stuffs. cause i has the eloquence but good.
I am on Dreamwidth! I am not running away: I am already entirely in smit with their concept, and intelligence, and approachability, and so I am going to hang around there to see what happens, but I'm not packing up here. Maybe one day, if all of you have gone elsewhere, but the main point for me of having a journal at all is the people, so, um, y'know, you're not getting rid of me. :D
Talking of: Con report!
So, my Muskrat started on the Wednesday, when one llassah turned up in my town! I then proceeded to jump straight into complete epic failure mode: my room was a tip from packing, I discovered I'd lost my debit card, and the airline didn't know who I was when I tried to check in online. Seriously, I have much respect for (and slight fear of!) llassah for not just going "OKAY YOU CLEARLY FAIL AT LIFE, I AM OUT OF HERE". Luckily I cancelled my debit card, called up Expedia who told me the airline were lying bastards whose website sucked. The rest of the night was finished packing with no further incident except doing the :( face every time I was informed I had to choose between another dress and taking underwear, and we watched Jeeves and Wooster being awesome for a while before attemping a nap before flight time.
There we met airinshaw and catwalksalone and flailed a bit, and then it turned out my ticket was fine but the airline check-in computers were not. Like, functioning. So there was sitting, and then there was finally getting to Paris where I went through THREE DIFFERENT LOTS OF SECURITY WHAT MADNESS IS THIS and then sat in a plane which did not move, and dozed off through my caffeine haze. When I woke up it was thirty thousand feet up, which I swear has never happened to me before ever, because I looove take-off and that is just odd! Then there was food - who knew Air France gives you ACTUAL BRIE? It was awesome! Also, diet coke. Nom.
Theeen there was Boston Logan, and mayatawi and aneli8 and snoopypez!! This face was made by me: :D!!!!!!!!!!11!!! (Apparently my first words off the plane were "YAAAAAAAAY hiiii I've had a LOT OF CAFFEINE!" I... don't actually remember this.)
Um, then there was trying and failing to surprise mrsronweasley, and drinking, and going EEEE a lot, and also pouncing on people. Seriously: friendliest con ever, and this is as a huge fan of the "Someone just made a Paul Gross joke somewhere behind me! Who is this person that I may yay at them?!" aspect of cons. And there were just so many people whose badges made me flail because omg I totally knew that name and that name meant AWESOME! Like, I did not know at all that celli and slodwick and mazily and others were going to be there and had to flail at them. :D And people I did know were going were also so, so happymaking - entropical87 remains one of my ultimate favourite people, and I had never met shihadchick before but now have no idea HOW, and just !!!!!!!
Then we kind of crashed after watching a baby seal on telly a bit. I blame him entirely.
Friday was panels! I was eating my breakfast through the McShep one, woe, but it did mean I was alive-ish for THE MIDDLEPANEL, which made me very happy. Everybody agreeing the awesome of Wendy and Lacey and the Middleman and Noser and Ida and alternative universe episodes and ART CRAWL (art crawl!) and shows where the silly is treated with love and characters all get to have their own thing and actually communicate even if they are women, or of colour, or even both. Also I had totally nabbed a Wendy postcard from the craft table - can I just say that I loved the craft table idea? - and had it as visual evidence of Wendy's hot awesome. \o/
The Genderswap panel and then the Weird Sex And Snowshoes panel (can I just say that I love that the Canadian Media panel was called that? and everyone knew exactly what it was about? hee) were next, and both were good in really different ways. The Genderswap panel was really thinky and brought up a lot of stuff about the treatment of gender in fic that I'm still sort of vaguely chewing over, and then it was all "the amount of Peter Outerbridge's ass we see is directly proportional to the quality of the product!" and "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO KILL THE PUPPIES?!" and discussions of how the film all about attempted suicide ended up the happy one. Seriously, I could not love fans more for that. ♥
And then we went and got dolled up for the vid show/dance party, which meant everyone flailed a lot at how fab everyone looked! We even managed to get snoopypez into a skirt and entropical87 into a corset! :D
(Also my favourite pic of the con comes from the pre-vid-show drinks - me and mayatawi being adorable and blurry! Flocked to protect the innocent, and it was from mrsronweasley's slightly drunken phone, but seriously, aw.)
