AnimeNEXT '06 con report
Jun. 21st, 2006 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rose_of_painAlright, it's finally time for my usual insanely long con report. And this one should be pretty lengthy indeed. I've got some pictures within the report to make it a bit more interesting as well.
Darlene came and picked me up Wednesday night. I finally got to see the townhouse her and Maryatha share though Maryatha was at Dani's at the time so got to sleep in her bed. I stayed up talking to Dar for a while as she worked some more on Mickey. She was making the coat and hood and wrapped the hood around the head and I thought it made him look like a muslim.
Muslim Mickey! XP
Thursday:
Darlene went to work so I spent most of the day just chilling in her house. I watched Kizuna and read more Hellsing and also finished Dietrich's first cosplay.
Sephiroth! ^_^ It came out so nice! I didn't expect it to come out as nice as it did and I was so happy. Dietrich got a lot of attention because of it too.
Darlene made it back home before anyone else showed up but they started arriving right as she did. Zach, Laura, and Jess showed up first and then Erik and Katie. Had to wait a while for Matt and Tiff before we were able to pack everything into Darlene's and Zach's vehicles. Was quite the accomplishment too. We had all the weapons laying over the top and poor Tiff had to lean in underneath them all. I hoped into Zach's car and we headed out to a rest stop to pick up Kelly. This con was my first time getting to actually meet a lot of the crack crew. I'm really glad I did too as they're all so nice and cool. ^^ It was really awesome getting to meet and know them better. After getting into the rooms for that night (since everyone room wasn't arriving til Fri, I was in with Katie and Erik that night) we went out for food. We went to Cheeseburger in Paradise which was a nice place. I just had popcorn shrimp but mmm they were yummy. ^^ There was a lot of crack conversations during the dinner. Eating with the crack crew tends to be pretty damn amusing I've noticed. There were rotating doors at the entrance of the restaurant so we played with that for a while and on the way out, we almost broke one so kinda ran away rather fast. ^^;
Friday:
We had suites in the hotel so they were pretty nice though apparantly we were supposed to have bigger ones and the hotel staff kept giving us a lot of unnecessary shit about the rooms and such. It was really annoying. The one bitch kept giving us the snobbiest glare I've ever seen too. >_> Ugh. But anyways, they were still nice rooms. And we had free breakfast so everyone went down in the morning to eat. I just had orange juice as I can't eat breakfast foods. It was Kelly's birthday so we all said happy birthday to her and she went around wearing a sign to announce it later on. I was waiting for Magenta since I told her I'd met her in the lobby. Didn't take too long for her to show up, just as everyone was finishing their food. We decided that since we couldn't get into our room yet, to just leave our stuff in Katie and Erik's room and go get our badges. I brought Dietrich with us though. At first we were in line with Darlene and whoever else of the crack crew was up but then I spotted Ling and Mimi and we ended up staying with them in line instead. I was so happy to see them at this con. ^^ They were in Sora and Roxas and their friend Yeu (?) was in Riku. We joked around a lot about KH and about Cloud being Sora's and Roxas' dad and Seph being Riku's dad. XP And then this guy behind us in this know-it-all voice was like "Actually Sephiroth was born in a lab..." ^^;; Guess he didn't notice the obviously joking tone. Okies. ^^; Kinda weird and annoying. But anyways, got our badges and then found out Stef, Ana, Manda, and Dani had arrived so went back to the hotel.
On the way there we got stopped by two really nice girls who had their dolls and freaked out when they saw Dietrich. One of them had a U too and we conversed on the fact of how different the two looked. They were really nice. Usually I tend to avoid other doll people as they often can be really snobby at cons and I'm too shy to go to gatherings. I wish I could've talked to these two more and they wanted me to go to the gathering but I totally forgot about it and didn't really carry Die around much anyways.
The two girls. I forgot what the other doll was though.
Headed over to the hotel and everyone was still in the lobby so we headed up to Darlene's room since we still couldn't get our room open. Magenta and I were quite amused by the great pile of wigs that Stef had styled in the room.
So many wigs! And this is only a small portion of the ones she did.
Stef, Ana, and Manda were all already in their Trinity Blood outfits so I got into Abel and Darlene got into Seth. Magenta went ahead and got into Mika-chan for when I'd do Lucifer later and Dani did an amazing job on the dragon tattoo for her. Everyone kept thinking she was Reno though. ^^;; Dani, Ana, and Stef kept surrounding me going "Candy Mountain, Abel!" which totally confused me until they told me about Charlie the Unicorn though I didn't get to see it and understand til later. ^^; It was amusing anyways and kinda became the theme of the con.
