Youmacon Report
This is probably going to take me forever to write up, considering that EVERYTHING happened this weekend. x-x I'm suddenly sore in places I didn't think it was possible to be sore in, like my eyeballs. How can one's EYES be sore? It's weird.
So anyhow! I shall begin:
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Getting There...!
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So, our soon-to-be room-mate Harl flew in to Chicago on Tuesday in order to roadtrip with us to Youmacon. It was a rather winding trek to get to the O-hare, and we got lost, but since there were AIRPLANES landing over our heads, we just sort of followed their path till we arrived. She spent the following two nights working on her costumes and we finished up what we could as well, including a crazy photoshoot of Nightmare on Halloween Day.
Wednesday night I'm checking Livejournal, and realize that CardCaptorWill (henceforth to be known as "Will," since that took too long to type out) needs a ride, so we offer one to him and he accepts! I got a little worried that my van wouldn't fit everything, but aside from one minor incident when I turned too fast, our white and black van of doom revealed itself to be extraordinarily competent.
We left at a reasonable time, took a billion back-roads to avoid tolls, got the oil changed, and made it to Will's house in One Piece, before we headed to TROY MICHIGAN.
I shall also note here that I had the first of the weekend's three sub-type sandwiches.
The ride was quick for the first half, and then LONG for the second half when everyone was asleep. But we arrived early enough to get checked in, get situated, meet our room-mates, and just CHILL. I finished my Roxas wig and Harl's Roxas plushee, along with other little odd-jobs like taking the film crew around the Youmacon 'L' and letting them know where all the events were going to be.
Pretty typical Thursday!
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The Madness Begins! (AKA Friday)
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So it turns out that Harl is in the same room this year that Yui, Barb, Julia, and I were in last year, which makes the con a little trippy for us in some respects. I finally got to meet her room-mates: Walter, Katie, Al, Nana, Caroline (who I had already gotten pictures with as our Soras at Acen,) Chris (who I don't think was her room-mate, but I met him!) and Tara (Which ended up being really wonderful, guys. ~.^)
Friday 'morning' wasn't really con-time yet, since Youma didn't start until 3 in the afternoon. I thought I was supposed to be running the Masq/Hall registration sign-up, but by the time I got there, the mom and daughter who did it last year were already set up and using the same forms from the year before. I wasn't -pleased- by this, but it did free me up to get in costume and get ready for our panel (which was at 4pm.)
Harl was running an artist alley table full of Organization-y goodness, so we dropped off her finished Plushie and some zippers for her to sell, and then brought the rest of our panel crap down to the panel room.
The place was filled with a billion chairs and tables draped with tablecloth, however, but since we were having an INTERACTIVE PANEL (and because I knew that Hall/Masq judging would take place there later) I moved ALL the tables to encircle the room, and started draping tablecloths over upturned chairs. It was pretty weird, but silly and fun.
As it turned out, the reg line was pretty long, so it wasn't TOO many people who drifted through the room while it was open, but we did get some really good questions, and a number of folks got to use our supplies to patch themselves up.
We shut down a little early, though, and cleaned up to get the room ready for judging, before running off to the Kingdom Hearts photoshoot (I was using my Roxas wig and the Organization coat, Harl was in her Axel, and Yui was in Riku) which was scheduled to be on the balcony.
Now, this balcony...it isn't really a balcony. Its more like a hallway that runs through the center of the second hotel floor that just HAPPENS to look down onto the first floor. I would say that, at most, it could comfortably hold 30 people. It can NOT hold 50 cosplayers, by any means, and certainly cannot hold 50 cosplayers + their photographers. So Harl's crew and Ryn + I show up, take a look around, and then move everyone outside.
I do feel sorry for those Kingdom Hearts characters that WEREN'T wearing Organization coats, as it turned out to be rather COLD outside, but the roominess was very worth it. I continued to direct the shoot, which made me VERY pleased (thanks so much for going with it, everyone <3) and even managed to get people to break into small groups and do neat poses so that the photographers could get good pictures. ^.^ Yui even let me hand out prizes from her prize bag to the best of the 'posers,' and though they were small and silly, I'm glad we had something to give to everyone.