The vid show was by far the best vid show I've ever seen, actually, I have to say. Awesomely chosen vids, with the right interval for more drink and the loo (the Con Comm THOUGHT OF THESE THINGS! seriously, like, organisation and OCD obsessiveness over details were totally their superpower), and oh, everyone singing along and cheering to "Call Me Al" was seriously one of the highlights of my YEAR, if not LIFE. ♥ ♥ ♥ (I also wish to add that people singing 'Golddigger' for the rest of the con was actually NOT MY FAULT, and that the Starksy and Hutch vid made me boggle because... wow. That actually HAPPENED. Dude!)
Then dance party with "VOODOO" (I died, seriously: nothing like a giant room of people all yelling "did you do a little VOODOO BABY!") and catwalksalone doing her impression of this on the floor in her lovely dress, and really I would have been totes happy to go on dancing like a moron for ages, but we got kicked out and then ended up... um, airinshaw's room, I think, and had more chatting to people. Like brynnmck said, that's always the hardest bit to get across in a post, because so much of the reason stuff is fun is the little random chatting by the lifts, or having someone crack the joke you were thinking of when you lose your shoe, or whatever. :)
Talking of, next morning was the comedy panel, which I thought was good but needed to be a lot longer! We'd kind of only just got through the beginning stuff about approaches to comedic fiction and stuff, and I wanted to hear more. I was amused by the fact that someone whose name I can't remember was talking about how comedy was hard and tight and such, and our entire corner of the room just kept trying not to laugh until giving up and going "Sorry, it's just... hee, tight" and then everyone giving up and giggling. :D Fun, although I was sad I didn't get to say "Cancer? That's HILARIOUS!" or "Simmer down, Stew!", which I had planned to. *hides from everyone ever :D*
The due South panel I was waaay too intimidated to say anything in, but I do love that all this time later it still has a panel about why it was awesome. *love*
Then drlense and the Supernatural panel, which... seriously, most! enthusiastic! panel! ever! It was really fun and drlense is the only person I've met who literally flails more than I do. *heart* Enthusiasm and random geeking and stuff is the lifeblood of cons, yaaaaaaaaaaay! And I got a DEAN WINCHESTER dogtag, and that makes me happppyyy.
Um, then I ate a lot of pizza. Nom, California Pizza Kitchen. And REFILS. I am still not over refils. Or fangirls! Running around in the rain with tiaras has never been so fun. *misses you aaallll*
Then was the AU panel, which made me happy because I find AUs totally fascinating - they're like whole different levels of fanfic, and it's this whole thing that is both bizarre and adorable.
Then came my biggest moral dilemma: the Merlin panel, or the Slings and Arrows panel? HOW THESE WERE SCHEDULED AGAINST EACH OTHER I DON'T KNOW AND I CONSIDER IT EPICALLY, EPICALLY UNFAIR, JUST SO THE WORLD KNOWS, AHEM. On one side: Slings and Arrows! And the panel was called "Sorry for Caring!" and mrsronweasley was running it! And then Merlin! I had just made up my mind to go to Slings and Arrows, and then I figured hmm maybe I could go to Merlin and run out halfway through? That seemed a good idea! Except of course then I got involved and there were badges and I totally looked at my watch to see when halftime was to see it was nearly over! Drastically wrong, people. Though still fun. *hearts Merlin kind of a lot* In recompense, I present my top five things about Slings and Arrows:
1. The exposition. Bar none, the best exposition I have ever fucking heard: it is character-appropriate, and funny, and plot-relevant, and never even a bit condescending.
2. Geoffrey and his crazy, brilliant self.
3. ANNA, who is such a darling and so awesome and so deserving and so sweet.
4. Darren Nichols. Deal with THAT.
5. The way clearly everyone involved in it HAS done drama under less than ideal conditions and CARES about it and LOVES it and LOVES the show and what they're doing and ohh. *flail*
Then, Psych panel! We all agreed that Gus is wonderful and him and Shawn are totally halves of the same person in a really freakish way where we still love them anyway because GUS and SHAWN. We also agreed that basically everyone on the show is totally mental but that this ends up being a good thing even (mostly) for people with embarassment squicks. (I am definitely one of these but of the sort where if the character isn't embarassed at all then I can generally get by okay.) I also loved the appreciation of Jules and Lassiter and just EVERYBODY IN THE SHOW EVER. *hearts* And there were badges!
Then airinshaw and kageygirl did the 'You're Watching WHAT?' panel, which was fun also because it ended up being mostly about new technology and its impact on the creation and distribution of telly and stuff, which is something I find very geekily interesting. And the whole thing whereby the fans of media and the creators of media aren't really two seperate groups any more, that more and more we are becoming the creators in our own right, makes me REALLY happy.
