(no subject)
So, supercasio demanded I didn't sleep til I'd done this. Well, I did sleep, but not until about 9 hours later than I *said* was going to. And this is only Friday, but the memories are making me happy!
On Wednesday night, I went to bed at midnight and got up at 4am to shower so I’d be around to talk to everysingleway for a little while after she got in from work before I left for the airport at 6.30. Before I showered, I read the start of the Flangate stuff - mostly because I was getting CC’d in on an email between a group of people and I wanted to know why my inbox suddenly exploded. Hee! Anyway, I read it, and sighed, and then went to become clean. I was flying anyway, so eh.
By the time I left home, though there was still nothing official (and Denise was claiming all was still well with the con, though the phrase “as far as I know” coming from an organiser is, well, stupid.) I was pretty convinced I’d be flying into Burbank to nothingness. At that point I’d decided that if I got there and there WAS a con, it was going to be a surprising bonus, which is a stupid attitude to have to have for a sold out prepaid con, but whatever. This post is not to complain about the ins and outs of the Con That Wasn’t.
So after some serious traffic on the way to Manchester, I arrived, met _helygen_ and checked in. I also had to break the news about the latest developments so that she was prepared, as she’d not seen the stuff on Whedonesque before leaving.
After the usual standing around and being security screen etc, we tried to get seats together but there weren’t any. So we got on the plane, took our seats, and I went to sleep. Well, I read some of Roy Keane’s autobiography, ate my lunch and THEN went to sleep. I woke up with a weird feeling in my leg and went for a walk - with my Dad’s medical history, I get paranoid about DVTs.
We landed in Chicago in a timely fashion, claimed our bags and got on the train thing to take us to our terminal. We went the wrong way, because the woman didn’t mention that part. She just told us to go one stop. So the bloke said to get back on and go the other way two stops, which we did.
I was dismayed to discover my flight was delayed. I was only supposed to have 45 minutes in Dallas before my flight to Burbank. I asked the guy - if it was on time as it stood right now, we should land 25 minutes before my flight. He told me that he couldn’t guarantee that I would get there on time, and that it was the last flight to Burbank for the night. He said that because the air…people… were delaying flights on purpose because of the weather, they wouldn’t pay for my hotel room, either. They’d only be able to give me a discount. I asked if there were flights to LAX instead, and he said yeah, there were loads. That made me feel better - even if I missed my flight to Burbank, I could get to LAX instead. Of course, my LUGGAGE would still be on the first flight to Burbank the next morning, but since the hotel was right across from Burbank airport, I’d just have to put up with that.
As it happened, we made up time in the air and I was early getting into Dallas. Gail texted me when she reached LAX (I did Manchester -> Chicago -> Dallas -> Burbank, and Gail did Manchester -> Chicago -> LAX) and heard from her friend that the con was definitely cancelled. At some point when I was in Dallas (I wasn‘t there long, I walked off one plane and onto another because of the timing), I also sent a text to Shirley telling her that I was in Texas! Whee Texas!
When I landed in Burbank I was tired out but not tired, because I’d slept all the way on all three planes. I waited for my stuff, caught the shuttle to the hotel and headed in. I was wearing my Kaylee shirt from BlackMarketBeagles and on the way in, somebody stopped me and asked if I was for the Browncoat thing and pulled a face. I was like “It’s fine, I’ve been told.”
Then I went to the desk and heard lexigeek telling somebody what was going on, Adam Baldwin was currently in the bar, that kind of thing. So I checked in, went up to my room (where Iris was already there) and then headed back downstairs to talk to Wendy, Tricia, Katy and various others. Then I went into the bar to see Gail and met quaint_shopgirl, where I hung out for a while. Adam was a couple of tables over, but I didn’t want to push or crowd (and the crowd around his table kept getting bigger!) so I just observed him from afar before he left. It was so awesome of him to come.
