I Went to My First Con Yesterday
It was mostly Western fandoms, so boyf saw one Naruto cosplayer and some guy complimented my ~*snazzy new Naruto bag*~ (I'm trying to get a picture of it from my phone to my computer without wasting minutes, but it's not taking so far), but aside from that and a few catgirls, it was mostly western fandom cosplayers (Dr. Who, Star Wars, and Firefly were the most common).
The whole thing was disorganized. I was amazed because when I see webcomic artists talking about which cons they're going to (usually big ones, very famous ones, like comiccon) it's accompanied by a chart with little boxes indicating where the webcomic artists will be available for signing things and things like that. There was no map.
Boyf and I went to DragonCon, which is not terribly famous, but has been going for 25 years, so you'd think they'd know what they were doing. Apparently not.
There were long lines (because celebrities were involved, so), but though they were supposed to zig and zag and represent their true size, there were only partitions for major things (getting your badge to get in, for example) and the lines for autographs (for example, Felicia Day's, which was looooong) did not zig or zag, and in fact, were split in half: one short, tempting line right in front of Felicia day and her companions, and one really fucking long zig zagging thing outside of the area, in which a herd of people milled about looking disorganized while standing on tape (which, upon closer inspection, may or may not have been meant to represent an invisible partition).
With a line like that, I did not get Felicia Day's autograph. I did get a few others, and encountered two other celebrities outside of the autograph areas (Mark A. Sheppard once, early in the morning, I almost ran into him, and Stan Lee later in the day, passing through the lounge area while I waited for boyf to get out of a panel).
The panels were fascinating (I attended a Eureka one early in the day, during which the actors, including Wil Wheaton, goofed off on stage and avoided giving any spoilers at all for the upcoming season, even though Colin Ferguson totally admitted that they were allowed to), for the most part (the Supernatural fandom panel was not, for instance, and was about as intelligent and helpful as a forum post on the subject, though admittedly with fewer instances of CAPSLOCK and inappropriate emoticons, though I suspect this was not due so much to the attendees' integrity so much as the fact that we were IRL and the RL equivalent--loud profanity and inappropriate hand gestures, with the occasional flashing for emphasis--was likely to get them kicked out, or at least yelled at by security).
The stores were expensive (because it was a public gathering of people and money was required to get in, so naturally everything was slightly or more overpriced). I bought a Player pin and a hairclip with little heartless symbols on the ribbons, and a Star Wars tee (which boyf assures me I will need after we marathon his pre-ordered Star Wars box set collector's edition blu-rays), and, of course, the aforementioned autographs (one Misha Collins, one Jordan Hinson; the Terry Brooks autograph was free, though the line longer).
Despite being located inside of several of the nicer (nicest?) hotels in Atlanta, the air conditioning was shit. The line outside of the Supernatural/Sanctuary/Stargate autograph room was air conditioned, and the autograph room itself was, but the larger Hall of Fame (featuring the Eureka cast--though Wil Wheaton was on the side with The Guild near Felicia Day and her all-day-long-line--and Tom fucking Felton) did not feel like it was. It's also notable that few of the autographs were free. The author ones were, but the ones available in the only cool rooms in the building were the most expensive ($50 for Misha Collins, boyf and I agreed to split the cost--$40 for Mark Sheppard, I almost got him instead--$30 for poor Samantha Ferris who has the misfortune of playing a girl on Supernatural).
This is the only fandom-related thing I've done lately. I haven't really read or kept up with any canon, just watched netflix with the boyf and started (finally) reading the enormous backlog of unread novels on my bookshelf. I have started to write again (a little bit at a time), just this original 'verse (gen, with probably enough of a solid friendship between the four main characters to make any ship feasible--or, I hope, I haven't really written much of it yet), and I've been trying to convince myself to edit/finish a few pieces I've had lying around. If I don't post anything by the end of next month (god, I hope I don't go that long without a post again), then I'll start posting drabbles. Music-based, Christmas requests (holy shit, is it really September? God.), something.
The whole thing was disorganized. I was amazed because when I see webcomic artists talking about which cons they're going to (usually big ones, very famous ones, like comiccon) it's accompanied by a chart with little boxes indicating where the webcomic artists will be available for signing things and things like that. There was no map.
Boyf and I went to DragonCon, which is not terribly famous, but has been going for 25 years, so you'd think they'd know what they were doing. Apparently not.
There were long lines (because celebrities were involved, so), but though they were supposed to zig and zag and represent their true size, there were only partitions for major things (getting your badge to get in, for example) and the lines for autographs (for example, Felicia Day's, which was looooong) did not zig or zag, and in fact, were split in half: one short, tempting line right in front of Felicia day and her companions, and one really fucking long zig zagging thing outside of the area, in which a herd of people milled about looking disorganized while standing on tape (which, upon closer inspection, may or may not have been meant to represent an invisible partition).
With a line like that, I did not get Felicia Day's autograph. I did get a few others, and encountered two other celebrities outside of the autograph areas (Mark A. Sheppard once, early in the morning, I almost ran into him, and Stan Lee later in the day, passing through the lounge area while I waited for boyf to get out of a panel).
The panels were fascinating (I attended a Eureka one early in the day, during which the actors, including Wil Wheaton, goofed off on stage and avoided giving any spoilers at all for the upcoming season, even though Colin Ferguson totally admitted that they were allowed to), for the most part (the Supernatural fandom panel was not, for instance, and was about as intelligent and helpful as a forum post on the subject, though admittedly with fewer instances of CAPSLOCK and inappropriate emoticons, though I suspect this was not due so much to the attendees' integrity so much as the fact that we were IRL and the RL equivalent--loud profanity and inappropriate hand gestures, with the occasional flashing for emphasis--was likely to get them kicked out, or at least yelled at by security).
The stores were expensive (because it was a public gathering of people and money was required to get in, so naturally everything was slightly or more overpriced). I bought a Player pin and a hairclip with little heartless symbols on the ribbons, and a Star Wars tee (which boyf assures me I will need after we marathon his pre-ordered Star Wars box set collector's edition blu-rays), and, of course, the aforementioned autographs (one Misha Collins, one Jordan Hinson; the Terry Brooks autograph was free, though the line longer).
Despite being located inside of several of the nicer (nicest?) hotels in Atlanta, the air conditioning was shit. The line outside of the Supernatural/Sanctuary/Stargate autograph room was air conditioned, and the autograph room itself was, but the larger Hall of Fame (featuring the Eureka cast--though Wil Wheaton was on the side with The Guild near Felicia Day and her all-day-long-line--and Tom fucking Felton) did not feel like it was. It's also notable that few of the autographs were free. The author ones were, but the ones available in the only cool rooms in the building were the most expensive ($50 for Misha Collins, boyf and I agreed to split the cost--$40 for Mark Sheppard, I almost got him instead--$30 for poor Samantha Ferris who has the misfortune of playing a girl on Supernatural).
This is the only fandom-related thing I've done lately. I haven't really read or kept up with any canon, just watched netflix with the boyf and started (finally) reading the enormous backlog of unread novels on my bookshelf. I have started to write again (a little bit at a time), just this original 'verse (gen, with probably enough of a solid friendship between the four main characters to make any ship feasible--or, I hope, I haven't really written much of it yet), and I've been trying to convince myself to edit/finish a few pieces I've had lying around. If I don't post anything by the end of next month (god, I hope I don't go that long without a post again), then I'll start posting drabbles. Music-based, Christmas requests (holy shit, is it really September? God.), something.