When the shoot was done, Yui headed back to the panel room for judging, and I went with her since I was going to be doing skit reviews with Rogue when it was done. At some point, I ran off to go sit in Artist Alley with Harl (where it is to be noted I ended up with my SECOND sub-like sandwich) and we decided we'd go to have a photoshoot when I was done with reviewing.
The reviewing went well, too! The skits this year were much more appropriate than last year's. ^.^
Once that was over with, I headed back to the room and put on some makeup for the photoshoot, and headed out with Harl and Amanda (the photographer) to get some pics of us. I was REALLY pleased with how that went, and how they turned out, though I've begun to notice that my own posing lately has fallen into a rut of the same expressions. x-x Amanda was great about directing us, however, so I cannot wait to see the end result. ^____^ Sample!
Poor Yui came too, out into the cold with her bare arms. o.o I don't know how she survived it.
But afterwards we headed back to the room for some grand old-fashioned late-night con-versation, first with Harl + Amanda, and then with our awesome roomies, and then with our pillows, cause it was time to sleep.
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And then, the day of Chaos... (Saturday)
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Saturday morning was an actual MORNING, meaning getting up at 9am. Yui was a little confused as to whether masquerade judging started at 10am or 12pm, so we wanted to be there at 10am just in case. I couldn't find Harl to give her the zippers, so I went with Yui and brought my laptop to the judge-room to start data-entering the skits.
It took me a little while to figure out a format, since my Excel program is GHETTO OLD, but I got it together after a bit and started typing everything in. Yui and Nessa had a NUMBER of entries to judge once noon hit, so it got a bit chaotic, especially since there were going to be more skit reviews coming in at 1. There also seemed to be some confusion as far as craftsmanship entries went...for some reason, half the cosplayers were trying to enter with PURCHASED costumes. o.O It was a little strange. But the big problem stemmed from having that one lady at the sign-up booth having no idea what was going on and Youma's website itself conflicting with its own ideas. So the judges did what they could to alleviate the confusion, and I did what I could to try and come up with a masquerade skit really fast.
So why was I doing that?
Well, for Youmacon I had finished up my Ven costume. As far as I can tell, I'm the first person in the world to get one done, though there seems to be this guy in Germany that had it finished at the same time as me (he put it up on Cosplay.com first, so he wins that, but mine is technically more complete than his...so...well...it becomes nebulous. o.O) Anyhow, I wished to enter the masquerade and show off the outfit, but I was a little worried that NO ONE in the audience would understand who I was, so I came up with the basic idea of an 'introductory' skit Saturday morning in the shower. So suddenly, in the midst of typing masquerade entry forms into my computer and making sure that skits weren't going to send Mothers into "WE MUST COVER THE CHILDRENS EYES" frenzies, I was writing down anything that came into my mind to say on stage.
Oh, and by the way. I also ate another sub-like sandwich.
The skit review went pretty quickly and, again, was great to watch (especially seeing some of the skits being done in alternate costumes...which was HILARIOUS.) Our time ran over a LITTLE bit (but not too badly...only by about 15 minutes,) before we were hurried out of our home-base and scurried back to the room. Riki (who was like, the bestest door-guard and masq-contestant-handler EVER) helped us flee by grabbing up our stuff, before it all ended up in a big pile in our room (including signs that were later going to be used by masq contestants--Sasuke stared at us for the next three hours.)
This proceeded to be THE MOST STRESSFUL PERIOD OF THE ENTIRE CONVENTION.
It was fine in the room...the film crew (Craig and Britanny) would stop by here and there, and Mike (the film crew's photographer) dropped by to offload pictures when his camera was full. Sometimes our roomies would pop in, and talk about the crazy programming they were running.
Meanwhile, I was TYPING IN MASQ ENTRIES FURIOUSLY, trying to arrange them by Division and trying to space out the performances to avoid having five Narutos skitting in a row.
Now, I really love ORGANIZING things. I love taking the chaotic and unruly and lining it up nicely in a row, defying the entropy of the universe by creating stability...
So being in charge of the Masquerades MASTER LIST made me very, very pleased.
HOWEVER.
