Suitcase explosion and fangirly squees

The Witching Hour completely rocked my fangirl purvy smarty-pants fic/art lovin' world!!! I'm back! Words cannot express how much I enjoyed my trip to the lovely state of Massachusetts. Wait, sure they can...Insane travel delays. Yellow school busses. HP fans dressed up and ruling the streets of Salem. In depth conversations about Ron and Tonks and Horcruxes. Drunken fangirls gone wild. House points for chocolate bribery. House points for other forms of bribery. Muddiest Quidditch match ever. Sorted into Gryffindor! Winning the Quidditch Cup. Losing the house cup to Hufflepuff, who was an awesome group. Hufflepuff!Snape and Gryffindor!Lucius and Draco. Cosplay at midnight. Staged Death Eater attacks at Harry and the Potters. Commenting to your fave fanfic authors in person. Mass sketch request lines. Summer!hot weather, followed by freezing rain for 3 days. Sleeping very infrequently. Coffee at Fuel. That gawdawful Boys and Girls Club smell. Sirius Black and The Secret Keeper outtakes. Meeting the Lumos M.O.M. and other people who have now convinced me to not only attend Lumos but pimp it for cash. Percy encounter! Explaining slash to a HS student. Meeting the coolest people ever. EVER.I reminisce fondly and yearn to be back there. I have to share with you some highlights of my experience at TWH. lord_vandemort and I arrived at the Sheraton Ferncroft on Thursday after a stressful drive back from Ptown (rental car fiasco, though Ptown was completely amazing!) and waiting nearly an hour for the Night Bus, which was just a rickety minivan (the 25 people behind us in line were very scowly as we hopped on). Missed the Halloween Parade downtown, but my complaints really end there. The rest of the time was amazing.ThursdayGot all gussied up in pirate garb for the Welcoming Feast, where I promptly met about 10 people from my flist or comms. The rest of the weekend seems like a really good dream, but I'll do my best to remember details. Oh, right, it's all coming back to me. That night after the Feast I went to the Harry/Draco Room of Requirement, the perfect way to start it off. I fangirl squeed and glomped my Owl Exchange penpal 24_centuries and one of my fave H/D writers wintermoon3 (and met her partner poetheather who was sitting right next to me!). Anyone else who was there - if you can remember all the amazing names in that room, comment and remind me! I also saw loads of people wearing the shirts I designed - not just the TT house ones, but some of the others ones at TwoNeptunes. I totally squeeed all over myself like a big dork.FridayWoke up late the next day but caught a few great presentations (and one that was just mehhh). A presentation on Lupin and lycanthropy as a metaphor for mental illness was very good, but the one directly after on chance/choice/paradox/destiny in HP was only so-so and kinda boring. I skipped out and made it to a panel on pureblood bigotry as a backlash against persecution. It was interesting hearing everyone play devil's advocate and talk about how wizarding families like the Malfoys might be justified in their 'bigotry', though nobody really could think of an argument that was persuasive enough. The audience kinda took over from the panelists at some point, arguing about class issues and history, and whether Voldemort wants to eradicate the Muggle and 'Mudblood' populations. (I personally think this is hogwash - he just wants to dominate them and cause them pain). The whole thing was very grey zone, which I love.The best part of that day was meeting up with the other rowdy folks from tonytoledohouse (now officially termed Gryffindor) at the Witches Brew Cafe for our Room of Requirement. The energy was high and the ladies were gettin' drunk (well, some of them, myself excluded). Everyone was awesome - I met up with brak4werewolves, allysonsedai, 24_centuries, marilla82, ressa6778, retro_mermaid, athenniene, tatiana422, hummingfox (were you there? i met you later on - v. cool), pre_raphaelite1 (who was a Slytherin crashing our RoR, but we forgive her). Tony Toledo showed up and we discovered he's the kind of guy who doesn't need a microphone. Afterwards I went to one of the best presentations by far, about the astrology in Harry Potter. The presenter was amazing and knew her shit. I was going to stay for a panel on Unbreakable Vows: Snape and Loyalty, but I had to run off to the Witch Museum (had tix in advance). Too bad, because I heard it got Row-Day! People were arguing back and forth, and I heard that slashers were involved. Can anyone fill me in on the dirt?! The Witch Museum was actually pretty cool. The tour group was left with a message of tolerance, and how fear breeds things like bigotry and hangings. Later on I went to a few fanfic readings by the lovely ellid and awelkin, which were fantastic. I plan on stalking awelkin until I get the fics out of her. *wink* I kept seeing her everywhere that weekend, but usually in a different costume. I'm so glad I met you, btw! ♥Last stop in Salem that night was the Remus/Sirius shipper Room of Requirement at Salem Beer Works. Nothing beats a patio full of enthusiastic puppyshippers, lemme tell ya. Scurried back off to the Sheraton to catch Harry and the Potters perform, which was WAY more fun than I expected. Voldemort can't stop the rock, indeed. The Weird Sisters cancelled (lead singer had laryngitis, like I'm so sure). Boo! That's when we found Chris Rankin standing out in the hall. I managed to spot him when only a few fangirls were clinging to him like