Random picture of Ion seducing Esther and Abel being all "Hey! Get off my nun!" XP
Abel managed to get through this con without much problems this time around. Only issues I had was the restriction of movement really. But nothing really broke. Or at least nothing as bad as Katsu. I still have a lot more that needs to be redone and added to though. We wandered into the con for a bit and I was rather surprised how small the actual con events areas were. Though I never did go over to the Holiday Inn so no idea what it was like in there. AN has a really odd structure in my opinion. We decided we were hungry though and so headed out to find some food with a bunch of the crack crew. A bunch of them went to Burger King but us TB folks voted for the much more healthy wrap place that was pretty good. Magenta and I shared a wrap. After that we all headed back to the hotel. Really we didn't spend that much time at the con as we kept going back to the hotel room. lol Eventually we were able to finally check into our actual room so we moved all our junk there. Magenta wanted me to get into Lucifer so I did and Manda couldn't take being in Esther anymore so got out of that. AX uniforms are a pain to wear no matter which character you are, man.
Magenta and I headed back into the con and headed into the Dealer's Room. Magenta bought a Kururu plushie and armband from Keroro Gunsou and I bought the same for Dororo. I also got my Trinity Blood vol. 6 and Seimaden vol. 8. Also got talked into getting a TB keychain and pin set since the lady was so nice and gave me a discount. Ran into Ling and Mimi again and also ran into![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darkpierrot Mimi. It was great getting to see the latter again as it's been quite some time and I didn't get to go to AZ this year.
Here's me and Magenta as Luci and Mika
After having fun for a while, we went back to the hotel to change out of costume and get ready for the concert. Magenta had talked to some of her friends so we could meet up with them in line. We both decided to keep our AS make-up on. The line was outside though, which sucked 'cause we got totally eaten alive by bugs. My arms were practically raped by them. x_x They still haven't gone away yet either. The wait was really long but we were pretty up near the front of it. This one girl behind us suddenly yelled out at one point "Who wants a naked Sailor Mars doll?" and one of Magenta's friends took it. So we had a naked Sailor Mars doll to entertain us for a while. One of the girls got the great idea to have everyone sign it and give it to D'espairs Ray later so we did. XP We went around getting a bunch of people to sign it. I signed the top of her vagina and one guy spread her legs and wrote it there which even outdid mine. XP
Here she is! And you can see my signature quite well. XP
Picture from Spiffy. This is everyone who signed the doll. ^^;
And this is Magenta and I posing with our Keroro armbands 'cause we're total dorks.
So after many hours of waiting, we finally get in...only to have to stand and listen to this ugly band that was opening. And ugh, they didn't sound very good. Or at least you couldn't make out a single word. They were quite scary looking too. I thought they were just going to do like a few songs but no, they did like a whole freaking show and took up an entire hour. x_x So we were all like "Blah!" by the time they ended and getting tired of standing. Then it took forever to take their set down and we noticed that it looked kinda like another band that wasn't D'Ray was setting up and we're like "uh...what?" and asked a security man and he said D'Ray wasn't coming on for another hour. We weren't very happy to hear that. And yup, after like 30 minutes of setting up, out came another opening band. x_x So we decided to go sit down on the side seats. At this point like half of the audience was gone already. I really couldn't stand this band even though other people I know seemed to like them. But ugh, I found them disgusting as they kept doing all this perverted stuff and said "fuck" every other word. So I just covered my ears during it and Magenta and the others tried to sleep. But yeah, that was yet another hour gone to waste. And then I noticed that in the back people were walking in and out and I was like "....." when I realized we could've just waited an hour and walked in and we would've been able to get to the front fine. -_- So thus to say we were NOT happy. Especially since Spiffy and Megan had to leave before D'Ray even came on! But I guess her mom let them come back 'cause they were there for a bit when they finally did come on.
So yeah D'Ray FINALLY came on but oh my god, I was about to kill AN for doing that. Apparantly the two bands are touring with D'Ray or something but it really wasn't appropiate for a con setting. And a lot of the fans gave up before the actual concert even started. So by the time D'Ray came on, I just wasn't as energetic as I would've been otherwise. And I wasn't feeling that great as the vibrations of the bass were just a bit too much after having gone through 2 hours of it already. So I was ok the first half of the concert but sadly once they got to the songs I actually knew, I didn't feel good enough to keep standing and bouncing so I had to sit down and be all lame and raise my hand from my seat. ^^; It was pretty sad. lol I was trying to still get into it as best as I could but my body was like "noooo." But yeah, it would've been a lot better if it wasn't for the insanely long wait and all.