After sitting in the bar for a good while (and triciasingleton gave me a drink monkey, which I just found in my trouser pocket) I hung out at the concierge desk with the UK people (we’re cool, yo) waiting for the guy to sneak them off to the liquor store in the hotel shuttle even though he wasn’t supposed to. Heh.
I had a squiz at the Firefly costumes sequestered one of the rooms - no flash photography, but I still got a few decent pics, as you can see! - at one point too, before heading up to bed. We were meeting at 11am in the lobby, and I was tired as hell! So I tried to sleep. And couldn’t. I kept waking up with throbby legs and worrying that I had a DVT. I had a few tiny bruises that weren’t there before (though Gail reassured me the next day that because I had bruises it wasn’t a DVT because you don’t get bruises with those). I also had fun times trying to find the bathroom light. Eventually I locked myself inside with my phone and used it to scan the walls til I found the switch. No wonder I couldn’t find it, it was hidden behind some towels!
So I slept on and off until 10ish before getting up and heading downstairs. Then I found Phoebe and the bunk people. Mark Sheppard had also turned up, so with some encouragement from Phoebe I ran upstairs and grabbed some Jaffa Cakes and then came back down. She gave him tea, and I gave him the Jaffa Cakes, which he was excited about. I told him I had another six tubes upstairs and he said “Don’t tell me that! I’ll eat them all!”
Then there was an announcement that nothing much more was happening until Friday night, when the SoCal shindig was going to be held in the bar - our chance to dress up into our pretty dresses that we‘d brought for the cocktail party. We’d be going to a “secret location” on buses on Saturday, but Friday was ours. I got a Mocha Creamice that took me about three hours to drink, and then Jonathan Woodward showed up. Phoebe and I went back upstairs and I got his Jaffa Cakes (two tubes). We were walking back in when we realised something was going on - it was Denise (BE woman)’s husband Dave, trying to give explanations. Hats off to him for coming down, but it wasn’t really working. Phoebe and I went up to him later to say thanks for coming down, and Jonathan was nearby and agreed with us.
I gave him the Jaffa Cakes and he was so excited! He shook hands with Tricia and Phoebe, who introduced themselves, and then I was about to say my name and he was shaking my hand and starting to try and guess. There were lots of weird names going on in there. "Lioness?" "No." "Ethan?" "No." "Somethingsomething26?" "No." Hee. He didn't let go of my hand through all of this and then he grinned at me and said "I'm just kidding" and hugged me. I told him there were another four tubes upstairs and he said “Well where ARE they?!” and I said “You have to impress me.” So he started flexing his biceps - he did one arm, and I said “That’s one more tube for you,” and he said “I’ve got another!” and did the other arm. Bless him. Then I reminded him I still don’t have my jonnywallet.com email address, and he said “Yeah, I’m always doing that.” So he picked up a pen, made as if to write a note on my arm, and I was like “Well, that’s not going to help YOU remember..” and he was like, “Right!” Then he had to go talk to Dave, so he said “I’ll talk to you about this later.” and tried to give me the pen back. I said “That’s your pen.” He laughed, hee. He was already flustered and confused and it was only Friday morning. I love him. That cannot be said enough. The man is just fantastic. He also told me I'd dropped to #9 on his MySpace friends, heh, but I can't remember what I said to insult him enough for that!
So we let him go, and we went and got a cab to Target because Phoebe wanted some straighteners since hers didn’t worked in the US socket, even with an adaptor. Stupid voltage thing. Anyway, we got a really cool taxi driver called Edmond, who gave us his cell number so that we could call him specifically to pick us up. She bought her straighteners and I bought Scrubs season four, and then we called him, and he came for us. On the way back into the hotel, he pulled up opposite a colleague who was on his way out, and spoke in Spanish for a while. As he pulled away again back into the hotel car park, he shut the window and said to us, completely casually, “He asked me ‘where did you take the beautiful ladies?’ and I said to him, ‘Target’.” It just sounded ridiculous and made me and Phoebe both laugh!
