July 19 and August 17: Anime meet ups!
Since I have been to two anime meet ups in the past months (all of these meet ups were set up on the Animazement forums) I'm blogging them together, so prepare for a lot of words and pictures, not dial up friendly.
June 21st:
Yes I know, those are geese not ducks (and this is an actual picture from the meet up) but seriously, the geese were everywhere and darn prissy too. I was worried they would start chasing and biting us, thank goodness that didn't happen.
So, I had been working like crazy to have my Shiki from The World Ends with You, cosplay half done and I failed. The hat didn't sit right on my head (I swear, in every single picture my hat is at this weird jaunty angle), my cat looked more like a dog (and I don't blame people who were confused for calling that), I could barely get the shirt on (putting non strechy fabric on top of strechy fabric=fail), I had shorts instead of a skirt, sandals instead of boots, no jacket, I think that's everything.
I should also say that this is one of the meet ups where I did a good deal of the organizing for again, the park we met at was at my suggestion (then again, someone just asked us to name parks in the area and I was the only one who responded, lol) and so I had to remember what the park looked like in order to have an area to meet up. Needless to say when we came to the entrance that google maps told us to go to and found the gate closed, my first thought was "Oh sh**, NOW we have a problem." Two other people had trouble with Mapquest (one got lost for an hour when the park was only 10 minutes away, the other person had trouble and then realized this was over where she used to work).
I was able to find roughly the area I said to meet up at (we had to park in the nearby Science Center Parking lot) and after a few minutes my friend/partner in crime, animexcrazedxfan showed up and our respective parents felt safe about leaving us alone together. We wandered closer over to the paddle boats (since I had posted that there were paddle boats there and then half a dozen people said they would have to try them out) and ran into the cousin of aoirobara. She was cosplaying as Rinoa from FFVIII and her daughter was a very cute Link. I was starting to get nervous by this point, not only was the park different from I remembered but I hadn't even been able to describe it to people on the forums too much. But after about half an hour solaria1022 (as Alice from Alice McGee), her husband (as Sessomaru from Inuyasha) and their three kids (all delighted to have an excuse to wear their Halloween costumes) showed up and we started looking more like a group. We also started getting more weird looks from the people who were walking or running by (and there was this one guy who rode his bike around us like, 10 times in that half an hour, the loop of road he was a mile or two long I believe).
After they showed up AxCxF and I decided to walk up to the parking lot and look to see if there was anyone else up there, and as we were walking by one of the shelters, a girl comes out and asks us if there is an anime convention going on. The two of us are surprised and say no, this is a gathering of people from the AZ forums, and she said yeah she had gone to AZ! Apparently she hadn't quite believed her mom a minute ago when she said that she saw Sessamaru walking around and then happened to ask the next people who walked by in weird outfits (I should mention that AxCxF was wearing this purple half kimono thing) what was going on. Her dad is walking over and asking if we are in a play (why do people always ask that?) and she yelled no at him, AxCxF and I left a few minutes later to look around the parking lot. We found KiwiNinamori as Freya from Chobits (her little sister was along and I think she was cosplaying someone from Digimon), walked all the way around the parking lot, nearly got run over, and as we were walking back through the parking lot, we found Tigress and Nathan Cross getting out of Tigress's car. I forget who Cross was supposed to be, but Tigress was in her "quarter assed" cosplay ("not even half assed, this is quarter assed!").
We all walked back to the paddle boats, everyone introduced themselves, and since there were some empty park tables nearby we went over and sat, stood, or whatever, and just talked. I hadn't seen most of these people since Animazement, some from before that, and so it was nice to talk in real life. Kinda funny too since it reminded me of what goes on on the forums (like my umbrella getting stolen by Cross when I poked him with it and then AxCxF and I having to team up to get it back, that is classic forum antics right there). So we talked a lot, some people decided to go paddle boating later (I shot the video for them here).
