By Christina
Author’s
note: I apologize for the lateness in my DC conclusion. A series of
family tragedies delayed this piece being posted before our yearly 31 Days of
Halloween coverage. Truly sorry, but here is my DragonCon wrap-up finale.
The problem is that while the DragonCon
Exhibition Hall in the Americas Mart is a Mecca of geek shopping, I am an
admitted bibliophile. I skip the shirts and the art (even though I ooh
and ahh the pictures,) I skip the replicas and the autographs, and I go
straight for those gorgeous books. So I spent most of my time at the
comic booths, at Half Price Books, etc. And oh, was it worth it. My
daughter walked away with a 52.00 book on Cosplay tips for 10.00, I walked away
with 30.00 in comics for around 14.00, a vendor offered us six books based on
the Charmed TV series (that my entire family is hooked on) for 20.00,
and then there was the matter of the Doctor Who Christmas novel, which made my
teen and I both swoon.
I definitely have to explain that
Doctor Who novel. You see, we found this
booth that was selling half price on all of their books, trade papers, comics,
etc. The teen found a Doctor Who Christmas book and we snagged it.
It was sticker marked 14.99 American, so good deal…7.50 for the sale.
Nice steal. I get home, a five hour drive away several days later, and
peel off the sticker. Underneath the price is 13 Pounds. They only
marked it up by two numbers instead of the real value, which in American dollar
value should have been 26 Pounds British currency. They sold this
freaking book to me for ONE FOURTH the price rather than ONE HALF. I feel
like crap for that, but at the same time, what a freaking deal!
I think we nearly destroyed our
book-addicted minds with this shopping spree, but we shook it off and went to
support my hubby in his tournament. He was mid-match and the table was
kind of busy with other players, so sitting down near him was kind of
difficult. So we left our bags with him and went next door to the arcade
area. The amount of insane Japanese games that they have in the gaming
hall would blow anyone’s mind. They are loud and bright and the place is mostly
full of music oriented games. And lots of dance games. I swear I
saw one guy who stayed in the gaming hall on the same Dance Dance Revolution
game for two days straight, with workout gear and a sweat band on his
head. Legit. But it kept us entertained so we can’t complain.
Plus the retro game section…oh my. Joust,
Mortal Kombat. Heehee! Granted, it wasn’t as full as it could
have been, but it still had some major classics that made me smile. I
mean, who doesn’t love the old school Police
Shooter?
If you read my piece on Link from Legend
of Zelda then you know that he’s my guy. Sorry, hubby, but he came
first. He was my first crush, animated character or no. So when the
Triforce Quartet was playing I couldn’t resist. We grabbed a seat and
enjoyed the tunes, but it was more than we could imagine. They not only
played Zelda standards from various games that I will remember forever,
but they went through a huge (and I mean huge) Final Fantasy medley, covering
several of the games in the series, including the Opera from Final Fantasy Six
(FF3.) At this point I did something rather uncharacteristic of me.
I began to cry. Don’t judge me, now. This game series is a huge
part of my life, my childhood, and my adulthood. This game series is how
my husband and I actually met: we had Cecil and Rosa from FF2 as our cake
toppers on our wedding cake. So when this started I just got a little, as
Gypsy says in The Flash , “Schmoopy.” It was the most beautiful
thing ever.
John Barrowman. I could just
leave the description at those two words and say nothing else, you know.
In all honesty, who really needs to say anything else. His panel was at
seven o’clock that evening, but we lined up at 4. Tis a good thing that
we did because there were already thirty people jumping in the line with us at
that point and within an hour and a half they were threatening to shut the
panel down if the “unofficial line” didn’t clear the area due to Fire Marshal
restrictions. There is a reason that he is one of the Con’s biggest
draws. If the man can shut down hallways then you know he’s something
special. He didn’t disappoint either. When he struts the stage in a
Wonder Woman costume all you can think is “That’s our boy.” He said that
he had told his costumers he wanted to “S$#@ bling” so they responded by being
sure to put one gold star on his costume right over his blasted butthole.
