jaina

I said I would do it and I'm doin' it-- here's Dragon*Con Friday, Part Two...

...aka GAGA GLEE TIME!

After how hard she was to make, Gaga Quinn was actually really easy to wear, and not too bad to get into. The hardest part was those pink feather eyelashes, which are actually placed near the middle of the eye, instead of at the corner. But I was all set at the appointed time, and very proud of myself for it. I went down to 10, which was where we were supposed to be meeting, and wandered around for a bit looking for people. (Several people recognized me, and I got one offer of marriage and one request to let some guy wear my costume. Uh. No.)

Then I got a text that people were still getting ready in Maggie and Michelle's room, so I popped up there, where I discovered a room full of Gagas in various stages of readiness.

Michelle was being stitched into her bubble dress:

Jess was gluing herself into her boots:

J9 was wrestling a lobster onto Amber's head:

...madness, I tell you.

I'd had a hard time finding bright fuschia lipstick, so Jess lent me some hot pink gloss she had.

And then, there was a knock at the door.

It was Ron and Rogue.

Dressed as KISS.
(Because in the Glee Gaga episode, while the girls and Kurt do Gaga, the boys do KISS.)

This was a COMPLETE SURPRISE to all of us but J9-- we had no idea they were planning it. We all squealed. A lot. Possibly there were tears. (In all seriousness, I know it meant a lot to Amber, and to all of us, to have the boys support us like that.)

Once we were finally ready, we hit the 10th floor first. We took some pictures:

We also practiced the dance in costume for the first time!

It was...not entirely a disaster. Okay okay, it really wasn't that bad at all, as proof of concept, and we had two more days to get ready, so we were satisfied. We recorded some footage for J9's video, and then it was time to hit the lobby!

We really weren't sure what kind of reaction we were going to get to these costumes. Glee is popular, sure, but we didn't know exactly *how* popular with the D*C crowd, or whether people would remember the specific costumes. I think it's safe to say the reaction far surpassed our expectations. We couldn't move without people asking for our picture-- and the boys were just as popular, if not more! To get around, we went back to last year's Sgt Pepper conga-line technique, except this time we just held hands because our outfits weren't really suited to a conga line.

It also really helped to have Jenn and Christina wrangling us! Thank you ladies!!!

From the Marriott, we went over to the Hyatt and sat around in the Hyatt basement for awhile (our feet hurt!).

Shoe shot! (Note the KISS shoes in there too...)

While we were there, we met a guy in my favorite steampunk outfit of the weekend: SteamRoom Punk (he came to D*C in a Hot Tub Time Machine):

Then we eventually went back to the Marriott:

We stopped by the big mirror in one of the hamster tubes to check out our glamourous selves and practice our final pose:

We hung around on the lower level of the Marriott for awhile-- we had pictures done by some of the pros down there (has anyone actually seen any of their pics?). Ron and J9 and Rogue and I got a little silly with our poses:

Another pose from the KISS member and Quinn as Gaga

Not to mention the boys hamming it up whenever they got the chance:

It was such a great night, just spending time with all of my friends in these fabulous, ridiculous costumes that we had all worked so hard on. That's really the core of my D*C experience. Somewhere around midnight, we had all had enough of our costumes, so people departed to their rooms to de-Gaga. Some folks stayed up talking on the 10th floor, but I was still carrying a serious sleep debt, so I headed to bed.