#brought to you from the fact that teacher Jon is apparently popular

[ravelqueen]

Hey fic writers where are all these classrooms of precocious 8-15 yr olds that always want to learn and are nice and just need someone nice for them to be perfectly behaved bc i would love to meet them

Relatedly - who is it that decides that characters that are withdrawn, snappy and have no patience are somehow perfect teachers bc like.... how much you know is actually wayyyyy less important than having strong nerves like at least make them bad teachers then!

[araniaart]

Ace Comic Con Report!

@shipperhipster and I road-tripped to Arizona for Ace Comic Con in Glendale!  (Afterwards, we made a side-trip to the Grand Canyon to make it a real vacation before heading home - more photos on that later!) BUT wanted to post about the experiences at the con! I did a separate write-up about how awesome it was to meet two of the top Art Designers of the MCU (Andy Park and Ryan Meinerding) HERE There were a lot of ups and downs about the convention itself.  The SUCKIEST was that Chris Evans got sick the 2nd day of the con, which is the day we had our tickets to meet him/get photographs.  It was going to be our first chance to actualy do a photo-shoot with both us with Chris & Seb together, and we were really looking forward to that.  On top of that, Chris was only days off of filming Avengers 4, and he was actually in a rare state of clean-shavenness (which as much as I do love beardy-Steve, he still looks the most like iconic Steve Rogers to me when he’s clean-shaven.  We had planned on capitalizing on that for some photo shoot poses :/ )   That being said, we still feel like we couldn’t be that upset about that. We’ve had the chance to meet him before and took an awesome photo with him.  We had friends there who were going to be meeting him for the first time, and there were even people who had flown in from countries all over the world to meet him that may not have gotten the chance :( That being said, all in all, even with the disappointment of not getting to see Chris Evans, we still had a great time, and the things that did go well went very well.

Speaking of international visitors, right as we were heading in, an Uber pulled around and asked us if either of us spoke Japanese.  Which was absolutely coincidental since I did actually take four semesters of it in college - even though it had been a long time, I knew enough to help translate between the young woman who had flown in by herself to the convention and the Uber driver.  She was so sweet, another huge stucky fan, and we chatted as we waited in line to get into the con!  (I have a terrible memory for names, but I believe she was Kanoko!)   She was super sweet, excited to be there, and her sister had even spotted us at a different convention before and had photos of us - such a small world!  She had a great movie-accurate Bucky Backpack with her that she was going to get signed ^^

The Location of the Arena was wonderful - since the stadium is designed to deal with a LOT of people, the area was beautiful with a ton of shops and restaurants in easy-walking distance that could easily handle feeding the crowds.  There was an amazing Japanese place we went to called Kabuki after the con that only had a very short wait and some delicious sushi.  There was a movie theater, Dave & Busters, bars who had decorated to cater to the comic convention crowd, and all-around a great time :) A comic convention IN an arena, however... there were definitely some growing pains.  While the photo shoots were great, and they are run by a different company, all of the autographs were up in the top level of the arena - which meant if you had a narrow time-gap between a photo and an autograph, it could be tough.  You had to sit in the very tight (especially if you were in a costume) nose-bleed seats that were angled so as vertigo could be a thing.  It also meant that when you were waiting for your turn, since they were pulling people up a row at a time, you couldn’t watch other people interact with the guests while you were waiting.  

