report… sort of preliminary, as I remember things I’ll have to go back and add them.
Friday
Friday saw us up at 4:30 AM to drive to the airport to catch our 6:30 flight. We got to the airport and checked in… we had perfect timing, as soon as we walked up to the gate they called our seats and we got to go sit right down.
Nothing to mention about the flight, except that the plane peed on Ashley (the air conditioner kept leaking on her), and that Ash tried to fly out of the plane after we had landed.
AirTran gets another black mark in my book (I do not like Airtran, but they had the cheapest flights and flew out of memphis, so that’s what we got). It took an HOUR for them to get our baggage to us. They finally came eventually. We got them gathered up and… the hotel didn’t have shuttles. So…
We got to ride the Marta subway thingie. At first it was cool, because I’d never ridden anything like that except the monorail at Disneyworld. But then it took forever and then we had to walk from the marta station to the hotel carrying our bags (I had three large suitcases, dad one, ash one, plus their two carry-ons). No fun!!!
So we finally get to the hotel and get checked in and go up to our room. Nothing spectacular there.
I hadn’t seen anyone in costume yet so I didn’t want to wear shadowcat with no other costumers around. I put on my elf cloak and elf ears instead and we went and got registered. It didn’t take us long. By that point I had seen enough other costumes to go put Hermione on. (and eventually I did put shadowcat on)
I really have no idea what we did then. The whole day just became a blur. I know I ate at chic-fil-a for both lunch and dinner. and I got one of those dumb mini-moo stuffed cows when I got dinner. I know we went to buffy stuff, and tolkien stuff and… dang, I don’t remember!
I know by friday night, we wanted to go to the Evening in Bree thing. I was wearing She-Ra, and we went down 30 minutes early and sat down to wait for them to be ready. well, it took forever, and then they made everyone on one side of the wall go get at the end of the “line” on the other side, and they kept saying they didn’t have room for everyone in there… I guess we probably could have gotten in there, but after waiting so long and then being made to go move to the back just because we were on the ‘wrong’ side … well, we were tired so we went to find something else to do.
I think Ash went and put on Evil Willow and I put on Buffy. I discovered that my red pants had a hole in them tho! š Right about the knee, like three inches up. I wore them anyway, and we went to a buffy thing – can’t remember what. I made signs for us to wear on our backs – ash’s said “evil willow” and mine said “fake buffy.” (because I look nothing like buffy.)
I know late friday night Ash and I were like, really hyper or something. I think from lack of sleep. We went downstairs and got a snack and sat around on the couches and acted stupid.
Added: I forgot when it happened, but talk about crazy when that water started pouring down from the ceiling!! I took pictures before they kicked us out.
Saturday
yah, saturday! We had a wakeup call for 7:30. I put on She-Ra and we went down and had donuts for breakfast. And then I saw a Skeletor!!! COOL!
Unfortunately we didn’t have time to get down to the park in time for the parade. We were supposed to be in it, but it just didn’t happen. Maybe next year. We did find a good place to watch it from, and I got some good pictures… and then the camera battery decides to die (even though I just put a new one in before otakon!!) So dad had to go buy a new one. While he was off doing that, Ash and I stood around the lobby, looking over the balcony and watching people come up and down the escalators. Afterwards, I changed into Hermione for a while and we went back over to the Hyatt to watch a buffy panel.
I think it may have been the Weakest Slayer? But anyway, after we crossed to street I thought, hey, that guy standing there looks kinda like Kevin Murphy. I started up the stairs, looked up, and yes, my friends, I am going up the stairs right behind Mike Nelson. I practically knocked Ashley over with my frantic elbowing, and at first she didn’t realise who it was. Once she did, I didn’t look back to see her reaction. And then, we got up to the door, and he held the door open for us. I will never, in a hundred million years, forget that.
Weakest Slayer was cool, though I wish Ash had done it. We all got free stuff afterwards. I got a giles car!
Then we went and had lunch – chic-fil-a for me again. Then we changed into Amidala and Leia, just ’cause I really wanted to wear Amidala before the contest. We also got to practice putting Ash’s hair up in Leia buns.
We were going to… um, Who’s Line is it Anyway round, I think, when we got talked into registering for the Star Wars costume contest later that day. So we had to wear those costumes longer than expected, but the contest was fun. We met some cool people and got a lot of great pics. And Ash won! She got “Best Classic Female” for Leia. I got “Best Episode II Female” and.. get this, “Most Beautiful” Haha!! We got these cups filled with all kinds of little Star Wars goodies.
Then we went and changed, and I put on the dreaded Ocha. We painted my arms and neck and hands with the liquid latex first, so it would have time to dry. Then we did the mehron face makeup. unfortunately……. the face makeup didn’t match the body makeup AT ALL. We ended up having to add some of the liquid latex in with the mehron to make the colour look a little better. It still wasn’t perfect, but it would do. The hardest part was getting the dress on over my head after finishing the makeup > Anyway. The liquid latex stuff ended up being evil, probably because I didn’t really know how to use it, I guess. The stuff on my neck was *really* tight. And the stuff on the hands kept sticking together. It didn’t stick to or rub off on anything else… but if I put my fingers together at all, they would stuck. Ash actually had to carry scissor with her just to unattach my fingers every once and a while. Do you realise how hard it is to keep your fingers apart? I ended up only wearing it for only about an hour. Besides the finger thing, and the fact that I couldn’t turn my head too well, it wasn’t so bad, but… the finger thing was just too hard. So after about an hour we went back over and I took it off. Unfortunately, taking the thing off took even longer than putting it on. Getting it off my neck and hands wasn’t so bad… but it stuck to the hairs on my arm so bad that after pulling on it for a few seconds, I had to stop and wipe the tears out of my eyes. Getting the stuff off my face took a little while, too. All in all it took me about two hours to get the whole thing off. blah. We ordered room service then, ’cause everywhere else was pretty much closed by that point. We ate and I changed into Shadowcat and I guess we wandered around for a while.. looked in on things and stuff. Ash was all tired so we went back to the room. I was sad that I missed the Dawn contest and stuff, but maybe next year..
