Emily's Adventures at LeakyCon (part 2)!!!!!!
Continued from part 1!!
Saturday
Yeah Jenna's bus was almost an hour early so she showed up a little after 5:30 and for the second day in a row, my phone ringing obscenely early woke everyone up, which was stupid blehhh. I let her into the room and we tried for some more sleep, me in the bed and her on our giant chair, but when it became pretty clear that that wasn't happening I just got up and started whisper-hanging out with her and I made her cookies up to give to her. She was like "yes good cookies for breakfast, CHAMPION STATUS" and it was great. Eventually Gabi, Kelsey and finally Sera were all awake too and we started getting ready for our day-slash-Mollycoffee and that was WONDERFUL~ Gabi and Kelsey went on ahead of me and Sera and Jenna because I was gonna hang with Jenna some to make sure we weren't just like, ditching her, but she had other Tumblr people to meet up with so she put her costume on and went and picked up her registration (she was like young!hufflepuff!Madam Hooch with like, quidditch-as-roller-derby-culture fashion and she looked fucking RAD I am so sad there are no pics of this) and I put MY costume on because I was going to do everything-but-the-wig to meet Molly because I didn't want to do full costume and look weird, but then I remembered that everything-but-the-wig to my Ginny costume mostly just makes me look like Hermione, so I said FUCK IT and did the wig too and then scurried down to meet up with Gabi and Kelsey at the Starbucks. The line was kind of long and we ended up talking to some other Hogwarts people ahead of us about costumes and stuff, and that was nice; there was a mom behind us who asked if I was Ginny, and I said yes, and that was fun tooooo~ I got my apple drank and some lemon pound cake (we actually all got the lemon pound cake lmao) and then just waited for Molly because she's tweeted us that she was running a little late. Eventually Sera showed up from finishing up her own getting ready too and she hopped in line a couple people behind fucking Ricky Rollins. IT WAS SO HARD NOT TO CREEP ON HIM LMAO I think he eventually sensed that the place was full of StarKid fans and he didn't want to have to listen to their creepy bullshit because after a little while he put his headphones in. He was also wearing a badge that was actually made out for Ricky Winowiecki - comedy gold. Ohhh, rickroll.
We got another tweet from Molly and turns out they evacuated her train because it smelled suspiciously like fire! So she was going to be about half an hour later than planned and we were like, "O." Yeah that's. That's a good excuse. So we waited around in Starbucks and Sera was ALMOST to the front of the line when Molly got there. The line was REALLY LONG at that point so Molly didn't really bother getting in it, she just stood around and talked to us!!! SHE IS SO CUTE AND SO NICE AND I WANT TO BE HER BEST FRIEND AND LOVE HER FOREVER. She was wearing this GREAT dress that had this cute bicycle print all over it and so yeah we all introduced ourselves as our twitter usernames and she recognized all of us and we talked and talked about WWM (and how piano guy the day before had played stuff, and how WTTCG is my ringtone - she said Marty's working on sheet music and a Dogs In Space ringtone himself), and the convention, and how we'd come in from all over and were meeting up for the first time in a while. I think she complimented my costume yes good. Sera got her coffee and reconvened with us and we talked some more. I told her we were actually ending up missing the MinaLima panel to talk to her instead and she basically went WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, WHY ARE YOU NOT AT THAT INSTEAD which was kind of adorable but honestly I think the sacrifice was well worth it because as much as I wanted to go to that panel, like, WHEN AM I GOING TO MEET MOLLY SCANLON AGAIN. Also this girl came in with a skirt that was patterned to look like the TARDIS and Molly was coveting it, it was so cute. She was like "I wonder if she'd let me just like...buy that straight off her body right now..." ajksdkjasdhgl molly feeeeeeelings. And I was able to give her the Psychonauts buttons I'd brought for Marty (because we're apparently Schaferbros)! Since I'd forgotten to give them to Corey at the signing on Thursday. She was like "No, don't worry, Corey probably would have forgotten to ever give them to him. He'd have packed them away somewhere and wouldn't find them for six months" and akjsdgahlkgh. Corey is hashtag #TheWorst. And we took a picture with her and then she was like "go on, don't be late for your StarKid things because of me!!" so we left her at the Starbucks to get her own coffee and we scurried back to the hotel. AAAHHHH SO WORTH IT. MOLLY SCANLON I LOVE YOU.
Gabi was getting a front-row seat to Senior Year courtesy of A. and her magic Nick Lang powers, so our plan had been to sort of crash the tail-end of the MinaLima panel - not just because we really wanted to see at least part of it, but also so we could claim the "we were in other programming!" privilege and get shuttled into the Senior Year line ahead of people who'd just started to line up first thing in the morning. I really respected that Leaky was doing this because it definitely wasn't fair to other programming to have people skipping stuff that panelists worked really hard on just to line up for the bigger headlining events. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us into the MinaLima panel late, so we tried to find another panel to cop onto, and when that failed too we just tried to figure out what was going on with the clusterfuck of a line. There were SO many places that looked like the "end" and shit kept getting moved around and it literally snaked through the majority of the building, but finally we found a staffer and were like "WHERE TF DO WE GO" and she was like "If you're coming from other programming, you have a special line that's in here" and gestured us toward a room with closed doors and we were like god, thank you, that is literally all we were trying to do with our lives right now.
The line in there was SUPER-SHORT and even though we were at the tail end of it, we were assured that there were only two other (also small!) clumps of people that would get into the space ahead of us, which was super awesome. Someone asked about Rockstars and the staffer (it was that taller woman with the funny teal hair, y'all know who I mean) started to explain and used the phrase "segregated seats" before realizing what she was saying and by then we were all laughing at her and she was like omg, party foul. So then she goes "There are - well no I was going to say 'separate seats' but now that just sounds like 'separate but equal'!" and I was like "GOSH CHECK YOUR ROCKSTAR PRIVILEGE" and the whole line laughed and she had to like stop in the middle of a sentence to laugh and we finally got around to it just being "There are ROPED-OFF seats that are just for Rockstars" and we all kept chuckling about it and it was great. So eventually our little chunk of line started moving and we made it into Senior Year and found some seats and Sera decided she'd sit with me even though she could've gotten Rockstar seats and there were free swag 3-D glasses under our seats! Aahhhh! Also there was this supah-cute Bellatrix cosplayer in the row in front of us and she'd gotten up for some reason and as she was sitting back down she got my attention and was like, "Your AVPM Ginny cosplay is so, so great" and I was like "aww thank u I try :3" and she said "And you like, actually look like her too, so..." and I was like "!!! I get that a lot and I freak out every time because she's literally my idol" and askdjgahsdkjg jaimefeels.
Some dumbasses started a Get Back to Hogwarts sing-along and it was so sloppy and ugh but I was like you know what, once it gets to Ginny I'm pretty much going to have to jump up on my seat and do the lines and be my same old attention-whore self, but it was barely finishing up with the Hermione part when the lights dimmed down and everyone stopped singing and just screamed instead. And then the show happened!!!!!!!!
---MILD TO MODERATE (BUT NOTHING SEVERE) SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT. Ctrl+F to "ballroom" if you want to skip this section entirely, that'll warp you to the next spoiler-free paragraph. :) ---
The show was such a fucking hot mess omg. Nick came on and did a curtain speech thanking everyone, and explaining how it was originally going to be a staged reading but once they all got together their excitement just sort of snowballed and they decided to make a conscious effort to make it as close to a complete show as possible, but that pretty much no one had memorized everything and most everyone was going to be carrying scripts and reading off lines. He also made us all promise not to cheer for the initial appearances of specific actors, because he was like "we want it to go for four hours and not five hours, and there are thirty actors and if you cheer for thirty seconds everytime someone appears that's like fifteen minutes so just be quiet" ahahaha. Nick Lang is a presh human being. He also was like "we also really miss the three people that aren't here today" which were Julia (at a wedding), Ali (doing Fiddler in Vermont)...and Bonnie, who he was literally just like "she couldn't be here today, thank you" and it was so awkward L M A O nobodycaaaares.
So the show starts and let me reiterate IT'S A HOT MESS. Darren and Walker are the ones relying most heavily on their scripts, probably because in Walker's case he had some of the most complicated scenes and because in Darren's case he had the least time to prepare (and lbr, when is Darren ever prepared even when he DOES have time?). The music was all done by Clark and AJ which was really clear in that AJ (as Gilderoy Lockhart) had a whole song to himself that was catered pretty much perfectly to his own abilities and Clark had a song where he was actually singing overtop of some action even though he wasn't actually a character. Here are some other spoilery highlights:
- Tyler Brunsman as Professor McGonagall, which needs no explanation
- Neither do Eric Kahn Gale as a Wizard Cop, AJ as Lockhart, BHoldz as Hagrid, or Chris Allen as Moaning Myrtle (several of the actors said his was actually the hardest scene for they themselves not to laugh at)
- Jeff Blim as Aragog actually does need an explanation because it was so fucking superfluous to the rest of the plot; unlike in the books, where encountering Aragog actually helps the kids figure out a piece of the Chamber of Secrets puzzle, the run-in they have in Senior Year literally only served as an excuse to get both Aragog and Jeff Blim into the show. This was the Get In My Mouth song that was widely advertised and it pretty much only consisted of Jeff Blim popping the giant booty of his spider costume all over the stage inappropriately and singing. LITERALLY THE GREATEST was when the song didn't end when it was supposed to and the band kept playing beyond what actually had lyrics, so Jeff just kept singing the same few lines over and over again and finally just went "I'm done~" so that the band would stop. Crying. Also Elona, Sango, Arielle and Alle-Faye were the backup dancer spiders and they all had shirts with the necks cut wiiiide out of them and both Elona and Sango came dangerously close to flashing boobie. Oops.
- Joey Richter had the most INCREDIBLE SONG I HAVE EVER SEEN JOEY SING. Like, it just kind of blew my mind how wonderfully he was performing it, even if his falsetto voice did crack on the first line (and it was pretty clear he knew that'd probably happen, since he already had a water bottle stashed under the closest set piece and was able to take a swig between the opening lines and when the song really got going) - like, I kept thinking back to the first-ever Granger Danger in the first show, and how adorable but weak he was then because he's not actually trained for MUSICAL theatre, and to see the transformation from that to this song (which I won't give the context for because it's more of a spoiler than I'd like to post) was INSANE. HE'S SO GOOD. AND SO ATTRACTIVE. Literally all of my feelings I used to have about Joey Richter just came rushing back to me. You know it's pretty sad when him wearing that nasty maroon Ron wig made him look better than his natural hair currently does. CUT YOUR FUCKING HAIR.
- Meredith-as-Hermione (spoiler lmao) has a great sequence of pretty much sluttily coming on to AJ-as-Lockhart in an effort to make Ron jealous, that was full of the most sexually explicit crap a StarKid Potter show has ever contained. I hope they don't have to cut too much of this for the youtube version because it was inappropriate but QUALITY and Meredith was just like running around cupping her boobs and talking about being wet and doggy style and all sorts of garbage oh my god.
- Ginny-Jaime got to do so much more!! She didn't have any prominent singing, but she had a strong storyline of her own (because lol tom riddle's diary) and a much better (curly!) wig than before, she was fucking adorable. She gets her own incarnation of the blue headband!! Weasleys roll hard. :D Definitely want to get one for my costume at some point in the future.
