Reflections on FanX 2016

Thanks for reading through to this next page. I find you really get to know someone when you make the decision to hear their complaints too. Hopefully mine aren’t too Negative Nancy like but they might help you help me to really find that “more” I was looking for.

Gluten Free Options

The first thing I found lacking was the Gluten Free options. I recently started going Gluten Free to kick my health back into gear. I knew going into this weekend that it would be tough. I brought my own snacks and knew the two things I could eat inside the convention center, loaded nachos and a gluten free sandwich. Both options were really good (I ended up eating the nachos twice) but I had a mini breakdown on the last day outside at the foodtrucks when the grilled cheese one was out of Gluten Free bread (long day + hungry = hangry girl). Sean did a great day at consoling me and the snacks I brought along really saved my butt when I needed a little pick me up.

Honorable Mention (a little positive amongst the negative): I know this is a lowlight but I have to applaud Chick Fil A on their Gluten Free option. I was hesitant to have their grilled chicken nuggets because seriously, unbreaded chicken nuggets is basically just a cut up chicken breast. Well I wasn’t wrong but Sean and I now firmly believe the grilled chicken is magical and superbly better than it’s breaded sister on the menu. 100 points to Chick Fil A!

Didn’t go to many panels

We attended a total of 2 panels, and none of them were for the big names. I’m not entirely sure why we didn’t especially since we were always asking what we should do next and did a lot of wandering around. Part of his had to do with how Marvel handles the panels. She can get quite chatty and disruptive, so much so that we actually left the 2nd panel we went to early. The first panel was a “geek parenting” panel (and really awesome actually) so I didn’t feel as bad when she was chatting it up.

Next time I want to go to more panels so that we can utilize the headphones we bought Marvel to block out the cheering. I also feel like this was mostly our fault and not the fault of SLCC.

The Vendors

Even though we loved the vendors, we also found that we got through them rather quickly. I was both excited and disappointed when we reached the “end of the line” on the first day. It made walking around the vendor hall on Friday and Saturday a little boring sometimes. Thankfully there were some vendors I missed so I got to go find them later on. I think next time I would like just one more row at least of vendors to peruse.

We were also disappointed when we couldn’t find any plain original Pokemon plushies. We wanted to find a Squirtle, Charmander, and Bulbasaur to have Marvel choose as her first Pokemon, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Getting called “fat princess Leia”

 

In my 4 years of cosplaying, I’ve never had any negative comments said to or about me (that I’ve heard). Unfortunately Friday, as I was leaving the convention center to go to the mall foodcourt, someone said in passing “It’s fat Princess Leia”. Well I know I’m not exactly skinny and I do call myself fat, but it doesn’t mean I want others saying that about me. I let myself be sad for a little bit until I realized that I feel amazing in my Leia costume and last time I wore it I was a lot bigger (well and pregnant).

Cosplay is for all shapes and sizes. I’ll probably be writing a post about this more in detail but it was an alarming experience for sure.

Over too soon.

It’s always bittersweet when a convention is over. We ended up leaving FanX earlier than we normally would on Saturday but we’d decided it was time to call it a night on the fantastic weekend we had at FanX. A lot of this I think had to do with the “more” we wanted. By mid afternoon, we were just done. We did one last looksie of the vendor hall to take pics of some cosplayers then headed out.

 

 

On a side and happy note, it was good I ended up checking my Instagram because I won free Netflix for a year. I’m still waiting on that code though…

Missing family members

The biggest thing that I really think was missing and the biggest contributor to that “more” we wanted to feel was more than half the people we go with didn’t come this time.

Normally we go with my in laws and it’s a big family thing, we even do family cosplays together. But this year Sean’s dad and step-mom opted out as well as his brother and brother’s wife. We still had a good time but it just wasn’t the same. I hope that in the future we can all join together again at comic con as they were sorely missed.

Thankfully Sean’s sister Taylor came and we got to see her for a little bit.

Well despite feeling like we needed something “more” from the convention, I’m still glad we went. I’ve already gotten the days off for their main event September 1-3 and have our cosplays all planned out. Hopefully some of you will decide to join us!

Now I’ll leave you with some of my favorite cosplays of the weekend: