AnimeNEXT - Friday recap.
On Thursday, I got to Laura's crying in pain because somewhere on the Turnpike I suddenly had the incredible urge to use the bathroom. I made it, but it was the most physically excruciating hour of my life. :( I was also an hour and a half late getting there because people felt like being uncooperative douchebags. But whatever, I made it. Shortly after I showed up, we got Erica and got badges (Berryz Koubou on our badges AWWWW YEAAAAH) and food. When we came back, we got to work on costumes. My Madayade dress was, like, IMPOSSIBLE to fit.
We got to the con around 11ish on Friday, I think, and made straight for the line for the Berryz Koubou booth. $40 worth of merchandise would get us a wristband that would jump us to the front of Saturday's signing line. What we didn't count on, however, was all the wota cleaning out the booth -- not that they had much merchandise to begin with -- well before we even got there. The only things they had left were CDs, which we all bought. They came with file folders, and a couple of random ones in all the hundreds of folders were autographed. Guess who got an autographed one. There were some neat cosplayers in the line, though, like Laura, Yvonne, and Heroine ni Narou ka! girl.
I had to run away for the Faily Feud panel meeting at one o'clock, but it was short, and I made it back to the Berryz line just in time before we got sent in to the booth. I had to scurry back out to make the first panel of the weekend.
Family Feud was AMAZING, and Emily did such a fantastic job despite a very personal situation that would have made mere mortals cancel the panel (you're fantastic, bb, I still don't know how you pulled that off. *hugs* I hope things are slowly getting better). We dropped from three teams to two, but it worked out! My team won the game, but we lost in the Fast (no-)Money round, since SOMEONE only got me 74 points. Dana. By the way, even though Family Feud is originally an American game show, Wikipedia says that a bunch of countries have their own version of it. Either way, if you're still not familiar with it, here's how shit went down.
Just like real Family Feud, there were a lot of stupid answers to the question. On "name a fruit that's red," four people surveyed and a contestant said "mango." Cue Seychelles and Cuba -- tropical nations both cosplayed by hispanics -- absolutely flipping their (our) SHIT (because does this look fucking red to you? Orange, maybe, but not red!). Since a few people at the panel had probably answered the survey questions, I went out into the audience, and looked around asking
"Which one o'y'all said it? WHO SAID IT? I'm watching you!"
pointing accusingly and glaring.
We were losing pretty badly, 286-88, thanks to the Eastern European sweep of the board in the third round, but we swept right back on the best category ever: "name a U.S. state that starts with the letter M." We had two Americas on our team and Little Miss Geography over here, so naturally.... Sorry, Cherry, my answer was Michigan, and that turned out to be the #1. XD I got three #1 answers in the entire game! Being an '80s child has finally... paid... off?
Tesla was helping out with the game board, and there were some answer mix-ups and it kept falling over, and it was ... the game was fantastic.
In the Fast (no-)Money round, I was playing second, so I had to leave the room so as not to hear the questions or Dana's answers. I scanned the room again, pointing, and let everyone know that even though I wasn't there, I was still watching them.... XD So, yeah, Fast (no-)Money. The first question was "name a superpower" and so I referenced last year's MUN and mentioned the guys from Epic Meal Time. I had to explain the joke to most people later, but a few got it, and that was all I cared about. "Name a pet that's not a dog or a cat," and Seychelles, of course, would say fish. NUMBER FUCKING ONE ANSWER. :D We were still short of 200 points, but yeah. Best panel of the weekend.
Here's Es and Racquel as Ukraine and male!Ukraine Russia, and Ricardo as Cuba, plus some other people that were outside the panel. From there, I had to help Emily bring her stuff out to the car, and figured it was as good a time as any to grab my shit, too, and change into Liechtenstein
What I didn't count on, when I'd done my practice dressing to see if I could get dressed easily, was being as sweaty and disgusting as I was on Friday afternoon. It was really hot and humid, and just walking to Emily's car warranted a paper-towel shower in the bathroom.
Hi, we're friends, I'm sharing. ♥
Even after that, I still had a bit of trouble squeezing into the dress, but I got it eventually, and that's when I realized: I didn't have any hair pins or a wig cap for my increasingly frizzy mess. An older woman gave me two bobby pins, and somehow I held my hair up with that. Magic, I tell you! Anyway, dressed, and I went to the shoot, since it was on the way to the hall judging. When I got there, I noticed the European characters lining up for a photo and walked right in, with everyone gasping and squealing over how cute I was. And I was pretty damn cute. Everything matches everything else, but if I explained it all, I'd never shut up.
So, pictures happened, I chased some butterflies through the field and my flower crown fell off, causing the world to implode in a black hole of adorableness (sorry), and so forth. I ate up a lot of time before I finally ran off to hall cosplay. Which... augh. Well, I'll just tell you.
There were some pretty awesome costumes there, I won't deny that. I was there with two of the eventual winners. I didn't really know what to say about the costume, because it all seemed so trivial once I had to describe it, as opposed to actually doing it. But I passed off the twenty-four progress photos I took and the one reference image. XD I pointed out that the eyelets were hand-stitched, the trim matched up perfectly in the back, the appliquéd diamonds and the pintucks, the crown on the key at the end of the flowers (because there's a crown in the flag) but... I don't know, like I said, it just seemed so trivial when the words were coming out of my mouth.
What struck me immediately -- and should have tipped me off, honestly -- was that none of the judges had any questions for me, and none of them wanted to take a closer look at the work I'd done, not even the eyelets. They usually shit themselves over hand-stitching. :/
It happened that my phone rang as my name was being called, and I'd set the background on my phone to the flag of Liechtenstein, and my ringtone to the national anthem. Not even that won me points. *sigh* But yeah, it was Laura and Erica wondering where I was because they'd already started lining up for the Berryz concert. Why they were there so early, I still don't understand, since we had premium passes that would have let us go in first. 9_9 So I had to run back to the car and change because LOL NO not going to the concert in that.
Skip ahead to the actual concert. We were all squeezed into the front, but from where I was, slightly separated from Laura and Erica, I had a clear view of the stage, despite all the tall people around me.
They were on stage for an hour, did a whole bunch of awesome -- and old! -- shit, and taught us Japanese halfway through. I've got an .mp3 of the concert here; it's a bit hard to hear them over the wota, but it's the best I can do for now. Jiriri Kiteru was the finale, and the song people voted for, including Laura, who lost all of her shit. :D
Words can't describe how awesome the concert was. How Berryz freakin' Koubou was right in front of us, how awesome they sounded live, how adorable Captain was, how jacked Momoko's legs were, how much brighter Chinami's smile was in person, how overall perfect Maasa was, how sweet Miyabi was, how tall Yurina actually IS, and how surprisingly badass Risako was.
The jumping, the screaming, the singing, the glowsticks, the not-being-able-to-see, the person in front of me who wouldn't stop jumping, the person next to me who was making chitchat, the desperate texting myself all the songs they did so I would remember them, it was all fantastic. And it was probably the best hour, overall, at the convention. Guys, I saw Berryz Koubou LIVE. It still hasn't really hit me, and I don't know why. Sure I thought "omg, that's Berryz, and they're really here" but I didn't fangirl like so many other people seemed to do. Anyway.
We tried calling for an encore, but it didn't happen, and so the crowd dispersed with a "Berryz saikou" chant the entire way out of the building. I ... ran back to the car to change again. XD
I don't know what happened, but Megan kept us waiting about 45 minutes and we started shooting on our own. So here we go, what was left of the large group: Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs. Yup.
Megan showed up later, and we got the proper six of us, but it didn't last very long, since we were all dying to get home, and I still had costume work to do. Not to mention that because of the personal issue, Es didn't feel too comfortable staying at Emily's, and so she had to come stay at Laura's for the rest of the weekend and we had to accomodate an extra person. It was very sudden -- it couldn't be helped -- but all flustering. :( We wound up going to sleep past three in the morning. Guh.
