Chicago TARDIS 2014!!
Dec. 16th, 2014 07:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newmoonstarOver Thanksgiving weekend I attended the Chicago TARDIS Doctor Who convention. I think I'm still recovering! I went the whole weekend, cosplayed the whole weekend, and met lots of fabulous people, and saw lots of amazing costumes. Also spent a ton of money, since so many of my favorite actors were there, and hey, you gotta have the photos and the autographs! I literally danced around my house shrieking for joy when I heard that Deborah Watling, Wendy Padbury AND Frazer Hines (aka Victoria, Zoe, & Jamie) would ALL be there. And I told them this at the photo session; Frazer asked me 'can you show us the dance?' and I said yes! When I did it, they all laughed, and a guy in the room gave me a ribbon 'for squeeing'! (I got lots of ribbons this year! Mwahaha! I only got one last year, and I was afraid I wouldn't get any after I forgot to order some of my own to give out this year, but people were pretty generous with them, maybe they felt sorry for me having to try to maneuver those hallways in a giant hoopskirt! Someone even gave me one that was the same as I was going to do! In the original Coal Hill School colors and everything!!! )
I was really glad I'd gotten the reserved membership this year, since I got to talk to Frazer and Debbie and Wendy, as well as Camille Coduri and Nick Briggs at the Thurday reception. Camille is terribly nice and very pretty in person, she was sweet and lovely, Frazer is a very charming but naughty man who WILL tell dirty stories in front of children, [as will Noel Clarke, omg his panel!] although he's also a bit of a dork, since he apparently takes pictures of cosplayers when he sees especially good Troughton era stuff! (He showed us a shot he'd taken of a very good Doctor/Jamie/Zoe group at LI WHO! How sweet is that?) Nick Briggs actually sat down at the table I was at, and he was wearing a Dalek hat. Yup, that's right. You know how you picture Nick Briggs just going about his life dressed in a Dalek hat or something? HE ACTUALLY DOES THAT. How are these people even real?
Wendy Padbury I only spoke to briefly, but she said she loved my dress and asked if she could touch the fabric. In my head I was thinking 'of course you can! You can step on me and I would be honored because you're Zoe Heriot, and thus an awesome, badass goddess far above me!' but all I said was 'sure!' Yeah, fashion approval from someone who lived in London in the 60s and was stylish and adorable as hell? YESSSSSS!!!! (She's still adorable, too!)
Deborah Watling I was so nervous to meet because Victoria is my other favorite companion, right after Barbara & Ian, so I kind of circled around her for a while until my mum pushed me over to her and made me talk to her! She's the tiniest little lady, but she is so sweet and lovely. When I said Victoria was one of my favorite companions she seemed a little surprised, and still more when I told her I was going to cosplay Victoria the next day. (I forgot that actors don't know what the word 'cosplay' means, so I had to explain it to her!) She was very touched that I'd gone to all the trouble to make that dress, and I really shocked her when I told her I'd cut 11 inches off my hair just so it would look like hers had. (It had been down to my waist the night before, but Victoria's was shoulder length, so it had to go!) I actually started to cry when I told her I didn't mind, because Victoria is so sweet and brave and means so much to me, and she just put her hand on my cheek and said 'don't you cry or you'll set me off too' and she hugged me and was so nice. The next day when I went to her photo session with the dress on, she was really amazed by it, and asked me how long it had taken to make (a long time!) and she looked at the bodice and said, 'yes, mine was just like this!' and I nearly died of happiness! I tried to tell her it was a labor of love, but I'm not sure I made much sense, because I was desperately trying not to cry again! She hugged me again, and kissed my forehead, and we posed for the photo, and I think my face looks weird because I'm trying to smile while determinedly fighting back tears. But she loved it, so that made all the last minute sewing in the hotel room and all the un-picking and re-gathering yards of lace by hand in the wee hours of the morning worth it! (And I finally found out the original had blue and pink flowers! Mine is brown, but she said it doesn't matter what color it is, she was just so happy I'd made it. Awww!)
