Tag Archives: timelash

Into the Autumn

During the last few months I received several tags by both DarkFairy and Fissel and I’ll try to get them done one after the other without boring you too much with them. As the days are getting darker and colder I decided to start with this one that was forwarded to me by Fairy.
The Tag – originally called Ab in den Herbst* – was created by Corly and like all Tags brings Rules with them:

  • Link your post below Corly’s Original-Tag
  • Say thank you for the nomination: Thanks Fairy!
  • Answer the questions
  • Tag more Bloggers and tell them

The Questions

Which books remind you of autumn? (Be it due to the cover or because they take place in autumn)

Honestly? I have no idea. I barely remember any covers – even though they might influence my decision to buy the book – or take notice of the Season’s within a book – as they barely play a role.
Corly included the German version of Suzanne Collins Mockingjay in her list and I have to admit, that I am not sure if the thingies are supposed to be flames (German subtitle: Flaming Wrath) or autumn leaves…
Thinking a bit more on it, I guess Der Königsschlüssel (The King’s Key) by Boris Koch reminds me a bit of autumn, too, due to the colour of the cover, but I don’t think it was hinted at in the story…
Story-wise I’d say Terry Pratchett’s Reaper Man reminds me of autumn, simply because DEATH is bringing in the corn…

What do you associate with autumn?

Colourful leaves/trees, rain and wind are the major associations I have with autumn, but there are also a couple of other things. The days are getting darker, all the stuff from the garden is harvested and there are a few things that are celebrated in this Season – and I don’t mean HalloweenSt. Martin’s Day was a huge thing when I was a kid – especially the lantern procession. By now the focus of the 11th November is more on the beginning of the carnival Season where we get the traditional Pfannkuchen from our bosses. Also in autumn are the change of the daylight saving time and the Eternity Sunday or Sunday of the Dead (Ewigkeitssonntag or Totensonntag) that I talked about back in 2013 over at the Fairytale Traveler. This year that day will be quite difficult….

What do you especially like about autumn?

I’m not really sure, but I guess I like that the weather now allows me to not feel guilty about staying in all day. 😉 And I really love passing by or driving through alleys full of colourful trees…oh and tramping through the fallen leaves and kicking them into the air is also great. 😀

What is your favourite Halloween-movie?

This thing is filed with difficult questions…
I guess my favourite Halloween-movie is Halloweentown and its sequels. They’re just so much fun… and of course Nightmare before Christmas, but you can never be sure if this movie fits into the category Halloween- or Christmas-movie 😉
[Author’s Note: I just re-read Fairy’s post after completing mine: I did not mean to copy these from you, but it’s not surprising to me that we picked the same movies. >_<]

Are you an autumn-child (meaning: Were you born in autumn)?

Nope, Winter is my Season. 😀

What do you say about the season autumn in general? Do you like autumn?

It depends, some days, especially when the sun shines and illuminates all those colourful leaves, autumn is awesome. On others when the fog is hanging low or it is raining, you just want to wrap a blanket around yourself and shut out the world, which isn’t an entirely bad thing, but sometimes it can drag you down and that’s not so great. But I generally like autumn as a season.

What kind of holiday destinations do you like most in autumn?

The majority of my travellings take place in summer, so the only times I am actually on tour in autumn is for concerts, maybe an MPS or things like last years trip on Halloween or this year the TimeLash. This also means that I barely use any vacation days in autumn anyway and therefore don’t have a destination – other than getting home, I guess. Though I do still want to actually participate in an American Halloween celebration or actually be able to follow some Irish traditions…

Are there animals that you associate with autumn?

Deer, I guess? And crows and brants and cranes probably, as those are the ones you mostly see either standing on the (empty) fields or noisily flying above you to their wintering grounds.

Your most beautiful autumn-picture? (Can be a private one)

Tough one again… I think most pictures that include colourful leaves are beautiful, so… (yes, I’m a big fan of colourful leaves…). I’m most fascinated by pictures that depict trees or forests throughout the Seasons, where they have like one picture for each Season. Those are great….

Do you have a special autumn experience?