- In the context of the show, Darren took his tie off at one point, and when he went to put it back on, he fucked up in a way that I'm pretty sure ONLY Darren could have fucked up. I'm sure everyone's always seen posts about this because it was hilariously obvious that he was struggling HARD with it. So he's fucking around with it struggling through some song lyrics and he finally just goes "FUCK THE TIE" and leaves it as it is and keeps on going, and everyone screamed and cheered and now there's a serious movement for a "fuck the tie" t-shirt because like...yes. THE BEST PART IS Darren was literally the only person on stage at this time AND it was a really touching moment, so when the show gets edited for youtube, there's NO ACTUAL WAY to cut this part out. The whole world is going to see Darren fuck his tie up. (Seriously, he got it like, buttoned into his shirt collar. What the fuck were you smoking, Criss.)
- Someone casts Serpensortia at some point and Nico Ager comes out puppeteering this stuffed snake that is literally just trying to bite people in the wiener and he honest to god starts just going "Gimme that dick! Gimme that dick!!" and I just don't even know what to do with myself.
- Clark and AJ were like pianobros the whole time and they were sitting SO CLOSE TOGETHER and it was kind of gay and I couldn't help it and I'm so glad Gabi reached the same shippy conclusion I did independently from me because that means it wasn't just me and neither of us influenced the other's opinion and THAT MEANS IT WAS REAL. CLARK/AJ OOOOOPS SORRY I'M NOT SORRY they kept like leaning in to talk to each other and hear things and they were just alsdkjgahkdfjh.
Other than that a lot of stuff was pretty par for the course, but because the show was CLEARLY entirely unedited, there were some definite low moments. One scene with young Tom Riddle going back to his family from whom he was orphaned and discovering that they are all Muggles (and also, through some blatant metaphor and shit, homophobes) went on about 12 minutes longer than it EVER NEEDED TO. There was also some weird Lockhart content that while hilarious in a sort of absurd way really just seemed like, totally nonsensical and unnecessary. Those were the only parts that had me genuinely cringing away, though, and I feel like if the youtube edits can clean those sections up they won't be so bad and it'll just turn into another Umbridge's Mama "I can't quite watch this oh god" kind of moment. There were also just a lot of pacing issues as a natural, inevitable result of people not quite being off book, but that'll be easy to clean, too, except for maybe in the context of the Wizard Duel song (not the one that won the contest, which was deemed "too complicated" for everyone to learn in time, but one of their own creation) which I just felt like moved so much more slowly than it needed to to be effective.
Overall I felt like the comedy was weaker than usual but the emotional, touching, more serious moments were stronger than usual, with a lot of meta-themes surrounding how "everything must end" (aka This Is Our Last Potter Show Ever, We Mean It) and, depressingly, how Darren isn't Harry Potter any more. :( Starting from a scene at the end when Harry finally deigns to shake hands with Malfoy and declare that they are officially friends, I started bawling like a baby, which was honestly not something I was expecting because anyone who knows me fairly well knows that I don't usually cry at things. But a lot of the stuff that happened at the emotional climax of the show just kind of took my Harry/Ginny feelings and my Harry-and-Ron-are-bros feelings and even my Ron/Hermione feelings and rolled them into a ball with my StarKid-as-bros feelings and my creative-power-of-fandom feelings and my Darren-as-a-member-of-StarKid feelings and THAT'S A LOT OF FEELINGS SO I WAS PRETTY OVERWHELMED. My hands were just kind of trembling in the general vicinity of my face (or else clutching at Sera's) and I was sobbing and I'm just so, so glad and fortunate that I got to be part of this experience and that I made it to LeakyCon in general and I wouldn't trade anything that happened this past weekend for the world.
Also, Tom Riddle hates Snickers bars.
ANYWAY once I cleaned myself up from the hot mess that THAT was, we all managed to worm our way out of the packed ballroom and back up to our own room because Jenna, Sera and I were going to meet Nicole for dinner! Along the way we stopped to find a spot where Sera got wifi and immediately start saving some tumblr urls so we could hoard them away from other people because we're awful. I'm happy though because at least Sera and Kelsey got some that I think they will actually use (Kelsey reeeaaally wanted "gilderoyholmes" and Sera managed to get it for her and yay but lol "fuckthetie" and "fuckthistie" were already gone). It was an abrupt 180 to go from "completely immersed in exactly why we came here" to "leaving the convention center entirely and going out into the real world" but I feel like if I'd been allowed to just sit and languish in my feelings in the hotel room there's no way that could've turned out well. So I de-Ginny'd myself and communicated with Nicole for us to team up with her right outside of our hotel, and there was much running-into-each-other's-arms rejoicing. We walked a few blocks to the English restaurant that was in Nicole and Tom's hotel and had dinner there, where I got this fancy butter chicken flatbread with like masala sauce and cheese and it was so delish omg and also Sera's yorkshire pudding came with a side of green beans that she didn't want so I got to eat those too. We talked a lot about stupid StarKid stuff, we explained a lot of things from Senior Year to Nicole because we knew she wouldn't care about spoilers, and talked about our experiences at the con thusfar, and rehashed some old funny fandom moment stories, and it was great. I like Tom, too, he seems like a cool dude (I like him more than the last boyfriend of Nicole's I met welp). We were also happy to have a chance to vent some of our frustrations about the con thusfar in a place where no one who might get offended was around to hear them, which was pretty great. Mostly I was just so happy I got a chance to see Nicole at all since she didn't actually come to the convention itself. It was a great reprieve in the middle of the CON CRAZY and I love her so much :(((( nicoooooollle~~ And after that she came up to the room and I gave her her cookies and she got to see/meet Gabi and Kelsey and things were awesome.
After that there was nothing we were really planning on going to except the dance! It was going to start pretty soon so we were trying to get all our prep out of the way, Sera and I had to iron dresses and shave our legs and Gabi's dress had this corsety bit to it that I had to help her lace up and Jenna was trying to figure out what out of her limited wardrobe she was actually going to wear. Annie and Jen stopped by already gussied-up around the time that the dance was actually supposed to start, and we all glammed up as quick as we could after that and left Gabi to stay with Kelsey, who was kind of social'd-out and needed a bit of a break between that and dancing to recover. We all looked awesome. I even managed to make my hair look decent without showering and it had been in a wig most of the day. Fuck yeah~
The dance was such a fucking trip omg. Alex Carpenter is a pretty shitty DJ but the songs he played were at least good songs for the most part, he was just kind of failing at working the crowd in a way that was effective, idk. Almost right when we got there he played I Wanna Be but then he didn't really play any "fandom" songs for the rest of the night except like...I'll Make A Man Out Of You? Weird lmao. Annie and Jenna went off to get drinks and Sera and Jen and I danced together for a while and kind of scouted out for StarKids who might be arriving and dawdled and had fun. EKG showed up looking hella plastered and just sort of bounce-danced his way through the crowds trying to get where he was going and it was SO FUNNY, I really wanted to dance with him because he was drunk as hell and I love him so much but he never really stayed in one place very long and it was kind of hysterical. Eventually we got too hot from press-of-bodies dancing and we had to go back to the water-cooler area and get some agua to cool down, and naturally of course fucking Corey Lubowich shows up looking fly as hell in his nice clothes and I was like, YOU STINKER WHAT ABOUT THAT PRODUCTION MEETING but I tried not to let it upset me. Honestly, they probably just can't really dance with fans any more, so it's no big deal at all, I just wish he would've actually said that to me instead of feeding me an unrelated excuse? Because I feel like he thinks I'm really creepy and didn't want me to see him there at all?? :((( bawwww my stupid stalkercrush feelings.
We didn't see much of Gabi and Kelsey while we were there but the five of us, me Jenna Sera Annie Jen, ended up pressing into the crowd and maneuvering kind of close to the front. A BUNCH of StarKids started showing up, all of them drunk off their asses (the top 3 drunkest were definitely Jeff, EKG and Strauss, followed closely by a gradually-getting-sluttier Alle-Faye Monka), and like, that made me happy for them, because (as Emily told me later courtesy of Brant) they'd really been SO reined in by what was happening conwise and all the shit they had to do and not do, and Saturday night after the show was over was the first downtime they were really getting to just be themselves and party with their friends. They all DESERVED to be totally blitzed. It was so awesome. The Warblers were also up on the stage with them and it was really obvious that Riker was the only one too young to drink because he was the only one who retained like, solid rhythm and coordination for all the dancing they kept doing every time ACarpz played a song the Warblers had covered on the show. Laughing my actual ass off this baby.
Corey danced mostly with June and Yonit who were both wearing REALLY PRETTY dresses and Jaime's dress was like this hot-ass coral pink color and she should marry me, and eventually Matt Lang was up there and Alex made everyone scream for him, and Darren was dressed like super-fly super-nerdy Darren and that was magnificent, and I just. I want to be friends with them so badly. What does it take? I know I sound kind of desperate and gross and I'm probably working against myself in such a serious way, but I honestly just want to graduate out of being "a fan" to being actual chums with them. I'm their age, we share a lot of common interests, I don't like feeling like they're so untouchable and I can never connect with them on their level. Do I have to move to Chicago? Do I have to act like I've never heard of A Very Potter Musical? Do I have to magically get Nick Lang to give me acting lessons? I just...I've never felt so strongly like I need to be friends with people than I do about these guys. It's like My Little Pony 2x18 and (as usual) I'm Pinkie Pie. BE MY FRIENDS PLS. :(
Eventually we just got too sick of being surrounded by people, and I was really thirsty and needed a drink again and SO FUCKING SWEATY, like I honestly think this was the sweatiest I've ever been and I've been to Otakon five times and cosplayed four of those times. Sweat was dripping down my legs. Annie and I left Jen, and Sera had gone with Jenna to keep her company while she had a cigarette, and so we wasted some time taking pictures together and mostly just goofed off and drank some more water. At some point we went back into the fray to rescue Jen, though, and ended up way closer to the stage than we'd been before, though it was less fun this time because basically all the StarKids were gone (though Nick Strauss did come back for at least one song because he was drunk and obnoxious and I love him, I'm pretty sure he sang literally every word to Superbass) and the Warblers weren't doing much any more either (though they came back even after they'd left to dance when Alex played Teenage Dream). There was a lot of everyone-jumping-en-masse-so-hard-the-floor-shakes and it was fun, but eventually I was like "I'm gonna go find Sera" and I stood with her for only a couple of songs before they started playing Don't Stop Believin' and I literally said to her "I hate this song and I want to leave." Our feet reeeaaallly hurt from shoes so she decided to come with me and we drifted into the grand ballroom where they had a lot of tables set up for people to sit at and relax. TOOK MY SHOES OFF. WAS NICE.
