My poor blog has been a little more than ignored since I’ve been in the US and so a post now should at least remedy that a little. This past weekend I was at Dragon*Con with my fiancee and our friend J. I’m not even going to attempt to chronologically order things but I am going to give a quick overview of thoughts and happenings.
I’ll start with the bad and then move onto the good. A bullet list may be helpful in this instance:
- The lack of consideration by able bodied con-goers to those of us with physical issues. I do not appreciate having my walking stick knocked out of my hand and people refusing to let me get in lifts even when they can see me in agony.
- The idiot who bounced in the lift and caused it to stop so that when the poor girl who tried to get out on the 19th floor face planted because it wasn’t quite at the level and then continued to bounce even after that had happened.
- The prat who let someone else in the lift even though we were at full capacity, caused me to slam my left knee into the wall of the lift and left me in agony afterwards.
As you can see there’s a little bit of a lift issue going on here. It’s also a shame that there is never enough time to get round all the panels you want to because of all the different tracks scheduling the ones you want at the same time or with no time to get from one hotel to the next. But that’s something you can’t avoid.
Now onto the good. The panels we did get to see were amusing and funny. We had a couple of issues with a few things said in one of them, but other than that they really were fun to be at. Saul Rubinek is an interesting man with some well thought out points of view and a very obvious supporter of human rights. I managed to accidentally make Emilie Ullerup and Agam Darshi corpse during their panel on the Monday by asking them a question about corpsing…. you could see the tumbleweed float by as they both cocked their heads and lost all ability to answer. I’m not sure if I am mortified by this fact or if I’m amused.
The autographs were insane and wonderful and I was so bouncy. Yes, as usually I turned into a typical fanboi after the fact but not during this time which is impressive. I also managed to find the perfect tool for starting a conversation – wearing my snap on fangs. A brief summary of the guests and reactions:
- Lee Arenberg – we walked in and I saw him at the table. “It’s Lee Arenberg! Must get!” So we walked over to join the queue. I mentioned Jess (@spencerwinters on twitter) and he dropped his jaw said “Oh!” and his eyes lit up. Yes he recognised my Squishy’s twitter name.
- Bob Picardo – short meeting but I told him I loved him as the Doctor and as Woollsey and he seemed to appreciate that fact.
- Nichelle Nichols – this autograph came courtesy of J. I can’t believe they were only $30! The other TOS stars charge a near fortune. I talked to Nichelle about the photo of her and Amanda Tapping and yes, Nichelle fangirled Amanda. This made me very happy indeed.
- Agam Darshi – sweet, wonderful, polite, genuinely pleased to meet her fans. Jess got mentioned again as I talked about ‘The Guard’ and how Jess hadn’t recognised her at first and had to go back and rewatch. Agam seemed happy I’d recognised her and confused that Jess hadn’t. Her husband, Juan, was with her and he seems like such a nice guy as well.
- Rose McGowan – Rose was sweet, very sweet. We talked about my fangs. She started the conversation with “I love your fangs” and I didn’t actually get to mention any of her work, because my fangs took up the entire conversation.
- Torri Higginson – this woman is beyond anything anyone says. When I went to see her, her queue was empty and we talked for a good fifteen to twenty minutes. I told her how I was glad to finally meet her and how the last time she’d been in the UK I couldn’t make it because I was at AT5 and she said “At least you were with Amanda.” Which I thought was adorable. She asked about my accent, about who I was there with, and literally flailed when I told her I was going to be marrying my girlfriend. I thanked her for Weir and told her that even though SGA is no longer airing, their is still a large fanbase for Weir. My autograph from her is an essay which will be scanned in later, but it shows she paid attention to our conversation.
- Amber Benson – it’s taken a long time to meet this wonderful human being. She has an energy and a love in her that is amazing. She called my fiancee and I ‘cute’, I thanked her for helping me realise it’s okay to be me and she hugged me and said “Of course it is, don’t ever change and don’t ever try to fit in because you think you have to.” Yeah, Amber in her ladybug dress (it was red with black spots) will stay with me forever. I chose a signed copy of Chosen and stated I couldn’t get her to sign Cat’s Claw because I won it from her twitter competition. She is signing the auto on my DVD and says “Yes you did win on that competition, I remember signing “To N”
- Emilie Ullerup – sweet, funny and stunningly beautiful. Emilie commented on my fangs and we exchanged stories. She talked about how her fangs for Sanctuary were a full mouth piece and how she couldn’t talk with them in and I told her about the podcast relating to that. She was genuinely so very wonderful. And she remembered me the next day. I went for my photo op with her and Agam at stupid o’clock on the Sunday morning and she smiles when she sees me and says “Did you sleep with those fangs in?” And Agam turns around and says “You didn’t wear those when you met me!” They gave me the new nickname of ‘Fangy’.
- Alethea Kontis – this was an author autograph. We picked up a copy of her book, Enchanted, based on just how wonderful she was to us on the Friday and she signed our copies for us. She is adorable and sweet and between her and Sherrilyn I’m inspired to get on with my book.
J also got my fiancee and I autos from Saul as well which was so sweet of her.
We ate out, and two of the meals are worth a post of their own so that shall be done at a later date.
I also finally got to meet up with T and K and that was an amazing experience as well. My brain is still buzzing so I shall leave it here for now, but it was a veritable fanboi success.
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