this was a lot longer than i expected
first, happy late birthdays to ladycat777 and jola, who are both pretty fabulous people. smooches and glitter! and your celebratory food of choice. :D
dancing boys: *tango*
and that. :D
so i'm home from wizardworld, clearly, and when i got to work this morning i had a ton of email in my inbox. >.< not that i was surprised. otherwise it was a chill day but man, reentry is always hard. if you want a wrap-up you can have one, but be warned i have a lot to say. i spent a lot of time on a bus on friday, but that's not important. the important thing is that @iamwintermute met me at the bus/train station in philadelphia, by which i mean she met me on the train to chaneen's stop. she sat in the front car looking like spider-gwen, which made her reallllly hard to miss. i consequently wanted to call her gwen all weekend and am going to do so for the rest of this post, mostly because i don't know how she feels about her real name being out on the internets, and it's faster than typing "wintermute". :D chaneen was off picking up exsequar at the airport, so gwen and i let ourselves in and, uh, took showers because philly was hot and humid and we were disgusting. i spent pretty much the entire weekend going "ugh, weather" and feeling like the humid bunny.
(i'm getting my hair cut in a couple weeks and i CAN'T WAIT.)
hooooly shit it got dark.
...weather tangent. :D i think it's going to rain.
anyway. eventually laura and anne showed up, we all sat around and fangirled, anne and gwen and i went to find food (there's a grocery store across the street from laura's house and by the time we shifted our asses it was CLOSED), eventually we went to bed.
and woke up at 6:30 the next morning. >.< so laura's friends erin and jess could meet us at the house and we could all make it to the convention center and line up for the mcu panel, aka the team cap panel, aka "mackie and evans and sebstan radiate joy and dorkitude for fifty minutes". it was a very long line. while we were waiting i saw two - count 'em - skinny steves, both carrying trashcan lids. one was getting-beat-up-in-the-alley steve and the other was army steve. also there was a guy wearing a t-shirt that said "i'm with princess", and the woman with him was wearing a t-shirt that said "i'm with scruffy-looking". joy! the cosplayers and folks with randomly fannish clothes gave me such joy, seriously. there were a lot of ladies dressed as the tardis with really cute little blue hats.
anyway. the entire mcu panel is out there in tumblrland for your delictation, so i'll just say that the moderator was kind of eh but the audience questions were pretty good, and none of them were embarrassing! someone asked sebstan about bucky's arm, to which chris responded "they just want to hear you say 'lube'", and we laughed, because yes. (the question itself wasn't bad, just one that's been asked a million times.) later on someone asked about pets, and chris is a cupcake about his dog. those were his words. he thinks brie larson would be great as captain marvel, and anthony wondered why they didn't make captain marvel a man. we booed him. like, the entire room booed him, and it was a big room. anthony made fun of chris' driving during cacw, namely that chris drove the beetle into the wall of the parking garage, and chris protested "i drove that car perfectly! seb, back me up!" and sebstan's laughing and the audience is laughing and chris and anthony are laugh-arguing and it was adorable. the guys gave thoughtful, sincere, non-comedic answers too, but i don't remember what any of those were. oh, cacw put bucky in romania for sebstan ("that was very kind of them," he said) and if they could give their characters a tattoo, chris would put peggy's face on steve's chest, i think over his heart. aww. he'd want to be in a remake of west side story and sebstan would want to be in a remake of 48 hours with anthony. also? the moderator gave sebstan a paper bag of plums. how did bucky pay rent on his safe house in bucharest? sebstan: "plums." hee.
moderator: if you were in the dc universe, who would you like to be?
team cap: *DEAD SILENCE*
audience: *cracks up*
if steve had to turn over his shield to sam or bucky he'd cut it in half.
oh, the moderator brought up steve/bucky (and someone in the audience probably cringed) and while sebstan said nothing (i think he chose that moment to have some water) chris put a hand on his leg and said something like "you wanna get out of here later?" and we died.
i only remember as much as i do because i kept texting wrenlet during the panel, so i have a bunch of stuff on my phone. did i mention the panel's online? go and listen and watch them be adorable. sebstan especially is terrifically cute when he laughs. i'm sure this comes as a complete surprise. :D also his hair looked good. and chris buzzed his! O.O but he's got the beard and the beard is hot, so all is forgiven.
