samvara

No doom present, did get treated like a sort of superior mobile climbing gym by young people but this is welcome and desired.

My panel was Safe Spaces with the lovely callistra. We basically covered what we think of as a Safe Space (a space in which one is safe enough to bring stuff up when it becomes problematic, and safe enough to engage if one is called on one's behaviour); the con anti-harassment policy since they are great to have but need to 'live' so to speak; various definitions and mechanisms of 'Concern Trolling' and ways to engage / respond; and whether it's OK to hit on a lone woman in an elevator at 4am (balancing concern for self, concern for others and social norms).

Thank you again to everyone who participated.

I also caught up with a bunch of people I like, met some new ones and attended some panels including

• My Little Ponies (sweet sparkly crack)
• Apocalyptically Bad Science (very popular and very funny)
• Gender Norms in Fictions (in which chaosmanor courageously spoke for 'other' and Brand Sanderson impressed me with his openness)
• Trailer Park which showcased some great stuff to look forward to

For historical note, it took me 13 hours last year to time out on personal contact, I didn't time out this year.

James Butterworth, our fan guest of honour, turned out to be charming, funny and deliciously musical. It was wonderful to meet him and we very nearly didn't let him go back home.

We talked, ate, listened to music, talked more, watched vids, read stuff to each other and generally hung out. I may have broken something laughing and I have a serious sleep debt to pay.

My mother delivered a bouquet of 'congratulations on running a convention!' flowers today along with a card from my brothers and father declaring their belief I am the bees' knees and and ant's pants. They patiently listened to me rabbit on about what I was up to, utterly failed to agree to come to Swancon and have demonstrated great powers of awesome.

Things I wanted for Swancon 2009:

1. A strong Anime presence in the programme
2. Support for parents (thank you so much to Kylie, Kate and everyone who contributed to making this a success)
3. Gynaecon panels in the formal programme
4. Media related panel items to partially compensate for killing the AV stream
5. More involvement for gamers
6. More opportunities for cosplayers
7. Hosted lunches / breakfasts
8. Workshops / interactive panels
9. Women on panels (49%)

Did I get them? Yes.

*packs for Sydney*

Arrived in time to check room setup and got hit with news about something nasty that was a bit hard on my spirits.

Women at Worldcon - Round Table Discussion was gentle, very interesting and a great source of comfort *loves on callistra in particular*.

Rebel Empire were dramatic and amazing, they are so obviously deeply in love with what they do and having a fabulous time.

Battlestar Galactica was my second actual panel, it was bouncy and fun. In brief: WTF Starbuck? WTF Baltar+Caprica? WTF Worst colonisation ever. Yups, very brief. Podcasts should be up on the website in the next couple of days, they are uncooked and anyone who wants to polish them for re-upload will be showered with love and appreciation.

Swancon 2010 Launch was very slick, I confess I wanted something... less overtly masculine? Am looking forward to what they do :)

Did a lot of arriving, leaving and organising.

Did my first thing in the morning room check but the hotel is handling set-up beautifully and the only problem was no AV equipment on the 2nd floor which we quickly remedied. Have developed the habit of checking rooms/panels every hour or so and gently circulating the con looking for problems - also getting in some fine chatting while panels are running.

Frontiers: Commons and Copyright Creativity in the Internet Age was the first of my two official panels and was really a chance to vibrate with enthusiasm about the Organization for Transformative Works and its projects - particularly the Archive Of Our Own. I love doing that! I also learned more about Creative Commons, Copyright and Curtin University's struggle to embrace web 2.0.

I utterly failed to record Hard SF with the soft sciences which is breaking my heart because I wanted to hear Richard Morgan talking about it.

Guest of Honour Speech - Richard Morgan I *did* record this and manade to attend and he was warm, chatty and interesting. He talked about his writing process and about getting Altered Carbon published then opened up the floor for questions which flowed enthusiastically.

I missed Banned Books and plan to hunt up emma_in_oz's list because the play-by-play I got later sounded brilliant.

Strong Women in New Who, the Whedonverse, and SFF was so packed that the organisers snuck in and held a quick conference before running a fabulous round-table discussion with a passionate and engaged audience. We talked about Rose, Martha, Donna, Sarah Jane,  Buffy, Tara, Dawn, Willow, Inara, Zoe (who is incredibly sexy), 'M', Caprica Six, Tory, Boomer and more. I managed to record this too. Apparently its damn near impossible to be genuinely powerful and sexy at the same time :(

Channel Flicking I saw the end of and may not be forgetting the horror any time soon - the child-hunting balloons were especially disturbing.

Have established that the woofer does not get separation anxiety if I leave my bedroom door open when I leave in the morning. I also have a woofer shaped dent on my bed.

catundra has kindly offered to co-ordinate the child-friendly activities at Swancon. If you have children, ideas, time, or an interest in the process, please check out and respond to her post.

Even if you've already commented elsewhere, this is the new one-stop-shop marshalling area, so please repeat your offers and suggestions.

We're particularly keen to support people who've got children and didn't think it would be possible to come to Swancon because of them.

Thank you all so much for making my birthday celebration part of slashcon, for the excellent company and the eleventyone delightful conversations and thank you to angstslashhope for turning up and being all interesting, cute and clever. Apologies again to chaosmanor for the impromptu Little Red Riding Hood re-enactment, I had no idea we were so loud. I saw some new vids, heard some wonderful stories read out loud, learned some more about vidding, a lot more about podcasting and had some very dubious crocodile porn written for me. Yay!

Thank you also to missyjack and riverbella for the virtual gifts! I have been blessed both in love and material gifts this birthday *clutches book from maharetr, shiny new second monitor, new pjs and copy of Bladerunner*. callistra baked me cake too!

Oh and there will be Boondock Saints and Sahara this Saturday at the House of B&D by the way.

dormant_dragon, kae_dash and I combined forces to keep the woofers happy and entertained during Swancon. Kenobi, Oriel and Bosworth entertained themselves by running around like idiots, wrestling, stealing things from each other, playing musical beds and vomiting on my carpet. A lot like some humans a couple of suburbs over really...

It felt like wading through a sea of dogs when I stumbled home at night and every time I sat on the bed, slept or sat in a chair I was circled by furry sharks.