We ended up sharing a table with a couple of slightly-sloshed StarKid fans who were basically having the same we-love-them-so-much-ugh problems as we were; the tipsier of the two of them literally told me her three goals had been to dance with Liam, hug Nick Strauss, and then do...something?...with Chris Allen, I forget. Or something like this IDK I mostly just remember dance with Liam and that she was a big Chris fangirl. They were pretty fun and we bonded with them for a while about how drunk all the StarKids were and how infuriating some of them can be boywise and then Jenna came back to us also a little sloshed and entered into our powwow and it was nice. Eventually we also found Gabi and Kelsey and I think also Hannah and Courtneigh and managed to get some fun pictures of our whole hotel room together, looking a hot mess after sweating for three or four hours but god we were just so happy to be together. :3 Hannah told a great story about how earlier she'd been a participant in a human pyramid that also involved the four Warbler boys!! She's really little so she got to go on top of Curt and Titus and it was kawaii as hell. Courtneigh was also with her when that happened and had apparently been telling this story somewhere when "some bitch" tried to tell her that she hadn't actually met the Warblers, and she was like "...u srs." (SPOILERS: We found out later that said bitch was apparently Steph Walsh. Lots of bonding over we-don't-like-the-street-team anger. It's the best way to make friends in this fandom lmaoooo)
We could hear Total Eclipse of the Heart emanating from the main events room and almost decided to go back in, but it just wasn't worth it because we were so tired and sweaty and soon after that the dance shut down and we went back to our room to crash (which we would've done earlier but Kelsey was the only one smart enough to grab a room key, what the fuck we were dumb). Hannah and Courtneigh came with us so I could give Hannah her cookies, and she was literally the last person I had left to give them to and I was SO HAPPY because it meant I could stop making gross frosting messes everywhere and I didn't have to worry about any of that any more. We hugged and were happy and tired together and then they left and the rest of us tried feebly to pack as much as possible before we were just too tired to keep going and had to hit the beds.
I think I slept the worst this night, even compared to the two nights where I was roughly awakened by phone calls in the wee hours. I'd been struggling a lot all weekend with the fact that pretty much all of our "hotel room food" snacks were sugary - cookies with frosting, granola bars with chocolate in them, nutella + pretzels, Canada candy - and I'm pretty sure between that and being dehydrated from sweating all night my body was going into some kind of shock. I got into bed but sometime over the weekend my knee developed this pain-twinge that it's never had before, and in addition to that my butt-cramp problem from back in October was flaring up again periodically, and I had both those aches&pains PLUS I was physically shaking from my sugar-shock situation and I kept having to bolt out of bed and down huge glasses of water and try to put myself back together in some way. Next time I'm making sure we get ahold of some fresh fruits and vegetables because I'm just at the point in my life (read: not 17 like a lot of my fellow con-goers) where I actually need proper nutrients to function on a daily basis. I managed to make it through okay but I felt bad because I kept disturbing my bedmate Sera every time I'd have a spaz attack (I thought I was making her mad; it turns out she actually thought I was sick and kept going to the bathroom to throw up, so she was worried, and aaaahhh).
God, Saturday. Molly Scanlon -> AVPSY -> dinner with my best friend -> massive nerdy dance party. I honestly can't think of a more perfect day of my life.
Sunday
Actually sleeping in for once!! Relatively speaking, anyway. The only real "event" we were planning on hitting was the StarKid panel at 11, so we stayed in bed (ish) for a lot longer than every other day. I mean...I got up at like 8:30, but that's because I don't sleep, and also because I wanted to get a shower SO BADLY because we were sweating SO MUCH and I didn't want to have to fight anyone else for it so I wanted to be first. As soon as I realized it was a reasonable time for getting up I BOLTED, ahahaha. It was such a goooood shower. I got so cleeeean. By the time I was outta there Jenna was mostly up and Gabi was partially up, and so we sat around and talked and finished packing and let Sera laze in until 9:15 which was the latest she'd said she wanted to sleep. We made sure everyone was as packed as fucking possible and then were like hey, we're gonna go to the vendor room, because Jenna really wanted one of those Beater bats; Gabi and Kelsey had other plans of some kind, I think to include Gabi's First 50 meet-and-greet with the StarKids before their panel.
Ahhh my sense of time is a little messed up here but I think Sera went to her Leaky Lit signing but also with me whenever I went to the vendor room because Jenna mostly just decided to fuck off and hang out with Nicole?? But then the vendor room turned us away because they weren't open till 11, and we'd gotten some text from Gabi that said that the line for the StarKid panel was already forming starting at 10, so I guess Sera went to her signing and I was like "fuck" and went to the panel and teamed up with Hannah. We looked for closer-up seats but eventually ended up pretty far to the back (Gabi and Kelsey, naturally, were in the front row with A.) and I saved one for Sera and Hannah saved one for Courtneigh. We chatted a while and blah blah whatever before the panel started. There were some girls sitting behind me talking about some big names in the Klaine fic community and they mentioned a couple of my friends (Lucie specifically ♥) so I jumped in and mentioned that I love them and we talked about fic a little and then I shamelessly name-dropped myself and the one girl was like "aahhh, I totally follow you!" whomp whomp I'm so vain? Gross.
At some point they like STOPPED LETTING NEW PEOPLE IN and I was like nooooo Seraaaaa but then there was this big clusterfuck with them apparently not adequately saving Rockstars seats, since the meet-and-greet that was supposed to be before the panel got rescheduled to after, which was pissing off Gabi (and Emily H who also showed up later) because they were both First 50 and their shit had been getting fucked the whole weekend. Really the start of this panel was a testament to how incompetent a lot of the staff and scheduling had been all weekend, and how getting Rockstar status was REALLY not worth the extra money, and I felt bad for people and frustrated at other people all at once. They asked us all to move two rows back and Sera and I literally didn't, and neither did Hannah who was sitting in the row in front of me, because with the way our seats were saved around us etc. it made very little difference. Hannah ended up with an extra empty seat after Courtneigh showed up that she was able to give to Emily so we all sort of sat near each other and it was nice. And on the other side of Sera was this guy Josh that seemed really awesome, and we started talking to him about how he accidentally met Joey's parents (who were, it turns out, two rows back from us on the other side of the aisle, and I could easily see them from where I was), and how he was a huge Denise Donovan fan and he'd gotten to see her a couple days before and was so excited about it, and we were like "Oh! We were totally talking to Denise right after you were!" because Sera, A. and I had run into her in the vendor room for a few minutes and chatted to her about My Little Pony and some other stuff before she realized she was super-needed in their rehearsal space and had to run off without doing autographs, bummer. Anyway I really liked him and it was so great to meet a nice sane DUDE in the StarKid fandom wahhhh making new friends.
Okay so this panel was hilarious because as one would expect, THEY WERE ALL REALLY HUNG OVER. Nearly everyone who needs corrective lenses of some kind was in glasses instead of contacts, Joey and Richard and Alle-Faye and Dylan and aaahahahaha, and every time AJ spoke it was super softly and the whole beginning of the panel they just played the songs from the two contest winners and called them up on stage and made them talk because the StarKids themselves were clearly incapable of holding a train of thought for that long. Joe Walker particularly just tanked on an answer during the Q&A part and we nearly applauded when he finally managed to speak words that made a whole sentence. Fun info that came out of the panel:
- The Lockhart shit I found the weirdest has actually existed for a LONG TIME. Matt and Nick (who were sharing one chair since there weren't enough, which was fucking stupidly adorable) told us that Lockhart's a character they've been trying to use forever - he was in the original AVPM but got cut, was then included into AVPS but got cut again, and now was finally getting used in Senior Year, so the big, what-the-fuck-is-this-shit monologue he had in Senior Year has been written since AVPM was written. THIS MADE A LOT OF SENSE, because thinking about it in that context, it was clearly something that Matt and Nick wrote LONG BEFORE StarKid had anything resembling a fanbase; it sounds like something they did just because they themselves thought it was hilarious, and they were never concerned with having it make sense and be coherent to fans who might have different senses of humor. Which kind of made me hate that part less, lol.
- They'll be doing their best to produce a soundtrack, though it'll be difficult because no one (especially Clark and Darren) is anywhere near each other geographically.
- The youtube edits definitely have to include the bleeping of the F-word, but some other stuff is probably going to stay in!
- Their microphones were live the entire show, which explained some silly noises we heard while they were backstage, including both whisper-talking and TOILET FLUSHES. Corey explained this in a super-sassy/eloquent Corey manner, talking about how it was way too unpolished and there were way too many actors for anyone to be able to run mics and have them only come on when the actors were actually onstage speaking - "So, considering they were all on all the time - aren’t you surprised you didn’t hear more?" CLASSIC COREY. Everyone was the best.
The final question of the panel was something along the lines of "So, a lot of the fans, some of our favorite stuff is obviously watching you mess up - " (Joe Moses goes "That's mean!") but then going on to ask "Which of the flubs did YOU GUYS find the funniest?" Some great stories came out of that, like stuff about Alle-Faye sticking her head out when she wasn't meant to (except apparently she WAS meant to - Walker said there were lots of moments when actors were supposed to be on stage as his sort of "back-up crew" and they nearly never were), Darren cracking up laughing and going "Oh my god, this is so fucking funny!" at dialogue he'd never seen before RIGHT ON STAGE when some of it was actually HIS DIALOGUE, Darren ending up on the wrong side of the stage and Joey having to tell him in-character as Ron to move somewhere else when in the context of doing that Ron is basically sending Harry to his death by basilisk, etc. etc. Pretty much all of the bloopers were related to either Darren or Joe, and they were all beautifully funny, so I hope as many of them as possible stay in, because it was a really organic (shut up I USE THAT WORD UNIRONICALLY JUST SHUT UP) performance and you could really see all of StarKid vibing on a wavelength with each other and building this show from the ground up and aaahhhh feelings.
After the panel, which was pretty great, Sera and I hit the vendor room for real because I wanted one of those Beaters' bats and we both wanted StarKid merch. The bat I wanted the most was GONE, though, and I had to settle for my second choice, but considering they were marked down from $25 to $20 and I got an additional $2 for correctly answering a Harry Potter trivia question (which lmao came from the trivia game that I actually own and just played a couple weeks ago and the guy even gave me the multiple choice) I can't really complain. The line at the StarKid booth was looonnng but not so bad; we ended up next to a girl in a volunteers' shirt named Margeaux who was talking to us about StarKid a lot and agonizing over what to get for her custom T-shirt print (spoilers: the extra cost of a custom print was not worth it). Meanwhile, me and Sera are agonizing about when hotel check out actually is and how long we can stand to be in the basement while Gabi and Kelsey have to overstay our welcome upstairs. We FINALLY get to the front of the line and like, some of these people I don't think were actually AATs people because they were just kind of dumb. The guy I was talking to was really tall and weird and our exchange kind of went like this.
Me: I would like a sticker... I would like the Quidditch postcard... and I would like a small SuperMegaFoxyAwesomeHot tank top. Please.
Dude: Is that it?
Me: Yes, that's it.
Dude: Sure you don't want anything extra printed on the back of the tank top, or something>
Me: No, I don't. (I said this kind of matter-of-factly, but not in a way that I felt was rude.)
Dude: Whooaa, hey now.
Me: Well, no, I'm not trying to be mean! I just know the line is kind of long so I figured I'd try to move quickly.
Dude: The line's not THAT big. It's small! It was a lot bigger before.
Me: ...Yeah, it was a lot longer when I first got here, too.
Dude: I just don't like to move people through TOO fast...I don't like to just stand here, I get lonely. (He was clearly trying to be funny but FAILING and so it just came across as creepy.)
Me: ....Uh. Right. But like I do need to move pretty fast because we really need to go check out of our hotel room.
Dude: Oh. Yeah, we probably do too.
What??? Meanwhile, Sera's doing her business with actual MerchMatt of Twitter and it's going much more smoothly. I loitered with my dude for a few minutes because he still hadn't handed me my shirt, even though I'd paid already, but when he never responded I figured I just had to pick it up from Matt instead because he was down closer to where they were so I buddied back up to Sera again and started having a much, much more NORMAL conversation with her and Matt. He said that he didn't know any of the shirts they had at Leaky would be available online later - definitely not anything that says HP stuff on it, because they technically can't sell those online, and he said even if they had extras of the others they'd probably vanish in about two seconds. This swayed Sera enough to get both of the shirts she wanted instead of just one, but I decided just to stick to my tanktop, which I asked Matt for. He handed it over and we kept talking, and then he goes "Did I get you for that?" and I was like "No, no I paid already, it was just never GIVEN TO ME" and he seemed to think that was pretty weird and I was like yeah, ya think. IDK who that other guy was but he was weeeeiiird.
