Fan Expo

Last weekend was Fan Expo and it is an annual long weekend of all my nerdiest fantasies come true conveniently located in one massive convention centre. It's aimed at fans of sci-fi, comics, anime, horror and gaming and there were also arts and crafts, celebrities, interactive booths and cosplay. Basically a nerd's mecca. A tiny slice of heaven on earth. I'm surprised I had any money left in my back account after it. It spans four days from Thursday evening to Sunday. I went down on the Sunday arriving before it was opened and staying there until it closed soaking up every last drop of fandom I could.

There were no celebrities I wanted to see, at least none I was willing to queue for several hours and pay many dollars to meet, so instead I spent the day wandering around with my friends checking out the booths. While I was there I saw a sign for sci-fi speed dating and thought, ya, that could be a bit of craic. I don't think I've ever met so many socially awkward men in such a short space of time. In fairness they were all lovely but one nervous fella, gods love him, had written out questions to ask the ladies on a flashcard and launched into a spiel about his favourite episode of The Big Bang Theory as soon as he sat down. 

This is just one room. There was another larger room filled with even more awesome sights and goodies

While I was there my friend Laura and I did an escape room which are super popular here in Toronto. Basically you have a certain amount of time to escape a room. The bigger ones feature large rooms or even several rooms and generally you have an hour or so to figure out the clues and escape. In this one we had 7 minutes to figure out the clues to escape the room before we were infected. We left that room as vampires. I am not smart.

I don't know this guy...

There was so much fantastic cosplay and I kept trying to get pictures of people as they walked around the con but the large crowds coupled with the fact that I'm a shitty photographer meant that most of my pictures were garbage. Some people put in a crazy amount of effort though! I saw a very cool and clearly homemade Groot costume but the picture is blurry so you'll just have to take my word for it. I also saw many Harley Quinns and Jokers and many Deadpools which I guess is to be expected with the movies being released recently. I also saw two T-Rex's battling with light sabers which, I've been told, is how they actually went extinct.

Pity he couldn't draw me some dollars so I could buy some of his art

Artists alley was undoubtedly my favourite part of the expo and I picked up a Princess Mononoke print, an embroidery hoop from a lovely Canadian lady I've been following on Instagram for a couple of years (Nerds and Needles) and a little pin. For the last hour I wandered up and down artists alley stopping at every single booth looking at the art and crying inwardly that I didn't have more dollars to spend on beautiful, useless things that I don't need. I did however desperately want them and sometimes that's more important than need. Like I need to eat but I really, really, really want this Full Metal Alchemist print more.

I wish I'd gotten one of these. I have a lovely posterior if I do say so myself. Definitely worthy of being immortalised in cartoon

I've already decided who I'm going to cosplay as next year if I'm still around for Fan Expo 2017. And I've resigned myself to the fact that next time I'll need to set aside the guts of an entire paycheck to indulge the child in me who would prefer to have a collection of anime prints, ass pictures and handmade zombie mugs than food in her fridge. Until next time folks.