Sunday… This day was *really* a blur. I can’t remember much of it at all. I know that chic-fil-a was closed so I had to eat chinese food instead.
Around 4 we went upstairs and kinda rested because we knew we were going to have a late night. At five we started getting ready for the masq. It didn’t take us as long this time. We went over to the room for the masq, and since Ash wanted to go on as early as possible, we managed to get the #10 spot. It was mostly a lot of waiting around. We got professional pics taken of us… and then more waiting around.
We talked to a lot of nice people again. They got the screen backstage set up so that we could watch what was going on onstage…. but we didn’t have sound! We couldn’t hear a thing going on up there š We finally got up to the ramp, standing a few feet down from Mike and Kevin… and I wasn’t really nervous by that point, just excited. Kevin read our names and off we went. After I helped Ash kneel into her position I almost forgot to turn around, but I did… and then we got the heck off stage. It was a weird stage experience……. I was kinda freaked ’cause no one was taking pictures!! But then dad said that they had been told no flash photography, so that’s why.
Backstage we sat down. got interviewed a couple of times. Watched on the bigscreen as Cloud whacked Kevin Murphy in the head with his sword by mistake. Knocked his glasses into the crowd!
Of course we didn’t win anything, the winners were *awesome.* Especially that Nightmare Before Christmas group! The masq. folks gathered us all up and led us back down the hall… Ash and I were in the front, because we both really wanted to go change and get to the Buffy sing-along. They told us we had to go through the camera gauntlet first. One of the staffers opened the door a crack and through it we could see hundreds of photographers… all lined up…. They opened the door and made the alien jedi go first, thank goodness. Then they made us go. They had people telling us “Stop. All right, go to the next x on the floor. Stop. Ok, go to the next x, etc.” so it wasn’t too bad. Just terrifying. I’ve never seen so many cameras in my life… and then it didn’t end. After the first room.. there were more!!
And now there wasn’t people telling us to stop and go. It was hard to judge when to keep moving. We finally made it out of there…… but that was the room where we were supposed to meet up with dad. And in that mess we couldn’t find him. Besides the fact that no one was allowed back down the escalator. We walked all the way around and came back UP to the room, and stood around in the crowd just hoping to catch a glimpse of him. We finally found him, and we had time to go over and change for the buffy sing-a-long!! Ash put on evil willow again, and I put on fake buffy #2. I changed my sign to say “fake buffy (not a buffybot tho)”
Then we went over and….. they had just finished the sing-a-long. They had started it early! š they said they’d do it again. They did have a handful of signed Robin Sachs photos which they handed out to a few people, and I got one, yay! š
After that we crashed on the couches and ate a snack, and then wandered around for a while, and then went to bed.
Monday
Got up and packed. But fake buffy #2 on. We had breakfast and wandered around some. Went to Mike and Kevin’s panel, which was hilarious. We had good seats, too. Dad took quite a few pics…. but… well, I’ll get to that in a minute.
After that, they said they would be signing “downstairs.” We searched all over the place for them but couldn’t find them, and no staffers seemed to know where they were.
I took the buffy wig off ’cause it was bothering me, and changed the sign on my back to say, “Dawn the Vampire Slayer (or “dear god nooooo!”) A few people got a kick out of that.
Then we wandered around the marriott… still looking… and then we discovered the second dealer’s room. How dumb are we?! We didn’t even know it was down there!! And there they were. Their line wasn’t long at all, either. Plus they were free. We didn’t have anything for them to sign – we had already packed and checked out of our rooms – so we were hoping they still had some post-it notes left (they said they’d have them with them during the panel). They did – and only just enough! I got the second-to-last ones, and Ash got the last ones! Besides his autograph, Mike also wrote, “Ham” on mine, and he wrote “cheese” on Ash’s. Then we had our pics taken, and our day was complete.
We ate lunch (chic-fil-a for me again!) and then went to closing ceremonies. And yes, the con chair dude announced James Marsters for next year!!!! WOO!!!
Well. Then we had hours and hours before our flight. Dad and Ash crashed and fell asleep on couches in the marriott. Then around six we headed for marta again and got checked in at the airport and stuff. Ash and I had wendy’s for dinner, wandered around some, and I read for a bit.
Flight back was, once again, nothing worth mentioning, except that a baby right in front of us screamed for a long while and I froze to death.
Airtran took forever getting our luggage to us, again.
My green liquid latex spilled in one of my suitcases, but didn’t get on anything it couldn’t come off of.
Parking cost $44.
I still feel like I got run over by a truck.
Yes, it was the best weekend of my life.
The damage:
19 rolls of film.
Monty Python bunny rabbit.
Monty Python Black Knight, with removable limbs.
Buffy action figure.
Giles action figure.
Two pins.
Black t-shirt with blue design on the front.
Buffy Musical DVD.
He-Man/She-Ra Secret of the Sword DVD.
He-Man action figure.
Discworld “Soul Music” VHS tapes.
I think that’s it. Thank god we didn’t find that second dealer’s room until Monday, or it would have been worse.
I was extremely impressed with Dragoncon. There was never lack of anything to do. The staff was incredibly nice and helpful. Having stormtroopers help us on and off the stage in both costume contests was grand. Mall w/lots of food choices right there – great. All other conventions I’ve ever been to pale in comparison to this one. I will attend dragoncon from now on as long as they have it.