Naturally, because we got zero service in the vendor room/autograph signing BASEMENT of this hotel, as soon as we made it back up the stairs we started getting an influx of texts from Gabi telling us that we were technically supposed to be out of the room by 1, so we hurried back up there as fast as we could, though we were still actively bitching about staff in general and my stupid T-shirt guy in particular as we did. We were apparently loud and sassy enough that one of the cleaning ladies sassed back at us "Okay, 762, okay!" and we laughed hysterically and were like "Sorry!!! We're getting out of here RIGHT THIS SECOND we promise." The hotel staff was as awesome as the convention staff was silly.
We did our final round of packing - Gabi and Kelsey had scoured the room for anything that was left lying around and put it all kind of in one place so we could claim items out of it, and I had left some things slightly unpacked because I knew I'd have merch to cram in alongside them, but finally we were totally together...and Jenna's bag was still there even though Jenna wasn't around anywhere. I tried to call her but she and Nicole were in the art gallery and she had to find a place where she could actually talk without being obnoxious; she was going to see if she was allowed to leave and get back in again as long as she still had her ticket, but if she couldn't she just politely requested we take her crap with us, since it was only two small bags. So that ended up being what we did, and we went down to the leaving feast, our final event of the day until we all kind of had to leave at around 2:30, the three of them for a train to Gabi's house where Kelsey and Sera are staying for the next couple of days and me to O'Hare in time for my 5:30ish flight (between how long it'd take on the L and the margin of buffer time I'd need before boarding).
OKAY, THE LEAVING FEAST IS THE SMARTEST THING LEAKYCON DOES. What other con actually gives you a FREE DELICIOUS BRUNCH MEAL as part of your registration membership cost??? And since I'd been eating nothing but sugarfoods all weekend except for a gross wrap from the "Snax" place in the hotel lobby and the dinner we had with Nicole, coming face-to-face with a massive amount of hash browns and bacon (as well as ACTUAL FRUIT with REAL NUTRIENTS) was kind of like orgasming. We went into the ballroom and most of the tables were taken already, but one of them was taken by Hannah and Courtneigh so we just crashed with them, nbd, before loading up our plates with tons of food and fucking stuffing our faces. (Gabi went on a quest to find ketchup and though it took a LONG time, she came back victorious, fuck yes.)
Pianobro from Friday was back, on the piano in the ballroom corner playing stuff, and there were some half-hearted singalongs during our lunch feast as everyone just sort of mingled and fucked around, until everyone went SSSHHHH because the video screens lit up for Melissa Anelli's con-closing remarks. She thanked a ton of staff people (including thanking Corey BY NAME separately from thanking Team StarKid as a whole - he was also listed that way in the "special thanks" section at the back of the schedule book and oh my heart) and then made some hella awesome announcements about LeakyCon next year, which were basically
+ It's in Portland!
+ Except it's also in London a month or so later, because they teamed up with this English con called Alohomoracon and they're finally able to bring Leaky to the UK!
+ LeakyCon Portland will only cost $140 for basic registration!! There won't be any special add-ons required either - it's literally just basic reg, the Lit track, and Rockstar passes!
+ Everyone who went to Leaky THIS year gets 10% off their registration for next year!
Sera and I started flipping out immediately because we were seriously like "If it's in Portland there's no way we can go next year because fuck Portland are you serious" but now that the cost is way cheaper than we were expecting - and after experiencing the whole weekend full of amazing feelings - things were starting to look way, way more possible. I hope to GOD I can go again next year, because oh my god this con was just so incredible. The friends I reunited with, the friends I met and made for the first time...sdkgjhaskfdhaerkjghaliwurgh. I honestly don't have words for how extraordinary this weekend was, except for that I'm honestly considering getting a tattoo of lyrics from Not Alone now: I want "to make it through" in Jaime Lyn's handwriting, probably on the side of my right thigh, where it was pressed up against Sera's left thigh all through Senior Year.
After Melissa was done we got a shitton more hashbrowns (seriously, I went to get some more for me, and Gabi was like "and for me too, right?" so I was like "Sure" and then I got this MASSIVE PLATE and I was expecting to share with both Gabi and Sera but Gabi had like four bites and Sera had like one bite and then they were just right there in front of me so I just kept eating them), and pianobro came back to life with another round of Get Back To Hogwarts. Early on in the song I ran and asked him if he knew the HMB stuff and if he'd do Super Friends next, and he said yes; later, when it hit the Ginny stuff, I couldn't resist and I ran back over and jumped on a chair and did it to resounding approval, and then I danced all up on Sera for the part where Cedric's singing about Cho because Sera is the Cho to my Ginny. ♥ We used the motion of the Hogwarts Express to get back to our table and join back up with our friends.
It was getting closer and closer to 2:30 and Jenna still wasn't around to pick her stuff up, so we tried to contact her relatively unsuccessfully; I saw Heather and TJ again, and hollered at them so I could say goodbye because I didn't think I'd get to otherwise. Then eventually we're done with our food and done with Super Friends (which he played way too fast, the lyrics were almost impossible to spit out and I was just kind of like "askdjghaklsdjfDALAI LAMA") and bro has started playing Days of Summer which like, ouch my heart, and we get up to leave Jenna's stuff at the bag check station and then leave and I just like, genuinely right from the heart start crying. I barely get out "I don't want to go back to fucking Virginia, I want it to be LeakyCon forever" before I have to stop walking right at the doors between the atrium and the ballroom's foyer and just collapse onto Gabi and sob openly into her hair. Me going sets off Gabi too and Sera gets pretty close to the point where she has to stand away from me and like, again, I wasn't expecting it, but I just couldn't help it and I was so emotional and leaving Chicago yesterday felt honestly like ripping a piece of my heart out and leaving it in an unreachable place. I really get what everyone says now about LeakyCon. I totally understand. I'm nearly tearing up again just writing this.
We manage to pull ourselves back together to head down the stairs and leave Jenna's stuff, and this older guy comes up to me and says something like "Your StarKid Ginny is impeccable," I guess he'd heard me at the feast. So I was like "Yeah I was actually dressed like her yesterday, it's a little more effective with the costume" but he insisted that it was awesome and I was like "well also it's more effective when I haven't lost my voice from incessant talking for four days" and he conceded me that point, lmao. He was a smidge on the creepy side but he was being nice and complimentary I guess so it didn't bother me much. Everyone loves me I'm the best Ginny etc. etc. \o/ At the bottom of the stairs in the lobby proper I ran into Lily again and I was so happy because I didn't think I'd get to say goodbye to her either! I started talking to her about how I'd been crying before and that just made me start crying again and I made her cry too and we hugged and I was like "This is so stupid?? I want to stop???" because at that point I'd kind of beaten back the emotional piece of it and it was literally just like I couldn't turn off my biology. aaahhhh. We waited for Sera to drop Jenna's bags off and then we headed out.
RIGHT ON THE STREET were Jenna, Nicole and Tom on their way back over, and THAT was great because I didn't think I'd get to say goodbye to THEM EITHER. AND THEN I CRIED SOME MORE, ON NICOLE THIS TIME, fucking kill me. Sera, Gabi and Kelsey hopped in a cab to make sure they made their train on time; Sera hugged me first, because I think out of everyone at this con she was the actualfax closest to me, we bonded soooo much and I had such a hard time prying myself away from her, especially since I knew she, Kelsey and Gabi were still going to be together for a while yet and I was the only one who had to leave. I set off for the blue line station still weeping, and it took me a couple blocks to compose myself again.
After a little bit of walking I noticed a girl with a Leaky bag had kind of fallen in step behind me, and when I figured out we were both heading for the blue line we started talking and stuff, and that was really cool (she's 16, lives in the area, was just heading home to her actual house; I was leaving the city and the state altogether). It was a cool experience because I felt like we were bonding cross-generationally within the fandom; she was saying she felt "too young," which we thought was weird because I said I felt "too old" and we were only seven years apart, and it's crazy how that niche can be. It was honestly like I was some prefect talking to a younger student, and we talked about how she'd dressed up as Luna (she pointed out that's why her hair was blonde, since it was obviously not like that naturally) and I'd been Ginny, and how she was a big Nerdfighter kind of person but not that into StarKid like some of her friends were and I was the reverse. A VERY COOL EXPERIENCE just kind of across the fandom divide, and it was so powerful for me to have that be my last interaction with a LeakyCongoer before I flew away??? Wow. Wow. Thank you, Sheila. And thank you, Lily and Mary and Grace: Literally every step of the way there were Potterfans by my side. That shit's fucking profound.
The rest of my Sunday was much bullshittier. I get to the airport and discover that my flight's been delayed about half an hour; after getting a smoothie and sitting around by my gate, we discover that we've actually been delayed till 7:05, and they're putting us on another flight from another gate altogether. Which resulted in me wasting a lot of time trying and failing to fall asleep in an airport, attempting to get online only to discover the wireless WAS NOT FREE??? IN AN AIRPORT WTF, and calling my mom and talking to her about how I'm going to get home-home eventually (I'm ending up taking the Megabus as far as Christiansburg tomorrow morning, and then we're regrouping from there). The one upside to getting stuck in O'Hare longer?
I FUCKING SAW STAN LEE LIKE THREE BENCHES OVER FROM ME ON HIS WAY BACK FROM CHICAGO COMICCON. !!!!!????!!???!? I obviously didn't even TRY to talk to him - once I figured out it was him I also figured out the dude in the purple shirt who was standing, rather than sitting, pretty close to him was probably some kind of bodyguard cockblock dude - but I whipped out my camera right before we had to board and zoomed way far in to get a picture that's just barely good enough to prove that I'm not lying. Stan fucking Lee, guys. I was a little ashamed that no one else seemed to be sharing in my excitement.
Plane ride was bumpy and boring and I tried to fall asleep but couldn't so I just hugged my alligator and listened to my Tegan & Sara album and ignored errybody. The plane was hella crowded so they made me check my rolly suitcase which I was trying not to do because it is WHITE and I didn't want it getting abused bleehh, alas, and then I finally made it back to Reagan and Avery came and got me and I was sooooooo fucking tired but I still stayed up weirdly late (partially from the time shift, my brain was still an hour early) catching up on all the StarKid tweets I missed in our wifi-less pit of a hotel and just rolling around in my Leaky feels.
Gabi, Kelsey, Sera, Jenna, Hannah, Courtneigh, Allegra, Emily, Arianna, Annie, Jen, Casey, Lily, Josh, Sheila, Margeaux, TJ, Heather, Em, everyone - See you in Portland come hell or high fucking water.
I don't wanna see you go, but it's not forever. Always dance.
PICTURES!!! Photobucket rotated some of them and I can't seem to make it unrotate them! Cool! Wow! What an asshole!
Me as Ginny:
Me as Ginny WITH JAIME LYN!!!! and some super-embarrassing stuff!!!
Thursday night #Scav2 shenanigans lmao:
Fuck Yeah Fuck You, Corey Lubowich:
Allegra's cookies! This is what they all pretty much looked like:
The best cosplayers I saw:
Strauss wearing a shirt he's owned since at least his (aka my) freshman year of college:
Everybody dance now!
