(no subject)
A chronological order...sort of.
Tianyu and I leave for Atlanta on Friday morning. On the way, we read arsenicjade's paper for her grad school application, which, we think, after she cleans it up, she should publish on the net, just so you can read it and go "w00t".
Anyway, met dswdiane and shrewreader along with Diane's son and hubby. Hugs all around. On to the good stuff.
Registering is fun because we get to go to the VIP room to get badges. There is MUCH PANIC on my part when my name is no where to be found. No Ching, Amanda. No Chang, Amanda (a common mistake, for some reason.). No Parsons, Amanda. FINALLY, when allowed to peruse the list, I see: R, Amanda.
Fucking….::grumbles::
Friday night consisted of getting settled in the Hilton and shit. Went to see the first round of SW fanfilms, and was pleasantly surprised because I had never seen "George Lucas In Love" before. What a fucking riot. The new film, Jedi Hunter, is pretty damn funny too. Boba Fett with an Australian accent hunting down Jedi like Steve Irwin is damn funny in concept, just admit it. Especially when he says "CRIKEY!"
I have no idea what night I did this: I did go to the Firefly Panel just to see what they had to say. It was sad, like a wake or something. The good news is that FF will be released on DVD in December. The bad news is that there will be no more FF, though there is talk of a TV movie. Lots of bitching about how FOX showed the eps out of order. I resisted to urge to point out that FOX had told the arc-driven Whedon that they had not wanted an arc that couldn't be shown out of order. Any Buffy or Angel viewer will tell you how Joss loves the arc. Networks don’t want the arc until a third season. Joss killed his own show by giving it to a network that would never keep it. I hear the main reason FOX got it was the money needed to make it (2 mil an ep). In that case, FF was doomed from the very start.
Found myself dead on my feet at the City Café Diner at 4 am, wondering why I'd ordered a cheese omlette. In any case, was exhausting. Diane walking around the streets of Atlanta with an open glass of bourbon was also funny.
Saturday saw a bunch of time at the Dealer's room, and the Exhibition Hall. Got the autograph of the computer from Red Dwarf. Forget who they were. Tianyu was all up in that. Waited in line for JM's autograph, then realized I didn't have enough $ on me. Tianyu ran to an ATM, but there was not enough time, and I had to leave the line. *sob* Tianyu, bless his soul, waited in line Sunday to get me one. Yay!
The dealer's room was okay, but way too squashed. I was all…freaked. Up in the exhibition hall we found a whole table full of cheap anime soundtrack CDs, and ended up buying a Japanese Philharmonic recording of various interpretations of the themes from Inuyasha. Sooooooooooooo good.
We're walking around EH, when we see that Belegarth table. No biggie. We saw the Legyndes and NERO tables (and they both suck, BLAH!) downstairs. But these have the old Numenorian swords. Tianyu says "Dude, those look familiar." One guy is standing at the booth in leather armor.
Guy: You know this stuff?
Tianyu: Yeah, we do Dagorhir out of Pgh. But I started in KS.
Guy: You look familiar. Weren't you the guy who broke his leg at Rag 16?
Tianyu: ::embarrassed:: Yeah, man, that was me.
Guy: Who got you started?
Tianyu: Thud.
Guy: Dude, I know Thud. Hey Keg! This guy knows Thud!
Tianyu: KEG!
Keg: (turns) TIANYU! ::handshaking ensues::
In any case, we are assured that there are people ready to fight all over FL, and that some of those people have to be in FL. It's really encouraging. I try on a buckler and wish I had a bow again.
Missed Ghost of the Robot, but from what I've read on lj, I didn't miss anything. They were late in starting, and after a half hour, I was nic fitting. Had a cigarette and met up with Tianyu after his Tribes shite to watch PERVY ANIME VIDEOS Ohohoho…five hours of anime music vids. MUST VID. Tianyu says that since I have Premier on my computer, I can do that. Right now I think I just wet myself. Really. It's so damn funny. We're trying to download a bunch of them from the net.
Stumbled in at 4 am and slept into the morning. Made it up and caffeinated for panels and Diana Williams, who is lovely and terrible and wise. Planned out panels and la la la, there we went.
PANEL 1: "Fans have writes too." You have got to be kidding on that title. Anyway, at a loss of topics for such a broad thing, I let Diane fly with it. It was, as far as panels go, I suspect, rather unstructured, but there were only about 20 people, and they stayed for the most part. I don't really remember specific things, as the conversation was so out of control topic wise, but I do remember talking law for a while, the OOC and other characterization shit (canon and interpretation; I can no longer even think of it without rolling my eyes, because it's so blatantly obvious that I have different views on the subject as others.) We talked about the fangirl!FF.net for a few seconds. That was a riot, because everyone seemed to innately understand the Pit of Voles for the shite it was/is. Had a great moment where we talked about the concept of the Mary Sue, and I shared that every first story for me in a fandom is a Mary Sue. There was rabid applause when I admitted this, following it by stating that I write it because I just "know that Snape is cuddly inside, and that if I just got him alone for a while he'd be crying to me and we'd have woobie moments and snuggle."
Because you've gotta have goals.