As a devoted monochrome era girl, I was planning on cosplaying Victoria and Zoe anyway this year, but when I heard they'd be there, that decided the matter! I did all Troughton era, all weekend! It was a bit tricky, because I wanted to have photos with them in the costumes for them to see, but the photo sessions were back to back, so I had to dash up to my room to change in and out of my Victoria and Zoe cosplays all Friday and Saturday! I had to put on Victoria's 'Evil of the Daleks' for Debbie's photo, then change into my 'Invasion' Zoe for Wendy's, then change back into Victoria for the Chronological Cavalcade after Debbie's panel. Unfortunately though, Wendy's photo was scheduled opposite Debbie's panel, and I will never forgive the evil bugger who did that, because I missed the panel! And it was the one thing I was most looking forward to at the con, aside from showing my dress to Deborah. I was one of the first in the line at the photo session, and I could have made it to the panel if I'd left right away, but I was SO tired from staying up the night before sewing my dress that I had no brain at all, and completely forgot I had somewhere to be, and then I saw a pair of Two & Jamie cosplayers, and I asked them if we could do a 'team two' pic, so we were off doing that in the corner, when the session photographer saw us and invited to take one in front of the TARDIS, and Wendy was still there, so she jumped into the photo with us! It was so unexpected and awesome that any other thoughts besides squeeing completely deserted me, and then my mum was talking to me and was like 'shouldn't you go buy that CD you want now?' and even though part of me was like 'no' I couldn't remember why, so I ended up wasting the rest of the hour in the dealers room, and only noticed Deborah's panel was going on when I walked by the open door and saw her there, and I could have kicked myself. I heard maybe the last two or three questions and that was it, and apparently she'd been talking about what Victoria did after she left, which is a subject I desperately would have liked to hear about, so yeah, I just about had another cry over that, but I had to get back upstairs to change costumes again for the Cavalcade.
The Chronological Cavalcade is one of my favorite events at TARDIS, and I really hope they'll do it every year. It's nice to get your costume up on stage without the pressure of the Masquerade, which is way too scary for me, and it's so awesome to get big groups from all the different eras in one room, you get the best photos that way! Was so delighted to see two Zoes, we had a pretty big Second Doctor group this year, yay! There was only one First Doctor character this year, but she was Aztec Barbara! I was squeeing like crazy over that! Met some girls there who were talking about doing some One-era cosplays next year, which is awesome, since I'm a Hartnell-era nut, and I'm doing Barbara and Vicki next year! I won't be alone! Hurray!
Also had a photo with Billie Piper, but I was so in awe of her that I couldn't really say much! It's a little different with the older actors, because they don't look like they did on the show, so you can separate the character and the actor in your mind a little more, but Billie Piper looks exactly like she did on the show, and it's just like 'OMG' when you walk into a room and it's ROSE. If I hadn't loved Rose and identified with her immediately in that first episode, I would never have become a fan of Doctor Who at all, and now I'm into the classic series, and cosplaying at conventions! She's the one who started it all. I had a personal story I was going to tell her about why Rose means so much to me, but in my sleep-deprived, star-struck state of mind I knew I'd cry again if I did, and I didn't think I could handle crying in front of another actress in the same weekend, so I just said 'Rose was the first thing I ever loved in Doctor Who, you're lovely!' and sort of fled the room sooner than was strictly necessary! But she was very nice and has a beautiful smile!
On Sunday I wore my 'Abominable Snowmen' Victoria cosplay, and had one of the best moments of my life when FRAZER HINES STOPPED ME IN THE HALL to tell me what a good Victoria I made, and to make sure Deborah Watling would see it! OMFG!! It's always a thrill when people recognize your character at a con, particularly when you're doing 60's Who characters, cause not as many people know them, but when the actual actor from the show, who has seen the original flags you down to say it's good, yeah, that's pretty amazing, to say the least! (And yes, Deborah did see it! All three of them did, and they all went 'aww!' when I walked in. It was unbelievably fantastic how nice they were about my cosplays, and I did it really for them. I'm just so grateful to have had the opportunity to show them how much their characters still mean to us after all these years. There was a little girl who was probably four years old dressed as Zoe in a little sparkly catsuit, and Wendy was SO HAPPY about it, it was just the greatest thing! DW people are without doubt the nicest people on the planet. It's so brilliant to see how positive and love-filled the whole weekend was. There was one young guy at the Troughton Trio panel who said something mean about Zoe to Wendy Padbury, and you can bet we booed his snotty ass. I was actually wearing my Zoe costume at the time, so I was not in the mood to hear how Zoe is 'the worst companion ever'. Wendy shrugged it off philosophically, but Deborah Watling actually called him out and told him his comment was inappropriate, which it was. She is one fierce little lady, and you do not mess with her bffs! Debbie, Wendy and Frazer really are like a little family in real life. They all call Wendy 'Padders', and at the photo session Debbie just came up behind Wendy and put her head on her shoulder and hugged her, and they just stood like that while they were talking to me, it was so cute.