i saw a couple peggys in the room afterwards, and i thought they knew each other, but no! they just met. one of them had steve's dossier with the skinny steve photo that peggy kept, and also a vial of steve's blood (it was just water with food coloring, but ew) and she told me her grandfather was born on steve's birthday. like, july 4, 1918. she had like a memorial card or something for her grandfather with his birthdate on it. HOW COOL. also they were both just really nice and let me take their picture. :D
after that was stephen amell, which i stayed for so as not to lose everyone. (for the mcu panel we were joined by a couple of girls whose names i don't remember! but one was dressed as cher from clueless, and i think @appolsaustic who's anne's friend had joined us by then.) i don't watch arrow but he's adorable and funny and had some serious answers to serious questions, and when kids asked him something he gave his answers to them, rather than answering to the whole audience. it was like he was talking just to the kid. it was really sweet. someone asked who amell would want to play oliver in a movie, if there was an arrow movie and he wasn't in it, and he said that was like being told "you can't go out to dinner with your beautiful wife, but what beautiful man would you like to go out with instead?" and the kid who asked the question said "can you answer that one too?" (john barrowman would make a good arrow, for the record. no idea about the second question.)
the other reason i stayed for arrow was because hemsworth and hiddles were after him. :D me and anne and appolsaucy and i think gwen (there were four of us! who was the fourth? laura had a photo op) sat right up front by the microphone for people to ask questions, which meant i had to think of something to ask. >.< but we were also close enough to actually see the guys on stage, rather than having to look at them on a giant screen. i did not swoon but it was a near thing. this moderator was much less intrusive than the mcu moderator, and again, there were good questions and we got nice thoughtful and occasionally funny answers. hiddles and hemsworth like being together - hiddles is an honorary hemsworth and they'd like to do a contemporary movie together - and when someone asked hiddles if he could only play one shakespeare character, who would it be, he said juliet and asked if hemsworth would be his romeo. of course he would. :D i asked hemsworth to talk a little bit about the difference between playing thor (big masculine manly man, god, hero) and kevin from ghostbusters (the janine, which i said with affection because i like janine and i love that a guy is going to be playing that role), and he said he didn't have to go to the gym to play kevin. to which i said, into the microphone, in front of a ballroom full of people, "but we like it when you go to the gym", because i am nothing if not profoundly embarrasssing. and as soon as i said it i thought shit, did i really say that out loud? i sound like complete doof on the video, because i really don't like that many people watching me on a giant screen and listening to me, and i was discombobulated hearing my voice come out of the microphone. fortunately everyone laughed (including hemsworth, i hope) and he went on with his answer. there was some mental facepalm on my end, tho.
a guy dressed as darth trump (seriously) asked hiddles about dancing, if he got to play james bond, but we couldn't convince him to actually dance a little bit. someone else asked if he'd rather be the next doctor who or the next bond, and he said that was like asking hemsworth to pick his favorite child. the last question was a kid who was so shy that his mom had to ask his question, but i don't remember who it was directed to! i want to say hiddles. in any case, the answer was "you're my hero for getting up here to ask a question even tho you're so bashful." it was ADORABLE. i felt bad for the poor kid, because he was hiding against his mother's side and he was probably so nervous he was about to cry, but still, awww.
then anne and appolsaucy and i left the convention center and went out into the hot and humid to find lunch. ugh, weather. and i passed a castiel! i was wearing my singer salvage t-shirt that i won at a wincon, and i saw two castiels on saturday - one (a boy) right after i got my wristband for the day, who gave me the best serious intense castiel face, and the second (a girl) as we were coming back from lunch, who waved at me. she was wearing black wings over her raincoat and was so cute.
we caught the end of the back to the future panel, of which i remember nothing except that lea thompson did not look as if she's aged all that much, and then there was an x-files panel of which i also remember nothing except that it was much more subdued than previous panels, and mitch pileggi kept calling people "darlin'". and after that was agent carter! with hayley atwell and dominic cooper. and they were running laaaaate. she got there first and said dominic was still fixing his hair. (joke. :D ) she would love to see captain america get a boyfriend - i know you're all surprised - and of course peggy would be team cap. steve is having an existential crisis and needs peggy. eventually dominic showed up and they talked about preacher (hayley: "you're brilliant in it." dominic: "have you seen it?" hayley: "i've seen the trailer....") and what dominic thought howard would think about tony's actions at the end of cacw (he can't say, because he's playing a much younger howard and he doesn't know what the older howard would be like, but he thinks howard would agree with tony), and what does dominic do to prepare for preacher? "my hair." heee. his hair looked good, by the way. both he and hayley looked fantastic, and they were so cute together, even tho they were only there about half an hour. apparently hayley at least was stuck at her autograph booth, because wizardworld in its infinite wisdom sold way more autograph tickets than there was really time for. someone (possibly laura) told me that hiddles was there until 8:30 saturday night signing stuff and meeting fans. the con closed at like 6.