The Bedlam Bards were doing sets by the pool, and Phoebe and I decided to go and get clean. So I washed my hair and then sat in her room while she got ready, before we went back downstairs and then headed into the bar for some food. We got these cute little burger thingys that absolutely did not poison Phoebe even though she blamed them all weekend. Lmao.
Then I realised I’d forgotten the bra that goes with my dress, so we made a mad dash back to Target so I could buy some underwear, and then we got charged way too much money by the taxi driver who was not Edmond on the way back, because he took us a ridiculously long way round! Then we got ready for the party. Mark was going to be signing autographs from 6.30, so we got dressed first and then went down to get stuff signed. I took a tube of Jaffa Cakes. I said "These aren't for you to eat, they're for you to sign." He looked slightly puzzled at first and then got right into it. It’s awesome. He signed it “LUVVERLY!! Mark Sheppard…” And when he handed it to me, he kept pointing at LUVVERLY til he made sure I'd seen it, hee! Brett Matthews was also signing but I didn’t get anything signed.
azuzazzyzx was watching the line, and asked what the Jaffa Cakes were. I promised to let him try some later. He said “No, you can’t! They’re signed!” I explained that I was never ever going to leave Jaffa Cakes to go stale inside a tube, and it’d be perfectly fine as a signed empty tube! So he said he’d try one when I opened them, and Mark demanded he ask nicer because dude, it’s JAFFA CAKES. Anyway, I saw Katy, Tricia and Wendy in the queue after I opened them, so I got back into it and offered him one. Mark watched the scene as he tried one, and there was instant love. It was awesome. quaint_shopgirl also loved them.
I was still clutching them later when we went into the bar and Jonathan was around having pictures taken. I wasn’t too bothered about queuing for one (Jonathan actually said “What are y’all queueing for? I just want to go to the bar!”), I just went to give lexigeek a Jaffa Cake to show my appreciation. He loved them too! I’m spreading the word, people! The Jaffa Invasion is ON!
We went inside the bar and hung around for a while. We’d been chatting to a few people who asked where we were from, that kind of thing, when we were informed that Justin Timberlake had been there eating his evening meal less than an hour before. People asked him if they could have pictures with him as he was leaving but he was grumpy and said no, heh.
Then we hung around some more, with Phoebe moping that she couldn’t buy a drink. Suddenly there was a huge cheer from behind us - we turned around and who do we see? No prizes for guessing, with all of the Not!Flan publicity at this point - it was none other than the delightful Nathan Fillion! He came in and yelled “I’m sorry your con got cancelled!” and then made a comment about the true/new meaning of the word con.
“I heard a lot of people flew a long way. Who’s here that came from Australia?” so somebody came forward, and Nathan gave out some goodies. Then he yelled “Okay, apart from Mark Sheppard, who’s from England?” Phoebe and I started to move forward, and somebody yelled “Phoebe and Rachel!”
When Phoebe got to the front, Nathan hugged her - he remembered her, but needed to be reminded of her name. Then she moved aside, and Nathan was looking everywhere but at me. Mark saw me, poked Nathan and went “Look at her - look - LOOK - she’s carrying Jaffa Cakes, she’s definitely English!” and I got some of the prop money that he likes to give out.
Then after giving out a few more things to some Brits, he said “Who has a good Firefly story?” And Jessi told her Out of Gas story, before I put my hand up again (I was still standing directly in front of him, as I couldn’t get back through the crowds!) and said “Nathan?” He looked at me, and I did the one thing I promised myself I would never admit to one of the BDHs out of embarrassment, hee. “I saw the movie 39 times at the cinema.” Nathan grinned and smacked another note down into my hand and Mark pissed himself laughing. Totally worth it!
He asked for somebody to get him a vodka & tonic, and said “Easy on the roofie.” Then everybody laughed, and he said “I didn’t say *no* roofie.”
