IDK... my BFF Neville?
Oh my god, is Dragon*Con 2007 really over? I feel like we spent a lifetime preparing for it and it was over in a heartbeat. It was exhausting and expensive and an amazingly good time. Driving down (we've had better ideas), the insane crowds, and only getting to half the things I wanted to go to were rough, but actually staying at the hotel, having some awesome costumes, and the fact that _mendon, jadziadaxwb, and nudaydreamer were there made this year top last.
Oh, and before you get started... I apologize in advance for the tl; dr. I totally wasn't going to cut this but I just can't put your flists through that kind of torture.
So, foreverseenstar and I left at 11PM (over an hour later than we'd planned to leave) on Wednesday and were making awesome time (much thanks to the highway of requirement) until we hit traffic in NYC. Things went downhill from there and I swear it took us 19 years to get out of New Jersey. At the first rest stop we pulled into, just as I was parking, some random dude came up to the car and wanted to talk. Despite it being the perfect scenario for a mugging/rape/car jacking/murder, I rolled down the window half an inch and listened to what he had to say. He gave us a sob story about how he's from Connecticut and was trying to get home to his sick mother and had a flat tire and needed $14 more to get it fixed and get home. He seemed legitimate enough, and we were a bit terrified, so we gave him $20 to go away. Definitely kept our guard up going to and from the rest stop to use the bathroom, and then decided to get the fuck out of there and get gas later down the road. The next rest stop we stopped at in NJ smelled like piles of sick and I thought I was going to vomit. I purchased some putrid coffee to keep me awake and we continued on. After NJ the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. foreverseenstar slept half of the way down, which I didn't so much mind because I was fully awake. Somewhere in North Carolina my air conditioner decided to crap out and so the last few hours of our trip down were EXTREMELY uncomfortable. We rolled into Atlanta at 3PM Thursday, completely exhausted and stinking with sweat.
When we checked in we tried to get a room in the International tower near _mendon and jadziadaxwb but since none were available we wound up on the 8th floor of the Atrium tower in the Hyatt. Our room was really really really nice though! It was huge and had a real balcony! Honestly, couldn't have asked for a nicer room. Luckily it was only on the 8th floor and not like the 22nd because I can't even tell you how many times we had to climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator. I'm thinking the few pounds I gained at D*C wasn't in fat, but in muscle because I now have calves of steel.
We met up with _mendon and jadziadaxwb to grab dinner and our con badges (Speaking of con badges, Pierre Bernard just gave the lamest Recliner of Rage on Conan about them. I hate him), and we waited in line a good 45 minutes to get them. I should've known this would be a sign of things to come, but didn't think too much of it. foreverseenstar and I spent the rest of the evening putting the finishing touches on our faerie costumes while waiting for nudaydreamer to get in.
Friday morning started out with room service and being body painted by ukta. She did a fabulous job and I really think it helped put an amazing final touch on the faerie costumes. I liked foreverseenstar's costume the best because she had tons of fun details, but I got a few compliments on mine as well. We stopped and took A LOT of pictures on Friday. And even took some ourselves...
I had wanted to go to the Harry Potter kids panel on Friday but it was the same time as foreverseenstar's SGA panel. Being the awesome friend that I am, I sat through her panel even though it totally sucked because she didn't really have a mic and no one was letting her speak, and I couldn't have cared less what anyone was talking about, unless they were talking about Keller. More Keller talk, please. So yeah, that was one panel I missed that I really wanted to go to. We went upstairs to change because it was getting a bit drafty wearing almost nothing, and then we headed to the HP Costuming panel that puppetmaker40 was part of. The panel was really good, but there was too much talk about how to make cheap, semi-accurate HP costumes. Fuck that. Go big or go home. I don't quite remember how Friday ended, but I'm pretty sure it ended up with us retiring ridiculously early because we were so exhausted. (I guess that because that's pretty much how evenings at D*C went this year.)