I think that's everything. It's 4:30 and I don't even know better. :V
We got to the con around 11ish on Friday, I think, and made straight for the line for the Berryz Koubou booth. $40 worth of merchandise would get us a wristband that would jump us to the front of Saturday's signing line. What we didn't count on, however, was all the wota cleaning out the booth -- not that they had much merchandise to begin with -- well before we even got there. The only things they had left were CDs, which we all bought. They came with file folders, and a couple of random ones in all the hundreds of folders were autographed. Guess who got an autographed one. There were some neat cosplayers in the line, though, like Laura, Yvonne, and Heroine ni Narou ka! girl.
I had to run away for the Faily Feud panel meeting at one o'clock, but it was short, and I made it back to the Berryz line just in time before we got sent in to the booth. I had to scurry back out to make the first panel of the weekend.
Family Feud was AMAZING, and Emily did such a fantastic job despite a very personal situation that would have made mere mortals cancel the panel (you're fantastic, bb, I still don't know how you pulled that off. *hugs* I hope things are slowly getting better). We dropped from three teams to two, but it worked out! My team won the game, but we lost in the Fast (no-)Money round, since SOMEONE only got me 74 points. Dana. By the way, even though Family Feud is originally an American game show, Wikipedia says that a bunch of countries have their own version of it. Either way, if you're still not familiar with it, here's how shit went down.
Just like real Family Feud, there were a lot of stupid answers to the question. On "name a fruit that's red," four people surveyed and a contestant said "mango." Cue Seychelles and Cuba -- tropical nations both cosplayed by hispanics -- absolutely flipping their (our) SHIT (because does this look fucking red to you? Orange, maybe, but not red!). Since a few people at the panel had probably answered the survey questions, I went out into the audience, and looked around asking
"Which one o'y'all said it? WHO SAID IT? I'm watching you!"
pointing accusingly and glaring.
We were losing pretty badly, 286-88, thanks to the Eastern European sweep of the board in the third round, but we swept right back on the best category ever: "name a U.S. state that starts with the letter M." We had two Americas on our team and Little Miss Geography over here, so naturally.... Sorry, Cherry, my answer was Michigan, and that turned out to be the #1. XD I got three #1 answers in the entire game! Being an '80s child has finally... paid... off?
Tesla was helping out with the game board, and there were some answer mix-ups and it kept falling over, and it was ... the game was fantastic.
In the Fast (no-)Money round, I was playing second, so I had to leave the room so as not to hear the questions or Dana's answers. I scanned the room again, pointing, and let everyone know that even though I wasn't there, I was still watching them.... XD So, yeah, Fast (no-)Money. The first question was "name a superpower" and so I referenced last year's MUN and mentioned the guys from Epic Meal Time. I had to explain the joke to most people later, but a few got it, and that was all I cared about. "Name a pet that's not a dog or a cat," and Seychelles, of course, would say fish. NUMBER FUCKING ONE ANSWER. :D We were still short of 200 points, but yeah. Best panel of the weekend.
Here's Es and Racquel as Ukraine and male!Ukraine Russia, and Ricardo as Cuba, plus some other people that were outside the panel. From there, I had to help Emily bring her stuff out to the car, and figured it was as good a time as any to grab my shit, too, and change into Liechtenstein
What I didn't count on, when I'd done my practice dressing to see if I could get dressed easily, was being as sweaty and disgusting as I was on Friday afternoon. It was really hot and humid, and just walking to Emily's car warranted a paper-towel shower in the bathroom.
