WisCon 43: Day One

The first full day of WisCon is now behind me! It was a fine day. The morning, I spent first chilling in my room, and then I wandered down to Michelangelo's, where I made some decent progress on my WIP Big Bang story, chatted with forestofglory, and finally (after many WisCons of not making this connection) managed to introduce myself to jesse_the_k!

Lunch was grilled cheese and tomato soup at the hotel restaurant (perfect for a blustery and rainy day), and then I stopped by the Gathering, where I hung out a little at Jed's gadget petting zoo, and drew zen doodles with butnotdegeneres. At 2:30, I worked an hour-long cashier shift at the Tiptree Bake Sale, for which I also made a pan of blondies. This year is the first time I've done anything with the bake sale (besides purchase and eat delicious treats, of course). I largely decided to pitch in because renay co-chaired the sale this year and asked for help; as it turns out, though, I really enjoyed it! The amount of work involved was really minimal -- just taking money, making change, and some light record-keeping -- and I found it was a low-key way to meet and have casual conversations with a lot of people. I will definitely be volunteering again, and I recommend it for anyone who is interested in helping the con and break through the social barriers a little bit.

After that, I did a quick turn through the dealer's room (will be back for more later!), and then went to my first panel of the con -- "Other People Gaming Is My Fandom", moderated by justira. Naturally this topic was of interest to me because of my current obsession with Critical Role and other Actual Play streams and podcasts, but it's also true that I've always enjoyed watching other people play games, especially videogames -- I used to literally sit and watch my roommate A play Tetris during college, and my first Final Fantasy experience was watching T play Final Fantasy IX, as though I was watching a 100 hour movie. (It wasn't until the opening moments of FFX that he actually put the controller into my hands, and it is not an exaggeration to say that this moment changed my life.) Anyway, the discussion focused mostly on Twitch streams and podcasts, not surprising given the current moment, although there was also some talk of Let's Plays and Speed Runs.

I then got together with a group to get food -- pasties from a local shop, which were tasty, fairy cheap, and super-filling. There was nowhere to eat at the shop, so we brought them back to the hotel and mostly went our separate ways, but I decided I wanted to be social, so I ate my food and had a tasty drink at the bar with renay and butnotdegeneres. Afterwards, I decamped to my own room for a little while to finish Critical Role and relax before my first panel, also moderated by justira, about Ethics in The Good Place and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. This panel was super lively and fun, especially considering that it started at 9pm! Some good commentary in the hashtag, including a link to Ira's Lady Business post about Jason, which I couldn't help but bring up.

We considered dropping by the vid party after, but we ran into renay, who was looking for company in the bar after a long day of conrunning, and we decided that sounded good, too. So there was much hanging out and chatting.

Now, dear reader, it is bedtime, since I have to get up in time for Farmer's Market tomorrow. Cheese curds, here I come.