Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2011-09-07 07:53 pm
tenlittlebullets) wrote2011-09-07 07:53 pm
Entry tags:
DRAGON*CON.
Things that happened at Dragoncon:
- Speeding ticket in our first 20 minutes on the road; cop asked where we were going, took 10mph off the recorded speed "because you did slow down... uh... tell me more about this sci-fi convention? Do they have guest stars? Wait, Shatner and Nimoy?"
- I have now set foot in every state on the East Coast except Maine!
- Thursday was mostly driving, getting everything settled in at the hotel, registration (surprisingly quick!) and hanging out with roomies. Friday was mostly getting a sense of how a MOTHERFUCKING HUGE con works: missing panels because I didn't get in line early enough, squinting at maps and schedules, milling about the dealers' booths in a daze. I did get to see Tom Felton do a panel though, and for all my love of the books I did not think I cared about HP movies let alone the actors in them, but he is a pretty awesome dude, had plenty of hilarious stories from on set, and was very good at defusing loaded or batshit questions without being rude.
- Friday night I got pretty fucking drunk with friends, then managed to down most of a flask of whiskey at a Voltaire concert. Voltaire was fucking awesome, but the booze level should probably have been cut at least in half, because at 8:30 Saturday morning I had to get up for...
- The parade! There were all sorts of registration tangles so I wasn't sure I'd be able to march, but I duly dragged my hungover ass into my weeping angel costume and down to meet the Whovian group, who did manage to find a place for me. And shit, it was AWESOME. They had a Runaway Bride Donna who kept chasing random Tens around, an Ainley!Master who kept chasing Four and Six around, some fabulous mask work including an Ood and a Silent, some gorgeous TARDIS dresses and Idris costumes, and dozens of other amazing things I am not remembering. And it was bright and I was hungover and had to wait around outside for an hour without being able to sit down because of the wings, then walk a mile-long parade route in a cumbersome costume and heels, and let me tell you LJ, I had a blast. Creeping on other parade-goers, fistbumping small children, sneaking up behind Idrises from behind to whisper "You look tasty" in their ears... but I must've been going on willpower alone, because afterwards I proceeded to crawl back to the hotel room, moan pathetically to roomies about how awful I felt, curl up in bed, and sleep the wretched sleep of the deservedly hungover until 4pm. Let this be a lesson to you, children.
- So I missed all my Saturday panels as well, but did manage to make it to Sylvester McCoy in the evening. And he is a tiny, ridiculous, completely insane, side-splittingly funny man who made me want to properly watch some Seventh Doctor serials. He talked about this and that, actors he'd worked with, elements of nuWho he'd campaigned for back during his run and been denied by the BBC, did spittake-inducing Pertwee impressions, then took questions by hopping down from the podium and stalking through the audience with a microphone. Wonderful man.
- Afterwards was the "advance" screening of the latest Who ep, meaning five hours after the original BBC broadcast, three hours after all the pirates had it downloaded, two hours on paper before the BBC America broadcast, and one hour in practice before the BBC America broadcast because of endless emcee blather and messages from our sponsors. And the episode itself was... pretty lukewarm. It felt like Gatiss was rummaging around on a list of Moffat-esque ways to creep people the fuck out and went "oh, I guess some people think dolls are freaky, I'll toss in some giant scary dolls and nobody will sleep tonight, ha!" And the plotting was underwhelming--everything was solved too easily, it left you waiting for an eleventh-hour reveal that the first easy solution they'd come to was in fact a huge mistake, and then the episode was over and it really was that easy. Blarg. It was cute, I suppose, and nothing about it was terrible, but it was vaguely unsatisfying all the same.
