Sakura Con 2008 Report

[redbrunja]

Here it is.

Warning: this report has no good transitions from one subject to another, but there are hard returns.

Con Report

(Also, I had a highly, highly, highly successful cosplay, am now addicted and will be starting my next one in JUNE. That was also the conditions of my mother helping me: that I do this again, because she doesn't want the both of us forgetting everything we learned doing it this time, and that I start way the hell earlier than I did this year.

Friday:

First, let me say this:

107 people took my photo.

Yes, I counted. (And that's conservative, I think I was missing a couple of people.)

So, we (pzb, renegadekitsune, and I) walk off the elevators and within thirty seconds, a group of people rush over to get my photo (apparently, while this was going on, a girl in the weapons check line was bouncing up and down and going, "Suki! It's Suki!")

So just that? Right there? Made my year.

I spent the rest of the day bumping into friends (fantomfantasy, college friend who's real name I don't want to use online, sand3, enderxenocide, guy from college who's real name I don't want to use online) and hanging out in the Artist's Alley with pzb and renegadekitsune, who were, respectively, Yaone and Lirin (their cosplays were beyond fabulous. And they had to walk to and from the hotel dressed like Lirin and Yaone in sleet.).

Other avatar cosplayer's spotted: 2 Aangs, 1 Zuko, 1 Fire Lord Ozai, 1 Toph and 2 Kataras (Water Tribe and Fire Nation versions). And yes, I got photos with ALL of them.

Swag:

2 booklets (understanding the publishing industry and cosplay mayhem)

4 buttons (I <3 het, I <3 yuri, one of blue-haired girl from Pheonix Wright looking badass and about to punch out a guy, and one with the text 'What has science done?', which I think was also from Pheonix Wright.)

1 Roy chibi keychain

and

1 Saiyuki calendar.

Now, we're sitting around in the hotel room watching the Prince and I II, which is an utter train wreck, and pzb's working on tomorrow's cosplay.

Saturday:

95 photos, EXCLUDING the ones taken of me during the Avatar photo shoot.

pzb wore her WoW outfit (she'd rigged her name and guild name to float above her head with wire and craft foam) and she had 50 people in 20 minutes ask for her photo. Everywhere she went, people would look at her, get the joke, and then laugh.

Also, another story illustrating how successful my costume was:

renegadekitsune and I went to get lunch for me and pzb at exactly the wrong time. The Subway had only one kind of bread left, one of the workers needed to dart off to get more, etc.

Now, I see this, I know the poor guy is slammed with work, working at Subway during SakuraCon has got to suck, I'm inclined to be patient.

However.

Making my sandwich and then going to make the sandwich of the people behind me, and not taking my money when my sandwich was done and all I needed was to pay? Not cool. If you have to service customers one at a time, like he did, do them one at a time. Trying to make the sandwiches of the next people in line just slows the line down even further.

But back to the good stuff.

So, after I fiiiiiinnnnnnaaaaaaaallllllllyyyyyyyy get pzb and my sandwiches and drinks, and I'm trying to walk from the doors to the elevator (about 60 feet) I had about five people apologize because I was clearly going somewhere and then ask for my photo. *glows*

The Avatar photo shoot went awesome.

mzminola was graciously playing photographer, so I didn't have to jump in and out of the photos.

(also I got my photos developed, and I'll be doing a huge picspam this weekend. For the moment, you can see some of the group photos here)

Everyone seemed really nice, and there was one particularly awesome Toph (the Fire Nation one). She and I got into this whole staged fight over Sokka (there wasn't one there, but *snort* like he gets a vote) and it was lots of fun. She was doing moves at me, and I was whacking her (lightly) with my fans, and it was great.

Later, when there was a just-Toph photo shoot, someone asked for a dirty-feet shot and the Fire Nation Toph started biting her toenails. That is in-character, people. (Reportedly her feet tasted sweaty). I was really tempted at the point to yell, 'Yeah, like that mouth is getting near Sokka's!" but thought that might be crossing a line. And, on balance well, we know what that boy eats.

Lots of photos were taken (my favs is the ones where all variations of Kyoshi are doing 'Appa's' Angels Poses.).

There was one point when we were doing group photos that someone asked "are you seeing spots, yet?" and all the Tophs waved their hands in front of their face like in "The Desert".

Also, I met great mother/daughter Greed and Envy in the bathroom and chatted with them about FMA and Avatar and it was just adorable to see a mother and daughter having fun at con together.

Which brings us to the creepy, creepy, creepy part of my day.

So, I'm on my way to the cosplay skit, and this guy comes up and asks if he can glomp me.

Background: I've heard horror stories of glomps gone wrong (cracked skulls, cracked ribs, etc) but so far I've had really nice people come up to me, ask if they can glomp me, and then they hug me nicely.