Then he started giving out other fun stuff. Books. He gave away his copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. “There’s nothing special about it - ‘cept it’s mine.” He also gave away some videos of rough cuts of Firefly episodes, and a rough cut of Slither (the lady who brought his drink got that). And some more books. And then he gave away the box that he’d brought all his shit in! “There’s nothing special about it - ‘cept it’s mine. It’s been in my house since like, ‘99.” When I moved out of the way later, I saw that quaint_shopgirl had been the one that managed to claim it! Yay!
Anyway, while I was still right in front of Nathan, I heard Nathan say something quietly to Mark that ended in “mumble mumble Alan Tudyk.” Mark said “Is he here?” and Nathan said (loudly) “NO! He’s FILMING a MOVIE!” I laughed, lmfao. At that point I decided I wouldn’t be surprised if Alan showed. Then a little while later, Nathan said “Here’s the guy I’m looking for, this guy in the black hat!” And the crowd parted, and it was Alan! I hadn’t taken any photos of Nathan because by the time I got to the front, he’d been there a while and I didn’t want to blind him with my flash. So I took a few quick ones when Alan arrived (three, to be precise) and then put my camera away again. I’m so considerate! Anyway, he came through and told us that he wasn’t supposed to be coming, but he heard what had happened and came down. He made a few jokes and then headed out into the lobby - he said that he’d been told the hotel were getting antsy about the crowds. Nathan said he’d be hanging around in the bar, but ended up having to move outside because of the crowds.
I moved aside and talked to Christina, who had also popped up with a guy. And it was their first date! They met three days before and he didn’t know she was an actress, and he jumped right in. Such a brave guy - of course, I’m sure it didn’t hurt that she kept SAYING that to him, hee. He’ll have liked that. She recognised me, she knew we’d met before, which was nice. I shook her hand and spoke to her a little, and then moved past her to Jonathan, and asked him to sign my Jaffa Cakes. He obliged, and Gail took a couple of photos of the moment.
He seemed to take forever, and then handed the tube back to me. He looked so proud of himself.
“I signed it ‘Jonathan Cakeward’!” I pissed myself laughing. Dude, I love the guy. Just. Love.
I went to see what was going on outside, and Alan and Nathan were having a big photo session with like, the two of them and ten people at a time, to get through the crowds. It was a nice idea! I didn’t go up, because I’ve had so many pictures with Nathan before and I didn’t even have an op bought for actual Flan this time, so I decided not to get in the way.
Me and the bunk folk hung around at the side, waiting for our chance to give Nathan the brag book. When it was time, Ali and Denise started explaining it to him and gave it to him. He loved it. And Alan was SO cute. He kept jumping on Nathan’s shoulders trying to see what it was. “What’s that? Am I in it? Is there one for me? That’s me! Oh no, that’s not me. Where am I?” Then we posed for a group pic, which I’m sure I will look ridiculous in most of the shots of, because I was at the front (as one of the shortest) but not short enough that I didn’t have to crouch a little to stop myself from being in the way of the people behind me! I had a few texts from gossi - one that thoroughly amused me that said “I take it you know Nathan is there?” which I received while I was about three feet away from the man. I replied with “I think I noticed!” and then he replied and said that there was some awesome stuff planned for the rest of the weekend. I read it out to some of the bunk people and we all squeed, which made other people look around at us and think that somebody else had showed, I think, lmfao.
Then Nathan and Alan left, and as they walked away towards the car park, people started singing the theme tune. It was touching. They didn't turn around, but they can't have not heard. They're awesome.
After the Nathany fun, we sat around for a while. I gave lexigeek another Jaffa Cake. Then I hovered in the lobby with Katy and Tricia and people til we were told there was a 10pm curfew in the lobby. We relocated, and then eventually Phoebe and I decided we were tired, and since we had to be up early to meet in the lobby the next day at 9am for all the surprises, and Phoebe said I could sleep in her room - she had a frigging MASSIVE bed - so I did. I had a conversation with Mark on the way out of the bar. I told him Jonathan was going to fight him for the Jaffa Cakes and Mark went "Where is he? Let's get this over with!" And that was that! Friday was awesome in all kinds of ways that an actual organised con could not have been. And it was only Friday!!