also? that morning sebstan's handlers took him to hiddles' booth by mistake, so he drew a mustache on tom's face on the banner. and sebstan and anthony had to be separated on friday (well, their autograph booths did) because they were shooting silly string at each other. SHENANIGANS.
gwen stayed for the costume contest and the rest of us left, and eventually me and laura and anne went to a diner for dinner where the service was soooo sloooow. so, so slow. and we did not go to bed as late, and did not get up as early on sunday. :D altho gwen had to, because she had to go home. :( we didn't meet up with erin and jess until later, but we wandered around the floor for a bit, checked out the autograph lines (laura had tickets for sebstan and anthony), eventually went to panels for: billy boyd (adorable, funny, talked about living in a not-posh part of glasgow and wanting to do drama even tho his guidance counselor at school suggested he not tell anyone that, talked about being naked on stage, shared his headcanon that pippin's grandma knitted his scarf in lotr, was a spider-man fanboy), stanley tucci (who got to fanboy over cher, which was so cute - she'll text him and he'll go "cher texted me! ^_^" to his wife and kids, and they're all "yeah yeah, whatever", also he talked about silences in his work, when he was preparing for the lovely bones he could only research for an hour a day because his character was so horrible, he wouldn't run for president but maybe first lady, he'd be team cap because steve is like his son), and sean patrick flanery (a one on one, not a moderated panel, and he's alternately funny and serious and tells a good story). they were all in the same room, so we just kept sitting there. spf comes out and asks the room "so what are we going to talk about?" and no one says anything! so he starts talking and holy hell does he have a potty mouth. he's just telling stories about norman reedus - "who hasn't heard the horse story?" *everyone raises their hand* "who hasn't heard the marble bag story?" *everyone raises their hand* there was another one i don't remember, but our answer was *everyone raises their hand*. he's written a book, so someone asked about writing vs acting, and i don't remember exactly what he said but it was all about writing! and having an idea and getting it on paper and making a book out of it. which was really interesting coming from someone i only know as an actor. a guy asked him to record an alarm message for his phone, to help wake him up, so spf did that, and then laura's friend jess said he'd met her sister and her sister was lording it over her and could he say something for her sister, so she's got her phone out recording it, and he says "hey, sister, when we met did i do this?" and HE LICKED JESS' CHEEK. AND SHE DIED. AND WE DIED. and it was fabulous. and possibly inappropriate, but i think spf is kind of inappropriate. and jess really did not seem to mind. anne asked him to take a selfie, so he took her phone and took a picture of himself, and then went "oh, you mean with you!" and she ended up with a bunch of pics of the two of them. so goofy and adorable. at the end he said he loves doing these things, talking to fans, and whatever we get out of his work, it's a tenth of what he gets from us. which was a really lovely thing for him to say.
i was not at all expecting (or really planning) to sit through all those panels, but i'm glad i did. they were totally enjoyable and delightful (which might be my new word, because seriously, i was so delighted listening to these guys talk about their work and their process and the fun stuff that happens to them and who they fanboy) but it meant i had approximately zero time to check out any of the vendors or the artists or anything, altho i did get to admire some cosplayers. there were no crowds of deadpools! but we did see a crowd of lokis. a lot less mcu cosplay on sunday, but there were still a bunch of buckys and i saw two wandas and a hawkeye and the occasional natasha and a bunch of steves, altho they were all cap steves and not skinny steves. no more castiels, altho i was wearing my poison elves t-shirt which no one recognized. :( pe was the reason i used to go to wizardworld chicago, lo these many years ago. (the last one i went to was i think 2002.) there were kids in costume, which i love, including a little black panther! very exciting, and also adorable.