And lastly here is a big group shot of everyone:
From the left, solaria1022 as Alice from Alice McGree, her husband, Baki, as Sessehmaru, the next three people are from that family reunion I mentioned earlier, then we have (back row) aoirobara's cousin as Rinoa from FFVIII, Nathan Cross as someone, AnimexCrazedxFan in her purple kimimono thingie, tigress in her "quarter assed" cosplay, rei-chan (not in cosplay) next row; me looking like an idiot in the middle of the picture, link is the cousin's daughter, the two pirates and spiderman are solarian1022's kids, KiwiNinamori as Freya, and her little sister, I believe cosplaying as someone from digimon. Not pictured is Stephanieduz as Misa.
God, I look like an idiot in there, but oh well, that's life.
August 17th:
This meet up was originally supposed to take place in a bowling alley, we had prices, someone called to make sure costumes were okay ("As long as they are wearing something it's okay") and then we found out that the local league bowled there on Sundays at the time we were going to and that they took up most of the lanes. And we only found this out on the 15th, I think, it was BAD! So in an emergency desicion, AxCxF (who had been planning most of this meet up) changed it to the park again (and used my screenshot to show where it was, lol) since most people knew where this was by now. And it looked like it was going to rain again, but at least my umbrella matched my cosplay. I decided to go in full cosplay as Amulet Spade, this is when my mom and I discovered that wig caps not only keep your head from getting sweaty, but they keep all of the bobby pins from pin curling my hair out of the way. So, I need a new wig cap soon, we didn't have any old pantyhose for me to use.
So, we get to the park, no problem this time, and aoirobara (rikku) pops up right behind me in her very cute lolita outfit (I think she was glad to see someone she knew). Picture:
We headed down and three people were already there, Writing Otaku (WOku), Cross, and Stephanduz (whom I didn't recognize at first without her Misa wig, her hair is so long I don't know how she manages to pin it all up). After a couple of minutes of joking around more people showed up (actually, Cross brought his Deathnote with him again, and we all touched it to see if we saw Shinigami and then we saw more people walking towards us, it works!) and let's see, I think it was Rei-chan (I'm not sure who she was cosplaying), kaimana_rose (who was wearing a black and white lolita outfit), and Yuki Nagato (who was wearing a Deathnote T shirt). We talked and then AxCxF and her friend, Dei-chan (her AZ username is actually longer but I have no idea how to spell it) came along. AxCxF was wearing her red FMA shirt, a green kimono thing she sewed in two hours, and (since the kimono thing made her look like it) Urahara's hat from Bleach.
Um, somehow we got into an umbrella fight, I forget how though, but it was funny!
So we talked for a while (some people started dancing, because we can!) and then WOku got a call from another person, TMSTKSBK, (T) who said he was "in the park with all the statues of a guy on horseback." I knew which park it was (he wasn't far off) and Rei was able to give directions so he got over pretty quickly. I should also mention that T helps with security at AZ (and is now a mod on the forums), so that makes the second AZ staff person I have met in person. Always a good idea to know what the staff looks like. We all talked some more about various things (T showed us pictures of AZ new venue, the Raleigh Convention Center and DANG that place is big!). Dei-chan was being a bit shy so Rikku was talking to her a lot of the time, I think it was really nice that she went out of her way for that, I always feel too awkward to do anything like that.
Unfortunatly my mom is came at 5 like we agreed (and we were about to go to the playground!) so I had to say good bye to everyone, I think next time I'm going to tell my mom to just call me instead, it's a little awkward to have your mom come down and pick you up like your 11. They took a group picture after I left, here it is:
From the left, Cross with Dei-chan in front of him, Stepahnie with Rikku in front of her, Rei-chan, Yuki, Woku,kaimana_rose, and AxCxF, I guess T was taking the photo.
So that's what goes on at an anime meet up, pretty tame, we don't even get people yelling at us in the park, probably because we keep to ourselves and just look like a bunch of friends with some weird clothing (which is spot actually...).
