Asylum 8
Happily, the hassles I had the morning of the con got resolved, and I managed to book into my hotel early so I didn't have to drag my suitcase around with me all afternoon. And when I went down to reception to order a taxi to the con, I found a pair of Mishamigos doing likewise, so we shared - and then hung out in the registration line, and swapped numbers, and taxi-pooled all weekend. This is what I love about cons, it may be nerve-wracking to turn up solo, but it takes all of five seconds to make friends! (Also, the taxi-pooling was a Godsend, because £6 fares four times a day soon mounts up if you're paying it alone!)
The panels on the first day were amazing. Actually, they were the best of the entire con; things kinda tailed off from there, and by the last afternoon, the panels were outright snoozeworthy. It was a huge con by UK standards - over 1,000 attendees and THIRTEEN guests - and I think a lot of people got really burned out. I was too busy flailing and overloading to make many notes from the talks, but what I have is:
To get the right level of Dean/Cas eye-fucking (and no, he didn't put it quite like that!), Misha imagined he was staring right into Dean's soul.
Misha was in a film with Mark Pell in 2003 called "Moving Alan", in which he apparently touches Mark's bare arse.
Misha, re: the Js trying to put him off/make him laugh during filming, "I don't resist any more, I just lie on my back and let them do whatever they want!" Jim, on the same subject: "You've heard Sebastian Roche talk, right? Well, Jared can approach those levels of... inelegance. And that cracks Misha up!"
Somebody showed Misha a Tumblr pic of himself on her iPhone that had a funny caption added, and he stared at it, and then asked why it had a shaved pussy as the background. I thought he was fucking with her at first, but no, she really did show Misha a pic of himself with a background of somebody's cunt. And the best of it was, SHE HADN'T EVEN REALIZED WHAT IT WAS, she just thought the caption was funny! Cue extreme mortification, and Misha cracking up over it for five minutes straight, because he is a Bad Man.
SO MANY DICK JOKES OMG. James Patrick Stuart was having SO much fun with that, how could we all not join in? (He was a good guest, and a good sport; he can come again...)
Spoilers were a huge thing this weekend, given that the finale was airing mid-con. The guests started off being careful about it - and Rogue made us howl by flashing up silly notices on the screens for spoilerish questions, "POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT" followed by "DEFO SPOILER ALERT". Then Mark Shep announced that 24 hours was quite long enough for a bunch of criminal fangirls like us to illegally download and watch the epi, and therefore Sunday would be open season on spoilers. Cue a mad scramble on Saturday afternoon and evening, with fangirls pissing off the hotel by camping out in the lobby (only free wifi spot in the Hilton) DLing to their laptops, and tons of fun finale parties in rooms! (I was obliged by the marvellous twigletmoo - thanks, hun!)
NAKED AND COVERED IN BEES! Dean has seen Cas naked! IT'S CANON!!!! *flails in glee*
DJ Qualls is hilarious, and a far more interesting guest than I was expecting. "Why do people think I'm a virgin? Please! I'm in the movies, of course I can get laid! ... are you over 18?"
Mark Pellegrino, standing on a table, surrounded by gleeful, baying fangirls, thrusting his pelvis as he belts out AC/DC's Big Balls? Is the most fun you can have with karaoke.
We were trying to teach various guests UK slang. They found "skint" particularly incomprehensible. Hell, there were bits of far-northern slang that even I found incomprehensible...!
Mark Shep is vociferously desperate to get on the next season of Sherlock. TOTAL Sherlock fanboy. He wants us all to campaign on his behalf. Also, he seems to have a bit of a tea-and-HobNobs habit, which we were happy to help him with. Can't have him withdrawing midcon, can we?
Kim told us a fantastic story about some douchebag linebacker trying to get in her pants at a party. She kept saying "I am not gonna sleep with you", but he persisted. She told him she had her period, and had a boyfriend, and he still persisted. So she went to the bathroom and removed her bloody tampon, went back to him, and slapped it into his palm, "Really. I am NOT gonna sleep with you." *gigglesnort* Kim was awesome all weekend!
Misha (upon being given a pineapple flavoured lolly): "I drink pineapple juice - it makes my semen taste better!"
