Con recap and picture post!
So it's 9:30 at night on Friday and I'm putzing around the internet and thinking about getting some oreos, when suddenly the internet connection goes out. And stays out. ALL FUCKING WEEKEND. X___x They wouldn't send a tech out until today. I ended up spending the weekend working on a lot of projects I've been putting off though, so at least I got something worthwhile done between clicking on Firefox every ten minutes and hoping it would miraculously load. Also, I watched Tangled again. x3 That was fun. <33
We only just got the internet back a few hours ago. So now, after re-catching up on everything, here I am at last to do the con post that was supposed to have been done on Saturday. I thought about just posting some pictures and linking the rest, but I wanted to write commentary with every one. I tried to make the commentary interesting to make it worth it. =w=
WARNING: Lots of words and pictures and more words under here. Literally in Word the text alone was nine pages long. So if you intend to read the whole thing make sure you have an hour or so free. xD Or you can just skim and look at the pictures, that's okay too. x3
Friday: The day in which I did neither of my planned things. xD
I deliberately saved a bunch of stuff to do for the morning (packing, showering, ironing and food shopping) so that I wouldn’t get too antsy, but I was still pretty much finished and ready to go by noon. xD The internet kept me busy until it was time to leave without me having to resort to running laps, luckily.
Left home pretty much at exactly 1:30 and didn’t have too bad of a time going up. There was a wreck at one place, but it was mostly cleaned up by the time I came through, so only minimal delays. The turnpike always scares me, but this time I knew which side of it that I needed to be on, and my only real mishap was turning onto the road that the hotel is on. Once again I was in the wrong lane and had to cut across two lanes really fast to make it to the turn lane. I accidentally kind of cut off the van behind me who was probably all “WTF?!” at me and I was going, “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!!” but of course he couldn’t hear me. ^^; That was the only incident though. I saw a really bad wreck on the other side of the turnpike going up, so I’m just grateful not to have had anything like that happen.
Also a little white car very dangerously passed me and some other people (despite us all going five miles over the speed limit anyway) on Card Sound Road. Then about ten minutes later we came across that same car pulled over on the side of the road by the police. >D
Reached the hotel pretty much at 4:00, which is what I was aiming for. I was thinking about going to a cosplay 101 panel at 5:00, but I had a hell of a time finding a parking space (I ended up parking in a reserved area that they had opened up to the public for the day since so many people were there for the con.) and then I got to my room (I made a really good call remembering to tip this time. The bellhop guy was so nice and was all, “oh God bless you,” when I gave him the money. It made me feel really good. =3) and found that the shower was leaking. Badly enough that it was pretty audible and was a good steady stream. So I called Mom to tell her I made it up okay and then went down to the lobby to report the leak. (By now quite positive that I wouldn’t make it to the 5:00 panel, but that was okay. It was kind of a whim anyway.)
There was this really rude lady in line. She was standing behind me sighing and glaring at the counter people (who I felt so sorry for, they were completely overwhelmed. Tons of people were checking in and apparently a lot of people were having problems or something. I tried extra hard to be nice to them.) and then she moved up BESIDE me, and I was like, “>.> Um, this is a line…” And THEN she just steps in front of me when the person in front of me moved and completely obviously cut in line. All because she wanted an extra receipt for her room or something. Such a rude person. >( Anyway, I reported the leak and went back upstairs (My room was on the 7th floor.) to get ready!
I headed out near six-ish, but as soon as I got to the convention center and got my wristband I realized I had forgotten my phone in the room. My phone is basically my clock while I’m here. So with a -_- face I made the trek all the way back to the room, and by then I was sweating and having heatstroke. (It’s 90+ outside and I was wearing binding, an undershirt and a fleece-lined hoodie. Yeah.) It ended up being a good move though, because I decided to just not wear an undershirt, and also was able to change my wig cap. I’d brought two and the one I was wearing was so loose, it was already coming off. So I switched them, and the other one didn’t come loose all evening. ^^
So then I went back down and wandered around for a little while. Took pics, perused merch and bought a couple things. (Riza key charm and an America figurine.) I got an autograph from Rikki Simmons (VA for Gir) and also a random signed character card from a woman named Aya Knight who was hosting a novel panel that I planned to attend on Saturday. I was just walking by when she asked if I wanted one so I said sure, and then I recognized her name and asked if she was hosting the novel panel. She got all excited to hear that I want to be a novelist and that I was planning on coming to her panel, it was so cute. ^^
And people recognized me, it was so nice. I kept hearing people call “Hey Canada!” And I got lots of hugs. x3 I stopped by Wonderland Creations to sign up for their panels (I got the last plushie Onigiri spot!) and then went back upstairs to wander some more. (There was a better chance of getting good cosplayer pictures upstairs.) I was planning to go to another panel hosted by Rikki at 9:30, so I had two more hours to kill at this point when I walked by a mostly empty room and the girl inside (who I think was supposed to be a vocaloid character) was asking people if they wanted to come in and learn to K-pop dance with her and some other people.
Normal Chey would have been all shy and insecure and said no. But I was Con!Chey, so of course I said yes! =D
It was two sisters, Jamie and Jasmine (who went by Blue for some reason) and they were just inviting people to randomly come in and learn dance moves. xD So they tried to teach me and another girl some. I’m sure I looked so derpy, but they were both nice and friendly and invited me to hang out with them for awhile. So I hung out with them and their friend Ryan and we chatted a bit. They were fascinated by the fact that I was from the Keys. xD When I said so, all three in unison went “O_o Whoa." Around 8:45-ish they insisted I meet their friends who were doing commissions in the exhibition hall, so I went with them and met their friends and hung out a bit more while they got some ramune. (I also spotted a Juudai cosplayer and a friggin RAINBOW DASH in the space of a minute. It was like cosplay jackpot suddenly. I literally went running shouting across the room both times to get a picture.)
At 9:00 their parents were coming to get them and I planned to go upstairs to look for the 9:30 panel room (the hall was closing at 9:00 anyway so they were shooing us out.) So I hugged Jasmine and Jamie good-bye and went upstairs, and could not for the life of me find room 300. Could not. I wandered around in circles for like 15 minutes before realizing Kumajiro wasn’t with me. .____.
So I panicked, rushed back downstairs into the hall even though they were kicking everyone out and tried to retrace my steps. But I still couldn’t find him and was sadly kind of accepting I’d never see him again (and trying to rationalize, like, “Well at least it wasn’t my camera I lost…”) when I hear Jasmine shouting, “CASS! We have your bear!” And she and Jamie were there in the entrance waving Kumajiro at me! =’D So I ran over and glomped them and hugged them like five times. So relieved! I decided I had tested my luck enough for one night (plus I knew Saturday would be a long day and I'd need the rest) so I decided to skip the panel and head to the room. I changed (my binding was seriously starting to bother me by that point. I’ll never understand how girls with big boobs manage it. X_x) into more comfy clothes and got my wig off and went downstairs to find a new place to park my car ‘cause I was worried they’d tow it or something if I left it in reserved parking overnight. Then got back to my room around 9:45 and sat down to have some late dinner.
The shower was no longer leaking, but that was because all the water in the building was shut off earlier that day. =| Apparently a water main broke somewhere. Lolwut. I ended up going to sleep with my make-up still on because of that.
Friday pictures!
Hungary was the first Hetalia cosplayer I saw.
So of course I had to get a picture with her. xD (For those uninitiated to Hetalia, the bear is Kumajiro.) Also, I love the random photobomber. xD
Azula~
This Russia was in our photoshoot on Monday. He was really nice. xD
This guy had Alfred dog tags, so I think he was supposed to be war-era America.
Gir!! <3
No way in hell was I passing up a photo opportunity with Gir. u_u
Tinkerbell! =3
I have absolutely no clue what's going on here, but it looked funny. xD (I'm so mad, I took a picture of the Harley Quinn posing with her giant hammer, but it came out too blurry to save. =( )
Toph. I think this was the same Toph I took a picture of last year. xD
Fancy car. I have no idea why the fancy car was there, but it was cool anyway.
Espeon and Jolteon girls! There was a whole group of Eeveelutions, but I never got them all together. =(
This Hiei and Kurama team were in the costume contest and won a Judge's Choice award. But not for these cosplays, they had other costumes from a different YYH season. They were cool, though, and definitely deserved to win. Plus, the fact that they were obviously a couple combined with the fact that I totally ship Hiei/Kurama made me happy. xD
Like Deka said on her blog, there's always a Captain Jack. xD This guy was nice and funny.
This is a completely common scene to see at a con. |D
Don't give up the rum! D=
Jamie (with blue hair) and Jasmine. x3
This Italy was so cute. He stayed in character the entire time and had this adorable high-pitched voice and would flail around at everything. <3
Juudai!! I think I might have scared the poor Juudai at first because I came skidding up squealing at her. xD;;
Rainbow Dasssshhhhhh!! This girl was really nice, I got to hang out with her backstage before the costume contest (she was Hiccup from HTTYD) and it was her first contest too so we were nervous together. Luckily, she entered the runway contest on Monday and she won Best Cartoon Character for that one! =D I was so excited for her, she was a great Rainbow Dash (like she went running up on stage and did a flying pose and everything) and totally deserved it.
Had to get a picture of Roy, of course.
And DEFINITELY had to get a picture of Mokuba!
I have no idea who this is but I liked her dress, so. xD
And Zuko to round off the evening as I was walking back to the hotel.
Saturday, the day of BUSY!
I wanted to be at the con right when it opened to try and get pre-judging out of the way, so I resolved to wake up early and even left my curtains open slightly so the sun would wake me. That turned out to be unnecessary as I woke up at 6:00. Before six, actually, but I stayed in bed until then. I thought about trying to sleep until seven but six was just as good, and anyway I wanted time to take a shower and wash off my make-up from Friday.
So I got up and, to get myself good and psyched for the long day ahead, made a cup of coffee with the coffee machine. Yeah…admittedly it wasn’t bad, and definitely kept me going, but I was crashing by the evening. xD Also, whoever was next door to my room was snoring REALLY loudly. B| So loud that I could hear it in my room. Thank goodness it was just snoring though, because when I first heard it, it sounded kind of like a moan and I thought maybe they were doing something else rather noisily, which made me make an “OH GOD NO. Dx” face at the prospect of hearing.
At exactly 10:00 I went down to the con right as they opened the doors and had to ask around to find room 300. I swear the upstairs design is different this year, like they added some walls or something. Anyway, found room 300, but I’d signed up for the kanzashi workshop at 11, and had to leave to go to it, where I made a pretty purple kanzashi flower keychain. x3
My kanzashi flower~ (Along with the Hetalia keychain I bought that day.)
That workshop was especially funny because half the group were guys and there they are, folding fabric petals and talking about how pretty their flowers were. xD In the middle of this Deanna (from last year) walked in and I sort of recognized her and was all, “Um, are you Deanna? I met you last year here!” And she was confused and had no clue who I was until I said, “I was the one wearing a trenchcoat and bandages across my chest,” and then she immediately remembered. xD
Right after that was onigiri rice ball lunch, which was nice and filling (and healthy!) I made a tasty rice ball (it had that pickled radish stuff from last year that was good in it) and a random one that had stuff mixed in with the rice, and a not-so-good one. ^^; I hadn’t been aware of how bitter/sour/just plain STRONG the pickled ginger was, so I put some of it inside one of my rice balls…BAD IDEA. VERY BAD. I nearly spit it back out and didn’t touch it again after that. I was pretty full by that point anyway though.
Lunch! the one on the left was the bad one. xD The crunchy things on the place behind it were shrimp and corn crisps. The shrimp crisps were surprisingly good.
After that was pre-judging time. And of course being me I had no idea what to say when it came time to talk to the judges, despite hearing other people’s interviews earlier. So I kind of babbled really quickly and left and then like five minutes later thought of probably ten other things I should have told them. OTL On the plus side, while hanging out in there I spotted Marik and Bakura and had to go running after them for a picture. And even better, got one of them pretending to kidnap Mokuba, which was hilarious. xD
LOOK AT THIS PICTURE. LOOK AT IT. IS IT NOT GLORIOUS?
I left there around 3:30 and went downstairs to catch the tail end of the Invader Zim panel. Then around 4:00-ish Jasmine and Jamie found me and asked me to hang out with them for awhile and I got to meet their little sister. One of the first kids to ever not look at me like a monster. She was all “you look pretty =3” in a cute little kid voice. They were going to the game room, and I was going upstairs anyway to the novel writing panel, so I went up with them. Ryan hung out with me for a little while and seemed very interested in the fact that I want to be a novelist. The panel was nothing particularly new; it was for “aspiring writers” after all, not “people who have been writing awhile and have researched the industry and who are just too lazy/still have too many weaknesses to publish.” Aya Knight was really nice though and I thought she gave pretty good advice, although I wish she’d have been a bit more anti-vanity presses. I get the feeling she was trying to be fair to all methods and didn’t want to talk smack about any of them, but vanity presses are bad news. Ain’t no way to avoid that.
After that panel it was back downstairs to the Cary Elwes panel, which was only a half hour, and then I called Mom. While talking to her who should I spot going inside but my very own boss. ._. So I immediately hid. xD; There was just something uncomfortable about the idea of this world and my work world melding in any way. Luckily he never saw me and apparently left before the costume contest started.
I went back inside and bought a few things and wandered around for awhile killing time until 8:30, when we were supposed to go line up for the costume contest. Around 7:45 I went to the area to make sure I was in the right place and milled around with the others while this guy in a band on stage kept repeating “one, two, hey! One, two, two, two, one, two, HEY!” into the mic. =/ Around 8:00-ish they directed us all to a back room…where we waited. And waited. On one side of me in line was the Hiccup cosplayer and on the other side of me was a Vash who was rather nice. It was fun to get to see all the cosplays up close, but at that point it was really obvious I wouldn’t win anything when compared to all the other talent. Some of those people were fantastic. There were two girls who actually had hooves. Their feet must have been killing them, because it basically meant walking balancing around on their toes, elevated four inches off the ground. Me and Hiccup and Vash and some other guy with a sword were all looking around and going, “Yup, we’re not winning. xD” It wasn’t really heartbreaking though because I mean, it was obvious not everyone could win, and it was pretty fun just to be part of it and to be proud of making my costume at all. There were tons of great cosplayers at the con, but backstage there you knew that everyone had actually made theirs themselves, so you really appreciated their costumes even more. A lot of people told me mine was really cute and that they loved my wig. ^^ And it was awesome hanging out with all the other cosplayers too, because it meant I got to see a lot more of the costumes this year than I did last year.
At 9:30 we were STILL waiting. By this point they had come around with chairs and cold soda because we were all dying. xD Not long after it was time to go out though.
The way it worked was each person walked up on stage as their character name and series was called out. We could do up to three poses, then walk off. I was super nervous and didn’t really have any poses (oh Miiko, why couldn’t you have a convenient prop to pose with? And why is my face so derpy all the time? That’s it, next year I’m going as Aki and I'll be Black Rose Witch Aki so I can just wear a mask and nobody will have to see me. xD), plus it was kind of embarrassing how little applause my entrance got compared to others. xDD;; When you’re a character from a series nobody knows, that tends to happen apparently! It happened to a few other people, (some of whom were playing original characters, and THEY had really epic costumes) too, so it wasn’t just me. So when I walked out I did one pose super duper quick, and then my main one for an actual second or two, and then hurried off.
