2024 Glasgow Worldcon!
Sep. 2nd, 2024 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkPrologue: On the day before I left for Scotland I had my usual pre-travel packing anxiety problems, so I decided to go for a walk, enjoy the sunshine and oxygen and clear my head. Five minutes after I sat down on a bench near the top of the hill sudden very heavy rain started, and by the time I had run down the hill to find some shelter under some trees my thin beach dress was completely soaked through. I hid from the rain together with three other people who had also been surprised and I joked about the rain preparing me for my Scotland trip, so they told me about their wonderful Scotland trip a few years ago until the rain had finally let off.
I think it's funny that that was worse rain than I experienced during my entire vacation in Scotland xD
The first thing I saw at Glasgow airport was a big Worldcon banner, that was nice and immediately made me feel welcome. Then I found out my luggage was left behind at my layover stop in Germany and had to figure that out, that was less fun.
I didn't trust the delivery service so late in the evening I made my way back to the airport when my luggage was supposed to arrive, and that was late too so by the time I made it back to the city with my luggage it was 1am and no buses were going anymore. I could have called a taxi but it was only a half-hour walk. Odd (almost) first impression to have of a city though.
I shared a hotel room withdhampyresa and Lunik, which was fantastic. (I didn't really know Lunik before and dhampyresa was a bit worried initially how we'd get along but I think it became obvious quickly that there was nothing to worry about.) We explored the city together and went for food and watched silly videos together in the evenings (I showed them The Potato Wars and Lunik showed us some Game Changer episodes and we both watched Hermitcraft videos while poor dhampyresa pretended to be interested), and during the con we mostly watched different panels but kept meeting up for food or games or catching up and just walking around, it was great.
Things we saw in Glasgow:
- Kelvingrove park and the Kelvingrove art gallery, very nice
- The "Hidden Lane," a small street full of artist shops
- The Riverside transportation museum, full of cars and trains and tramways etc., they even had a fully reconstructed old street
- The Botanic Gardens – underwhelming tbh, but we had a nice afternoon tea
- The city center (via a bus tour and later just walking around)
- Sharmanka kinetic theater – that was very cool! Cool atmosphere with the moving sculptures with the light and music, some of them quite creepy tbh
One of my least favorite parts of Glasgow were the busses, especially that bus stops are very poorly labelled and are not announced inside the bus. A bad first impression too, when dhampyresa and I came from the airport we found a bus driver with an accent so strong we barely understood him, that was awkward. Fortunately I barely had to use them.
And then: Worldcon! \o/
I had such a fantastic time. Everything ran smoothly: the location was very convenient, I loved that panels were every hour and a half so I had time to get from one to the next, they even had volunteers whose job it was to entertain people stuck in long queues – obviously I have no idea how it was run behind the scenes but from my perspective, massive kudos to the organizers.
I got more ribbons for my badge this time! Not too many but a couple, that was nice. (I could have easily gotten more if I had checked the Discord, ah well.) I bought some books (not too many because I had to carry my luggage for another week, I only got four), and beetle wing earrings and pretty dice and art. I got to try out a VR headset for the first time and found out about a SF library half an hour from where I live. I loved getting into conversations with strangers about things we both love. I saw less cosplay than I expected but some very cool stuff. And on the last day someone recognized my Big Ron's shirt, that was nice.
I briefly metmarina and frith_in_thorns; in hindsight I should have made more plans but I remembered how during the Dublin Worldcon I kept accidentally meeting people I knew and somehow assumed it would be the same.
Choosing which panels to go to was very difficult, very often I wished I could clone myself, and then sometimes I needed breaks too. I made very detailed notes for almost every panel I was at. I'm not going to type up all of it though, just some highlights/what I found particularly interesting, but if you're interested in any in particular let me know and I can go into more detail. I'll mark the panels I remember especially enjoying.
Thursday
- TTRPGs: Introduction to Indies
- Policing the High Frontier+
- Revolutions in Speculative Fiction+
- Fight the Power: Systems as Villains in SFF
- Worldbuilding in Gaming
- Writing Against Canon
Starting the convention strong with some very good panels.