Saturday morning foreverseenstar, nudaydreamer and I put on our Hogwarts uniforms and went met up with _mendon and jadziadaxwb to watch the parade. The parade was awesome but next time we'll have to get an even better place to watch. None of my pictures came out particularly good. After the paradee raced inside to get seats for the Harry Potter stars' panel and got decent seats in the center back. I decided that I should probably get something substantial to eat as I was planning to give blood later in the day and thought it best to not pass out during the process. I ran upstairs to the cafe and grabbed some food, only to come back and find that they won't let me into the panel. I tried to explain to the fucking bitch at the door that my friends were saving me a seat, that I'd already been inside, but she wouldn't budge and insisted that I get in the line that was already wrapping back toward the escalators. I knew I'd never get in in that line so I called foreverseenstar. She tried to see what she could do from the inside to get me in, but there was no use. foreverseenstar and nudaydreamer eventually left and I continued to argue with the lady at the door, screaming about the injustice of it all. Some obnoxious Asian dude joined her on door security explaining that the room was full up, being a SUPREME douche who acted as though he was cooler than the rest of the universe. That was when I saw a girl leave the room and then come back in two minutes later, with no trouble at all from the fuckfaces at the door. I screamed bloody murder at the guy, I'm pretty sure half of the very noisy lobby could hear me. "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU JUST LET HER IN!? SHE LEFT AND GOT TO COME BACK IN! WHAT THE HELL!" "She was already inside." "SO WAS I!!!" "Well, I'm very sorry." "I BET YOU ARE. ASSHOLES!" And then I stormed off in a rage of tears. \m/ FUCK YOU, ASIAN FUCKFACE. I HOPE YOU FUCKING DIE, YOU MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF SHIT.
Ahem. Yeah, so anyway. That was panel number 2 that I didn't get to go to. I don't remember what we did in between, but _mendon and I gave blood that afternoon and I have to say it went amazingly well, especially compared to last year. It was virtually painless (the woman was seriously gifted) and they could actually use my blood this year! \o/ Yays, I got to save some lives! It sucked though that the free t-shirts were almost identical to the ones from last year and they didn't even have the right size. :( That's okay because free t-shirts is totally not what it's about. Or something. Went to a SGA megapanel that was entertaining but I didn't much care about it. Really the highlight of the entire day was getting my photoshoot with James and Oliver Phelps (the Weasley twins)! I purchased a ticket in advance and even got to the shoot 15 minutes early but the line was stretched way down the hallway. Ugh. I was nervous that they might cut the line off, but it's lucky for them they didn't, because heads would've fucking rolled. Heads almost did roll because in line next to me was the most fucking annoying child on the planet. She literally kept poking me with her wand and tugging on my robes, and playing with my Monster Book of Monsters, and asking annoying and nosy questions, and pulling my hair, and messing up my hair (exactly what you want right before you pay $40 for a photoshoot with celebrities!), and playing with my phone, and even trying to tickle me! And all her mother did was chide her goodnaturedly. HOW ABOUT YOU AT LEAST FUCKING APOLOGIZE TO ME FOR YOUR CHILD HAVING NO CONCEPT OF PERSONAL BOUNDARIES! CHRIST! I'm not sure if that whole ordeal made the line move faster or slower, but I did eventually end up with this lovely gem and it made it all worth it. :)
I had wanted to ask them to do something more interesting but I got all conflustered and all I could say was "Man, I feel really short!" Yes, great job, Laura. I'm sure they didn't hear that 108943 times today already. But seriously they are SO TALL! And so cute! But I felt so bad for Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom) because he wasn't getting nearly a fraction of the love that he deserved. I didn't feel too bad though because I knew that I'd be getting a picture with him the next day.
Saturday night sucked a lot of balls. We tried to finish up all the costuming on the Ginny Yule Ball dress. That was a gigantic pain and it was somehow too small and too big at the same time. The stitchwitch didn't want to work with the iron and hot glue is evil. And half of the stuff we couldn't even do until I was putting the dress on for good. We were supposed to go to a Carson Beckett memorial in lyndasty's room on Saturday and Paul McGillion was supposed to come, but it wound up just being a group of people watching the Dawn Costume contest, and me trying my damnedest not to fall asleep (without much luck). I didn't mind the trek over to the Marriott though because we got to see lyndasty which we unfortunately didn't get to see much of at all during the Con.
Oh, but our costumes on Saturday? Just the Hogwarts robes that foreverseenstar made for the Deathly Hallows book party, but we actually still had our pictures taken quite a bit. I think I got stopped about ever 2 minutes with someone gawking over my Monster Book of Monsters. :) Perfect prop! But yes, of course, we did our own little photoshoot outside of our hotel room because we are gigantic nerds.
