My Dragon*Con Adventure ...
Okay, so it wasn't quite an adventure, more a couple of days surrounded by sci-fi/fantasy fandom wrapped around a day at home being sick as a dog. Oh fun.
My first Dragon*Con was fun. On Friday (day one), we went to the Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk panel. They were both very funny and comfortable talking to a full ballroom's worth of people. The audience members were able to ask questions and one girl sang her question -- Helping Hand. The girl was nervous but it was a lovely moment because Nathan was so gracious about it. :D Another girl asked about his hammer of course -- and he and Alan made jokes about that calling it a peepee. Nathan commented that he believed she was trying to get him to show them his "peepee." Personally, I think he was wrong, I think she really just wanted him to say "The hammer is my penis." Which he did not say. Damnit. Ah well.
The two funniest moments for me were courtesy of each of them separately. First, Alan was asked about his experience about something (hell if I remember now) and he responded by saying that he would quote his last line in Serenity. I, and am sure many others based on a few murmurings I heard expected: "I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar." Instead, he made the death gurgle sound. The ballroom roared. LOL! Speaking of that ballroom ... initially, we were supposed to be in a smaller room, but the line was so long, they gave us (well, Nathan and Alan) a whole ballroom to fill! And we did!!
The other, too funny moment was towards the end when Nathan pretended to notice the large screens on either side of the front of the ballroom projecting their image to those in the back. He paused, squinted his eyes and then began fixing his hair, doing manly poses, etc. It was hysterical!!!!
Not surprisingly, Nathan and Alan's line at the Walk of Fame (a time period during the whole Con for a couple of hours a day where a ballroom was set up with tables/names for the actors so that fans could walk up, say a few words, buy pictures, autographs, take pics with them, etc.) was THE longest. James Marsters was their own competition. (Sorry, Laura, I never saw him.)
Next, I went to an X-Files movie panel. No big name there, but the fan running it did get this guy who's working on the "definitive" complete X-Files book and did interviews with cast/crew and spoke to Chris Carter for a few hours. It's a good thing he was there, because it would have been LAAAME had he not been. The fan running it in a non-shipper and didn't like the movie. *SIGH* Fortunately, writer guest DID like the movie AND confirmed something I've long believed: Chris Carter is the world's biggest shipper. HAH!!! Loved that.
Then, I met up with my sister and we went to another ballroom venue -- the Battlestar Galactica one. (I know I don't watch it anymore, but I did love it once upon a time and I still love James Callis!!) Tahmoh Penikett (Helo), Edward James Olmos (Adm. Adama), Michael Hogan (Tigh), Aaron Douglas (Chief Tyrol), James Callis (Gaius Baltar)!!!, the technical advisor, and a guy who will be a big character next season were there. That panel was enjoyable too, but not as funny as Nathan/Alan. Olmos received a standing ovation when he walked in (apparently this was his first con ever, so that was neat) and Michael Hogan got a love, and I mean a LOT of love from the crowd. I had no idea he was that popular, but he is! Aaron Douglas was hilarious; he kept telling jokes and interrupting the other panelist's comments. And then there was the dreamy James Callis. I must admit each and every time he spoke, I melted in my chair. I just adore him. ♥
Later I went to the Dr. Horrible's Sing-along-Blog show, and that turned out to be a lot more fun that I anticipated. There was a huge screen on one side of the stage; actors were on the other side playing out the parts and lip-syncing. The majority of us knew the songs by heart so it was great fun, hundreds of us singing at the top of our lungs. :-) The only sad thing was the ballroom was packed and I'm sure some people were not allowed in. :( Really lame in the set-up because they had only one showing of DH, but THREE of Buffy's "Once More With Feeling," you know, a show that aired a gazillion years ago, as opposed to DH which aired a few months ago!!!