- Sunday. Sunday was insane. I got all costumed up again and resolved to make it to some panels this time, and quickly discovered that in the weeping angel getup I could move at about ten feet an hour, max, due to all the photos people wanted to take. That costume drew fucking crowds. It was unbelievable and intensely gratifying and fun. And I did make it to all my shit on Sunday--watched sack races in tauntaun sleeping bags, mad-science demonstrations, and a surprisingly rubbish discussion of steampunk in Doctor Who. And then got waylaid by the Cuddly Queer Whovians, a loose amalgamation of slashers and costumed gender miscreants who had found each other over the course of the con. It was decided that we would crash the ostensibly-steampunk Time Travellers' Ball, so I went and changed into my Simm!Master outfit and this turned out to be a very good idea...
- ...because one thing led to another, and I wound up in a pile of mostly-fem Who cosplayers that devolved into a five-way Nine/Ten/Master/Jack/Ianto makeout. It would have devolved into an orgy, but due to roommate situations none of us had a free room. (Cockblocked by Dragon*Con!) I... am not sure I can put anything more on that in an unlocked post, because holy unf it was hot. Completely outrageous, but so fucking hot.
- And then instead of sleeping like a normal person I binged on booze and cigarettes and went to a rave at the Marriott and danced with cute goth girls and ran into a couple of utterly trashed Ten cosplayers, bringing the total count of pantsless Tens I'd seen wandering around that night up to three. Oh Dragon*Con. Regretted my poor life choices again when we had to get up early to check out of the hotel, but not enough that I wouldn't do it over again.
- First half of the drive back was fairly uneventful; we stopped in Chapel Hill for the night to drop Aria off and crash at her place, with a detour to Durham to see Fright Night and keep up a pervy sarcastic running commentary. Then on Tuesday morning the apocalyptic weather started. We had to hang out in the basement for an hour because there was a fucking tornado just a few miles south of us and moving north, then drive home through Noah's goddamn Flood--from Chapel Hill to Lynchburg the heavens might as well have been upending buckets over our heads, and steady-to-heavy rain the rest of the way home. At this point I would not be terribly surprised if the newscasters started announcing a plague of locusts.
- ....and then I got home and slept for eleven hours and have still not quite adjusted to being out of Massive Fandom Party space. Real world, what are you?
- Speeding ticket in our first 20 minutes on the road; cop asked where we were going, took 10mph off the recorded speed "because you did slow down... uh... tell me more about this sci-fi convention? Do they have guest stars? Wait, Shatner and Nimoy?"
- I have now set foot in every state on the East Coast except Maine!
- Thursday was mostly driving, getting everything settled in at the hotel, registration (surprisingly quick!) and hanging out with roomies. Friday was mostly getting a sense of how a MOTHERFUCKING HUGE con works: missing panels because I didn't get in line early enough, squinting at maps and schedules, milling about the dealers' booths in a daze. I did get to see Tom Felton do a panel though, and for all my love of the books I did not think I cared about HP movies let alone the actors in them, but he is a pretty awesome dude, had plenty of hilarious stories from on set, and was very good at defusing loaded or batshit questions without being rude.
- Friday night I got pretty fucking drunk with friends, then managed to down most of a flask of whiskey at a Voltaire concert. Voltaire was fucking awesome, but the booze level should probably have been cut at least in half, because at 8:30 Saturday morning I had to get up for...
- The parade! There were all sorts of registration tangles so I wasn't sure I'd be able to march, but I duly dragged my hungover ass into my weeping angel costume and down to meet the Whovian group, who did manage to find a place for me. And shit, it was AWESOME. They had a Runaway Bride Donna who kept chasing random Tens around, an Ainley!Master who kept chasing Four and Six around, some fabulous mask work including an Ood and a Silent, some gorgeous TARDIS dresses and Idris costumes, and dozens of other amazing things I am not remembering. And it was bright and I was hungover and had to wait around outside for an hour without being able to sit down because of the wings, then walk a mile-long parade route in a cumbersome costume and heels, and let me tell you LJ, I had a blast. Creeping on other parade-goers, fistbumping small children, sneaking up behind Idrises from behind to whisper "You look tasty" in their ears... but I must've been going on willpower alone, because afterwards I proceeded to crawl back to the hotel room, moan pathetically to roomies about how awful I felt, curl up in bed, and sleep the wretched sleep of the deservedly hungover until 4pm. Let this be a lesson to you, children.