Everyone kept asking where our Hufflepuff was and we had to explain that she (domtheknight) was in Chicago, but that we did in fact have one.
I woke up super early on Sunday, determined that I would not be shut out of the final Harry Potter stars' panel. But of course, never underestimate the dedication and enthusiasm of tweens because even at 8AM there was still a line 50 people deep even though the panel wasn't until 10AM. I got some pretty kick ass seats, though they weren't front row like I'd hoped for. My pictures didn't come out fantastic and neither did my video, but if you want to take a look at it, it's here:
All three of the guys were so adorable and entertaining, particularly Matthew. He surprised me with how funny he was... I expected the twins to steal the show. Anyway it was totally worth getting up as early as I did and I'm only sorry that I didn't make the other two panels. After the HP panel we went upstairs to help sew me into the Ginny dress. Oy, what a process, but thank you to everyone who helped make it work! And sorry I am like the biggest pain ever. :( I feel like a fat cow in all the pictures we took of me in it, so the only one I'm going to post is this one. (The rest are in the slideshow and you can go look if you want to.)
I had a few people take my picture, though I'm not sure how many of them knew that I was supposed to be Ginny at the Yule Ball. (I attempted to dye my hair red, and it is definitely redder, but still only an auburn that isn't even noticeable in some light. However _mendon and jadziadaxwb did get a lot of attention in their matching EXPENDABLE T-shrits. :)
All the work for the dress was definitely worth it because the Harry Potter kids recognized it. I went for my photoshoot with Matthew and I was like, "Do you recognize the dress? It's Ginny's Yule Ball dress." And he was like, "Oh wow, that's awesome! Did you make it?" and said it came out really well. :) And then when I went to go get my autographs from all of the kids I asked the twins if they recognized the dress and they were like, "Yeah we saw you upstairs! That's a Ginny dress! Very nice!" So it made me feel really good. :) When I was having Matthew sign he was like, "Did you get to see our picture yet? Do you know how it came out?" He called it our picture! And he wanted to see it! *BGMLG* I told him it took like two hours before we get the prints, and had a nice little chat with him and his gf, Ellie, and it was lovely. I told him I would stop by the next day to show him out the picture came out. Well the picture did turn out quite nice in my opinion:
That evening we went to the Yule Ball and I couldn't believe there was actually a line to get in. And then I spent all of my time there standing in line to enter the costume contest. That I didn't even get to stay to hear the results of. I hear there was lots more fun like a group of dancing Snapes and that the costume contest categories were quite amusing, but we missed it all. foreverseenstar and nudaydreamer slept through their dinner time and still hadn't eaten and it was 10:30 by the time we left. In order to get back in we would've had to stand in line because they were only letting people in as people were leaving because it was at max capacity. That was extremely disappointing, but it was worth it to go to at least see some other awesome costumes. A few of my favorites:
the Whomping Willow (he's on stilts!)
the Chudley Cannons
Luna Lovegood
Umbridge, post-Centaur attack
EDIT: So even though this is the longest post ever, I would forget *something*. I forgot to mention that Matthew Lewis came down and opened the Yule Ball! That was so awesome of him!
(he's on the phone with James Phelps)
So even though we missed most of the ball, the pizza we had delivered (and I use that word very loosely) to the room was delicious and nostalgic: Pizza Hut chicken, mushroom, pineapple, and onion. FROSH PIZZA! Except I picked off the chicken. Oh yes, but their idea of delivery? Make us go all the way down to the street to get it from some guy waiting in his car. Pssh. I'm amazed we got down and back as quickly as we did and the fact that we made it in one piece. The lobbies were filled with people in chains, black leather, and were scantily clad goths, and here we are nudaydreamer in her PJs and me in my fairy princess dress. :P We are made of win.
Monday at Dragon*Con was even more dead than it was last year. The plan had been to wear the Space Cases costumes, but I just wasn't really feeling it and I put on my Harry Potter robes again instead. I just loved walking around in them the whole time. It was so much fun to have them draping behind me. Totally wearing them for Halloween this year... But yeah, so I don't know what everyone else did, but I went down to the Walk of Fame to show Matthew OUR PICTURE *BGMLG* and he was all asking if it came out alright for me and if I like it and he said we looked good. :D Matthew Lewis is so my new convention boyfriend.