STAN ACTUAL LEE:
All right, bitches, what did YOU do this weekend??
Saturday
Yeah Jenna's bus was almost an hour early so she showed up a little after 5:30 and for the second day in a row, my phone ringing obscenely early woke everyone up, which was stupid blehhh. I let her into the room and we tried for some more sleep, me in the bed and her on our giant chair, but when it became pretty clear that that wasn't happening I just got up and started whisper-hanging out with her and I made her cookies up to give to her. She was like "yes good cookies for breakfast, CHAMPION STATUS" and it was great. Eventually Gabi, Kelsey and finally Sera were all awake too and we started getting ready for our day-slash-Mollycoffee and that was WONDERFUL~ Gabi and Kelsey went on ahead of me and Sera and Jenna because I was gonna hang with Jenna some to make sure we weren't just like, ditching her, but she had other Tumblr people to meet up with so she put her costume on and went and picked up her registration (she was like young!hufflepuff!Madam Hooch with like, quidditch-as-roller-derby-culture fashion and she looked fucking RAD I am so sad there are no pics of this) and I put MY costume on because I was going to do everything-but-the-wig to meet Molly because I didn't want to do full costume and look weird, but then I remembered that everything-but-the-wig to my Ginny costume mostly just makes me look like Hermione, so I said FUCK IT and did the wig too and then scurried down to meet up with Gabi and Kelsey at the Starbucks. The line was kind of long and we ended up talking to some other Hogwarts people ahead of us about costumes and stuff, and that was nice; there was a mom behind us who asked if I was Ginny, and I said yes, and that was fun tooooo~ I got my apple drank and some lemon pound cake (we actually all got the lemon pound cake lmao) and then just waited for Molly because she's tweeted us that she was running a little late. Eventually Sera showed up from finishing up her own getting ready too and she hopped in line a couple people behind fucking Ricky Rollins. IT WAS SO HARD NOT TO CREEP ON HIM LMAO I think he eventually sensed that the place was full of StarKid fans and he didn't want to have to listen to their creepy bullshit because after a little while he put his headphones in. He was also wearing a badge that was actually made out for Ricky Winowiecki - comedy gold. Ohhh, rickroll.
We got another tweet from Molly and turns out they evacuated her train because it smelled suspiciously like fire! So she was going to be about half an hour later than planned and we were like, "O." Yeah that's. That's a good excuse. So we waited around in Starbucks and Sera was ALMOST to the front of the line when Molly got there. The line was REALLY LONG at that point so Molly didn't really bother getting in it, she just stood around and talked to us!!! SHE IS SO CUTE AND SO NICE AND I WANT TO BE HER BEST FRIEND AND LOVE HER FOREVER. She was wearing this GREAT dress that had this cute bicycle print all over it and so yeah we all introduced ourselves as our twitter usernames and she recognized all of us and we talked and talked about WWM (and how piano guy the day before had played stuff, and how WTTCG is my ringtone - she said Marty's working on sheet music and a Dogs In Space ringtone himself), and the convention, and how we'd come in from all over and were meeting up for the first time in a while. I think she complimented my costume yes good. Sera got her coffee and reconvened with us and we talked some more. I told her we were actually ending up missing the MinaLima panel to talk to her instead and she basically went WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, WHY ARE YOU NOT AT THAT INSTEAD which was kind of adorable but honestly I think the sacrifice was well worth it because as much as I wanted to go to that panel, like, WHEN AM I GOING TO MEET MOLLY SCANLON AGAIN. Also this girl came in with a skirt that was patterned to look like the TARDIS and Molly was coveting it, it was so cute. She was like "I wonder if she'd let me just like...buy that straight off her body right now..." ajksdkjasdhgl molly feeeeeeelings. And I was able to give her the Psychonauts buttons I'd brought for Marty (because we're apparently Schaferbros)! Since I'd forgotten to give them to Corey at the signing on Thursday. She was like "No, don't worry, Corey probably would have forgotten to ever give them to him. He'd have packed them away somewhere and wouldn't find them for six months" and akjsdgahlkgh. Corey is hashtag #TheWorst. And we took a picture with her and then she was like "go on, don't be late for your StarKid things because of me!!" so we left her at the Starbucks to get her own coffee and we scurried back to the hotel. AAAHHHH SO WORTH IT. MOLLY SCANLON I LOVE YOU.
Gabi was getting a front-row seat to Senior Year courtesy of A. and her magic Nick Lang powers, so our plan had been to sort of crash the tail-end of the MinaLima panel - not just because we really wanted to see at least part of it, but also so we could claim the "we were in other programming!" privilege and get shuttled into the Senior Year line ahead of people who'd just started to line up first thing in the morning. I really respected that Leaky was doing this because it definitely wasn't fair to other programming to have people skipping stuff that panelists worked really hard on just to line up for the bigger headlining events. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us into the MinaLima panel late, so we tried to find another panel to cop onto, and when that failed too we just tried to figure out what was going on with the clusterfuck of a line. There were SO many places that looked like the "end" and shit kept getting moved around and it literally snaked through the majority of the building, but finally we found a staffer and were like "WHERE TF DO WE GO" and she was like "If you're coming from other programming, you have a special line that's in here" and gestured us toward a room with closed doors and we were like god, thank you, that is literally all we were trying to do with our lives right now.
The line in there was SUPER-SHORT and even though we were at the tail end of it, we were assured that there were only two other (also small!) clumps of people that would get into the space ahead of us, which was super awesome. Someone asked about Rockstars and the staffer (it was that taller woman with the funny teal hair, y'all know who I mean) started to explain and used the phrase "segregated seats" before realizing what she was saying and by then we were all laughing at her and she was like omg, party foul. So then she goes "There are - well no I was going to say 'separate seats' but now that just sounds like 'separate but equal'!" and I was like "GOSH CHECK YOUR ROCKSTAR PRIVILEGE" and the whole line laughed and she had to like stop in the middle of a sentence to laugh and we finally got around to it just being "There are ROPED-OFF seats that are just for Rockstars" and we all kept chuckling about it and it was great. So eventually our little chunk of line started moving and we made it into Senior Year and found some seats and Sera decided she'd sit with me even though she could've gotten Rockstar seats and there were free swag 3-D glasses under our seats! Aahhhh! Also there was this supah-cute Bellatrix cosplayer in the row in front of us and she'd gotten up for some reason and as she was sitting back down she got my attention and was like, "Your AVPM Ginny cosplay is so, so great" and I was like "aww thank u I try :3" and she said "And you like, actually look like her too, so..." and I was like "!!! I get that a lot and I freak out every time because she's literally my idol" and askdjgahsdkjg jaimefeels.
Some dumbasses started a Get Back to Hogwarts sing-along and it was so sloppy and ugh but I was like you know what, once it gets to Ginny I'm pretty much going to have to jump up on my seat and do the lines and be my same old attention-whore self, but it was barely finishing up with the Hermione part when the lights dimmed down and everyone stopped singing and just screamed instead. And then the show happened!!!!!!!!
---MILD TO MODERATE (BUT NOTHING SEVERE) SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT. Ctrl+F to "ballroom" if you want to skip this section entirely, that'll warp you to the next spoiler-free paragraph. :) ---
The show was such a fucking hot mess omg. Nick came on and did a curtain speech thanking everyone, and explaining how it was originally going to be a staged reading but once they all got together their excitement just sort of snowballed and they decided to make a conscious effort to make it as close to a complete show as possible, but that pretty much no one had memorized everything and most everyone was going to be carrying scripts and reading off lines. He also made us all promise not to cheer for the initial appearances of specific actors, because he was like "we want it to go for four hours and not five hours, and there are thirty actors and if you cheer for thirty seconds everytime someone appears that's like fifteen minutes so just be quiet" ahahaha. Nick Lang is a presh human being. He also was like "we also really miss the three people that aren't here today" which were Julia (at a wedding), Ali (doing Fiddler in Vermont)...and Bonnie, who he was literally just like "she couldn't be here today, thank you" and it was so awkward L M A O nobodycaaaares.
So the show starts and let me reiterate IT'S A HOT MESS. Darren and Walker are the ones relying most heavily on their scripts, probably because in Walker's case he had some of the most complicated scenes and because in Darren's case he had the least time to prepare (and lbr, when is Darren ever prepared even when he DOES have time?). The music was all done by Clark and AJ which was really clear in that AJ (as Gilderoy Lockhart) had a whole song to himself that was catered pretty much perfectly to his own abilities and Clark had a song where he was actually singing overtop of some action even though he wasn't actually a character. Here are some other spoilery highlights:
- Tyler Brunsman as Professor McGonagall, which needs no explanation
- Neither do Eric Kahn Gale as a Wizard Cop, AJ as Lockhart, BHoldz as Hagrid, or Chris Allen as Moaning Myrtle (several of the actors said his was actually the hardest scene for they themselves not to laugh at)
- Jeff Blim as Aragog actually does need an explanation because it was so fucking superfluous to the rest of the plot; unlike in the books, where encountering Aragog actually helps the kids figure out a piece of the Chamber of Secrets puzzle, the run-in they have in Senior Year literally only served as an excuse to get both Aragog and Jeff Blim into the show. This was the Get In My Mouth song that was widely advertised and it pretty much only consisted of Jeff Blim popping the giant booty of his spider costume all over the stage inappropriately and singing. LITERALLY THE GREATEST was when the song didn't end when it was supposed to and the band kept playing beyond what actually had lyrics, so Jeff just kept singing the same few lines over and over again and finally just went "I'm done~" so that the band would stop. Crying. Also Elona, Sango, Arielle and Alle-Faye were the backup dancer spiders and they all had shirts with the necks cut wiiiide out of them and both Elona and Sango came dangerously close to flashing boobie. Oops.
- Joey Richter had the most INCREDIBLE SONG I HAVE EVER SEEN JOEY SING. Like, it just kind of blew my mind how wonderfully he was performing it, even if his falsetto voice did crack on the first line (and it was pretty clear he knew that'd probably happen, since he already had a water bottle stashed under the closest set piece and was able to take a swig between the opening lines and when the song really got going) - like, I kept thinking back to the first-ever Granger Danger in the first show, and how adorable but weak he was then because he's not actually trained for MUSICAL theatre, and to see the transformation from that to this song (which I won't give the context for because it's more of a spoiler than I'd like to post) was INSANE. HE'S SO GOOD. AND SO ATTRACTIVE. Literally all of my feelings I used to have about Joey Richter just came rushing back to me. You know it's pretty sad when him wearing that nasty maroon Ron wig made him look better than his natural hair currently does. CUT YOUR FUCKING HAIR.
- Meredith-as-Hermione (spoiler lmao) has a great sequence of pretty much sluttily coming on to AJ-as-Lockhart in an effort to make Ron jealous, that was full of the most sexually explicit crap a StarKid Potter show has ever contained. I hope they don't have to cut too much of this for the youtube version because it was inappropriate but QUALITY and Meredith was just like running around cupping her boobs and talking about being wet and doggy style and all sorts of garbage oh my god.
- Ginny-Jaime got to do so much more!! She didn't have any prominent singing, but she had a strong storyline of her own (because lol tom riddle's diary) and a much better (curly!) wig than before, she was fucking adorable. She gets her own incarnation of the blue headband!! Weasleys roll hard. :D Definitely want to get one for my costume at some point in the future.