Then we met up with Manda as she had one of the prenium tickets. And we headed back to our room after saying goodnight to Spiffy and her friends. Stef and Ana had bought these awesome little microwavable dinners while we were out so Manda and I had some of those and they were really good. *_* Real food too. Emma and Liam had arrived but they were working on costumes in Darlene's room so didn't really get to say hi to them. The rest of us went to bed and they came in after we had fallen asleep.
Saturday:
Saturday was of course the big Kingdom Hearts day. We woke up and all started getting into our respective costumes. Magenta went to meet Chris and she was in Zack and him in Rude so they were still FF characters and so fit along. It was pretty damn crazy with everyone rushing around getting ready. I managed to burn myself on the hot glue gun a few times trying to fix the random strap on Cloud that decided to come undone. Then all of us that were done went downstairs to chill while they finished Darlene's Mickey and try to get Zach's Xaldin wig on his head. Meanwhile the Nobodies were finishing their costumes too. It was crazy and took til about 1 or so for us all to be fully ready but it was amazing. We had ALL 13 Organization members, Sora, KH1 Riku, blindfold Riku, and KH2 Riku, Kairi, Roxas, Mickey, KH1 Ansem, Fuu, Yuffie, Cloud, a Dancer, and a Dusk. The Orgy lined up in order of their numbers and we headed out to the con.
As we went by, a Naruto photoshoot was going on and they like stopped to follow us. XP In fact, we had a huge crowd following us and so when we got there, we stopped on the steps for quite a while as people took pictures.
Then we headed over into the grass for the KH/FF gathering and Emma in Larxene started running around to cool herself down and gradually the others started doing it too until almost all of them were running around in a circle.
You can see the circle here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cArCcZNYd8
Then I think we went inside so Dar wouldn't die inside of Mickey. Magenta had to get out of Zack 'cause the binding wasn't on that well and she had a Gravi photoshoot to catch. The KH group decided we should enter in the hall costume contest randomly and so we headed over to the EmbassySuites for that. Ling and Mimi with their TB group were entering as well so we got to see them again. I didn't think you could enter a group as big as ours but they let us. ^^ And we weren't sure what to enter as since Dani and I have both been in Craftsman skits before but the judges said it would be ok if were entered in Novice after we told them of all the beginners in the group who had never entered anything before. They later bumped us up to Journeyman though saying we were skilled enough for that as a group. It was really awesome entering with everyone and I'm glad I got to be a part of that even if I wasn't a main character.
Our group being judged. Picture by Ling.
Afterwards we headed back to the hotel with the intention of getting all the crack crew together for their planned photo but it didn't happen as people were just too scattered. So back to the room we went. Magenta came from from Gravi and then got into Kisaki for the little J-Rock shoot. While the rest of us just relaxed, half in and half out of costume. Dani updated her LJ with Emma in her lap which made for a great Axel/Larxene picture. XP Then I was finally shown Charlie the Unicorn which is total crack and absolutely wonderful! XP "Shun the non-believers! Shuuuuuuun-a" Dani and Liam were helping Ginny and Monty with a skit so they had to go do that and Emma went to watch the Masquerade. Then Magenta came back and I got into Trooper Cloud, she got into Zack, Stef got into Lucrecia, Ana into Vincent, and Jim into Reeve, so we were a mixed group of FF7 characters along with Chris as Rude.
Our little mixed group.
Stef as Lucrecia holding little Sephy. ^^ Too cute. She walked around with him for a while.