Signing off, this took to many days to write!
June 21st:
Yes I know, those are geese not ducks (and this is an actual picture from the meet up) but seriously, the geese were everywhere and darn prissy too. I was worried they would start chasing and biting us, thank goodness that didn't happen.
So, I had been working like crazy to have my Shiki from The World Ends with You, cosplay half done and I failed. The hat didn't sit right on my head (I swear, in every single picture my hat is at this weird jaunty angle), my cat looked more like a dog (and I don't blame people who were confused for calling that), I could barely get the shirt on (putting non strechy fabric on top of strechy fabric=fail), I had shorts instead of a skirt, sandals instead of boots, no jacket, I think that's everything.
I should also say that this is one of the meet ups where I did a good deal of the organizing for again, the park we met at was at my suggestion (then again, someone just asked us to name parks in the area and I was the only one who responded, lol) and so I had to remember what the park looked like in order to have an area to meet up. Needless to say when we came to the entrance that google maps told us to go to and found the gate closed, my first thought was "Oh sh**, NOW we have a problem." Two other people had trouble with Mapquest (one got lost for an hour when the park was only 10 minutes away, the other person had trouble and then realized this was over where she used to work).
I was able to find roughly the area I said to meet up at (we had to park in the nearby Science Center Parking lot) and after a few minutes my friend/partner in crime, animexcrazedxfan showed up and our respective parents felt safe about leaving us alone together. We wandered closer over to the paddle boats (since I had posted that there were paddle boats there and then half a dozen people said they would have to try them out) and ran into the cousin of aoirobara. She was cosplaying as Rinoa from FFVIII and her daughter was a very cute Link. I was starting to get nervous by this point, not only was the park different from I remembered but I hadn't even been able to describe it to people on the forums too much. But after about half an hour solaria1022 (as Alice from Alice McGee), her husband (as Sessomaru from Inuyasha) and their three kids (all delighted to have an excuse to wear their Halloween costumes) showed up and we started looking more like a group. We also started getting more weird looks from the people who were walking or running by (and there was this one guy who rode his bike around us like, 10 times in that half an hour, the loop of road he was a mile or two long I believe).
After they showed up AxCxF and I decided to walk up to the parking lot and look to see if there was anyone else up there, and as we were walking by one of the shelters, a girl comes out and asks us if there is an anime convention going on. The two of us are surprised and say no, this is a gathering of people from the AZ forums, and she said yeah she had gone to AZ! Apparently she hadn't quite believed her mom a minute ago when she said that she saw Sessamaru walking around and then happened to ask the next people who walked by in weird outfits (I should mention that AxCxF was wearing this purple half kimono thing) what was going on. Her dad is walking over and asking if we are in a play (why do people always ask that?) and she yelled no at him, AxCxF and I left a few minutes later to look around the parking lot. We found KiwiNinamori as Freya from Chobits (her little sister was along and I think she was cosplaying someone from Digimon), walked all the way around the parking lot, nearly got run over, and as we were walking back through the parking lot, we found Tigress and Nathan Cross getting out of Tigress's car. I forget who Cross was supposed to be, but Tigress was in her "quarter assed" cosplay ("not even half assed, this is quarter assed!").
We all walked back to the paddle boats, everyone introduced themselves, and since there were some empty park tables nearby we went over and sat, stood, or whatever, and just talked. I hadn't seen most of these people since Animazement, some from before that, and so it was nice to talk in real life. Kinda funny too since it reminded me of what goes on on the forums (like my umbrella getting stolen by Cross when I poked him with it and then AxCxF and I having to team up to get it back, that is classic forum antics right there). So we talked a lot, some people decided to go paddle boating later (I shot the video for them here).
