All Hell Breaks Loose 3
Wow. My first topic-specific convention. Before the con, I was disappointed that it was only a one day affair. In retrospect, a weekend con may have killed me. There were some great moments and some shitty moments, though I'm going to do my best to focus on the good here. A lot of the things that I didn't like had to do with small-sih quibbles with Hub staff - like, at the opening ceremony I felt that the emcee was talking to us like we were a bunch of naughty seven year olds who were this close to getting a smack, but still had to be talked to with big smiles so there wouldn't be tears and tantrums from us. Maybe that was accurate, maybe some stuff went down at the Sydney con the day before that gave context to her attitude. However, I don't like being patronised at the best of times, and I certainly don't appreciate it from a glorified customer service rep who has received about a thousand dollars from me in exchange for one single good day. Okay, that's my rant done. On to the good stuff :)
Registration and photos took forever, which was a bit of a pain but at least it meant that a lot of attention was going into making sure that everyone got their photos and their seats. As a VIP, I had two photos, five autographs , and the evening function as part of m bundle. We were allocated who we had photos with, which some people were understandably miffed about as the ticket description did not include that important nugget of info until after the guest were confirmed (which was this past week, which meant that people had had their tickets for MONTHS before learning of this catch), but as Richard Speight Jr was the one person I definitely wanted a photo with, and was one of the people allocated to us VIPs, I wasn't exactly upset by the turn out. I gotta say, Richard is a photo-taking pro. When it was my turn he said hello and then grinned at my Mystery Spot t-shirt and complimented it. It had just enough time to mumble "'s my fav'rit ep'sde" in my tiny fangirl voice before he put his arm around me like it was totally normal, which meant that I was angled just right for the photo. Richard is warm in personality and warm in body heat. He smiles nice, he has the bestest smile, and his hair is amazing. I'll admit, I was a little giddy. I thanked him, and told him it was a pleasure, and stumbled back to the auditorium (I think).
The other allocated photo for the VIPs was Traci Dinwiddie. Since the BFF was with me, and since neither of us like having our photos taken (meaning there is a sad lack of photos of us together), I asked if she wanted to jump into my shot with Traci. So we had two photos of the two of us + Traci, and they’re both a little ridiculous. The first time we were all ready to go, but the photographer yelled STOP! My glasses were showing some glare, so I was ordered to shove them right to the top of my nose. We barely had time to look back at the camera before the photo was taken, so Penny and I both have closed mouth smiles and kind of stunned looks on our faces. Then we were clearing out for the next people in line when, hey, we were reminded that we were down for two photos after all, so we jumped back in with some minor confusion over who went where, and the second photo has us both grinning at how silly we are. Traci herself is gorgeous, and handled the confusion like a pro. She's just a very calm, happy person, and when I said "It was nice meeting you," she smiled and said "You to". I really, really love polite people :D
We also forked out for a "hero sandwich" with Misha and Jim. I have so much love for Jim, which largely comes from him writing and publishing 'Life's That Way', which was a painful relief of a memoir to read. So I told Penny that she would have to stand next to Misha because I called dibs on Jim. Penny was all, "Oh, well if I HAVE to tolerate standing next to MISHA of all people..." She tolerated the arrangement like a pro. Jim had just finished his solo photos, and got tired of waiting for Misha so he lay down on the floor and pulled his cap over his eyes to have a nap. Misha spotted him, snuck over, planted his feet by Jim's upper arms... and proceeded to teabag him. Misha, you are fucking fourteen years old. Jim locked his hands together into a mega fist, and punched Misha in the balls. Omfg this cast. Misha then laughed and stepped around to help Jim up (with two hands outstretched, crossed at the wrist), which took two or three tugs to get him up of the ground. The first time I think Jim just yanked down on Misha's hands, because Misha nearly went sprawling. They were acting like such dorks.