But yeah, so after that I decided I couldn't let my HP experience end, and since I had another $40 in my robes, I decided what the hell, and I got another picture with the Weasleys. I knew we had to do something fun so I asked them if they would each kiss one of my cheeks. Well, it turns out they're not allowed, so I asked them if we could do something interested. We stood their bickering for a while (I bickered with the Weasley twins!) about what we should do until finally the photographer suggested that they just pretend to kiss me. Their a bit farther away than I would've liked, but I think the expressions on their faces are priceless. :)
We finished up the con with a John De Lancie (TNG's Q) panel, who by the way is a very interesting speaker, and of course, last but not least, Peter David's panel. He's lost 100lbs and he looks fantastic! He was such a bundle of energy it like blew me and foreverseenstar away. I'm so happy for him that he's meeting his goals. He read us the first chapter of this Peter Pan kind of novel that he wrote and it sounds really really good. He also remembered us from last year, but was sad that we'd passed on Space Cases for Harry Potter. We did get puppetmaker40's stamp of approval on my robes though while we were there and PAD made a dirty comment about my Monster Book of Monsters being a vibrator. :-P
foreverseenstar and I peaced out around 9PM on Monday, attempted to make it through the night, failed and had to stay the night in North Carolina, and didn't get home until after 7PM yesterday. foreverseenstar slept most of the way home (I KNOW YOU DIDN'T DO IT ON PURPOSE) so that made the ride a bit longer, and the traffic once we got to CT and were so close made me want to shoot myself, but all in all it wasn't terrible. Will we road trip it again? Eh, prolly not. The con is so lively that it's nearly impossible to catch up on missed sleep while you're there and the entire time you're just exhausted. Next year we'll just have to be on top of the costuming so we don't need to bring two bins worth of supplies, and just suck it up and fly.
Holy shit, if you made it to the end of that you are a better person than I am... and you probably need a life. No way I am that interesting. But if you did, thanks for reading... I'm glad that 4 hours of typing wasn't for naught. Also, the rest of my pictures from D*C are here so enjoy those even if you didn't read. There's lots of pics of amazing and entertaining costumes. So okay, I'm still totally not caught up on sleep and clearly the fact that I'm still awake right now should tell you how effed up my sleep cycle is right now. So time for me to go to bed... Later, skaterz.
Oh, and before you get started... I apologize in advance for the tl; dr. I totally wasn't going to cut this but I just can't put your flists through that kind of torture.
So, foreverseenstar and I left at 11PM (over an hour later than we'd planned to leave) on Wednesday and were making awesome time (much thanks to the highway of requirement) until we hit traffic in NYC. Things went downhill from there and I swear it took us 19 years to get out of New Jersey. At the first rest stop we pulled into, just as I was parking, some random dude came up to the car and wanted to talk. Despite it being the perfect scenario for a mugging/rape/car jacking/murder, I rolled down the window half an inch and listened to what he had to say. He gave us a sob story about how he's from Connecticut and was trying to get home to his sick mother and had a flat tire and needed $14 more to get it fixed and get home. He seemed legitimate enough, and we were a bit terrified, so we gave him $20 to go away. Definitely kept our guard up going to and from the rest stop to use the bathroom, and then decided to get the fuck out of there and get gas later down the road. The next rest stop we stopped at in NJ smelled like piles of sick and I thought I was going to vomit. I purchased some putrid coffee to keep me awake and we continued on. After NJ the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. foreverseenstar slept half of the way down, which I didn't so much mind because I was fully awake. Somewhere in North Carolina my air conditioner decided to crap out and so the last few hours of our trip down were EXTREMELY uncomfortable. We rolled into Atlanta at 3PM Thursday, completely exhausted and stinking with sweat.
When we checked in we tried to get a room in the International tower near _mendon and jadziadaxwb but since none were available we wound up on the 8th floor of the Atrium tower in the Hyatt. Our room was really really really nice though! It was huge and had a real balcony! Honestly, couldn't have asked for a nicer room. Luckily it was only on the 8th floor and not like the 22nd because I can't even tell you how many times we had to climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator. I'm thinking the few pounds I gained at D*C wasn't in fat, but in muscle because I now have calves of steel.