And lastly here is a big group shot of everyone:
From the left, solaria1022 as Alice from Alice McGree, her husband, Baki, as Sessehmaru, the next three people are from that family reunion I mentioned earlier, then we have (back row) aoirobara's cousin as Rinoa from FFVIII, Nathan Cross as someone, AnimexCrazedxFan in her purple kimimono thingie, tigress in her "quarter assed" cosplay, rei-chan (not in cosplay) next row; me looking like an idiot in the middle of the picture, link is the cousin's daughter, the two pirates and spiderman are solarian1022's kids, KiwiNinamori as Freya, and her little sister, I believe cosplaying as someone from digimon. Not pictured is Stephanieduz as Misa.
God, I look like an idiot in there, but oh well, that's life.
August 17th:
This meet up was originally supposed to take place in a bowling alley, we had prices, someone called to make sure costumes were okay ("As long as they are wearing something it's okay") and then we found out that the local league bowled there on Sundays at the time we were going to and that they took up most of the lanes. And we only found this out on the 15th, I think, it was BAD! So in an emergency desicion, AxCxF (who had been planning most of this meet up) changed it to the park again (and used my screenshot to show where it was, lol) since most people knew where this was by now. And it looked like it was going to rain again, but at least my umbrella matched my cosplay. I decided to go in full cosplay as Amulet Spade, this is when my mom and I discovered that wig caps not only keep your head from getting sweaty, but they keep all of the bobby pins from pin curling my hair out of the way. So, I need a new wig cap soon, we didn't have any old pantyhose for me to use.
So, we get to the park, no problem this time, and aoirobara (rikku) pops up right behind me in her very cute lolita outfit (I think she was glad to see someone she knew). Picture:
We headed down and three people were already there, Writing Otaku (WOku), Cross, and Stephanduz (whom I didn't recognize at first without her Misa wig, her hair is so long I don't know how she manages to pin it all up). After a couple of minutes of joking around more people showed up (actually, Cross brought his Deathnote with him again, and we all touched it to see if we saw Shinigami and then we saw more people walking towards us, it works!) and let's see, I think it was Rei-chan (I'm not sure who she was cosplaying), kaimana_rose (who was wearing a black and white lolita outfit), and Yuki Nagato (who was wearing a Deathnote T shirt). We talked and then AxCxF and her friend, Dei-chan (her AZ username is actually longer but I have no idea how to spell it) came along. AxCxF was wearing her red FMA shirt, a green kimono thing she sewed in two hours, and (since the kimono thing made her look like it) Urahara's hat from Bleach.
Um, somehow we got into an umbrella fight, I forget how though, but it was funny!
So we talked for a while (some people started dancing, because we can!) and then WOku got a call from another person, TMSTKSBK, (T) who said he was "in the park with all the statues of a guy on horseback." I knew which park it was (he wasn't far off) and Rei was able to give directions so he got over pretty quickly. I should also mention that T helps with security at AZ (and is now a mod on the forums), so that makes the second AZ staff person I have met in person. Always a good idea to know what the staff looks like. We all talked some more about various things (T showed us pictures of AZ new venue, the Raleigh Convention Center and DANG that place is big!). Dei-chan was being a bit shy so Rikku was talking to her a lot of the time, I think it was really nice that she went out of her way for that, I always feel too awkward to do anything like that.
Unfortunatly my mom is came at 5 like we agreed (and we were about to go to the playground!) so I had to say good bye to everyone, I think next time I'm going to tell my mom to just call me instead, it's a little awkward to have your mom come down and pick you up like your 11. They took a group picture after I left, here it is:
From the left, Cross with Dei-chan in front of him, Stepahnie with Rikku in front of her, Rei-chan, Yuki, Woku,kaimana_rose, and AxCxF, I guess T was taking the photo.
So that's what goes on at an anime meet up, pretty tame, we don't even get people yelling at us in the park, probably because we keep to ourselves and just look like a bunch of friends with some weird clothing (which is spot actually...).
Signing off, this took to many days to write!