Join myself and some other Dragon Con-loving friends as we talk all things Dragon Con – general info, insider tips, what our plans were for DCon 2017, and more! Oh, and there was lots of drinking involved as we did so.
I was joined by Bekah (@starshineonfire), Chloe (@liesandarborgol), & Izzy (@gallifreysbae) to discuss why we attend conventions, which ones are our favorites, and the many different types of conventions: industry vs. non-industry, corporate vs. non-corporate, single-fandom vs. multi-fandom, and more!
I had a great time at the first ever MegaCon Tampa last year, and I’m super excited to be returning as a cosplay guest this coming weekend. Check out my cosplay lineup:
Fellow cosplay guest Scarlett Rose is wearing a Daenerys Targaryen cosplay on Saturday, and I decided to reprise Cersei Lannister so that we could get some fun photos together! We’ll also be decked out in party Game of Thrones attire at the live rock band karaoke after party Saturday night, so make sure you get your ticket for that event, too!
In addition to my booth, I’ll be hosting two panels. Both take place in Room 1 at the Tampa Bay Convention Center:
Saturday 9/30 @ 11 AM: Game of Thrones Season 7 Lookback
Sunday 10/1 @ 4 PM: Ladies’ Guide to the Apocalypse
MegaCon Tampa Bay 2017 kicks off at 2 PM this Friday, September 29th. I hope to see you there!
First things first, barring any schedule changes on the part of the three tracks I’m working with, my Dragon Con 2017 panels are pretty much set in stone:
Friday 9/1
@ 5:30 PM History’s Vikings S4 Review (ASFFM Marriott Track Room)
Saturday 9/2
@ 11:30 AM Game of Thrones S7 Review (Marriott L401-403)
@ 10 PM ASOIAF/GoT Loony Theories (Marriott L401-403)
Sunday 9/3
@ 1 PM Ladies Guide to the Apocalypse (Apocalypse Rising Westin Track Room)
@ 2:30 PM Game of Toxic Masculinity (Marriott L401-403)
@ 5:30 PM Defenders Unite! (ASFFM Marriott Track Room)
Monday 9/4
@ 1 PM The 100 Fan Panel (Apocalypse Rising Westin Track Room)
Cosplay-wise, I’m in *far* better shape than I was last year around this time – shoot, two weeks before Dragon Con 2016 I still had a couple of costumes up in the air. This year I’m wearing a couple of previous cosplays – a couple of which will have some minor upgrades – and only two entirely new costumes, come to think of it – so anything I have left to do is pretty minor. I’m almost…dare I say it…relaxed about my to-do list.
(Watch me suddenly remember ten things that I’ve totally forgotten about, now…)
THURSDAY
Day: Liberty Belle from Glow
Night: Efffie (Hunger Games) for the [Playboy] Bunny Hutch
FRIDAY
Day: Suicide Squad style Poison Ivy
Night: Team Casterly Rocket (Pokemon Team Rocket & Game of Thrones House Lannister mashup)
SATURDAY
Day: Secret Cosplay 😉
Night: “Queen Bitch” Party Cersei
SUNDAY
Day: Gwen DeMarco from Galaxy Quest
Night: Steampunk Hufflepuff
Now, last year I planned on having a secret cosplay and then ended up doing a preview of it nearly two months before Dragon Con – that being my original Disney Princess Kylo Ren mashup, of course. But after a very strange case of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery at Dragon Con 2016, I’m keeping my Dragon Con 2017 secret cosplay a mystery. I think I can keep my lips sealed long enough…
Last year I wrote a very heartfelt entry about “my” convention – “Ice and Fire Con: A Goal, A Reality, A Lifestyle”. Now, I put the “my” in quotes because let’s be honest, it’s never been “mine”, at least not outside of the fact that I’m one of the original founders and, of course, a current organizer.
And no, I didn’t do it on my own. There were two other founders who have long since moved on to other things, because that’s what happens when life takes hold of you. There are an additional two prior organizers who are also no longer involved, because sometimes what’s best for an organization as a whole doesn’t quite work for everyone involved. For my part, there are no hard feelings – how can there be, when this thing that we worked together to create and build is still here, still thriving, still growing?
Honestly, while I did found this convention, the family that has sprung from it is still beyond my comprehension. Ice & Fire Con absolutely would not exist in its current and most amazing form without my good friend and fellow organizer K-K, who saw our Reddit post way back in 2012 and decided to take a chance on the first-ever North American ASOIAF/Game of Thrones convention. Who eventually became one of my best friends, then a volunteer, and finally, an organizer.