There was something like 103 entries or so, and I was number 16, so I got to watch most of them, but unfortunately from too far away to take any pictures/video. There were a lot of really good ones, though. The person who got the prop award had made her giant seven-foot boomerang out of a door. And the craftsmanship award winner had these wicked horns and the best in show winner had hand-sewn what must have been a few hundred sparkly jewels and beads to her gown. Then there was one little girl who was uber cute; she couldn’t have been more than five or six, but I can't remember what her character was. OTL She got a huge round of applause though. Little four-year-old Han Solo got a big cheer, too.
It was over around 10:30 and then another half hour was taken for the awards and pictures and everything. So I got back to the room around 11:15-11:30-ish. The shower was still leaking.
Some pictures I took in the room:
Every single picture I took chopped my feet off. D= I'm hoping the photogs at the con got some good full-body ones. I'm still waiting for the website to get their picture galleries up.
Because Miiko is a cat obviously she has no idea what a TV is.
"Fune, where is the person talking inside the box hiding?" DD=
Here's my attempt at an artsy~ scene. I wanted to be Miiko wistfully looking out at the world and waiting for Teruo to return.
The first cosplayer I saw upon walking inside was Greed. I decided this would be a good day. xD
Sailor Scouts! I took this picture for Gina and Emiko. =3 (and anyone else on my f-list who likes Sailor Moon!)
Team Rocket! I have no idea who the random girl is. I kind of stumbled upon the picture being taken and snapped one, too. The James was one of the costume contest judges and he also hosted a wig panel I went to.
More Hetalia people~
Random Vash. This wasn't the Vash I was standing beside in line.
Female Ciel. I meant to get her picture last year and didn't, so I was psyched to see her back again this year.
Keyblades. Whenever they were walking around on the Dealer's room floor and Richard Horvitz was doing a panel, he'd always call out, "Hi Kingdom Hearts people! Everyone say hi to the Kingdom Hearts people~!"
Italy brothers~
Nyan Cat! He actually had a speaker in it that played the music constantly. This guy was really funny. xD
I have no idea who she is, but I love her sword and costume.
Winry~
These were some steampunk guys who were in the costume contest. They were original characters.
Hiccup! She actually made her plushie Toothless, it was so cute. x3
This guy was a shinigami, I think. He had stilts and these big ragged wings and a tail and was all painted up. Pretty impressive on the whole, but the poor guy nearly fell trying to get up the stairs. ^^;
This was one of the hoofed girls. I really thought she should have won. (The other girl got a Judge's Choice, but it didn't seem fair since she had hidden her shoes with fur, so she could actually rest her feet sometimes.) This girl was wearing five-inch stilettos with no heel. ._. They really looked like hooves, too!
Here's the Vash that I was standing beside. He was nice. Also, Vash endorses Coke. xDD
Here are some of the contest winners. (You can see the Kurama there on the left.)
Here's another angle.
Congats to all of them!! Everyone there had amazing costumes, I'm really surprised that the judges could narrow it down at all.
Sunday is the day of rest.
I ended up falling asleep around 2:00 am and didn't wake up until near 9:00. It was okay since the first panel I planned to do wasn’t until 12:00 anyway, (Richard Horvitz Q&A). Apparently the ice machine had had enough though, because I had to go to a different floor to get ice.
I ended up being punk Miiko on this day, because when I got out of bed I literally winced, that’s how bad my feet still hurt from the day before. My boots are roomier and more comfortable so I wore them instead. The effect was rather nice:
I dunno what it is about the combination of a schoolgirl uniform and combat boots though, because I had two different creepers bother me this day and none any of the other days. xDD I have to admit, I see a rather nice visual appeal of the uniform + boots too, but I wouldn't go creeping on anybody. >.<
I was ready to go by 11:15 and headed down, figuring I could do some dealer’s room shopping while I waited. I bought some ramune and candies and caught the tail end of some kind of comic book artist panel. After that was Richard, who I swear is always funny. I love his panels. xD At 1:00 I had nothing else to do so I went to an anime VA Q&A, but it was kind of boring, so I went to the room where the wig panel was going to be at 2:00 and just sat in the hall and got a few people’s pictures while waiting. This was when one of the creepers kept coming by and accusing me of stalking him and I was all, "Lolwut?" I didn't see him again after that though.
The wig panel was really funny. The James cosplayer from before ran it and he was flamboyant and gay and so cute to listen to. <3 I could have listened to him talk all day. xD He really liked big, fierce, bombshell hair and had a lot of tips for how to make wigs thicker that I'll have to keep in mind for the future.
At 3:00 I planned to call Mom, but Deanna showed up and dragged me to a Comic Books for Girls panel, which the name of made me think, “wow, sexist much?” But the nice thing was all four artists in it agreed they didn’t think it was right to market a series as being “for girls” or “for boys” or even for a certain age group, because that’s categorizing and people dislike that. I agreed with that (I know I get irritated at a lot of GLBT lit…I’d add an A but I don’t think much asexual lit exists…because it plays on so many stereotypes and assumptions.) Still, since I don’t know comics I didn’t really know what any of them were talking about, but it was a way to kill time while I waited for the cosplay competition to start at 4:00.
On my way to it Jasmine and Jamie found me again. xD They decided to go with me to watch the skits. There were only eight or so, and since they finished quickly the judges asked people to come up and do some improv. The theme was “worst villain ever.” One guy came up and pretended to be Kaiba. xD I actually got a lot of the improvs on video, which was great. I would have gotten better pictures and maybe video of some of the skits (some were really funny!) but there were these girls in front of me and they kept resting their heads together, which was cute and everything, but I could barely see half the time. =| Plus there was a speaker in the way, baww.
That was over around 5:00. Since the next workshop wasn’t until 5:30 Jasmine, Jamie and I found an unused hallway and I sat down because my feet still hurt despite wearing boots and they goofed around and ran up and down the hall. Then Creeper #2 and his friends showed up and were hitting on us. He was all, "I'm Cowboy Bebop! You know what Cowboy Bebop does when he sees a girl he likes?" *puts his arms around me and Jamie*
Me and Jamie: *horrified looks*
He asked us to come hang out with them and we were all, “um, no.” He was obviously drunk and was all, “you wanna get a drink with us?” Then Jasmine was like, “I’m 14. B|” and they left pretty fast. xD;
At 5:30 it was time for plushie onigiri making! Because of all the work I did on my cosplay I actually had an easier time than most going around the edges when we sewed the onigiri. Sewing on a curve is really hard and an onigiri is pretty much one huge curve. But after all the curves I did with the Miiko jacket I didn’t have too bad of a time with it. Then we put faces on them! One guy actually made the awesome meme face on his entirely in paint. (I'm jealous that I didn't think of that...) I made my faces using felt, because the paint took forever to dry. A lot of us put a face on each side, including me. So I have one laughing side:
And one cute innocent side:
Then some of us put ours all together to create a little scene. They’re all laughing except the one that’s like, “wut, I don’t get it…” (I’m usually that person. xD)
That ended around 7:15 and I decided to go back to the room and relax, because my feet were still mad and I was tired and I want to be well-rested for the drive tomorrow. While typing about the day I was eating pistachios and I reached into the bag and pulled this out:
PISTACHIOCEPTION.
I definitely needed sleep. xD Also, the shower was still leaking.
Gaz. Richard spotted her at the panel and was all, "I see a Gaz in the audience! I'm going to have a staring contest with her!" xD
I adopted a Misty while I was there. xD I was just walking down the hall when this group walked by and said, "Hey, do you want to adopt a Misty?"
