Katsucon 14 report

[rose_of_pain]

Katsu was...well, if anything, at least it was epic. And at least Sarah and I wore our costumes, felt fabulous, and got an award (honorable mention, yay, that's a step up from judge's award, right? XP), so that made worth all the dying coughs and drama.

Thursday:

So I skipped my morning class in hopes that the extra time of sleep would help bring down my fever. Woke up and the fever was down to 102 so I figured that was good enough to go to the con still. Took my test in my afternoon class and blah, took forever. But after that got into Andrew's car with Gabi and we drove off to DC. Trip started off pretty spectacular with the discovery of a song called "Don't Touch the Lizard". Yeah. I'm not even sure how to explain it. Then when we got into DC...of course the mapquest directions failed (even took us a different route than usual so I couldn't even help guide us on memory) and we ended up lost. Surprise there. Except every time we tried to get unlost...we got more lost. And asking for directions never seemed to help either. The worst point was when we actually found the hotel...and then Andrew accidently got stuck in the left-turn-only lane before the hotel and so ended up turning into that parkway...that goes on forever and you can't turn around until you get off of it. So...we were so close...and somehow ended up so very far away.

Eventually we did get there and Tom (who I will refer to as Tom K so not to confuse with the other Tom) had called me saying he was dropping someone at the airport and wanted to come to the con now. So I had to find a room for him as well as myself. Insert a lot of room drama here. See, I did have a few options originally, just all of them decided not to work. I only managed to get room space 'cause Mike kicked two people out of his room and let Tom K. and I in there. But it was really packed and I got pretty much no sleep as a result. But a big thanks to Mike (though he won't see this) for letting us in and also to Jim and Shelly for staying with me and helping me out. I think I would've broken down bawling otherwise. I'm not to talk about it on here but I might in a later filtered post. I'm just very upset at someone, not just because of the room, but then the fact they continued to ignore my calls and avoid me at the con itself.

Alright, drama aside, lets get to the actual con report...

Friday:

One of the first cons ever where I didn't get up and into costume immediately. I did at least wander down at around 9/10am ish in order to go grab my badge before the line got too bad. I lucked out too. Got there like a half hour before the rush or something. 'Cause when I went, pre-reg was 4 people long. Not much later, it was like, insanely long. Had a little scare with my badge as the guy couldn't find me in the system. It was really weird. Eventually the computer acknowledged my existance at least...but refused to bring me up, kept saying there was an error and that there was no such entry even though as the guy pointed out, my name was there on the screen. It confused him too but he gave me my badge still as he blamed it on the computer and my name was there so that was good enough for him. Phew. I spent most of the morning just in the room watching the other people, occasionaly talking. Sarah was up all night working on stuff so she was comatose on the bed still. Around noon Alyce, Brittany, Tom, Jamie, and Izzy arrived so I was all "yay! people!" and moved my stuff into the room and cheered up quite a bit after seeing them. Went with them for them to get their badges and go into the Dealer's Room (still not in costume). Dealer's Room had barely anything...which is actually a good thing as I had no money to spend anyways. Only thing I bought was the FF chibi arts Cloud figure as HouseofAnime had them individually and for the regular price, not rip off prices! While all other dealers were selling all figures at increased prices of course. Like one booth had the Fai figure I want but it was $14 and that seemed a bit too much for one thats worth $7.

Eventually after a bit more rest, I got myself into costume. I think this was around...2 ish? I don't even remember. But yeah, finally put Crisis Core Cloud on. I upgraded my Trooper Cloud into Crisis Core version but sadly only two people took my picture and I even got a few "...who are you?"s x_x;; Sad world. I also got a bit sad after I ran into Anna and she asked me if I had a Zack and I like drooped my head and she was all "aww, I'm sorry" and that was when I realize how sad it is to wear Cloud without a Zack or Sephiroth (not that I ever have nor will have a Seph). I also didn't get my PSP back from Magenta until that night so was unable to get a picture of me playing it in costume. And now I've lost my armor. I think I may have left it on the lobby floor. Which most likely means its gone for good. So now I have to remake it...again...if I ever want to wear it again. And knowing my luck, after March there will be a gazillion Crisis Core cosplayers around and I won't stand a chance anyways. *sigh* Why do I have to love such a popular character?

Well, anyways, here's one of the two pictures of me in it...

