Vividcon Con Report 2017

[kiki_miserychic]

I had a really great time this year, like every year. It was super chill and I hung out with lots of cool people.

I drove out to Chicago on Thursday and hung out in the lobby for a bit, then popped down to the grocery store and got stuck for a while in the rain. It was a great chance to catch up with rhoboat, so I didn't mind at all. Went with hollywoodgrrl, ohvienna, and anoel to a cool tiki bar, Lost Lake. They were opening late that day so we killed some time poking around a cool record store and then a comics store. We headed back to the tiki bar and they were open. Their banana daiquiri is really good and they had "fancified" instant ramen noodles with a slice of cheese and chives and stuff on top that really hit the spot for drunk me.

We headed back to the hotel for registration and general hanging out in the consuite, which is something I don't do a whole lot of and should probably try a little more. I think elipie, shinyalice, anoel, and I ended up hanging out in hollywoodgrrl and ohvienna's room after that. elipie and I went to the end of the Mystery Vid Party and literally watched the last vid. Totally worth it and I'm looking it up at some point to watch again. Then elipie and I watched HGTV and yelled at the stupid people on House Hunters. I know it's pretend for the cameras, but I love yelling at the tv. We stayed up until about 2:30am when bradcpu and milly came in from their hellish travel experience.

Friday I got breakfast downstairs, chatted with people briefly, then went up for VJ and moderator training. The Welcome vidshow was interesting for me because I've accepted that most of the older vids simply aren't for me. I'm not interested in the fandoms and so much of what gets shown is dude-centric. Are there older VCR era vids with women at all? I think there has to be at least one somewhere in that sea of sausage. The auction vidshow was all over the place and I love that. The were certainly unique and very driven by the bidder's wishes and the vidder's style. It made for an odd vidshow overall, but I think it's cool that everything was so wildly different.

For Vividcon I go to all the panels (unless I'm the VJ for the vidshow). I have problems with sitting through vidshows and the projector does a weird rainbow thing, so I save my vidshow watching ability for watching Premieres. It was interesting to go to the Structure of a Vidshow panel and see how other people make a vidshow. I make vidshows, so it was cool to see the similiarities and differences in other people's process.

I had lunch with rhoboat in my room, which was great because she hasn't gotten to come in a couple of years and she's just so flipping nice and helpful. I was a bit nervous about my panel after lunch so I scanned my massive amounts of notes beforehand.

I think the panel went well. I over planned on purpose and then gauged the room to see which way to go to address the most amount of people who attended the panel. I didn't think that many people were going to attend the panel, so I only made 30 copies. Oops. I'll post it online along with my own panel notes soon too.

The OT3 panel was great for my future use. I attempted a sort of OT3 vid for a vidshow this year, but I structured it more like two character studies and an epilogue. I loved how different forms and structures of OT3 vids were broken down musically and planned out for three people and relationships.

I VJ-ed my vidshow, which I think went well. The jazz panel was cool too. I like listening to jazz and I've been wanting to do a Twin Peaks vid to some improvizational jazz because I think that's the kind of music that would work for my concept. I'll see how it turns out.

I got a weird text from my aunt and had to deal with some stupid family shit, but it worked out and I didn't have to leave early. My aunt just hadn't realized how much was involved with taking care of my grandpa. She told me later that she hadn't known how much I was doing until she had to do start doing it and then she panicked because it was too much. And I should have known she was going to have a hard time, but I've been taking care of him since the end of June and he's gotten so much better and easier to take care of that it didn't occur to me that she might think it was too difficult.

For dinner hollywoodgrrl, ohvienna, and I ordered delivery from the Italian place down the street while we talked about Xena and other things. At some point elipie, bradcpu, milly, and anoel joined us with their dinner. Afterward we went down to watch Premieres. It was a light vidshow overall and I found myself missing more complex and darker themes, but I'm sure I'm in the minority on that. Then elipie, winterevenesce, bradcpu, milly, anoel, hollywoodgrrl, ohvienna, and I hung out.