- In the context of the show, Darren took his tie off at one point, and when he went to put it back on, he fucked up in a way that I'm pretty sure ONLY Darren could have fucked up. I'm sure everyone's always seen posts about this because it was hilariously obvious that he was struggling HARD with it. So he's fucking around with it struggling through some song lyrics and he finally just goes "FUCK THE TIE" and leaves it as it is and keeps on going, and everyone screamed and cheered and now there's a serious movement for a "fuck the tie" t-shirt because like...yes. THE BEST PART IS Darren was literally the only person on stage at this time AND it was a really touching moment, so when the show gets edited for youtube, there's NO ACTUAL WAY to cut this part out. The whole world is going to see Darren fuck his tie up. (Seriously, he got it like, buttoned into his shirt collar. What the fuck were you smoking, Criss.)
- Someone casts Serpensortia at some point and Nico Ager comes out puppeteering this stuffed snake that is literally just trying to bite people in the wiener and he honest to god starts just going "Gimme that dick! Gimme that dick!!" and I just don't even know what to do with myself.
- Clark and AJ were like pianobros the whole time and they were sitting SO CLOSE TOGETHER and it was kind of gay and I couldn't help it and I'm so glad Gabi reached the same shippy conclusion I did independently from me because that means it wasn't just me and neither of us influenced the other's opinion and THAT MEANS IT WAS REAL. CLARK/AJ OOOOOPS SORRY I'M NOT SORRY they kept like leaning in to talk to each other and hear things and they were just alsdkjgahkdfjh.
Other than that a lot of stuff was pretty par for the course, but because the show was CLEARLY entirely unedited, there were some definite low moments. One scene with young Tom Riddle going back to his family from whom he was orphaned and discovering that they are all Muggles (and also, through some blatant metaphor and shit, homophobes) went on about 12 minutes longer than it EVER NEEDED TO. There was also some weird Lockhart content that while hilarious in a sort of absurd way really just seemed like, totally nonsensical and unnecessary. Those were the only parts that had me genuinely cringing away, though, and I feel like if the youtube edits can clean those sections up they won't be so bad and it'll just turn into another Umbridge's Mama "I can't quite watch this oh god" kind of moment. There were also just a lot of pacing issues as a natural, inevitable result of people not quite being off book, but that'll be easy to clean, too, except for maybe in the context of the Wizard Duel song (not the one that won the contest, which was deemed "too complicated" for everyone to learn in time, but one of their own creation) which I just felt like moved so much more slowly than it needed to to be effective.
Overall I felt like the comedy was weaker than usual but the emotional, touching, more serious moments were stronger than usual, with a lot of meta-themes surrounding how "everything must end" (aka This Is Our Last Potter Show Ever, We Mean It) and, depressingly, how Darren isn't Harry Potter any more. :( Starting from a scene at the end when Harry finally deigns to shake hands with Malfoy and declare that they are officially friends, I started bawling like a baby, which was honestly not something I was expecting because anyone who knows me fairly well knows that I don't usually cry at things. But a lot of the stuff that happened at the emotional climax of the show just kind of took my Harry/Ginny feelings and my Harry-and-Ron-are-bros feelings and even my Ron/Hermione feelings and rolled them into a ball with my StarKid-as-bros feelings and my creative-power-of-fandom feelings and my Darren-as-a-member-of-StarKid feelings and THAT'S A LOT OF FEELINGS SO I WAS PRETTY OVERWHELMED. My hands were just kind of trembling in the general vicinity of my face (or else clutching at Sera's) and I was sobbing and I'm just so, so glad and fortunate that I got to be part of this experience and that I made it to LeakyCon in general and I wouldn't trade anything that happened this past weekend for the world.
Also, Tom Riddle hates Snickers bars.
ANYWAY once I cleaned myself up from the hot mess that THAT was, we all managed to worm our way out of the packed ballroom and back up to our own room because Jenna, Sera and I were going to meet Nicole for dinner! Along the way we stopped to find a spot where Sera got wifi and immediately start saving some tumblr urls so we could hoard them away from other people because we're awful. I'm happy though because at least Sera and Kelsey got some that I think they will actually use (Kelsey reeeaaally wanted "gilderoyholmes" and Sera managed to get it for her and yay but lol "fuckthetie" and "fuckthistie" were already gone). It was an abrupt 180 to go from "completely immersed in exactly why we came here" to "leaving the convention center entirely and going out into the real world" but I feel like if I'd been allowed to just sit and languish in my feelings in the hotel room there's no way that could've turned out well. So I de-Ginny'd myself and communicated with Nicole for us to team up with her right outside of our hotel, and there was much running-into-each-other's-arms rejoicing. We walked a few blocks to the English restaurant that was in Nicole and Tom's hotel and had dinner there, where I got this fancy butter chicken flatbread with like masala sauce and cheese and it was so delish omg and also Sera's yorkshire pudding came with a side of green beans that she didn't want so I got to eat those too. We talked a lot about stupid StarKid stuff, we explained a lot of things from Senior Year to Nicole because we knew she wouldn't care about spoilers, and talked about our experiences at the con thusfar, and rehashed some old funny fandom moment stories, and it was great. I like Tom, too, he seems like a cool dude (I like him more than the last boyfriend of Nicole's I met welp). We were also happy to have a chance to vent some of our frustrations about the con thusfar in a place where no one who might get offended was around to hear them, which was pretty great. Mostly I was just so happy I got a chance to see Nicole at all since she didn't actually come to the convention itself. It was a great reprieve in the middle of the CON CRAZY and I love her so much :(((( nicoooooollle~~ And after that she came up to the room and I gave her her cookies and she got to see/meet Gabi and Kelsey and things were awesome.
After that there was nothing we were really planning on going to except the dance! It was going to start pretty soon so we were trying to get all our prep out of the way, Sera and I had to iron dresses and shave our legs and Gabi's dress had this corsety bit to it that I had to help her lace up and Jenna was trying to figure out what out of her limited wardrobe she was actually going to wear. Annie and Jen stopped by already gussied-up around the time that the dance was actually supposed to start, and we all glammed up as quick as we could after that and left Gabi to stay with Kelsey, who was kind of social'd-out and needed a bit of a break between that and dancing to recover. We all looked awesome. I even managed to make my hair look decent without showering and it had been in a wig most of the day. Fuck yeah~
The dance was such a fucking trip omg. Alex Carpenter is a pretty shitty DJ but the songs he played were at least good songs for the most part, he was just kind of failing at working the crowd in a way that was effective, idk. Almost right when we got there he played I Wanna Be but then he didn't really play any "fandom" songs for the rest of the night except like...I'll Make A Man Out Of You? Weird lmao. Annie and Jenna went off to get drinks and Sera and Jen and I danced together for a while and kind of scouted out for StarKids who might be arriving and dawdled and had fun. EKG showed up looking hella plastered and just sort of bounce-danced his way through the crowds trying to get where he was going and it was SO FUNNY, I really wanted to dance with him because he was drunk as hell and I love him so much but he never really stayed in one place very long and it was kind of hysterical. Eventually we got too hot from press-of-bodies dancing and we had to go back to the water-cooler area and get some agua to cool down, and naturally of course fucking Corey Lubowich shows up looking fly as hell in his nice clothes and I was like, YOU STINKER WHAT ABOUT THAT PRODUCTION MEETING but I tried not to let it upset me. Honestly, they probably just can't really dance with fans any more, so it's no big deal at all, I just wish he would've actually said that to me instead of feeding me an unrelated excuse? Because I feel like he thinks I'm really creepy and didn't want me to see him there at all?? :((( bawwww my stupid stalkercrush feelings.
We didn't see much of Gabi and Kelsey while we were there but the five of us, me Jenna Sera Annie Jen, ended up pressing into the crowd and maneuvering kind of close to the front. A BUNCH of StarKids started showing up, all of them drunk off their asses (the top 3 drunkest were definitely Jeff, EKG and Strauss, followed closely by a gradually-getting-sluttier Alle-Faye Monka), and like, that made me happy for them, because (as Emily told me later courtesy of Brant) they'd really been SO reined in by what was happening conwise and all the shit they had to do and not do, and Saturday night after the show was over was the first downtime they were really getting to just be themselves and party with their friends. They all DESERVED to be totally blitzed. It was so awesome. The Warblers were also up on the stage with them and it was really obvious that Riker was the only one too young to drink because he was the only one who retained like, solid rhythm and coordination for all the dancing they kept doing every time ACarpz played a song the Warblers had covered on the show. Laughing my actual ass off this baby.
Corey danced mostly with June and Yonit who were both wearing REALLY PRETTY dresses and Jaime's dress was like this hot-ass coral pink color and she should marry me, and eventually Matt Lang was up there and Alex made everyone scream for him, and Darren was dressed like super-fly super-nerdy Darren and that was magnificent, and I just. I want to be friends with them so badly. What does it take? I know I sound kind of desperate and gross and I'm probably working against myself in such a serious way, but I honestly just want to graduate out of being "a fan" to being actual chums with them. I'm their age, we share a lot of common interests, I don't like feeling like they're so untouchable and I can never connect with them on their level. Do I have to move to Chicago? Do I have to act like I've never heard of A Very Potter Musical? Do I have to magically get Nick Lang to give me acting lessons? I just...I've never felt so strongly like I need to be friends with people than I do about these guys. It's like My Little Pony 2x18 and (as usual) I'm Pinkie Pie. BE MY FRIENDS PLS. :(
Eventually we just got too sick of being surrounded by people, and I was really thirsty and needed a drink again and SO FUCKING SWEATY, like I honestly think this was the sweatiest I've ever been and I've been to Otakon five times and cosplayed four of those times. Sweat was dripping down my legs. Annie and I left Jen, and Sera had gone with Jenna to keep her company while she had a cigarette, and so we wasted some time taking pictures together and mostly just goofed off and drank some more water. At some point we went back into the fray to rescue Jen, though, and ended up way closer to the stage than we'd been before, though it was less fun this time because basically all the StarKids were gone (though Nick Strauss did come back for at least one song because he was drunk and obnoxious and I love him, I'm pretty sure he sang literally every word to Superbass) and the Warblers weren't doing much any more either (though they came back even after they'd left to dance when Alex played Teenage Dream). There was a lot of everyone-jumping-en-masse-so-hard-the-floor-shakes and it was fun, but eventually I was like "I'm gonna go find Sera" and I stood with her for only a couple of songs before they started playing Don't Stop Believin' and I literally said to her "I hate this song and I want to leave." Our feet reeeaaallly hurt from shoes so she decided to come with me and we drifted into the grand ballroom where they had a lot of tables set up for people to sit at and relax. TOOK MY SHOES OFF. WAS NICE.
We ended up sharing a table with a couple of slightly-sloshed StarKid fans who were basically having the same we-love-them-so-much-ugh problems as we were; the tipsier of the two of them literally told me her three goals had been to dance with Liam, hug Nick Strauss, and then do...something?...with Chris Allen, I forget. Or something like this IDK I mostly just remember dance with Liam and that she was a big Chris fangirl. They were pretty fun and we bonded with them for a while about how drunk all the StarKids were and how infuriating some of them can be boywise and then Jenna came back to us also a little sloshed and entered into our powwow and it was nice. Eventually we also found Gabi and Kelsey and I think also Hannah and Courtneigh and managed to get some fun pictures of our whole hotel room together, looking a hot mess after sweating for three or four hours but god we were just so happy to be together. :3 Hannah told a great story about how earlier she'd been a participant in a human pyramid that also involved the four Warbler boys!! She's really little so she got to go on top of Curt and Titus and it was kawaii as hell. Courtneigh was also with her when that happened and had apparently been telling this story somewhere when "some bitch" tried to tell her that she hadn't actually met the Warblers, and she was like "...u srs." (SPOILERS: We found out later that said bitch was apparently Steph Walsh. Lots of bonding over we-don't-like-the-street-team anger. It's the best way to make friends in this fandom lmaoooo)
We could hear Total Eclipse of the Heart emanating from the main events room and almost decided to go back in, but it just wasn't worth it because we were so tired and sweaty and soon after that the dance shut down and we went back to our room to crash (which we would've done earlier but Kelsey was the only one smart enough to grab a room key, what the fuck we were dumb). Hannah and Courtneigh came with us so I could give Hannah her cookies, and she was literally the last person I had left to give them to and I was SO HAPPY because it meant I could stop making gross frosting messes everywhere and I didn't have to worry about any of that any more. We hugged and were happy and tired together and then they left and the rest of us tried feebly to pack as much as possible before we were just too tired to keep going and had to hit the beds.