Knowing that, as soon as that list was created and my costume was on, I was going to have to stand up in front of the audience and speak whatever lines I ended up with (which I still didn't have,) and knowing that our film crew was going to be taping the masquerade, the experience was nerve wracking. Some folks out in the hall started swearing left and right, which probably wouldn't have bothered me if I weren't already as tense as a cat on a tightrope strung perilously over a pit of ravenous wolf-hounds. Needless to say, I was a bit terse with them (and I still feel bad about it.)
Yui stepped in here, however, and pulled a delicious miracle of skit-magic, compiling what I had written up with some ideas of her own. I finished the list, hooked up the printer, and delivered the four copies to their intended destinations: The Judges, The Music-man, The Greenroom, and The Will. Card Captor, that is.
I then threw on Ven and proceeded to my next alloted task: Helping in the Greenroom. Rouge, Riki, and I took care of the last-minute adjustments to the lineup, Rogue organized the room, Beth brought delicious snacks for the entrants to eat, I procured a door-guard (and brought him cake,) and then spent the next two hours running back and forth from live-programming to the greenroom to make sure everything was as ready for the show to start as I could do from where I was.
Which included taking some time to practice my little 'skit' in the back halls. >.>
I got to talk with some of the entrants before the Masq began, and I must say I'm rather glad that this group called 'Animosity' exists. ^.^ It's really great to see people who are that dedicated to putting on a great performance. (Here is their skit) Also got to see Harl and her crew, and they really looked AMAZING. There were just so many good costumes this year. ;-;
But then the show began! I was right backstage, making sure that those going on didn't block the videoscreens and helping those that needed it to get on stage. The skits went very well, and the music-man was amazing at hitting some of the difficult cues that the participants had requested. There was only one moment of awkwardness for the girl doing a Trusty Bell costume (a walk-on that ended up having no music,) but she pulled it off very well, considering.
My skit...
Well, I didn't screw up. *laughs*
But I was a bit obscure for the audience (as I suspected I would be, being a character that's only been known to exist for about a month,) and I get the feeling that the ones who were laughing were the die-hard KH fans. Many <3s to you. ^.^
The rest of the show went pretty smoothly, though it was a bit tense after it ended waiting for the judges to return (having been running around hectic for HOURS and suddenly having nothing to do,) and people kept disappearing. o.o
The green-room folks were great, though, and found many ways to entertain themselves.
I felt that pretty much everyone who won really deserved to win (having been privy to much of the background information and backstage drama,) though from what I saw it must have been a DIFFICULT decision (at least craftsmanship wise.) What really impressed me was the amount of YOUNGER folks who put together skits and costumes (such as the Sakura in 'Anime Characters only,' and the cute little dancing Haruhi girls,) and also the NUMBER of quality costumes that ended up at Youma (which, even at ~3k attendance, is still a fairly small con.)
Nevertheless, I was greatly RELIEVED when the masq was over, just because I finally got to relaaaax~.
Yui took me around to get some pictures of Ven (We raided the Karaoke cafe, and kudos to the entrance guy for letting me in,) and only about EVERYONE mistook me for some strange version of Roxas(including this one Axel who kept giving me the MOST confused expressions.) I got Kevin to take my photo, too (oh, damn, I meant to get a print,) which makes me and Ven OFFICIAL. Woo!
Hung out with Steven for a little while, danced around the hallways for a little while, and eventually ended up Ven-less and in Harl's room, where we proceeded to play cards and Harl mixed us some Margaritas. o.O Having alcohol at a con is strange.
Scratch that, having alcohol at ALL is strange.
Then again, I've been drinking non-alcoholic margarita mix since I was little (my parents usually had some around, and I'd mix it with orange juice,) and it pretty much just tasted like what I was used to. The Lychee stuff was very rich, but...in general, it was an interesting experiment. I would almost be curious to try it again, but only should the situation arise. It's not something I'd seek out on my own. Steven came with us, and Harl's crew showed up, and it was generally more late-night fun-life. To the point of exhaustion, since Daylight Savings suddenly happened, leaving me awake for 21 hours straight. Damn you, strange time-changes while I'm not in my normal time zone. I'm still not certain when I am. o.O
Anyhow, Saturday came to a delightful close.