Me: "Um, sure?"
So they handed me her leash and walked away! xDD She seemed worried, so I ran back with her to the group and gave her back, but not before I got a picture. xD
This was crossplayer-Rainbow Dash. He was cool too, though. After I took the picture he said, "Now you're 20% cooler for having that picture! =D"
Chibi!Germany. I cannot deal.
Aki!
This was the Randomosity team at the cosplay contest. Basically they all jumped on stage and just acted random and danced and were crazy. xD They ended up winning Audience's Choice.
This was another really funny skit where Sora found a Barbie and got all excited and brought her home, except that she wasn't a Barbie, she was a real person, and Sora's mom had to save her. xD
No clue who he is, but again, I liked his cosplay. Purple~ x3
Some people in the walkway outside. No idea who they are, either.
Monday, the day of random!
The con didn’t open until 11:00 this day, so I got to sleep in again, but not too much, because I had to take time to trek all my things down to my car. I could have gone down and asked for a bellhop to take them out, but I actually get kind of uncomfortable about them doing things for me. >.> I’d rather just take the cart, load it myself, push it myself, and conduct my business and return it. At a “fancy” hotel (I say “fancy” because despite the use of bellhops for everyone and a friggin flat-screen TV in my room, they never did fix the leaking shower.) they want to do everything for you. So if you ask for a cart, they come with you and insist on loading and unloading it, which is nice I guess, but it makes me feel really awkward.
So anyway, I just carried my things down to my car in three trips without a cart, returned to my room to get ready, and headed out at 11:00 exactly (because I wanted to do a panel at 11:00.) Only to get to the convention center and find the doors still closed, because apparently all of the vendors woke up late. xD
They let us in around 11:15 though, and I went straight upstairs to a Japanese verbs panel, which was pretty fun. At one point we were each given a verb and asked to say either the “I do this,” “I never do this,” “I have done this in the past,” and “I have never done this in the past” versions of the verb. And it was hilarious because I got the verb shinu (to die) as mine for the “I have done this in the past” version and everyone cracked up laughing when the teacher was all, “I’m sorry to hear that, Canada. =(” So the greatest thing is that when I say I did a panel on learning Japanese and everyone says, “Ooh, say something you learned!”, all I can remember how to say is “I died yesterday.” xDDD
I left there around 12:15 and went downstairs to buy pocky and ramune to bring home with me. From there I didn’t really have anything to do because the last panel I planned on doing (it was a panel about cosplay contests) wasn’t until 2:00. But then I found out the impromptu Runway cosplay contest was happening at 1:00, and if I hurried I’d actually get a seat close enough to the stage to get good pictures! So I went to that. A girl and guy who were at the Japanese verbs panel came by and asked me to take pictures of them when it was their turn on stage, which I was happy to do. ^^ This was a really fun little contest because it was really informal. They played Lady Gaga songs for the runway music and people really got into it. Like I said, Rainbow Dash won an award, which was awesome. And the adorable little girl from the contest on Saturday (whose character I still can’t remember, but I think she’s from a CLAMP series) won for best junior. She got a lot of applause and you could hear people all over the crowd going, “OMGSOCUTE.” I mean, look at her!
So adorable. xD If my friends ever have kids, their nice Auntie Chey is going to make them cosplays and take them to cons. >3
After that it was 1:30-ish so I decided to go upstairs and hang out in the panel room, because they were doing a history of Pokemon panel in there until 2:00 and I figured that wouldn’t be too bad to listen to. But that plan got derailed when I was halfway there and some other Hetalia cosplayers spotted me (England and fem!Italy, plus a photographer who I think was dressed as Japan) and came running down the hall toward me and England was shouting, “MY SON!” And I sort of jogged (I was carrying a lot of heavy things okay OTL) toward them shouting, “DADDY!” And then invited me to be their Canada in a Hetalia photoshoot they were about to have. And how often do you get invited to be part of a photoshoot, right? So I immediately discarded my previous plans to hang out with them. x3
The photoshoot didn’t start for another hour because people kept showing up and leaving, but I had fun hanging out with a Seychelles and hipster!America while we waited. xD
We took a bunch of pictures of different groups/pairings, and then around 3:30 were finished, and I decided to hit the road. I actually managed to get on the right highway this time, but then I got really confused about what exit I was supposed to take. I was on 836, and I was supposed to take some exit on the left toward Coral Way and somehow that would get me to the Turnpike, but I think I missed the exit because it would have required me to get across like five lanes of traffic and that wasn’t happening. So I had a moment of panic, but then I saw a sign for the South Turnpike and, just sort of winging it and having no clue where I was, I just kept following the South Turnpike signs and all of a sudden I see a sign saying, “836 ending, South Turnpike begins.” So…even though I have no clue HOW I got there, I managed to get on the right road after all. xD The nice thing about living in the Keys is that if you keep going south, no matter how lost you get you’ll hit the Keys eventually.
I made it to Florida City around 4:15 and was going to stop at Burger King for an early dinner because all I’d eaten that day was pocky, when I saw that Long John Silver’s had reopened! They were closed last year, I think from a fire or hurricane or something. So I was really excited about that and got to get my favorite popcorn shrimp and hush puppies basket. <3 Then it was back on the road and was home by 6:30. ^^
Pictures from the last day, including the photoshoot!
That France was in our photoshoot later. And I met the girl with the staff on my first day there and she was all, "Canada! I want a hug from Canada!"
These were the two from the Japanese panel who asked me to get their pictures on stage.
That Sora was from the cosplay contest. Also, at one point she put on the Nyan Cat costume and became Sora!Nyan Cat and had a whole parade through the Dealer's room. xD
Sailor...Neptune? I think? Sailor Moon fans, would you like to educate me? xD
Revolutionary War America defeating England. They were kind of snobs though who refused to come to our photoshoot. :<
Rainbow Dash~
Here were the winners. The girl in the red and white was "Dat Flag" from the USA. xD She won Most Patriotic, of course.
Waiting for the photoshoot, here is Canada and his brother America. x3 (Gah, my ahoge looks so weird when you see it straight on like that. xD) When we took this picture again with America's phone, America gave me bunny ears in it. ^^;
Regular America and Hipster!America decide to beat up on Russia. xD
England and his sons. They grow up so fast. ^^;
France and England having a tiff again.
"You wanna bring it? Do ya? DO YA?"
And then France tried to kiss me. xDD
France and Seychelles~
Apparently someone shipped this, because people kept asking us to make sure we got a picture of it. xD
Brothers~!
And then we all managed to derp in unison. xDDDD
Russia on a stick. xD As if this series wasn't slashy enough.
Spain and England.
Father and son~
It was Russia's day to get beaten up by twins. Here's fem!France and regular France.
I love how this picture got my ahoge at just the right angle. x3
France and two fem!Italys. (Italies? What is the proper plural of Italy? xD)
Russia and England not getting along so well. xD
The Allied Powers! I got to take China's place. xD
And lastly, my autographs from Rikki (Gir) and Melissa (Gaz):
And some more con swag:
I had to hold Riza up since she's just a phone charm and couldn't stand up on her own. I was so excited that a booth had one-coin figure Yugi. =D I was disappointed that they didn't have a Yami, though. Ideally I'd like the entire set -- even if their eyes kind of scare me -- but I'll take the Puzzleshippy twins only. xD Perhaps I'll get Yugi a Yami someday.
That is all! It was a really fun con. x3 I'm already plotting cosplays for next year and I think I definitely want to enter the costume contest again, because it was cool. ^^
I posted probably about 90% of the pictures I took, but if you want to see them all they're here: http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c240/Aibou163/cosplay/FL%20supercon%202011/ Also, once the con website gets the pictures up I'll see if I can find any of me on there and probably will do a cosplay post on my muse journal.