Ice & Fire Con couldn’t be what it is without our awesome volunteers, either, and it absolutely wouldn’t be the same without every single person who attends. When I say that we’re a family, I don’t say that lightly, and I’m not sure I can really express how true it is. In fact, even when I go to other conventions, I’m generally more excited about seeing my Ice and Fire Con family (a.k.a. “IaF fam”) than I am about anything else.
We are, in so many ways, a very diverse group, but our differences are never problematic – they are honored and appreciated. I am personally very proud of the inclusive, non-judgmental, and *safe* community that we have fostered, and like the mama bear I am, I will do everything in my power to protect that. (Pause to insert “BEARS” chant here)
It’s not just the success of Ice & Fire Con that brings me joy – it is the community, the *family*, that it imbues in me, and hopefully in others, as well.
We are extroverts. We are introverts. Some of us have been bullied. Some of us have been disrespected. But at Ice & Fire Con, we are, as one of my absolute favorite attendees pointed out, “kings, queens, warriors; dangerous, powerful, beautiful, perfect.”
At Ice & Fire Con, we are family.
I would say “let the countdown to Ice & Fire Con 2018 begin”…but let’s be real, it started when we parted ways on April 30th of this year.
(but here’s the countdown anyway, as of 8:56 PM EDT on 7/1/2017)
As much fun as I have putting together screen accurate(-ish…) cosplays – or ones that are based on fan art – sometimes it’s simply more fun to let my creative side loose. I have quite a few mashup/AU cosplays in my repertoire, some of which I have yet to write about and one being, of course, my Disney Princess Kylo Ren.
While the Suicide Squad-style Poison Ivy cosplay that I debuted at MegaCon Orlando over Memorial Day wasn’t the first mashup cosplay I’ve put together this year, I’m really excited about it and already have plans for some minor upgrades before I bring it back at Dragon Con. In fact, originally I wasn’t planning on wearing it at DCon, but then I had an absolute blast with it at MegaCon!
The idea for this particular cosplay came to me after stumbling on some fanart that depicted Ivy and Harley together, with Harley in her Suicide Squad outfit and Ivy in one that was somewhat SS-inspired, but without as much…shall we say…pizzazz…as Harley’s outfit. At first I thought about creating something entirely based on the fanart that I’d found, but then I decided it would be more ‘me’ to put an outfit together that was more closely based on Harley’s outfit…especially knowing that my friend Bekah was going to be donning a SS-style Harley cosplay and was more than willing to tweak it so that instead of focusing on Harley Quinn’s relationship with the Joker, she would be with Ivy (which is hands down a far healthier relationship for Harley, plus ?️??️??️?).
Hence, green lace up boots with heels, green fishnets, green sparkly booty shorts, a raglan-style shirt (but with green sleeves), and a green choker necklace made up my original version of a Poison Ivy cosplay. As you can see I wore the wig down, but for Dragon Con I might go with pigtails…that’s just one of the handful of changes I’m considering, anyway! My plan is to wear it on Friday of DCon, and either shortly before or after that I might even have prints of me in this cosplay available for sale 🙂
You’ll find me at booth #103 in Artist Alley (hint hint: see the star on the map below!), where I’ll be on hand to talk about cosplay (of course), my ‘Geek Saga’ brand, Saga Event Planning (and therefore Ice & Fire Con and Beach City Con), The Geekiary, and my novels!
I’ll have copies of both The Way of Reckoning and How to Start Living (in the Zombie Apocalypse) for sale, and I mean *really* for sale – buying my books in person gets you not just the chance to have them signed right then and there, but I price them a bit lower than what you’d pay if you purchased them online.
As for cosplay, my current plans are Liv Moore from iZombie on Thursday, Queenie Goldstein from Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them on Friday, a Suicide Squad-inspired version of Poison Ivy on Saturday, and Melisandre from Game of Thrones on Sunday…
So definitely stop by and say hello at booth #103 in Artist Alley, or keep an eye out for me wearing one of the aforementioned costumes! Hope to see you next weekend!
