Katsucon 17 Report
Crappy candid snap I snagged, thinking of dracothrope. Isn't that the slender man from your Marble Hornets fandom, Terter?
Wait, I was at a convention? Haaaaah, hardly feels like it. XD Though I spent all of Friday and Saturday in my Gray cosplay, working a convention means (at least for our graveyard shift) that you spend sooooooo little time actually enjoying the con. It felt more like an extended sleepover than a convention.
My shift with Robin and Kelly went from 10pm to 6am, one Friday night, one Saturday night. After that shift, we slept like the dead until 2 or 3pm, woke up and made ourselves presentable, and reported to the hotel-provided dinner. From there, a few hours would remain until our shift began again, but we ended up not utilizing too many of them.
At least, I didn't. Friday evening, Robin went back to bed for a nap, and since I 1) wasn't sleepy 2) didn't want to go to any panels 3) am an agoraphobe who couldn't talk herself into going to walk the dealer's room alone, I remained in the Operations room for about 4 hours in advance of my shift, playing on my laptop while hanging with the midday shift of friends and observing Ops happenings. Saturday evening I made sure to exclaim "dealer's room!" so we hit it before shift, but there was nothing that enticed me to buy. Sadness. I had soooo much money burning holes in my pockets. OTAKON, DON'T FAIL ME NOW.
Gray got recognized three times, at least, and I got a couple hugs (at the same time, pinned, hah!) for him, but nothing of the caliber that my Ladd suit gets me. Nevertheless, Gray shall appear again at Otakon. Perhaps the combination of 1) larger convention and 2) not having to sleep/work the majority of it will get him some better views, haha.
The in-jokes abounded as always. Robin and I heard Sir James use "emotastic" over the radio, to our delight, so that word is still around from two years ago, and many, many pictures were drawn of "Justin Bieber on a pony" for... some reason I'm still not quite clear on BUT about 18 pictures were delivered to Top Hat Luke as a result, and his delightedly incredulous and horrified laughter was wonderful~. I drew a little chibi-Bieber on that unicorn from Robot Unicorn Attack, on the back of a napkin.
Notable event of the Bad/Are-You-Serious variety: During the end-of-con staff reception, while reenacting an event from high school where Robin accidentally/unthinkingly smacked me upside the head so hard I was sent sprawling across the concrete ground and identified 2 fingers as 4 while exclaiming "you turned my eggs to scrambled brains!", Robin 'hit' me again and I stunt-threw myself on the floor beside our table for the humor of it -- being very aware of staying aligned with our table and out of foot-traffic space.
Nevertheless, some older-middaged woman with a basketed and wheeled walker went OFF on me. For a minute I thought she was being con-exaggerated mock-serious, but then I realized she was just absurd... because she was going off about me DAMAGING THE ALIGNMENT OF HER WHEELS if she had hit me, and did I know how much trouble it would be to repair them, and how she might have just left "tire treads" over me instead of veering around.
Keep in mind I didn't fall in front of her at ALL, and even if I had... lady, it's a walker, not a corvette. You're going along at a shuffle. Wheeler alignment? Really? But I just apologized over and over until she calmed down... and then she proved she was just some variety of convention-crazy, because then she wanted to know the story, and she and her (grand-?)daughter went off laughing. O_o; Um. Yeah. Wow. We were all kinds of "wtf was that?" over that one.
Notable event of the DEAD FROM LAWL variety: For Katsuchristmas, Kira drew me a "Color, cut out and dress... Duo" doll. When friends draw me fanart for my fandoms (translated as "the guys Phe still gets high school era pseudocrushes on"), two that are often highlighted are Duo Maxwell from Gundam Wing, and Kankurou from Naruto. Since we are teenagers in our heads still, despite approaching our thirties (?!?!?!), in our little headverses where we collect these characters like bottlecaps, Duo and Kankurou have a horrible and ridiculous rivalry (over my affection *cough*). Kira's doll came with Duo's standard priestly outfit... and Kankurou's bunraku suit. Robin narrated: "IS THIS WHAT I HAVE TO DO TO GET SOME ATTENTION?!" I was dead from lawls for several minutes, but eventually told Kira, "I don't know which one of them hates you more right now!"
Notable event of the OH MY GOD WATCH ME ACT TWELVE variety: So here it is, Sunday evening, and our little group of friends is en route to the 8pm reception. The convention is closed up and over, has been for hours. It had its laughs and moments and memories, of course, but nothing that had up and made me squeal with that particular kind of delight and pleasure that comes from being a fangirl getting a particular fandom funnybone tickled. I had no merchandise, no cosplay photos, just a slightly sad and kind of empty feeling of "I didn't enjoy this as an anime convention as much as I could have."
We round a corner. A couple individuals are still in cosplay, taking advantage of a bit of bright lighting in the biiiig dark Gaylord Hotel atrium. Robin and I circle around them but something goes "click!" in my head and I turn back to look, and realize, and start building up steam. Woah, hey, wait, they're from the game I was just playing! I mean JUST! Literally! Right before we left the hotel room! OMG! This is one of the Japanese-only otome games I have hooked into my Engrish translator! They're cosplaying Starry☆Sky! SOMEONE ELSE KNOWS IT!! THEY'RE COSPLAYING IT!!! ONE OF THEM IS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER!!!!
Sadly, the more excited and caught up on a moment of gleeful disbelief I get, the fuzzier the memory itself becomes, but ultimately there was glee all around. They called two more cosplayers out of the shadows, and we learned I was the only person to recognize who they were ALL CON, and by Robin's clearer memory, she says they looked very pleased by my reaction. The Homare-senpai hugged me first (that is, before I could even ask <3) and I, laughing, warned them, "So you know, you're my favorite, so I might not let go!" X3 And their Azusa-kun was "No, you should like me best!" and I was "Sorry <3" and their Homare-senpai was "Well I am the captain after all" and their Ryunosuke was appropriately "..." and their Tsukiko needed convincing that, yes, I wanted "the girl who steals all the guys" in a picture, too.
As we departed, I thanked them for making my night, and they laughed happily and thanked me, too, and I was in a stupid-happy mood for the rest of the night... or, at least, up until walker-alignment-witch got mad at me... and then I thought about the Starry☆Sky group again and felt better.
My luck of having at least one awesome ~*~CONVENTION MOMENT~*~ per con is still running with me. Gleeeeeee~
IS IT OTAKON YET