I think I slept the worst this night, even compared to the two nights where I was roughly awakened by phone calls in the wee hours. I'd been struggling a lot all weekend with the fact that pretty much all of our "hotel room food" snacks were sugary - cookies with frosting, granola bars with chocolate in them, nutella + pretzels, Canada candy - and I'm pretty sure between that and being dehydrated from sweating all night my body was going into some kind of shock. I got into bed but sometime over the weekend my knee developed this pain-twinge that it's never had before, and in addition to that my butt-cramp problem from back in October was flaring up again periodically, and I had both those aches&pains PLUS I was physically shaking from my sugar-shock situation and I kept having to bolt out of bed and down huge glasses of water and try to put myself back together in some way. Next time I'm making sure we get ahold of some fresh fruits and vegetables because I'm just at the point in my life (read: not 17 like a lot of my fellow con-goers) where I actually need proper nutrients to function on a daily basis. I managed to make it through okay but I felt bad because I kept disturbing my bedmate Sera every time I'd have a spaz attack (I thought I was making her mad; it turns out she actually thought I was sick and kept going to the bathroom to throw up, so she was worried, and aaaahhh).
God, Saturday. Molly Scanlon -> AVPSY -> dinner with my best friend -> massive nerdy dance party. I honestly can't think of a more perfect day of my life.
Sunday
Actually sleeping in for once!! Relatively speaking, anyway. The only real "event" we were planning on hitting was the StarKid panel at 11, so we stayed in bed (ish) for a lot longer than every other day. I mean...I got up at like 8:30, but that's because I don't sleep, and also because I wanted to get a shower SO BADLY because we were sweating SO MUCH and I didn't want to have to fight anyone else for it so I wanted to be first. As soon as I realized it was a reasonable time for getting up I BOLTED, ahahaha. It was such a goooood shower. I got so cleeeean. By the time I was outta there Jenna was mostly up and Gabi was partially up, and so we sat around and talked and finished packing and let Sera laze in until 9:15 which was the latest she'd said she wanted to sleep. We made sure everyone was as packed as fucking possible and then were like hey, we're gonna go to the vendor room, because Jenna really wanted one of those Beater bats; Gabi and Kelsey had other plans of some kind, I think to include Gabi's First 50 meet-and-greet with the StarKids before their panel.
Ahhh my sense of time is a little messed up here but I think Sera went to her Leaky Lit signing but also with me whenever I went to the vendor room because Jenna mostly just decided to fuck off and hang out with Nicole?? But then the vendor room turned us away because they weren't open till 11, and we'd gotten some text from Gabi that said that the line for the StarKid panel was already forming starting at 10, so I guess Sera went to her signing and I was like "fuck" and went to the panel and teamed up with Hannah. We looked for closer-up seats but eventually ended up pretty far to the back (Gabi and Kelsey, naturally, were in the front row with A.) and I saved one for Sera and Hannah saved one for Courtneigh. We chatted a while and blah blah whatever before the panel started. There were some girls sitting behind me talking about some big names in the Klaine fic community and they mentioned a couple of my friends (Lucie specifically ♥) so I jumped in and mentioned that I love them and we talked about fic a little and then I shamelessly name-dropped myself and the one girl was like "aahhh, I totally follow you!" whomp whomp I'm so vain? Gross.
At some point they like STOPPED LETTING NEW PEOPLE IN and I was like nooooo Seraaaaa but then there was this big clusterfuck with them apparently not adequately saving Rockstars seats, since the meet-and-greet that was supposed to be before the panel got rescheduled to after, which was pissing off Gabi (and Emily H who also showed up later) because they were both First 50 and their shit had been getting fucked the whole weekend. Really the start of this panel was a testament to how incompetent a lot of the staff and scheduling had been all weekend, and how getting Rockstar status was REALLY not worth the extra money, and I felt bad for people and frustrated at other people all at once. They asked us all to move two rows back and Sera and I literally didn't, and neither did Hannah who was sitting in the row in front of me, because with the way our seats were saved around us etc. it made very little difference. Hannah ended up with an extra empty seat after Courtneigh showed up that she was able to give to Emily so we all sort of sat near each other and it was nice. And on the other side of Sera was this guy Josh that seemed really awesome, and we started talking to him about how he accidentally met Joey's parents (who were, it turns out, two rows back from us on the other side of the aisle, and I could easily see them from where I was), and how he was a huge Denise Donovan fan and he'd gotten to see her a couple days before and was so excited about it, and we were like "Oh! We were totally talking to Denise right after you were!" because Sera, A. and I had run into her in the vendor room for a few minutes and chatted to her about My Little Pony and some other stuff before she realized she was super-needed in their rehearsal space and had to run off without doing autographs, bummer. Anyway I really liked him and it was so great to meet a nice sane DUDE in the StarKid fandom wahhhh making new friends.
Okay so this panel was hilarious because as one would expect, THEY WERE ALL REALLY HUNG OVER. Nearly everyone who needs corrective lenses of some kind was in glasses instead of contacts, Joey and Richard and Alle-Faye and Dylan and aaahahahaha, and every time AJ spoke it was super softly and the whole beginning of the panel they just played the songs from the two contest winners and called them up on stage and made them talk because the StarKids themselves were clearly incapable of holding a train of thought for that long. Joe Walker particularly just tanked on an answer during the Q&A part and we nearly applauded when he finally managed to speak words that made a whole sentence. Fun info that came out of the panel:
- The Lockhart shit I found the weirdest has actually existed for a LONG TIME. Matt and Nick (who were sharing one chair since there weren't enough, which was fucking stupidly adorable) told us that Lockhart's a character they've been trying to use forever - he was in the original AVPM but got cut, was then included into AVPS but got cut again, and now was finally getting used in Senior Year, so the big, what-the-fuck-is-this-shit monologue he had in Senior Year has been written since AVPM was written. THIS MADE A LOT OF SENSE, because thinking about it in that context, it was clearly something that Matt and Nick wrote LONG BEFORE StarKid had anything resembling a fanbase; it sounds like something they did just because they themselves thought it was hilarious, and they were never concerned with having it make sense and be coherent to fans who might have different senses of humor. Which kind of made me hate that part less, lol.
- They'll be doing their best to produce a soundtrack, though it'll be difficult because no one (especially Clark and Darren) is anywhere near each other geographically.
- The youtube edits definitely have to include the bleeping of the F-word, but some other stuff is probably going to stay in!
- Their microphones were live the entire show, which explained some silly noises we heard while they were backstage, including both whisper-talking and TOILET FLUSHES. Corey explained this in a super-sassy/eloquent Corey manner, talking about how it was way too unpolished and there were way too many actors for anyone to be able to run mics and have them only come on when the actors were actually onstage speaking - "So, considering they were all on all the time - aren’t you surprised you didn’t hear more?" CLASSIC COREY. Everyone was the best.
The final question of the panel was something along the lines of "So, a lot of the fans, some of our favorite stuff is obviously watching you mess up - " (Joe Moses goes "That's mean!") but then going on to ask "Which of the flubs did YOU GUYS find the funniest?" Some great stories came out of that, like stuff about Alle-Faye sticking her head out when she wasn't meant to (except apparently she WAS meant to - Walker said there were lots of moments when actors were supposed to be on stage as his sort of "back-up crew" and they nearly never were), Darren cracking up laughing and going "Oh my god, this is so fucking funny!" at dialogue he'd never seen before RIGHT ON STAGE when some of it was actually HIS DIALOGUE, Darren ending up on the wrong side of the stage and Joey having to tell him in-character as Ron to move somewhere else when in the context of doing that Ron is basically sending Harry to his death by basilisk, etc. etc. Pretty much all of the bloopers were related to either Darren or Joe, and they were all beautifully funny, so I hope as many of them as possible stay in, because it was a really organic (shut up I USE THAT WORD UNIRONICALLY JUST SHUT UP) performance and you could really see all of StarKid vibing on a wavelength with each other and building this show from the ground up and aaahhhh feelings.
After the panel, which was pretty great, Sera and I hit the vendor room for real because I wanted one of those Beaters' bats and we both wanted StarKid merch. The bat I wanted the most was GONE, though, and I had to settle for my second choice, but considering they were marked down from $25 to $20 and I got an additional $2 for correctly answering a Harry Potter trivia question (which lmao came from the trivia game that I actually own and just played a couple weeks ago and the guy even gave me the multiple choice) I can't really complain. The line at the StarKid booth was looonnng but not so bad; we ended up next to a girl in a volunteers' shirt named Margeaux who was talking to us about StarKid a lot and agonizing over what to get for her custom T-shirt print (spoilers: the extra cost of a custom print was not worth it). Meanwhile, me and Sera are agonizing about when hotel check out actually is and how long we can stand to be in the basement while Gabi and Kelsey have to overstay our welcome upstairs. We FINALLY get to the front of the line and like, some of these people I don't think were actually AATs people because they were just kind of dumb. The guy I was talking to was really tall and weird and our exchange kind of went like this.
Me: I would like a sticker... I would like the Quidditch postcard... and I would like a small SuperMegaFoxyAwesomeHot tank top. Please.
Dude: Is that it?
Me: Yes, that's it.
Dude: Sure you don't want anything extra printed on the back of the tank top, or something>
Me: No, I don't. (I said this kind of matter-of-factly, but not in a way that I felt was rude.)
Dude: Whooaa, hey now.
Me: Well, no, I'm not trying to be mean! I just know the line is kind of long so I figured I'd try to move quickly.
Dude: The line's not THAT big. It's small! It was a lot bigger before.
Me: ...Yeah, it was a lot longer when I first got here, too.
Dude: I just don't like to move people through TOO fast...I don't like to just stand here, I get lonely. (He was clearly trying to be funny but FAILING and so it just came across as creepy.)
Me: ....Uh. Right. But like I do need to move pretty fast because we really need to go check out of our hotel room.
Dude: Oh. Yeah, we probably do too.
What??? Meanwhile, Sera's doing her business with actual MerchMatt of Twitter and it's going much more smoothly. I loitered with my dude for a few minutes because he still hadn't handed me my shirt, even though I'd paid already, but when he never responded I figured I just had to pick it up from Matt instead because he was down closer to where they were so I buddied back up to Sera again and started having a much, much more NORMAL conversation with her and Matt. He said that he didn't know any of the shirts they had at Leaky would be available online later - definitely not anything that says HP stuff on it, because they technically can't sell those online, and he said even if they had extras of the others they'd probably vanish in about two seconds. This swayed Sera enough to get both of the shirts she wanted instead of just one, but I decided just to stick to my tanktop, which I asked Matt for. He handed it over and we kept talking, and then he goes "Did I get you for that?" and I was like "No, no I paid already, it was just never GIVEN TO ME" and he seemed to think that was pretty weird and I was like yeah, ya think. IDK who that other guy was but he was weeeeiiird.
