fredericks

This is what went down during my first two days in Atlanta.

Day 3 - Saturday

"Do 'Fragments'! Ianto was on top for that one!" GGG girl!Jack and girl!Ianto cosplayers
amuse the masses waiting in the early AM for the Saturday morning Torchwood panel.

By Saturday I'd learnt my lesson and made it my business to give myself more than a couple of hours in order to get a good seat for the celebrity panels. The first one of the day I was interested in was another Torchwood panel, but this one had James Marsters in addition to Gareth and Andrew. I think I got my ass over to the Marriott by 8:30 or so for this one, and the panel was supposed to start at 11:30AM. While on the line I met the lovely

kitsu84 along with her mom and dad ('rent love!) (this is part of what was so awesome[ly hilarious] about Dragon-Con: I swear than not more than half an hour would go by between hearing the phrase "my Livejournal", so chances are all the neat folk one ran into had a blog or journal or some cyber-way with which to keep in contact with 'em). We passed the time chatting and observing the fans running amuck. The above photo of a spot-on woman cosplaying as Captain Jack Harkness and another young lady playing Ianto? done of their own free will. And the crowd was egging them on. At one point they did, in fact, act out the scene from "Fragments" With Jack on the bottom. And some of the bit from "Adrift". IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ATRIUM LEVEL OF THE MARRIOTT. It was insane. And I laughed my ass off. There's photo evidence out there in the ether; I was just too slow on the draw. And slightly embarrassed for the both of them.

Also observed while waiting for the panel to begin? A really hot Snape. I mean, Snapes weren't rare at DCon by any means, but this one stuck out in my mind because, from a distance, he appeared distractingly attractive. And he had the Snape act down.

Right. So the panel itself.

Neville's older brother, Teaboy, and Spike walk into a panel...

"Barrowman's johnson was THIS BIG." Least, I think that's what he's sharing with Gareth.

Before the panel began, the mod announced that since children were present and the panel was going to be broadcast on Dragon*Con TV, the questions (and answers) had to be kept "family friendly". That was, of course, ridiculous. Part of what makes Torchwood Torchwood is the cheesy (and, okay, occasionally titillating) and frank sexual content. Neither the crowd nor the actors obliged after the first ten minutes. From what I can recall, this panel was a straight Q&A, with the actors (Anthony Lewis, Gareth David-Lloyd, and James Marsters) gamely answering whatever ~~dreck~~ prying inquiries the crowd threw their way. The young woman from whose flask Gareth and Anthony had foolishly drunk from on Friday made an appearance and asked James to take a swig as well (why, God; WHY?), which resulted in the mod stepping in immediately with a firm "no", and Gareth telling the young lady that he'd gotten into "trouble" for drinking from her bottle in the first place. Which, thank God. Then the woman started apologizing profusely and almost crying. Crazies are so crazy. James was asked how it was to kiss John Barrowman in comparison to how it was kissing Sarah Michelle Gellar ("'bout the same'"), Anthony shared a funny anecdote about filming a scene in bed with Naoki immediately after another gentleman filmed a similar scene with her (I believe he said something along the lines of the other gentleman "loosen[ing] her up", at which point Gareth snorted with laughter and nearly the entire crowd fell out, moreso because Anthony was being sincere and actorly and we were all dirty dirty biddies), and Gareth continued to act like a child who'd run out of his Ritalin three days prior. Fun times for all.

I cannot recall what I did upon leaving this panel at all (D*Con brain fog; they must have piped something into the air ducts of those places, I tell you). I do know what I ended up right back at the Marriott's atrium in time for the Living in Smallville panel with Michael Rosenbaum at 2:30 that afternoon.

Mike and his Black Friend (one, I'm allowed. Two, that's how he and the dude called it. Three, it's funny, dammit!)