Then we all went to get dressed for Jacque's, except I spent a lot of that time passed out on the bed because I am classy. So I kind of poured glitter on myself and then went to Jacque's still half asleep, except that by halfway through the first drink and round of squealy cheers, I was totally awake and enjoying myself.
Seriously, Jacque's was AWESOME. I mean, it's usually good fun, but this was something else - all the fangirls were screeching and stomping and having an epic blast, and all the drag queens apparently took this as inspiration to be super-awesome and super-hot and basically go out there and kick all the ass ever. I felt a little bit bad for the bachelorette parties who had to stand at the back because we'd booked out the place, but then most of the batchelorette parties in there are so ridiculously awful that I, um, couldn't care that much. Also I couldn't hear anything but the music and the cheers and shrieks from whoever had been lapdanced or had their head put up one of the queen's dressses this time! I did miss catwalksalone and entropical87 and the Knight's Tale watching party, but Jacque's was pretty damn fun. And then there were room parties which had them in too, which made the evening more perfect. *loves*
Eventually we got to bed without anyone having fallen off the balcony or been arrested (impressive, I think everyone agrees!) and then it was Sunday, also known as the day of blearily getting up late, then saying equally bleary sad goodbyes to everyone while sitting around eating and also going to Borders with faaangirls and then sitting around in airinshaw's room playing JoCo kareoke with catwalksalone until the carpark time ran out and we decamped to aneli8's to watch Chuck and Strangers With Candy and also sleeeep. Followed by going to brooklinegirl and mrsronweasley's (a seriously, seriously gorgeous place which is just so colourful and warm and inviting) the following day to see fangirls more and say bye before flying home, wooooooe.
So, yeah. Then I had terminal-finding adventures with snoopypez and got on planes and got back to Britain and crashed and then went to work. Like a FOOL. Then there were no more Muskrats for me, woe. But there WILL BE SOON GODDAMMIT. *nods decisively*
In non-Muskrat news: woefully I could not go to Woolfest today, but OMG have people seen this steampunk spinning wheel? I am in AWE!
Also now I might go and try to watch the new Doctor Who and maybe then see if it's worth finding the new Red Dwarf or if it's going to pain my soul by not being as great as the classic stuff.
Talking of: Con report!
So, my Muskrat started on the Wednesday, when one llassah turned up in my town! I then proceeded to jump straight into complete epic failure mode: my room was a tip from packing, I discovered I'd lost my debit card, and the airline didn't know who I was when I tried to check in online. Seriously, I have much respect for (and slight fear of!) llassah for not just going "OKAY YOU CLEARLY FAIL AT LIFE, I AM OUT OF HERE". Luckily I cancelled my debit card, called up Expedia who told me the airline were lying bastards whose website sucked. The rest of the night was finished packing with no further incident except doing the :( face every time I was informed I had to choose between another dress and taking underwear, and we watched Jeeves and Wooster being awesome for a while before attemping a nap before flight time.
There we met airinshaw and catwalksalone and flailed a bit, and then it turned out my ticket was fine but the airline check-in computers were not. Like, functioning. So there was sitting, and then there was finally getting to Paris where I went through THREE DIFFERENT LOTS OF SECURITY WHAT MADNESS IS THIS and then sat in a plane which did not move, and dozed off through my caffeine haze. When I woke up it was thirty thousand feet up, which I swear has never happened to me before ever, because I looove take-off and that is just odd! Then there was food - who knew Air France gives you ACTUAL BRIE? It was awesome! Also, diet coke. Nom.
Theeen there was Boston Logan, and mayatawi and aneli8 and snoopypez!! This face was made by me: :D!!!!!!!!!!11!!! (Apparently my first words off the plane were "YAAAAAAAAY hiiii I've had a LOT OF CAFFEINE!" I... don't actually remember this.)
Um, then there was trying and failing to surprise mrsronweasley, and drinking, and going EEEE a lot, and also pouncing on people. Seriously: friendliest con ever, and this is as a huge fan of the "Someone just made a Paul Gross joke somewhere behind me! Who is this person that I may yay at them?!" aspect of cons. And there were just so many people whose badges made me flail because omg I totally knew that name and that name meant AWESOME! Like, I did not know at all that celli and slodwick and mazily and others were going to be there and had to flail at them. :D And people I did know were going were also so, so happymaking - entropical87 remains one of my ultimate favourite people, and I had never met shihadchick before but now have no idea HOW, and just !!!!!!!