We met up with _mendon and jadziadaxwb to grab dinner and our con badges (Speaking of con badges, Pierre Bernard just gave the lamest Recliner of Rage on Conan about them. I hate him), and we waited in line a good 45 minutes to get them. I should've known this would be a sign of things to come, but didn't think too much of it. foreverseenstar and I spent the rest of the evening putting the finishing touches on our faerie costumes while waiting for nudaydreamer to get in.
Friday morning started out with room service and being body painted by ukta. She did a fabulous job and I really think it helped put an amazing final touch on the faerie costumes. I liked foreverseenstar's costume the best because she had tons of fun details, but I got a few compliments on mine as well. We stopped and took A LOT of pictures on Friday. And even took some ourselves...
I had wanted to go to the Harry Potter kids panel on Friday but it was the same time as foreverseenstar's SGA panel. Being the awesome friend that I am, I sat through her panel even though it totally sucked because she didn't really have a mic and no one was letting her speak, and I couldn't have cared less what anyone was talking about, unless they were talking about Keller. More Keller talk, please. So yeah, that was one panel I missed that I really wanted to go to. We went upstairs to change because it was getting a bit drafty wearing almost nothing, and then we headed to the HP Costuming panel that puppetmaker40 was part of. The panel was really good, but there was too much talk about how to make cheap, semi-accurate HP costumes. Fuck that. Go big or go home. I don't quite remember how Friday ended, but I'm pretty sure it ended up with us retiring ridiculously early because we were so exhausted. (I guess that because that's pretty much how evenings at D*C went this year.)
Saturday morning foreverseenstar, nudaydreamer and I put on our Hogwarts uniforms and went met up with _mendon and jadziadaxwb to watch the parade. The parade was awesome but next time we'll have to get an even better place to watch. None of my pictures came out particularly good. After the paradee raced inside to get seats for the Harry Potter stars' panel and got decent seats in the center back. I decided that I should probably get something substantial to eat as I was planning to give blood later in the day and thought it best to not pass out during the process. I ran upstairs to the cafe and grabbed some food, only to come back and find that they won't let me into the panel. I tried to explain to the fucking bitch at the door that my friends were saving me a seat, that I'd already been inside, but she wouldn't budge and insisted that I get in the line that was already wrapping back toward the escalators. I knew I'd never get in in that line so I called foreverseenstar. She tried to see what she could do from the inside to get me in, but there was no use. foreverseenstar and nudaydreamer eventually left and I continued to argue with the lady at the door, screaming about the injustice of it all. Some obnoxious Asian dude joined her on door security explaining that the room was full up, being a SUPREME douche who acted as though he was cooler than the rest of the universe. That was when I saw a girl leave the room and then come back in two minutes later, with no trouble at all from the fuckfaces at the door. I screamed bloody murder at the guy, I'm pretty sure half of the very noisy lobby could hear me. "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU JUST LET HER IN!? SHE LEFT AND GOT TO COME BACK IN! WHAT THE HELL!" "She was already inside." "SO WAS I!!!" "Well, I'm very sorry." "I BET YOU ARE. ASSHOLES!" And then I stormed off in a rage of tears. \m/ FUCK YOU, ASIAN FUCKFACE. I HOPE YOU FUCKING DIE, YOU MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF SHIT.
Ahem. Yeah, so anyway. That was panel number 2 that I didn't get to go to. I don't remember what we did in between, but _mendon and I gave blood that afternoon and I have to say it went amazingly well, especially compared to last year. It was virtually painless (the woman was seriously gifted) and they could actually use my blood this year! \o/ Yays, I got to save some lives! It sucked though that the free t-shirts were almost identical to the ones from last year and they didn't even have the right size. :( That's okay because free t-shirts is totally not what it's about. Or something. Went to a SGA megapanel that was entertaining but I didn't much care about it. Really the highlight of the entire day was getting my photoshoot with James and Oliver Phelps (the Weasley twins)! I purchased a ticket in advance and even got to the shoot 15 minutes early but the line was stretched way down the hallway. Ugh. I was nervous that they might cut the line off, but it's lucky for them they didn't, because heads would've fucking rolled. Heads almost did roll because in line next to me was the most fucking annoying child on the planet. She literally kept poking me with her wand and tugging on my robes, and playing with my Monster Book of Monsters, and asking annoying and nosy questions, and pulling my hair, and messing up my hair (exactly what you want right before you pay $40 for a photoshoot with celebrities!), and playing with my phone, and even trying to tickle me! And all her mother did was chide her goodnaturedly. HOW ABOUT YOU AT LEAST FUCKING APOLOGIZE TO ME FOR YOUR CHILD HAVING NO CONCEPT OF PERSONAL BOUNDARIES! CHRIST! I'm not sure if that whole ordeal made the line move faster or slower, but I did eventually end up with this lovely gem and it made it all worth it. :)
I had wanted to ask them to do something more interesting but I got all conflustered and all I could say was "Man, I feel really short!" Yes, great job, Laura. I'm sure they didn't hear that 108943 times today already. But seriously they are SO TALL! And so cute! But I felt so bad for Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom) because he wasn't getting nearly a fraction of the love that he deserved. I didn't feel too bad though because I knew that I'd be getting a picture with him the next day.