During this time some episodes and past con panels were palying, and I met up with whit_merule for a quick chat. I was probably way less engaging than I should have been, but I was buzzing from photos and tired from no sleep the night before, and meeting new people has never been my strong point. I'm sorry if I was weird and awful! But it was nice to talk about fic in amongst all of the other fanishess, and apparently Whit had never seen an episode of SPN with other people in the room before. I know, that's totes weird, right? Sadly the sound for the vids was full of bass, making me a little uncomfortable and giving her a headache, so it wasn't the chillaxed rewatch of "Changing Channels" that it could have been. But it was good to have someone to text and chat to during the day who knows that I write about dicking. I'm not entirely sure why that was comforting. I was sitting amongst a cluster of people who had payed $850 for a ticket, two rows behind people who payed over a grand for theirs, but mentioning fanfic seemed like the abnormal, excessive thing? Idk. Anyway, it was lovely to meet you :)
Eventually, about 90 minutes behind schedule, the first panel started. I knew next to nothing about Traci before her panel, and I still know very little now, but she is a very sweet and mellow person. She talked a lot about the word paintings she did, and her recent foray into trapeze-ing, and how she got into drumming. She said that her different kinds of art and performance art were really important to her because, "When you let go of something that doesn't work, you need to replace it with something else. You can't just have that void." That's some pretty sound advice right there.
She talked a little about Pam and Show, of course. Someone asked her about how she felt about SPN's treatment of female characters, and she talked about the "poignant longing" and the protectiveness of the fanbase. She said (of the show) "It works for them to have this situation where we get our asses kicked" because you have these boys who have lost so much and have lost the important women in their lives through various means, so the people who love Sam and Dean will of course be wary of love interests because they don't want their boys to get hurt again. She went on to say that she thought that Pamela was safe from that mentality because, "Pamela's not there for the heart. The heartbeat, maybe. The sweat." Pam was unapologetically flirty and sexual, but she had no desire to claim Sam or Dean for her own, so she therefore held no emotional risk/threat. So, yeah, it was really cool to hear her talk about the meta of Pam and other females on the show. (Later, at the evening function, she also mentioned that she's read some Pam-centric fanfic. She said that - in fic - Pam was just a firecracker, and when it came to sex, Traci thought she could learn a few things from Pam. Traci is just... I think she's a Pam fan herself, which is truly awesome.)
Richard and Corin (who was the very last minute addition to the line up) shared the next panel. Beforehand, I was honestly cranky that this guy I knew nothing about was horning in on the panel of the one person I was most excited to see. But oh wow those two worked well together. They have a similar energy and easy humour about them. They both had an intro vid play on the big screens at the front of the room (and Corin's actually made me want to sit down and watch season six - it was the first time any of the Campbells had been presented to me as interesting characters). When they came in, Richard relayed the conversation they'd had while watching the intro vids. For Richard's, of course there was a clip of the Casa Erotica scene, and because neither knew much about the other's roles/episodes on the show...
Corin: What's the deal with the porn moustache?
Richard: I was doing a porno [that episode].
Corin: Oh... Okay.
Um. They talked a bit about pranks - Richard has never pranked or played a trick on anyone, but Corin is not only a master prankster, he takes delight in being super mean about it. He told the story of how one of his friends had a hot date, so he put a mix of olive out and salt on the guy's toilet seat - why? Because that mix can't be wiped off, apparently you have to actually shower, meaning that the next person who sat on the toilet (being the target) suddenly went from "I need to go to the bathroom, brb" to "oh shit showering now". He also pulled the sheets off the bed, covered the mattress with books, and re-made the bed so it was all hard and lumpy and weird for sexytimes. Richard was just kind of gaping at how thrilled Corin was with his jerktacular pranks, and chimed in with "Hey, you knows what's REALLY funny? Burning a person's house down, and then salting the earth so nothing can ever grow or live there again. HILARIOUS." And then Corin told us all the story of how he and a friend actually set a forest on fire this one time. And then Richard changed the topic XD
Oh! Corin mentioned that his dad works in set design/construction for movies, and has just wrapped on the latest Riddick instalment. His dad worked on The Goonies, designing and building the big cave where the treasure was. So when the film was over, Corin got a couple of the coins from One Eyed Willie's treasure. How freaking cool is that? Richard told a story where he almost got killed by Jared's dogs, and Corin replied with "I had a similar experience with a Klingon in Orlando," and then went to take the next question only to have Richard interrupt with "No no no! You don't get to drop that into conversation without telling us the whole story." I won't recount it here, because it's a long and elaborate Klingon experience. Hopefully it gets up on youtube, and it not, well - you know what to ask him about if you ever see him at a con ;)
They also talked about their characters (Q: Could Gabriel have done anything better at the end? A: I think so, because he died. Q: Why was Christian so anti-Dean? A: Why was Dean so anti-me? Dean started it... They wrote me as an asshole, what can I say?) At the end of the panel they drew on some blank t-shirts that were then auctioned off (with proceeds going to the Starlight Foundation). Both pulled their shirts on over their clothes to model their art (Richard had drawn a caricature of himself on the front, and written "Big bag of dicks" on the back. Corin had drawn cleavage on a bikini on the front, and sadly I've forgotten what he wrote on the back). When Corin's was auctioned, he got the cat call to take it off. He obligingly peeled off the auction shirt, and the crowd ordered him to keep going.
