I wish SDCC was more like TAHrch, where in, like, 20 Adventurekateers rent out a house that’s fancy af and then we hang out all weekend and go to a Thrilling Adventure Hour show.
Reading through my TAHrch tag and I miss y’all like crazy Dani, @annadiplosis, @exudeawesome, @jmebressler, @chedsy, @madelinestarr, @mariusperkins, @arsenikitty, @gloriousclio, @ahab99, @stefwith1f, @daddymymouthisfullofstars, and well, those of you who weren’t there, too. :)
danigi replied to your post: Final TAHrch update! It was really lat...
I guess you missed the tweet where I found my earring? Turns out it was in my suitcase! All is well! :) (Well, you know, aside from the fact that TAHrch is over and a certain live show is coming to an end… T_T)
OH YAY GOOD! I did miss that tweet! I’m so glad! :)
It was really late by the time we got back to the house after the show, and then some of us stayed up another hour or so because calming down after that kind of a night took awhile. That night, daddymymouthisfullofstars also crashed on our couch.
By the time I woke up I got, I think a grand total of three hours of sleep. I think I could have slept another hour or two but my brain wouldn't shut off, so I got up a little early.
Once everyone was up, it was time for our last big organized activity, brunch. We'd made arrangements for brunch for about as many people as The Messhall in LA would let us bring. When we got there, there was one really long table set up, and soon people arrived. This was sort of our capper for the weekend, one last time for everyone to spend together.
Again, really long post time for a cut.
The food and company was great, we took a few pictures. Jena and I had secretly invited a few Workjuice people, but other jobs and relatives visiting had kept them from being able to come. When we were all in the process of settling up checks, a waitress came over and told me that "Some guy named Mark Gagliardi called, and he and another guy named Hal are sending over a bottle of champagne."
So that was awesome. We took a big group pic with our champagne, and then said goodbye to the non-housemates of TAHrch. Everyone was really touched by that gesture from them, and enjoyed our champagne a lot. :)
Brunch had lasted a few hours, so we made it back to the house and most of us were just... ready to relax. Christy also left at that point and drove home, since she's only 2 hours away. I think Sarah and the Maddies went out for a bit? Can't remember. Jamie and Dani went to a Korra fanart exhibit, also. Most of the rest of us went for a swim and then a dip in the hot tub, which we hadn't used up to that point. We also watched some Brooklyn Nine Nine (because Marc is in it) and some other stuff on the TV.
Once we were all back at the house, we spent about a half an hour doing most of the bits of cleaning we need to do per our rental agreement. Once that was done, we decided it was time to watc the TAH concert film, which some of us had picked up at the show the night before. We all sat together in the living room and watched it, and then sang along. Also, for some reason our TV was in black and white, and I troubleshot the heck out of it but couldn't figure it out. Also, Anna went to a recording of Harmontown that night.
After watching the film once, Brooklyn Nine Nine was on, like a new episode, so we watched that, and then back to the concert film. Hilariously, once we tuned to live TV, the TV went back into color for the rest of the evening, including back to the DVD player. We watched all the extras, and then the actor commentary track. Also we ordered some Chinese food for dinner, and did our very best at finishing off a bunch of the mounds of junk food we still had in the house, haha.
Sarah, Michael and the Maddies went to In-N-Out, I took a quick nap and about half the house went to sleep after the Beyond Belief commentary was done. Kate then IM'd me and told me to come back out to the living room and wait for the new TAH ep to drop with her, so we sat in the living room together and waited, me constantly refreshing my phone until the new ep showed up.
After gaping wordlessly at my phone, I showed it to Kate, and when we both realized we were about to listen to an entire episode of Jib Janneen, we made a few inhuman noises, then mashed play on the episode. We got through the theme song when the In-N-Out group returned. Michael left after that to drive home, I think, and Sarah, Maddie, Maddie, Kate and I plus Dani piled into the Maddie's bedroom, sat in a circle on the bed, and nearly died laughing together listening to the episode.
After it was over, we all agreed that waiting up to hear it together and having that be like, the last big thing we did as a part of the group was like, perfect.
In the morning, Dani took Maddie S. to the airport, as her flight left really early. The rest of us had time to have a sort of relaxing morning. I put the concert film back on to lift our spirits as we did our last bits of packing and cleaning. We divided up the remaining non-perishable food, went over our checklist, oh and I found the set of keys that had been missing for like 18 hours in the bottom corner of my purse. Oops. Luckily we had 2 sets so we weren't locked out or anything. Also, our resident artist, Anna, drew a picture of Jib Janeen in the house guestbook to baffle and delight all future residents of the home.
So right when we were all like "Yeah, we're ready to go, it's time to go," the concert film started playing "Poor Me, Pour Me Another" We all sat on the couch together, arms around each other, and sang along together. There were some misty eyes.
We'd been planning this weekend, really, for a year. It'd been kind of a "Hey we should do a thing like this" between Jena and me and a few others since the previous March or so, I remember telling Christy when I went to visit her in April. And then we REALLY started planning it in like October of last year. Jena and I spent many hours on IM planning things, handling the money stuff, communicating with the group and doing all the fiddly bits to get so many people moving the same direction.
Then Jena, Dani, Keri and Christy all were super generous with their cars and driving us around (especially Dani). And it cost everyone quite a bit of money (but the house wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, split 10 wasy it was pretty reasonable.) Everyone in the house, and all of the other TAHrchers got along SO WELL. Like, we were all basically immediately friends, even those that didn't know each other very well before all of this. It was just an amazing feeling of community and almost family-like the entire time.
Everyone agreed that it was just one of the best vacations any of us had ever taken (and I've had some pretty great ones), none of us wanted it to end, and we all want to do it again next year. I would gladly do all that work again to be with this group of people at least once a year.
Also, since TAH is such a competitively small fandom, for most of us we don't have someone around IRL we can just say stupid TAH-related jokes and references to all the time, and it was like, everyone being together and speaking the same language. I feel like we crammed a lot of activities into the weekend and just enough relaxing to also make it feel like a vacation. The house was a perfect size for 10 (and sometimes 11) people to live and sleep in. Adding in the pool and hot tub and big living room, it didn't feel like we needed anything else but what we had.
So yeah, leaving was sad. Especially with Dani losing a favorite earring somehow. :(
Dani drove Anna and I to the airport. Getting onto the flight wasn't so fun, like, I guess the AC was broken in the terminal? IDK. The flight was completely full, but the lady in the seat next to me was nice. Took seemingly forever for our bags to come out, but they did, and $75 at the parking garage later, after 5 nights, I was home, and all was well.
