Swancon notes

[zebra363]

Swancon is the annual Western Australian science fiction (with a side order of slash) convention.  Way too much SF and too little slash for my taste, but it's the best thing on offer for a slasher here.  I attended for the one day with the most slash on the program.

Comments

[maharetr]

Keep in mind that, by the sounds of it, we were lucky to get the room for slash-purposes, never mind the time we got. (chaosmanor had to fight tooth and nail to keep Cathy's RPS paper in the main program.)

On the less dire hand -- Cathy's paper had a full house (people standing at the back!) and I did a headcount of twenty people crammed into the tiny slash room, most of them total strangers to me. Who would have thought we had that many slashers in Perth?! :-D

[zebra363]

I know they had to fight for the time, and that's why I think it would have been worth putting more organisation into the programming. Perhaps it all came together too late for that.

I'd love to know what the total number of invisible slashers out there is - just how big is the iceberg? I live in hope that some day some RL acquaintance will stumble across this, recognise me and it'll turn out that we've had the same interests all along!

Programming

[emma_in_oz]

I didn't attend the slash panelling. This was partly because I figure that I get a lot of slash most of the time and wanted other sf and partly for .... um other reasons that I'll post to you.

Anyway I think it sucked that there was a need to fight to get it onto the program but it rocks that it was there. And I think that five hours was probably a reasonable amount considering that it's a general con. The program needs to have time for everyone - slashers, zine writers, gamers, video streamers, lit fans, hard sf fans, fantasy fans, etc.

Re: Programming

[zebra363]

Oh, I agree that it got a fair amount of time. I realise it's not meant to be a slash con! (And in some ways I'm uncomfortable with there being any advertised, daytime slash time on the program at all.) My comment was meant to be about the use made of the time, not the number of hours.

I'm sorry I missed your great moment(s)!!

[kelliem]

I was bemused to meet a number of people in the first panel I attended who refused to eat Easter eggs since they didn't celebrate Easter.

This would make more sense the other way around. Apparently they don't realize that the whole 'egg' thing is leftover from the pre-Christian pagan holiday 'Oestara' and the eggs are fertility symbols.

Besides. Chocolate trumps all. :)

[zebra363]

Yes, a number of people there pointed out that eggs were a pagan symbol originally.

It meant there was more chocolate for me, anyway! I have trouble envisaging the situation where I'd decline an offer of chocolate.

[cricketk]

I have trouble envisaging the situation where I'd decline an offer of chocolate.

*immediately starts devising situations*

[zebra363]

I can tell I'm going to enjoy this experiment. Go for it!

[ardent_muses]

or as cathexys said to me recently: If you show me, do I not squee?

ROFLMAO!!!

You don't have to write, or even read, or participate in any way to be a slasher - it's an inner thing first and foremost, in my book.

Absolutely. No question.

[zebra363]

I keep seeing comments by people I like equating slashing and being involved with fandom with writing. Coming from my perspective, or the perspective of a total newcomer walking into a panel room, I have to argue that you can do them in other ways! (Not that I'm suggesting that writing isn't the absolute best expression of fannishness there is!)

[ardent_muses]

I think writers sometimes forget that everybody doesn't write. Which is not an excuse -- just a reason.

I do think one has to interact in some way to really be IN a fandom, and that would probably be by communicating with other people who watch the show. I don't think anything else is required. I suppose you could just write or vid and let the world marvel at your creation while you stayed silent and mysterious, but that doesn't sound like much fun.

[zebra363]

Yes, true. I was mixing two different things in my comment above.

The idea of writing is so alien to me that I find it incredible to think of anybody imagining everyone would do it! In my mind that's like imagining everyone to be a marathon runner. Everybody can run, right?

(After being nagged by a local friend and inspired by a Mag 7 story I wanted a sequel to, I actually "wrote", for private consumption only, 315 words of the scene I wanted to read. It wasn't quite as agonising as the time I tried it last year, when I think I told you that I was so embarrassed I had to look down at my hands as I typed out the words! Probably everyone *can* write, and I just like to let myself off the hook by thinking otherwise.)

[cupidsbow]

I did so much less preparation for this year's con than in years past, which partly accounts for the Wonder Women panel and the slashcon being less organised than they could have been. I don't take full responsibility, however, as there were many other people involved in both, and I was not up for doing much--I'm still on a mental post-phd vacation

[zebra363]

I've only read the Dragonrider series - no, wait, and the Freedom's Landing series. The appeal for me was so much in the dragons that I never got around to most of her other books. I guess it is kind of annoying that it's only men who ride the strongest fighting dragons. I've re-read the early Dragon books *many* times, though.