Wincon - A Recap
Oct. 23rd, 2015 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hilsSo, as I mentioned yesterday, here's a brief recap of my adventures at wincon. Apologies if I've missed anything important.
We travelled down on Wednesday as it was going to take about 5 hours to get there. The drive was pretty good. The weather was nice and we had my road trip playlist on.
We stopped for brunch at Bob Evans and I can tell you now it's a good thing places like that don't exist over here or I'd be eating out for breakfast all the time and I'd be dead within a year
Oh, and on the way we also stopped at Wallgreens because my dear friend Bill sent me some money as an early Christmas present so I could get a Steve to go with my Bucky
We arrived at about 5pm and found out that we'd been upgraded to a suite because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaneen was part of the Wincon committee! Which was nice because there was 4 of us in our room and it would have been cramped in a regular room I think.
Once we'd settled we headed downstairs to help assemble swag bags.bogwitch if you thought the writercon goodie bags were bad...
It was a good team effort though and didn't take that long to get everything done. We ordered some pizza and headed back up to our room for a bit. One of the other committee members dropped by and gave me beer \o/
The next morning we had a trip to Pittsburgh Zoo which was a lot of fun. Before we'd even left the hotel I'd made a friend who flailed at me over the Dragon Age shirt I was wearing.
The guy selling tickets loved our group "I don't know what group you're part of but I am loving all your geeky shirts. Man, I love Dragon Age!" So funny
Now I am generally not a fan of zoos. I don't like seeing animals in captivity unless it's a conservation/sanctuary type of place. Pittsburgh Zoo is nice but it was clear some of the animals weren't happy. There was a tiger who appeared to be alone and he was just pacing up and down the whole time we were there and there was a polar bear who started 'dancing' as we arrived. I thought maybe the animals had been trained to perform for the tourists (which is bad enough) butchaneen looked it up and apparently they were acting like that due to stress. Awful.
Not all the animals seemed to be unhappy though. The best part of the trip was the baby gorilla who loved being around people. He was behind glass but he came right up close and was playing hide and seek with us and pressing his hand against the glass and peering in at us. He was really friendly and seemed to be having fun.
The otters seemed pretty happy too and tbh the otters were the only reason I went. I love otters. Sea otters are WAY bigger than I thought but they seemed happy. They were swimming around and playing with their toys.
The river otters seemed to be having fun too. They were swimming around and climbing up trees to look at us.
So mostly it was fun.
In the afternoon we had a Wincon meet and greet type thing. I had a tweet fromunavoidedcrisis saying she had arrived so I went up for a chat. I love meeting internet friends in person. Everyone I met over the weekend who I already knew was lovely :D
Headed back down to mingle and was just about to get food when I heard my name called and I was tacklehugged byratherastory which was nice. Not long after that ![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
ms-morri arrived and the three of us went out for dinner.
I'm bigger than I was last time I went to the US and I still can't handle American portions. I was still massively full from lunch so we split a large pizza. But I did get to have my first ever cannoli which was super-exciting and delicious
Friday was pretty quiet as there weren't many panels I wanted to do. Mostly I just hung out withms-morri and we chatted about Dragon Age. She is a mega-talented artist so while she was drawing I decided to unleash my artistic streak by doing some colouring in ;)
We did go to a plushie making workshop.ms-morri decided she wanted to make a Cullen and I had grand designs of making a Dorian until I realised I know zero about making clothes even with a pattern to help me. So I picked out some fabric and then kind of gave up at that point. Don't worry the story has a happy ending. More on that later
Friday night we went on a ghost tour of Pittsburgh which was loads of fun. Our guide was really good at telling stories and I had shivers running down my spine on more than one occasion. I was absolutely shattered by the end of it though and headed to bed as soon as we got back.
Saturday started with the best part of the weekend. A Dragon Age roundtable run by the lovelycathybites. It was a nice small group (I think about 10 of us maybe?) and everyone was really respectful and allowed everyone else to talk, made sure no one got ruined by spoilers and generally just flailed about the series of games we all love.
Oh, and I was sat nearjenna_thorn and her wonderful knitted Iron Bull
And because I'm me I was sat next tobeadslut and we 'discussed' whether Illya or Napoleon was the best MUNCLE character while we waited for the panel to start. FYI the correct answer is Illya ;)
Immediately after the Dragon Age panel I was on the MCU panel and it was from one extreme to the other. The panel was pretty crowded and there were lots of loud people with opinions. I mean it's great that people feel so passionately about the MCU but I wasn't in the best frame of mind to deal with it tbh. But we did act out Civil War with action figures which was fun
Apologies for the TMI but I need to explain a thing. I got my period on Saturday morning and with it came cramps and sadness. And I mean literal sadness. After the MCU panel I just sat in my room feeling miserable.