After dinner I went to the Buffy Horror Picture Show and that was also quite fun! Like the Dr. Horrible show, actors were on stage playing the parts we saw on the screen, and we sang along and shouted rude things at the screen like "Shut up, Dawn!" every time the girl opened her mouth. Someone held up cue cards for us, like when Spike appeared, the card read: Not really British. Then when Giles appeared: Really British. Or during the first Willow/Tara scene: How I "met" your mother. They did have the "Shut up, Dawn!" cue card, but honestly, I rather think that one would have happened on its own.
I tried to see if my anti-Buffy/Spike penchant would have disappeared by now (I do think that SMG and JM have chemistry), but nope, when the ending came, I still cringed and shook my head because, I'm sorry, I don't care WHAT happened to Buffy ... in character, the Buffy that Joss created and wrote would NEVER turn to Spike! SPIKE!?!?!? Of course, by the time this rolled around, Joss was only peripherally involved with the show and Marni Noxin had turned it into a bad fanfic. Ah well.
The best part of it was after it was over. I met up with musing_mia after knowing each other through phone/online for about two years it was great meeting in person. We spent barely any time together, but it was still so, so nice putting a face to a name. I hope we can meet up again before next year. :Waves: Hi, Mia!!!
By then it was 11:30pm and I went with a friend to the adult fan fiction panel. Not just "adult" fanfiction, though, but SLASH fanfiction. Hah!! It was HILARIOUS watching people walk out one by one as the talk from the panel descended into favorite kinks. Hee hee! It was a shame about how it was run because it COULD have been interesting (even with me not being all that into slash, friend is, I was just tagging along as I'm not opposed to slash. I've even read some), alas, the people running it basically just made it a laughing, friendly discussion among the four/five of them on the panel with those of us in the audience just listening in. Very lame. Especially since the main panel person was kinda annoying. Ah well.
That was it, we drove home and I was getting a migraine/nauseous, fun, fun. Then came Saturday, still sick, still migraine-y and nauseous, so I stayed in bed most of the day feeling miserable. Sigh. Sunday, I felt better which was great because my sister had taken a picture with James Callis at the Walk of Fame on Saturday, and I wanted to as well! Plus, the one Doctor Who thing I was looking forward to was that afternoon at 2:30.
It was funny because I wasn't expecting a crowd as there were no names at the panel, just fans. So I get there and there's a line ... and I ask: It's for Who. I'm surprised. My sister goes ahead to see how far the line is. More people walk up and ask: It's for Who, we say. They are surprised. This goes on for another twenty minutes as the line (already quite long as confirmed by sis) grows and grows and grows. Eventually, they try and fit us in this dinky room. AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. Still, I'm having a blast already because miraculously I wound up near the front and there are all these Who in-jokes being bandied about and it's fabulous. Soon after, they move us to a ballroom, which we mostly fill. It was AWESOME to see how popular (and clearly, unexpectedly) that Who was. Woohoo!!! So, I sat down, we all got ready, the panel started and ...
... it was a TOTAL bummer!! Although, admittedly, there was one really cool thing. One guy was dressed in Ten's brown suit, coat and trainers and had Tennant's build and sorta overall look. And the hair? Looked JUST like Ten's in series four. JUST LIKE IT!!! That was cool. The only cool thing. In fact, I actually walked out after about twenty minutes because the panel were subtly dissing on Russell T. Davies left and right and praising the hell out of Stephen Moffat (and, of course, threw in some mild Rose dissing as well). As well as rewriting character history of the show.
According to them, Donna was the ONLY companion to ever actually do anything other than fawn over the Doctor in new Who, Donna was the ONLY companion who told the Doctor no and disagreed with him. I just sat there, getting more uncomfortable because Who fans or not, I clearly didn't fit in with the ideas of this panel. (A) I love Russell T. Davies. (B) I'm worried as hell about what Moffat is going to do to my beloved show. And (C) Rewriting character history here, people. I'm rewatching all of the Rose-related episodes and am at 1x07 ("The Long Game") and trust me, Rose argues with the Doctor, Rose tells him 'No,' and Rose certainly DOES things to solve situations. And I may not be as up on the Martha episodes, but I know she did more than just fawn over the Doctor. Sure she fawned, but she came up with stuff too, she proved her worth as well. Now don't get me wrong, I love Donna, but the trashing of the other characters and Russell's writing just pissed me off. It didn't help that they started talking about how the show would be tighter, with better scripts and the show would be SO awesome under Moffat, dismissing all that Russell had put into it the last four years. Whatever. Finally, I just got out of there because I was frankly kinda disgusted.