That's 3429 words. Not a record for me in con reports, but still fairly wordy, lmao.
On Wednesday night, I went to bed at midnight and got up at 4am to shower so I’d be around to talk to everysingleway for a little while after she got in from work before I left for the airport at 6.30. Before I showered, I read the start of the Flangate stuff - mostly because I was getting CC’d in on an email between a group of people and I wanted to know why my inbox suddenly exploded. Hee! Anyway, I read it, and sighed, and then went to become clean. I was flying anyway, so eh.
By the time I left home, though there was still nothing official (and Denise was claiming all was still well with the con, though the phrase “as far as I know” coming from an organiser is, well, stupid.) I was pretty convinced I’d be flying into Burbank to nothingness. At that point I’d decided that if I got there and there WAS a con, it was going to be a surprising bonus, which is a stupid attitude to have to have for a sold out prepaid con, but whatever. This post is not to complain about the ins and outs of the Con That Wasn’t.
So after some serious traffic on the way to Manchester, I arrived, met _helygen_ and checked in. I also had to break the news about the latest developments so that she was prepared, as she’d not seen the stuff on Whedonesque before leaving.
After the usual standing around and being security screen etc, we tried to get seats together but there weren’t any. So we got on the plane, took our seats, and I went to sleep. Well, I read some of Roy Keane’s autobiography, ate my lunch and THEN went to sleep. I woke up with a weird feeling in my leg and went for a walk - with my Dad’s medical history, I get paranoid about DVTs.
We landed in Chicago in a timely fashion, claimed our bags and got on the train thing to take us to our terminal. We went the wrong way, because the woman didn’t mention that part. She just told us to go one stop. So the bloke said to get back on and go the other way two stops, which we did.
I was dismayed to discover my flight was delayed. I was only supposed to have 45 minutes in Dallas before my flight to Burbank. I asked the guy - if it was on time as it stood right now, we should land 25 minutes before my flight. He told me that he couldn’t guarantee that I would get there on time, and that it was the last flight to Burbank for the night. He said that because the air…people… were delaying flights on purpose because of the weather, they wouldn’t pay for my hotel room, either. They’d only be able to give me a discount. I asked if there were flights to LAX instead, and he said yeah, there were loads. That made me feel better - even if I missed my flight to Burbank, I could get to LAX instead. Of course, my LUGGAGE would still be on the first flight to Burbank the next morning, but since the hotel was right across from Burbank airport, I’d just have to put up with that.
As it happened, we made up time in the air and I was early getting into Dallas. Gail texted me when she reached LAX (I did Manchester -> Chicago -> Dallas -> Burbank, and Gail did Manchester -> Chicago -> LAX) and heard from her friend that the con was definitely cancelled. At some point when I was in Dallas (I wasn‘t there long, I walked off one plane and onto another because of the timing), I also sent a text to Shirley telling her that I was in Texas! Whee Texas!
When I landed in Burbank I was tired out but not tired, because I’d slept all the way on all three planes. I waited for my stuff, caught the shuttle to the hotel and headed in. I was wearing my Kaylee shirt from BlackMarketBeagles and on the way in, somebody stopped me and asked if I was for the Browncoat thing and pulled a face. I was like “It’s fine, I’ve been told.”
Then I went to the desk and heard lexigeek telling somebody what was going on, Adam Baldwin was currently in the bar, that kind of thing. So I checked in, went up to my room (where Iris was already there) and then headed back downstairs to talk to Wendy, Tricia, Katy and various others. Then I went into the bar to see Gail and met quaint_shopgirl, where I hung out for a while. Adam was a couple of tables over, but I didn’t want to push or crowd (and the crowd around his table kept getting bigger!) so I just observed him from afar before he left. It was so awesome of him to come.
After sitting in the bar for a good while (and triciasingleton gave me a drink monkey, which I just found in my trouser pocket) I hung out at the concierge desk with the UK people (we’re cool, yo) waiting for the guy to sneak them off to the liquor store in the hotel shuttle even though he wasn’t supposed to. Heh.
