Like I mentioned earlier, there were a lot of people who told me they liked my costume and others who wanted to get a picture of it. I was flattered and it made me proud to know that all my hard work paid off.
During the first intermission after Tsianina's appearance, I headed back to the registration table to sign up for the costume contest. Then I wandered around the merchandise tables where I picked up the scripts from "Eternal Bonds" and "Lyre, Lyre, Hearts on Fire". A guy walked up to me and told me how good my costume was. He went on and on about this skit he wanted to do with a Gabrielle at a "Millennium Philcon" (heh) in a few weeks, but his Gabrielle was in England. I smiled and was polite with him and just kept telling myself, This is what you wanted, remember? You wanted to interact with the other fans today... Actually, it wasn't that bad. I was just worried about missing something going on in the auditorium. Luckly, they were still doing the "No Minimum Bid Auction", which never interests me much, so I went over to the table where they were selling the magazines and comics and picked up issue 22 of the official Xena magazine.
Next, I moved on to the photo table. There was a guy there helping out that I recognized sitting three rows in front of me in the auditorium. He was in costume too and my first thought was that he was dressed as "hero Joxer" from the episode, "For Him the Bell Tolls". But then I thought if he wasn't I didn't want to insult him by calling him Joxer. (People can get so touchy about those kinds of things! *grin*) In any case, he asked if he could get a picture of "Gabrielle" so I posed for him. My mom, who was behind me in line said, "You should have asked for his picture too." I shrugged. There was always time for that later, right?
I finished looking at the photos, making sure I bought one of Varia and Aphrodite for autographing and then headed back to the auditorium to see Alexandra Tydings.
After Alex was the costume contest. There were a lot of good costumes, but I was the only classic Gabby there! There was one other Gabrielle who was dressed in her leather outfit from the fifth season. There was also Ephiny, Cupid, a few Xenas, I already mentioned Mel Papas from "The Xena Scrolls", Talia the sheriff from "Animal Attraction", a father and son team called Ares and Ares Mini Me, Cleopatra, an Amazon shameness, an Amazon, Joxer (yes, the guy who took my picture really was Joxer), a girl dressed as Joxer's flamboyantly gay brother Jace (who was a riot!), a little girl dressed as Aphrodite (I believe she was there last year), and a Xena and Akimi team from the last episode "Friend in Need".
It was cute. When "Jace" was called up on stage, "he" hugged his brother, "Joxer". One of the Xenas hugged me when I went up too!
There were only three kids so they each won first, second, and third place in the kid's competition. The little Aphrodite won first place (she was so cute!) and I think Ares Mini Me won second, so the blonde Xena won third. In the adult competition, Cleopatra won third place and Ares won second. The judges couldn't decide between Cupid and the Xena/Akimi team for first place, but the audience had no disputes over the winner. "Cupid! Cupid! Cupid!" they shouted.
The rest of us all got consulation prizes. It was just a photo from a stack they grabbed off the photo table, but hey, no complaints here. I wasn't there to win. I was there to have fun!
On my way back to my seat after the contest, this woman in the audience was excitedly waving for somebody to come over to her. It took me a moment to realize she meant me. I walked up to her.
Did you make that costume yourself?" She was really enthusiastic.
I smiled. "Yep."
"That is awesome! Your costume is awesome."
"Thank you!"
Then she turned to the guy dressed as Joxer, who was returning to his seat a couple rows behind her, and asked if he made his costume himself too.
"No."
"Still, that's awesome! They're both awesome!"
Next was autograph time. I knew it would be a while until they called row "M", so I headed back out to look at the merchandise before they packed it all up. It was then that I saw the guy dressed as Joxer grab his bag and walk away from the photo table.
"Hey, wait-wait-wait!" I called out. He stopped and turned around. "You got a picture of Gabrielle," I grinned, "but I didn't get a picture of Joxer."
"Oh! Sure!" Putting down his bag, he gave me his mightiest Joxer pose. *grin*
"You know," I said. "Joxer is actually my all-time favorite character from the show!"
"Hey, we should get a picture of Joxer and Gabrielle together," he suggested.
"Okay!"
"Just need to find somebody to take the picture... Oh! I know, my brother can do it."
I followed him to where his brother was behind the table where they were selling the expensive autograph plauqes and stuff.
"Can you take a picture of us together?"
