This year's Con experience... was AWESOME. I'd had a nagging little voice in my head that it might not live up to the mindblowing joy the first one brought but... my dears... the freedom you find when surrounded by your own defies literary description. When it was over and I was on the plane home I nearly cried because I didn't want to return to reality.
So, I'll tell you what brought me to it.
Pre-Con: I met up with Xen and Sabs after an uneventful flight over. It was a good thing that my flight was delayed, because Sabs had actually forgotten that I was coming that day.She thought I would be coming at the same time as my Seishirou-san. *smack* Because they both had to work, I went to work with Xen and got to play with kitties. (she works in a music shop inhabited by two of the friendliest, nicest cats I know, and one had a tail like an ubersoft feather duster ^.^) I chatted with Xen a bit, and found out she's really cool, and a lot like myself. I also had McDonalds, which I found out tastes more bland than Canadian McDonalds...*shrug* They probably use worse quality meat. Somehow, Xen also managed to rope me into finishing up her Ryuuichi Sakuma costume (the bunny suit!!) Luckily it was a very easy costume to make, and took barely any time at all. I also went to her house for supper, where her family was apparently surpised that I could use chopsticks. (her family is chinese) The one bit of english that I heard from her mother was "She uses them the proper way!" Take that, Jo. ;3 I slept at Sab's house that night, and met up with my Sei-chan the next day. Her flight was even more delayed than mine so we ended up making it back to Xen's house by almost midnight. Finished Xen's costumes, fell asleep at 2am, and was up to go the the Con at 9:00.
We arrived at the hotel at around 12:20, intending to check into our rooms and then set up our cosplay stuff. Of course, that couldn't be the case. They made us wait 'till two, and then charged us a $100.00 extra deposit on the room. FUCKERS. We almost didn't have the money, but later on Xen's mom phoned up the hotel and bitched and we got the deposit back.
We met our Fuuma, (Heather!!*hugs*) who had checked into the hotel the night before, and while we were waiting I cut her and my Sei-san's hair. Dammit. They were too sexy. ....After that we got our rooms, went through the HOUR LONG pre-registration line, and wandered around scoping things out. I saw Tenshi and Llama of Bishounen Ink. fame, but they were a little busy so I didn't get a chance to chat, eaven though I had been talking to Joy pretty extensively over the net. *tear* The dealer's room wasn't open 'till the next day, so I watched Be-Boy Kidnappin' Idol and Patarillo. They were funny as hell!! I also walked about fourty blocks to find a store that sold fake blood so we could use it for our cosplay skit. FEET HURT. When we got back to our room, Xen and Sabs' friends Becca, Al and later, Sihaya(!!!*hughughughug*I miss you girl!) were gathering. Sihaya is also known as Momma Kenshin, and is extremely cool.
At the end of the night, we went out for dinner and went to bed in preparation for the cosplay, which was going to be at 5:00 Sat, with 4:00 tech rehearsal.
Saturday FULL CON: Got up at around 8:30, wating for Sihaya to drop by because I said I would help her with her hair. She never showed, (overslept*poke*) so I and Sei-san went down to the CLAMP discussion. ...Which turned out to basically be the X discussion, since I was still wearing my Subaru hall costume. I had to bat people away with sticks, saying that they should wait until the cosplay to take pictures. O.o At 10:00 the dealer's room was supposed to open, so we sat around and waited a bit... It wasn't really worth it- a little disappointing, really. There were nowhere near as many doujinshi as last year, and what there was wasn't even very good by the time people with early dealer's room passes were done with it. ;_; There were basically NO X doujinshi. I was mostly Gundam Wing and Saiyuki, neither of which I like. On the plus side, I found it amusing that they were also selling sex toys at this year's Con. Though I wondered who would buy them in front of so many people...? I ended up buying an X poster, some fanart, two chi-ran(MANSEX) manga, the X perfect book(so the cosplay judges would actually have a picture of my costume), some X and TB pencil boards, and a large framed oil painting of the Tokyo Babylon artbook picture where Subaru and Seishrou are dressed in red, surrounded by death lillies, embracing, and Subaru is looking over Seishrou's shoulder. I was so pissed that it got a little damaged on the way over, but it can still be repaired, so it's not so bad. After that we visited Sihaya in the art room to pick up a prop for our skit, (she is |337 artist, thankyou for the ofuda!!) who was dressed as TBSubaru in the little red coat! So adorable!!! I actually let someone take one picture of me then, with me putting my arms around my younger self. Cute cute. But, then it was time to get ready for the Cosplay.
We rehearsed our skit, I styled everyone's hair, (yes, I was hair bitch for this Con) then I snuck my stuff downstairs and got changed into my costume in the green room. At this point we figured out we wouldn't be able to use the fake blood, because I had bought blood gel and we had nothing to heat it up with. Blood gel goes from a gel to a liquid to a gel again, so it doesn't wipe off on anything. Luckily I had brought some watercolors, so we used those.Our skit for the cosplay was as follows:
Subaru is the first to walk onto the stage. He pauses to look at the audience, then goes to a little right of the center and kneels, holding up an ofuda and chanting. Behind him, Seishirou enters- wearing shades. He tosses them away, and then walks to directly behind Subaru, guiding him gently to his feet by his throat. Subaru, breaking out of his trance, is startled and struggles violently, before he realizes who it is and calms. At this time, Seishirou holds up Subaru's hand, which he has caught, and looks at it. It is covered with blood. He kisses the hand, and leans toward Subaru, tilting his lover's chin up... then looks away, over Subaru's shoulder. Subaru spins around, startled and drops the ofuda. Fuuma has entered the stage as well. Fuuma walks to where Subaru has dropped the ofuda and picks it up. To Subaru's horror he tears the ofuda in two, and lets it drop, exiting the stage. Subaru quickly looks for Seishirou, but he has disappeared. Subaru, heartbroken, stands for a moment, and then also leaves.
This skit earned us third place in the cosplay: a framed award, and a twenty five dollar vendor credit in the dealer's room. After the cosplay was over, there was a photoshoot. (complete with lots of suggestive posing) At this point there was actually two other Subarus, but both of them were TB Subarus wearing the read jackets. Thusly, there were lots of (as we dubbed them) Masturbation Pics. Yay for suggestive posing with people dressed as the same character.
We stuck around for the bishounen auction, to see what my friend Monurere-kun would go for, and he was actually the second highest bid on. $200. Go him! After that a ton of us went up to our room and got pizza. Subaru in shikifuku, ordering pizza has to be one of the strangest sights San Fran has ever seen, but the nice pizza man didn't even bat an eyelash. I changed back into my hall costume after that, (but with the eye bandage this time) and more pictures ensued. Then it was time for the dance, wherein there was copious amounts of grinding on my, Sei-san's, Fuuma's and Sihaya's accounts. Prrrrr. ;3 Halfway through, the band stole my shoes!!! !!! !!! (borrowed them really) so I went upstairs and basically passed out.
On day three, Sei-san took Fuuma out for icecream. (yay pics!!) And we basically hung around and took more photos until four. I was leashed at that time, and Sei-san was having a little more fun than necessary dragging me around on it. Oh yes, and there are pics of that too.
Not much happened on the last day... but it was satisfying anyway. I didn't meet some of the people I hoped I would, but it all worked out in the end. All in all, I can't wait 'till next year, though I may be attending SakuraCon around Mayish with Sihaya, we'll see how that works out. I wish I didn't have to leave.
Sue to Seishirou-san: How does that make you feel? Tell me about your mother.