I had a squiz at the Firefly costumes sequestered one of the rooms - no flash photography, but I still got a few decent pics, as you can see! - at one point too, before heading up to bed. We were meeting at 11am in the lobby, and I was tired as hell! So I tried to sleep. And couldn’t. I kept waking up with throbby legs and worrying that I had a DVT. I had a few tiny bruises that weren’t there before (though Gail reassured me the next day that because I had bruises it wasn’t a DVT because you don’t get bruises with those). I also had fun times trying to find the bathroom light. Eventually I locked myself inside with my phone and used it to scan the walls til I found the switch. No wonder I couldn’t find it, it was hidden behind some towels!
So I slept on and off until 10ish before getting up and heading downstairs. Then I found Phoebe and the bunk people. Mark Sheppard had also turned up, so with some encouragement from Phoebe I ran upstairs and grabbed some Jaffa Cakes and then came back down. She gave him tea, and I gave him the Jaffa Cakes, which he was excited about. I told him I had another six tubes upstairs and he said “Don’t tell me that! I’ll eat them all!”
Then there was an announcement that nothing much more was happening until Friday night, when the SoCal shindig was going to be held in the bar - our chance to dress up into our pretty dresses that we‘d brought for the cocktail party. We’d be going to a “secret location” on buses on Saturday, but Friday was ours. I got a Mocha Creamice that took me about three hours to drink, and then Jonathan Woodward showed up. Phoebe and I went back upstairs and I got his Jaffa Cakes (two tubes). We were walking back in when we realised something was going on - it was Denise (BE woman)’s husband Dave, trying to give explanations. Hats off to him for coming down, but it wasn’t really working. Phoebe and I went up to him later to say thanks for coming down, and Jonathan was nearby and agreed with us.
I gave him the Jaffa Cakes and he was so excited! He shook hands with Tricia and Phoebe, who introduced themselves, and then I was about to say my name and he was shaking my hand and starting to try and guess. There were lots of weird names going on in there. "Lioness?" "No." "Ethan?" "No." "Somethingsomething26?" "No." Hee. He didn't let go of my hand through all of this and then he grinned at me and said "I'm just kidding" and hugged me. I told him there were another four tubes upstairs and he said “Well where ARE they?!” and I said “You have to impress me.” So he started flexing his biceps - he did one arm, and I said “That’s one more tube for you,” and he said “I’ve got another!” and did the other arm. Bless him. Then I reminded him I still don’t have my jonnywallet.com email address, and he said “Yeah, I’m always doing that.” So he picked up a pen, made as if to write a note on my arm, and I was like “Well, that’s not going to help YOU remember..” and he was like, “Right!” Then he had to go talk to Dave, so he said “I’ll talk to you about this later.” and tried to give me the pen back. I said “That’s your pen.” He laughed, hee. He was already flustered and confused and it was only Friday morning. I love him. That cannot be said enough. The man is just fantastic. He also told me I'd dropped to #9 on his MySpace friends, heh, but I can't remember what I said to insult him enough for that!
So we let him go, and we went and got a cab to Target because Phoebe wanted some straighteners since hers didn’t worked in the US socket, even with an adaptor. Stupid voltage thing. Anyway, we got a really cool taxi driver called Edmond, who gave us his cell number so that we could call him specifically to pick us up. She bought her straighteners and I bought Scrubs season four, and then we called him, and he came for us. On the way back into the hotel, he pulled up opposite a colleague who was on his way out, and spoke in Spanish for a while. As he pulled away again back into the hotel car park, he shut the window and said to us, completely casually, “He asked me ‘where did you take the beautiful ladies?’ and I said to him, ‘Target’.” It just sounded ridiculous and made me and Phoebe both laugh!
The Bedlam Bards were doing sets by the pool, and Phoebe and I decided to go and get clean. So I washed my hair and then sat in her room while she got ready, before we went back downstairs and then headed into the bar for some food. We got these cute little burger thingys that absolutely did not poison Phoebe even though she blamed them all weekend. Lmao.