barnacles, instead of a huge herd. Pics will come, I promise!SaturdayWow, this summary is getting out of control! I'll abridge now. Went to a panel on HP: a slash fandom in context. We discussed how HP has affected slash, and vice versa. Since HP is my first majorly obsessive fandom, it really opened my eyes to how HUGE the HP slash fandom is compared to others. A little bit of ethics was discussed (i.e. chan, disclaimers, protecting underage viewers and vice versa), and how HP slash has kind of lent fans more freedom in exploring their slash love and kinks (i.e. incest, cross-generational). It was very fascinating. The presenters were top-notch.I went to the workshop that TwoNeptunes.com was a sponsor of (on fanfic vs. orignial work - one of many on that same topic), but it was a little unstructured to my dismay. The good part was that I met up with awelkin again, and we later discussed original work fitting into our RL and fan lives. V cool. Later: presentation by pre_raphaelite1 on queerness in HP and PoA. Yes, it was (distilled down) an academic exploration of Remus/Sirius in the film vs. the book. Very excellent presentation. I feel completely justified in my shipping now.Then I spent some time at the sketch/drabble booth. I watched ani_bester in action (she did some awesome stuff for people), and I took a Hermione/Luna/girl!Ron request for wintermoon3 and poetheather, which I plan on posting very very soon (when I finish) in artpirate. Just barely caught up with Quidditch players as they were leaving the very rainy and muddy field after the Final. Gryffindor won, but rumor has it that we cheated bigtime! Still, the glory was so lovely. Met up for dinner with the Pagan Potterites RoR. Again, lowsy service! What's up, Salem?! But the people were wonderful. I worked on my req sketch while holing up at the auction (by then it was pouring and cold). The auction was really fun, and I sooo wanted some of the items but I stopped myself. My little bag of goodies from TN went for $27! It was cool hearing people across the room giggle and squee over the "My Other Ride is Snape" sticker. THEN, though it was really late, I dragged my arse to the Muggle Studies Art Challenge and met the v. cool cunningplan. I drew a "comic" about Muggles and their strange pet-owning habits, playing up the humor about how we treat our familiars like children/royalty. I had to turn it in, but I wish I had that baby. Damn.The horcrux of the night was seeing a short film, Sirius Black and the Secret Keeper, starring a few of our very own Gryffindors (including Lucius Malfoy, aka Steph). Hey, I know my way around short and indy films from years of film fest experience, and this one was Grade A. Excellent stuff - I wish I had a copy!! It was "fanfilm", something I haven't seen a lot of. I'd love some recs to more fanfilm if anyone has them.SundayGreat stuff. Excellent panels. Let's see... Caught Vicky Dann's (Head of Hufflepuff) workshop on "Finish the freaking thing already: write your way out of any box". I ♥ you, Vicky Dann! And your house won the cup. I applaud you, even though we were in CLOSE second. Anyway, it was fantastic. I'm totally inspired to finish some of my fics and the novel I started last November/NaNoWriMo. Later I went to an absolutely amazing panel on heterosexuality and feminism in a m/m slash-centric fandom. They made the case for writing strong women characters, and gave us the disclaimer that no-one was trying to be anti-slash or pro-het in the process. Absolutely great. I'd love to discuss this one more with anyone who attended.Skipped out of that one early because I HAD to catch a panel on Tonks. I was thrilled to see a (small) room full of Tonks lovers, especially in this day and age post-HBP. I feel far more attached to Tonks now, and I want to write her like crazy. She has the potential to have so much dimension and to play a more integral part in book 6. I think that's the day I ran into foreword at the Hawthorne. Good to see ya, lady!That night was the Hallowe'en Ball! LV and I got snazzed out and hopped on the anti-formal yellow school bus. The PEM is a lovely venue, and the ball was fun. I have to take a sec and worship lord_vandemort for cheering me up (you know why). ♥ to you, the sexiest woman in a tux, baby. There was much dancing and merry-making. I saw Hufflepuff!Snape doing the badger dance (hey, ask a Puff what that's all about). When we got back to the Sheraton (which I must explain is about 20 minutes away from Salem and all the happenings, by yellow school bus) we caught the 'cosplayers' doing scenes and improv requests in one of the ballrooms. That was way too much fun. MondayLeaving Brunch. Saying goodbye. So sad. Then 20 hours at airports and in shuttle vans. That's the gist of it. A few of us from TWH had a lovely airport wait-around party, which was fun. We got to know the airport carpet very well. Oh, and I met bekkio, who patiently answered all my questions about Lumos, and who I hope I'll be seeing more of when I get involved! Plus, in a funny coincidence, LV and I ended up sitting right next to pre_raphaelite1 on the plane to LAX. Cosmic coincidences.Now it's late, and I have to rejoin the real world tomorrow. TWH was one of the best experiences of my life, and I think the reasons why were the amazing sense of community, and being immersed in a fandom that I adore. I'm going to try not to become completely miserable and depressed between now and Lumos! in July 2006. Giant *HUGS* to everyone I met there, and to all the people who made it possible. You rock!