Friday
- The Magical Future: High Magic as High Tech/Spells in Space
- Game: Blood on the Clocktower
- Religion and Godhood in Science Fiction
- "You Gotta Go Back, Marty!" Time travel in Sci-Fi
- Fanfic or Re-Imagining?
- Worldcon Philharmonic Orchestra
When the orchestra announced a "loud surprise" during one piece I expected a kettledrum, but we were in Scotland so of course it was a bagpipe ^^
Saturday
- Is the Multiverse the New Time Travel?
- The Many Legs of SF: Creepy Crawlies in Space
- Women and Military SF+
- Game: Victorian Mars
- Clones and Birthing Pods: Reproduction in SFF
- Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre
I originally also wanted to see the Masquerade but I was very tired and only watched a little bit.
Sunday
- The Chosen Everyone
- All the World's Books Depend on the Beancounter: Economics in SFF
- Robots in Western and Non-Western SF Traditions
- Game: Fallout
- Death, Where's Thy Sting?
- Worldships 3: Generational Relations and Socio-Economic Structures+
I also wanted to watch the Hugo ceremony but again was very tired (not physically, just in the "head very full" kind of way”) and only watched the last two awards from the overflow auditorium. I was pretty sure "Some Desperate Glory" was going to win after I went to a panel that had Emily Tesh on it and she got spontaneous applause after introducing herself and mentioning her book.
Monday
- A People's Alternate History
- Strong Female Leads Who Don't Kick Ass
- Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide
- Satirical Fantasy
- Ceilidh with the Jiggers
dhampyresa and I joined halfway through the dancing – and in hindsight I was glad because even after that we were very tired! We then stayed at the party for a little bit and spent most of it solving NYT puzzles with a Worldcon veteran we met there, that was a nice finish.
There's several panels with online replay that I still want to watch eventually, fingers crossed I'll get around to it.
I'll write the notes about the panels later, for now some notes about the games. I played three games this time and all of them were a lot of fun, with great GMs and good groups.
Blood on the Clocktower:
I really wanted to play this ever since I saw Cleo make it on Hermitcraft, and I'm very glad I did! I enjoyed it much more than Werewolf, though it is also more complicated. Lunik and I played in the same game, and we lost to a truly excellent Demon + Poisoner duo (they got a little bit lucky too but mostly they just played really well.) I got confused a few times because I had the Werewolf rules in my head, that unfortunately also played a part. I would love to play it again one day, unfortunately you need a fairly large number of people.
Victorian Mars:
A TTRPG using the Manifold system: I'd never heard of it before but it was simple enough. It took place on Mars that had been conquered by Queen Victoria. Our team had the task of making the first human pilot win the traditional Martian tripod race. We solved our money problem by selling the radio rights to the race to the local broadcast station, and we solved our "how the heck do we win the race" problem by getting all the Martian teams very very drunk. Fun times.
Fallout:
I had signed up for a game of D&D 5e because I wanted to try out my shiny new dice, but unfortunately the DM didn't show up so they found a last-minute replacement who offered to run a game of Fallout for us. None of us at the table at that point were familiar with Fallout, but a twelve year old girl joined then and said she knew everything about Fallout. She also kept saying that she wanted to play a drug addict, started the game by asking who wanted to gamble, and then complained when she didn't win because her character had crooked dice. When soon afterwards there was an explosion in the distance and she decided to run toward it alone because of loot, I was not very surprised that a huge scorpion burst out of the ground and killed her in two hits. Such a shame, goodbye. The rest of us proceeded to have a very good time. Highlight of the game was when we approached a fight and one of us remembered that he had a grenade. The DM warned him that if he got a bit closer he could probably kill all the enemies at once, immediately ending the encounter. That player looked at the rest of the group but we were all excited and told him to go for it, so then that ended very quickly. The DM then told us that that hadn't happened the previous six times he'd run this mission so far and we felt even more powerful.
That was Worldcon! LB arrived on Monday night and we met up on Tuesday morning to start our Scotland travel, but that will go in a separate post.