Now I must resume catching up on everything I missed over the weekend. ^^; Also I haven't proofread this very well so I apologize in advance for any typos. I hope they're funny ones if there are any. xD
We only just got the internet back a few hours ago. So now, after re-catching up on everything, here I am at last to do the con post that was supposed to have been done on Saturday. I thought about just posting some pictures and linking the rest, but I wanted to write commentary with every one. I tried to make the commentary interesting to make it worth it. =w=
WARNING: Lots of words and pictures and more words under here. Literally in Word the text alone was nine pages long. So if you intend to read the whole thing make sure you have an hour or so free. xD Or you can just skim and look at the pictures, that's okay too. x3
Friday: The day in which I did neither of my planned things. xD
I deliberately saved a bunch of stuff to do for the morning (packing, showering, ironing and food shopping) so that I wouldn’t get too antsy, but I was still pretty much finished and ready to go by noon. xD The internet kept me busy until it was time to leave without me having to resort to running laps, luckily.
Left home pretty much at exactly 1:30 and didn’t have too bad of a time going up. There was a wreck at one place, but it was mostly cleaned up by the time I came through, so only minimal delays. The turnpike always scares me, but this time I knew which side of it that I needed to be on, and my only real mishap was turning onto the road that the hotel is on. Once again I was in the wrong lane and had to cut across two lanes really fast to make it to the turn lane. I accidentally kind of cut off the van behind me who was probably all “WTF?!” at me and I was going, “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!!” but of course he couldn’t hear me. ^^; That was the only incident though. I saw a really bad wreck on the other side of the turnpike going up, so I’m just grateful not to have had anything like that happen.
Also a little white car very dangerously passed me and some other people (despite us all going five miles over the speed limit anyway) on Card Sound Road. Then about ten minutes later we came across that same car pulled over on the side of the road by the police. >D
Reached the hotel pretty much at 4:00, which is what I was aiming for. I was thinking about going to a cosplay 101 panel at 5:00, but I had a hell of a time finding a parking space (I ended up parking in a reserved area that they had opened up to the public for the day since so many people were there for the con.) and then I got to my room (I made a really good call remembering to tip this time. The bellhop guy was so nice and was all, “oh God bless you,” when I gave him the money. It made me feel really good. =3) and found that the shower was leaking. Badly enough that it was pretty audible and was a good steady stream. So I called Mom to tell her I made it up okay and then went down to the lobby to report the leak. (By now quite positive that I wouldn’t make it to the 5:00 panel, but that was okay. It was kind of a whim anyway.)
There was this really rude lady in line. She was standing behind me sighing and glaring at the counter people (who I felt so sorry for, they were completely overwhelmed. Tons of people were checking in and apparently a lot of people were having problems or something. I tried extra hard to be nice to them.) and then she moved up BESIDE me, and I was like, “>.> Um, this is a line…” And THEN she just steps in front of me when the person in front of me moved and completely obviously cut in line. All because she wanted an extra receipt for her room or something. Such a rude person. >( Anyway, I reported the leak and went back upstairs (My room was on the 7th floor.) to get ready!
I headed out near six-ish, but as soon as I got to the convention center and got my wristband I realized I had forgotten my phone in the room. My phone is basically my clock while I’m here. So with a -_- face I made the trek all the way back to the room, and by then I was sweating and having heatstroke. (It’s 90+ outside and I was wearing binding, an undershirt and a fleece-lined hoodie. Yeah.) It ended up being a good move though, because I decided to just not wear an undershirt, and also was able to change my wig cap. I’d brought two and the one I was wearing was so loose, it was already coming off. So I switched them, and the other one didn’t come loose all evening. ^^
So then I went back down and wandered around for a little while. Took pics, perused merch and bought a couple things. (Riza key charm and an America figurine.) I got an autograph from Rikki Simmons (VA for Gir) and also a random signed character card from a woman named Aya Knight who was hosting a novel panel that I planned to attend on Saturday. I was just walking by when she asked if I wanted one so I said sure, and then I recognized her name and asked if she was hosting the novel panel. She got all excited to hear that I want to be a novelist and that I was planning on coming to her panel, it was so cute. ^^
And people recognized me, it was so nice. I kept hearing people call “Hey Canada!” And I got lots of hugs. x3 I stopped by Wonderland Creations to sign up for their panels (I got the last plushie Onigiri spot!) and then went back upstairs to wander some more. (There was a better chance of getting good cosplayer pictures upstairs.) I was planning to go to another panel hosted by Rikki at 9:30, so I had two more hours to kill at this point when I walked by a mostly empty room and the girl inside (who I think was supposed to be a vocaloid character) was asking people if they wanted to come in and learn to K-pop dance with her and some other people.
Normal Chey would have been all shy and insecure and said no. But I was Con!Chey, so of course I said yes! =D
It was two sisters, Jamie and Jasmine (who went by Blue for some reason) and they were just inviting people to randomly come in and learn dance moves. xD So they tried to teach me and another girl some. I’m sure I looked so derpy, but they were both nice and friendly and invited me to hang out with them for awhile. So I hung out with them and their friend Ryan and we chatted a bit. They were fascinated by the fact that I was from the Keys. xD When I said so, all three in unison went “O_o Whoa." Around 8:45-ish they insisted I meet their friends who were doing commissions in the exhibition hall, so I went with them and met their friends and hung out a bit more while they got some ramune. (I also spotted a Juudai cosplayer and a friggin RAINBOW DASH in the space of a minute. It was like cosplay jackpot suddenly. I literally went running shouting across the room both times to get a picture.)
At 9:00 their parents were coming to get them and I planned to go upstairs to look for the 9:30 panel room (the hall was closing at 9:00 anyway so they were shooing us out.) So I hugged Jasmine and Jamie good-bye and went upstairs, and could not for the life of me find room 300. Could not. I wandered around in circles for like 15 minutes before realizing Kumajiro wasn’t with me. .____.
So I panicked, rushed back downstairs into the hall even though they were kicking everyone out and tried to retrace my steps. But I still couldn’t find him and was sadly kind of accepting I’d never see him again (and trying to rationalize, like, “Well at least it wasn’t my camera I lost…”) when I hear Jasmine shouting, “CASS! We have your bear!” And she and Jamie were there in the entrance waving Kumajiro at me! =’D So I ran over and glomped them and hugged them like five times. So relieved! I decided I had tested my luck enough for one night (plus I knew Saturday would be a long day and I'd need the rest) so I decided to skip the panel and head to the room. I changed (my binding was seriously starting to bother me by that point. I’ll never understand how girls with big boobs manage it. X_x) into more comfy clothes and got my wig off and went downstairs to find a new place to park my car ‘cause I was worried they’d tow it or something if I left it in reserved parking overnight. Then got back to my room around 9:45 and sat down to have some late dinner.
The shower was no longer leaking, but that was because all the water in the building was shut off earlier that day. =| Apparently a water main broke somewhere. Lolwut. I ended up going to sleep with my make-up still on because of that.
Friday pictures!
Hungary was the first Hetalia cosplayer I saw.
So of course I had to get a picture with her. xD (For those uninitiated to Hetalia, the bear is Kumajiro.) Also, I love the random photobomber. xD
Azula~
This Russia was in our photoshoot on Monday. He was really nice. xD
This guy had Alfred dog tags, so I think he was supposed to be war-era America.
Gir!! <3
No way in hell was I passing up a photo opportunity with Gir. u_u
Tinkerbell! =3
I have absolutely no clue what's going on here, but it looked funny. xD (I'm so mad, I took a picture of the Harley Quinn posing with her giant hammer, but it came out too blurry to save. =( )
Toph. I think this was the same Toph I took a picture of last year. xD
Fancy car. I have no idea why the fancy car was there, but it was cool anyway.