In terms of socializing, I had a wonderful, wonderful time. I hung out with the Mishamigos on and off all weekend, including a gleeful session of bouncing around the dancefloor on Saturday night to the likes of Eye of the Tiger, Wayward Son, Highway to Hell, Born under a Bad Sign; you know, the perfect SPN fangirl medley they always play at cons. I met river_rat_grrl, who was very cute and a touch nonplussed at suddenly being only one amongst many pink-haired fangirls. There was hanging out and finale-watching with twigletmoo. My copy of the finale on USB was kindly provided via enchantersnight and littlehollyleaf, who I sadly did not manage to hang out with otherwise (but let it be known that littlehollyleaf has a Really Sexy Voice OMG, and should be made to record lots of pornalicious podfics for the benefit of all fandom). I spent some time chatting in the autograph line with Trudy, who I know from various Steve Carlson gigs in London.
On Saturday night there was chatting and cake consumption in the bar with baker extraordinaire majestic_shriek, and a brief introduction to akadougal. Oh, and a slightly hilarious-but-embarrassing moment where I got a text from xarixian that she was in the bar and said to majestic_shriek, "xarixian is here, I need to keep an eye out for her", and majestic_shriek said "She's sitting right next to you...?" Errr, oops. In my defence, we were facing away from each other, and her hair was a different cut and colour from last time we met, but awkward. We'd been sat there texting each other from six inches away! *facepalm*
I also spent enjoyably long chunks of time hanging out with vamous, who I know from lazy_daze's fangirl meet in January. We spent all of Friday night in the bar getting blitzed together and talking, talking, talking, and most of Sunday doing panels together and having lunch in the bar. We get on so very well, and it was marvellous!
And then we come to the more personal guest-related stuff. I don't do photo sessions, and Misha's coffee lounges were out of my price range this time; I was gonna do a Mark Shep coffee lounge, but on Friday I was in no fit state to brave the Queue of Doom for a ticket and when I got there on Saturday morning they'd sold out - so I really only had any interaction in the autograph sessions. I flirted appallingly with Mark Pell and Steven Williams (who is quite unreasonably hot for a guy his age). I told Kim she's an inspiration for hot 40-something cougars everywhere, and she laughed and winked at me. I admired Matt's designer-stubble-heading-for-a-full-beard, and he told me it was 'cause he'd plugged his shaver in without the adapter - at AE3 the week before, I think - and it had blown up (European voltage is higher than US).
And then there was Misha.
I'd... uh... I have these must-do-now ideas that come over me for very little reason, sometimes. And on Thursday I'd been reading Vicki's PhD thesis on my Kindle and also working on a crochet necklace, which I finished, and that somehow combined in my brain into, "I love her writing, and I want to give her this necklace!" So I put it into a little gift bag and took it to the con with me. And my Misha autograph went thus:
Misha: *polite smile, friendly greeting*
Misha: *scribbles autograph*
Me: Is Vicki here with you?
Misha: *flicks a glance up at me* No, she isn't.
Me: I wonder if you could pass this on to her, please? *gives him giftbag* It's a token of appreciation for her writing.
His head whipped up so fast it musta cricked his neck, and OMFG, I got one of those smiles. You know that glorious smile he has that lights him up from the inside, like the sun coming out for the hottest day on record? Yeah, that one. I DON'T EVEN. THERE ARE NO WORDS TO EXPRESS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE THE FOCUS OF A SMILE LIKE THAT. HOW IS THERE ANYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD WHO IS NOT IN LOVE WITH THIS MAN??? And he thrust his hand out at me like a boss, not gonna take no for an answer, and shook mine enthusiastically, AND OMG I FINALLY GET WHY EVERYBODY IS SO OBSESSED WITH HIS HANDS; STRONG AS HELL, AND THOSE LONG CLEVER FINGERS, UNF. I grinned back at him like a fool and stuttered out some thanks, and then staggered off on wobbly knees and had no working brain for several hours afterwards. Yes, when it comes to Misha in the flesh, I am thirteen years old.
I think it's utterly adorable that he reacted so strongly because I made a gift for his wife. His love for her is deep and beautiful, and I ship the pair of them so fucking hard (with plenty of other people too, of course, but the best thing ever? With them, threesomes are canon). Misha + Vicki &hearts forever. Thirteen, and I don't care.