Naturally, because we got zero service in the vendor room/autograph signing BASEMENT of this hotel, as soon as we made it back up the stairs we started getting an influx of texts from Gabi telling us that we were technically supposed to be out of the room by 1, so we hurried back up there as fast as we could, though we were still actively bitching about staff in general and my stupid T-shirt guy in particular as we did. We were apparently loud and sassy enough that one of the cleaning ladies sassed back at us "Okay, 762, okay!" and we laughed hysterically and were like "Sorry!!! We're getting out of here RIGHT THIS SECOND we promise." The hotel staff was as awesome as the convention staff was silly.
We did our final round of packing - Gabi and Kelsey had scoured the room for anything that was left lying around and put it all kind of in one place so we could claim items out of it, and I had left some things slightly unpacked because I knew I'd have merch to cram in alongside them, but finally we were totally together...and Jenna's bag was still there even though Jenna wasn't around anywhere. I tried to call her but she and Nicole were in the art gallery and she had to find a place where she could actually talk without being obnoxious; she was going to see if she was allowed to leave and get back in again as long as she still had her ticket, but if she couldn't she just politely requested we take her crap with us, since it was only two small bags. So that ended up being what we did, and we went down to the leaving feast, our final event of the day until we all kind of had to leave at around 2:30, the three of them for a train to Gabi's house where Kelsey and Sera are staying for the next couple of days and me to O'Hare in time for my 5:30ish flight (between how long it'd take on the L and the margin of buffer time I'd need before boarding).
OKAY, THE LEAVING FEAST IS THE SMARTEST THING LEAKYCON DOES. What other con actually gives you a FREE DELICIOUS BRUNCH MEAL as part of your registration membership cost??? And since I'd been eating nothing but sugarfoods all weekend except for a gross wrap from the "Snax" place in the hotel lobby and the dinner we had with Nicole, coming face-to-face with a massive amount of hash browns and bacon (as well as ACTUAL FRUIT with REAL NUTRIENTS) was kind of like orgasming. We went into the ballroom and most of the tables were taken already, but one of them was taken by Hannah and Courtneigh so we just crashed with them, nbd, before loading up our plates with tons of food and fucking stuffing our faces. (Gabi went on a quest to find ketchup and though it took a LONG time, she came back victorious, fuck yes.)
Pianobro from Friday was back, on the piano in the ballroom corner playing stuff, and there were some half-hearted singalongs during our lunch feast as everyone just sort of mingled and fucked around, until everyone went SSSHHHH because the video screens lit up for Melissa Anelli's con-closing remarks. She thanked a ton of staff people (including thanking Corey BY NAME separately from thanking Team StarKid as a whole - he was also listed that way in the "special thanks" section at the back of the schedule book and oh my heart) and then made some hella awesome announcements about LeakyCon next year, which were basically
+ It's in Portland!
+ Except it's also in London a month or so later, because they teamed up with this English con called Alohomoracon and they're finally able to bring Leaky to the UK!
+ LeakyCon Portland will only cost $140 for basic registration!! There won't be any special add-ons required either - it's literally just basic reg, the Lit track, and Rockstar passes!
+ Everyone who went to Leaky THIS year gets 10% off their registration for next year!
Sera and I started flipping out immediately because we were seriously like "If it's in Portland there's no way we can go next year because fuck Portland are you serious" but now that the cost is way cheaper than we were expecting - and after experiencing the whole weekend full of amazing feelings - things were starting to look way, way more possible. I hope to GOD I can go again next year, because oh my god this con was just so incredible. The friends I reunited with, the friends I met and made for the first time...sdkgjhaskfdhaerkjghaliwurgh. I honestly don't have words for how extraordinary this weekend was, except for that I'm honestly considering getting a tattoo of lyrics from Not Alone now: I want "to make it through" in Jaime Lyn's handwriting, probably on the side of my right thigh, where it was pressed up against Sera's left thigh all through Senior Year.
After Melissa was done we got a shitton more hashbrowns (seriously, I went to get some more for me, and Gabi was like "and for me too, right?" so I was like "Sure" and then I got this MASSIVE PLATE and I was expecting to share with both Gabi and Sera but Gabi had like four bites and Sera had like one bite and then they were just right there in front of me so I just kept eating them), and pianobro came back to life with another round of Get Back To Hogwarts. Early on in the song I ran and asked him if he knew the HMB stuff and if he'd do Super Friends next, and he said yes; later, when it hit the Ginny stuff, I couldn't resist and I ran back over and jumped on a chair and did it to resounding approval, and then I danced all up on Sera for the part where Cedric's singing about Cho because Sera is the Cho to my Ginny. ♥ We used the motion of the Hogwarts Express to get back to our table and join back up with our friends.
It was getting closer and closer to 2:30 and Jenna still wasn't around to pick her stuff up, so we tried to contact her relatively unsuccessfully; I saw Heather and TJ again, and hollered at them so I could say goodbye because I didn't think I'd get to otherwise. Then eventually we're done with our food and done with Super Friends (which he played way too fast, the lyrics were almost impossible to spit out and I was just kind of like "askdjghaklsdjfDALAI LAMA") and bro has started playing Days of Summer which like, ouch my heart, and we get up to leave Jenna's stuff at the bag check station and then leave and I just like, genuinely right from the heart start crying. I barely get out "I don't want to go back to fucking Virginia, I want it to be LeakyCon forever" before I have to stop walking right at the doors between the atrium and the ballroom's foyer and just collapse onto Gabi and sob openly into her hair. Me going sets off Gabi too and Sera gets pretty close to the point where she has to stand away from me and like, again, I wasn't expecting it, but I just couldn't help it and I was so emotional and leaving Chicago yesterday felt honestly like ripping a piece of my heart out and leaving it in an unreachable place. I really get what everyone says now about LeakyCon. I totally understand. I'm nearly tearing up again just writing this.
We manage to pull ourselves back together to head down the stairs and leave Jenna's stuff, and this older guy comes up to me and says something like "Your StarKid Ginny is impeccable," I guess he'd heard me at the feast. So I was like "Yeah I was actually dressed like her yesterday, it's a little more effective with the costume" but he insisted that it was awesome and I was like "well also it's more effective when I haven't lost my voice from incessant talking for four days" and he conceded me that point, lmao. He was a smidge on the creepy side but he was being nice and complimentary I guess so it didn't bother me much. Everyone loves me I'm the best Ginny etc. etc. \o/ At the bottom of the stairs in the lobby proper I ran into Lily again and I was so happy because I didn't think I'd get to say goodbye to her either! I started talking to her about how I'd been crying before and that just made me start crying again and I made her cry too and we hugged and I was like "This is so stupid?? I want to stop???" because at that point I'd kind of beaten back the emotional piece of it and it was literally just like I couldn't turn off my biology. aaahhhh. We waited for Sera to drop Jenna's bags off and then we headed out.
RIGHT ON THE STREET were Jenna, Nicole and Tom on their way back over, and THAT was great because I didn't think I'd get to say goodbye to THEM EITHER. AND THEN I CRIED SOME MORE, ON NICOLE THIS TIME, fucking kill me. Sera, Gabi and Kelsey hopped in a cab to make sure they made their train on time; Sera hugged me first, because I think out of everyone at this con she was the actualfax closest to me, we bonded soooo much and I had such a hard time prying myself away from her, especially since I knew she, Kelsey and Gabi were still going to be together for a while yet and I was the only one who had to leave. I set off for the blue line station still weeping, and it took me a couple blocks to compose myself again.
After a little bit of walking I noticed a girl with a Leaky bag had kind of fallen in step behind me, and when I figured out we were both heading for the blue line we started talking and stuff, and that was really cool (she's 16, lives in the area, was just heading home to her actual house; I was leaving the city and the state altogether). It was a cool experience because I felt like we were bonding cross-generationally within the fandom; she was saying she felt "too young," which we thought was weird because I said I felt "too old" and we were only seven years apart, and it's crazy how that niche can be. It was honestly like I was some prefect talking to a younger student, and we talked about how she'd dressed up as Luna (she pointed out that's why her hair was blonde, since it was obviously not like that naturally) and I'd been Ginny, and how she was a big Nerdfighter kind of person but not that into StarKid like some of her friends were and I was the reverse. A VERY COOL EXPERIENCE just kind of across the fandom divide, and it was so powerful for me to have that be my last interaction with a LeakyCongoer before I flew away??? Wow. Wow. Thank you, Sheila. And thank you, Lily and Mary and Grace: Literally every step of the way there were Potterfans by my side. That shit's fucking profound.
The rest of my Sunday was much bullshittier. I get to the airport and discover that my flight's been delayed about half an hour; after getting a smoothie and sitting around by my gate, we discover that we've actually been delayed till 7:05, and they're putting us on another flight from another gate altogether. Which resulted in me wasting a lot of time trying and failing to fall asleep in an airport, attempting to get online only to discover the wireless WAS NOT FREE??? IN AN AIRPORT WTF, and calling my mom and talking to her about how I'm going to get home-home eventually (I'm ending up taking the Megabus as far as Christiansburg tomorrow morning, and then we're regrouping from there). The one upside to getting stuck in O'Hare longer?
I FUCKING SAW STAN LEE LIKE THREE BENCHES OVER FROM ME ON HIS WAY BACK FROM CHICAGO COMICCON. !!!!!????!!???!? I obviously didn't even TRY to talk to him - once I figured out it was him I also figured out the dude in the purple shirt who was standing, rather than sitting, pretty close to him was probably some kind of bodyguard cockblock dude - but I whipped out my camera right before we had to board and zoomed way far in to get a picture that's just barely good enough to prove that I'm not lying. Stan fucking Lee, guys. I was a little ashamed that no one else seemed to be sharing in my excitement.
Plane ride was bumpy and boring and I tried to fall asleep but couldn't so I just hugged my alligator and listened to my Tegan & Sara album and ignored errybody. The plane was hella crowded so they made me check my rolly suitcase which I was trying not to do because it is WHITE and I didn't want it getting abused bleehh, alas, and then I finally made it back to Reagan and Avery came and got me and I was sooooooo fucking tired but I still stayed up weirdly late (partially from the time shift, my brain was still an hour early) catching up on all the StarKid tweets I missed in our wifi-less pit of a hotel and just rolling around in my Leaky feels.
Gabi, Kelsey, Sera, Jenna, Hannah, Courtneigh, Allegra, Emily, Arianna, Annie, Jen, Casey, Lily, Josh, Sheila, Margeaux, TJ, Heather, Em, everyone - See you in Portland come hell or high fucking water.
I don't wanna see you go, but it's not forever. Always dance.
PICTURES!!! Photobucket rotated some of them and I can't seem to make it unrotate them! Cool! Wow! What an asshole!
Me as Ginny:
Me as Ginny WITH JAIME LYN!!!! and some super-embarrassing stuff!!!
Thursday night #Scav2 shenanigans lmao:
Fuck Yeah Fuck You, Corey Lubowich:
Allegra's cookies! This is what they all pretty much looked like:
The best cosplayers I saw:
Strauss wearing a shirt he's owned since at least his (aka my) freshman year of college:
Everybody dance now!
STAN ACTUAL LEE:
All right, bitches, what did YOU do this weekend??