See, I finally got the shoulder armor round even. Bleh. The shoulder armor and the silly box knee armor was what was lost. Gah, I feel so stupid about losing it.

Did a lot of wandering, seeing everyone I knew that was there pretty much, but being really out of it and so not really able to join in on many conversations. So hope that didn't weird anyone out with me just standing there be quiet. I was just really really out of it due to being sick, lol. Eventually ran into Digi and got my wigs from her and hung out with her, Tina, Jackie, and Jezeroth for a while. They were in their Zombie Shop costumes and kept explaining the manga to me and now I think I may just have to read it. XP It was really cool seeing Jez again, haven't talked to him in a while. Didn't recognize him first due to the contacts and wig so felt a bit bad when he was like "thanks for saying hi Lyn, jeez" ^^;;


Oh and I saw these two Nightwalker cosplayers who were talking to Sarah about her Zexion book. I was like "omg Nightwalker!" and they were surprised and happy I knew who they were. XP I also totally own that Shido's shirt.


Yeu and her kickass little Suikoden II group. Maaan I still want to cosplay Suikoden sometime.


I also spotted and tracked down this Seiya cosplayer (he almost got away but I used my awesome gold saint skills to catch him XP)


Ling and Ken doing Utena stuff with their Anthy. Dang Ling you make a really cute Miki. And man makes me wish I was doing Utena stuff earlier than AUSA.

After chilling with people for a while, it was time to head up and change for the MLP group. I tried to spend as much time in Cloud as possible and was hoping Magenta would show up before I had to change but alas, that didn't happen. Bleh. I'll just have to make better armor and wear it longer next time. But anyways, Brittany, Alyce, and I were all part of the great My Little Pony group. XP


Fear the cuteness, feeaaaaar it! We attack you with colors! For those who don't know (and I'm shocked if you don't by this point) I am a rabid My Little Pony collector. I have over 80 now (though Alyce beats me by far). So I HAD to join this group. It was a lot of fun actually. Though some of girls involved knew each other all rather well and were doing their own photos together and so we felt a bit awkward there after a while and so headed out to do our own thing.


I was Barnacle, the male pirate pony. And this is my favorite shot of it. I didn't bother binding as every time I did this weekend, it made me feel pretty awful so I tried to avoid it with me being sick and all. But I don't think it mattered much for this.

I had originally planned to stay in costume the rest of the night but just wasn't feeling good, so got out when it was still only like 7/8ish. I was all "blah, why is it still so early x_x". After a bit of resting in the room I got back out and wandered again. Finally caught Magenta and got my PSP back *snuggles it* and she convinced me into carrying Lucifer around for a bit and into going to the store to get cough medicine since Tom K took all mine. >>;; (Man, everyone was sick at this con, lol) After that I just stayed in the room. Alyce and Tom had gone to bed early and everyone else was just watching TV and stuff. So I just took a shower and called it a night early too. Well, after watching some mindless TV first of course. So yeah, Friday was pretty uneventful except for the MLP stuff.

Saturday:

Dragged myself out of bed and got half into Fai. Magenta came up because she needed medicine. She suddenly had gotten sick too. Went over to Sarah's room (which convinently was directly above my room and the stairs were only 2 or 3 doors down from my room) and had Magenta sleep there while I helped Sarah to mad rush on finishing Ashura. Magenta eventually felt good enough to go off to con and Sarah and I were getting real close to our judging time. I went ahead down and we were in fact late but the judges were fine about it and all. When Sarah finally made it down, we got judged and it was a lot of fun. The judges were really cool and nice and were fine with us entering Journeyman (and to think all this time I've spent being afraid of Katsu hall). They were really impressed with Sarah's airbrushing and the fur and lining and such. It alwasys surprises me when judges are surprised (and this is like the 3rd time its happened to me) that I made everything on me, including the parts you don't see very well ('cause I started taking the coat off to show them the shirt and pants and they were all "oh you don't need to" and I'm all "*blink* but its part of the costume"). I don't know. I thought that was just something kinda expected. Is it really that uncommon these days?