Corin: I'm not built!
Richard: They don't care; just take it off.
Accurate, no? Corin has a bunch of tattoos, and I'd love to hear him talk about the sometime. When I get my computer back, I'm going to spend an evening youtubing him. When Richard's was getting auctioned he called out that if it went for $300 or more, he'd get Misha to shove the shirt down his pants. It did and he did.
Jim's opening video was a Bobby montage set to "The Gambler", the best part of which was some of the audience singing along. Jim walked on stage with a "G'day, idjits". He told us that he'd had this big plan to come on stage singing an iconic Australian song, and had spent days memorising "The Ballard of Moreton Bay"... only to come on stage at the Sydney con the day before singing it, and realised that no actual Australian's know that song. (Which is true - can't point to Moreton Bay on a map. I think it's in Queensland? Idk, I'm not going to look it up.) I actually have a few small pages of notes on Jim's panel (yes, I took notes), but I guess a few highlights include him talking about the word "idjit" - it was written in the script like that, rather than being Jim's choice for playing the word that way. He actually didn't like it, and said that his response was "Really? He knows all of this stuff but he doesn't know how to say 'idiot'?"
The talked about the Abominable Snowman Prank he pulled on twitter, and how it just started out as simple subterfuge - he knew he'd likely be spotted around Vancouver while he was filming his return after Bobby's death, so he said "hey, I'll be filming this movie around vancouver." And then someone asked what the movie was about. Then someone asked who was directing it. And then Jim realised that this was an opportunity to have some fun, rather than him planning it all from the beginning.
Jim: I just thought it would be a terrible shame if the camera panned over to Bobby for that reveal and you were all expecting it.
Me: By the way, spoiler - Bobby comes back.
Penny: Thanks, Mel.
Jim is just a really big Bobby fan. Someone asked him what other character he'd like to play on the show, and Jim replied, "I don't want to be another character on the show. Bobby's the BEST character on the show." He also seems to ship Bobby/Sheriff Mills quite a bit. Since the audience was divided, he put it to a vote over which love interest suited Bobby best. Jodie Mills won out over Ellen, then people in the audience started calling out "Rufus! Crowley!" Jim snorted and said, "What? No Jo fans in the house," and the audience sucked in a breath like 'Ooooohh Bobby/Jo? You did NOT just go there!' And Jim just smirked and said "Yeah, 'oh'". He mentioned that he was getting SO sick of all of the fuss over the Bobby&Crowley kiss, and that it was not at all helped by Mark Sheppard "riding that kiss to glory." He had this put upon, longsuffering air to him when talking about Mark, that made me suspect they're probably a riot when they're together.