autograph ticket holders could bring one person in line with them, which meant i got to sit with laura and wait for sebstan to show up. it was the end of the day and EVERYONE was running late. they were rushing people through their photo ops, which is why he was late, and then they rushed us through the autograph line. there were people who'd been there in the morning but got cut off before they could meet him, so they had to come back in the afternoon. (did i mention the con seems to have sold way more autographs and photo ops than there was time for?) one of the volunteers told us sebstan wasn't going to take selfies - no time - but we could talk to him - "remember to use your words" - and then we were moving VERY FAST. it was an assembly line. a woman in line ahead of us had this fantastic brand-new shield tattoo on the back of her elbow - i told her if it wasn't covered in plastic i'd ask to take a picture of it, because i love me some fannish tats, and she was almost to the front and practically yelled "i'm stephrc79 everywhere! i just posted a picture of it on twitter!" (i wrote her username on my con schedule so i'd remember. this is why i carry a pen. :D ) sebstan's response to her was "wait, they're doing tattoos here??" all excited-like. and yes, he is just as him up close as you would hope, altho not as bulky as he was in cacw. (neither was chris. both chrises, actually, because hemsworth didn't look so massive either.) i have no recollection what laura said to him, or what he said to her, and he signed her thing and that was it. anne had learned how to say "thank you for taking care of bucky" in romanian, but because she let me wait in line (and i wanted to argue with her! because she'd learned sebstan's mother tongue!) we recorded her on laura's phone, but we didn't even have time to play it! hmph, wizardworld, hmph. but at least i got to almost be in his space. altho i was really bummed on anne's behalf that sebstan didn't get to hear her.
then we had to rush for anthony's autograph, and were the last in line! and he's also quite hot up close. and then they rushed us out of the building because it had to close because union rules and sunday and i don't even know.
aaaaaand then anne and laura and i went to see cacw. again. and i think i liked it better! which was kind of a relief, because i really want to love this movie like i loved catws. i really do. it helped that i was seeing it with two people who are huge, huge fans - laura's now seen it six times - because squee is contagious.
we went back to laura's, we sat around, anne checked tumblr, we went to bed. anne went home monday morning, i went home monday afternoon (and laura and i talked about cacw some more and can i just say how much i love my fellow fangirls?), i sat on a bus for seven hours again, came home, had to wash because ugh, weather. eventually i'll get around to resizing my photos and will share some of the good ones. sunday was the day for ditl so i photographed everything - like, my toothbrush before i brushed my teeth, that kind of everything - but i'm not sure if i'm going to post for it or not. for one thing, it's a pain to resize all the pics and set up the post, and there's a deadline. and "now i'm in billy boyd's panel! now stanley tucci's! now spf and oh my god what a mouth on this boy!" might not be interesting to anyone besides me. maybe i'll just put it up here when i get a chance.
i had a really good weekend, partly because fangirls are awesome and partly because i genuinely enjoyed all the panels. the only thing is, if i go to another wizardworld, and i might altho i don't know when, i'm not only not going to try and get a photo op (for one thing, my hair >.< ) or an autograph, i'm not going to stand in line with anyone either. it will be all panels and admiring the cosplayers and checking out the stuff for sale, and as much of a distance from any actors as i can manage. because, and i noticed it most strongly when we were in sebstan's autograph line, you're waiting and waiting and then the line is moving because the person is finally there signing autographs and meeting fans, and everyone's trying to get good pictures from where they're standing and it's like the poor actor is an exhibit in a zoo. (besides, you're not even supposed to be taking pictures in the autograph line - you're supposed to buy photo ops - and the volunteers are really paying attention.) i'm just as guilty as anyone else of contributing to that - because it's contagious and i'm susceptible - and i don't want to be that person. i don't want to be that fan. and in retrospect i'm kind of ashamed of myself that i was. i don't mean to sound judgey about other people's actions! i'm really trying not to judge other people for this. i mean, i get it. i totally get it. i just don't want to put myself in that position again. there's a reason i never wanted to go to any creation cons or anything in the height of my spn fannishness, and evidently i forgot what it was. i need distance. not everyone does, and that's cool. but now i've been almost thisclose to sebstan and his fucking face, even tho i seriously remember practically none of it (except he was wearing a ballcap so i couldn't admire his hair), i feel like i've gotten it out of my system, and next time i'll just admire other people's pics on twitter and tumblr and not worry about whether or not i have any of my own.
that said! if anyone wants to buy me a photo op, that's a whole other story. :D someone, i think erin, got a photo op with hiddles and hemsworth, and she's smiling like a normal person and hemsworth is smiling like a normal person and hiddles is making the goofiest face imaginable. and i would not mind having that kind of reminder from wizardworld.
holy shit this is long. feel free to skip to the end, which is this:
overall, i give my weekend a ten out of ten. well, maybe a nine on account of weather (UGH) and embarrassment after the fact. i think this was my one group fannish experience for the year, since there are no more wincons and confabcon isn't until next spring, and by and large, it was a good group fannish experience. i mean, come on, fangirls. i got to meet some new people. there were hot men and pretty women and some really neat cosplay. in december when i go visit wrenlet i'll have small-scale fannish experience, because i'll make her show me daredevil s2. :D and her friend amy has a cap's shield waffle maker. but there won't be nearly as many people in costume.