Saturday was, again, breakfast downstairs and chatting with whoever sat down, then Vid Review. I had lunch with Morgan Dawn, Catherine, elipie, bradcpu, and milly. It's always great to sit down and talk about vids and it's one of my favorite things I do at VVC.

In the afternoon I was in the Vidding as Therapy panel, which I enjoyed attending as well. I think therapy vidding is an excellent approach and I love hearing how people use it. I was also glad I was a part of it. I intended to use a different vid to talk about, but most of my download links are expired because I'm terrible at uploading and linking things. I was glad to talk about another vid though and went with It Follows in Five Pieces. I connected to people I didn't realize I could connect with, which wouldn't have happened if I'd talked about a different vid. I also went to the Building a Better Beta panel. I don't use a beta, but I do beta for other people. I learned cartoon history and lineage in the Learning to Feel: Cartoons panel and I got the urge to finish one of my cartoon vids for next year's club vivid. I also went to the Vidding as Poetry panel, which was also super informative and jump started some ideas.

For dinner elipie, shinyalice, rhoboat, and I went to Dunkin' Donuts, which was such a good idea because they have the perfect grilled cheese that's great for pre-drinking. I actually wanted one the next morning too when I was slightly hungover. Club Vivid was fun like usual and I had loads of fun. Even the awkward thing that happened was totally hilarious. A bunch of us hung out in the hallway talking and figuring out what to do afterward while we waiting for friends to finish cleaning up. By the time they finished some of the others were tired and going to bed, so bradcpu, milly, and I went up to the room. I didn't think I was that tired, but I heard elipie come in and I was going to say goodnight when she got in bed, but I totally fell asleep the next second. I must have been more tired than I thought.

Sunday morning I headed down to breakfast like usual and talked with some random people. Then caught up with lolachrome to iron out In Depth structure. She had a lot of travel problems and we hadn't gotten the chance to talk face to face to finalize the timing. I went to the Xena panel and loved it, of course. The Star Wars panel was good too. I had lunch with lolachrome to discuss In Depth and talk about random things. In Depth itself went well I thought. It's more about directing traffic and keeping things going if there's a lull in discussion. With voting there wasn't a lot of need for me to chime in and I didn't want to talk too much because for every minute I talk is a comment from the audience that doesn't get said, so I more or less just point out people who haven't gotten the microphone in case they didn't see them. And then thank people for their comment, lol.

The Challenge vidshow was fun as usual. I enjoyed all the femslash and female-centric vids in the second half of Instant Reply. I think hollywoodgrrl, ohvienna, shinyalice, and I requested all the gay. After that a bunch of us went to the Italian place down the road and smashed some pasta. Then hollywoodgrrl, ohvienna, shinyalice, and I watched Game of Thrones. I usually don't watch it with other people, so that was fun. We hung out a bit more and at one point I laughed so hard that I had tears streaming down my face. Good times.

Monday morning instead of hotel breakfast, elipie asked if I wanted to come to the diner down the street for breakfast, so I packed up and did that, which was nice. I'd never been down to the diner before. I hung out a bit more in the lobby before driving home. At some point on the drive I got into something I'm allergic to and had a reaction. My face got red and puffy with hives down my neck and chest. And I had to stop 7 times to pee on the way back, which is totally weird because I drove to Chicago with only 1 stop, so 7 stops is absurd considering I only had three glasses of water that morning. I went back to my grandparents so I could take my grandpa to his doctor appointment in the morning. Thankfully I took two benedryl and went to bed. When I woke up my allergic reaction was under control and I'd slept a legit good 9 hours. I'm thinking the reaction was probably from coconut at a turnpike Starbucks and it's my fault because I saw they had a coconut topped special and still ordered my usual drink despite a higher than usual possibility of there being coconut in there. I saw a super cute dog on the way home too.