I think the most interesting part of Jim's panel was him talking about other roles. He said that he was really happy being a second tier character rather than a main character, because a lot of the action and plot stuff actually happens at the second tier - they're the characters that get work done so the main characters can be free to have their love interests and their journeys of discovery. He said that he'd once begged to be a leading man, so he got the role of male romantic lead in a Shakespeare play (I swear it was 'Much Ado About Nothing', but the male names aren't ringing a bell. He said it was 'the actual romantic part, rather than the main character' and the wiki is telling me nothing at all and I'm wondering if he actually said 'Taming of the Shrew', because Lucentio sounds familiar? whit_merule, do you remember? Help!). ANYWAY, the important thing is that Jim was up on stage, reciting some Shakespeare off the top of his head, and left about half of the fans in the room drooling. He said that he used to have a list of characters that he wanted to play on stage or screen, but a lot of those opportunities are out of his reach now - "My Hamlet ship has long since sailed", which he seemed quite honestly sad about. (Related note: Traci mentioned at her panel that she threw her name into the hat for Wonder Woman a few years ago, that she thought Diana should be "worn and wise". Then she did the Wonder Woman pose and yeah, I was sold.)
Then it came time to Jim's panel to wrap up, which he grumbled about. The emcee apologised and said that she had her orders, and he stared her down from the stage and said, "Yeah. And we all know where following orders gets us, don't we," followed by this super long pause that had me snorting with laughter, because what a mean thing to do to the emcee. He decorated a hat to be auctioned off - writing 'Balls' on the front and 'idjit' on the back, then signing the brim. I swear I wrote down what all of the items went for, but I can't find it. I think the hat went for something like $400 - there were some hardcore Bobby fans in the audience.
Misha's panel was hectic and loud, which I guess you expect from Misha, but I was exhausted and starting to have a sugar crash by then because my meal times had been screwed up by the late schedule, so I found most of the shrieking and carrying on (and the way Misha encouraged and enabled it) really, REALLY annoying. I kinda thought about slipping out and then just catching the best bits on youtube later, but that would have meant moving and sitting there quietly was a much nicer option. Not that there weren't some good points to the panel - Misha got his mum up on stage since she was in the room, got into an argument about how many times he's died on the show (someone had asked his mum if she enjoyed seeing Misha die on tv, I believe she said 'yes'). There was a little kid (about... seven? maybe?) dressed as Cas in the audience, and all of the guests were just exploding their ovaries over this legitimately cute kid. Anyway, mini-Cas asked Misha who Cas liked more - Sam or Dean, and Misha finished his answer with "They're both great people. I don't know if you know this, but they can both fly. They don't sleep. They don't age..."
I think the stuff I found most interesting was him talking about GISHWHES and what he liked most about it (a mix of the art it produced, and all of the demeaning photos that he got to laugh at. He said he probably enjoyed the demeaning part a little more), and where the list of items came from (he sent an e-mail to ten friends asking for suggestions, and got eight replies telling him that he was an idiot. Apparently the wood-fired jumper was an idea his brother had been obsessed with for a while, and Misha was a little disappointed that no one quite got it right - though one person got very close). That, and his trench coat talk.
Because Cas was initially only meant to be in three episodes, the costume department just went out and grabbed a bunch of cheap tan over coats from JC Penny, which were about $100 each. Then Cas became a regular character, but the trench coats were no longer available so replicas had to be made. The replicas cost about $2,500 each (which honestly made me wonder if those fuckers a lined with gold or something). He then talked about coat-theft: while shooting the promo pics for season six, Castiel's trench coat and Dean's leather jacket got stolen (which is why Cas is in black and Dean is wearing not-the-leather-jacket. Now, the interesting thing about this is that about a week beforehand Misha had bowed down to all of the people he had asking him about where to get Castiel's trench coat and asked the costume department where he could get one. They explained that there weren't available commercially any more, and Misha replied with "Oh, that's a shame". A week later the coat disappears. From a remote shoot that Misha is at. Misha who is known to steal things from the set regularly. Apparently things were really awkward with the costuming department for a while XD He'd apparently knicked the clapper fronts for the first six seasons, and auctioned off Castiel's psych ward bracelet without asking if he could take it.
For his shirt, Misha got creative. Not happy with the plain black sharpie on white cotton, he decided to add colour with that was available. Which was condiments and jellybeans. So his shirt featured a self-portrait of him as a unicorn, farting a rainbow, coloured with mustard, tomato sauce, and a blue jellybean he'd chewed up and spat out himself. It went for $650, which is pretty impressive for what must be the worst smelling t-shirt in the history of con auctions.