We ventured out and went to deliver water to the poor crack crew souls waiting outside in the Masquerade line. They were like practically dead by the time we got there with the water. Especially Dar in Mickey. I had fun being all cute in my Trooper uniform and we spent a little time chatting with them but we decided not to go to the Masquerade and wandered around the con for a bit though we stopped when we spotted Ling and Mimi's TB group at the top of the steps and were just overwhelmed by their awesomeness. Hanged with them for a while and a piece of Ana's Cereberus gun broke so they wanted to go back to the room to repair it and Stef suddenly decided she wanted to be in Ion. We headed back into the room and I was all planning to just like stay in Trooper or get into the PJ thing Magenta and I were originally going to do. But Stef asked if I would get back into Abel. I really wasn't up to it but then she did that wibble-face-of-doom and oh my god, it like breaks your heart. So yeah, I got into Abel. ^^;;
Since Ana was wearing Radu, we decided to put Magenta into Ana's Issak costume. We used the unstyled Kenpachi wig for it and it worked rather well. ^^ I didn't do any make-up for Abel though so it could've looked better I'm sure. We then met up with the other group and had TB fun for a bit even though I wad dead tired being in Abel again. But it was really nice. Their group had Alessandro, two Ions, Radu, and Asta. Though sadly our Esther, Dietrich, Seth, and their Seth weren't around so the group wasn't quite complete and Emma wasn't able to bring her Asta either. But I think it was the biggest we've gotten the group so far. The others were really awesome. Ling, I should get their contact info from you or something 'cause they were really cool and I want to meet them again. ^^
I wasn't feeling that great though since my feet tend to really hurt in Abel so I wanted to get out of the costume after a while. Then on the way back to the hotel, Ana and Stef were reminded about this photoshoot they had arranged for the KH group and so instead of getting back into Dirge, they called everyone up and told them to get back into KH and rescheduled the photoshoot for later. But then Manda really wasn't feeling good so we had to take care of her. She ended up going home, the poor thing. The con must've been just too much for her at the time. Of course I wasn't feeling that great either at the time as I hadn't eaten anything at all but I held back my complaints to focus on Manda instead even though I did kinda feel like I was going to pass out. But I did get some food in me but then I felt bad because we ate the last few meals and then found out Emma was really hungry so I felt bad about eating it since I had one the night before too. x_x; Though we did manage to find food for her eventually. I was too tired to get back into any costume though so just relaxed a bit. Then Jim comes in having come back from the Masquerade and we find out that the group won Best of Saturday for Journeyman and everyone is freaking out. Stef was so happy and it was so nice seeing her like that as it really meant a lot to her as this was a group she wanted to see so badly. ^_^
So they all went off to do their photoshoot and I stayed in the room. Magenta fell asleep though so I got bored and just packed for a while. But that got boring real fast. lol Luckily the photoshoot didn't take too long and they decided to come back first before going to get cake so I got to join them. I think that part of the day was probably some of the most fun of all of Sat. 'cause we were all just spazzing and talking and eating cake. I think I got talked into 3 more cosplay groups just while sitting there. XP And got to wander around a bit with John and talk about PLC and such. Ah, I missed getting to talk to John. He's such a sweetie. ^^ But yeah, I'm like super excited for all the cons in the future even though I really have no idea what I'm doing when. XP Thought I was sad I didn't get to wear Trooper Cloud for that long as I was really happy with how that came out. So then we all left Maryatha's room gradually and went back and slept. Liam had these adorable kitty ears on and like fell asleep with them on. XP
Sunday:
We all somehow managed to wake up rather late so we didn't have much time to really pack and check out. But we managed to do it in time. Magenta and I took our stuff to Darlene's room and put the stuff in her car and unfortunantly as a result, I didn't really get to say goodbye to Liam, Emma, or Dani as I just assumed I'd see them around before any of us left later and we just didn't find them in time. We had to kinda rush to the con in order to make it to the D'Ray stuff in time. Ended up getting like the last 2 tickets for the photo session. We were in Cain and Jezebel at the time which was fun. Though don't have much pictures, which always seems to happen to me with my Cain costumes. ^^; Ah well. Though I did get a lot of compliments on my suit so that made me happy. Then we went to the autograph line and met up with Megan so we didn't have to go to the end. So we got our photos signed and that was awesome. Hizumi was really pretty. ^^
We wandered through the Dealer's Room again though I had no money to buy anything at that point. Ran into Darlene and them so didn't really have to find them for meeting up to leave. Didn't get to say goodbye to Ling and them 'cause they had already left apparantly. And we thought Stef, Ana, Dani, and Emma were going to join us for food but they didn't. We were in the cars and at least got to say goodbye to Stef though the others weren't in sight or didn't see us. Sadness. So then we went over to Mitsuwa market, which was right outside NYC. We could see the skyline from it so that was really cool. The whole place was cool and made me think of Japan as soon as we went into the food market. Ah, it really did. Made me miss it. Magenta and I had udon soup. Wai Udon, my love! Then we went to the bookstore and toy store and that was fun though we all were pretty tired and it was getting late. So we then headed back to Darlene's house. Laura and Magenta spazzed about FF9 on the way which was cute. Then once at Darlene's, we rested, had a visit from the ice cream man, and then Magenta and I packed into Katie's car and left to go home. I managed to get us lost at one point but other than that, we were good.