Hmm…I guess you can count all those Halloween experiences I had so far into this, other than that…no idea…

Last thoughts

Okay, so this probably weren’t the most interesting answers to these question, but I still wanted to do it. I think it helps one to learn a bit more about oneself if you try thinking about certain things, you haven’t thought about before and tags like this one help with that.
As I don’t know whom to tag, I will skip that part of the rules. If you want to answer the questions anyway, because you think autumn is awesome or otherwise then go ahead and feel tagged! 😀
You can obviously use my translated questions or Corly’s original (German) ones.
Don’t slip on any fallen leaves. 😉
PoiSonPaiNter
* I obviously translated the rules and questions.

TimeLash 2015: Cosplay-Time

As I told you in my Review for the TimeLash do I want to expand on something I didn’t talk about, namely: The Cosplay competition.
What was supposed to be just us having fun turned into something I don’t even know how to call it, but read for yourself.

Preparations, preparations…

As I told you did Schmusi, Anna and I participate in the Cosplay competition – and I still don’t know what lead me to agree to that. Still, we had a lot of fun preparing our performance.
Quite soon we decided that the sketch we wanted to portray would feature the Tenth Doctor (Schmusi), Donna Noble (me) and Rose Tyler (Anna), wearing a Gallifreyan Wedding gown based on this FanArt.
Thinking back and forth Schmusi then wrote a little sketch for us and I added a couple of thoughts to it, but most of it was slightly changed again when we recorded the whole thing. As explanation of why Rose was wearing that dress, we simply decided that Jack Harkness gave it to her.
We laughed a lot while recording and practising the acting part of the sketch and the more often we heard it and the more running gags (including but not limited to: noise effects, quotes and variations therefore) we created for ourselves, the latter didn’t always work out and we ended up laughing our way through a test-run.
When we arrived in Kassel on Friday, I tried my wig for the first time and Schmusi couldn’t stop laughing as I looked like an old hag to her, so we decided to get some hair tint for me. Well, that didn’t turn out too well, as it barely made my original hair colour a bit lighter, but nowhere near the red of Donna. So we had to use the wig after all and Schmusi styled it a bit, so she wouldn’t have to laugh about it.
Until the very last minute before our departure to the Con on Sunday Schmusi and Anna worked on the last tweaks on the costumes. Schmusi’s suit for the Tenth Doctor was already finished, but Anna’s Rose-gown still needed some work and my cerecloth/table cloth-coat (they couldn’t get their hands on fake leather in time, so they had to improvise using this) got its final touches on Saturday. Schmusi even sacrificed her Sherlock-Cosplay coat pockets, so I could put my hands into my table cloth, yay. 😀 When the coat was finished we practised our performance once again in Nazgul’s living room and to get a feeling for it, I put the coat on. We didn’t even make it through the first part of the sketch, as the coat creaked when I crossed my arms and thanks to that and the smell of the table cloth we just burst out laughing, unable to continue any further. The next try Anna made a pouty face during one of her lines and from that time onwards Schmusi always saw a Jigglypuff whenever she said that line.
As last minute addition I prepared a little sign saying „From Jack with Love“ – were I tried to imitate the characters hand writing as it was shown in the Torchwood book the others got at the Convention – that should indicate that Rose’s dress was a present by him – some people took it as Rose was the present, but we’re fine with that, too -, which Schmusi sew to the dress shortly before our performance.
You see, we had a lot of fun during this part. 😀

The Play

As we haven’t released it on YouTube (yet?) – and it’s in German anyway -, you’ll only get a Transcript for now (and maybe later I’ll add a link to the Channel).