After that, the con was wrapped up. Signing started, and was a bit of a debacle when it came to sorting out platinums and VIPs and general admission tickets. I got one of my ukuleles signed (though that didn't stop me from grabbing some promo shots of Misha, Jim, and Richard anyway). I'll talk about that more when I do my photo post (I'm borrowing mum's computer, as mine is still in pieces from the move, and so I haven't gotten my photos off my camera yet). Actually, this post is pretty freaking long as it is, so I'll save my fangirl ramblings about the evening function for the next post ;)
Registration and photos took forever, which was a bit of a pain but at least it meant that a lot of attention was going into making sure that everyone got their photos and their seats. As a VIP, I had two photos, five autographs , and the evening function as part of m bundle. We were allocated who we had photos with, which some people were understandably miffed about as the ticket description did not include that important nugget of info until after the guest were confirmed (which was this past week, which meant that people had had their tickets for MONTHS before learning of this catch), but as Richard Speight Jr was the one person I definitely wanted a photo with, and was one of the people allocated to us VIPs, I wasn't exactly upset by the turn out. I gotta say, Richard is a photo-taking pro. When it was my turn he said hello and then grinned at my Mystery Spot t-shirt and complimented it. It had just enough time to mumble "'s my fav'rit ep'sde" in my tiny fangirl voice before he put his arm around me like it was totally normal, which meant that I was angled just right for the photo. Richard is warm in personality and warm in body heat. He smiles nice, he has the bestest smile, and his hair is amazing. I'll admit, I was a little giddy. I thanked him, and told him it was a pleasure, and stumbled back to the auditorium (I think).
The other allocated photo for the VIPs was Traci Dinwiddie. Since the BFF was with me, and since neither of us like having our photos taken (meaning there is a sad lack of photos of us together), I asked if she wanted to jump into my shot with Traci. So we had two photos of the two of us + Traci, and they’re both a little ridiculous. The first time we were all ready to go, but the photographer yelled STOP! My glasses were showing some glare, so I was ordered to shove them right to the top of my nose. We barely had time to look back at the camera before the photo was taken, so Penny and I both have closed mouth smiles and kind of stunned looks on our faces. Then we were clearing out for the next people in line when, hey, we were reminded that we were down for two photos after all, so we jumped back in with some minor confusion over who went where, and the second photo has us both grinning at how silly we are. Traci herself is gorgeous, and handled the confusion like a pro. She's just a very calm, happy person, and when I said "It was nice meeting you," she smiled and said "You to". I really, really love polite people :D
We also forked out for a "hero sandwich" with Misha and Jim. I have so much love for Jim, which largely comes from him writing and publishing 'Life's That Way', which was a painful relief of a memoir to read. So I told Penny that she would have to stand next to Misha because I called dibs on Jim. Penny was all, "Oh, well if I HAVE to tolerate standing next to MISHA of all people..." She tolerated the arrangement like a pro. Jim had just finished his solo photos, and got tired of waiting for Misha so he lay down on the floor and pulled his cap over his eyes to have a nap. Misha spotted him, snuck over, planted his feet by Jim's upper arms... and proceeded to teabag him. Misha, you are fucking fourteen years old. Jim locked his hands together into a mega fist, and punched Misha in the balls. Omfg this cast. Misha then laughed and stepped around to help Jim up (with two hands outstretched, crossed at the wrist), which took two or three tugs to get him up of the ground. The first time I think Jim just yanked down on Misha's hands, because Misha nearly went sprawling. They were acting like such dorks.
During this time some episodes and past con panels were palying, and I met up with whit_merule for a quick chat. I was probably way less engaging than I should have been, but I was buzzing from photos and tired from no sleep the night before, and meeting new people has never been my strong point. I'm sorry if I was weird and awful! But it was nice to talk about fic in amongst all of the other fanishess, and apparently Whit had never seen an episode of SPN with other people in the room before. I know, that's totes weird, right? Sadly the sound for the vids was full of bass, making me a little uncomfortable and giving her a headache, so it wasn't the chillaxed rewatch of "Changing Channels" that it could have been. But it was good to have someone to text and chat to during the day who knows that I write about dicking. I'm not entirely sure why that was comforting. I was sitting amongst a cluster of people who had payed $850 for a ticket, two rows behind people who payed over a grand for theirs, but mentioning fanfic seemed like the abnormal, excessive thing? Idk. Anyway, it was lovely to meet you :)
Eventually, about 90 minutes behind schedule, the first panel started. I knew next to nothing about Traci before her panel, and I still know very little now, but she is a very sweet and mellow person. She talked a lot about the word paintings she did, and her recent foray into trapeze-ing, and how she got into drumming. She said that her different kinds of art and performance art were really important to her because, "When you let go of something that doesn't work, you need to replace it with something else. You can't just have that void." That's some pretty sound advice right there.