The cosplay was pretty awesome this year; Soldeeds and Clockwork Droids and Sarah Janes, oh my! Lots of steampunk femme Doctors, in fact I think I may be doing a steampunk femme Doctor group with some people next year if I can find where I wrote their email addresses! I was really surprised to find another Evil of the Daleks Victoria, we ran into eachother in the dealers room and took a pic! (And then a Tenth Doctor jumped in and we took one with him too! I love cosplay!) I was super happy to get a pic in my Zoe gear with a two-era Cyberman (he was awesome, it lit up!) but it came out a bit blurry, boo! Was also thrilled to see an Ice Warrior, because I was in Victoria's hiking outfit that she also wore in 'The Ice Warriors', and I got a pic with him too, and it came out fantastic. His costume was so detailed, each scale was cut out and put on by hand! He won the workmanship award at the Masquerade, and boy he deserved it. The Masquerade was quite good this year, though the intermission for judging is always way too long, and I was super happy to have the reserve seating, because there was nobody next to me, so I just sprawled out on two chairs and kinda lounged around! I kicked off my shoes and probably could have taken a nap if I'd wanted to! General seating: Never Again! (If I can afford it, that is. I spent everything I'd saved up on this weekend between the autographs/photos and the Big Finish table. I just kind of binge-buy when there are sales! Also there were some books I had to have, and I really NEEDED that Bessie pin, and there was only one 'Tomb of the Cybermen' pin left... so yeah, I'm broke again.)
Actually managed to find time to eat this year, so that was good, and anyway there was a table in the hallway giving out 'the Fudge of Rassilon' (LOL!) which kept us all from starvation. But in my rush for fudge I neglected to find out who made the awesome 'Barbara, Queen of the Universe' poster at the table next to it, drat!I want one for my room! I actually wore my Web Planet Barbara cosplay for an hour Sunday morning, but the wig was a bit of a disaster, and no one recognized me except maybe one guy, so I decided to retire that one till I can get a better wig.
Was also one of like 100 girls in the same TARDIS dress Saturday night; there were only two others last year! But once again, Wendy & Debbie thought it was pretty, (and the stockings, they were really interested in my TARDIS stockings! They were like the third time someone asked about them!) and some guy dressed as the Third Doctor said I looked 'amazing', so I think I'll still wear it next year even if it is more popular than ever. ;D
I had so much sewing to finish up that I missed all the late-night goings on with parties and whatnot, boo. My goal for next year is to actually go to at least one party!
When we went home I was still in my Abominable Snowmen Victoria, and I actually went to Target and Culver's dressed like that! And no one said anything or even gave me a funny look, which is more astonishing still. I kind of wish I'd have got a picture of it, just so I could caption it with "The TARDIS lands in an American fast food restaurant, 2014, and Victoria orders a hamburger." LOL!
Rather miffed I didn't get any pics in front of the TARDIS besides the official session photos, particularly since I'd been doing Victoria's pose from the famous promo pic all day (see my icon above!) and the TARDIS should have been in the background! But there was almost NO LINE AT ALL for the photo/auto sessions this year, so I wasn't even in the queue room long enough to take one! (If only they'd had that system last year, when the lines lasted for hours. This year it was so complicated and we didn't even need it. Cruel irony.) But I guess it just means I'll have to bring my Victoria again next year!
