“What’s better than a theory? A LOONY theory of course! Join us for wild, semi-plausible speculation about both the show and books.”
Photo Courtesy of Ashaya from History of Westeros
This panel was a show-only discussion of Game of Thrones Season 7 and the upcoming and final season of this HBO blockbuster series.
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!