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Before a day of busy rest. (Sunday)
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Despite only getting around four/five hours of sleep, I had to get up early Sunday to finish up the hem on my coat. There ended up being some lining issues (mostly involving the dreaded UNDERFLOOF) so I did it the less hard but more time-consuming way, before throwing on my Twilight Town Turks Rufus costume. Harl dropped by to see my progress, and DAMN was her TTT Reno costume hot. o.O She stole Yui away and headed to her Artist alley table, and I joined them when my hems were done.
We left poor Yui at the table, then, and headed out with Amanda and another photographer to get our photos done, and it was fun and it was good. ^.^ And, just in general, the concept was amusing as hell and full of hot-topic-y delights. In other words, we looked pretty sweet, if a bit silly and fake-punkish. Harl was confused for both Axel's Somebody and ROXEL, which, needless to say, sent me into hysterics, but she really was pretty much just too sexy for Sunday at a con, which drew lots of attention.
So we went back to the Artist Alley and proceeded to sell more shirts. She had given one to Quinton Flynn (the voice of Axel) the previous day, and he had done WONDERS in advertising for her. She sold out of Axel shirts, and pretty much sold out of hoodies, and just in general was able to get her monies worth, which was pretty good. We stuck around there until the hotel staff was literally taking the tables down around us, and Mr. Flynn came by to chat with her for a while. As far as voice actors go, he was pretty pleasant. ^.^ But I'll let her tell that story...
So the con came to an end! Bekki, our awesome roomate, left us with the bottom half of a man, so we gave her a zipper and said farewell, catching up with Will and Beth + MagiusT so we could go have some dinners.
Thankfully, I did NOT end up with another Sub-type sandwich.
But I did end up with great company at Fridays, so we finished the con well. ^.^ Wish we could have seen more of Beth and Scott, but I -know- that they were busy, and if they're reading this, we really had a GREAT TIME and can't thank you enough for helping us to be involved in Youmacon. ^.^ Just let us know if there is anything we can do to help you guys out next year.
The ride home started out a bit unpleasant (my van-of-doom has accumulated a few quirks since returning to me, including its random decision to try and MELT Will through seat-warming and try to FREEZE Yui through not being warm at all. But hey, at least the windshield wipers don't have a mind of THEIR own, anymore) and poor Harl ended up a bit carsick (we suspect the food,) but when I let her drive things turned out fine and we had some of the best conversations on the way back. ^.^
Will was dropped off without a hitch, and Yui helped direct me home ALL the way till the last few miles before she fell asleep, and I was left to my own devices. But we made it back safely, and literally all COLLAPSED into our beds. I didn't even manage to get entirely out of Rufus. x-x
Which brings this story to a close.
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So! Not so very long ago we dropped Harl off at the airport, and snagged ourselves some delicious curry (to make up for all those subway sandwiches, yo.) They even had BUBBLE TEA, which really made us pleased.
All in all, to sum it up...Youmacon ROCKED. We went, we saw, we did what we needed to do and we KEPT MOVING FORWARD, and had a great time. So here's a list of morals/accomplishments for the day:
Checklist of DOOM
-Received one pair of MAN LEGS that we have officially dubbed 'Hercules.' We are much in fear of THE PACKAGE.
-Harlco got two TROPHIES OF DELICIOUS RECOGNITION and I got a lovely little award, too. ^.^ This makes THREE trophies. *countlaugh* Ah, ah, ah, ahhhh.... */countlaugh*
-Obtained one sexy DESTINY ISLANDS Riku shirt and one DESTINY ISLANDS Sora shirt...of DESTINY. Also bought prints and supported artists in general.
-Only had to pay for dinner ONCE! Con, you ROCK.
-Successfully implemented MISSION VEN.
-Met COOL PEOPLE x 1,000. Between our awesome roomies, our exceptional film crew, the insane fun of Harlco, and the talented Masquerade entrants, Youmacon is THE CON for forming friendships. ^.^
So, for now, I'll let it stand at that.
The next adventure will be moving, and then there is Ohayocon.