I wanted to get up and say: 'You know the fact that there's SUCH a huge fandom for Who right now? The reason that there are SO MANY WOMEN in this fandom now is because of what Russell T. Davies brought to the show ... the characterization, the character arcs, the love story of the Doctor and Rose. You know the stuff that your precious Moffat SPITS all over!?!?' Gah, I was just ... it was infuriating. So, I walked out.
Ugh.
But goodness soon followed. I spoke with Gigi Edgley (Chiana) and Virginia Hey (Zhaan) of Farscape. I basically told Edgley how much I adored the show, it was the best overall show I'd ever watched. The cast -- including her, the crew, the writing, the direction, top notch. I adored it all. She was quite pretty and so petite in person. And then there was Virginia Hey. I'd long gotten over my gushing stage about Farscape when I started on lj. I know I've mentioned how awesome I find it here and there, but no current-fandom-obsession gushing, but do know that of all of the things I loved about that show, Zhaan was my favorite. I ADORED Zhaan. One of my favorite characters EVER!!!!!!!!! I told Hey this and believe me when I say that the spirit, the serenity, that beauty that infused Zhaan totally came from Hey. Because I stood right in front of it, heard it, felt it in her. It was awesome. She was so beautiful, strikingly so (later on, my sister got a glimpse of her and her jaw dropped!) and was just lovely to speak with. She also told me that when she told one of the producers about her illness (the make-up was causing her kidneys to fail, that's why she left), she was told that it didn't matter, they'd just slap make-up on a different actress and the fans wouldn't notice. AS IF!!!!!!!!!! Fortunately, higher up producers were like, uhm, no. So thank goodness for that!!!
And then, and then, and then ... I got to meet James Callis!!! I told him he was dreamy (he is!) and a brilliant actor, Gaius is my favorite character (he was when I watched it) and he was just such a lovely, lovely fellow to speak with. I took my picture with him, and I was going to put it up but while he looks dreamy as can be, I feel I look rather hideous, so, uhm, yeah, no. Suffice it to say it was a great moment standing so close because he. is. dreamy. And either a truly genuine individual, or a much, much better actor than Hayden Panettiere.
I know. Of course he is. But still, this was bad. So I'm walking by and there's no one in her line and I think, okay. I wanted to tell her that I watched her as a child on Guiding Light and she was one of the best children actresses I'd ever seen (she was!!!) and that I'd actually followed her career because of that, watched Heroes because of her work on GL. I walk up and am ushered to a beefy guy sitting next to her. He asks brusquely, "want an autograph?" And I said, no, just talk. He nods and then says sharply, "make it quick." Somehow I resisted glancing over my shoulder to look at the non-existent line. So I stepped up to her, shook her hand (she held it out) and basically said what I wrote above, she said "Thank you" during the pauses. It was about a minute. I walked away, looked at my sister and said: "Could she have sounded any faker?" My sister, paused, thought about it and said: "Nope."
I'll just say I'm glad that I'm not a fan of hers. I like her, but I'm not a *fan* -- good thing too, because that would have been painfully embarrassing and depressing otherwise. Still, I will say that she DID look exhausted, but come on, she's an actress. Whether she wants to be there or not, it's in her contract. Do better than that. Oh well.
We went to a few podcast panels after that (my sis's friend is a podcaster) and that was it. We went home. It was fun, I enjoyed it and I found out that it's fairly easy to set up a panel, so maybe, just maybe I'll set up an Who-RTD-loving, Doctor/Rose panel next year. Woohoo!