This was, yet again, a straight Q&A. It was also the funniest celeb panel I attended all Con. Michael made it known he was looking into moving towards the stand up/comedy field, and he grabbed the mike and worked the crowd Q&A like a pro. He talked a bit about how it was working on Smallville, how he felt about moving on (yes, Lex is permanently out of the picture; then again, seeing as I haven't watched the damn thing since S2 it was all news to me), and how he had respect for the writers of the show seeing as he was trying to break into screenwriting himself. I can't really put the awesomeness of Rosenbaum into words, mainly because my memory is so very shot. But if he's back next year I'm going to make a beeline for his panels.

"Kneel before Rosenbaum!" or, wherein Mike reiterates for
the crowd how hard it was to say the Zod line by making
a game fan kneel before him.

After Rosenbaum's gig I headed over to meet K., who was waiting online for the Firefly panel. I'd gotten a couple of texts from her about what a clusterfuck the line was, what with the Con staff trying to tell folks that there'd be no actual line formation until an hour prior to the panel which...Browncoats are friendly folks overall, but nutty as chunky Jif. It was just utter chaos in the Hyatt and I couldn't tolerate it, so I kept K.'s place in line for a bit to give her a chance to freshen up and grab something to eat, and then I headed back to the hotel (more than likely passing by Chik-Fil-A for a chicken sandwich and seasoned fry combo because, hello!, heaven).

I can't recall doing much anything that evening besides getting ready to head out to a couple of parties: the BSG Colonial Fleet celebration and the Whedon Track's Mighty Fine Shindig. Both parties were held in our hotel, which was a big plus because I was suffering major fatigue after the busy Friday. We freshened up a bit and went to the Fleet party first, as that was located on our floor. The music selection was promising and there were quite a number of folks there, but the audio equipment was wonky and, as it also doubled as an auction, the music would be interrupted after one or two songs so the organizers could speak. Thing was, with the bad audio set-up we could barely hear what was being said. We danced around for a bit before the whole stop-start became too much, and then we went up to Shindig. It was like they actually *took* the elements from the party in the episode "Shindig" and threw 'em into a room of the Sheraton: folks were sitting down and chatting, there were fiddles and pipes blaring, a circle dance was going on. Yeah, we didn't stay very long. I just wanted to shake my ass a bit, not blow on a jug and break it down to "Cotton-Eyed Joe".

Back at the Fleet party we saw another Snape. Or OUR Snape, as I'd taken to calling him. It was definitely the same dude, because he look vaguely hot and he had the semi-menacing Snape air down pat, sans billowing cape (which I was somewhat disappointed about, but I coped). And then AND THEN! he started to dance. I really wish I'd had my camera at the ready and took a vid of it, because...if you've ever thought about Severus Snape possibly attending a dance party and actually, you know, *dancing*, you'd have seen this guy in your mind's eye. He was seriously that spot-on. It was slightly awkward, okay, VERY awkward, what with the waving of the arms and the spasmotic neck twitches, but it was all Professor Snape. I'm pretty sure I fell a bit in love with the guy at that moment.

Another reason why I ended up wishing I had my camera was because of the appearance of the Battlestar Cast during the party. Richard Hatch was there from the beginning, getting his swerve on with a gaggle of young attractive women (dude seemed like such a skeeze), but Tahmoh Penikett and Aaron Douglas went up on the stage when it appeared that the auction wouldn't be terribly fruitful, and then James Callis, Michael Hogan, and Edward James Olmos headed up closer to the end of the night to major cheers. The various cosplaying Viper pilots had been breaking out in random yells of "so say we all!" all party long, and then EJO made things infinitely worse by prompting the crowd in more "so saw we all!"s during the course of his address to the crowd. Aaron and Tahmoh were hanging around behind him obviously wasted but having a blast, James beat a hasty retreat after being introduced, and Michael was chug-chug-chugging away on minikeg Heinekens during it all. The show's done at the end of this season, but EJO said he's directing at least one made for TV movie. After the crew finishing chatting K. and I beat it back to our room and called it a night.