Was amused that I had a fan there who greeted me with "so this is the famous Amanda R."
::grumbles::
Side note: Always thought Amand-r was rather easy to get. Boy was I wrong. Always thought Ching would be an easy last name. Boy, was I wrong.
Two Girls There were two girls I talked to, whose names I never caught. One was looking for info about the laws of fic and all that shite for her grad thesis I think. Pointed her in the direction of the Lackey/Valdemar shit. The other is a girl who works for MarsDust.com. (and looking at her card right here I see her name is Sandee. My bad.) She was interesting because she wants to do a panel on amnesia in fic. I told her that she might get more people to attend if she made it on physical maladies in general, and subheaded it with "the misrepresentation of maladies in fanfic", because her main beef was that amnesia fics don't represent the ailment correctly (she apparently has anmesia). Had to agree. Would be an interesting panel. Look for it at the Michigan Con.
Had lunch with an ETERNAL member of DragonCon, lo, for Diane is connected, and then he picked up the check. Was very good. ETERNAL MEMBERS, I have heard, get to pass on their memberships to their children. Is that not the most BADASS thing?
PANEL 2: There and Be Only One, the magic of Highlander. Lots of series conversation, but in all fairness, we did ask the audience what they wanted to discuss, and was greeted with a very vocal "The Series!" I remember a few things, mainly the discussion of Duncan's 6 season adventure as part of the hero's journey. Then I had to play the Methosian advocate, arguing that Methos wasn't a sidekick in the journey. (Could not resist adding a parallel between the ROG and Rafiki.) Was an interesting comment about the mythology of the Game, and the meaning behind it, as in was it created from nothing or a predestined real "thing"? Was interesting.
Also worth mentioning were the continuity issues, the "who would you get rid of if you could?" (DR. ANNE!) spiel, and the never ending debate about who was the better swordsman: Connor or Duncan. As Diane mentioned later, no one brought up Amanda. We did talk about Connor, out of necessity, and that started a great bit of commentary by some ladies in the front of the room (which was packed, by the way), about loss and depression. The best thing in the whole bit is the idea that different Immortals are at different maturity levels, and how being 1000 years is NOT the same as being 500. (Somehow, this was all related to Kenny.) Immortals, I am starting to sense, would have to come to emotional conclusions that humans simply cannot reach.
ANYHOO, I had a blast, and Diane, who has done this before, said that it was all good. Please people, I'll do any panel. It's a riot. If only teaching was like this. I need to get famous so that I can do all the panels I want.
Went and crashed at Katieshrew's pad. Woke up Monday morning. Went back to Florida, where it started raining AS SOON AS I CROSSED THE STATE LINE. Fuckers.
To make my life greater, Tianyu drew the Dark Mark on my arm and then wrote "DE: Thuggz 4 Life" under it. Awww yeah. Lucius and Snape: Thuggas for Life. I smell an icon. Along with the new phrase "Zeus is my baby daddy".
IDEAS SPAWNED BY DRAGONCON:
1. Tianyu's actuating life-size wings: I want to be the one who gets to wear them. If I play my cards right I will ::grin:: Images of me letting out my 11 foot wingspan into the eye of one of those little goth faeries: "Aiiiiiieeee! My eye!" Me: "Oh, I'm SO sorry…::snerk::"
2. LARP the LARP. Really. A LARP where you play yourself. But you have to be playing another LARP at the time. The point of the LARP is to act out normal snark that happens in RL when people are LARPing: the sniping, the backstabbing, the talking about other people behind their backs. Yeah. My LARP would last the WHOLE of Dragoncon, starting on Friday night and ending on Monday Morning. Think the Assassin's game from Ragnarok.
3. Arching at Ragnarok next year, which means bucklers and arrows.
4. THE TAMBOURINE MAN: There must be one man in the whole universe who plays the tambourine in symphonies. I imagine that he isn't very often used. The recording of "fukae mori" has a real live tambourine, and we postulated that they had to go up into the mountains to get the TAMBOURINE man, old and wizened beyond belief, waiting until he was needed again. Took great glee in repeating the phrase "IT IS TIME!" and making flying motions with the hands.
5. My mission as a fandom representative: become famous, then have costume contests for my fandom. The make fun of them. Fandom, in all of its costumed and fanboy/fangirl glory, is both tasteless and tacky. I did lots of snarking. Lots of snarking. And will continue to do so until the day I die.
6. Cosplaying at the Anime Con in Orlando in the spring. Tianyu is limited, he says, because he -rightly so-thinks that people should stay with their body type. Because he is Asian and short, he's limited in whom he can dress up as. I am fighting for Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho, simply because then I can be Botan. Would also love to make him Yahiko from RK. ::sniggers::
All in all, I shall sum it up with my new phrase: Thugga, PLEASE.
We'll be going next year. Yeah.
Back to reality: took the car in for work, so not I have a legitimate excuse not to go anywhere.
Season Six - Yeah, you're depressing, but hey...
that's life. And you're all about facing life,
looking it in the eye, and singing your cares
away. In the end, friendship will always
triumph. Best Episode: "Once More, With
Feeling"
Which Season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Are You?
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Boy, I could have called this one.