I finally managed to drag myself downstairs and was sat in the lobby wondering if I could get by not eating lunch because I didn't have the energy to wander out by myself. Luckily at that very momentbeadslut wandered past with a group and asked me if I wanted to join them. Perfect timing was perfect. I went along and had a really lovely lunch. So thank you for rescuing me from myself. I'd have probably spent the whole afternoon sat there feeling sad otherwise.
We went to a really great hotdog place and I had a really nice lunch and chatted with some lovely people. One of them even had a little Steve and Bucky that she took everywhere. I was with my people :D
Spent the rest of the afternoon/evening hanging out withms-morri while she worked on her plushie Cullen. We debated whether or not to go to Prom because we were having a nice time just hanging out but eventually we decided to go. I'd made the effort to bring a dress after all and I NEVER wear dresses
Oh, but first look at me andms-morri in our matching Cullen shirts which we had worn to the Dragon Age roundtable that morning. Because we are giant dorks :D
So we went to prom for a bit and behold a rare photo of me in a dress! We stayed long enough for food, drinks and the raffle drawing and then we headed back to resume plushie making :D
And here's the happy ending to the story of my plushie. Becausems-morri is a good influence and makes me do creative stuff she got me to work on plushie!Dorian and helped me by teaching me how to sew
Look! I made little trousers!
Eventually at about 2am I headed to bed but it had been a mostly fun day despite everything
Sunday I had a bit of a lie in as my first panel wasn't until 11am. It was a tropes panel and while it was fun talking about tropes I feel it suffered similar problems to the MCU panel in that lots of people were shouting (in excitement I hasten to add) and, honestly, I don't think I really contributed much by being there. This is entirely a personal thing. I just prefer smaller groups. I'll be sure to only offer to do less popular panels next time I think.
And speaking of small panels my afternoon panel was on time travel and considering I stepped in at the very last minute to help out it ended up being my favourite of the panels where I was an actual panelist and not just a participant. It was a smaller group, no one was shouting and we had a really good discussion about time travel in TV, movies and books. And surprisingly little of our discussion was on Doctor Who. It was great
Oh, andbrynspikess broke me by showing a clip of the ending of Somewhere In Time
And that was pretty much a wrap. We ended the con with a second plushie workshop andms-morri made sure I finished my Dorian.
He's messy and far from perfect but considering before this I could barely sew on a button I am rather proud of how he turned out. He's currently sitting on my bookshelf with all my other plushies.
ms-morri and I headed out for dinner and we had delicious cherry cider with it. So good!
We hung out a little bit more when we got back and then, sadly, it was time to pack and say goodbye.
It was lots of fun! And I love hanging out with fandom people in real life. I hope to do it again soon.
Oh, and a lovely ending to the trip while I was at Philly airport waiting for my flight home my friend Demi who works at the airport came over for a chat. So that was nice
Now I'm home and I only brought a few things back with me ;)
wincon. Apologies if I've missed anything important. We travelled down on Wednesday as it was going to take about 5 hours to get there. The drive was pretty good. The weather was nice and we had my road trip playlist on.
We stopped for brunch at Bob Evans and I can tell you now it's a good thing places like that don't exist over here or I'd be eating out for breakfast all the time and I'd be dead within a year
Oh, and on the way we also stopped at Wallgreens because my dear friend Bill sent me some money as an early Christmas present so I could get a Steve to go with my Bucky
We arrived at about 5pm and found out that we'd been upgraded to a suite because
chaneen was part of the Wincon committee! Which was nice because there was 4 of us in our room and it would have been cramped in a regular room I think. Once we'd settled we headed downstairs to help assemble swag bags.
bogwitch if you thought the writercon goodie bags were bad...It was a good team effort though and didn't take that long to get everything done. We ordered some pizza and headed back up to our room for a bit. One of the other committee members dropped by and gave me beer \o/
The next morning we had a trip to Pittsburgh Zoo which was a lot of fun. Before we'd even left the hotel I'd made a friend who flailed at me over the Dragon Age shirt I was wearing.
The guy selling tickets loved our group "I don't know what group you're part of but I am loving all your geeky shirts. Man, I love Dragon Age!" So funny
Now I am generally not a fan of zoos. I don't like seeing animals in captivity unless it's a conservation/sanctuary type of place. Pittsburgh Zoo is nice but it was clear some of the animals weren't happy. There was a tiger who appeared to be alone and he was just pacing up and down the whole time we were there and there was a polar bear who started 'dancing' as we arrived. I thought maybe the animals had been trained to perform for the tourists (which is bad enough) but
chaneen looked it up and apparently they were acting like that due to stress. Awful.Not all the animals seemed to be unhappy though. The best part of the trip was the baby gorilla who loved being around people. He was behind glass but he came right up close and was playing hide and seek with us and pressing his hand against the glass and peering in at us. He was really friendly and seemed to be having fun.
The otters seemed pretty happy too and tbh the otters were the only reason I went. I love otters. Sea otters are WAY bigger than I thought but they seemed happy. They were swimming around and playing with their toys.