After that.........
The future....
WILL APPEAR!
Woo!!
*heads off to crash and catch up on the sleep*
So anyhow! I shall begin:
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Getting There...!
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So, our soon-to-be room-mate Harl flew in to Chicago on Tuesday in order to roadtrip with us to Youmacon. It was a rather winding trek to get to the O-hare, and we got lost, but since there were AIRPLANES landing over our heads, we just sort of followed their path till we arrived. She spent the following two nights working on her costumes and we finished up what we could as well, including a crazy photoshoot of Nightmare on Halloween Day.
Wednesday night I'm checking Livejournal, and realize that CardCaptorWill (henceforth to be known as "Will," since that took too long to type out) needs a ride, so we offer one to him and he accepts! I got a little worried that my van wouldn't fit everything, but aside from one minor incident when I turned too fast, our white and black van of doom revealed itself to be extraordinarily competent.
We left at a reasonable time, took a billion back-roads to avoid tolls, got the oil changed, and made it to Will's house in One Piece, before we headed to TROY MICHIGAN.
I shall also note here that I had the first of the weekend's three sub-type sandwiches.
The ride was quick for the first half, and then LONG for the second half when everyone was asleep. But we arrived early enough to get checked in, get situated, meet our room-mates, and just CHILL. I finished my Roxas wig and Harl's Roxas plushee, along with other little odd-jobs like taking the film crew around the Youmacon 'L' and letting them know where all the events were going to be.
Pretty typical Thursday!
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The Madness Begins! (AKA Friday)
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So it turns out that Harl is in the same room this year that Yui, Barb, Julia, and I were in last year, which makes the con a little trippy for us in some respects. I finally got to meet her room-mates: Walter, Katie, Al, Nana, Caroline (who I had already gotten pictures with as our Soras at Acen,) Chris (who I don't think was her room-mate, but I met him!) and Tara (Which ended up being really wonderful, guys. ~.^)
Friday 'morning' wasn't really con-time yet, since Youma didn't start until 3 in the afternoon. I thought I was supposed to be running the Masq/Hall registration sign-up, but by the time I got there, the mom and daughter who did it last year were already set up and using the same forms from the year before. I wasn't -pleased- by this, but it did free me up to get in costume and get ready for our panel (which was at 4pm.)
Harl was running an artist alley table full of Organization-y goodness, so we dropped off her finished Plushie and some zippers for her to sell, and then brought the rest of our panel crap down to the panel room.
The place was filled with a billion chairs and tables draped with tablecloth, however, but since we were having an INTERACTIVE PANEL (and because I knew that Hall/Masq judging would take place there later) I moved ALL the tables to encircle the room, and started draping tablecloths over upturned chairs. It was pretty weird, but silly and fun.
As it turned out, the reg line was pretty long, so it wasn't TOO many people who drifted through the room while it was open, but we did get some really good questions, and a number of folks got to use our supplies to patch themselves up.
We shut down a little early, though, and cleaned up to get the room ready for judging, before running off to the Kingdom Hearts photoshoot (I was using my Roxas wig and the Organization coat, Harl was in her Axel, and Yui was in Riku) which was scheduled to be on the balcony.
Now, this balcony...it isn't really a balcony. Its more like a hallway that runs through the center of the second hotel floor that just HAPPENS to look down onto the first floor. I would say that, at most, it could comfortably hold 30 people. It can NOT hold 50 cosplayers, by any means, and certainly cannot hold 50 cosplayers + their photographers. So Harl's crew and Ryn + I show up, take a look around, and then move everyone outside.
I do feel sorry for those Kingdom Hearts characters that WEREN'T wearing Organization coats, as it turned out to be rather COLD outside, but the roominess was very worth it. I continued to direct the shoot, which made me VERY pleased (thanks so much for going with it, everyone <3) and even managed to get people to break into small groups and do neat poses so that the photographers could get good pictures. ^.^ Yui even let me hand out prizes from her prize bag to the best of the 'posers,' and though they were small and silly, I'm glad we had something to give to everyone.