His brother kindly obliged, taking a picture for each of us, using both of our cameras.
After the pictures were taken, I thanked them both. "Were you at the convention last year?" I asked 'Joxer', figuring how could somebody dressed like that have missed Ted Raimi?
"Yeah! I was dressed like this then too. After all, I had to show off my costume to Ted."
"Well, of course! I was here then too... but I don't think I saw you."
"Are you sure? I was here all weekend."
I shook my head. "I don't remember."
[Well, of course it wasn't until I got home and was scanning these costume photos, when a weird sense of deja vu suddenly came over me. "Oh my God... Oh my God!" I tore into my desk drawer and pulled out my photos of last year's convention and turned to this:
Heh, who knew?]
We were about to go our seperate ways, when I mentioned, "Oh, by the way, if you're ever online I go by 'Gabrianne'."
"Let me write that down," he said. "Do you have AOL? I'm on there all the time."
"I don't have AOL, but I use Instant Messanger sometimes."
"Let's trade names then," he suggested, running over to the photo table, grabbing an unused bag to write on.
I wrote down my webpage URL and the name I go by on Instant Messanger: 'wakkannewarner'. "My real name's Suzanne," I told him, as we exchanged sheets of paper.
"I'm Ray."
Just then, the guy dressed as Cupid came along. "Hey, I want a picture with Joxer and Gabrielle!"
He was with his mother, I guess, and she took pictures for all of us.
Cupid looked at Ray's camera and asked what it was.
"It's a digital camera."
"Ah, high-tech Joxer!" We laughed.
One of them mentioned that it was great to see somebody there dressed as Classic Gabby. We all agreed.
I tell ya, we really started something. Right then a bunch of other costumed people came out and wanted pictures taken too. While we were waiting to for a few more people to come, the girl dressed as the Amazon shameness started talking with Ray and I.
"I know I shouldn't say this too loud, but I don't really like Xena too much. The character, I mean. I'm more of a fan of the supplemental characters."
"Well, you're amoung friends, here," I told her, giving Ray a knowing glance. "I mean, my favorite character is Joxer and I know I shouldn't say that too loud at a place like this, either."
"Yeah," agreed Ray with a grin. "You might get beat up."
"I'm actually more a fan of Minya."
"Well hey, nothing wrong with that," I said. "She was the original Xena fangirl!"
She basically explained that she liked Minya's whole attitude.
After our costumed band had assembled, Ray got his brother again and he took the pictures for whoever wanted them. Wasn't he nice?
Then we headed back into the auditorium to see how far they were in the autographing. The girl at the door stopped Ray.
"You can't take video cameras inside." Obviously the new shift. *grin*
"It's not a video camera. It's a digital camera."
"Oh."
Anyway, we didn't miss anything. Our rows still hadn't been called. I sat in my seat for a bit and then visited my parents in the General Admission seats to look at the stuff I bought. Then I noticed Ray heading over to the water cooler for a drink. Taking the scripts I had bought, I went over to him.
"Just to show you how much I like Joxer, look at the scripts I bought today." I showed him the three scripts, holding up 'The Quill is Mightier...'. "This is my favorite episode."
"Hey, we were just talking about that!" said Ray as his brother approached us. "I said to my brother that he should tell Alex that was his favorite episode... not for Aphrodite, but for the three naked Gabrielles!" He then told me that his favorite episode was 'Finns, Femmes, and Gems'. "See, I like all the comedy ones..."
"So do I!"
"But my brother likes the more serious ones." Ray's brother nodded.
"My brother is like that too!" I said. "For example, one of his favorite episodes is 'The Debt'."
"Or the Sacrifice episodes..." Ray mentioned. "Man, I can't believe the show's over now."
"Well, after they killed off Joxer, I was more like, 'Oh, let it end'."
Ray brought up the baby storyline and I mentioned the whole 25 years in the future thing had gone too far.
"Actually, I liked the old Joxer," said Ray's brother. "When he was young, he was just stupid, but when he was old, he got pretty cool."
The silence from Ray and I led me to believe we didn't quite agree with him on that. *grin*
Row "J" was announced for autographs, which meant it was time for Ray and his brother to go. We said our "seeya laters" and they went up in line and I returned to my parents to wait for row "M" to be called.
Wow, now I know what people meant in the past when they said the best part of the conventions was usually connecting with the other fans. I was having a great time!
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