Sadly it looks like it might not be until 2029 that Worldcon is in Europe again (Dublin plans to apply, according to the website.) But in the meantime there will be other conventions in Europe, maybe I will check those out one day.
I think it's funny that that was worse rain than I experienced during my entire vacation in Scotland xD
The first thing I saw at Glasgow airport was a big Worldcon banner, that was nice and immediately made me feel welcome. Then I found out my luggage was left behind at my layover stop in Germany and had to figure that out, that was less fun.
I didn't trust the delivery service so late in the evening I made my way back to the airport when my luggage was supposed to arrive, and that was late too so by the time I made it back to the city with my luggage it was 1am and no buses were going anymore. I could have called a taxi but it was only a half-hour walk. Odd (almost) first impression to have of a city though.
I shared a hotel room with
dhampyresa and Lunik, which was fantastic. (I didn't really know Lunik before and dhampyresa was a bit worried initially how we'd get along but I think it became obvious quickly that there was nothing to worry about.) We explored the city together and went for food and watched silly videos together in the evenings (I showed them The Potato Wars and Lunik showed us some Game Changer episodes and we both watched Hermitcraft videos while poor dhampyresa pretended to be interested), and during the con we mostly watched different panels but kept meeting up for food or games or catching up and just walking around, it was great. Things we saw in Glasgow:
- Kelvingrove park and the Kelvingrove art gallery, very nice
- The "Hidden Lane," a small street full of artist shops
- The Riverside transportation museum, full of cars and trains and tramways etc., they even had a fully reconstructed old street
- The Botanic Gardens – underwhelming tbh, but we had a nice afternoon tea
- The city center (via a bus tour and later just walking around)
- Sharmanka kinetic theater – that was very cool! Cool atmosphere with the moving sculptures with the light and music, some of them quite creepy tbh
One of my least favorite parts of Glasgow were the busses, especially that bus stops are very poorly labelled and are not announced inside the bus. A bad first impression too, when dhampyresa and I came from the airport we found a bus driver with an accent so strong we barely understood him, that was awkward. Fortunately I barely had to use them.
And then: Worldcon! \o/
I had such a fantastic time. Everything ran smoothly: the location was very convenient, I loved that panels were every hour and a half so I had time to get from one to the next, they even had volunteers whose job it was to entertain people stuck in long queues – obviously I have no idea how it was run behind the scenes but from my perspective, massive kudos to the organizers.
I got more ribbons for my badge this time! Not too many but a couple, that was nice. (I could have easily gotten more if I had checked the Discord, ah well.) I bought some books (not too many because I had to carry my luggage for another week, I only got four), and beetle wing earrings and pretty dice and art. I got to try out a VR headset for the first time and found out about a SF library half an hour from where I live. I loved getting into conversations with strangers about things we both love. I saw less cosplay than I expected but some very cool stuff. And on the last day someone recognized my Big Ron's shirt, that was nice.
I briefly met
marina and frith_in_thorns; in hindsight I should have made more plans but I remembered how during the Dublin Worldcon I kept accidentally meeting people I knew and somehow assumed it would be the same.Choosing which panels to go to was very difficult, very often I wished I could clone myself, and then sometimes I needed breaks too. I made very detailed notes for almost every panel I was at. I'm not going to type up all of it though, just some highlights/what I found particularly interesting, but if you're interested in any in particular let me know and I can go into more detail. I'll mark the panels I remember especially enjoying.
Thursday
- TTRPGs: Introduction to Indies
- Policing the High Frontier+
- Revolutions in Speculative Fiction+
- Fight the Power: Systems as Villains in SFF
- Worldbuilding in Gaming
- Writing Against Canon
Starting the convention strong with some very good panels.
Friday
- The Magical Future: High Magic as High Tech/Spells in Space
- Game: Blood on the Clocktower
- Religion and Godhood in Science Fiction
- "You Gotta Go Back, Marty!" Time travel in Sci-Fi
- Fanfic or Re-Imagining?