When the shoot was done, Yui headed back to the panel room for judging, and I went with her since I was going to be doing skit reviews with Rogue when it was done. At some point, I ran off to go sit in Artist Alley with Harl (where it is to be noted I ended up with my SECOND sub-like sandwich) and we decided we'd go to have a photoshoot when I was done with reviewing.
The reviewing went well, too! The skits this year were much more appropriate than last year's. ^.^
Once that was over with, I headed back to the room and put on some makeup for the photoshoot, and headed out with Harl and Amanda (the photographer) to get some pics of us. I was REALLY pleased with how that went, and how they turned out, though I've begun to notice that my own posing lately has fallen into a rut of the same expressions. x-x Amanda was great about directing us, however, so I cannot wait to see the end result. ^____^ Sample!
Poor Yui came too, out into the cold with her bare arms. o.o I don't know how she survived it.
But afterwards we headed back to the room for some grand old-fashioned late-night con-versation, first with Harl + Amanda, and then with our awesome roomies, and then with our pillows, cause it was time to sleep.
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And then, the day of Chaos... (Saturday)
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Saturday morning was an actual MORNING, meaning getting up at 9am. Yui was a little confused as to whether masquerade judging started at 10am or 12pm, so we wanted to be there at 10am just in case. I couldn't find Harl to give her the zippers, so I went with Yui and brought my laptop to the judge-room to start data-entering the skits.
It took me a little while to figure out a format, since my Excel program is GHETTO OLD, but I got it together after a bit and started typing everything in. Yui and Nessa had a NUMBER of entries to judge once noon hit, so it got a bit chaotic, especially since there were going to be more skit reviews coming in at 1. There also seemed to be some confusion as far as craftsmanship entries went...for some reason, half the cosplayers were trying to enter with PURCHASED costumes. o.O It was a little strange. But the big problem stemmed from having that one lady at the sign-up booth having no idea what was going on and Youma's website itself conflicting with its own ideas. So the judges did what they could to alleviate the confusion, and I did what I could to try and come up with a masquerade skit really fast.
So why was I doing that?
Well, for Youmacon I had finished up my Ven costume. As far as I can tell, I'm the first person in the world to get one done, though there seems to be this guy in Germany that had it finished at the same time as me (he put it up on Cosplay.com first, so he wins that, but mine is technically more complete than his...so...well...it becomes nebulous. o.O) Anyhow, I wished to enter the masquerade and show off the outfit, but I was a little worried that NO ONE in the audience would understand who I was, so I came up with the basic idea of an 'introductory' skit Saturday morning in the shower. So suddenly, in the midst of typing masquerade entry forms into my computer and making sure that skits weren't going to send Mothers into "WE MUST COVER THE CHILDRENS EYES" frenzies, I was writing down anything that came into my mind to say on stage.
Oh, and by the way. I also ate another sub-like sandwich.
The skit review went pretty quickly and, again, was great to watch (especially seeing some of the skits being done in alternate costumes...which was HILARIOUS.) Our time ran over a LITTLE bit (but not too badly...only by about 15 minutes,) before we were hurried out of our home-base and scurried back to the room. Riki (who was like, the bestest door-guard and masq-contestant-handler EVER) helped us flee by grabbing up our stuff, before it all ended up in a big pile in our room (including signs that were later going to be used by masq contestants--Sasuke stared at us for the next three hours.)
This proceeded to be THE MOST STRESSFUL PERIOD OF THE ENTIRE CONVENTION.
It was fine in the room...the film crew (Craig and Britanny) would stop by here and there, and Mike (the film crew's photographer) dropped by to offload pictures when his camera was full. Sometimes our roomies would pop in, and talk about the crazy programming they were running.
Meanwhile, I was TYPING IN MASQ ENTRIES FURIOUSLY, trying to arrange them by Division and trying to space out the performances to avoid having five Narutos skitting in a row.
Now, I really love ORGANIZING things. I love taking the chaotic and unruly and lining it up nicely in a row, defying the entropy of the universe by creating stability...
So being in charge of the Masquerades MASTER LIST made me very, very pleased.
HOWEVER.