Then I realised I’d forgotten the bra that goes with my dress, so we made a mad dash back to Target so I could buy some underwear, and then we got charged way too much money by the taxi driver who was not Edmond on the way back, because he took us a ridiculously long way round! Then we got ready for the party. Mark was going to be signing autographs from 6.30, so we got dressed first and then went down to get stuff signed. I took a tube of Jaffa Cakes. I said "These aren't for you to eat, they're for you to sign." He looked slightly puzzled at first and then got right into it. It’s awesome. He signed it “LUVVERLY!! Mark Sheppard…” And when he handed it to me, he kept pointing at LUVVERLY til he made sure I'd seen it, hee! Brett Matthews was also signing but I didn’t get anything signed.
azuzazzyzx was watching the line, and asked what the Jaffa Cakes were. I promised to let him try some later. He said “No, you can’t! They’re signed!” I explained that I was never ever going to leave Jaffa Cakes to go stale inside a tube, and it’d be perfectly fine as a signed empty tube! So he said he’d try one when I opened them, and Mark demanded he ask nicer because dude, it’s JAFFA CAKES. Anyway, I saw Katy, Tricia and Wendy in the queue after I opened them, so I got back into it and offered him one. Mark watched the scene as he tried one, and there was instant love. It was awesome. quaint_shopgirl also loved them.
I was still clutching them later when we went into the bar and Jonathan was around having pictures taken. I wasn’t too bothered about queuing for one (Jonathan actually said “What are y’all queueing for? I just want to go to the bar!”), I just went to give lexigeek a Jaffa Cake to show my appreciation. He loved them too! I’m spreading the word, people! The Jaffa Invasion is ON!
We went inside the bar and hung around for a while. We’d been chatting to a few people who asked where we were from, that kind of thing, when we were informed that Justin Timberlake had been there eating his evening meal less than an hour before. People asked him if they could have pictures with him as he was leaving but he was grumpy and said no, heh.
Then we hung around some more, with Phoebe moping that she couldn’t buy a drink. Suddenly there was a huge cheer from behind us - we turned around and who do we see? No prizes for guessing, with all of the Not!Flan publicity at this point - it was none other than the delightful Nathan Fillion! He came in and yelled “I’m sorry your con got cancelled!” and then made a comment about the true/new meaning of the word con.
“I heard a lot of people flew a long way. Who’s here that came from Australia?” so somebody came forward, and Nathan gave out some goodies. Then he yelled “Okay, apart from Mark Sheppard, who’s from England?” Phoebe and I started to move forward, and somebody yelled “Phoebe and Rachel!”
When Phoebe got to the front, Nathan hugged her - he remembered her, but needed to be reminded of her name. Then she moved aside, and Nathan was looking everywhere but at me. Mark saw me, poked Nathan and went “Look at her - look - LOOK - she’s carrying Jaffa Cakes, she’s definitely English!” and I got some of the prop money that he likes to give out.
Then after giving out a few more things to some Brits, he said “Who has a good Firefly story?” And Jessi told her Out of Gas story, before I put my hand up again (I was still standing directly in front of him, as I couldn’t get back through the crowds!) and said “Nathan?” He looked at me, and I did the one thing I promised myself I would never admit to one of the BDHs out of embarrassment, hee. “I saw the movie 39 times at the cinema.” Nathan grinned and smacked another note down into my hand and Mark pissed himself laughing. Totally worth it!
He asked for somebody to get him a vodka & tonic, and said “Easy on the roofie.” Then everybody laughed, and he said “I didn’t say *no* roofie.”
Then he started giving out other fun stuff. Books. He gave away his copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. “There’s nothing special about it - ‘cept it’s mine.” He also gave away some videos of rough cuts of Firefly episodes, and a rough cut of Slither (the lady who brought his drink got that). And some more books. And then he gave away the box that he’d brought all his shit in! “There’s nothing special about it - ‘cept it’s mine. It’s been in my house since like, ‘99.” When I moved out of the way later, I saw that quaint_shopgirl had been the one that managed to claim it! Yay!
