geoviki | Terminus

Yeah, probably the last one to post about this, huh? And I'll have pictures one of these days - I just have to find the cord to download them.

The take-home point: I had a terrific time!

I seem to have the ability to miss a lot of stuff going on around me, so it was a surprise when I got back and read about some of the not-so-cool things (although I did manage to hear about the pseulebrity who thought it was funny to piss on his sleeping hostesses). Me, I just homed in on my slashy peeps and basically ignored the rest of the stuff. I'm not into wizard rock, I'm not 18, and I'm not into massive drunkenness.

Um, and if I managed to appear as if I was snubbing anyone, I totally did not mean to. It's just that sometimes in big crowds I can't quite get my mind around it all and am easily distracted and lose my focus.

One thing I really liked was that the hotel was right in the city and yet right near a long chain of city parks and waterfront walks. The H/D meetup was at one of them. I came right from Midway Airport on the 'L', towing all my possessions. Nearly missed it, too, becasue the spot given as the meetup had a very loud concert going on. I knew that everyone must have moved somewhere else, but this park has an awful lot of nooks and crannies. Eek, everyone I'd programmed into my cell phone was a Snarrista, so it took many calls to find someone there - thanks,

midnitemaraud_r for guiding me home. I got there just in time to win a beautiful scarf (the very one Draco wears in

emmagrant01's 'Surrender the Grey') knitted by

fiona_fawkes, to

mijan's sadface. Is this a case of the shoemaker's children going barefoot? Fi, get out your needles and cheer her up, 'k?

Then it was off to the hotel to meet up with my roomies,

bethbethbeth (aka the girl of my dreams) and

femmequixotic. (My usual partner in crime,

meri_oddities, couldn't make it this year, more sadface.) And

goseaward,

djinnj,

ze_dragon,

midnitemaraud_r,

titti and other wonderful fen were fixtures in room 2211 all weekend and just made the whole con so much fun. *mwaaah*!

Lemme see, what else?

cordelia, you so owe me! I signed up for one of the keynote lunches, IIRC on your prompting, and you didn't even come to Chicago! And no one else I knew signed up either, so I ate with people who thought I was some friendless loner and to be pitied. The speaker was one of Scholastic's editors, who felt compelled to self-censor all the details that would have made her talk interesting. And the food, which was described as "pasta" turned out to be macaroni and cheese. With bread, for that carb-loading experience. And cheesecake. Uh, no.

As far as the programming, I enjoyed everything I picked to go to. I went to the Beth/Femme/Djinnj/Goosey presentation on Snape,

furiosity,

titti and Saber Shadow Kitten's on canon-fanon H/D, a nearly-voiceless Mijan's on the future of Harry/Draco, and

amanuensis1's terrific big-room-sized roundtable on Slytherins.

titti organized an impromptu slash panel on Sunday morning (and we were cursing her name (lovingly) at having to get up at 9 AM after three nights of not enough sleep by then.) Then I gave my roundtable (remember that one that was the very last hour of the very last day?) on Albus Severus/Scorpius, which we smashnamed 'Scorbus' and not 'Ass', thank you very much ;-0 I think it went very well. We had people who had interesting viewpoints and a complete lack of people who were airheads who liked to talk anyway.

I crash the Snarry meetup every year because they are all the coolest people. This year's was so well organized, too - the whole restaurant was closed except for us (and a few bemused people ordering take-out) and the cost was reasonable - hell, downright cheap! And I perched on a tall chair and went to the Snaco meetup too.

Plus, I managed to pimp Miyavi very hard to Femme, who bit (hard, I hope!) She's a formidable fan to have in one's court. :-D

In return, I was made a convert to Death Note fandom by

amanuensis1, and looking at everyone else staring in rapt attention at the anime that she had for us, I wasn't the only one. Amy, I bought Book 1 of it the next day and read it on the way home! Yay! Moar!

ETA: Ooh, I forgot to mention the fun we had playing

nimori's invented board game: The Ultimate Mary Sue. The creativity that she put into it was astounding, and we had a blast playing.

ziasudra became Marysuedra, back in Sparkly Poo land with her tiara! And I kept losing all my admirers in catfights to the other Mary Sues- that Ron is a fickle SOB, that's all I have to say. I even lost my original Sueish persona to Amanuensis - I was the Contessa but ended up as..uh, I can't even remember. But she was a drunken lush who couldn't even stand on her own two plastic feet, but spent most of the game face down and skirt up.

I met so many terrific people this time, and I can't begin to name you all, but I love you guys! I'm getting it together to friend ya, but I seem to be coming down with a cold now (figures - no sleep + airport germs = sick, every time). I spent an extra day in Chicago to visit relatives, and that was nice as well.

Phew! Done! FTW!