She talked a little about Pam and Show, of course. Someone asked her about how she felt about SPN's treatment of female characters, and she talked about the "poignant longing" and the protectiveness of the fanbase. She said (of the show) "It works for them to have this situation where we get our asses kicked" because you have these boys who have lost so much and have lost the important women in their lives through various means, so the people who love Sam and Dean will of course be wary of love interests because they don't want their boys to get hurt again. She went on to say that she thought that Pamela was safe from that mentality because, "Pamela's not there for the heart. The heartbeat, maybe. The sweat." Pam was unapologetically flirty and sexual, but she had no desire to claim Sam or Dean for her own, so she therefore held no emotional risk/threat. So, yeah, it was really cool to hear her talk about the meta of Pam and other females on the show. (Later, at the evening function, she also mentioned that she's read some Pam-centric fanfic. She said that - in fic - Pam was just a firecracker, and when it came to sex, Traci thought she could learn a few things from Pam. Traci is just... I think she's a Pam fan herself, which is truly awesome.)
Richard and Corin (who was the very last minute addition to the line up) shared the next panel. Beforehand, I was honestly cranky that this guy I knew nothing about was horning in on the panel of the one person I was most excited to see. But oh wow those two worked well together. They have a similar energy and easy humour about them. They both had an intro vid play on the big screens at the front of the room (and Corin's actually made me want to sit down and watch season six - it was the first time any of the Campbells had been presented to me as interesting characters). When they came in, Richard relayed the conversation they'd had while watching the intro vids. For Richard's, of course there was a clip of the Casa Erotica scene, and because neither knew much about the other's roles/episodes on the show...
Corin: What's the deal with the porn moustache?
Richard: I was doing a porno [that episode].
Corin: Oh... Okay.
Um. They talked a bit about pranks - Richard has never pranked or played a trick on anyone, but Corin is not only a master prankster, he takes delight in being super mean about it. He told the story of how one of his friends had a hot date, so he put a mix of olive out and salt on the guy's toilet seat - why? Because that mix can't be wiped off, apparently you have to actually shower, meaning that the next person who sat on the toilet (being the target) suddenly went from "I need to go to the bathroom, brb" to "oh shit showering now". He also pulled the sheets off the bed, covered the mattress with books, and re-made the bed so it was all hard and lumpy and weird for sexytimes. Richard was just kind of gaping at how thrilled Corin was with his jerktacular pranks, and chimed in with "Hey, you knows what's REALLY funny? Burning a person's house down, and then salting the earth so nothing can ever grow or live there again. HILARIOUS." And then Corin told us all the story of how he and a friend actually set a forest on fire this one time. And then Richard changed the topic XD
Oh! Corin mentioned that his dad works in set design/construction for movies, and has just wrapped on the latest Riddick instalment. His dad worked on The Goonies, designing and building the big cave where the treasure was. So when the film was over, Corin got a couple of the coins from One Eyed Willie's treasure. How freaking cool is that? Richard told a story where he almost got killed by Jared's dogs, and Corin replied with "I had a similar experience with a Klingon in Orlando," and then went to take the next question only to have Richard interrupt with "No no no! You don't get to drop that into conversation without telling us the whole story." I won't recount it here, because it's a long and elaborate Klingon experience. Hopefully it gets up on youtube, and it not, well - you know what to ask him about if you ever see him at a con ;)
They also talked about their characters (Q: Could Gabriel have done anything better at the end? A: I think so, because he died. Q: Why was Christian so anti-Dean? A: Why was Dean so anti-me? Dean started it... They wrote me as an asshole, what can I say?) At the end of the panel they drew on some blank t-shirts that were then auctioned off (with proceeds going to the Starlight Foundation). Both pulled their shirts on over their clothes to model their art (Richard had drawn a caricature of himself on the front, and written "Big bag of dicks" on the back. Corin had drawn cleavage on a bikini on the front, and sadly I've forgotten what he wrote on the back). When Corin's was auctioned, he got the cat call to take it off. He obligingly peeled off the auction shirt, and the crowd ordered him to keep going.