And that was my first Dragon*Con experience.
My first Dragon*Con was fun. On Friday (day one), we went to the Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk panel. They were both very funny and comfortable talking to a full ballroom's worth of people. The audience members were able to ask questions and one girl sang her question -- Helping Hand. The girl was nervous but it was a lovely moment because Nathan was so gracious about it. :D Another girl asked about his hammer of course -- and he and Alan made jokes about that calling it a peepee. Nathan commented that he believed she was trying to get him to show them his "peepee." Personally, I think he was wrong, I think she really just wanted him to say "The hammer is my penis." Which he did not say. Damnit. Ah well.
The two funniest moments for me were courtesy of each of them separately. First, Alan was asked about his experience about something (hell if I remember now) and he responded by saying that he would quote his last line in Serenity. I, and am sure many others based on a few murmurings I heard expected: "I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar." Instead, he made the death gurgle sound. The ballroom roared. LOL! Speaking of that ballroom ... initially, we were supposed to be in a smaller room, but the line was so long, they gave us (well, Nathan and Alan) a whole ballroom to fill! And we did!!
The other, too funny moment was towards the end when Nathan pretended to notice the large screens on either side of the front of the ballroom projecting their image to those in the back. He paused, squinted his eyes and then began fixing his hair, doing manly poses, etc. It was hysterical!!!!
Not surprisingly, Nathan and Alan's line at the Walk of Fame (a time period during the whole Con for a couple of hours a day where a ballroom was set up with tables/names for the actors so that fans could walk up, say a few words, buy pictures, autographs, take pics with them, etc.) was THE longest. James Marsters was their own competition. (Sorry, Laura, I never saw him.)
Next, I went to an X-Files movie panel. No big name there, but the fan running it did get this guy who's working on the "definitive" complete X-Files book and did interviews with cast/crew and spoke to Chris Carter for a few hours. It's a good thing he was there, because it would have been LAAAME had he not been. The fan running it in a non-shipper and didn't like the movie. *SIGH* Fortunately, writer guest DID like the movie AND confirmed something I've long believed: Chris Carter is the world's biggest shipper. HAH!!! Loved that.
Then, I met up with my sister and we went to another ballroom venue -- the Battlestar Galactica one. (I know I don't watch it anymore, but I did love it once upon a time and I still love James Callis!!) Tahmoh Penikett (Helo), Edward James Olmos (Adm. Adama), Michael Hogan (Tigh), Aaron Douglas (Chief Tyrol), James Callis (Gaius Baltar)!!!, the technical advisor, and a guy who will be a big character next season were there. That panel was enjoyable too, but not as funny as Nathan/Alan. Olmos received a standing ovation when he walked in (apparently this was his first con ever, so that was neat) and Michael Hogan got a love, and I mean a LOT of love from the crowd. I had no idea he was that popular, but he is! Aaron Douglas was hilarious; he kept telling jokes and interrupting the other panelist's comments. And then there was the dreamy James Callis. I must admit each and every time he spoke, I melted in my chair. I just adore him. ♥
Later I went to the Dr. Horrible's Sing-along-Blog show, and that turned out to be a lot more fun that I anticipated. There was a huge screen on one side of the stage; actors were on the other side playing out the parts and lip-syncing. The majority of us knew the songs by heart so it was great fun, hundreds of us singing at the top of our lungs. :-) The only sad thing was the ballroom was packed and I'm sure some people were not allowed in. :( Really lame in the set-up because they had only one showing of DH, but THREE of Buffy's "Once More With Feeling," you know, a show that aired a gazillion years ago, as opposed to DH which aired a few months ago!!!
After dinner I went to the Buffy Horror Picture Show and that was also quite fun! Like the Dr. Horrible show, actors were on stage playing the parts we saw on the screen, and we sang along and shouted rude things at the screen like "Shut up, Dawn!" every time the girl opened her mouth. Someone held up cue cards for us, like when Spike appeared, the card read: Not really British. Then when Giles appeared: Really British. Or during the first Willow/Tara scene: How I "met" your mother. They did have the "Shut up, Dawn!" cue card, but honestly, I rather think that one would have happened on its own.