I pretty much collapsed the minute I got home, and I'm still exhausted and afraid to go through all the stuff I brought home! There were so many things to do that I didn't get a chance to do them all, but really, on the whole, I feel pretty darn lucky to have had the opportunity to hang out with so many cool people over an amazing, crazy weekend, and share the love for our amazing, crazy show. I love that there's a place I can chase someone down the hall with a camera shouting "Leela! Leela!" and have them turn around and know I'm not crazy, I just love their costume! I'll cherish the memory of meeting Deborah Watling, especially, forever. I worked so hard for a year to get all those costumes done, but when other people recognize them, and give you a smile or an 'omigod!' that makes all the hard work worth it entirely. Was it exhausting? Yes. Would I do it again? You bet. I'm already plotting for next year. In the best spirit of the Eleventh Doctor: Geronimo! :D
I was really glad I'd gotten the reserved membership this year, since I got to talk to Frazer and Debbie and Wendy, as well as Camille Coduri and Nick Briggs at the Thurday reception. Camille is terribly nice and very pretty in person, she was sweet and lovely, Frazer is a very charming but naughty man who WILL tell dirty stories in front of children, [as will Noel Clarke, omg his panel!] although he's also a bit of a dork, since he apparently takes pictures of cosplayers when he sees especially good Troughton era stuff! (He showed us a shot he'd taken of a very good Doctor/Jamie/Zoe group at LI WHO! How sweet is that?) Nick Briggs actually sat down at the table I was at, and he was wearing a Dalek hat. Yup, that's right. You know how you picture Nick Briggs just going about his life dressed in a Dalek hat or something? HE ACTUALLY DOES THAT. How are these people even real?
Wendy Padbury I only spoke to briefly, but she said she loved my dress and asked if she could touch the fabric. In my head I was thinking 'of course you can! You can step on me and I would be honored because you're Zoe Heriot, and thus an awesome, badass goddess far above me!' but all I said was 'sure!' Yeah, fashion approval from someone who lived in London in the 60s and was stylish and adorable as hell? YESSSSSS!!!! (She's still adorable, too!)
Deborah Watling I was so nervous to meet because Victoria is my other favorite companion, right after Barbara & Ian, so I kind of circled around her for a while until my mum pushed me over to her and made me talk to her! She's the tiniest little lady, but she is so sweet and lovely. When I said Victoria was one of my favorite companions she seemed a little surprised, and still more when I told her I was going to cosplay Victoria the next day. (I forgot that actors don't know what the word 'cosplay' means, so I had to explain it to her!) She was very touched that I'd gone to all the trouble to make that dress, and I really shocked her when I told her I'd cut 11 inches off my hair just so it would look like hers had. (It had been down to my waist the night before, but Victoria's was shoulder length, so it had to go!) I actually started to cry when I told her I didn't mind, because Victoria is so sweet and brave and means so much to me, and she just put her hand on my cheek and said 'don't you cry or you'll set me off too' and she hugged me and was so nice. The next day when I went to her photo session with the dress on, she was really amazed by it, and asked me how long it had taken to make (a long time!) and she looked at the bodice and said, 'yes, mine was just like this!' and I nearly died of happiness! I tried to tell her it was a labor of love, but I'm not sure I made much sense, because I was desperately trying not to cry again! She hugged me again, and kissed my forehead, and we posed for the photo, and I think my face looks weird because I'm trying to smile while determinedly fighting back tears. But she loved it, so that made all the last minute sewing in the hotel room and all the un-picking and re-gathering yards of lace by hand in the wee hours of the morning worth it! (And I finally found out the original had blue and pink flowers! Mine is brown, but she said it doesn't matter what color it is, she was just so happy I'd made it. Awww!)