Corin: I'm not built!
Richard: They don't care; just take it off.
Accurate, no? Corin has a bunch of tattoos, and I'd love to hear him talk about the sometime. When I get my computer back, I'm going to spend an evening youtubing him. When Richard's was getting auctioned he called out that if it went for $300 or more, he'd get Misha to shove the shirt down his pants. It did and he did.
Jim's opening video was a Bobby montage set to "The Gambler", the best part of which was some of the audience singing along. Jim walked on stage with a "G'day, idjits". He told us that he'd had this big plan to come on stage singing an iconic Australian song, and had spent days memorising "The Ballard of Moreton Bay"... only to come on stage at the Sydney con the day before singing it, and realised that no actual Australian's know that song. (Which is true - can't point to Moreton Bay on a map. I think it's in Queensland? Idk, I'm not going to look it up.) I actually have a few small pages of notes on Jim's panel (yes, I took notes), but I guess a few highlights include him talking about the word "idjit" - it was written in the script like that, rather than being Jim's choice for playing the word that way. He actually didn't like it, and said that his response was "Really? He knows all of this stuff but he doesn't know how to say 'idiot'?"
The talked about the Abominable Snowman Prank he pulled on twitter, and how it just started out as simple subterfuge - he knew he'd likely be spotted around Vancouver while he was filming his return after Bobby's death, so he said "hey, I'll be filming this movie around vancouver." And then someone asked what the movie was about. Then someone asked who was directing it. And then Jim realised that this was an opportunity to have some fun, rather than him planning it all from the beginning.
Jim: I just thought it would be a terrible shame if the camera panned over to Bobby for that reveal and you were all expecting it.
Me: By the way, spoiler - Bobby comes back.
Penny: Thanks, Mel.
Jim is just a really big Bobby fan. Someone asked him what other character he'd like to play on the show, and Jim replied, "I don't want to be another character on the show. Bobby's the BEST character on the show." He also seems to ship Bobby/Sheriff Mills quite a bit. Since the audience was divided, he put it to a vote over which love interest suited Bobby best. Jodie Mills won out over Ellen, then people in the audience started calling out "Rufus! Crowley!" Jim snorted and said, "What? No Jo fans in the house," and the audience sucked in a breath like 'Ooooohh Bobby/Jo? You did NOT just go there!' And Jim just smirked and said "Yeah, 'oh'". He mentioned that he was getting SO sick of all of the fuss over the Bobby&Crowley kiss, and that it was not at all helped by Mark Sheppard "riding that kiss to glory." He had this put upon, longsuffering air to him when talking about Mark, that made me suspect they're probably a riot when they're together.
I think the most interesting part of Jim's panel was him talking about other roles. He said that he was really happy being a second tier character rather than a main character, because a lot of the action and plot stuff actually happens at the second tier - they're the characters that get work done so the main characters can be free to have their love interests and their journeys of discovery. He said that he'd once begged to be a leading man, so he got the role of male romantic lead in a Shakespeare play (I swear it was 'Much Ado About Nothing', but the male names aren't ringing a bell. He said it was 'the actual romantic part, rather than the main character' and the wiki is telling me nothing at all and I'm wondering if he actually said 'Taming of the Shrew', because Lucentio sounds familiar? whit_merule, do you remember? Help!). ANYWAY, the important thing is that Jim was up on stage, reciting some Shakespeare off the top of his head, and left about half of the fans in the room drooling. He said that he used to have a list of characters that he wanted to play on stage or screen, but a lot of those opportunities are out of his reach now - "My Hamlet ship has long since sailed", which he seemed quite honestly sad about. (Related note: Traci mentioned at her panel that she threw her name into the hat for Wonder Woman a few years ago, that she thought Diana should be "worn and wise". Then she did the Wonder Woman pose and yeah, I was sold.)