Espeon and Jolteon girls! There was a whole group of Eeveelutions, but I never got them all together. =(
This Hiei and Kurama team were in the costume contest and won a Judge's Choice award. But not for these cosplays, they had other costumes from a different YYH season. They were cool, though, and definitely deserved to win. Plus, the fact that they were obviously a couple combined with the fact that I totally ship Hiei/Kurama made me happy. xD
Like Deka said on her blog, there's always a Captain Jack. xD This guy was nice and funny.
This is a completely common scene to see at a con. |D
Don't give up the rum! D=
Jamie (with blue hair) and Jasmine. x3
This Italy was so cute. He stayed in character the entire time and had this adorable high-pitched voice and would flail around at everything. <3
Juudai!! I think I might have scared the poor Juudai at first because I came skidding up squealing at her. xD;;
Rainbow Dasssshhhhhh!! This girl was really nice, I got to hang out with her backstage before the costume contest (she was Hiccup from HTTYD) and it was her first contest too so we were nervous together. Luckily, she entered the runway contest on Monday and she won Best Cartoon Character for that one! =D I was so excited for her, she was a great Rainbow Dash (like she went running up on stage and did a flying pose and everything) and totally deserved it.
Had to get a picture of Roy, of course.
And DEFINITELY had to get a picture of Mokuba!
I have no idea who this is but I liked her dress, so. xD
And Zuko to round off the evening as I was walking back to the hotel.
Saturday, the day of BUSY!
I wanted to be at the con right when it opened to try and get pre-judging out of the way, so I resolved to wake up early and even left my curtains open slightly so the sun would wake me. That turned out to be unnecessary as I woke up at 6:00. Before six, actually, but I stayed in bed until then. I thought about trying to sleep until seven but six was just as good, and anyway I wanted time to take a shower and wash off my make-up from Friday.
So I got up and, to get myself good and psyched for the long day ahead, made a cup of coffee with the coffee machine. Yeah…admittedly it wasn’t bad, and definitely kept me going, but I was crashing by the evening. xD Also, whoever was next door to my room was snoring REALLY loudly. B| So loud that I could hear it in my room. Thank goodness it was just snoring though, because when I first heard it, it sounded kind of like a moan and I thought maybe they were doing something else rather noisily, which made me make an “OH GOD NO. Dx” face at the prospect of hearing.
At exactly 10:00 I went down to the con right as they opened the doors and had to ask around to find room 300. I swear the upstairs design is different this year, like they added some walls or something. Anyway, found room 300, but I’d signed up for the kanzashi workshop at 11, and had to leave to go to it, where I made a pretty purple kanzashi flower keychain. x3
My kanzashi flower~ (Along with the Hetalia keychain I bought that day.)
That workshop was especially funny because half the group were guys and there they are, folding fabric petals and talking about how pretty their flowers were. xD In the middle of this Deanna (from last year) walked in and I sort of recognized her and was all, “Um, are you Deanna? I met you last year here!” And she was confused and had no clue who I was until I said, “I was the one wearing a trenchcoat and bandages across my chest,” and then she immediately remembered. xD
Right after that was onigiri rice ball lunch, which was nice and filling (and healthy!) I made a tasty rice ball (it had that pickled radish stuff from last year that was good in it) and a random one that had stuff mixed in with the rice, and a not-so-good one. ^^; I hadn’t been aware of how bitter/sour/just plain STRONG the pickled ginger was, so I put some of it inside one of my rice balls…BAD IDEA. VERY BAD. I nearly spit it back out and didn’t touch it again after that. I was pretty full by that point anyway though.
Lunch! the one on the left was the bad one. xD The crunchy things on the place behind it were shrimp and corn crisps. The shrimp crisps were surprisingly good.
After that was pre-judging time. And of course being me I had no idea what to say when it came time to talk to the judges, despite hearing other people’s interviews earlier. So I kind of babbled really quickly and left and then like five minutes later thought of probably ten other things I should have told them. OTL On the plus side, while hanging out in there I spotted Marik and Bakura and had to go running after them for a picture. And even better, got one of them pretending to kidnap Mokuba, which was hilarious. xD
LOOK AT THIS PICTURE. LOOK AT IT. IS IT NOT GLORIOUS?
I left there around 3:30 and went downstairs to catch the tail end of the Invader Zim panel. Then around 4:00-ish Jasmine and Jamie found me and asked me to hang out with them for awhile and I got to meet their little sister. One of the first kids to ever not look at me like a monster. She was all “you look pretty =3” in a cute little kid voice. They were going to the game room, and I was going upstairs anyway to the novel writing panel, so I went up with them. Ryan hung out with me for a little while and seemed very interested in the fact that I want to be a novelist. The panel was nothing particularly new; it was for “aspiring writers” after all, not “people who have been writing awhile and have researched the industry and who are just too lazy/still have too many weaknesses to publish.” Aya Knight was really nice though and I thought she gave pretty good advice, although I wish she’d have been a bit more anti-vanity presses. I get the feeling she was trying to be fair to all methods and didn’t want to talk smack about any of them, but vanity presses are bad news. Ain’t no way to avoid that.
After that panel it was back downstairs to the Cary Elwes panel, which was only a half hour, and then I called Mom. While talking to her who should I spot going inside but my very own boss. ._. So I immediately hid. xD; There was just something uncomfortable about the idea of this world and my work world melding in any way. Luckily he never saw me and apparently left before the costume contest started.
I went back inside and bought a few things and wandered around for awhile killing time until 8:30, when we were supposed to go line up for the costume contest. Around 7:45 I went to the area to make sure I was in the right place and milled around with the others while this guy in a band on stage kept repeating “one, two, hey! One, two, two, two, one, two, HEY!” into the mic. =/ Around 8:00-ish they directed us all to a back room…where we waited. And waited. On one side of me in line was the Hiccup cosplayer and on the other side of me was a Vash who was rather nice. It was fun to get to see all the cosplays up close, but at that point it was really obvious I wouldn’t win anything when compared to all the other talent. Some of those people were fantastic. There were two girls who actually had hooves. Their feet must have been killing them, because it basically meant walking balancing around on their toes, elevated four inches off the ground. Me and Hiccup and Vash and some other guy with a sword were all looking around and going, “Yup, we’re not winning. xD” It wasn’t really heartbreaking though because I mean, it was obvious not everyone could win, and it was pretty fun just to be part of it and to be proud of making my costume at all. There were tons of great cosplayers at the con, but backstage there you knew that everyone had actually made theirs themselves, so you really appreciated their costumes even more. A lot of people told me mine was really cute and that they loved my wig. ^^ And it was awesome hanging out with all the other cosplayers too, because it meant I got to see a lot more of the costumes this year than I did last year.
At 9:30 we were STILL waiting. By this point they had come around with chairs and cold soda because we were all dying. xD Not long after it was time to go out though.
The way it worked was each person walked up on stage as their character name and series was called out. We could do up to three poses, then walk off. I was super nervous and didn’t really have any poses (oh Miiko, why couldn’t you have a convenient prop to pose with? And why is my face so derpy all the time? That’s it, next year I’m going as Aki and I'll be Black Rose Witch Aki so I can just wear a mask and nobody will have to see me. xD), plus it was kind of embarrassing how little applause my entrance got compared to others. xDD;; When you’re a character from a series nobody knows, that tends to happen apparently! It happened to a few other people, (some of whom were playing original characters, and THEY had really epic costumes) too, so it wasn’t just me. So when I walked out I did one pose super duper quick, and then my main one for an actual second or two, and then hurried off.