You can find the full list of conventions I’ll be attending on my convention page, and yes, I hope to add at least one or two more as the year progresses (most notably MegaCon Tampa Bay ::fingers crossed::) Next up is Star Wars Celebration (thankfully I live fairly close to Orlando, which is where it’s being held this year), and after that is my absolute favorite convention…Ice & Fire Con! It’s our fifth anniversary year and promises to be bigger and better than ever before…seriously my excitement knows no bounds and I’m counting down the days until I see my Ice & Fire Con family again 🙂
That said, the convention I just attended – ClexaCon – was a first year convention for queer women and their allies, and I had a great time. Part of that ‘having a great time’ was that it was held in Vegas, and we all know how much I love Vegas. Now, while I do wish there had been more vendors (and that I’d had time to watch some of the shows that the featured guests were from), ClexaCon was very well organized for a first-year convention and I love that I got to be a part of it…I spoke on SIX panels, after all: about everything from Steven Universe to writing to webcasting and more.
What was different about this convention is that not only did I not cosplay, but there wasn’t much cosplay in general. It was more about a bunch of amazing women getting together and spending a weekend talking about representation and just…living life! And hey, even though I didn’t cosplay, I did get to dress up in other ways 😉
Of course I *will* be cosplaying at basically every other convention this year (except for SDCC because it’s just too much on its own), but yeah, this past weekend was a very different – and VERY fun – convention experience for me…and a great way to kick off my 2017 convention season!
I’ll also be on a panel Saturday at 2 PM – “Cosplay for Beginners” in Room 18. But I have to be honest, I’m most excited about the official MegaCon afterparty on Saturday night. It’s being held at Orpheum in Tampa’s Ybor district, and yes, there will be a cosplay contest! Tickets are only $15 in advance so I highly suggest purchasing yours soon if you plan to attend. I know I’ll be there, along with some of the other cosplay guests…and who knows what celebrities might show up 😉
(Of course, now I’m trying to decide what cosplay I want to wear for the afterparty…if I can dig up Playboy Bunny Effie Trinket, that’s a possibility…though I also have Katya from Archer laying around, or I can always go more comfy with Starbuck from BSG or Wendy from Gravity Falls…I’m not sure if I have too many options or not enough of them!)
Meanwhile, if you’re wandering the convention floor and want to stop by and say hello, you can find me at booth #535, which is on the aisle where the Community Zone abuts Artist Alley. I’ll be selling copies of my novel and promoting some of the conventions on my 2017 schedule – including Ice & Fire Con and Beach City Con, of course.
Are you attending MegaCon Tampa Bay? What about the afterparty? (Which is bound to be the best Halloween party in Tampa, let’s be honest.) If so, I hope to see you there!
More than anything else, this is because I have absolutely found MY PEOPLE. Throughout the past five years, I’ve made friends and lost friends (never by choice, mind you), and among all of that, I’ve grown closer to some people and pushed others away. I’m only human, after all.
But it was this year that I finally realized that I was surrounded by an absolutely amazing group of friends. Some were old, some were new. Some I saw every day, some I saw only twice. What mattered is that we were there, we hung out, and we had fun.
Thursday was my “no way am I going to cosplay” day, and yet we ended up with a roving group of Pokemon Go Team Valor members with a Pokestop and lure. We didn’t get a lot of pictures, but we did get a lot of shout outs…although it was hard to keep our mouths shut when people got insistent about being on Team Instinct or, more especially, Team Mystic 😉
Thursday night was Bunny Hutch, and the first time I’ve participated in the Playboy Bunny costume…thing. We had a group of Hunger Games characters, and though we never did find our Katniss, I had a blast as Bunny Hutch Effie Trinkett!
Honestly, I expected Friday to be an easy day. It was the one day I wasn’t on any panels, and I was just wearing another Cersei cosplay…but I had more people take my picture than the previous two times I wore Cersei cosplays at Dragon Con. I have to be honest…I completely credit my awesome wig 😉
Friday night was something of a mess, if only because Brian and I cosplayed Charlie and Dee from the “The Gang Beats Wade Boggs” episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Yes, we started with the tallies from the beginning of that episode, but thirteen beers later, it was obvious that I was doing my Dee Reynolds best to try to keep up.
Saturday was the day I finally debuted my original Disney Princess Kylo Ren at a convention. Thankfully, my lovely friend Tanya also made a Disney Princess Leia cosplay, and even though my gown was hot as hell and I was on a panel at 2:30 – meaning I couldn’t just hang out and get pictures taken of me all afternoon – I thoroughly enjoyed portraying this original character and can’t wait to do so again!