Of course they did. Because they work for John. Stories of
inspiration, stories that made us laugh, asking us to stay over several minutes
to be part of his DragonCon interview, and lining up every man in the audience
that wore a kilt on the stage so that he could lie on the ground and have them
walk over his face to prove they were True, causing some of them to remove
their underwear in front of him to be True FOR him... oh it was everything a
John Barrowman panel should be. During the “kilt off” John gleefully
screamed out from the floor the sentiment that we were all thinking in our
heads: “I LOVE DRAGONCON!”
The Teen had come to be interested
in Voltaire by going to his panel in 2016 in which he debuted his online TV
Show, Gothic Homemaking. The show, by the way, is freaking
awesome. She had yet to see him in concert, however, and had only heard a
handful of his songs, so she hadn’t grasped the appreciation for him that my
husband and I had over the years. I wanted my husband to get to see one
of his favorites and we wanted the Teen to be able to appreciate just why her
Daddoo always loved this guy so much. It was hands down one of the best
experiences of the Con for all of us. He sang several of our favorites,
had the crowd in stitches as usual, and spoke at length about his life and
struggles and how he overcame them…something I think that many in the crowd
truly needed to hear, my daughter included. The next night I went to his
booth and thanked him for the inspirational words that he spoke at the concert,
telling him that while I can say that kind of thing to my child, being a Mom
she expects it. Hearing it from someone she admires… it means so much
more. I walked away with an autographed CD for her and a message that
made her cry: “He told me thanks for bringing you to the concert, that he
is thrilled we all had a great time, and he is so happy that he said something
that made a difference to you.” That moment alone made the Con worth it
for me.
Our evening was concluded with several games of Betrayal At House on The Hill (see my review for details,) with dozens of people passing by our table wanting in on the action. We might have bugged out sooner had we not had so many new games starting, but hey we didn’t care. It was all awesome. We played late into the night and slept in the next morning to enjoy more of the Filk track.
“Wake Up And Filk” was our first
panel on Sunday morning. A very intimate session with only a few filkers
playing light and quiet with several awesome tunes that they either idolized
over the years or had written from scratch. Sometimes it is so relaxing
to just sit in a quiet place like that and share tunes. For a music lover
like my teen it was a great hour to spend. We went from the extreme of
musical relaxation to fear and paranoia, however, when we hit the Apocalypse
Rising Track for the panel on Surviving a Biological Apocalypse.
Specialists in the field discussed the possibilities and the unrealistic
expectations that Hollywood has inflicted upon the masses in the event that
such a thing were to strike. From farming to food storage, medicine to
aftermath ramifications, so much was covered. And the slides that this
track has available…man. That alone was enough to make us want to
attend. You can go to their site link through www.dragoncon.org and
get the slides for your own use, offered by the Track. Highly worth it as
they are a wealth of knowledge for the survivalist/food storage guru.
The family has pretty much decided that our home track is the Filk Track. We spend most of our time either gaming or at the Filk panels/concerts and it wasn’t planned. We just sort of…migrated there. “One of us…one of us” as it were. We don’t regret it, however, as it introduced us to one of our favorite filk bands in history and the reigning King/Queen of Wizard Rock, the Blibbering Humdingers. We got to hear all of our old favorites live and hear tunes from their new EP inspired by the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. Props, humor, and the saddest and most moving tribute to Han Solo ever written. It was the second time my husband and I had heard them live, but it was a first for our teen. She was already star-struck the day before when she actually stood face-to-face with them in the Filk Track room the day before talking to them, so being front row at their concert just put the icing on her DragonCon cake. That, and walking away with two new Humdinger CDs.