There was something like 103 entries or so, and I was number 16, so I got to watch most of them, but unfortunately from too far away to take any pictures/video. There were a lot of really good ones, though. The person who got the prop award had made her giant seven-foot boomerang out of a door. And the craftsmanship award winner had these wicked horns and the best in show winner had hand-sewn what must have been a few hundred sparkly jewels and beads to her gown. Then there was one little girl who was uber cute; she couldn’t have been more than five or six, but I can't remember what her character was. OTL She got a huge round of applause though. Little four-year-old Han Solo got a big cheer, too.
It was over around 10:30 and then another half hour was taken for the awards and pictures and everything. So I got back to the room around 11:15-11:30-ish. The shower was still leaking.
Some pictures I took in the room:
Every single picture I took chopped my feet off. D= I'm hoping the photogs at the con got some good full-body ones. I'm still waiting for the website to get their picture galleries up.
Because Miiko is a cat obviously she has no idea what a TV is.
"Fune, where is the person talking inside the box hiding?" DD=
Here's my attempt at an artsy~ scene. I wanted to be Miiko wistfully looking out at the world and waiting for Teruo to return.
The first cosplayer I saw upon walking inside was Greed. I decided this would be a good day. xD
Sailor Scouts! I took this picture for Gina and Emiko. =3 (and anyone else on my f-list who likes Sailor Moon!)
Team Rocket! I have no idea who the random girl is. I kind of stumbled upon the picture being taken and snapped one, too. The James was one of the costume contest judges and he also hosted a wig panel I went to.
More Hetalia people~
Random Vash. This wasn't the Vash I was standing beside in line.
Female Ciel. I meant to get her picture last year and didn't, so I was psyched to see her back again this year.
Keyblades. Whenever they were walking around on the Dealer's room floor and Richard Horvitz was doing a panel, he'd always call out, "Hi Kingdom Hearts people! Everyone say hi to the Kingdom Hearts people~!"
Italy brothers~
Nyan Cat! He actually had a speaker in it that played the music constantly. This guy was really funny. xD
I have no idea who she is, but I love her sword and costume.
Winry~
These were some steampunk guys who were in the costume contest. They were original characters.
Hiccup! She actually made her plushie Toothless, it was so cute. x3
This guy was a shinigami, I think. He had stilts and these big ragged wings and a tail and was all painted up. Pretty impressive on the whole, but the poor guy nearly fell trying to get up the stairs. ^^;
This was one of the hoofed girls. I really thought she should have won. (The other girl got a Judge's Choice, but it didn't seem fair since she had hidden her shoes with fur, so she could actually rest her feet sometimes.) This girl was wearing five-inch stilettos with no heel. ._. They really looked like hooves, too!
Here's the Vash that I was standing beside. He was nice. Also, Vash endorses Coke. xDD
Here are some of the contest winners. (You can see the Kurama there on the left.)
Here's another angle.
Congats to all of them!! Everyone there had amazing costumes, I'm really surprised that the judges could narrow it down at all.
Sunday is the day of rest.
I ended up falling asleep around 2:00 am and didn't wake up until near 9:00. It was okay since the first panel I planned to do wasn’t until 12:00 anyway, (Richard Horvitz Q&A). Apparently the ice machine had had enough though, because I had to go to a different floor to get ice.
I ended up being punk Miiko on this day, because when I got out of bed I literally winced, that’s how bad my feet still hurt from the day before. My boots are roomier and more comfortable so I wore them instead. The effect was rather nice:
I dunno what it is about the combination of a schoolgirl uniform and combat boots though, because I had two different creepers bother me this day and none any of the other days. xDD I have to admit, I see a rather nice visual appeal of the uniform + boots too, but I wouldn't go creeping on anybody. >.<
I was ready to go by 11:15 and headed down, figuring I could do some dealer’s room shopping while I waited. I bought some ramune and candies and caught the tail end of some kind of comic book artist panel. After that was Richard, who I swear is always funny. I love his panels. xD At 1:00 I had nothing else to do so I went to an anime VA Q&A, but it was kind of boring, so I went to the room where the wig panel was going to be at 2:00 and just sat in the hall and got a few people’s pictures while waiting. This was when one of the creepers kept coming by and accusing me of stalking him and I was all, "Lolwut?" I didn't see him again after that though.
The wig panel was really funny. The James cosplayer from before ran it and he was flamboyant and gay and so cute to listen to. <3 I could have listened to him talk all day. xD He really liked big, fierce, bombshell hair and had a lot of tips for how to make wigs thicker that I'll have to keep in mind for the future.
At 3:00 I planned to call Mom, but Deanna showed up and dragged me to a Comic Books for Girls panel, which the name of made me think, “wow, sexist much?” But the nice thing was all four artists in it agreed they didn’t think it was right to market a series as being “for girls” or “for boys” or even for a certain age group, because that’s categorizing and people dislike that. I agreed with that (I know I get irritated at a lot of GLBT lit…I’d add an A but I don’t think much asexual lit exists…because it plays on so many stereotypes and assumptions.) Still, since I don’t know comics I didn’t really know what any of them were talking about, but it was a way to kill time while I waited for the cosplay competition to start at 4:00.
On my way to it Jasmine and Jamie found me again. xD They decided to go with me to watch the skits. There were only eight or so, and since they finished quickly the judges asked people to come up and do some improv. The theme was “worst villain ever.” One guy came up and pretended to be Kaiba. xD I actually got a lot of the improvs on video, which was great. I would have gotten better pictures and maybe video of some of the skits (some were really funny!) but there were these girls in front of me and they kept resting their heads together, which was cute and everything, but I could barely see half the time. =| Plus there was a speaker in the way, baww.
That was over around 5:00. Since the next workshop wasn’t until 5:30 Jasmine, Jamie and I found an unused hallway and I sat down because my feet still hurt despite wearing boots and they goofed around and ran up and down the hall. Then Creeper #2 and his friends showed up and were hitting on us. He was all, "I'm Cowboy Bebop! You know what Cowboy Bebop does when he sees a girl he likes?" *puts his arms around me and Jamie*
Me and Jamie: *horrified looks*
He asked us to come hang out with them and we were all, “um, no.” He was obviously drunk and was all, “you wanna get a drink with us?” Then Jasmine was like, “I’m 14. B|” and they left pretty fast. xD;
At 5:30 it was time for plushie onigiri making! Because of all the work I did on my cosplay I actually had an easier time than most going around the edges when we sewed the onigiri. Sewing on a curve is really hard and an onigiri is pretty much one huge curve. But after all the curves I did with the Miiko jacket I didn’t have too bad of a time with it. Then we put faces on them! One guy actually made the awesome meme face on his entirely in paint. (I'm jealous that I didn't think of that...) I made my faces using felt, because the paint took forever to dry. A lot of us put a face on each side, including me. So I have one laughing side:
And one cute innocent side:
Then some of us put ours all together to create a little scene. They’re all laughing except the one that’s like, “wut, I don’t get it…” (I’m usually that person. xD)
That ended around 7:15 and I decided to go back to the room and relax, because my feet were still mad and I was tired and I want to be well-rested for the drive tomorrow. While typing about the day I was eating pistachios and I reached into the bag and pulled this out:
PISTACHIOCEPTION.
I definitely needed sleep. xD Also, the shower was still leaking.
Gaz. Richard spotted her at the panel and was all, "I see a Gaz in the audience! I'm going to have a staring contest with her!" xD
I adopted a Misty while I was there. xD I was just walking down the hall when this group walked by and said, "Hey, do you want to adopt a Misty?"
Me: "Um, sure?"
So they handed me her leash and walked away! xDD She seemed worried, so I ran back with her to the group and gave her back, but not before I got a picture. xD
This was crossplayer-Rainbow Dash. He was cool too, though. After I took the picture he said, "Now you're 20% cooler for having that picture! =D"
Chibi!Germany. I cannot deal.
