda: The Rise of Afrofuturism in Pop Culture and Comics

• There was no one definition of Afrofuturism but some ideas included it is a mode of healing, it is a statement that black people will continue to exist, using what you have to create something new.
• Quote by Einstein "Imagination more important than knowledge"
• Darryl DMC McDaniels (yes that DMC that even I have heard of) spoke about the early period of Hip Hop being about moving beyond dystopia
• Chicago is a black cultural center with Jazz and blues and the experimental arts movement. It is a collaborative city. And a product of the great migration which was individuals coming to create a new future
• Art creates a template for creating a future which includes you, and you should not look for permission to tell your own story.
• The importance of being careful of the fact that anointing individuals is a way to keep others out. (The false idea we already have one black x so we don't need more)

John Barrowman Spotlight

• I ended up not getting into this panel but I watched it on some big screens outside the room. 
• John was in a sparkling TARDIS Suit and High Heels (a few others were roped into coming on stage and put on heels, I have to say I never got heels as a concept but boy do boys look good in them, I really think only guys should wear them)  
• John told the Hot Tub story (basically his husbands "naughty bit" (Thanks Monty Python) got accidentally flashed during a live stream. (You can find the clip online because of fans) We got a second part and basically in the end: Even if you walk around the house naked having your 93-year-old inlaw do it is awkward. And according to John Coffee tastes better naked oh John lol.
• Never apologize for being you!!! Have the right to tell others they are being a Dick.
• Growing up he loved comic books and superheroes because they were different and shunned but stayed themselves 
• He then sung 1000 years to us

C2E2 Live Stage

• Clark Gregg and Ming-Na Wen Talk Agents of shield
• Was a fun little talk, now I have not watched Agents of shield since the 1st half of the first season but I love Coulson 
• (At least the fan fiction versions of Coulson, one of my favorites has him in a relationship with JARVIS, that is definitely ace, even I am not sure if aro because I don't understand what is romance, personally I like romantic things but I like chocolate because it is sweet, stuff animals because they are fuzzy, and flowers because they are pretty but I don't know if I like romantic things because they are romantic or for other reasons)
• Glad I caught him since he is not at C2E2 tomorrow
• Seems like Clark Gregg is just as cool. 
• Also Gregg pointed out that Coulson was saved by fans, he was dead dead in the movie, but fans created #savecoulson and agents of shield happened

Dance Party:

C2E2 has a fun DJ in the lobby playing fun bouncy music. I think the dance parties which spontaneously happen summerize fandom and fans and creativity. Here you have someone from the umbrella academy, multiple spiderpeople (So many incarnations of spiderman now), Superman, Hamilton, Deadpool, and many I did not recognize all dancing together.  Every time I go up into C2E2 I always feel yes these are my people. (These are my people but I hope you find your people where ever they hang out, and know you have people, even if you have to work to find them)

And as the DJ was just about done for the day someone looked over and saw a marriage proposal going on between an Aquaman and his Mera, so he played some appropriate music and ended on Under the Sea from the little mermaid. 

C2E2 Day 1 In Review: A Robbie Day

Today's cosplay: Newt from Fantastic Beasts

Me with what looked like to me giant blueberry creatures

Panels:

Sorting Fair Play Throughout the Universe: Doctor Who and Inclusion

• Overall the feeling was this past season was a good step in the right direction but like any work, improvements can always be made. 
• The diversity both in front of and behind the camera was appreciated. Highlights Ryan being a POC with a disability who is shown to be thriving, the explicit discussion of racism and the civil rights moment in the Rosa Parks episode, and the conversation between Ryan and Yaz about the complexity of racism for different groups of POC's
• "It does not serve characters if you gloss over their lived experience"
• "It is important to explore how to not soft-peddle the negative parts of our history without becoming voyeuristic"
• There was also agreement that it is wonderful that Jodie Whittaker is not sexualized in her role, she is still clearly The Doctor, and that the previous showrunner would not have been able to write her so well. Also She has Pockets :)
• One interesting idea for wishes for next season was to have Jodie call out her own white woman privilege, especially in relationship with traveling with two POC companions

Love in Color: Authors Explore LGBTQ+ Romance in Comics and YA

• We need even more diversity under the LGBTQ+ umbrella to be explored
• It is important to let those who have an experience share that experience because it will be more nuanced then if an outsider writes it. There need to be more naratives about queer friendship.
• It is also important to remember that who you are aiming your story towards may not be who buys books but it is still important
• Books are a form of immortality, they support that we are here
• Queer kids need to see themselves on the spines of books (the author) not just inside 
• It is also important to share Queer stories with those outside queer culture
• There was also an Ace creator on the Panel which made my day. 

Ricanstruction: DC Comic's Heros team up with La Borinquena

• There was a discussion about the current state of Puerto Rico. 
• There was also a discussion about how in the beginning the magic comic book companies were small and more cutting edge on social issues but then they became corporate. 
• One of the authors of one of the stories talked about making stories personal and the importance of writing your issue, in this case, he focused his hero on helping the dogs of the island because he wanted to know what happened to them in the burincaon

Robbie Thompson

Funny how each year I get more confident walking right up to his table in artist alley. The first time I saw him at C2E2 it took until Sunday before I worked up the courage to say hi. This year I simply had a few tiny nerves and pretty much walked right up to his table. 