The panels on the first day were amazing. Actually, they were the best of the entire con; things kinda tailed off from there, and by the last afternoon, the panels were outright snoozeworthy. It was a huge con by UK standards - over 1,000 attendees and THIRTEEN guests - and I think a lot of people got really burned out. I was too busy flailing and overloading to make many notes from the talks, but what I have is:
In terms of socializing, I had a wonderful, wonderful time. I hung out with the Mishamigos on and off all weekend, including a gleeful session of bouncing around the dancefloor on Saturday night to the likes of Eye of the Tiger, Wayward Son, Highway to Hell, Born under a Bad Sign; you know, the perfect SPN fangirl medley they always play at cons. I met river_rat_grrl, who was very cute and a touch nonplussed at suddenly being only one amongst many pink-haired fangirls. There was hanging out and finale-watching with twigletmoo. My copy of the finale on USB was kindly provided via enchantersnight and littlehollyleaf, who I sadly did not manage to hang out with otherwise (but let it be known that littlehollyleaf has a Really Sexy Voice OMG, and should be made to record lots of pornalicious podfics for the benefit of all fandom). I spent some time chatting in the autograph line with Trudy, who I know from various Steve Carlson gigs in London.
On Saturday night there was chatting and cake consumption in the bar with baker extraordinaire majestic_shriek, and a brief introduction to akadougal. Oh, and a slightly hilarious-but-embarrassing moment where I got a text from xarixian that she was in the bar and said to majestic_shriek, "xarixian is here, I need to keep an eye out for her", and majestic_shriek said "She's sitting right next to you...?" Errr, oops. In my defence, we were facing away from each other, and her hair was a different cut and colour from last time we met, but awkward. We'd been sat there texting each other from six inches away! *facepalm*
I also spent enjoyably long chunks of time hanging out with vamous, who I know from lazy_daze's fangirl meet in January. We spent all of Friday night in the bar getting blitzed together and talking, talking, talking, and most of Sunday doing panels together and having lunch in the bar. We get on so very well, and it was marvellous!
And then we come to the more personal guest-related stuff. I don't do photo sessions, and Misha's coffee lounges were out of my price range this time; I was gonna do a Mark Shep coffee lounge, but on Friday I was in no fit state to brave the Queue of Doom for a ticket and when I got there on Saturday morning they'd sold out - so I really only had any interaction in the autograph sessions. I flirted appallingly with Mark Pell and Steven Williams (who is quite unreasonably hot for a guy his age). I told Kim she's an inspiration for hot 40-something cougars everywhere, and she laughed and winked at me. I admired Matt's designer-stubble-heading-for-a-full-beard, and he told me it was 'cause he'd plugged his shaver in without the adapter - at AE3 the week before, I think - and it had blown up (European voltage is higher than US).
And then there was Misha.
I'd... uh... I have these must-do-now ideas that come over me for very little reason, sometimes. And on Thursday I'd been reading Vicki's PhD thesis on my Kindle and also working on a crochet necklace, which I finished, and that somehow combined in my brain into, "I love her writing, and I want to give her this necklace!" So I put it into a little gift bag and took it to the con with me. And my Misha autograph went thus:
Misha: *polite smile, friendly greeting*
Misha: *scribbles autograph*
Me: Is Vicki here with you?
Misha: *flicks a glance up at me* No, she isn't.
Me: I wonder if you could pass this on to her, please? *gives him giftbag* It's a token of appreciation for her writing.
His head whipped up so fast it musta cricked his neck, and OMFG, I got one of those smiles. You know that glorious smile he has that lights him up from the inside, like the sun coming out for the hottest day on record? Yeah, that one. I DON'T EVEN. THERE ARE NO WORDS TO EXPRESS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE THE FOCUS OF A SMILE LIKE THAT. HOW IS THERE ANYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD WHO IS NOT IN LOVE WITH THIS MAN??? And he thrust his hand out at me like a boss, not gonna take no for an answer, and shook mine enthusiastically, AND OMG I FINALLY GET WHY EVERYBODY IS SO OBSESSED WITH HIS HANDS; STRONG AS HELL, AND THOSE LONG CLEVER FINGERS, UNF. I grinned back at him like a fool and stuttered out some thanks, and then staggered off on wobbly knees and had no working brain for several hours afterwards. Yes, when it comes to Misha in the flesh, I am thirteen years old.
I think it's utterly adorable that he reacted so strongly because I made a gift for his wife. His love for her is deep and beautiful, and I ship the pair of them so fucking hard (with plenty of other people too, of course, but the best thing ever? With them, threesomes are canon). Misha + Vicki &hearts forever. Thirteen, and I don't care.