As a devoted monochrome era girl, I was planning on cosplaying Victoria and Zoe anyway this year, but when I heard they'd be there, that decided the matter! I did all Troughton era, all weekend! It was a bit tricky, because I wanted to have photos with them in the costumes for them to see, but the photo sessions were back to back, so I had to dash up to my room to change in and out of my Victoria and Zoe cosplays all Friday and Saturday! I had to put on Victoria's 'Evil of the Daleks' for Debbie's photo, then change into my 'Invasion' Zoe for Wendy's, then change back into Victoria for the Chronological Cavalcade after Debbie's panel. Unfortunately though, Wendy's photo was scheduled opposite Debbie's panel, and I will never forgive the evil bugger who did that, because I missed the panel! And it was the one thing I was most looking forward to at the con, aside from showing my dress to Deborah. I was one of the first in the line at the photo session, and I could have made it to the panel if I'd left right away, but I was SO tired from staying up the night before sewing my dress that I had no brain at all, and completely forgot I had somewhere to be, and then I saw a pair of Two & Jamie cosplayers, and I asked them if we could do a 'team two' pic, so we were off doing that in the corner, when the session photographer saw us and invited to take one in front of the TARDIS, and Wendy was still there, so she jumped into the photo with us! It was so unexpected and awesome that any other thoughts besides squeeing completely deserted me, and then my mum was talking to me and was like 'shouldn't you go buy that CD you want now?' and even though part of me was like 'no' I couldn't remember why, so I ended up wasting the rest of the hour in the dealers room, and only noticed Deborah's panel was going on when I walked by the open door and saw her there, and I could have kicked myself. I heard maybe the last two or three questions and that was it, and apparently she'd been talking about what Victoria did after she left, which is a subject I desperately would have liked to hear about, so yeah, I just about had another cry over that, but I had to get back upstairs to change costumes again for the Cavalcade.
The Chronological Cavalcade is one of my favorite events at TARDIS, and I really hope they'll do it every year. It's nice to get your costume up on stage without the pressure of the Masquerade, which is way too scary for me, and it's so awesome to get big groups from all the different eras in one room, you get the best photos that way! Was so delighted to see two Zoes, we had a pretty big Second Doctor group this year, yay! There was only one First Doctor character this year, but she was Aztec Barbara! I was squeeing like crazy over that! Met some girls there who were talking about doing some One-era cosplays next year, which is awesome, since I'm a Hartnell-era nut, and I'm doing Barbara and Vicki next year! I won't be alone! Hurray!
Also had a photo with Billie Piper, but I was so in awe of her that I couldn't really say much! It's a little different with the older actors, because they don't look like they did on the show, so you can separate the character and the actor in your mind a little more, but Billie Piper looks exactly like she did on the show, and it's just like 'OMG' when you walk into a room and it's ROSE. If I hadn't loved Rose and identified with her immediately in that first episode, I would never have become a fan of Doctor Who at all, and now I'm into the classic series, and cosplaying at conventions! She's the one who started it all. I had a personal story I was going to tell her about why Rose means so much to me, but in my sleep-deprived, star-struck state of mind I knew I'd cry again if I did, and I didn't think I could handle crying in front of another actress in the same weekend, so I just said 'Rose was the first thing I ever loved in Doctor Who, you're lovely!' and sort of fled the room sooner than was strictly necessary! But she was very nice and has a beautiful smile!
On Sunday I wore my 'Abominable Snowmen' Victoria cosplay, and had one of the best moments of my life when FRAZER HINES STOPPED ME IN THE HALL to tell me what a good Victoria I made, and to make sure Deborah Watling would see it! OMFG!! It's always a thrill when people recognize your character at a con, particularly when you're doing 60's Who characters, cause not as many people know them, but when the actual actor from the show, who has seen the original flags you down to say it's good, yeah, that's pretty amazing, to say the least! (And yes, Deborah did see it! All three of them did, and they all went 'aww!' when I walked in. It was unbelievably fantastic how nice they were about my cosplays, and I did it really for them. I'm just so grateful to have had the opportunity to show them how much their characters still mean to us after all these years. There was a little girl who was probably four years old dressed as Zoe in a little sparkly catsuit, and Wendy was SO HAPPY about it, it was just the greatest thing! DW people are without doubt the nicest people on the planet. It's so brilliant to see how positive and love-filled the whole weekend was. There was one young guy at the Troughton Trio panel who said something mean about Zoe to Wendy Padbury, and you can bet we booed his snotty ass. I was actually wearing my Zoe costume at the time, so I was not in the mood to hear how Zoe is 'the worst companion ever'. Wendy shrugged it off philosophically, but Deborah Watling actually called him out and told him his comment was inappropriate, which it was. She is one fierce little lady, and you do not mess with her bffs! Debbie, Wendy and Frazer really are like a little family in real life. They all call Wendy 'Padders', and at the photo session Debbie just came up behind Wendy and put her head on her shoulder and hugged her, and they just stood like that while they were talking to me, it was so cute.