dancing boys: *tango*
and that. :D
so i'm home from wizardworld, clearly, and when i got to work this morning i had a ton of email in my inbox. >.< not that i was surprised. otherwise it was a chill day but man, reentry is always hard. if you want a wrap-up you can have one, but be warned i have a lot to say. i spent a lot of time on a bus on friday, but that's not important. the important thing is that @iamwintermute met me at the bus/train station in philadelphia, by which i mean she met me on the train to chaneen's stop. she sat in the front car looking like spider-gwen, which made her reallllly hard to miss. i consequently wanted to call her gwen all weekend and am going to do so for the rest of this post, mostly because i don't know how she feels about her real name being out on the internets, and it's faster than typing "wintermute". :D chaneen was off picking up exsequar at the airport, so gwen and i let ourselves in and, uh, took showers because philly was hot and humid and we were disgusting. i spent pretty much the entire weekend going "ugh, weather" and feeling like the humid bunny.
(i'm getting my hair cut in a couple weeks and i CAN'T WAIT.)
hooooly shit it got dark.
...weather tangent. :D i think it's going to rain.
anyway. eventually laura and anne showed up, we all sat around and fangirled, anne and gwen and i went to find food (there's a grocery store across the street from laura's house and by the time we shifted our asses it was CLOSED), eventually we went to bed.
and woke up at 6:30 the next morning. >.< so laura's friends erin and jess could meet us at the house and we could all make it to the convention center and line up for the mcu panel, aka the team cap panel, aka "mackie and evans and sebstan radiate joy and dorkitude for fifty minutes". it was a very long line. while we were waiting i saw two - count 'em - skinny steves, both carrying trashcan lids. one was getting-beat-up-in-the-alley steve and the other was army steve. also there was a guy wearing a t-shirt that said "i'm with princess", and the woman with him was wearing a t-shirt that said "i'm with scruffy-looking". joy! the cosplayers and folks with randomly fannish clothes gave me such joy, seriously. there were a lot of ladies dressed as the tardis with really cute little blue hats.
anyway. the entire mcu panel is out there in tumblrland for your delictation, so i'll just say that the moderator was kind of eh but the audience questions were pretty good, and none of them were embarrassing! someone asked sebstan about bucky's arm, to which chris responded "they just want to hear you say 'lube'", and we laughed, because yes. (the question itself wasn't bad, just one that's been asked a million times.) later on someone asked about pets, and chris is a cupcake about his dog. those were his words. he thinks brie larson would be great as captain marvel, and anthony wondered why they didn't make captain marvel a man. we booed him. like, the entire room booed him, and it was a big room. anthony made fun of chris' driving during cacw, namely that chris drove the beetle into the wall of the parking garage, and chris protested "i drove that car perfectly! seb, back me up!" and sebstan's laughing and the audience is laughing and chris and anthony are laugh-arguing and it was adorable. the guys gave thoughtful, sincere, non-comedic answers too, but i don't remember what any of those were. oh, cacw put bucky in romania for sebstan ("that was very kind of them," he said) and if they could give their characters a tattoo, chris would put peggy's face on steve's chest, i think over his heart. aww. he'd want to be in a remake of west side story and sebstan would want to be in a remake of 48 hours with anthony. also? the moderator gave sebstan a paper bag of plums. how did bucky pay rent on his safe house in bucharest? sebstan: "plums." hee.
moderator: if you were in the dc universe, who would you like to be?
team cap: *DEAD SILENCE*
audience: *cracks up*
if steve had to turn over his shield to sam or bucky he'd cut it in half.
oh, the moderator brought up steve/bucky (and someone in the audience probably cringed) and while sebstan said nothing (i think he chose that moment to have some water) chris put a hand on his leg and said something like "you wanna get out of here later?" and we died.
i only remember as much as i do because i kept texting wrenlet during the panel, so i have a bunch of stuff on my phone. did i mention the panel's online? go and listen and watch them be adorable. sebstan especially is terrifically cute when he laughs. i'm sure this comes as a complete surprise. :D also his hair looked good. and chris buzzed his! O.O but he's got the beard and the beard is hot, so all is forgiven.