The recognized me while I was still in line to say Hi. (And yes every year he knows me makes it exponentially more likely he will know me again the following year, but Another Hundred people have gotten off the train and the face he still knows me makes me smile)

I gave him my poem for this year (See last weeks Blog post) and I gave him one of my business cards. He is in the if you write you are a writer camp. It is funny I fully support others who are writers or creators but when it comes to myself I feel odd saying I am an author. I also talked a little about his Deadpool/Spiderman cross over comics. (I don't know the character Deadpool but I do like the "All Ages" version in the crossover or maybe Robbie is just perfect and that explains it) 

I later came back because I found some of his comics in some of the remainder bins and wanted them signed. When I said I was sorry but I did not pay full price for them, he was all they have already been released and I get comics in the $1 bins too. I realized I forget comics are more disposable media in old issues ending up in a $1 bin is not the same thing as having your books remaindered which typically makes authors of published books sad. The second time is also recognized my costume. I guess earlier he just thought I was well dressed, Yep newt is a snazzy dresser

Pre-C2E2 Year in Review

Next weekend is C2E2 (Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo) where in addition to going to cool panels I will be able to say my yearly Hi to Robbie Thompson. :) I first was introduced to him at the Depaul Pop Culture Conference on Supernatural several years ago now. Let's just say he really impressed me with his openness and willingness to talk with us fans (for what turned into about 3 hours straight) on topics from writing to mental health issues to therapy and this has continued each time I run into him.

So he has become one of my "Best of Writers, Best of Dreamers" (A wordplay on Hamilton's Best of Wives, Best of Women). In addition, taking a page from Neil Gaiman's American Gods, I imagine that these writers are Gods who need offerings. My offerings are offering of creativity. So for the 2nd or 3rd time, I will give Robbie Thompson a poem about my offerings this year. Here is that poem:

As one of my “Best of Writers, Best of Dreamers”

As one in my personal pantheon of Gods

Here is an accounting of this years offerings

Offerings of putting words down on the page

Offerings of “Writing what I feel” and “Making Good Art” 

Of Being Weird and Inscrutable

Offerings of 365+ daily poems

Offerings of sharing those poems

Through a Monthly Poetry E-news(1)

Offerings of a weekly blog

Offerings of creative projects and Supporting Theater

I have dedicated 2019: A Year of Magic (and Wonder and Joy).

A Year of The Doctor herself, A Year of Mary Poppins. 

A Year of Newt Scamander. 

A year where I regularly “Trip a Little Light Fantastic”.

At the turning of this year I wrote the words (2):

“A question mark response to a poem

A reminder that I may be Muggle 

But I still can see magic, the magical

In ways that others can not, will not

Often just out of the corner of my eye

Or within that thing called dreaming 

But I will do the Perfect Strangers Happy Dance

When it occurs. And yes I know the truth

That these things should never be told

Because in the telling that become dust 

But I will tell these stories and I will keep them safe

Because if you keep your eyes open for magic

Magic you will find, Magic will find you, Magic will go forth

Thank you for the question mark of possibility”

May these offerings be acceptable to all the writer gods

And may they give strength to all the writer gods

By the power of the ink of creation

(1) Anyone can join my monthly poetry e-news by sending an email to adreamingace at gmail.com
(2) My Poem 12/25/18 a

Seeing a Play: A Puerto Rican Story

Last night I went to see the play A Puerto Rican Story which looks at the Puerto Rican Experience here in Chicago. The play is an adaptation of the documentary Chicago's Puerto Rican Story which aired on PBS.

For me, the play highlighted how all of history both personal and local and global are circles which keep coming around again. Before PR was my island, before Lin-Manuel and his family became my family too, even before Hamilton, when I first came to Chicago as part of a volunteer year I lived in Humbolt Park.

When I came here Chicago was new and big and shiny compared to where I had been for the past 2 years as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I kept being excited to learn there were parks and museums and stories opened past 5 and I did not have a good grasp of how big Chicago was. So I went to museums and the loop and work in Oak Park and did not take much time to learn about the neighborhood I was living in. It was not my neighborhood just where I was staying. And I did not know that Chicago would become my permanent home.

I only started to really explore and feel comfortable exploring Humboldt park several years after I moved to another area of Chicago. I have now been to festivals there as well as The National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and wonder how I was so self-focused, and so distracted by Chicago as a whole that I missed the rich history of Humboldt Park.

What is the history of the neighborhood, or town or village or city where you live? What are the celebrations and what are the tragedies? Good things to think about when you have a spare moment.

It is a small world stories

Life has a tendency to be even stranger than fiction.

I was speaking with a coworker, who is also into writing, about authors we follow and at one point I mentioned that both my parents are writers. (Now while I think they are super cool because they are my mom and dad, and they are well known in some circles, I also know they don't have the name recognition of someone like Lin-Manuel or Neil Gaiman or even J.K. Rowlings.) It turns out that my coworker follows my dad's twitter. When I told my dad it made his day. 

This reminds me of a story the late author Hal Clement once told: A once point some of his mail was being delivered to the wrong address. Something which happens from time to time, no big deal. But when he went to sort it out and get his mail, it turns out the mail had been going to the address of a former student of his. As he said he could not have written such a thing in one of his books because readers would have said that is too much of a coincidence.

I will leave you with one more Hal Clement Story. He was a regular attendee of a con that my parents helped put on. One year he said something to the fact that people should write something in the next year. So before the next year's con, I remembered and wrote something or had something from school which could work. I remember handing him whatever I wrote and could tell he was confused and gave some sort of pat "good job keep writing" thing. Later talking with my mom I learned while I heard his suggestion to write as a homework assignment to complete he probably meant it more generally and was not quite sure what to do when I handed over my story.

Bonus: The above was not the first time I heard a suggestion as a homework assignment. One year in school I thought we had to come up with a poem for class. I ended up creating a "12 days of chocolate" poem (The theme of class that year was chocolate) and then had to bring in Toblerone for the class because the kids did not believe that Toblerone was a real type of chocolate.