Saturday night sucked a lot of balls. We tried to finish up all the costuming on the Ginny Yule Ball dress. That was a gigantic pain and it was somehow too small and too big at the same time. The stitchwitch didn't want to work with the iron and hot glue is evil. And half of the stuff we couldn't even do until I was putting the dress on for good. We were supposed to go to a Carson Beckett memorial in lyndasty's room on Saturday and Paul McGillion was supposed to come, but it wound up just being a group of people watching the Dawn Costume contest, and me trying my damnedest not to fall asleep (without much luck). I didn't mind the trek over to the Marriott though because we got to see lyndasty which we unfortunately didn't get to see much of at all during the Con.
Oh, but our costumes on Saturday? Just the Hogwarts robes that foreverseenstar made for the Deathly Hallows book party, but we actually still had our pictures taken quite a bit. I think I got stopped about ever 2 minutes with someone gawking over my Monster Book of Monsters. :) Perfect prop! But yes, of course, we did our own little photoshoot outside of our hotel room because we are gigantic nerds.
Everyone kept asking where our Hufflepuff was and we had to explain that she (domtheknight) was in Chicago, but that we did in fact have one.
I woke up super early on Sunday, determined that I would not be shut out of the final Harry Potter stars' panel. But of course, never underestimate the dedication and enthusiasm of tweens because even at 8AM there was still a line 50 people deep even though the panel wasn't until 10AM. I got some pretty kick ass seats, though they weren't front row like I'd hoped for. My pictures didn't come out fantastic and neither did my video, but if you want to take a look at it, it's here:
All three of the guys were so adorable and entertaining, particularly Matthew. He surprised me with how funny he was... I expected the twins to steal the show. Anyway it was totally worth getting up as early as I did and I'm only sorry that I didn't make the other two panels. After the HP panel we went upstairs to help sew me into the Ginny dress. Oy, what a process, but thank you to everyone who helped make it work! And sorry I am like the biggest pain ever. :( I feel like a fat cow in all the pictures we took of me in it, so the only one I'm going to post is this one. (The rest are in the slideshow and you can go look if you want to.)
I had a few people take my picture, though I'm not sure how many of them knew that I was supposed to be Ginny at the Yule Ball. (I attempted to dye my hair red, and it is definitely redder, but still only an auburn that isn't even noticeable in some light. However _mendon and jadziadaxwb did get a lot of attention in their matching EXPENDABLE T-shrits. :)
All the work for the dress was definitely worth it because the Harry Potter kids recognized it. I went for my photoshoot with Matthew and I was like, "Do you recognize the dress? It's Ginny's Yule Ball dress." And he was like, "Oh wow, that's awesome! Did you make it?" and said it came out really well. :) And then when I went to go get my autographs from all of the kids I asked the twins if they recognized the dress and they were like, "Yeah we saw you upstairs! That's a Ginny dress! Very nice!" So it made me feel really good. :) When I was having Matthew sign he was like, "Did you get to see our picture yet? Do you know how it came out?" He called it our picture! And he wanted to see it! *BGMLG* I told him it took like two hours before we get the prints, and had a nice little chat with him and his gf, Ellie, and it was lovely. I told him I would stop by the next day to show him out the picture came out. Well the picture did turn out quite nice in my opinion:
That evening we went to the Yule Ball and I couldn't believe there was actually a line to get in. And then I spent all of my time there standing in line to enter the costume contest. That I didn't even get to stay to hear the results of. I hear there was lots more fun like a group of dancing Snapes and that the costume contest categories were quite amusing, but we missed it all. foreverseenstar and nudaydreamer slept through their dinner time and still hadn't eaten and it was 10:30 by the time we left. In order to get back in we would've had to stand in line because they were only letting people in as people were leaving because it was at max capacity. That was extremely disappointing, but it was worth it to go to at least see some other awesome costumes. A few of my favorites:
the Whomping Willow (he's on stilts!)