- Worldcon Philharmonic Orchestra
When the orchestra announced a "loud surprise" during one piece I expected a kettledrum, but we were in Scotland so of course it was a bagpipe ^^
Saturday
- Is the Multiverse the New Time Travel?
- The Many Legs of SF: Creepy Crawlies in Space
- Women and Military SF+
- Game: Victorian Mars
- Clones and Birthing Pods: Reproduction in SFF
- Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre
I originally also wanted to see the Masquerade but I was very tired and only watched a little bit.
Sunday
- The Chosen Everyone
- All the World's Books Depend on the Beancounter: Economics in SFF
- Robots in Western and Non-Western SF Traditions
- Game: Fallout
- Death, Where's Thy Sting?
- Worldships 3: Generational Relations and Socio-Economic Structures+
I also wanted to watch the Hugo ceremony but again was very tired (not physically, just in the "head very full" kind of way”) and only watched the last two awards from the overflow auditorium. I was pretty sure "Some Desperate Glory" was going to win after I went to a panel that had Emily Tesh on it and she got spontaneous applause after introducing herself and mentioning her book.
Monday
- A People's Alternate History
- Strong Female Leads Who Don't Kick Ass
- Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide
- Satirical Fantasy
- Ceilidh with the Jiggers
dhampyresa and I joined halfway through the dancing – and in hindsight I was glad because even after that we were very tired! We then stayed at the party for a little bit and spent most of it solving NYT puzzles with a Worldcon veteran we met there, that was a nice finish.There's several panels with online replay that I still want to watch eventually, fingers crossed I'll get around to it.
I'll write the notes about the panels later, for now some notes about the games. I played three games this time and all of them were a lot of fun, with great GMs and good groups.
Blood on the Clocktower:
I really wanted to play this ever since I saw Cleo make it on Hermitcraft, and I'm very glad I did! I enjoyed it much more than Werewolf, though it is also more complicated. Lunik and I played in the same game, and we lost to a truly excellent Demon + Poisoner duo (they got a little bit lucky too but mostly they just played really well.) I got confused a few times because I had the Werewolf rules in my head, that unfortunately also played a part. I would love to play it again one day, unfortunately you need a fairly large number of people.
Victorian Mars:
A TTRPG using the Manifold system: I'd never heard of it before but it was simple enough. It took place on Mars that had been conquered by Queen Victoria. Our team had the task of making the first human pilot win the traditional Martian tripod race. We solved our money problem by selling the radio rights to the race to the local broadcast station, and we solved our "how the heck do we win the race" problem by getting all the Martian teams very very drunk. Fun times.
Fallout:
I had signed up for a game of D&D 5e because I wanted to try out my shiny new dice, but unfortunately the DM didn't show up so they found a last-minute replacement who offered to run a game of Fallout for us. None of us at the table at that point were familiar with Fallout, but a twelve year old girl joined then and said she knew everything about Fallout. She also kept saying that she wanted to play a drug addict, started the game by asking who wanted to gamble, and then complained when she didn't win because her character had crooked dice. When soon afterwards there was an explosion in the distance and she decided to run toward it alone because of loot, I was not very surprised that a huge scorpion burst out of the ground and killed her in two hits. Such a shame, goodbye. The rest of us proceeded to have a very good time. Highlight of the game was when we approached a fight and one of us remembered that he had a grenade. The DM warned him that if he got a bit closer he could probably kill all the enemies at once, immediately ending the encounter. That player looked at the rest of the group but we were all excited and told him to go for it, so then that ended very quickly. The DM then told us that that hadn't happened the previous six times he'd run this mission so far and we felt even more powerful.
That was Worldcon! LB arrived on Monday night and we met up on Tuesday morning to start our Scotland travel, but that will go in a separate post.
Sadly it looks like it might not be until 2029 that Worldcon is in Europe again (Dublin plans to apply, according to the website.) But in the meantime there will be other conventions in Europe, maybe I will check those out one day.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-05 09:43 pm (UTC)To be fair, the bus network is probably easy to use for locals, I didn't even try the underground, and I enjoyed the travel by rail. The busses are just not very tourist-friendly.