I tried to see if my anti-Buffy/Spike penchant would have disappeared by now (I do think that SMG and JM have chemistry), but nope, when the ending came, I still cringed and shook my head because, I'm sorry, I don't care WHAT happened to Buffy ... in character, the Buffy that Joss created and wrote would NEVER turn to Spike! SPIKE!?!?!? Of course, by the time this rolled around, Joss was only peripherally involved with the show and Marni Noxin had turned it into a bad fanfic. Ah well.
The best part of it was after it was over. I met up with musing_mia after knowing each other through phone/online for about two years it was great meeting in person. We spent barely any time together, but it was still so, so nice putting a face to a name. I hope we can meet up again before next year. :Waves: Hi, Mia!!!
By then it was 11:30pm and I went with a friend to the adult fan fiction panel. Not just "adult" fanfiction, though, but SLASH fanfiction. Hah!! It was HILARIOUS watching people walk out one by one as the talk from the panel descended into favorite kinks. Hee hee! It was a shame about how it was run because it COULD have been interesting (even with me not being all that into slash, friend is, I was just tagging along as I'm not opposed to slash. I've even read some), alas, the people running it basically just made it a laughing, friendly discussion among the four/five of them on the panel with those of us in the audience just listening in. Very lame. Especially since the main panel person was kinda annoying. Ah well.
That was it, we drove home and I was getting a migraine/nauseous, fun, fun. Then came Saturday, still sick, still migraine-y and nauseous, so I stayed in bed most of the day feeling miserable. Sigh. Sunday, I felt better which was great because my sister had taken a picture with James Callis at the Walk of Fame on Saturday, and I wanted to as well! Plus, the one Doctor Who thing I was looking forward to was that afternoon at 2:30.
It was funny because I wasn't expecting a crowd as there were no names at the panel, just fans. So I get there and there's a line ... and I ask: It's for Who. I'm surprised. My sister goes ahead to see how far the line is. More people walk up and ask: It's for Who, we say. They are surprised. This goes on for another twenty minutes as the line (already quite long as confirmed by sis) grows and grows and grows. Eventually, they try and fit us in this dinky room. AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. Still, I'm having a blast already because miraculously I wound up near the front and there are all these Who in-jokes being bandied about and it's fabulous. Soon after, they move us to a ballroom, which we mostly fill. It was AWESOME to see how popular (and clearly, unexpectedly) that Who was. Woohoo!!! So, I sat down, we all got ready, the panel started and ...
... it was a TOTAL bummer!! Although, admittedly, there was one really cool thing. One guy was dressed in Ten's brown suit, coat and trainers and had Tennant's build and sorta overall look. And the hair? Looked JUST like Ten's in series four. JUST LIKE IT!!! That was cool. The only cool thing. In fact, I actually walked out after about twenty minutes because the panel were subtly dissing on Russell T. Davies left and right and praising the hell out of Stephen Moffat (and, of course, threw in some mild Rose dissing as well). As well as rewriting character history of the show.
According to them, Donna was the ONLY companion to ever actually do anything other than fawn over the Doctor in new Who, Donna was the ONLY companion who told the Doctor no and disagreed with him. I just sat there, getting more uncomfortable because Who fans or not, I clearly didn't fit in with the ideas of this panel. (A) I love Russell T. Davies. (B) I'm worried as hell about what Moffat is going to do to my beloved show. And (C) Rewriting character history here, people. I'm rewatching all of the Rose-related episodes and am at 1x07 ("The Long Game") and trust me, Rose argues with the Doctor, Rose tells him 'No,' and Rose certainly DOES things to solve situations. And I may not be as up on the Martha episodes, but I know she did more than just fawn over the Doctor. Sure she fawned, but she came up with stuff too, she proved her worth as well. Now don't get me wrong, I love Donna, but the trashing of the other characters and Russell's writing just pissed me off. It didn't help that they started talking about how the show would be tighter, with better scripts and the show would be SO awesome under Moffat, dismissing all that Russell had put into it the last four years. Whatever. Finally, I just got out of there because I was frankly kinda disgusted.