The con also did not allot NEARLY enough time for the autographs.  Sebastian Stan was running over an hour over his allotted time and the staff was rushing him with talking to people - we were at the end of his line, and when we came up he was talking to a handler about why they didn’t budget enough time, and feeling bad bout not getting time with visitors.  Such to the point that while he was signing something for him and we were waiting for him to finish/finish speaking with the staff so we could say hi, one of the staff was trying to rush us out “you got your signature ladies, now go!”  - I’m thankful Shipper said something - along the lines of we paid to at least get the chance to say Hi to him, and poor Seb - was very apologetic even though we weren’t directing it at him/he wasn’t the one trying to rush us out before we said anything.  BUT - My wife got the chance to compliment him on his work on I, Tonya (during the panel, the emcee had spoken to Anthony Mackie and Chris Evans about other roles they’d done, but then asked Seb about The Martian (which he was in like 5 minutes of) and asked how it was working with Ridley Scott (who Seb said was like acting in the dark - NO guidance at all) - and you could tell he was miffed that he hadn’t been asked about I, Tonya since that’s what he’s been promo’ing and the movie is up for some good awards and he has a significant role in it! He also said that he liked my costume!  Eeeee! Another down-side of the arena format was the stairs: we had brought a rolly-bag FULL of the MCU Artbooks (The bag probably weighed like 40 lbs)  for signatures but rolly bags are not convenient for stairs.  Most con floors - sure.  Thanks again to Shipper for hauling it up and down the arena stairs TWICE before we were able to get them signed and taken back to the hotel.  That being said, the upsides were good - All of the Arena staff were absolutely on-point.  They were helpful, concerned about the experience and knowledgeable.  When Chris cancelled they made sure guests had choice of alternatives (subbing-in a different op, doing partial-shoots and refunding the Chris “value” if he wasn’t there, or a full refund) - and stayed late to work on processing refunds.  When the exchange-your-printed-ticket-for a photo-op coupon line got RIDONKULOUS (across the entire arena floor, up the stairs, and around a corner in the next level, arena staff got on it to make sure that people expedited it.  And aside from the lady rushing us at Seb’s table, the rest of the con staff were nice and helpful.  which after Comicpalooza, was incredibly refreshing.  

That being said, one of my favorite things about cons - the artists’ alley where you have a lot of craftspeople selling interesting wares - was absent from the con.  They had BIG comic/pop toy/etc dealers on half of the arena floor, and then a big circle of pro artists selling almost exclusively prints (which is great, but I like a variety) all around the (rotunda?) ground floor of the arena hallway.  Then a few different vendors up around the signature area.  

Tom Holland was absolutely sweet.  I think that this was his first convention outside of SDCC - where he actually got to meet fans and interact with them.  He had his own private security team that had a second round of checks after the convention group and were more limiting props for shoots, but that’s understandable considering how young he is and how up and coming he is!  (And that this was his first con of this format I think) He was enthusiastic, friendly, and seemed genuinely excited to be there.  He had also volunteered to be a sub-in for Chris Evans with group photo shoots, staying late to help people out.  I missed most of his panel, but it looked like he was having a good time, and Ned’s actor was also thrilled to be there, taking photos of the crowd.   Tom also was having fun peeking out of the curtain of his signature area and waving at the people waiting for him.  

It was still a little weird for me to see all the girls likely half my age heart-throbbing after him XD  I had no idea how popular he was with teens, but it makes sense!   But we were thrilled to meet the MCU Spidey, get his autograph added to our shield, and I think he was an AWESOME Cast!

Signature Right in the blue in silver! Other things of note - Jon Bernthal makes me squee a little more every time I hear him talk.  He spoke in his panel about the experience that made him an actor.  He had gone to the college for sports, but wasn’t good enough for that to be a long-term career.  He had wound up taking an acting class for an elective because he thought it would be an easy class he could hang in the back of.  IT wasn’t what he expected and when he didn’t prepare for one class where he was supposed to bring a significant object and describe why it was meaningful, and seeing all his classmates breaking into tears talking about the things he brought, he felt put on the spot.  He dug out a baseball glove and made up a story about it being from his grandmother.  He had half the class in tears and felt bad - saying afterwards - no, man, this is just acting - it isn’t true.  The teacher then pulled him aside - and said that he broke the rules of acting - he wasn’t genuine - but that he had a gift.  She made him enroll in the play, and psuhed him.  She changed his life and he tattood her name on his wrist and she officiated his wife and his wedding.  

Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Micro’s actor), on the other hand, obviously didn’t want to be there.  He came an hour late to his signing after a staffmember had to go retreive him, and apparently “came in with an attitude” about being rushed.  He was pleasant enough to us for the signing (and was pleased that people picked up on his character's interpretation being a Snowden analog) - but at the panel he had stank face the whole time, and when asked the same question about what got him into acting it was “it seemed like the most logical choice at the time.”  Moreover, when the emcee asked them about what their favorite role was the other actor had been in, Jon gushed about being a fan of Ebon’s work - his great role on Girls, some of his stagework, and Ebon just.... drew an uncomfortable blank - even after the fact two questions ago Jon had talked about his other roles.  The moderator had to offer him to “come back to him”.  It was kind of awkward.   Anyway!  All in all, the experience was worthwhile - and Shipper’s new iphoneX got some great photos of our cosplays :)