i saw a couple peggys in the room afterwards, and i thought they knew each other, but no! they just met. one of them had steve's dossier with the skinny steve photo that peggy kept, and also a vial of steve's blood (it was just water with food coloring, but ew) and she told me her grandfather was born on steve's birthday. like, july 4, 1918. she had like a memorial card or something for her grandfather with his birthdate on it. HOW COOL. also they were both just really nice and let me take their picture. :D
after that was stephen amell, which i stayed for so as not to lose everyone. (for the mcu panel we were joined by a couple of girls whose names i don't remember! but one was dressed as cher from clueless, and i think @appolsaustic who's anne's friend had joined us by then.) i don't watch arrow but he's adorable and funny and had some serious answers to serious questions, and when kids asked him something he gave his answers to them, rather than answering to the whole audience. it was like he was talking just to the kid. it was really sweet. someone asked who amell would want to play oliver in a movie, if there was an arrow movie and he wasn't in it, and he said that was like being told "you can't go out to dinner with your beautiful wife, but what beautiful man would you like to go out with instead?" and the kid who asked the question said "can you answer that one too?" (john barrowman would make a good arrow, for the record. no idea about the second question.)
the other reason i stayed for arrow was because hemsworth and hiddles were after him. :D me and anne and appolsaucy and i think gwen (there were four of us! who was the fourth? laura had a photo op) sat right up front by the microphone for people to ask questions, which meant i had to think of something to ask. >.< but we were also close enough to actually see the guys on stage, rather than having to look at them on a giant screen. i did not swoon but it was a near thing. this moderator was much less intrusive than the mcu moderator, and again, there were good questions and we got nice thoughtful and occasionally funny answers. hiddles and hemsworth like being together - hiddles is an honorary hemsworth and they'd like to do a contemporary movie together - and when someone asked hiddles if he could only play one shakespeare character, who would it be, he said juliet and asked if hemsworth would be his romeo. of course he would. :D i asked hemsworth to talk a little bit about the difference between playing thor (big masculine manly man, god, hero) and kevin from ghostbusters (the janine, which i said with affection because i like janine and i love that a guy is going to be playing that role), and he said he didn't have to go to the gym to play kevin. to which i said, into the microphone, in front of a ballroom full of people, "but we like it when you go to the gym", because i am nothing if not profoundly embarrasssing. and as soon as i said it i thought shit, did i really say that out loud? i sound like complete doof on the video, because i really don't like that many people watching me on a giant screen and listening to me, and i was discombobulated hearing my voice come out of the microphone. fortunately everyone laughed (including hemsworth, i hope) and he went on with his answer. there was some mental facepalm on my end, tho.
a guy dressed as darth trump (seriously) asked hiddles about dancing, if he got to play james bond, but we couldn't convince him to actually dance a little bit. someone else asked if he'd rather be the next doctor who or the next bond, and he said that was like asking hemsworth to pick his favorite child. the last question was a kid who was so shy that his mom had to ask his question, but i don't remember who it was directed to! i want to say hiddles. in any case, the answer was "you're my hero for getting up here to ask a question even tho you're so bashful." it was ADORABLE. i felt bad for the poor kid, because he was hiding against his mother's side and he was probably so nervous he was about to cry, but still, awww.
then anne and appolsaucy and i left the convention center and went out into the hot and humid to find lunch. ugh, weather. and i passed a castiel! i was wearing my singer salvage t-shirt that i won at a wincon, and i saw two castiels on saturday - one (a boy) right after i got my wristband for the day, who gave me the best serious intense castiel face, and the second (a girl) as we were coming back from lunch, who waved at me. she was wearing black wings over her raincoat and was so cute.
we caught the end of the back to the future panel, of which i remember nothing except that lea thompson did not look as if she's aged all that much, and then there was an x-files panel of which i also remember nothing except that it was much more subdued than previous panels, and mitch pileggi kept calling people "darlin'". and after that was agent carter! with hayley atwell and dominic cooper. and they were running laaaaate. she got there first and said dominic was still fixing his hair. (joke. :D ) she would love to see captain america get a boyfriend - i know you're all surprised - and of course peggy would be team cap. steve is having an existential crisis and needs peggy. eventually dominic showed up and they talked about preacher (hayley: "you're brilliant in it." dominic: "have you seen it?" hayley: "i've seen the trailer....") and what dominic thought howard would think about tony's actions at the end of cacw (he can't say, because he's playing a much younger howard and he doesn't know what the older howard would be like, but he thinks howard would agree with tony), and what does dominic do to prepare for preacher? "my hair." heee. his hair looked good, by the way. both he and hayley looked fantastic, and they were so cute together, even tho they were only there about half an hour. apparently hayley at least was stuck at her autograph booth, because wizardworld in its infinite wisdom sold way more autograph tickets than there was really time for. someone (possibly laura) told me that hiddles was there until 8:30 saturday night signing stuff and meeting fans. the con closed at like 6.
