John is at his usual podcasting setup, Alison is in a cauldron, and Liz is on Plague Island.

Please email your letters of comment to octothorpecast@gmail.com and use #OctothorpeCast or tag @OctothorpeCast when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: death (chapter 3) and COVID-19 discussion (chapter 4).

• Coded messages appeared in This Here… #45
• Letters of comment
  • Ali Baker
    • Alison appeared on episode 3 of Ali’s podcast
  • Fran Dowd
  • Chris Garcia (twice)
    • American Vandal
    • Brick
  • Pat McMurray
  • Caroline Mersey
    • Recipe for fifteens
  • Karen Schaffer
    • Recipe for bar cookies
  • Peter Sullivan
• Erle Korshak has died
  • John’s TAFF trip report, Best. Trip. Ever.
• Convention COVID-19 policies
  • DisCon III have released a new COVID-19 policy
    • Vaccination required (no exemptions)
    • Masks required
  • Liz found Dragon Con’s COVID-19 policy
    • Vaccination required (medical/child exemptions mean you can test instead)
    • Masks required
    • 50% maximum capacity
  • Novacon are planning to have a COVID-19 policy
    • Dave Hicks will be in charge of this
  • Corflu do not have a policy on their website and did not respond to a request for comment
  • Fantasycon do not have a policy on their website but responded to a request for comment
    • No vaccination policy (!)
    • Asking attendees to wear face masks and socially distance
    • Encouraging attendees to take lateral flow tests
  • UK Games Expo
    • There was widespread criticism of the early-June plans
    • They capitulated a week later in the face of the gaming fandom
  • CONvergence had a similar policy to DisCon III
    • File 770 linked to CONvergence’s Twitter thread outlining a COVID case in a convention attendee
    • There are also reports on Facebook
      • First
      • Second
    • This does not appear to have led to any at-con transmission
      • By which we mean, we haven’t found any reports thereof
• The mysterious case of the toilet on the plane
• Alison is officially part of an Eastercon 2023 bid which is forthcoming!
  • Caroline Mullan is the chair
  • If selected, the convention will be called Conversation
• Futurecon 2021 is coming up
• Aftershow: Horizon Zero Dawn is quite good
  • Aloy and unrealistic depictions of beauty
• Music credits
  • Our theme music is Fanfare for Space by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC BY 4.0 license.