Day 1 Recap
Recap - Dragon*Con Day 1
So, last night I had trouble sleeping. I was up until like 3 am local time for no reason, then woke Charis up at 6:30 and got up myself right around 7. We got to downtown like 8:15, and got registered super quick - there was this windy maze for the line to go in and we were constantly walking until the very end. None of this "standing in line" business, we were walking in line.
After this we had to find our way from the Sheraton to the other hotels where the stuff we wanted to see was happening. Our first panel about The Hobbit was moved to a different time & place, though, and conflicted with the Supernatural panel with Mischa Collins & Mark Shepherd so we just kinda walked around, looking at stuff & taking pictures until time to get in line.
That was such a fun panel! Mischa Collins is my current favourite person and he reminds me very much of Jenn Darling... and when he was sitting next to Mark Shepherd, it meant pure hilarity (plus a certain amount of awkwardness, but mostly hilarity). Mischa was talking about being God at the beginning, so then the rest of the panel would turn to him and ask if he could arrange things the rest of the time. "Hey, God, can you fix that for me?"
There was one point when Mark Shepherd and Heyerdahl got talking about the Norwegian navy and some museum in Oslo, somehow, and interrupted the thing for a while to talk to each other, which was kinda funny. Also, apparently Mischa Collins was unaware of who Neil Gaiman is - Mark Shepherd got asked a question involving Neil Gaiman and Good Omens, and Mischa Collins was all "Who?" - which, I find it really odd when people don't know who Neil Gaiman is, particularly famous people (because all the famous people at least know about each other, right?). Also, someone asked the panel to debate Star Trek vs. Star Wars and Mark Shepherd was pretty much like "What a pointless question - we wouldn't have one without the other, and without them none of the rest of this science fiction and fantasy would exist. We have the most intelligent audience ever, stop debating about this and just embrace fandom in general." Which, I'm sure isn't quite what he said, because he said it much better and that was... many many hours ago and I do not have a journal so am having to write this from memory... anyhow, lots of fun. A great first-ever-panel experience.
The next big thing that really stands out is the Elizabeth Moon reading - she read a bit out of Echos of Betrayal, the third of the new Paksworld books, and I can't wait to read them now. I still need to acquire Kings of the North - I can't afford it in hardback and want it to match Oath of Fealty. Afterwards, Ms. Moon signed a few books for people, and I happened to have Remnant Population with me as I am currently reading it. It also happens to be my favourite book by her, so having it signed is just awesome - this is the book that Charis used to rehabilitate me into being able to read SciFi again after being burned out by too much Larry Niven, Piers Anthony, etc, namely too many books that had too much adult-type-content for a 12 year old. Charis handed it to me and said "Just read this one book and I'll never bug you again" and I've been reading Ms. Moon's science fiction books ever since. Anyhow, after the panel, I asked if Charis & I could get a picture with her and mentioned that I read her blog and am the person who sent her the picture of Oath of Fealty with the llama. "Oh, you're the one with the llamas!" Then we stood around and CHATTED with ELIZABETH MOON about science fiction and fantasy and anything and everything, like how people always get stuff wrong when they write about stuff they clearly know nothing about. It was awesome. More awesome than being 100 feet from Mischa Collins, I think. Then she excused herself and then Charis pushed me into the escalator in her excitement.
Time passed - we walked and ate some food and walked even more - SO MUCH WALKING - and eventually went to the Religious Dogma In SciFi & Fantasy thing, which turned out to really be a discussion by the audience with the priest-guy more moderating than speaking. His opening remarks were really interesting, but the rest of it was not so much. Then it was time to head over to the Westin. We stopped in at the Stargate:Interactive thing, which was rather fun despite walking in late, and then made our way up to the Line for the Dr. Horrible Picture Show. We sat around for 45 minutes in the Line, which started on one side & wound around, then crossed to the other side of the big open space outside the ballroom & wound around and then crossed to the hallway between the elevators - I have no idea how long the line ended up being, but it was super confusing, and the girl who had set it up had gone off somewhere else just prior to them letting people in and our section of the line (the second section) kept yelling at the people corralling us to make sure they knew where we belonged in the line, since they seemed to get confused about where we started & which direction we were in.