My first panel was “Game of Thrones: Concepts of Honor” and despite some hiccups I really enjoyed most of my fellow panelists and the discussions that ensued. As soon as it was finished, I was ready to change out of the heavy, hot Disney Princess Kylo Ren cosplay I was sporting, and after a bit of rest Brian and I donned some silly Thor costumes, put together a bunch of signs, and lugged a trash bag full of mini Mjolnirs to the Westin in order to campaign against our friend Scott, who was cosplaying Loki…
Despite the fact that we never met up with Scott at the Heroes & Villains Ball at the Westin (we got in almost right away but alas, he arrived too late and got stuck in line), we did camp out at the Pulse bar in the Marriott and mock several other Lokis…and eventually Scott, as well, who was a very good sport and even had an “I <3 TS” tank top under his Loki cosplay!
Saturday was supposed to be my “take it easy, go to bed at a decent time” night, but as Dragon Con would have it, that didn’t happen. This meant that getting up for my 11:30 AM panel on Sunday was a bit rough, but thankfully I rallied and that panel – “Netflix, Cable, and the Mainstream” – was my favorite of the three I was on that weekend 🙂
When I finally got back to the room, it was time to get into cosplay. I was wearing a tuxedo and a borrowed wig as Pearl from Mr. Greg (thanks again to my friend Carly for lending me her wig!), so it wasn’t a time-consuming cosplay…I was just too lazy to get out of bed and wear it to my panel.
Honestly, I was again surprised at how many people loved my Pearl cosplay. I’m pretty tall, and not particularly slim (not like Pearl, I mean)…and although my friend Bekah did a great job with my makeup, I certainly didn’t go all out like some Pearl cosplayers did. I did, however, get to sing “It’s Over, Isn’t It” several times, which kind of made may day. (Someone even snapchatted me doing it. I wish I could have seen that…)
Also, I got to meet Will Friedle! He was very interested in my current state of affairs (it’s apparently a thing he does, asking what he calls ‘somewhat uncomfortable questions’) and it was overall a fun five minute conversation 😉
Sunday evening I was on another panel – the American Sci-Fi Fantasy Media track’s “The Expanse: Politics and Power” discussion. While I enjoyed the panel, I was previously unaware that The Expanse was based on books – completely my bad, but as someone who watched and loved and knew the show on its own, I suddenly understand how Game of Thrones fans feel when they go to a show panel and people can’t stop bringing up the novels.
I have to admit, that tuxedo ended up being very hot (not generally uncomfortable, just hot), and I was ready to change out of it and into my “Party Hufflepuff” outfit. At this point I was all play and no work, after all, and despite claiming yet again that I would go to bed at a decent time, of course that didn’t happen. This was, after all, the last night of Dragon Con.
In fact, we had an afterparty in our hotel room, and not surprisingly, had security called on us. What can I say? I invited three friends, and each of those friends brought a half dozen or more people with them. I’m not going to say I regret it, though I do understand that at least one of our neighbors was pissed, and I am sorry for that.
We were up and out of the room on time Monday, though I’m seriously considering adding Monday night to our room reservation next year. I love the Hyatt, and I try to use the elevators as little as possible, but when it’s necessary – such as that one thing you can’t carry up or down the stairs during mass checkout time – man is it a pain in the ass. The best part was that we were still able to take our time visiting the vendor hall (finally, the first time I’d done so all weekend), eating a decent sit-down meal, and then still being able to get our car and get home by dinnertime. I even got to leave some Thor signs behind not far from where they were created…
Except for the fact that the Hyatt valet *lost* our car for a good thirty minutes. Don’t even get me started on that.
Were there some snags at Dragon Con 2016? Of course. I ran into one person i didn’t need to see far too many times. I missed a couple of panels because I couldn’t bring myself to walk all the way to the Sheraton to visit disability services (as press, I pick up my pass in the Hyatt). I absolutely ate pizza that was not fully cooked at one point (and that’s why that pizza place in the food court didn’t have a line; lesson learned).
The thing is, I’ve finally found my Dragon Con niche. I enjoyed wandering through the Walk of Fame. I loved being able to participate in three panels. But above all, my friends made this Dragon Con great. I could never name them all, but they know who they are. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me how amazing and fun and drama-free people can be. Thank you for the cosplays, and the drinks. Thank you for the laid back hangouts, and the crazy nights. This Dragon Con was my best Dragon Con because of all of you.