The art show was right behind their
stage area so having a family full of artists (I can’t even draw a stick
figure) it was a requirement to go in and check it out. All of the pieces
were gorgeous, ranging in size and construct from canvas to oil, metal to
porcelain. Prints that were relatively cheap were available for some in a
shop room nearby as were originals at the booths themselves. The
originals would range in price from low twenties up to the hundreds, which were
reasonable. But wow…we saw some pieces in the silent auction that had
“Buy now” options of value in the thousands. Thousands. Somewhere
out there I know there are people that come to DragonCon with that kind of wad
to blow, but dang…the price tags made the three of us stop, stare at each other
in silence, and walk slowly away from the table to avoid
touching/breathing/standing near the expensive pieces.
The rest of the day was pretty much
a split between the arcade and board/card games. My husband’s best friend
met us and after the two of them left to go have some manly fun (leaving the
teen and I to steal a quick rest break,) we met up in the gaming hall to take
on Unspeakable Words, the Cthulu based word game that is as hilarious as it is
ridiculous. Think scrabble, but in card form. You spell a word and
each card/letter has a point value. Total that up after you spell the
word and then roll a D20. If you roll higher than your word score or roll
a Nat 20, you pass. Yay! If you fail, then you lose one sanity
point. You lose all your sanity then your only saving grace is to start
using the cards in your hand to spell whatever you can, even if it is
gibberish. You have C-G-A-D-P-V? Spell Dvag and tell them that Dvag
is the sub-minion for one of the mighty Elder Gods, or a foreign word used to
describe an American Bistro. Whatever peanut butters your jelly; just
make something up. You’re crazy now, after
all. First to one hundred points
wins. Have fun staying sane.
Our Monday was more low-key than
normal. The morning was spent with breakfast and taking down one of the
DragonCon stores as it sold out quickly. After we finished with that it
was lunch time and then on to a panel that is our family tradition as well as
our obligation as gamers to attend. The “Worst. Gaming. Story. Ever!”
panel. There is nothing better than hearing the most horrific stories of
failed gamers, failed DM’s, or failed campaigns in general, and getting to vote
on who had the most horrifically hilarious tale to tell. One day I shall
share the story of how using a simple Druidic cure spell, I cured the
Reavers. That’s for another year,
however…
Time to get back to work at this
point and join the DragonCon Store Set-Up minions to break down the remaining
stores of the sparse amount of stock that we had left as the Con bought us out
of house and home. By the way Con-goes, God bless you all for that.
The more you buy, the less we have to pack up and take back. It is always
more fun than it should be to set up and take down because the people we have
worked with on the store staff we have worked with for years and it is more of
a laugh and cut-up kind of party that has a “Work while you are goofy” theme.
Tis hard to explain unless you are a volunteer, which I highly recommend.
Between getting a free badge, shirt, and lanyard each year, you can get
anywhere from one to three days of extra Con time depending on what department
you volunteer for. Who would not want extra time to hang around the host
hotels with other Conners?
And so my trip down memory lane
concludes. I will be back for more panels (speaking and attending,) more
Filk, and more gaming, next year. Who knows, I might just have to review
Unspeakable Words as a result of this piece; the itch needs to be
scratched. Well met, fellow DragonCon peeps! Live and be geek!
Christina Sizemore is trained in only four
things: writing, fighting, paranormal
investigating, and being a mom. At this
point in her life she truly feels that she is not qualified to attempt to learn
any new field. A twenty year martial
artist, mother of three, and writer who is working on the publication of her
first book titled “Finding Your Way: A Guide To Your Path In The Martial Arts,”
she spends her days working out, writing, making fanvids, going to DragonCon,
and playing board games/video games/out in the yard with her kids and husband
who are just as geeky as she is. She is
convinced that one day her skills will be of assistance in the Zombie
Apocalypse and that while she is of no use in the kitchen, she can Buffy that
zombie for ya or teach you the best way to get the blood stains out of your
clothes (Psst…the secret is mixing Crown Cleaner and Shout. Just sayin’.)
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