Then it came time to Jim's panel to wrap up, which he grumbled about. The emcee apologised and said that she had her orders, and he stared her down from the stage and said, "Yeah. And we all know where following orders gets us, don't we," followed by this super long pause that had me snorting with laughter, because what a mean thing to do to the emcee. He decorated a hat to be auctioned off - writing 'Balls' on the front and 'idjit' on the back, then signing the brim. I swear I wrote down what all of the items went for, but I can't find it. I think the hat went for something like $400 - there were some hardcore Bobby fans in the audience.
Misha's panel was hectic and loud, which I guess you expect from Misha, but I was exhausted and starting to have a sugar crash by then because my meal times had been screwed up by the late schedule, so I found most of the shrieking and carrying on (and the way Misha encouraged and enabled it) really, REALLY annoying. I kinda thought about slipping out and then just catching the best bits on youtube later, but that would have meant moving and sitting there quietly was a much nicer option. Not that there weren't some good points to the panel - Misha got his mum up on stage since she was in the room, got into an argument about how many times he's died on the show (someone had asked his mum if she enjoyed seeing Misha die on tv, I believe she said 'yes'). There was a little kid (about... seven? maybe?) dressed as Cas in the audience, and all of the guests were just exploding their ovaries over this legitimately cute kid. Anyway, mini-Cas asked Misha who Cas liked more - Sam or Dean, and Misha finished his answer with "They're both great people. I don't know if you know this, but they can both fly. They don't sleep. They don't age..."
I think the stuff I found most interesting was him talking about GISHWHES and what he liked most about it (a mix of the art it produced, and all of the demeaning photos that he got to laugh at. He said he probably enjoyed the demeaning part a little more), and where the list of items came from (he sent an e-mail to ten friends asking for suggestions, and got eight replies telling him that he was an idiot. Apparently the wood-fired jumper was an idea his brother had been obsessed with for a while, and Misha was a little disappointed that no one quite got it right - though one person got very close). That, and his trench coat talk.
Because Cas was initially only meant to be in three episodes, the costume department just went out and grabbed a bunch of cheap tan over coats from JC Penny, which were about $100 each. Then Cas became a regular character, but the trench coats were no longer available so replicas had to be made. The replicas cost about $2,500 each (which honestly made me wonder if those fuckers a lined with gold or something). He then talked about coat-theft: while shooting the promo pics for season six, Castiel's trench coat and Dean's leather jacket got stolen (which is why Cas is in black and Dean is wearing not-the-leather-jacket. Now, the interesting thing about this is that about a week beforehand Misha had bowed down to all of the people he had asking him about where to get Castiel's trench coat and asked the costume department where he could get one. They explained that there weren't available commercially any more, and Misha replied with "Oh, that's a shame". A week later the coat disappears. From a remote shoot that Misha is at. Misha who is known to steal things from the set regularly. Apparently things were really awkward with the costuming department for a while XD He'd apparently knicked the clapper fronts for the first six seasons, and auctioned off Castiel's psych ward bracelet without asking if he could take it.
For his shirt, Misha got creative. Not happy with the plain black sharpie on white cotton, he decided to add colour with that was available. Which was condiments and jellybeans. So his shirt featured a self-portrait of him as a unicorn, farting a rainbow, coloured with mustard, tomato sauce, and a blue jellybean he'd chewed up and spat out himself. It went for $650, which is pretty impressive for what must be the worst smelling t-shirt in the history of con auctions.
After that, the con was wrapped up. Signing started, and was a bit of a debacle when it came to sorting out platinums and VIPs and general admission tickets. I got one of my ukuleles signed (though that didn't stop me from grabbing some promo shots of Misha, Jim, and Richard anyway). I'll talk about that more when I do my photo post (I'm borrowing mum's computer, as mine is still in pieces from the move, and so I haven't gotten my photos off my camera yet). Actually, this post is pretty freaking long as it is, so I'll save my fangirl ramblings about the evening function for the next post ;)