This is not a con.txt con report.

This is just me saying some things.

First and most important: at the dance on Friday, I was sitting around in the quiet area (and can I say how wonderful it was that the ballroom had a little area that was isolated enough from the music that you could hear yourself think, but close enough that you could feel like you were part of things, and had a conversation area? That was the best, and all dances should have it. The previous dance I went to I spent most of the time huddled in the cloakroom area.) Anyway, I was sitting there chatting with a bunch of people about Media Steve Rogers Would Have Been A Fan Of, and somebody said, "Steve would love the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow because he would be like, "Wow, somebody made a movie of -----"!"

Only I didn't catch the -----, and now I need to know what it was, for reasons. Reasons entirely unconnected to Steve Rogers. Anybody remember? Is the person who said that reading my journal, as an astonishing proportion of con.txt already is?

(people I am pretty sure were there, but I could be wrong, because I am terrible with names, and there were also others: elspethdixon, holli, viklikesfic, my_daroga, ambyr, grey_bard, lettered...)

...and on that note, if I met you at con.txt, I would love to add you on DW, because pretty much everybody at con.txt is brilliant and wonderful and I have social-awkwardness-inducing levels of intellectual crush on you all, but if I did not already know you by your badge name chances are I will not remember it, so feel free to PM me and tell me we should add each other (or I should add you back.)

..umm let's see. There were panels. I paneled a lot. I am pretty sure I babbled and was terrible (and probably misgendered people, augh) at both of the ones I moderated, as well as many of the others, and nothing anybody says will convince me otherwise, sorry, but it was still incredibly fun and I learned a lot. Also the adrenaline rush of the babbling means I don't remember enough about them to do a proper report, but there will at least be "leave your comments and links here" posts going up on con_txt in the next few days.

( more on panels, mostly in the general. )

...that was a lot of complaining. I loved the panels! Really I did! And whoever organized the panels on the concomm did a great job and a lot of hard work with people like me who are difficult to communicate with.

Other stuff: The Sufferer cosplay was a hit, even if there was less Homestuck familiarity among congoers than I expected. I was going to pick out the stitches and horns and return the cape to normal afterward, but it's so adorable that I'm tempted to just keep it that way. On Saturday I decided to go with "Dress as you and see how many people ask who you are," and I got three asks. (yes, I do dress that way in the Muggle world - especially the red fedora, I love that hat - which may have something to do with my inconsistent employment history, come to think of it.) On Sunday I chickened out on the antique dress because I wasn't sure what I'd be doing after the con, so I went with the less-authentic version that used a relatively modern jacket and long skirt and shirt, but everybody know who I was anyway. I think the magnifying glass helped.

The QUILTBAG sold at auction for a ridiculous amount of money! THANK YOU so much to everybody who bid on it, that was an amazing start to the last day of the con. That plus the other two things I had in the show that sold meant I covered all my food for the weekend + plus next time's pre-registration, without feeling guilty about frivolous spending, which is yay. I even remembered to take a picture of the bag five minutes before the auction started, so I have documentation that it existed, yay. (There should be an upcoming post on Stuff I Have Made Lately, pictures will be there.)

I meant to buy some raffle tickets, but never got around to it, ditto for the amazing orphan zine collection. But I pulled some fun stuff off the swap table, although nothing all that fannish (well, except the coloring book zine, because it's a coloring book!) The thing I'm most excited about is the purple wool roving, I've actually been doing some spinning and was on the verge of running out, so that was great. I didn't realize until after Dead Duck that not-taken stuff from the swap table just gets thrown out, though. I totally understand not wanting to deal with it, but if I'm commuting again next time, I might offer to take care of the swap leftovers myself - a lot of it probably was not worth doing anything else with, but the books could go to Book Thing, the new-in-box toys could go to a toy charity, the zines could surely go to a zine library or something, and a lot of the rest could be recycled.

What else, what else.

Oh! This was officially the con of people Reminding Me About All of My WIPs And How I Should Finish Them Already. I am not complaining - I don't mind people doing that politely, it is totally justified, and I will be honest with you about my plans if you do - however I still maintain that all my WIPs on the Dresden anon meme are anon, and whichever ones you might think are mine are totally some other unknown person's. PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY.

I'll also repeat what I said to somebody at the con, that the absolute best way to prod somebody you don't know very well about a possibly-abandoned WIP is to leave a comment on it (no more than every couple of months) saying, "Hey, I was just thinking about this fic again, and I still really like it!" If the author is still wanting to finish it, that by itself will be enough to prod their guilty conscience/reassure them that people still care about it. If the author is sick of it or anxious, that is least likely to poke a sore spot.