The river otters seemed to be having fun too. They were swimming around and climbing up trees to look at us.
So mostly it was fun.
In the afternoon we had a Wincon meet and greet type thing. I had a tweet from
unavoidedcrisis saying she had arrived so I went up for a chat. I love meeting internet friends in person. Everyone I met over the weekend who I already knew was lovely :DHeaded back down to mingle and was just about to get food when I heard my name called and I was tacklehugged by
ratherastory which was nice. Not long after that I'm bigger than I was last time I went to the US and I still can't handle American portions. I was still massively full from lunch so we split a large pizza. But I did get to have my first ever cannoli which was super-exciting and delicious
Friday was pretty quiet as there weren't many panels I wanted to do. Mostly I just hung out with
We did go to a plushie making workshop.
Friday night we went on a ghost tour of Pittsburgh which was loads of fun. Our guide was really good at telling stories and I had shivers running down my spine on more than one occasion. I was absolutely shattered by the end of it though and headed to bed as soon as we got back.
Saturday started with the best part of the weekend. A Dragon Age roundtable run by the lovely
cathybites. It was a nice small group (I think about 10 of us maybe?) and everyone was really respectful and allowed everyone else to talk, made sure no one got ruined by spoilers and generally just flailed about the series of games we all love. Oh, and I was sat near
jenna_thorn and her wonderful knitted Iron BullAnd because I'm me I was sat next to
beadslut and we 'discussed' whether Illya or Napoleon was the best MUNCLE character while we waited for the panel to start. FYI the correct answer is Illya ;)Immediately after the Dragon Age panel I was on the MCU panel and it was from one extreme to the other. The panel was pretty crowded and there were lots of loud people with opinions. I mean it's great that people feel so passionately about the MCU but I wasn't in the best frame of mind to deal with it tbh. But we did act out Civil War with action figures which was fun
Apologies for the TMI but I need to explain a thing. I got my period on Saturday morning and with it came cramps and sadness. And I mean literal sadness. After the MCU panel I just sat in my room feeling miserable.
I finally managed to drag myself downstairs and was sat in the lobby wondering if I could get by not eating lunch because I didn't have the energy to wander out by myself. Luckily at that very moment
beadslut wandered past with a group and asked me if I wanted to join them. Perfect timing was perfect. I went along and had a really lovely lunch. So thank you for rescuing me from myself. I'd have probably spent the whole afternoon sat there feeling sad otherwise. We went to a really great hotdog place and I had a really nice lunch and chatted with some lovely people. One of them even had a little Steve and Bucky that she took everywhere. I was with my people :D
Spent the rest of the afternoon/evening hanging out with
Oh, but first look at me and
So we went to prom for a bit and behold a rare photo of me in a dress! We stayed long enough for food, drinks and the raffle drawing and then we headed back to resume plushie making :D
And here's the happy ending to the story of my plushie. Because
Look! I made little trousers!
Eventually at about 2am I headed to bed but it had been a mostly fun day despite everything
Sunday I had a bit of a lie in as my first panel wasn't until 11am. It was a tropes panel and while it was fun talking about tropes I feel it suffered similar problems to the MCU panel in that lots of people were shouting (in excitement I hasten to add) and, honestly, I don't think I really contributed much by being there. This is entirely a personal thing. I just prefer smaller groups. I'll be sure to only offer to do less popular panels next time I think.
And speaking of small panels my afternoon panel was on time travel and considering I stepped in at the very last minute to help out it ended up being my favourite of the panels where I was an actual panelist and not just a participant. It was a smaller group, no one was shouting and we had a really good discussion about time travel in TV, movies and books. And surprisingly little of our discussion was on Doctor Who. It was great
Oh, and
brynspikess broke me by showing a clip of the ending of Somewhere In TimeAnd that was pretty much a wrap. We ended the con with a second plushie workshop and
He's messy and far from perfect but considering before this I could barely sew on a button I am rather proud of how he turned out. He's currently sitting on my bookshelf with all my other plushies.
We hung out a little bit more when we got back and then, sadly, it was time to pack and say goodbye.
It was lots of fun! And I love hanging out with fandom people in real life. I hope to do it again soon.
Oh, and a lovely ending to the trip while I was at Philly airport waiting for my flight home my friend Demi who works at the airport came over for a chat. So that was nice
Now I'm home and I only brought a few things back with me ;)
no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 01:05 pm (UTC)But the Dragon Age panel was exactly my speed and yes, oh yes, we all had different pairings and yet could handle those difference because love love love.
I forgot to mention Franktuary! Eep! Weren't those dogs good? As much as I'd like to drag everyone I now to WingHart, it's probably best for my waistline that they are far away. 8-)
no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 02:19 pm (UTC)The otter and gorilla are adorable...loved the vid of the otter!
no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 02:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-10-23 07:20 pm (UTC)I agree about both the awesomeness of otters and how sad it is to see unhappy, stressed, animals in zoos.
And well done on producing your plushy!