<Intro>
Doctor: „Once more for you Donna, I am the Doctor and I am right. What I say will be done“
Donna: „Oh?“
Doctor: „Ye-hes. You are my Companion and I am the Tour Guide. Whom of us is automatically right?“ <points to self>
Donna: „Me“ <points to self>
Doctor: „Why?“ <in a whiny tone>
Donna: „Without ME, YOU’d still be running around with those three brats looking for the Philosopher’s Stone!“
Doctor: „That – that was Beginners Luck!“ <protests>
Donna: <nods sarcastically> „I am right and you listen to me now. Good thing we  cleared that up“
Doctor: „Of course Donna. You’re right Donna-“
Donna: „So, where to now?“ <interrupts>
Doctor: „But at least my Tardis still likes me and sees me as an honourable owner“ <touches Tardis>
<Fault noise>
Doctor: „What?“
Donna: „See, the Tardis is on my side. Women do stick together after all“ <touches Tardis>
<Fault noise>
Doctor: „She’s is on my side! I knew it!“ <jeers and touches Tardis>
<Fault noise>
<Tardis Alarm noise>
Donna: „What’s happening?“
Doctor: „You tell me! You’re the one who’s right!“ <starts shaking due to the turbulences>
Donna: <grabs suit lapels and shakes him> „Don’t get cocky with me! What’s happening?“
<They stumble about in the Tardis until the noise ceases and everything is silent>
Rose: „The Tardis! Finally a le-“ <opens Tardis door, steps inside and sees Donna and Doctor, steps back>
Donna: „And who are YOU now?“
Doctor: „Gallifrey“ <takes Donna’s hands away from him and walks over to inspect the gown>
Doctor: „That looks like…hmm…that looks…like…like the needlework of Lord Needles!“ <he realizes while poking and pulling at the dress>
Rose: „Doctor! It’s me, Rose!“
Doctor: „No. No. You’re just a hallucination! You can’t be here!  You’re in Norway. I left you at the beach…“ <recalls sadly>
Donna: „Ah, that’s how that happened. Was she right as well?“
Doctor: „Not now Donna“
Rose: „Yes, you left me behind, but I can’t be mad at you for that. But I made it. I’m here. I’m finally back!“ <tells him and strokes his cheek>
Doctor: „Ro-Rose…“ <steps back>
Donna: „You Dösbaddel*. The kids real!“ <smacks him over the head>
Doctor: „Ouch! What’s that for now?!“ <looks at Donna, who points at Rose>
Doctor: „You’re – still here…“
Rose: „I told you so!“**
Donna: „Don’t you want to tell her something? You know, from back then?“ <nudges him and has to point him back towards Rose while he talks>
Rose: „Doctor?“
Doctor: „Y-yes. Yes. Y-yes, it’s time. Rose Tyler, I -“
<Outro>***
*Northern German phrase for dim-wit/dumbo
** This is the Jigglypuff line
*** I listened to this often enough that I quoted most of it by heart before I checked the recording and corrected the few mistakes I made and that even though we didn’t say any of those words live on stage… >_<

Well, that’s it. Our little sketch. It’s nothing special and as far away from canon as you can probably get, but with Rose turning up before Stolen Earth, it’s kind of hard to stay there…
We considered it to be fun and it wasn’t supposed to fit in with canon anyway, it is just something to accompany the costumes…

The Competition

On Saturday we met up with the von PuchsKes and Frank, the couple that presented the competition – and were positively surprised how supportive and lovely they were and it eased the nervousness a bit. We talked with them about issues and negativity Schmusi had experienced at and especially after other competitions, as some reviewers tore her performance apart due to her physical appearance. Kes told us she had experienced similar things in her times as a Cosplayer and that we shouldn’t let stuff like that get to us.
After the Panels were done for the day we used the chance to see how less-large-than-we-thought the stage actually was and try how far we could/had to go to have the space we’d need for the movement during the sketch.
When it was time for the competition, everyone squeezed into the small space beside the stage and one after the other got called to their performance. Some were showing their incredible sewing skills, others had collected their Cosplay over the years. Some said a few lines, others just used the stage as a catwalk. It was a variety of people and Cosplays, fitting for the occasion.
And then there was us:
An unusual group of three stoutly build women playing a pre-recorded sketch, with Cosplays that could not match any of the high quality Cosplays, but were fitted for the person and created using the material available (*cough*table cloth*cough*).
We didn’t plan on winning anything anyway.
We just wanted to present our little sketch and make the people in the audience laugh, when we weren’t allowed to do it ourselves.
And they did.
They laughed when the Tardis didn’t want to work with The Doctor.
They laughed when Donna smacked The Doctor over the head.
And that was enough for us. It felt great.
We didn’t look perfect, but at least recognizable.
Neither of us fell or started laughing throughout the performance and that’s what matters to us.
It was a lot of fun to play our little sketch, even though all of us were awfully nervous.