Aki!
This was the Randomosity team at the cosplay contest. Basically they all jumped on stage and just acted random and danced and were crazy. xD They ended up winning Audience's Choice.
This was another really funny skit where Sora found a Barbie and got all excited and brought her home, except that she wasn't a Barbie, she was a real person, and Sora's mom had to save her. xD
No clue who he is, but again, I liked his cosplay. Purple~ x3
Some people in the walkway outside. No idea who they are, either.
Monday, the day of random!
The con didn’t open until 11:00 this day, so I got to sleep in again, but not too much, because I had to take time to trek all my things down to my car. I could have gone down and asked for a bellhop to take them out, but I actually get kind of uncomfortable about them doing things for me. >.> I’d rather just take the cart, load it myself, push it myself, and conduct my business and return it. At a “fancy” hotel (I say “fancy” because despite the use of bellhops for everyone and a friggin flat-screen TV in my room, they never did fix the leaking shower.) they want to do everything for you. So if you ask for a cart, they come with you and insist on loading and unloading it, which is nice I guess, but it makes me feel really awkward.
So anyway, I just carried my things down to my car in three trips without a cart, returned to my room to get ready, and headed out at 11:00 exactly (because I wanted to do a panel at 11:00.) Only to get to the convention center and find the doors still closed, because apparently all of the vendors woke up late. xD
They let us in around 11:15 though, and I went straight upstairs to a Japanese verbs panel, which was pretty fun. At one point we were each given a verb and asked to say either the “I do this,” “I never do this,” “I have done this in the past,” and “I have never done this in the past” versions of the verb. And it was hilarious because I got the verb shinu (to die) as mine for the “I have done this in the past” version and everyone cracked up laughing when the teacher was all, “I’m sorry to hear that, Canada. =(” So the greatest thing is that when I say I did a panel on learning Japanese and everyone says, “Ooh, say something you learned!”, all I can remember how to say is “I died yesterday.” xDDD
I left there around 12:15 and went downstairs to buy pocky and ramune to bring home with me. From there I didn’t really have anything to do because the last panel I planned on doing (it was a panel about cosplay contests) wasn’t until 2:00. But then I found out the impromptu Runway cosplay contest was happening at 1:00, and if I hurried I’d actually get a seat close enough to the stage to get good pictures! So I went to that. A girl and guy who were at the Japanese verbs panel came by and asked me to take pictures of them when it was their turn on stage, which I was happy to do. ^^ This was a really fun little contest because it was really informal. They played Lady Gaga songs for the runway music and people really got into it. Like I said, Rainbow Dash won an award, which was awesome. And the adorable little girl from the contest on Saturday (whose character I still can’t remember, but I think she’s from a CLAMP series) won for best junior. She got a lot of applause and you could hear people all over the crowd going, “OMGSOCUTE.” I mean, look at her!
So adorable. xD If my friends ever have kids, their nice Auntie Chey is going to make them cosplays and take them to cons. >3
After that it was 1:30-ish so I decided to go upstairs and hang out in the panel room, because they were doing a history of Pokemon panel in there until 2:00 and I figured that wouldn’t be too bad to listen to. But that plan got derailed when I was halfway there and some other Hetalia cosplayers spotted me (England and fem!Italy, plus a photographer who I think was dressed as Japan) and came running down the hall toward me and England was shouting, “MY SON!” And I sort of jogged (I was carrying a lot of heavy things okay OTL) toward them shouting, “DADDY!” And then invited me to be their Canada in a Hetalia photoshoot they were about to have. And how often do you get invited to be part of a photoshoot, right? So I immediately discarded my previous plans to hang out with them. x3
The photoshoot didn’t start for another hour because people kept showing up and leaving, but I had fun hanging out with a Seychelles and hipster!America while we waited. xD
We took a bunch of pictures of different groups/pairings, and then around 3:30 were finished, and I decided to hit the road. I actually managed to get on the right highway this time, but then I got really confused about what exit I was supposed to take. I was on 836, and I was supposed to take some exit on the left toward Coral Way and somehow that would get me to the Turnpike, but I think I missed the exit because it would have required me to get across like five lanes of traffic and that wasn’t happening. So I had a moment of panic, but then I saw a sign for the South Turnpike and, just sort of winging it and having no clue where I was, I just kept following the South Turnpike signs and all of a sudden I see a sign saying, “836 ending, South Turnpike begins.” So…even though I have no clue HOW I got there, I managed to get on the right road after all. xD The nice thing about living in the Keys is that if you keep going south, no matter how lost you get you’ll hit the Keys eventually.
I made it to Florida City around 4:15 and was going to stop at Burger King for an early dinner because all I’d eaten that day was pocky, when I saw that Long John Silver’s had reopened! They were closed last year, I think from a fire or hurricane or something. So I was really excited about that and got to get my favorite popcorn shrimp and hush puppies basket. <3 Then it was back on the road and was home by 6:30. ^^
Pictures from the last day, including the photoshoot!
That France was in our photoshoot later. And I met the girl with the staff on my first day there and she was all, "Canada! I want a hug from Canada!"
These were the two from the Japanese panel who asked me to get their pictures on stage.
That Sora was from the cosplay contest. Also, at one point she put on the Nyan Cat costume and became Sora!Nyan Cat and had a whole parade through the Dealer's room. xD
Sailor...Neptune? I think? Sailor Moon fans, would you like to educate me? xD
Revolutionary War America defeating England. They were kind of snobs though who refused to come to our photoshoot. :<
Rainbow Dash~
Here were the winners. The girl in the red and white was "Dat Flag" from the USA. xD She won Most Patriotic, of course.
Waiting for the photoshoot, here is Canada and his brother America. x3 (Gah, my ahoge looks so weird when you see it straight on like that. xD) When we took this picture again with America's phone, America gave me bunny ears in it. ^^;
Regular America and Hipster!America decide to beat up on Russia. xD
England and his sons. They grow up so fast. ^^;
France and England having a tiff again.
"You wanna bring it? Do ya? DO YA?"
And then France tried to kiss me. xDD
France and Seychelles~
Apparently someone shipped this, because people kept asking us to make sure we got a picture of it. xD
Brothers~!
And then we all managed to derp in unison. xDDDD
Russia on a stick. xD As if this series wasn't slashy enough.
Spain and England.
Father and son~
It was Russia's day to get beaten up by twins. Here's fem!France and regular France.
I love how this picture got my ahoge at just the right angle. x3
France and two fem!Italys. (Italies? What is the proper plural of Italy? xD)
Russia and England not getting along so well. xD
The Allied Powers! I got to take China's place. xD
And lastly, my autographs from Rikki (Gir) and Melissa (Gaz):
And some more con swag:
I had to hold Riza up since she's just a phone charm and couldn't stand up on her own. I was so excited that a booth had one-coin figure Yugi. =D I was disappointed that they didn't have a Yami, though. Ideally I'd like the entire set -- even if their eyes kind of scare me -- but I'll take the Puzzleshippy twins only. xD Perhaps I'll get Yugi a Yami someday.
That is all! It was a really fun con. x3 I'm already plotting cosplays for next year and I think I definitely want to enter the costume contest again, because it was cool. ^^
I posted probably about 90% of the pictures I took, but if you want to see them all they're here: http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c240/Aibou163/cosplay/FL%20supercon%202011/ Also, once the con website gets the pictures up I'll see if I can find any of me on there and probably will do a cosplay post on my muse journal.
Now I must resume catching up on everything I missed over the weekend. ^^; Also I haven't proofread this very well so I apologize in advance for any typos. I hope they're funny ones if there are any. xD