also? that morning sebstan's handlers took him to hiddles' booth by mistake, so he drew a mustache on tom's face on the banner. and sebstan and anthony had to be separated on friday (well, their autograph booths did) because they were shooting silly string at each other. SHENANIGANS.
gwen stayed for the costume contest and the rest of us left, and eventually me and laura and anne went to a diner for dinner where the service was soooo sloooow. so, so slow. and we did not go to bed as late, and did not get up as early on sunday. :D altho gwen had to, because she had to go home. :( we didn't meet up with erin and jess until later, but we wandered around the floor for a bit, checked out the autograph lines (laura had tickets for sebstan and anthony), eventually went to panels for: billy boyd (adorable, funny, talked about living in a not-posh part of glasgow and wanting to do drama even tho his guidance counselor at school suggested he not tell anyone that, talked about being naked on stage, shared his headcanon that pippin's grandma knitted his scarf in lotr, was a spider-man fanboy), stanley tucci (who got to fanboy over cher, which was so cute - she'll text him and he'll go "cher texted me! ^_^" to his wife and kids, and they're all "yeah yeah, whatever", also he talked about silences in his work, when he was preparing for the lovely bones he could only research for an hour a day because his character was so horrible, he wouldn't run for president but maybe first lady, he'd be team cap because steve is like his son), and sean patrick flanery (a one on one, not a moderated panel, and he's alternately funny and serious and tells a good story). they were all in the same room, so we just kept sitting there. spf comes out and asks the room "so what are we going to talk about?" and no one says anything! so he starts talking and holy hell does he have a potty mouth. he's just telling stories about norman reedus - "who hasn't heard the horse story?" *everyone raises their hand* "who hasn't heard the marble bag story?" *everyone raises their hand* there was another one i don't remember, but our answer was *everyone raises their hand*. he's written a book, so someone asked about writing vs acting, and i don't remember exactly what he said but it was all about writing! and having an idea and getting it on paper and making a book out of it. which was really interesting coming from someone i only know as an actor. a guy asked him to record an alarm message for his phone, to help wake him up, so spf did that, and then laura's friend jess said he'd met her sister and her sister was lording it over her and could he say something for her sister, so she's got her phone out recording it, and he says "hey, sister, when we met did i do this?" and HE LICKED JESS' CHEEK. AND SHE DIED. AND WE DIED. and it was fabulous. and possibly inappropriate, but i think spf is kind of inappropriate. and jess really did not seem to mind. anne asked him to take a selfie, so he took her phone and took a picture of himself, and then went "oh, you mean with you!" and she ended up with a bunch of pics of the two of them. so goofy and adorable. at the end he said he loves doing these things, talking to fans, and whatever we get out of his work, it's a tenth of what he gets from us. which was a really lovely thing for him to say.
i was not at all expecting (or really planning) to sit through all those panels, but i'm glad i did. they were totally enjoyable and delightful (which might be my new word, because seriously, i was so delighted listening to these guys talk about their work and their process and the fun stuff that happens to them and who they fanboy) but it meant i had approximately zero time to check out any of the vendors or the artists or anything, altho i did get to admire some cosplayers. there were no crowds of deadpools! but we did see a crowd of lokis. a lot less mcu cosplay on sunday, but there were still a bunch of buckys and i saw two wandas and a hawkeye and the occasional natasha and a bunch of steves, altho they were all cap steves and not skinny steves. no more castiels, altho i was wearing my poison elves t-shirt which no one recognized. :( pe was the reason i used to go to wizardworld chicago, lo these many years ago. (the last one i went to was i think 2002.) there were kids in costume, which i love, including a little black panther! very exciting, and also adorable.
