Belated FC Report
Okay, so time to put my journals to use again. I started writing a belated con report, but with all that's been going on in my life lately, I ended up with a con report, a life report, and a bit of social commentary. I'll break them up for now though, and we'll just start with the significantly belated Con Report, and save the rest for some other time. ^_^
So here we go, Wolfblade's FC report:
Best. Con. Ever.
Every con, I try to spend as much time as I can with everybody, and so I end up not spending half as much time as I'd like with anybody. This year though, things just seemed to fall into place and with just a few exceptions, I got to spend a decent amount of time with most everyone, and got to at least say hey to almost everyone I knew who was there. I felt bad for the few people I missed, but that list was so much smaller this year than it usually is.
The whole thing started off kinda rocky. Through multiple humorous (really) circumstances, we almost didn't go. Then we were going, then we weren't. But then apparently when a hotel says you have to cancel a room 24 hours before the date of the reservation, they actually mean 72 hours. :P
So, since the buddy who had the reservation was gonna get charged for a night anyway, we figured fuck it, we'll drive down for the one night. And through the awesomeness of Furry Magic, we ended up getting to stay the whole con. Major crazy-awesome thanks to Beachfox and Nightbull for letting Wolfie and I stay with them. We got to meet a ton of new people, and many good friends I hadn't had the chance to meet irl before. At one point, we were just hanging out in Glenn's room, and circumstances were such that damn near all the people I really care about in this world were all there in one room, joking, and talking, and laughing, and just being quite happy. I must have looked incredibly goofy, because I remember a near-euphoric feeling at being able to be around so many of my favorite people being happy at one time. I was on the brink of happy-tears more than once. X3
This is not, of course, to say that I don't care about anyone who wasn't in that room. >:P There were several good dear friends who weren't there, but I hadn't been around so many of my dearest friends since our moving-away party last year, and it was just an indescribably awesome moment for me.
I won't do a list of shout-outs. You all know I love you. People tend to get the message fairly clearly when they've given me reason not to like them, so if I talked with you and hung out with you at all, I like you. And between new friends, old friends, meeting old ol friends for the first time irl, this con was just brimming with people I like. Some of you I need to try harder to spend more time with, but we all know, cons rarely work out according to plan. X3
Anybody who knows me knows that I thrive on being around good people being happy. And Cons have always been a wonderful source of that. This con in particular was a bit of an eye-opener, and a good firm reminder of something that I was in sore need of reminding: This fandom does not, contrary to the growing apparent popular opinion, suck.
But that's a journal for another day.
Suffice to say, for now, the atmosphere at the con was what I remember this fandom being when I first found it. The actual fandom hasn't changed so much as the negative vocal minority makes it look. I've missed the last few cons before this one, and had begun to forget this fact myself. The fandom online might be a much different animal than it used to be, but when you get into the real world, and thats what matters, the people are still the same. There are more of them, yes. And there are a great many more people choosing to separate themselves from the group, yet insist on lingering on the sidelines pretending to not be interested, and squirting a little negativity into the precedings now and then. But irl, they don't have the anonymity that grants them such vocal and vehement voices online. So they're just the occaisional pocket of self-inflicted unhappy amidst the hurricane of good feelings that cons tend to be.
To anyone who wants to go to a con, don't let yourselves be talked out of it by people who can never focus on anything but the most negative aspects of anything in life. Listen to the people that enjoy themselves. Listen to people who had fun. Listen to what people LIKE about cons. Go to a con for the things that make them fun. Don't avoid them because of the few unpleasantries. A con is a good or bad con based SOLELY on you, and the people you associate with. If you're decent to people, decent people will surround you, and you will have a blast.
So here we go, Wolfblade's FC report:
Best. Con. Ever.
Every con, I try to spend as much time as I can with everybody, and so I end up not spending half as much time as I'd like with anybody. This year though, things just seemed to fall into place and with just a few exceptions, I got to spend a decent amount of time with most everyone, and got to at least say hey to almost everyone I knew who was there. I felt bad for the few people I missed, but that list was so much smaller this year than it usually is.
The whole thing started off kinda rocky. Through multiple humorous (really) circumstances, we almost didn't go. Then we were going, then we weren't. But then apparently when a hotel says you have to cancel a room 24 hours before the date of the reservation, they actually mean 72 hours. :P
So, since the buddy who had the reservation was gonna get charged for a night anyway, we figured fuck it, we'll drive down for the one night. And through the awesomeness of Furry Magic, we ended up getting to stay the whole con. Major crazy-awesome thanks to Beachfox and Nightbull for letting Wolfie and I stay with them. We got to meet a ton of new people, and many good friends I hadn't had the chance to meet irl before. At one point, we were just hanging out in Glenn's room, and circumstances were such that damn near all the people I really care about in this world were all there in one room, joking, and talking, and laughing, and just being quite happy. I must have looked incredibly goofy, because I remember a near-euphoric feeling at being able to be around so many of my favorite people being happy at one time. I was on the brink of happy-tears more than once. X3
This is not, of course, to say that I don't care about anyone who wasn't in that room. >:P There were several good dear friends who weren't there, but I hadn't been around so many of my dearest friends since our moving-away party last year, and it was just an indescribably awesome moment for me.
I won't do a list of shout-outs. You all know I love you. People tend to get the message fairly clearly when they've given me reason not to like them, so if I talked with you and hung out with you at all, I like you. And between new friends, old friends, meeting old ol friends for the first time irl, this con was just brimming with people I like. Some of you I need to try harder to spend more time with, but we all know, cons rarely work out according to plan. X3
Anybody who knows me knows that I thrive on being around good people being happy. And Cons have always been a wonderful source of that. This con in particular was a bit of an eye-opener, and a good firm reminder of something that I was in sore need of reminding: This fandom does not, contrary to the growing apparent popular opinion, suck.
But that's a journal for another day.
Suffice to say, for now, the atmosphere at the con was what I remember this fandom being when I first found it. The actual fandom hasn't changed so much as the negative vocal minority makes it look. I've missed the last few cons before this one, and had begun to forget this fact myself. The fandom online might be a much different animal than it used to be, but when you get into the real world, and thats what matters, the people are still the same. There are more of them, yes. And there are a great many more people choosing to separate themselves from the group, yet insist on lingering on the sidelines pretending to not be interested, and squirting a little negativity into the precedings now and then. But irl, they don't have the anonymity that grants them such vocal and vehement voices online. So they're just the occaisional pocket of self-inflicted unhappy amidst the hurricane of good feelings that cons tend to be.
To anyone who wants to go to a con, don't let yourselves be talked out of it by people who can never focus on anything but the most negative aspects of anything in life. Listen to the people that enjoy themselves. Listen to people who had fun. Listen to what people LIKE about cons. Go to a con for the things that make them fun. Don't avoid them because of the few unpleasantries. A con is a good or bad con based SOLELY on you, and the people you associate with. If you're decent to people, decent people will surround you, and you will have a blast.