This past year was my fifth Dragon Con, and absolutely the best one yet. At the very least, it’s the first year whose awesomeness warrants calling out my top five moments.
After seeing a post on Facebook about a Romulan winning the Miss Star Trek Universe Pageant in a previous year, I wondered if I hadn’t been wrong to avoid the pageant given I’d assumed it was, basically, pageantry. And it was. But it was nerdy pageantry, which means it’s amazing. This year one of the contestants was the daughter of the black slime that killed Tasha Yar and they crowned an Andorian whose talent was doing the Vote for Pedro dance from Napoleon Dynamite. I will never miss this again.
I went to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog: The Musical, Live & Onstage for the first time, and was just absolutely delighted with the energy and enthusiasm from the cast and from the audience. I guess this was the first time they’ve actually performed, rather than just sung along, and I’d go see it again in a heartbeat.
I have marched in the Dragon Con Parade every year and there’s such an outpouring of love and good vibes that I can’t miss it – even when it means getting up really early after dancing much too late. This year I marched as Miss Frizzle from The Magic School Bus, which meant there were a lot of smiling faces approximately my age shouting about field trips and also the cutest kids ever holding out their hands for high fives. Best moment was when I encountered a tiny Miss Frizzle and nearly cried, she was so cute and I missed my own girls so much.
Parties at Dragon Con are, at least for me, hit or miss. But this year I joined friends at the Yule Ball and had an absolute blast. The music was the perfect blend of cheesy and dancey and the crowd was full of witches and wizards. What’s not to love?
When I learned that Mira Furlan was going to be at the con this year, I knew I had to make an effort to get to one of her panels – and I managed through sheer luck and stubbornness to end up in the front of the Babylon 5: 25th Anniversary Media Panel, close enough to appreciate all of Furlan’s and Walter Koenig’s shared smiles. Hearing them talk about what it was like on set and how Furlan’s experiences with war informed Delenn’s character was just so special. The show has always felt deeply political to me, and when Furlan talked about “empathy and compassion” being what we’re missing most in our current social climate, and how these things aren’t feminine but belong to “all of us,” just. It was very, very cool and affirming.
Honorable mentions include getting to oh-so-briefly meet Travis McElroy and have his arm around my shoulder for a friend’s shared photo-op, and the Pawnee Goddess meet-up on Thursday evening. Treat yo’ self.
Also, Naomi Novik gave a reading of a work in progress and spoke about what it was like to write original fiction and fanfiction and, just, she’s perfect. She talked about how when she's writing the most, she's writing both, and that she'll take whatever comes out of the spigot. She's not going to shut it off because it's not what she's supposed to be working on.
I wish I could just nap for six weeks or so and then do it all over again, but alas, we have to wait a whole year. Did you go? What was your best or favorite moment?