Knowing that, as soon as that list was created and my costume was on, I was going to have to stand up in front of the audience and speak whatever lines I ended up with (which I still didn't have,) and knowing that our film crew was going to be taping the masquerade, the experience was nerve wracking. Some folks out in the hall started swearing left and right, which probably wouldn't have bothered me if I weren't already as tense as a cat on a tightrope strung perilously over a pit of ravenous wolf-hounds. Needless to say, I was a bit terse with them (and I still feel bad about it.)
Yui stepped in here, however, and pulled a delicious miracle of skit-magic, compiling what I had written up with some ideas of her own. I finished the list, hooked up the printer, and delivered the four copies to their intended destinations: The Judges, The Music-man, The Greenroom, and The Will. Card Captor, that is.
I then threw on Ven and proceeded to my next alloted task: Helping in the Greenroom. Rouge, Riki, and I took care of the last-minute adjustments to the lineup, Rogue organized the room, Beth brought delicious snacks for the entrants to eat, I procured a door-guard (and brought him cake,) and then spent the next two hours running back and forth from live-programming to the greenroom to make sure everything was as ready for the show to start as I could do from where I was.
Which included taking some time to practice my little 'skit' in the back halls. >.>
I got to talk with some of the entrants before the Masq began, and I must say I'm rather glad that this group called 'Animosity' exists. ^.^ It's really great to see people who are that dedicated to putting on a great performance. (Here is their skit) Also got to see Harl and her crew, and they really looked AMAZING. There were just so many good costumes this year. ;-;
But then the show began! I was right backstage, making sure that those going on didn't block the videoscreens and helping those that needed it to get on stage. The skits went very well, and the music-man was amazing at hitting some of the difficult cues that the participants had requested. There was only one moment of awkwardness for the girl doing a Trusty Bell costume (a walk-on that ended up having no music,) but she pulled it off very well, considering.
My skit...
Well, I didn't screw up. *laughs*
But I was a bit obscure for the audience (as I suspected I would be, being a character that's only been known to exist for about a month,) and I get the feeling that the ones who were laughing were the die-hard KH fans. Many <3s to you. ^.^
The rest of the show went pretty smoothly, though it was a bit tense after it ended waiting for the judges to return (having been running around hectic for HOURS and suddenly having nothing to do,) and people kept disappearing. o.o
The green-room folks were great, though, and found many ways to entertain themselves.
I felt that pretty much everyone who won really deserved to win (having been privy to much of the background information and backstage drama,) though from what I saw it must have been a DIFFICULT decision (at least craftsmanship wise.) What really impressed me was the amount of YOUNGER folks who put together skits and costumes (such as the Sakura in 'Anime Characters only,' and the cute little dancing Haruhi girls,) and also the NUMBER of quality costumes that ended up at Youma (which, even at ~3k attendance, is still a fairly small con.)
Nevertheless, I was greatly RELIEVED when the masq was over, just because I finally got to relaaaax~.
Yui took me around to get some pictures of Ven (We raided the Karaoke cafe, and kudos to the entrance guy for letting me in,) and only about EVERYONE mistook me for some strange version of Roxas(including this one Axel who kept giving me the MOST confused expressions.) I got Kevin to take my photo, too (oh, damn, I meant to get a print,) which makes me and Ven OFFICIAL. Woo!
Hung out with Steven for a little while, danced around the hallways for a little while, and eventually ended up Ven-less and in Harl's room, where we proceeded to play cards and Harl mixed us some Margaritas. o.O Having alcohol at a con is strange.
Scratch that, having alcohol at ALL is strange.
Then again, I've been drinking non-alcoholic margarita mix since I was little (my parents usually had some around, and I'd mix it with orange juice,) and it pretty much just tasted like what I was used to. The Lychee stuff was very rich, but...in general, it was an interesting experiment. I would almost be curious to try it again, but only should the situation arise. It's not something I'd seek out on my own. Steven came with us, and Harl's crew showed up, and it was generally more late-night fun-life. To the point of exhaustion, since Daylight Savings suddenly happened, leaving me awake for 21 hours straight. Damn you, strange time-changes while I'm not in my normal time zone. I'm still not certain when I am. o.O
Anyhow, Saturday came to a delightful close.