The Feedback

Obviously we didn’t win any of the prices, as those were given to the people that actually deserved them, but we did get a few gimmicks and some positive response by a few people we met afterwards.
E.g. a young girl came up to us and delightedly told us that we portrayed her favourite characters and that she really liked how cheeky our (my 😉 ) Donna was and that really lifted our spirits. Some of the winners and participants and a few other guests gave us their approval as well, which is really great, but can’t compete with the girl. 😀
Still, there was also negative Feedback, though I am not entirely sure if I actually want to call it that, I guess negative Opinions would be the better term.
In the official Facebook group one commenter announced that she was afraid for the on-stage Tardis at some point of our terrible performance. Another guy wrote in his review for Sunday that when he tries remembering our performance his nose starts bleeding and his ears start to buzz. When I asked him – I admit, I didn’t tell him, who I was, but it would have been easy for him to make the connection – he revealed that he considered the performance to be quite bad and that someone even showed him a similar sketch from an English convention and said we just copied it (If someone knows that video, feel free to send me a link, because we had no idea a thing like that existed), but instead of simply asking US, he spread the misinformation.
Though this could be the reason that so far you could barely see us on any of the competition shots…no one wants to include people that just steal their ideas…or wear awful Cosplays…
While I wrote the review for the Convention another German review, this time from the WhoView, was published that called our performance embarrassing and bad Fanfiction that turned Rose into a Time Lady and just wanted to see some naughty action between the Tenth Doctor and Rose, disregarding all female empowerment in 5 minutes and I don’t even want to go into more detail about the paragraph that talked about us in a very bad light and a quite polemic way, as I simply cannot understand how one could get THAT idea from our story… or does anyone feel the same after having read my explanation and the Transcript above? I mean, it’s a flipping Wedding gown/dress, by a Time Lord randomly called Lord Needles that was given to her by Jack to make her look pretty when she finally meets the Doctor again. o.O
Still, it created quite a discussion in the Facebook Group, when we spoke up about the fact that we didn’t agree with the way he talked about us…though we are not entirely sure how many people noticed the connection. We didn’t mean to start such an uproar from it, but it just felt wrong to stay silent. I admit, some of the phrases used in our statements weren’t thought out properly, but I do believe that was the initial rage at the way it was written. Yet, the author and his friends continued talking down on Anna and everyone that tried to defend us, repeating over and over again that it’s nothing bad and just the way the author talks/writes and no one should get agitated by it and it just spiralled upwards from there and all the sides got more and more frustrated by the whole thing.
From what I now learned about the author, I believe it was deliberately written in that way to cause a discussion or at least tuck at the strings of those jumping at the chance to discuss something like that, but I still don’t agree with the way it was written, as it – as a part of the group – felt insulting and degrading, even though he didn’t use any direct insults and wrapped everything in more or less harmless phrases. It still hurt and there would have been several different ways to portray such a dislike for something without stepping on the people involved in the process. The author chose this way of writing and all we can do is accept his decision. I feel like no one deserves a treatment like that, that’s why I will not return fire with fire by insulting the author. We accept your opinion, we do not agree with it and are disappointed that you resorted to such tones to describe us and not even considered talking to us in person, but we accept it and hope that this settles the matter once and for all.
At some point the organizers got involved into this – we had thought about informing them, but in the end didn’t do it -, which caused the Link to the article to be deleted from the group. The author and the boss had a talk and the author apologized to him about the fact that his article resulted in such an uproar and as punishment the author has to participate in next years Cosplay competition. So far he has not said a word to us on this matter nor did any of the officials contact us about it.
I don’t care if someone insults me, I’ve been a target to a lot of negativity before, but Schmusi and Anna are two of the most amazing people I had the fortune of meeting during the last couple of years. They give so much for their friends and work hard on different Cosplays using whatever material they can get their hands on, all the while juggling the organisation of a regular Fandom meeting and everyday madness. They don’t get much in return and then something like this happens to them – again – and this time in a community that for a brief moment felt different, felt more open minded, felt like family.
It is a really disappointing and sad turn of events that what we anticipated and feared to happen prior to entering the competition did indeed happen and that in a Fandom that is supposedly so inclusive and supportive, where individuals suddenly turn on you behind your back because you don’t fit in with the norm – at least that’s what we get out of this. With the encouragement from the Puchs and the overall atmosphere of the Convention we had really hoped that we’d get the respect every participant of a competition deserves and not become the butt end of a polemic joke.
Yes, our Doctor is not as thin as he is supposed to be and neither are Rose and Donna.
Yes, our Donna had a table cloth for a coat and the rest didn’t look nearly as good as some of the more expensive costumes, but we were still recognizable.
Yes, we aren’t the best Cosplayers, let alone actors in the world. (Heck, it was MY first time Cosplaying at all…)
But we had fun and the audience laughed and – I dare to say and some of the positive responses in the group agree with me here – had a good time and that was all we wanted. Obviously except those that fled the room or whose insides crumbled while witnessing our disaster of a performance, but that’s to be expected.
And if anyone has anything to say about us and/or our performance that person should at least have the decency to tell it to our faces – or through a message – and not start talking behind our backs, but that doesn’t mean we’re not open for constructive criticism, so we know how we can improve.
Regardless of that would we like to thank all those lovely people that stood up for us and/or send us encouraging words! After all the negativity this whole ordeal created your words helped us to find the strength again to look at this matter from a different angle. Thank you!