Hi, we're friends, I'm sharing. ♥
Even after that, I still had a bit of trouble squeezing into the dress, but I got it eventually, and that's when I realized: I didn't have any hair pins or a wig cap for my increasingly frizzy mess. An older woman gave me two bobby pins, and somehow I held my hair up with that. Magic, I tell you! Anyway, dressed, and I went to the shoot, since it was on the way to the hall judging. When I got there, I noticed the European characters lining up for a photo and walked right in, with everyone gasping and squealing over how cute I was. And I was pretty damn cute. Everything matches everything else, but if I explained it all, I'd never shut up.
So, pictures happened, I chased some butterflies through the field and my flower crown fell off, causing the world to implode in a black hole of adorableness (sorry), and so forth. I ate up a lot of time before I finally ran off to hall cosplay. Which... augh. Well, I'll just tell you.
There were some pretty awesome costumes there, I won't deny that. I was there with two of the eventual winners. I didn't really know what to say about the costume, because it all seemed so trivial once I had to describe it, as opposed to actually doing it. But I passed off the twenty-four progress photos I took and the one reference image. XD I pointed out that the eyelets were hand-stitched, the trim matched up perfectly in the back, the appliquéd diamonds and the pintucks, the crown on the key at the end of the flowers (because there's a crown in the flag) but... I don't know, like I said, it just seemed so trivial when the words were coming out of my mouth.
What struck me immediately -- and should have tipped me off, honestly -- was that none of the judges had any questions for me, and none of them wanted to take a closer look at the work I'd done, not even the eyelets. They usually shit themselves over hand-stitching. :/
It happened that my phone rang as my name was being called, and I'd set the background on my phone to the flag of Liechtenstein, and my ringtone to the national anthem. Not even that won me points. *sigh* But yeah, it was Laura and Erica wondering where I was because they'd already started lining up for the Berryz concert. Why they were there so early, I still don't understand, since we had premium passes that would have let us go in first. 9_9 So I had to run back to the car and change because LOL NO not going to the concert in that.
Skip ahead to the actual concert. We were all squeezed into the front, but from where I was, slightly separated from Laura and Erica, I had a clear view of the stage, despite all the tall people around me.
They were on stage for an hour, did a whole bunch of awesome -- and old! -- shit, and taught us Japanese halfway through. I've got an .mp3 of the concert here; it's a bit hard to hear them over the wota, but it's the best I can do for now. Jiriri Kiteru was the finale, and the song people voted for, including Laura, who lost all of her shit. :D
Words can't describe how awesome the concert was. How Berryz freakin' Koubou was right in front of us, how awesome they sounded live, how adorable Captain was, how jacked Momoko's legs were, how much brighter Chinami's smile was in person, how overall perfect Maasa was, how sweet Miyabi was, how tall Yurina actually IS, and how surprisingly badass Risako was.
The jumping, the screaming, the singing, the glowsticks, the not-being-able-to-see, the person in front of me who wouldn't stop jumping, the person next to me who was making chitchat, the desperate texting myself all the songs they did so I would remember them, it was all fantastic. And it was probably the best hour, overall, at the convention. Guys, I saw Berryz Koubou LIVE. It still hasn't really hit me, and I don't know why. Sure I thought "omg, that's Berryz, and they're really here" but I didn't fangirl like so many other people seemed to do. Anyway.
We tried calling for an encore, but it didn't happen, and so the crowd dispersed with a "Berryz saikou" chant the entire way out of the building. I ... ran back to the car to change again. XD
I don't know what happened, but Megan kept us waiting about 45 minutes and we started shooting on our own. So here we go, what was left of the large group: Diamonds, Spades, and Clubs. Yup.
Megan showed up later, and we got the proper six of us, but it didn't last very long, since we were all dying to get home, and I still had costume work to do. Not to mention that because of the personal issue, Es didn't feel too comfortable staying at Emily's, and so she had to come stay at Laura's for the rest of the weekend and we had to accomodate an extra person. It was very sudden -- it couldn't be helped -- but all flustering. :( We wound up going to sleep past three in the morning. Guh.
I think that's everything. It's 4:30 and I don't even know better. :V