Anyways, after that, we went back up, her to her room to fix things a little better and me to mine to grab my dolls and go to the doll meet. Like last year, the doll people met in the Artist Alley and I think Lucifer got more attention at that point than at the actual meet. Eh, go figure. Eventually we moved up to Dizzy's room...which ended up being on the same floor as my room. ^^;; Man, only wish there was a way of knowing that ahead of time, so I wouldn't have had to rush up and down like I did. But the group got all split up and I ended up with the group in the elevator that was broken. x_x;; Like it would move. But the door would NOT open on any floor except 2B. That...was kinda scary. Eventually we did get up there but all the good floor spots were taken and I've learned that at con doll meets that unless you get a good spot on the floor, its hard to interact and get other people's attentions. I even went to my room (since it was so close) and dropped off most of my costume and brought over Die and Lucian but that was a waste as I really wasn't able to socialize with anyone and it was getting closer to the time I was supposed to meet up with Alyce and Brittany. So I just gave up on the doll meet and left. Bleh. I was so looking forward to showing Lucifer off too and totally didn't get the chance.


I did see this gorgeous girl doll cosplaying Suigintou though. Totally put me in awe. I thought it was the Volks Suigintou at first but the girl said she made the costume. I was like floored at that. It was soooo well made! She said she won first place in the cosplay contest at Dollectable. Not surprised at all.

After that, I dropped the boys off in my room and went over to Sarah's and just chilled a bit there as she re-sewed the frog on her cloak and we ate food. Decided to give up on meeting with Brittany and Alyce for photos (they were doing Yuuko and Himiwari) since Brittany wanted to change and Sarah and I were both sick and so were much happier being able to just take our time. We called up Oshi and met up with him to do a photoshoot outside. My cloak got a bit roughed up as a result but I'm probably not entering it in anything else and it was worth it for the photos...


So these are the monsters that consumed much of our time the last month. And well, the pose is slighlty reversed here. Technically I should be on the left side but who cares right? lol

And these are all from Oshi's camera...

Shot of the back of my cloak. Can't take credit for the design. That was all Sarah's amazing airbrush work.


Sorry Sarah, I think I accidently grabbed your butt a few times when I got down for this pose throughout the con. ^^;;; It was hard to tell where your leg was. And yeah, I don't know why I kept reaching both hands up when you only see one in pictures. Eh, guess it was just more natural that way.


I look like I fell asleep here. This is what happens when Fai is sick. Man, we were so uncreative with poses too. lol


Classic Fran Dan. Though I never seem to get it down right.


We waited forever to get the gazebo btw. Silly Utena people.


Fai: So...killed anything interesting recently?
Ashura: Why yes actually. There was this furry...

http://teh-oshi.net/gallery/tsubasa Go here for the rest of them.

While out there, saw some pretty interesting sights.


Tales of the Abyss gathering! Yay! Hopefully this summer I'll be in one.

And there was a rather amusing moment when all these Phoenix Wright cosplayers were passing by in this huuuuge line and everyone outside was watching and suddenly in the midst is this Sora cosplayer and everyone starts laughing and yelling "Hey Sora, whaaaaa?" and he was all "*shrug*" and oh crap forgot what he said but it was funny, something about going that way anyways and being consumed by them.

Afterwards we changed out and I just rested in my room for quite a while, while the Masquerade was going on. Found out the photo suite thingy was free so Sarah and I planned to get back into costume after Masquerade ended to go to that. And while we're getting into costume, Oshi calls us and tells us to get our butts down there 'cause we won something. lol So we rushed over to the Masquerade and got our Honorable Mention. Yay! Like I said, its a step up from my previous award, a Judge's Award, so I are happy. And well I didn't really like any of the photo suite pictures in particular. In hindsight, I should've called Tom over to take pictures on that background as he probably could've gotten better ones. But oh well. We were too distracted by Evenstar and were chatting up Tsubasa like woah. lol But I knew I'd be really late to Persona 3 if I kept talking, so left and rushed to change into Akihiko.

Sadly I wasn't feeling very good even at the start of the gathering but it was still a lot of fun. I didn't look all that great at the time but I plan to spiff things up when I wear him again (most likely Otakon).


Persona 3 group of awesome-ness. Everyone that came to the gathering was awesome. Though...who was that random guy *points behind my head* who I managed to block in this photo. Who was he? And why did he jump into the shoot?

So yeah, I think I may sharpie my wig silver. What do you guys think? Sharpie it or leave it the white-blonde it is? (Yeah, its not quite white-white, alas).