What I got from this experience is

  • As long as you have fun, you shouldn’t let others negative opinions bother you – which they still do and it will hurt, but you have to try to not let them get to you too much and overcome them.
  • As soon as you start playing, you don’t notice the audience any more.
  • Getting applause and laughter while on stage feels great.
  • Table cloth can be quite warm.
  • Anna is a yellow broccoli.
  • Schmusi wears children’s caskets instead of sand shoes.
  • With my wig not prepared properly I’m an old hag with a standing table cloth coat. 😀

Anyway, I know I’m repeating myself, but we still had a lot of fun with this and as we enjoyed the recording part of the preparations and really like the result, we decided to do more with that. So stay tuned. 😉
I/we don’t know if we will be at the next TimeLash as well, we would like to go, but aside from the planning, the whole negative behind our backs discussion regarding our performance really makes us want to stay away, but at the same time there is this urge to not back down, to show everyone that we ain’t bovvered by those remarks and we obviously will continue to create and learn and have fun doing what ever it is we want to do.
PoiSonPaiNter

TimeLash 2015

Even though I am known for taking ages for actually publishing a review for something I’ve been at, I occasionally manage to do something on time and this shall be one of them.
As I have mentioned recently did I attend the TimeLash , the first Doctor Who convention in Germany with AnnaTao and Schmusi from the HGWAnime last weekend and I’d like to tell you a bit about it.

Funding the Fun

Some time last year three German fans (Simone Violka, Ralf Schmidt and Pascal Salzmann) with roots in Convention Management and the like, decided to try and start a Crowd Funding campaign to be able to organize the very first German Doctor Who Convention.
I read about it on Facebook, I believe, and talked about it with a friend from studying, but she didn’t want to participate, so I canned the plans. During one of the HGWAnime-meetings I casually asked Schmusi and Anna if they had heard about it and they didn’t. Well, it didn’t take long for the seed of curiosity to take root.
I discussed it with my parents and my Mum pushed me to buy the ticket, as I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t. So Anna ordered three tickets for us and I asked Nazgul if he’d let us stay in his place and that sorted out the sleeping part of the trip.
In March I shortly struggled with the thought of actually attending and told Schmusi and Anna that I wasn’t sure if I’d really be able to accompany and drive them, due to my Mum’s increasing health issues, as I didn’t want to leave while she was feeling unwell. In a cruel twist of fate that problem solved itself when Mum decided to leave us the next weekend. But I know she wanted me to go and enjoy the weekend, so I decided to do just that.