Then we kind of crashed after watching a baby seal on telly a bit. I blame him entirely.
Friday was panels! I was eating my breakfast through the McShep one, woe, but it did mean I was alive-ish for THE MIDDLEPANEL, which made me very happy. Everybody agreeing the awesome of Wendy and Lacey and the Middleman and Noser and Ida and alternative universe episodes and ART CRAWL (art crawl!) and shows where the silly is treated with love and characters all get to have their own thing and actually communicate even if they are women, or of colour, or even both. Also I had totally nabbed a Wendy postcard from the craft table - can I just say that I loved the craft table idea? - and had it as visual evidence of Wendy's hot awesome. \o/
The Genderswap panel and then the Weird Sex And Snowshoes panel (can I just say that I love that the Canadian Media panel was called that? and everyone knew exactly what it was about? hee) were next, and both were good in really different ways. The Genderswap panel was really thinky and brought up a lot of stuff about the treatment of gender in fic that I'm still sort of vaguely chewing over, and then it was all "the amount of Peter Outerbridge's ass we see is directly proportional to the quality of the product!" and "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO KILL THE PUPPIES?!" and discussions of how the film all about attempted suicide ended up the happy one. Seriously, I could not love fans more for that. ♥
And then we went and got dolled up for the vid show/dance party, which meant everyone flailed a lot at how fab everyone looked! We even managed to get snoopypez into a skirt and entropical87 into a corset! :D
(Also my favourite pic of the con comes from the pre-vid-show drinks - me and mayatawi being adorable and blurry! Flocked to protect the innocent, and it was from mrsronweasley's slightly drunken phone, but seriously, aw.)
The vid show was by far the best vid show I've ever seen, actually, I have to say. Awesomely chosen vids, with the right interval for more drink and the loo (the Con Comm THOUGHT OF THESE THINGS! seriously, like, organisation and OCD obsessiveness over details were totally their superpower), and oh, everyone singing along and cheering to "Call Me Al" was seriously one of the highlights of my YEAR, if not LIFE. ♥ ♥ ♥ (I also wish to add that people singing 'Golddigger' for the rest of the con was actually NOT MY FAULT, and that the Starksy and Hutch vid made me boggle because... wow. That actually HAPPENED. Dude!)
Then dance party with "VOODOO" (I died, seriously: nothing like a giant room of people all yelling "did you do a little VOODOO BABY!") and catwalksalone doing her impression of this on the floor in her lovely dress, and really I would have been totes happy to go on dancing like a moron for ages, but we got kicked out and then ended up... um, airinshaw's room, I think, and had more chatting to people. Like brynnmck said, that's always the hardest bit to get across in a post, because so much of the reason stuff is fun is the little random chatting by the lifts, or having someone crack the joke you were thinking of when you lose your shoe, or whatever. :)
Talking of, next morning was the comedy panel, which I thought was good but needed to be a lot longer! We'd kind of only just got through the beginning stuff about approaches to comedic fiction and stuff, and I wanted to hear more. I was amused by the fact that someone whose name I can't remember was talking about how comedy was hard and tight and such, and our entire corner of the room just kept trying not to laugh until giving up and going "Sorry, it's just... hee, tight" and then everyone giving up and giggling. :D Fun, although I was sad I didn't get to say "Cancer? That's HILARIOUS!" or "Simmer down, Stew!", which I had planned to. *hides from everyone ever :D*
The due South panel I was waaay too intimidated to say anything in, but I do love that all this time later it still has a panel about why it was awesome. *love*
Then drlense and the Supernatural panel, which... seriously, most! enthusiastic! panel! ever! It was really fun and drlense is the only person I've met who literally flails more than I do. *heart* Enthusiasm and random geeking and stuff is the lifeblood of cons, yaaaaaaaaaaay! And I got a DEAN WINCHESTER dogtag, and that makes me happppyyy.
Um, then I ate a lot of pizza. Nom, California Pizza Kitchen. And REFILS. I am still not over refils. Or fangirls! Running around in the rain with tiaras has never been so fun. *misses you aaallll*
Then was the AU panel, which made me happy because I find AUs totally fascinating - they're like whole different levels of fanfic, and it's this whole thing that is both bizarre and adorable.
