In spite of the head cold of doom’s best efforts, I had a good time at Norwescon.  You may have noticed that I hadn’t been posting much for the last month, well, I had a little health issue.  I had a kidney stone, that turned into an infection, that led to something else…  I’m all better now.  Everything is in fine working order, I no longer have plastic in my body, and then I caught a headcold.  Whee.  And Norwescon was this weekend.

I went Thursday night, and did “Fat Acceptance: Shaming Not Allowed,” which was marvelous.  People really need to warn others about the Geek Husband What Rules and I both on the same panel, we tend to take over.  We both did the annual “How to get laid at a con” panel, and only had one person ask about the “friend zone.”  Granted, after I landed on him with both feet, I may have scared anyone else off that topic.  Then I ran off to “Fan Cast some Comics,” which was spectacularly fun!  And several people I quizzed this weekend agree that Oded Fehr (who will now play a villain in Marvel’s Most Wanted) would have made a spectacular Dr. Strange.

Friday, though, the headcold was so bad I couldn’t go, and wound up calling them to say I couldn’t make it.  I really couldn’t.  I was so miserably sick to the point I couldn’t even watch things on Netflix, just laid in bed and dozed off, and quite possibly developed a fetish for Vick’s Vapo-rub.

Saturday,  I got up determined to make it through all my panels.  Which I did.  We started with “Bitch Planet and the Politics of Women’s Bodies,” which went super well.  We discussed how there is no win with a female body in this culture, because you’re too thin, too fat, too tall, too everything.  There is nothing you can do to not have someone criticize you.  And how Bitch Planet kicks that up just maybe a notch more, ok, really, the only thing it has that real life doesn’t, is the ability for men to have women sent to a space prison for offenses like daring to get old or be fat in their presence.

Then “It was always so Awesome…” where we talked about liking things you liked before you became aware, after you did.  And that was interesting, because as I walked in, an older gentleman was telling someone on  the panel, that “We have to stop this PC stuff somewhere.”  And I was just, “Wow, ok.”  And thankfully, someone else on the panel mentioned, “You know when I hear people complain about PC or political correctness, all I hear is ‘I want to keep being an asshole.'”  And another older white gentleman got very angry with me when I said we (white people) needed to learn how to apologize when we fucked up.  Because he wasn’t about to apologize for slavery because he didn’t do it.   Which no one said he had to.  I said to apologize when you, yourself, fuck up, just say, “I’m sorry, I’ll try to do better.”  That’s it.  Otherwise the panel went pretty well.  I tried to mostly just let the other panelists do the talking.

Then we had “Hyper-Sexualization -v- Power Fantasy,” where I brought a PowerPoint presentation, showing things like, a male pose and a female pose side by side, the cover of an issue of Heroes for Hire, where if it weren’t for costumes and hair you wouldn’t be able to tell the four female superheroes apart, the myriad of body types for men and the two body types most superhero comics allow women.  We discussed how there were in fact a few superheroes drawn for the female or gay male gaze, but only a few.  Then we talked about Faith (Zephyr) from Valiant, and Bitch Planet, Pretty Deadly and others that featured women with different body shapes.  I may also have dedicated one slide to Nightwing’s butt.

I got to have lunch and talk briefly with G. Willow Wilson, and tell her about that last panel, where we talked about Dust from the X-men’s super clingy, sexy clothing even while she wears a niqab.  It’s just, ugh.

And then we had an “Internet & Real Life” Trolls panel, where we got to explain trolls, GamerGate and MRAs to someone who had apparently spent the last 20 years under a rock.  Super nice guy, but seriously?  How do you not know this shit? It was an interesting panel.

Then the BDSM panels, which were a little more scattered than normal due to the massive amounts of cold medication I was on in order to function even a little.  But we got some great questions.  There were lots of super nice, super enthusiastic folks there, and The Geek Husband What Rules trolled me all during both panels.  And I think I got hit on by the super cute guy toward the back who asked which comic book character someone would have to roleplay for me.  I think.  I’m a little dense that way sometimes.

I’m really bummed to have missed out on Friday, but I was not remotely functional at that point.  But all in all, it was a great convention!  I met some awesome people, saw some of my fans, made more fans, and ran into someone I had not seen since she was like 12, who is an awesome person.  It was very strange.  But awesome.

Also, damn you Jeff and Minim for introducing me to Avengers Academy.  Grrrr, because I needed another app game.