Twitter-Mania

I’m not entirely sure how we got to that idea, but somehow during the fitting session on Thursday before the Convention we got the idea to start a Twitter-Account and live-tweet throughout it. Said and done and the [ASAP Chronicles] were born.
We tweeted a lot of silly stuff ranging from comments regarding our hour-long drives, the convention itself or our preparations for the Cosplay contest. Most of it is in German, but we did even have some English Tweets, if you want to know what the German ones mean, just let me know. 🙂
As we had a lot of fun tweeting – especially I often asked for the Zwitscher-Phone/Twitter-Phone, as I do not own a smartphone myself(,yet ) – we decided to keep the account longer than the convention and also tweet stuff from the HGWAnime or other adventures. And as it doesn’t really fit with my own Page, we decided to create a new Facebook Page that accompanies the Twitter Page.
You can find it here: [ASAP Chronicles].

Dalek on the loose

As we arrived on Friday we had some time to find the Convention side before we went to get our groceries for the weekend. The Crew was busy with the last preparations and we took a sneak peek through the windows and already saw a Dalek, standing right in the middle of the room. The anticipation rose and we couldn’t wait for the Convention to start.

Pümpel!

Pümpel! Pew Pew!


As the other Cosplay was planned for Sunday Schmusi and Anna decided to keep it relatively simple with a River Song (Anna) and Dalek (Schmusi) Cosplay, while I simply wore my Cyberman-Shirt. 😀
Schmusi’s Cosplay earned a lot of looks and comments, especially the whisk and the plunger (Pümpel in German) she used as improvised weapons. Though we did have to take a de-tour as we realized half-way on the way to the Convention that our Dalek’s memory had a failure as we forgot the plunger at Nazgul’s. Though it kind of became a running gag, that I competed with the satnav in regards to our arrival time…I mean, we were right when it came to judging the time we needed to get from Greifswald to Kassel. WE anticipated all those traffic jams! >_<
The Dalek hat

The duck-taped Dalek hat


Anyway, aside from weaponry, our Dalek had a very cool hat, that I ended up carrying around most of the time.
The Convention was split in five areas: Panel room, entrance, Signing/Props room, Photo-Session/Wardrobe and Merchandise room.
In the Merchandise room there were several tables from different retailers and one in particular by The Who Shop, the official merchandise shop from London and it was quite exciting when a woman (I believe she is called Alex) at their booth was utterly fascinated by said Dalek hat. 😀 Though we utterly failed to put it properly on for her and kind of completely wrecked it in the process and we had to duck-tape the different pieces back together – good thing I still had some of it left in my car or as we lovingly called it that weekend: The Tardis-Tortenschachtel (Cake Box).
Anyway, that day before we started exploring all the different areas we sat down to watch the opening ceremony that started with a little delay, but was quite interesting, as this way we managed to see all the guests up on stage. It was quite surreal, especially when we strolled through the Props part of the other area and there just beside/behind us was e.g. The Doctor  (Paul McGann) or the voice of the Daleks, Cybermen and many others: Nicholas Briggs (Occasionally he and some of the guests even passed by, which was just as weird). Later we sat in the Panel of former Script Editors Terrence Dicks and Andrew Cartmel for a moment, but decided to leave, when we noticed that even though it was quite interesting to listen to all their stories, it was hard for us – especially Anna – to follow and understand Mr. Dicks, which was really quite unfortunate… 🙁
I was upgraded

I was upgraded


The rest of the day we mostly spent upstairs in a hallway in front of the Merchandise room or outside, as neither of us had that much energy or interest in the Panels and there wasn’t much else to do. We chatted and joked a bit with a group of Cosplayers that started a Vote Saxon campaign (with very smelly flyers…), but we mostly just relaxed or walked around taking pictures of other Cosplayers or ourselves using the displayed Props by the Rockin Robin Dr Who Cosplay Fanclub.
I would have liked to listen to Mr. McGann’s Panel, but the room was already full, so I only stayed in the back for a moment, heard some of it and then decided to go back upstairs to the others.
What we did manage to see completely that day was the Entertainment-Show by Toby Hadoke, which pretty much was my highlight of the whole weekend. He was easy to understand, a lot of fun and even if I don’t know all of the Classic Who stuff, his jokes were on point and absolutely hilarious. That show could have gone two more hours and I doubt anyone would have been bored. 😀
In the evening there was a special Star Dinner for a few selected people, but we instead got back to Nazgul’s place and in a team-effort cooked a very tasty Soljanka.