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Before a day of busy rest. (Sunday)
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Despite only getting around four/five hours of sleep, I had to get up early Sunday to finish up the hem on my coat. There ended up being some lining issues (mostly involving the dreaded UNDERFLOOF) so I did it the less hard but more time-consuming way, before throwing on my Twilight Town Turks Rufus costume. Harl dropped by to see my progress, and DAMN was her TTT Reno costume hot. o.O She stole Yui away and headed to her Artist alley table, and I joined them when my hems were done.
We left poor Yui at the table, then, and headed out with Amanda and another photographer to get our photos done, and it was fun and it was good. ^.^ And, just in general, the concept was amusing as hell and full of hot-topic-y delights. In other words, we looked pretty sweet, if a bit silly and fake-punkish. Harl was confused for both Axel's Somebody and ROXEL, which, needless to say, sent me into hysterics, but she really was pretty much just too sexy for Sunday at a con, which drew lots of attention.
So we went back to the Artist Alley and proceeded to sell more shirts. She had given one to Quinton Flynn (the voice of Axel) the previous day, and he had done WONDERS in advertising for her. She sold out of Axel shirts, and pretty much sold out of hoodies, and just in general was able to get her monies worth, which was pretty good. We stuck around there until the hotel staff was literally taking the tables down around us, and Mr. Flynn came by to chat with her for a while. As far as voice actors go, he was pretty pleasant. ^.^ But I'll let her tell that story...
So the con came to an end! Bekki, our awesome roomate, left us with the bottom half of a man, so we gave her a zipper and said farewell, catching up with Will and Beth + MagiusT so we could go have some dinners.
Thankfully, I did NOT end up with another Sub-type sandwich.
But I did end up with great company at Fridays, so we finished the con well. ^.^ Wish we could have seen more of Beth and Scott, but I -know- that they were busy, and if they're reading this, we really had a GREAT TIME and can't thank you enough for helping us to be involved in Youmacon. ^.^ Just let us know if there is anything we can do to help you guys out next year.
The ride home started out a bit unpleasant (my van-of-doom has accumulated a few quirks since returning to me, including its random decision to try and MELT Will through seat-warming and try to FREEZE Yui through not being warm at all. But hey, at least the windshield wipers don't have a mind of THEIR own, anymore) and poor Harl ended up a bit carsick (we suspect the food,) but when I let her drive things turned out fine and we had some of the best conversations on the way back. ^.^
Will was dropped off without a hitch, and Yui helped direct me home ALL the way till the last few miles before she fell asleep, and I was left to my own devices. But we made it back safely, and literally all COLLAPSED into our beds. I didn't even manage to get entirely out of Rufus. x-x
Which brings this story to a close.
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So! Not so very long ago we dropped Harl off at the airport, and snagged ourselves some delicious curry (to make up for all those subway sandwiches, yo.) They even had BUBBLE TEA, which really made us pleased.
All in all, to sum it up...Youmacon ROCKED. We went, we saw, we did what we needed to do and we KEPT MOVING FORWARD, and had a great time. So here's a list of morals/accomplishments for the day:
Checklist of DOOM
-Received one pair of MAN LEGS that we have officially dubbed 'Hercules.' We are much in fear of THE PACKAGE.
-Harlco got two TROPHIES OF DELICIOUS RECOGNITION and I got a lovely little award, too. ^.^ This makes THREE trophies. *countlaugh* Ah, ah, ah, ahhhh.... */countlaugh*
-Obtained one sexy DESTINY ISLANDS Riku shirt and one DESTINY ISLANDS Sora shirt...of DESTINY. Also bought prints and supported artists in general.
-Only had to pay for dinner ONCE! Con, you ROCK.
-Successfully implemented MISSION VEN.
-Met COOL PEOPLE x 1,000. Between our awesome roomies, our exceptional film crew, the insane fun of Harlco, and the talented Masquerade entrants, Youmacon is THE CON for forming friendships. ^.^
So, for now, I'll let it stand at that.
The next adventure will be moving, and then there is Ohayocon.
After that.........
The future....
WILL APPEAR!
Woo!!
*heads off to crash and catch up on the sleep*