You can see the color better here. And man do I look messed up, lol. I think I'll also wear a different pair of pants next time, thats a bit more form fitting though that'll mean I'll have no pockets. Oh well.

When Courtney showed up in Akihiko, we totally ran towards each other flailing, completely out of character, it was awesome. XP We really should've gotten twin pictures like we planned. But we didn't. Mou.


But we did get this great one of all 3 Akihikos beating up Junpei, mwahahaha! Revenge!

Everyone was really cool and it was a lot of fun even if I was freezing to death. I had a great moment when I realized that my "Condition" was sick and thus started doing the Tired/Sick pose. XPXP The Mitsuru there was really awesome too. So was the male Akihiko. He was a lot more energetic than me so he got most of the time in the group. Ah well. If I wasn't so sick, I would've been a lot more active with everyone. As it is, I had to go back to my room right after we went back inside and when I got to my room, realized just how badly I was from being outside. I was breathing really hard and shivering like crazy.

So I practically ripped off my costume and binding, got into my PJs, had some hot cocoa, and curled in bed for several hours just shivering under the covers. It sucked a lot actually. Blah, stupid sickness. I know I missed a lot too. As I had planned to spend the rest of the night in costume but just couldn't. And then hearing the P3 people who were still around got asked for a private shoot with Lionel at Otakon...;_; Man, if I hadn't been sick I would've been there for that. *biiiiig sigh* I'm kinda wondering if I can still join in it anyways but I don't want to push myself into it since I wasn't really there when he told them. But still, I've always really really wanted one of his shoots as his photos are soooo cool!

But anyways, eventually Brittany and Izzy came in and Brittany threw an extra blanket on me and made me more cocoa and stuff. I was all ";____;" at the time. Man that was probably the worst of my sickness the whole con and I know its my fault too for having gone outside but eh, it was worth it. ^^; Eventually everyone came back and we went to sleep. Man, this whole con I went to bed so early, it was so weird. Didn't get to pack as I wasn't feeling up to it but had plenty of time the next morning anyways.

Sunday:

Pretty uneventful since I didn't cosplay. Took my stuff to Tom K's car and of course, somehow managed to lose my Cloud armor on the way. *sighs again* I stayed with all my room people until they had to leave and so finally got to say goodbye to them. (the last few cons I've missed them when they've been leaving, lol) Then just did my usual Sunday thing of finding people before they leave and hugging and chatting and stuff. Spent most of the time with Sarah and Tom K. We got food (I had lost my apetite by a lot this con, barely ate anything and usually was only able to eat at night. Only thing I managed to really eat was the chicken nuggets on Friday night and then half of some more nuggets on Sunday) and I met a girl who actually visits my site. That was a surprise. Didn't think anyone did. lol So now I guess I have an actual reason to try to get that thing active again. Just...right now the layout doesn't work on Firefox so I stopped updating until I get a new one and that might be a while.

I also saw a girl who had a Dreaming Vamp Lu-Wen on her. He didn't even have a face-up but omg he was really really pretty. I really hope I'm not starting to reconsider my decision not to get him. >>;; No, must get Dreaming El only. No other full sized dolls. *shakes head* But oh he was pretty...

Anyways, time went by and people left and Tom K and I ran out of things to do so we just headed over to the airport slightly early to pick up Tom's friend who he had dropped off Thursday night. And while moving luggage around, I think Tom accidently pulled off the pirate earring from my pony hat. I just hope its in his car and didn't fall off at the airport. Otherwise that's another thing on the lost list. Bleh. Didn't get home until around 7-ish but my only other ways home would've involved metro and I really wasn't feeling up to it and it was just easier with Tom.

Oh and the rest of my pictures are here: http://www.rosebride.com/lyn/katsucon14/
There aren't many at all as I just lost my desire to take photos due to being sick and all. And the ones I did take aren't even that good. So I don't think I'll bother with my usual organized page for it. Well...I probably will eventually just not any time soon.

At least my temperature is back down to normal last I checked so I'm not really sick anymore. Just have a standard little cold at this point. But would've been nice if this occured earlier so I could've been more active at con. Blah. Also, I have no idea what my next con or cosplay will be. I'm in a big state of "bluh?". I mean I'm definitly going to AnimeNEXT but now there appears to be a way I could in fact get to AnimeBoston...just trying to figure out whether its worth trying to go or not 'cause I'm still a bit low on money.

~Lyn