Then, finally it was time for the highlight of the night - The Dr. Horrible Picture Show! Unfortunately, we were so far back that it was difficult to see the stage at all, and there was only one screen we could partially see, but it didn't really matter. The sharing of the experience with all those people was amazing - thousands of us singing along with it & reciting lines and cheering and jeering at Dr. Horrible & Captain Hammer (variously, depending on the alignment of the particular audience member). It was the most fun I've had yet.
Re: Cosplayers - I got my picture with Captain Jack Sparrow, Rapunzel & Flynn/Eugene, and Charis got a picture or two with Batman. I got pictures of other people, but not with them. We kept seeing Belle running around, but by the time I worked up the nerve to ask her she suddenly took off and was up an escalator before I could get around the crowd that had paused to take pictures of one of the many in Mandalorian armor - some were clearly Boba Fett, others were less clear & some of them incorporated Mandalorian armor into a sort of crossover costume.
We saw several dozen Doctors - Charis expressed grave concerns over the stability of the time/space continuum with all those versions of the Doctor running around, frequently in company with other incarnations of himself. I loved the group that had Nine, Ten & Eleven... All of the 4th Doctors that I saw were portrayed by women, which I found interesting. We also saw so many Disney Princesses, which I did not expect, and I saw fully 2 Peacekeepers - though one of those may have been John-Crichton-pretending-to-be-a-Peacekeeper. The first thing in the morning I saw a Peacekeeper sitting next to a 4th Doctor who was knitting and went to take their picture, but my battery did not cooperate - I was really sad it didn't work out, because I loved the juxtaposition of the Doctor hanging out with a Peacekeeper.
And, I think that's about it for Day 1. Tomorrow I am wearing my Kaylee ensemble, so that should be fun. Also, it's now 2:20 am, so I should head to bed about now, but I wanted this to get written out before I forgot everything. I think we'll be able to sleep in a bit tomorrow - we don't need to leave the house until 9ish, which is kind of exciting.
So, last night I had trouble sleeping. I was up until like 3 am local time for no reason, then woke Charis up at 6:30 and got up myself right around 7. We got to downtown like 8:15, and got registered super quick - there was this windy maze for the line to go in and we were constantly walking until the very end. None of this "standing in line" business, we were walking in line.
After this we had to find our way from the Sheraton to the other hotels where the stuff we wanted to see was happening. Our first panel about The Hobbit was moved to a different time & place, though, and conflicted with the Supernatural panel with Mischa Collins & Mark Shepherd so we just kinda walked around, looking at stuff & taking pictures until time to get in line.
That was such a fun panel! Mischa Collins is my current favourite person and he reminds me very much of Jenn Darling... and when he was sitting next to Mark Shepherd, it meant pure hilarity (plus a certain amount of awkwardness, but mostly hilarity). Mischa was talking about being God at the beginning, so then the rest of the panel would turn to him and ask if he could arrange things the rest of the time. "Hey, God, can you fix that for me?"
There was one point when Mark Shepherd and Heyerdahl got talking about the Norwegian navy and some museum in Oslo, somehow, and interrupted the thing for a while to talk to each other, which was kinda funny. Also, apparently Mischa Collins was unaware of who Neil Gaiman is - Mark Shepherd got asked a question involving Neil Gaiman and Good Omens, and Mischa Collins was all "Who?" - which, I find it really odd when people don't know who Neil Gaiman is, particularly famous people (because all the famous people at least know about each other, right?). Also, someone asked the panel to debate Star Trek vs. Star Wars and Mark Shepherd was pretty much like "What a pointless question - we wouldn't have one without the other, and without them none of the rest of this science fiction and fantasy would exist. We have the most intelligent audience ever, stop debating about this and just embrace fandom in general." Which, I'm sure isn't quite what he said, because he said it much better and that was... many many hours ago and I do not have a journal so am having to write this from memory... anyhow, lots of fun. A great first-ever-panel experience.