Anyway, while I was still right in front of Nathan, I heard Nathan say something quietly to Mark that ended in “mumble mumble Alan Tudyk.” Mark said “Is he here?” and Nathan said (loudly) “NO! He’s FILMING a MOVIE!” I laughed, lmfao. At that point I decided I wouldn’t be surprised if Alan showed. Then a little while later, Nathan said “Here’s the guy I’m looking for, this guy in the black hat!” And the crowd parted, and it was Alan! I hadn’t taken any photos of Nathan because by the time I got to the front, he’d been there a while and I didn’t want to blind him with my flash. So I took a few quick ones when Alan arrived (three, to be precise) and then put my camera away again. I’m so considerate! Anyway, he came through and told us that he wasn’t supposed to be coming, but he heard what had happened and came down. He made a few jokes and then headed out into the lobby - he said that he’d been told the hotel were getting antsy about the crowds. Nathan said he’d be hanging around in the bar, but ended up having to move outside because of the crowds.
I moved aside and talked to Christina, who had also popped up with a guy. And it was their first date! They met three days before and he didn’t know she was an actress, and he jumped right in. Such a brave guy - of course, I’m sure it didn’t hurt that she kept SAYING that to him, hee. He’ll have liked that. She recognised me, she knew we’d met before, which was nice. I shook her hand and spoke to her a little, and then moved past her to Jonathan, and asked him to sign my Jaffa Cakes. He obliged, and Gail took a couple of photos of the moment.
He seemed to take forever, and then handed the tube back to me. He looked so proud of himself.
“I signed it ‘Jonathan Cakeward’!” I pissed myself laughing. Dude, I love the guy. Just. Love.
I went to see what was going on outside, and Alan and Nathan were having a big photo session with like, the two of them and ten people at a time, to get through the crowds. It was a nice idea! I didn’t go up, because I’ve had so many pictures with Nathan before and I didn’t even have an op bought for actual Flan this time, so I decided not to get in the way.
Me and the bunk folk hung around at the side, waiting for our chance to give Nathan the brag book. When it was time, Ali and Denise started explaining it to him and gave it to him. He loved it. And Alan was SO cute. He kept jumping on Nathan’s shoulders trying to see what it was. “What’s that? Am I in it? Is there one for me? That’s me! Oh no, that’s not me. Where am I?” Then we posed for a group pic, which I’m sure I will look ridiculous in most of the shots of, because I was at the front (as one of the shortest) but not short enough that I didn’t have to crouch a little to stop myself from being in the way of the people behind me! I had a few texts from gossi - one that thoroughly amused me that said “I take it you know Nathan is there?” which I received while I was about three feet away from the man. I replied with “I think I noticed!” and then he replied and said that there was some awesome stuff planned for the rest of the weekend. I read it out to some of the bunk people and we all squeed, which made other people look around at us and think that somebody else had showed, I think, lmfao.
Then Nathan and Alan left, and as they walked away towards the car park, people started singing the theme tune. It was touching. They didn't turn around, but they can't have not heard. They're awesome.
After the Nathany fun, we sat around for a while. I gave lexigeek another Jaffa Cake. Then I hovered in the lobby with Katy and Tricia and people til we were told there was a 10pm curfew in the lobby. We relocated, and then eventually Phoebe and I decided we were tired, and since we had to be up early to meet in the lobby the next day at 9am for all the surprises, and Phoebe said I could sleep in her room - she had a frigging MASSIVE bed - so I did. I had a conversation with Mark on the way out of the bar. I told him Jonathan was going to fight him for the Jaffa Cakes and Mark went "Where is he? Let's get this over with!" And that was that! Friday was awesome in all kinds of ways that an actual organised con could not have been. And it was only Friday!!
That's 3429 words. Not a record for me in con reports, but still fairly wordy, lmao.