The big Finish

Still half asleep I caused a minor uproar when I suddenly announced „Guys, it’s seven o’clock!“ after taking a look at my phone. With a grumble Schmusi then reminded me of the clock change and told me that it was still six o’clock. So we kind of woke up before our alarm…oops…
Anyway, as this was the big day for my very first Cosplay and some things weren’t finished at Anna’s we got up early to prepare for the day and still somehow ended up arriving late. But still in time to hear some of Mr. Briggs Panel and it was really great. I even dared to ask a question, but ended up formulating it in the most difficult way possible, but he still answered the question I tried to ask. 😀 He just seems to be a really likeable person. Though all of the guests seemed likeable. Jason Heigh-Ellery from Big Finish even let us/me talk him into trying out a self-playing piano in the hallway upstairs, the day before, though it was unfortunately already turned off by then. 🙁
Big Finish by the way had a large booth as well, but as someone who gets easily bored by simply listening to something, I’m afraid non of their work – as amazing as it is – would help me to overcome the urge to do something entirely different while listening and then stop paying attention altogether, which is quite a pity. 🙁
Still, the writing process interests me quite a bit and while Schmusi and Anna got the last instructions for the Cosplay competition, I sat down in the writers Panel with Nev Fountain, Terrance Dicks, Andrew Cartmel and Nicholas Briggs. It was quite interesting and far too short…
Right after that the Cosplay competition started and everyone gathered in the small space beside the less-large-than-we-thought stage. We were ninth in line and I think at some point I just stopped thinking and simply concentrated on what was ahead of me, but more on that in a separate post.
After the competition we made a last round through the booths, were I got myself an AdiposeFunko Pop! figurine. The other two got – amongst other things – some Dalek merchandise the other day, but I’ve already purchased a couple of things that interest me over the last few months, so my purse didn’t cry as much as it did for others. Though I was kind of thinking about buying a totally un-Who-ish Groot-Scaler and was partly inclined to try getting one of the Supernatural mystery-Mini with the strange feeling that if I did, with my luck, I probably would’ve ended up picking Gabriel…it was irritating enough that one of the crew guys looked an awful lot like the actor…
Anyway, that figurine was still cheaper than the picture that was taken of us on our way back…stupid speeding camera…but taking the longer landscape route gave us a lot of time to discuss future plans, that you’ll hear about, when they are a bit more concrete. 😉
The last thing on our list, was the official ending round. While waiting for it Anna asked if she could have two of the WhoCast’s – the German DW Podcast that was also present at the Convention – posters and they indeed gave them to her. So she and Schmusi now have a Dalek and a Tardis poster from the WhoCast. 🙂 One of the posters still had some easy to remove poster glue left that Anna used to tinker a bit. The Dalek didn’t really work out, but the Adipose turned out quite well. 😀

You need a lot of imagination for this one

You need a lot of imagination for this one


Not so much for this one

Not so much for this one

The Conclusion/Finishing Panel was then another/the last chance to see most of the guests – some had already departed. Everyone said their thanks and the three organizers received a fully deserved standing ovation at the end of their speech. Everything was impressively well organized for the first instalment of a Convention, the star-guests were great, the crew was great and the whole atmosphere was quite familiar and nice. All in all a really great experience, even though we didn’t get any autographs or photo-shoots and simply used our time there to be amongst others with a similar interest.

So, a huge thank you for an amazing weekend!
I/we don’t know if we will be at the next TimeLash, we would like to go, but there are a lot of things to factor in regarding the trip and some of them will be explained in the follow-up post.
PoiSonPaiNter

PoiSonPaiNter goes Twitter!

At least for a little while…
As I told you on Monday am I attending the TimeLash this weekend with AnnaTao and Schmusi from the HGWAnime, who are also known as CosMamas Tipps.
For this event we decided to join forces and created a Twitter Page to live-tweet our experiences at the first German Doctor Who Convention!
If you want to follow our adventures look no further than:

@[ASAP Chronicles].