The next big thing that really stands out is the Elizabeth Moon reading - she read a bit out of Echos of Betrayal, the third of the new Paksworld books, and I can't wait to read them now. I still need to acquire Kings of the North - I can't afford it in hardback and want it to match Oath of Fealty. Afterwards, Ms. Moon signed a few books for people, and I happened to have Remnant Population with me as I am currently reading it. It also happens to be my favourite book by her, so having it signed is just awesome - this is the book that Charis used to rehabilitate me into being able to read SciFi again after being burned out by too much Larry Niven, Piers Anthony, etc, namely too many books that had too much adult-type-content for a 12 year old. Charis handed it to me and said "Just read this one book and I'll never bug you again" and I've been reading Ms. Moon's science fiction books ever since. Anyhow, after the panel, I asked if Charis & I could get a picture with her and mentioned that I read her blog and am the person who sent her the picture of Oath of Fealty with the llama. "Oh, you're the one with the llamas!" Then we stood around and CHATTED with ELIZABETH MOON about science fiction and fantasy and anything and everything, like how people always get stuff wrong when they write about stuff they clearly know nothing about. It was awesome. More awesome than being 100 feet from Mischa Collins, I think. Then she excused herself and then Charis pushed me into the escalator in her excitement.
Time passed - we walked and ate some food and walked even more - SO MUCH WALKING - and eventually went to the Religious Dogma In SciFi & Fantasy thing, which turned out to really be a discussion by the audience with the priest-guy more moderating than speaking. His opening remarks were really interesting, but the rest of it was not so much. Then it was time to head over to the Westin. We stopped in at the Stargate:Interactive thing, which was rather fun despite walking in late, and then made our way up to the Line for the Dr. Horrible Picture Show. We sat around for 45 minutes in the Line, which started on one side & wound around, then crossed to the other side of the big open space outside the ballroom & wound around and then crossed to the hallway between the elevators - I have no idea how long the line ended up being, but it was super confusing, and the girl who had set it up had gone off somewhere else just prior to them letting people in and our section of the line (the second section) kept yelling at the people corralling us to make sure they knew where we belonged in the line, since they seemed to get confused about where we started & which direction we were in.
Then, finally it was time for the highlight of the night - The Dr. Horrible Picture Show! Unfortunately, we were so far back that it was difficult to see the stage at all, and there was only one screen we could partially see, but it didn't really matter. The sharing of the experience with all those people was amazing - thousands of us singing along with it & reciting lines and cheering and jeering at Dr. Horrible & Captain Hammer (variously, depending on the alignment of the particular audience member). It was the most fun I've had yet.
Re: Cosplayers - I got my picture with Captain Jack Sparrow, Rapunzel & Flynn/Eugene, and Charis got a picture or two with Batman. I got pictures of other people, but not with them. We kept seeing Belle running around, but by the time I worked up the nerve to ask her she suddenly took off and was up an escalator before I could get around the crowd that had paused to take pictures of one of the many in Mandalorian armor - some were clearly Boba Fett, others were less clear & some of them incorporated Mandalorian armor into a sort of crossover costume.
We saw several dozen Doctors - Charis expressed grave concerns over the stability of the time/space continuum with all those versions of the Doctor running around, frequently in company with other incarnations of himself. I loved the group that had Nine, Ten & Eleven... All of the 4th Doctors that I saw were portrayed by women, which I found interesting. We also saw so many Disney Princesses, which I did not expect, and I saw fully 2 Peacekeepers - though one of those may have been John-Crichton-pretending-to-be-a-Peacekeeper. The first thing in the morning I saw a Peacekeeper sitting next to a 4th Doctor who was knitting and went to take their picture, but my battery did not cooperate - I was really sad it didn't work out, because I loved the juxtaposition of the Doctor hanging out with a Peacekeeper.
And, I think that's about it for Day 1. Tomorrow I am wearing my Kaylee ensemble, so that should be fun. Also, it's now 2:20 am, so I should head to bed about now, but I wanted this to get written out before I forgot everything. I think we'll be able to sleep in a bit tomorrow - we don't need to leave the house until 9ish, which is kind of exciting.