I wanted to get up and say: 'You know the fact that there's SUCH a huge fandom for Who right now? The reason that there are SO MANY WOMEN in this fandom now is because of what Russell T. Davies brought to the show ... the characterization, the character arcs, the love story of the Doctor and Rose. You know the stuff that your precious Moffat SPITS all over!?!?' Gah, I was just ... it was infuriating. So, I walked out.
Ugh.
But goodness soon followed. I spoke with Gigi Edgley (Chiana) and Virginia Hey (Zhaan) of Farscape. I basically told Edgley how much I adored the show, it was the best overall show I'd ever watched. The cast -- including her, the crew, the writing, the direction, top notch. I adored it all. She was quite pretty and so petite in person. And then there was Virginia Hey. I'd long gotten over my gushing stage about Farscape when I started on lj. I know I've mentioned how awesome I find it here and there, but no current-fandom-obsession gushing, but do know that of all of the things I loved about that show, Zhaan was my favorite. I ADORED Zhaan. One of my favorite characters EVER!!!!!!!!! I told Hey this and believe me when I say that the spirit, the serenity, that beauty that infused Zhaan totally came from Hey. Because I stood right in front of it, heard it, felt it in her. It was awesome. She was so beautiful, strikingly so (later on, my sister got a glimpse of her and her jaw dropped!) and was just lovely to speak with. She also told me that when she told one of the producers about her illness (the make-up was causing her kidneys to fail, that's why she left), she was told that it didn't matter, they'd just slap make-up on a different actress and the fans wouldn't notice. AS IF!!!!!!!!!! Fortunately, higher up producers were like, uhm, no. So thank goodness for that!!!
And then, and then, and then ... I got to meet James Callis!!! I told him he was dreamy (he is!) and a brilliant actor, Gaius is my favorite character (he was when I watched it) and he was just such a lovely, lovely fellow to speak with. I took my picture with him, and I was going to put it up but while he looks dreamy as can be, I feel I look rather hideous, so, uhm, yeah, no. Suffice it to say it was a great moment standing so close because he. is. dreamy. And either a truly genuine individual, or a much, much better actor than Hayden Panettiere.
I know. Of course he is. But still, this was bad. So I'm walking by and there's no one in her line and I think, okay. I wanted to tell her that I watched her as a child on Guiding Light and she was one of the best children actresses I'd ever seen (she was!!!) and that I'd actually followed her career because of that, watched Heroes because of her work on GL. I walk up and am ushered to a beefy guy sitting next to her. He asks brusquely, "want an autograph?" And I said, no, just talk. He nods and then says sharply, "make it quick." Somehow I resisted glancing over my shoulder to look at the non-existent line. So I stepped up to her, shook her hand (she held it out) and basically said what I wrote above, she said "Thank you" during the pauses. It was about a minute. I walked away, looked at my sister and said: "Could she have sounded any faker?" My sister, paused, thought about it and said: "Nope."
I'll just say I'm glad that I'm not a fan of hers. I like her, but I'm not a *fan* -- good thing too, because that would have been painfully embarrassing and depressing otherwise. Still, I will say that she DID look exhausted, but come on, she's an actress. Whether she wants to be there or not, it's in her contract. Do better than that. Oh well.
We went to a few podcast panels after that (my sis's friend is a podcaster) and that was it. We went home. It was fun, I enjoyed it and I found out that it's fairly easy to set up a panel, so maybe, just maybe I'll set up an Who-RTD-loving, Doctor/Rose panel next year. Woohoo!
And that was my first Dragon*Con experience.