And soon I should have my page with pictures up considering I already uploaded them. Just gotta make the page for them. ^_^
~Lyn
Darlene came and picked me up Wednesday night. I finally got to see the townhouse her and Maryatha share though Maryatha was at Dani's at the time so got to sleep in her bed. I stayed up talking to Dar for a while as she worked some more on Mickey. She was making the coat and hood and wrapped the hood around the head and I thought it made him look like a muslim.
Muslim Mickey! XP
Thursday:
Darlene went to work so I spent most of the day just chilling in her house. I watched Kizuna and read more Hellsing and also finished Dietrich's first cosplay.
Sephiroth! ^_^ It came out so nice! I didn't expect it to come out as nice as it did and I was so happy. Dietrich got a lot of attention because of it too.
Darlene made it back home before anyone else showed up but they started arriving right as she did. Zach, Laura, and Jess showed up first and then Erik and Katie. Had to wait a while for Matt and Tiff before we were able to pack everything into Darlene's and Zach's vehicles. Was quite the accomplishment too. We had all the weapons laying over the top and poor Tiff had to lean in underneath them all. I hoped into Zach's car and we headed out to a rest stop to pick up Kelly. This con was my first time getting to actually meet a lot of the crack crew. I'm really glad I did too as they're all so nice and cool. ^^ It was really awesome getting to meet and know them better. After getting into the rooms for that night (since everyone room wasn't arriving til Fri, I was in with Katie and Erik that night) we went out for food. We went to Cheeseburger in Paradise which was a nice place. I just had popcorn shrimp but mmm they were yummy. ^^ There was a lot of crack conversations during the dinner. Eating with the crack crew tends to be pretty damn amusing I've noticed. There were rotating doors at the entrance of the restaurant so we played with that for a while and on the way out, we almost broke one so kinda ran away rather fast. ^^;
Friday:
We had suites in the hotel so they were pretty nice though apparantly we were supposed to have bigger ones and the hotel staff kept giving us a lot of unnecessary shit about the rooms and such. It was really annoying. The one bitch kept giving us the snobbiest glare I've ever seen too. >_> Ugh. But anyways, they were still nice rooms. And we had free breakfast so everyone went down in the morning to eat. I just had orange juice as I can't eat breakfast foods. It was Kelly's birthday so we all said happy birthday to her and she went around wearing a sign to announce it later on. I was waiting for Magenta since I told her I'd met her in the lobby. Didn't take too long for her to show up, just as everyone was finishing their food. We decided that since we couldn't get into our room yet, to just leave our stuff in Katie and Erik's room and go get our badges. I brought Dietrich with us though. At first we were in line with Darlene and whoever else of the crack crew was up but then I spotted Ling and Mimi and we ended up staying with them in line instead. I was so happy to see them at this con. ^^ They were in Sora and Roxas and their friend Yeu (?) was in Riku. We joked around a lot about KH and about Cloud being Sora's and Roxas' dad and Seph being Riku's dad. XP And then this guy behind us in this know-it-all voice was like "Actually Sephiroth was born in a lab..." ^^;; Guess he didn't notice the obviously joking tone. Okies. ^^; Kinda weird and annoying. But anyways, got our badges and then found out Stef, Ana, Manda, and Dani had arrived so went back to the hotel.
On the way there we got stopped by two really nice girls who had their dolls and freaked out when they saw Dietrich. One of them had a U too and we conversed on the fact of how different the two looked. They were really nice. Usually I tend to avoid other doll people as they often can be really snobby at cons and I'm too shy to go to gatherings. I wish I could've talked to these two more and they wanted me to go to the gathering but I totally forgot about it and didn't really carry Die around much anyways.
The two girls. I forgot what the other doll was though.
Headed over to the hotel and everyone was still in the lobby so we headed up to Darlene's room since we still couldn't get our room open. Magenta and I were quite amused by the great pile of wigs that Stef had styled in the room.
So many wigs! And this is only a small portion of the ones she did.
Stef, Ana, and Manda were all already in their Trinity Blood outfits so I got into Abel and Darlene got into Seth. Magenta went ahead and got into Mika-chan for when I'd do Lucifer later and Dani did an amazing job on the dragon tattoo for her. Everyone kept thinking she was Reno though. ^^;; Dani, Ana, and Stef kept surrounding me going "Candy Mountain, Abel!" which totally confused me until they told me about Charlie the Unicorn though I didn't get to see it and understand til later. ^^; It was amusing anyways and kinda became the theme of the con.