autograph ticket holders could bring one person in line with them, which meant i got to sit with laura and wait for sebstan to show up. it was the end of the day and EVERYONE was running late. they were rushing people through their photo ops, which is why he was late, and then they rushed us through the autograph line. there were people who'd been there in the morning but got cut off before they could meet him, so they had to come back in the afternoon. (did i mention the con seems to have sold way more autographs and photo ops than there was time for?) one of the volunteers told us sebstan wasn't going to take selfies - no time - but we could talk to him - "remember to use your words" - and then we were moving VERY FAST. it was an assembly line. a woman in line ahead of us had this fantastic brand-new shield tattoo on the back of her elbow - i told her if it wasn't covered in plastic i'd ask to take a picture of it, because i love me some fannish tats, and she was almost to the front and practically yelled "i'm stephrc79 everywhere! i just posted a picture of it on twitter!" (i wrote her username on my con schedule so i'd remember. this is why i carry a pen. :D ) sebstan's response to her was "wait, they're doing tattoos here??" all excited-like. and yes, he is just as him up close as you would hope, altho not as bulky as he was in cacw. (neither was chris. both chrises, actually, because hemsworth didn't look so massive either.) i have no recollection what laura said to him, or what he said to her, and he signed her thing and that was it. anne had learned how to say "thank you for taking care of bucky" in romanian, but because she let me wait in line (and i wanted to argue with her! because she'd learned sebstan's mother tongue!) we recorded her on laura's phone, but we didn't even have time to play it! hmph, wizardworld, hmph. but at least i got to almost be in his space. altho i was really bummed on anne's behalf that sebstan didn't get to hear her.
then we had to rush for anthony's autograph, and were the last in line! and he's also quite hot up close. and then they rushed us out of the building because it had to close because union rules and sunday and i don't even know.
aaaaaand then anne and laura and i went to see cacw. again. and i think i liked it better! which was kind of a relief, because i really want to love this movie like i loved catws. i really do. it helped that i was seeing it with two people who are huge, huge fans - laura's now seen it six times - because squee is contagious.
we went back to laura's, we sat around, anne checked tumblr, we went to bed. anne went home monday morning, i went home monday afternoon (and laura and i talked about cacw some more and can i just say how much i love my fellow fangirls?), i sat on a bus for seven hours again, came home, had to wash because ugh, weather. eventually i'll get around to resizing my photos and will share some of the good ones. sunday was the day for ditl so i photographed everything - like, my toothbrush before i brushed my teeth, that kind of everything - but i'm not sure if i'm going to post for it or not. for one thing, it's a pain to resize all the pics and set up the post, and there's a deadline. and "now i'm in billy boyd's panel! now stanley tucci's! now spf and oh my god what a mouth on this boy!" might not be interesting to anyone besides me. maybe i'll just put it up here when i get a chance.
i had a really good weekend, partly because fangirls are awesome and partly because i genuinely enjoyed all the panels. the only thing is, if i go to another wizardworld, and i might altho i don't know when, i'm not only not going to try and get a photo op (for one thing, my hair >.< ) or an autograph, i'm not going to stand in line with anyone either. it will be all panels and admiring the cosplayers and checking out the stuff for sale, and as much of a distance from any actors as i can manage. because, and i noticed it most strongly when we were in sebstan's autograph line, you're waiting and waiting and then the line is moving because the person is finally there signing autographs and meeting fans, and everyone's trying to get good pictures from where they're standing and it's like the poor actor is an exhibit in a zoo. (besides, you're not even supposed to be taking pictures in the autograph line - you're supposed to buy photo ops - and the volunteers are really paying attention.) i'm just as guilty as anyone else of contributing to that - because it's contagious and i'm susceptible - and i don't want to be that person. i don't want to be that fan. and in retrospect i'm kind of ashamed of myself that i was. i don't mean to sound judgey about other people's actions! i'm really trying not to judge other people for this. i mean, i get it. i totally get it. i just don't want to put myself in that position again. there's a reason i never wanted to go to any creation cons or anything in the height of my spn fannishness, and evidently i forgot what it was. i need distance. not everyone does, and that's cool. but now i've been almost thisclose to sebstan and his fucking face, even tho i seriously remember practically none of it (except he was wearing a ballcap so i couldn't admire his hair), i feel like i've gotten it out of my system, and next time i'll just admire other people's pics on twitter and tumblr and not worry about whether or not i have any of my own.
that said! if anyone wants to buy me a photo op, that's a whole other story. :D someone, i think erin, got a photo op with hiddles and hemsworth, and she's smiling like a normal person and hemsworth is smiling like a normal person and hiddles is making the goofiest face imaginable. and i would not mind having that kind of reminder from wizardworld.
holy shit this is long. feel free to skip to the end, which is this:
overall, i give my weekend a ten out of ten. well, maybe a nine on account of weather (UGH) and embarrassment after the fact. i think this was my one group fannish experience for the year, since there are no more wincons and confabcon isn't until next spring, and by and large, it was a good group fannish experience. i mean, come on, fangirls. i got to meet some new people. there were hot men and pretty women and some really neat cosplay. in december when i go visit wrenlet i'll have small-scale fannish experience, because i'll make her show me daredevil s2. :D and her friend amy has a cap's shield waffle maker. but there won't be nearly as many people in costume.