If you don’t have or don’t want to use Twitter feel free to check out my Facebook-Page, as the Tweets will be posted there as well.
Most of the Tweets will be in German, but I guess I’ll manage to sneak in one or the other English one. 😉
I’m quite exited for this weekend and hope you’ll have fun following our adventures through Space and Time.
Stay tuned and watch out for talkative birds! 😀
PoiSonPaiNter
 

On a Side Note #3

I feel like I’m really not getting anything done these days…
I managed to low and behold publish five posts in September and four so far in October and seven of those were Weekend Guesses
I don’t even know what it is I’m doing that keeps me from finishing any posts…
I didn’t even feel like reading either and now I have to give back all those books I got from the library back in February when it closed for renovations, unread…
Okay, I admit there were a few series I caught up with during the recent weeks and my trip to Stockholm and two Weekends at the HGWAnime, but that can’t be that time consuming…
It feels like all I’m doing is writing in the bus on my way to work, being at work, writing on my way back from work and doing stuff – possibly typing said writing or writing something else or watching something, when I get back.
Now you probably ask yourself: Why am I not seeing any of that writing?
Well, for one: It isn’t December yet. 😉
But I only need six and a half more Chapters and then it’s time for typing and polishing the whole thing to make it presentable for you. I’m quite exited if you will like that way of story telling, though right now I’m more curious about where the story will take me, as it made a few turns I had not expected in the beginning…
And for the other: I haven’t posted it here and I’m not sure I want to post it here and am even thinking about taking down the Fanfiction section in the Writings-menu altogether…
It’s the amok-running story that started with „Chance Meetings“ – a simple idea of Supernatural characters meeting people that read the in-universe books – and for some reason turned into the Season 11 AU „Light in the Darkness“ that I want to finish before I actually take a look at Season 11, which by now leaves me in a very weird situation between „Ah, I can wait“ and „Arg, I hate Spoilers, why can’t I be able to finish that stupid story and finally watch the show again like everyone else?!“. >_<
It is really frustrating when characters decide that they want you to tell more or different things than you actually wanted to do (same with the Calendar people by the way…)… I could probably write a whole post about that alone – and I probably will when I finished that story.
One thing you could see, however, is „Aequus„, my most recent story for Your Picture – A Story, that is a semi-continuation of this story from my Advent Calendar. Again it is only available in German, but I did manage to translate one of my „older“ stories of the project: The Secret of Milton Road. As Halloween is fast approaching, maybe something you’d like to check out. 😉
And as I’m already talking about the Calendar from last year: Last time I also told you that I left an excerpt of it in the mail box of a local publisher. Well, long story short: They were interested, they liked my stories and wanted to read more, but they also wanted me to support them with 2.500 € to pay for the copy-editing, marketing and what not, while they pay the same amount for the printing itself and only give me 10% royalties. That was not something I was willing to do, so I canned publishing plans for the meantime.
Now onto some more fun news: I probably wont be able to write anything this weekend either, as I’ll be at the TimeLash with AnnaTao and Schmusi from the HGWAnime. The TimeLash is the first ever Doctor Who convention in Germany and I’m quite excited as it will be my third convention ever (as a reminder: #1: Weekend of Horrors, #2 ChiSaiiCon). But I’m also quite terrified as I have agreed to take part in the Cosplay competition with Anna and Schmusi…
It will be:

  • my first Day ever in a Cosplay
  • my first time participating in a Cosplay competition
  • my first time playing after a pre-recorded story in front of a (huge) audience (all audiences are huge if you don’t like being in the spotlight, even if they can be at most 500 people…)

So yeah, I’m kind of practising to not miss my cues and do some acting and most importantly not start laughing, which probably will be the hardest part…
Anyway, noon Sunday it’s show time and I guess I’ll let you know how it went. 😀
We’ll by the way play a self-written (by Schmusi, with comments by me) story starring the Tenth Doctor (Schmusi), Rose Tyler (Anna) and Donna Noble (me) and the Tardis Control-Thingy (a cardboard box). 😀
So, see you around I guess
PoiSonPaiNter