Random picture of Ion seducing Esther and Abel being all "Hey! Get off my nun!" XP
Abel managed to get through this con without much problems this time around. Only issues I had was the restriction of movement really. But nothing really broke. Or at least nothing as bad as Katsu. I still have a lot more that needs to be redone and added to though. We wandered into the con for a bit and I was rather surprised how small the actual con events areas were. Though I never did go over to the Holiday Inn so no idea what it was like in there. AN has a really odd structure in my opinion. We decided we were hungry though and so headed out to find some food with a bunch of the crack crew. A bunch of them went to Burger King but us TB folks voted for the much more healthy wrap place that was pretty good. Magenta and I shared a wrap. After that we all headed back to the hotel. Really we didn't spend that much time at the con as we kept going back to the hotel room. lol Eventually we were able to finally check into our actual room so we moved all our junk there. Magenta wanted me to get into Lucifer so I did and Manda couldn't take being in Esther anymore so got out of that. AX uniforms are a pain to wear no matter which character you are, man.
Magenta and I headed back into the con and headed into the Dealer's Room. Magenta bought a Kururu plushie and armband from Keroro Gunsou and I bought the same for Dororo. I also got my Trinity Blood vol. 6 and Seimaden vol. 8. Also got talked into getting a TB keychain and pin set since the lady was so nice and gave me a discount. Ran into Ling and Mimi again and also ran into
darkpierrot Mimi. It was great getting to see the latter again as it's been quite some time and I didn't get to go to AZ this year. Here's me and Magenta as Luci and Mika
After having fun for a while, we went back to the hotel to change out of costume and get ready for the concert. Magenta had talked to some of her friends so we could meet up with them in line. We both decided to keep our AS make-up on. The line was outside though, which sucked 'cause we got totally eaten alive by bugs. My arms were practically raped by them. x_x They still haven't gone away yet either. The wait was really long but we were pretty up near the front of it. This one girl behind us suddenly yelled out at one point "Who wants a naked Sailor Mars doll?" and one of Magenta's friends took it. So we had a naked Sailor Mars doll to entertain us for a while. One of the girls got the great idea to have everyone sign it and give it to D'espairs Ray later so we did. XP We went around getting a bunch of people to sign it. I signed the top of her vagina and one guy spread her legs and wrote it there which even outdid mine. XP
Here she is! And you can see my signature quite well. XP
Picture from Spiffy. This is everyone who signed the doll. ^^;
And this is Magenta and I posing with our Keroro armbands 'cause we're total dorks.
So after many hours of waiting, we finally get in...only to have to stand and listen to this ugly band that was opening. And ugh, they didn't sound very good. Or at least you couldn't make out a single word. They were quite scary looking too. I thought they were just going to do like a few songs but no, they did like a whole freaking show and took up an entire hour. x_x So we were all like "Blah!" by the time they ended and getting tired of standing. Then it took forever to take their set down and we noticed that it looked kinda like another band that wasn't D'Ray was setting up and we're like "uh...what?" and asked a security man and he said D'Ray wasn't coming on for another hour. We weren't very happy to hear that. And yup, after like 30 minutes of setting up, out came another opening band. x_x So we decided to go sit down on the side seats. At this point like half of the audience was gone already. I really couldn't stand this band even though other people I know seemed to like them. But ugh, I found them disgusting as they kept doing all this perverted stuff and said "fuck" every other word. So I just covered my ears during it and Magenta and the others tried to sleep. But yeah, that was yet another hour gone to waste. And then I noticed that in the back people were walking in and out and I was like "....." when I realized we could've just waited an hour and walked in and we would've been able to get to the front fine. -_- So thus to say we were NOT happy. Especially since Spiffy and Megan had to leave before D'Ray even came on! But I guess her mom let them come back 'cause they were there for a bit when they finally did come on.
So yeah D'Ray FINALLY came on but oh my god, I was about to kill AN for doing that. Apparantly the two bands are touring with D'Ray or something but it really wasn't appropiate for a con setting. And a lot of the fans gave up before the actual concert even started. So by the time D'Ray came on, I just wasn't as energetic as I would've been otherwise. And I wasn't feeling that great as the vibrations of the bass were just a bit too much after having gone through 2 hours of it already. So I was ok the first half of the concert but sadly once they got to the songs I actually knew, I didn't feel good enough to keep standing and bouncing so I had to sit down and be all lame and raise my hand from my seat. ^^; It was pretty sad. lol I was trying to still get into it as best as I could but my body was like "noooo." But yeah, it would've been a lot better if it wasn't for the insanely long wait and all.