the Chudley Cannons
Luna Lovegood
Umbridge, post-Centaur attack
EDIT: So even though this is the longest post ever, I would forget *something*. I forgot to mention that Matthew Lewis came down and opened the Yule Ball! That was so awesome of him!
(he's on the phone with James Phelps)
So even though we missed most of the ball, the pizza we had delivered (and I use that word very loosely) to the room was delicious and nostalgic: Pizza Hut chicken, mushroom, pineapple, and onion. FROSH PIZZA! Except I picked off the chicken. Oh yes, but their idea of delivery? Make us go all the way down to the street to get it from some guy waiting in his car. Pssh. I'm amazed we got down and back as quickly as we did and the fact that we made it in one piece. The lobbies were filled with people in chains, black leather, and were scantily clad goths, and here we are nudaydreamer in her PJs and me in my fairy princess dress. :P We are made of win.
Monday at Dragon*Con was even more dead than it was last year. The plan had been to wear the Space Cases costumes, but I just wasn't really feeling it and I put on my Harry Potter robes again instead. I just loved walking around in them the whole time. It was so much fun to have them draping behind me. Totally wearing them for Halloween this year... But yeah, so I don't know what everyone else did, but I went down to the Walk of Fame to show Matthew OUR PICTURE *BGMLG* and he was all asking if it came out alright for me and if I like it and he said we looked good. :D Matthew Lewis is so my new convention boyfriend.
But yeah, so after that I decided I couldn't let my HP experience end, and since I had another $40 in my robes, I decided what the hell, and I got another picture with the Weasleys. I knew we had to do something fun so I asked them if they would each kiss one of my cheeks. Well, it turns out they're not allowed, so I asked them if we could do something interested. We stood their bickering for a while (I bickered with the Weasley twins!) about what we should do until finally the photographer suggested that they just pretend to kiss me. Their a bit farther away than I would've liked, but I think the expressions on their faces are priceless. :)
We finished up the con with a John De Lancie (TNG's Q) panel, who by the way is a very interesting speaker, and of course, last but not least, Peter David's panel. He's lost 100lbs and he looks fantastic! He was such a bundle of energy it like blew me and foreverseenstar away. I'm so happy for him that he's meeting his goals. He read us the first chapter of this Peter Pan kind of novel that he wrote and it sounds really really good. He also remembered us from last year, but was sad that we'd passed on Space Cases for Harry Potter. We did get puppetmaker40's stamp of approval on my robes though while we were there and PAD made a dirty comment about my Monster Book of Monsters being a vibrator. :-P
foreverseenstar and I peaced out around 9PM on Monday, attempted to make it through the night, failed and had to stay the night in North Carolina, and didn't get home until after 7PM yesterday. foreverseenstar slept most of the way home (I KNOW YOU DIDN'T DO IT ON PURPOSE) so that made the ride a bit longer, and the traffic once we got to CT and were so close made me want to shoot myself, but all in all it wasn't terrible. Will we road trip it again? Eh, prolly not. The con is so lively that it's nearly impossible to catch up on missed sleep while you're there and the entire time you're just exhausted. Next year we'll just have to be on top of the costuming so we don't need to bring two bins worth of supplies, and just suck it up and fly.
Holy shit, if you made it to the end of that you are a better person than I am... and you probably need a life. No way I am that interesting. But if you did, thanks for reading... I'm glad that 4 hours of typing wasn't for naught. Also, the rest of my pictures from D*C are here so enjoy those even if you didn't read. There's lots of pics of amazing and entertaining costumes. So okay, I'm still totally not caught up on sleep and clearly the fact that I'm still awake right now should tell you how effed up my sleep cycle is right now. So time for me to go to bed... Later, skaterz.