- So I missed all my Saturday panels as well, but did manage to make it to Sylvester McCoy in the evening. And he is a tiny, ridiculous, completely insane, side-splittingly funny man who made me want to properly watch some Seventh Doctor serials. He talked about this and that, actors he'd worked with, elements of nuWho he'd campaigned for back during his run and been denied by the BBC, did spittake-inducing Pertwee impressions, then took questions by hopping down from the podium and stalking through the audience with a microphone. Wonderful man.
- Afterwards was the "advance" screening of the latest Who ep, meaning five hours after the original BBC broadcast, three hours after all the pirates had it downloaded, two hours on paper before the BBC America broadcast, and one hour in practice before the BBC America broadcast because of endless emcee blather and messages from our sponsors. And the episode itself was... pretty lukewarm. It felt like Gatiss was rummaging around on a list of Moffat-esque ways to creep people the fuck out and went "oh, I guess some people think dolls are freaky, I'll toss in some giant scary dolls and nobody will sleep tonight, ha!" And the plotting was underwhelming--everything was solved too easily, it left you waiting for an eleventh-hour reveal that the first easy solution they'd come to was in fact a huge mistake, and then the episode was over and it really was that easy. Blarg. It was cute, I suppose, and nothing about it was terrible, but it was vaguely unsatisfying all the same.
- Sunday. Sunday was insane. I got all costumed up again and resolved to make it to some panels this time, and quickly discovered that in the weeping angel getup I could move at about ten feet an hour, max, due to all the photos people wanted to take. That costume drew fucking crowds. It was unbelievable and intensely gratifying and fun. And I did make it to all my shit on Sunday--watched sack races in tauntaun sleeping bags, mad-science demonstrations, and a surprisingly rubbish discussion of steampunk in Doctor Who. And then got waylaid by the Cuddly Queer Whovians, a loose amalgamation of slashers and costumed gender miscreants who had found each other over the course of the con. It was decided that we would crash the ostensibly-steampunk Time Travellers' Ball, so I went and changed into my Simm!Master outfit and this turned out to be a very good idea...
- ...because one thing led to another, and I wound up in a pile of mostly-fem Who cosplayers that devolved into a five-way Nine/Ten/Master/Jack/Ianto makeout. It would have devolved into an orgy, but due to roommate situations none of us had a free room. (Cockblocked by Dragon*Con!) I... am not sure I can put anything more on that in an unlocked post, because holy unf it was hot. Completely outrageous, but so fucking hot.
- And then instead of sleeping like a normal person I binged on booze and cigarettes and went to a rave at the Marriott and danced with cute goth girls and ran into a couple of utterly trashed Ten cosplayers, bringing the total count of pantsless Tens I'd seen wandering around that night up to three. Oh Dragon*Con. Regretted my poor life choices again when we had to get up early to check out of the hotel, but not enough that I wouldn't do it over again.
- First half of the drive back was fairly uneventful; we stopped in Chapel Hill for the night to drop Aria off and crash at her place, with a detour to Durham to see Fright Night and keep up a pervy sarcastic running commentary. Then on Tuesday morning the apocalyptic weather started. We had to hang out in the basement for an hour because there was a fucking tornado just a few miles south of us and moving north, then drive home through Noah's goddamn Flood--from Chapel Hill to Lynchburg the heavens might as well have been upending buckets over our heads, and steady-to-heavy rain the rest of the way home. At this point I would not be terribly surprised if the newscasters started announcing a plague of locusts.
- ....and then I got home and slept for eleven hours and have still not quite adjusted to being out of Massive Fandom Party space. Real world, what are you?
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http://io9.com/5837834/all-the-coolest-costumes-and-props-we-saw-at-dragoncon
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