Then came my biggest moral dilemma: the Merlin panel, or the Slings and Arrows panel? HOW THESE WERE SCHEDULED AGAINST EACH OTHER I DON'T KNOW AND I CONSIDER IT EPICALLY, EPICALLY UNFAIR, JUST SO THE WORLD KNOWS, AHEM. On one side: Slings and Arrows! And the panel was called "Sorry for Caring!" and mrsronweasley was running it! And then Merlin! I had just made up my mind to go to Slings and Arrows, and then I figured hmm maybe I could go to Merlin and run out halfway through? That seemed a good idea! Except of course then I got involved and there were badges and I totally looked at my watch to see when halftime was to see it was nearly over! Drastically wrong, people. Though still fun. *hearts Merlin kind of a lot* In recompense, I present my top five things about Slings and Arrows:
1. The exposition. Bar none, the best exposition I have ever fucking heard: it is character-appropriate, and funny, and plot-relevant, and never even a bit condescending.
2. Geoffrey and his crazy, brilliant self.
3. ANNA, who is such a darling and so awesome and so deserving and so sweet.
4. Darren Nichols. Deal with THAT.
5. The way clearly everyone involved in it HAS done drama under less than ideal conditions and CARES about it and LOVES it and LOVES the show and what they're doing and ohh. *flail*
Then, Psych panel! We all agreed that Gus is wonderful and him and Shawn are totally halves of the same person in a really freakish way where we still love them anyway because GUS and SHAWN. We also agreed that basically everyone on the show is totally mental but that this ends up being a good thing even (mostly) for people with embarassment squicks. (I am definitely one of these but of the sort where if the character isn't embarassed at all then I can generally get by okay.) I also loved the appreciation of Jules and Lassiter and just EVERYBODY IN THE SHOW EVER. *hearts* And there were badges!
Then airinshaw and kageygirl did the 'You're Watching WHAT?' panel, which was fun also because it ended up being mostly about new technology and its impact on the creation and distribution of telly and stuff, which is something I find very geekily interesting. And the whole thing whereby the fans of media and the creators of media aren't really two seperate groups any more, that more and more we are becoming the creators in our own right, makes me REALLY happy.
Then we all went to get dressed for Jacque's, except I spent a lot of that time passed out on the bed because I am classy. So I kind of poured glitter on myself and then went to Jacque's still half asleep, except that by halfway through the first drink and round of squealy cheers, I was totally awake and enjoying myself.
Seriously, Jacque's was AWESOME. I mean, it's usually good fun, but this was something else - all the fangirls were screeching and stomping and having an epic blast, and all the drag queens apparently took this as inspiration to be super-awesome and super-hot and basically go out there and kick all the ass ever. I felt a little bit bad for the bachelorette parties who had to stand at the back because we'd booked out the place, but then most of the batchelorette parties in there are so ridiculously awful that I, um, couldn't care that much. Also I couldn't hear anything but the music and the cheers and shrieks from whoever had been lapdanced or had their head put up one of the queen's dressses this time! I did miss catwalksalone and entropical87 and the Knight's Tale watching party, but Jacque's was pretty damn fun. And then there were room parties which had them in too, which made the evening more perfect. *loves*
Eventually we got to bed without anyone having fallen off the balcony or been arrested (impressive, I think everyone agrees!) and then it was Sunday, also known as the day of blearily getting up late, then saying equally bleary sad goodbyes to everyone while sitting around eating and also going to Borders with faaangirls and then sitting around in airinshaw's room playing JoCo kareoke with catwalksalone until the carpark time ran out and we decamped to aneli8's to watch Chuck and Strangers With Candy and also sleeeep. Followed by going to brooklinegirl and mrsronweasley's (a seriously, seriously gorgeous place which is just so colourful and warm and inviting) the following day to see fangirls more and say bye before flying home, wooooooe.
So, yeah. Then I had terminal-finding adventures with snoopypez and got on planes and got back to Britain and crashed and then went to work. Like a FOOL. Then there were no more Muskrats for me, woe. But there WILL BE SOON GODDAMMIT. *nods decisively*
In non-Muskrat news: woefully I could not go to Woolfest today, but OMG have people seen this steampunk spinning wheel? I am in AWE!
Also now I might go and try to watch the new Doctor Who and maybe then see if it's worth finding the new Red Dwarf or if it's going to pain my soul by not being as great as the classic stuff.