Then we met up with Manda as she had one of the prenium tickets. And we headed back to our room after saying goodnight to Spiffy and her friends. Stef and Ana had bought these awesome little microwavable dinners while we were out so Manda and I had some of those and they were really good. *_* Real food too. Emma and Liam had arrived but they were working on costumes in Darlene's room so didn't really get to say hi to them. The rest of us went to bed and they came in after we had fallen asleep.
Saturday:
Saturday was of course the big Kingdom Hearts day. We woke up and all started getting into our respective costumes. Magenta went to meet Chris and she was in Zack and him in Rude so they were still FF characters and so fit along. It was pretty damn crazy with everyone rushing around getting ready. I managed to burn myself on the hot glue gun a few times trying to fix the random strap on Cloud that decided to come undone. Then all of us that were done went downstairs to chill while they finished Darlene's Mickey and try to get Zach's Xaldin wig on his head. Meanwhile the Nobodies were finishing their costumes too. It was crazy and took til about 1 or so for us all to be fully ready but it was amazing. We had ALL 13 Organization members, Sora, KH1 Riku, blindfold Riku, and KH2 Riku, Kairi, Roxas, Mickey, KH1 Ansem, Fuu, Yuffie, Cloud, a Dancer, and a Dusk. The Orgy lined up in order of their numbers and we headed out to the con.
As we went by, a Naruto photoshoot was going on and they like stopped to follow us. XP In fact, we had a huge crowd following us and so when we got there, we stopped on the steps for quite a while as people took pictures.
Then we headed over into the grass for the KH/FF gathering and Emma in Larxene started running around to cool herself down and gradually the others started doing it too until almost all of them were running around in a circle.
You can see the circle here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cArCcZNYd8
Then I think we went inside so Dar wouldn't die inside of Mickey. Magenta had to get out of Zack 'cause the binding wasn't on that well and she had a Gravi photoshoot to catch. The KH group decided we should enter in the hall costume contest randomly and so we headed over to the EmbassySuites for that. Ling and Mimi with their TB group were entering as well so we got to see them again. I didn't think you could enter a group as big as ours but they let us. ^^ And we weren't sure what to enter as since Dani and I have both been in Craftsman skits before but the judges said it would be ok if were entered in Novice after we told them of all the beginners in the group who had never entered anything before. They later bumped us up to Journeyman though saying we were skilled enough for that as a group. It was really awesome entering with everyone and I'm glad I got to be a part of that even if I wasn't a main character.
Our group being judged. Picture by Ling.
Afterwards we headed back to the hotel with the intention of getting all the crack crew together for their planned photo but it didn't happen as people were just too scattered. So back to the room we went. Magenta came from from Gravi and then got into Kisaki for the little J-Rock shoot. While the rest of us just relaxed, half in and half out of costume. Dani updated her LJ with Emma in her lap which made for a great Axel/Larxene picture. XP Then I was finally shown Charlie the Unicorn which is total crack and absolutely wonderful! XP "Shun the non-believers! Shuuuuuuun-a" Dani and Liam were helping Ginny and Monty with a skit so they had to go do that and Emma went to watch the Masquerade. Then Magenta came back and I got into Trooper Cloud, she got into Zack, Stef got into Lucrecia, Ana into Vincent, and Jim into Reeve, so we were a mixed group of FF7 characters along with Chris as Rude.
Our little mixed group.
Stef as Lucrecia holding little Sephy. ^^ Too cute. She walked around with him for a while.