The cosplay was pretty awesome this year; Soldeeds and Clockwork Droids and Sarah Janes, oh my! Lots of steampunk femme Doctors, in fact I think I may be doing a steampunk femme Doctor group with some people next year if I can find where I wrote their email addresses! I was really surprised to find another Evil of the Daleks Victoria, we ran into eachother in the dealers room and took a pic! (And then a Tenth Doctor jumped in and we took one with him too! I love cosplay!) I was super happy to get a pic in my Zoe gear with a two-era Cyberman (he was awesome, it lit up!) but it came out a bit blurry, boo! Was also thrilled to see an Ice Warrior, because I was in Victoria's hiking outfit that she also wore in 'The Ice Warriors', and I got a pic with him too, and it came out fantastic. His costume was so detailed, each scale was cut out and put on by hand! He won the workmanship award at the Masquerade, and boy he deserved it. The Masquerade was quite good this year, though the intermission for judging is always way too long, and I was super happy to have the reserve seating, because there was nobody next to me, so I just sprawled out on two chairs and kinda lounged around! I kicked off my shoes and probably could have taken a nap if I'd wanted to! General seating: Never Again! (If I can afford it, that is. I spent everything I'd saved up on this weekend between the autographs/photos and the Big Finish table. I just kind of binge-buy when there are sales! Also there were some books I had to have, and I really NEEDED that Bessie pin, and there was only one 'Tomb of the Cybermen' pin left... so yeah, I'm broke again.)
Actually managed to find time to eat this year, so that was good, and anyway there was a table in the hallway giving out 'the Fudge of Rassilon' (LOL!) which kept us all from starvation. But in my rush for fudge I neglected to find out who made the awesome 'Barbara, Queen of the Universe' poster at the table next to it, drat!
Was also one of like 100 girls in the same TARDIS dress Saturday night; there were only two others last year! But once again, Wendy & Debbie thought it was pretty, (and the stockings, they were really interested in my TARDIS stockings! They were like the third time someone asked about them!) and some guy dressed as the Third Doctor said I looked 'amazing', so I think I'll still wear it next year even if it is more popular than ever. ;D
I had so much sewing to finish up that I missed all the late-night goings on with parties and whatnot, boo. My goal for next year is to actually go to at least one party!
When we went home I was still in my Abominable Snowmen Victoria, and I actually went to Target and Culver's dressed like that! And no one said anything or even gave me a funny look, which is more astonishing still. I kind of wish I'd have got a picture of it, just so I could caption it with "The TARDIS lands in an American fast food restaurant, 2014, and Victoria orders a hamburger." LOL!
Rather miffed I didn't get any pics in front of the TARDIS besides the official session photos, particularly since I'd been doing Victoria's pose from the famous promo pic all day (see my icon above!) and the TARDIS should have been in the background! But there was almost NO LINE AT ALL for the photo/auto sessions this year, so I wasn't even in the queue room long enough to take one! (If only they'd had that system last year, when the lines lasted for hours. This year it was so complicated and we didn't even need it. Cruel irony.) But I guess it just means I'll have to bring my Victoria again next year!
I pretty much collapsed the minute I got home, and I'm still exhausted and afraid to go through all the stuff I brought home! There were so many things to do that I didn't get a chance to do them all, but really, on the whole, I feel pretty darn lucky to have had the opportunity to hang out with so many cool people over an amazing, crazy weekend, and share the love for our amazing, crazy show. I love that there's a place I can chase someone down the hall with a camera shouting "Leela! Leela!" and have them turn around and know I'm not crazy, I just love their costume! I'll cherish the memory of meeting Deborah Watling, especially, forever. I worked so hard for a year to get all those costumes done, but when other people recognize them, and give you a smile or an 'omigod!' that makes all the hard work worth it entirely. Was it exhausting? Yes. Would I do it again? You bet. I'm already plotting for next year. In the best spirit of the Eleventh Doctor: Geronimo! :D