We ventured out and went to deliver water to the poor crack crew souls waiting outside in the Masquerade line. They were like practically dead by the time we got there with the water. Especially Dar in Mickey. I had fun being all cute in my Trooper uniform and we spent a little time chatting with them but we decided not to go to the Masquerade and wandered around the con for a bit though we stopped when we spotted Ling and Mimi's TB group at the top of the steps and were just overwhelmed by their awesomeness. Hanged with them for a while and a piece of Ana's Cereberus gun broke so they wanted to go back to the room to repair it and Stef suddenly decided she wanted to be in Ion. We headed back into the room and I was all planning to just like stay in Trooper or get into the PJ thing Magenta and I were originally going to do. But Stef asked if I would get back into Abel. I really wasn't up to it but then she did that wibble-face-of-doom and oh my god, it like breaks your heart. So yeah, I got into Abel. ^^;;
Since Ana was wearing Radu, we decided to put Magenta into Ana's Issak costume. We used the unstyled Kenpachi wig for it and it worked rather well. ^^ I didn't do any make-up for Abel though so it could've looked better I'm sure. We then met up with the other group and had TB fun for a bit even though I wad dead tired being in Abel again. But it was really nice. Their group had Alessandro, two Ions, Radu, and Asta. Though sadly our Esther, Dietrich, Seth, and their Seth weren't around so the group wasn't quite complete and Emma wasn't able to bring her Asta either. But I think it was the biggest we've gotten the group so far. The others were really awesome. Ling, I should get their contact info from you or something 'cause they were really cool and I want to meet them again. ^^
I wasn't feeling that great though since my feet tend to really hurt in Abel so I wanted to get out of the costume after a while. Then on the way back to the hotel, Ana and Stef were reminded about this photoshoot they had arranged for the KH group and so instead of getting back into Dirge, they called everyone up and told them to get back into KH and rescheduled the photoshoot for later. But then Manda really wasn't feeling good so we had to take care of her. She ended up going home, the poor thing. The con must've been just too much for her at the time. Of course I wasn't feeling that great either at the time as I hadn't eaten anything at all but I held back my complaints to focus on Manda instead even though I did kinda feel like I was going to pass out. But I did get some food in me but then I felt bad because we ate the last few meals and then found out Emma was really hungry so I felt bad about eating it since I had one the night before too. x_x; Though we did manage to find food for her eventually. I was too tired to get back into any costume though so just relaxed a bit. Then Jim comes in having come back from the Masquerade and we find out that the group won Best of Saturday for Journeyman and everyone is freaking out. Stef was so happy and it was so nice seeing her like that as it really meant a lot to her as this was a group she wanted to see so badly. ^_^
So they all went off to do their photoshoot and I stayed in the room. Magenta fell asleep though so I got bored and just packed for a while. But that got boring real fast. lol Luckily the photoshoot didn't take too long and they decided to come back first before going to get cake so I got to join them. I think that part of the day was probably some of the most fun of all of Sat. 'cause we were all just spazzing and talking and eating cake. I think I got talked into 3 more cosplay groups just while sitting there. XP And got to wander around a bit with John and talk about PLC and such. Ah, I missed getting to talk to John. He's such a sweetie. ^^ But yeah, I'm like super excited for all the cons in the future even though I really have no idea what I'm doing when. XP Thought I was sad I didn't get to wear Trooper Cloud for that long as I was really happy with how that came out. So then we all left Maryatha's room gradually and went back and slept. Liam had these adorable kitty ears on and like fell asleep with them on. XP
Sunday:
We all somehow managed to wake up rather late so we didn't have much time to really pack and check out. But we managed to do it in time. Magenta and I took our stuff to Darlene's room and put the stuff in her car and unfortunantly as a result, I didn't really get to say goodbye to Liam, Emma, or Dani as I just assumed I'd see them around before any of us left later and we just didn't find them in time. We had to kinda rush to the con in order to make it to the D'Ray stuff in time. Ended up getting like the last 2 tickets for the photo session. We were in Cain and Jezebel at the time which was fun. Though don't have much pictures, which always seems to happen to me with my Cain costumes. ^^; Ah well. Though I did get a lot of compliments on my suit so that made me happy. Then we went to the autograph line and met up with Megan so we didn't have to go to the end. So we got our photos signed and that was awesome. Hizumi was really pretty. ^^
We wandered through the Dealer's Room again though I had no money to buy anything at that point. Ran into Darlene and them so didn't really have to find them for meeting up to leave. Didn't get to say goodbye to Ling and them 'cause they had already left apparantly. And we thought Stef, Ana, Dani, and Emma were going to join us for food but they didn't. We were in the cars and at least got to say goodbye to Stef though the others weren't in sight or didn't see us. Sadness. So then we went over to Mitsuwa market, which was right outside NYC. We could see the skyline from it so that was really cool. The whole place was cool and made me think of Japan as soon as we went into the food market. Ah, it really did. Made me miss it. Magenta and I had udon soup. Wai Udon, my love! Then we went to the bookstore and toy store and that was fun though we all were pretty tired and it was getting late. So we then headed back to Darlene's house. Laura and Magenta spazzed about FF9 on the way which was cute. Then once at Darlene's, we rested, had a visit from the ice cream man, and then Magenta and I packed into Katie's car and left to go home. I managed to get us lost at one point but other than that, we were good.
And soon I should have my page with pictures up considering I already uploaded them. Just gotta make the page for them. ^_^
~Lyn