Me: "wow, this glomp thing is really great! I wonder why people complain about it?"

So back to the guy.

He's like, "can I glomp you?" and I'm like, "sure," and put my arms on his shoulders.

Him: "better hold on tighter!"

Me (thinking): what?

but I do, and then he picks me up and shakes me from side to side (I could see my legs flipping back and forth). Now this, on its own, would be actually kind of fun - I'm 5"8, I don't get manhandled often.

However.

I COULD TELL HE WAS AROUSED WHEN HE DID THIS.

I'll pause for a moment to let you absorb the horror.

So, my face is clearing giving off "oh my fucking god is that what I think it is? WTF!" because the guy with the creepy guy goes, "don't kill the kyoshi warrior" and then creepy guy sets me down and I scurry off to repress, think up a graceful way to tell the next guy hell no, and wish I'd had the presence of mind to 'accidentally' knee him in the cajones.

Ended up not going to the cosplay skit. They'd stopped the escalators because there were too many people on the 6th floor already, and I decided to go hang out some more with pzb and renegadekitsune. (I'm actually rather glad about this, because I heard that while it was good, it went on for about twenty minutes past eternity.)

We ended up going out to some resturant that was open late and serving breakfast, and I had french toast and a super sub-par chocolate milkshake.

I was exhausted at midnight, and when we got back to the hotel, we watched a super yuri-tast episode of Bleach.

Nothing like some nice subtextual girl-loving to give a fanbrat good dreams.

swag:

one Girl Genius t-shirt,

one small picture of Riza looking sweet and adorable.

Sunday:

32 photos taken.

So, all weekend long I keep seeing signs that said: "Down on women who go down on men."

Which really pissed be off, because, excuse me, what is wrong with oral sex? As long as you're getting some too...

Which leads me to reason 1,762 my friends are awesome. I tell them this, and they go:

pzb: "It's all about reciprocity."

(simultaneously):

renegadekitsune: "Yeah, Laws Of."

me: "There's a Law about that."

Also, we found a Saiyuki group - me and kitsune spent a large part of the day searching for them all, which culminated in a group photo directly proceeded by kitsune fetching me and the two of us running through the halls to make sure that they didn't escape before we got photos.

(Nothing like running around the convention center in armor and warpaint. As I went past, on guy yelled out "bad kyoshi warrior!" I, needless to say, was having a ball.)

Also, kitsune ran into Vic, and he lifted her up (that was a textbook example of a good glomp). Tragically, I thought my camera was on, only it wasn't, and by the time I fumbled it on he'd set her down. I did get an adorable photo of them mugging for the camera, though.

I drove mzminola and her brother home, during which I chanted the typical post-Con mantra: "concentrate on the road, concentrate on the road" while fantasizing about sleep. On day I'm going to leave a con with friends who know how to drive, so I can make them take turns, and that will be a glorious day.

swag:

awesome picture of Tamari, and a super-hot one of Integra that goes in the closet of OTP-ness, with my manflesh Hakkai and my Yaone and Hakkai pic where they're lolling about on white sheets.

Also, does anyone know where the staff photographers post their pictures?

Comments

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

[info]pzb wore her WoW outfit (she'd rigged her name and guild name to float above her head with wire and craft foam)

Oh, I'm dying here. BRILLIANT. Can't wait to see the pics!

Seeing all of those fun shots of the Avatar group really has me itching to do that Haru cross-cosplay I've been thinking of -- S1, thankyouverymuch -- my hair's finally gotten long enough again. I'm going to be test-driving a bit of a more brownish-auburn shade as soon as the dye arrives to see how well it goes, but I've used similar shades in the past so I don't doubt it will look OK. I was amazed at how several folks wanted to take my pic at Katsucon, and I wasn't even doing an actual character!

Thankfully, all of the glomping I got was totally sweet and chaste. Although you've just reminded me that I never told the story of the guy who tried to hit on me in the video room, and was so comically inept about it that I couldn't even manage to work up any feeling of threat or outrage, it was more "wow...with lines that bad, do you EVER get any? Please go away before I start laughing out loud at you, that'll make me feel bad for mocking the hopeless..."

BTW, have you been following saiyuki_time? There's an awesome Hakkai/Yaone piece that just got posted for the "post-coital" prompt, and quite a lot of tasty gen -- I even managed to work up a snippet from the chibi-Gojyo backstory-of-horror piece we've been discussing.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Pictures are coming tomorrow. ^_^

And you doing a Haru cosplay (do it! do it!) makes me really sad that you live across the country and we won't be a con together when I do my (prospective) Azula crossplay. (or my friend does Ty Lee). We could do the shippiest pictures together!

Oh, what did he say?

And hot damn, Hakkai x Yaone! Can you give me links to your chibi-Gojyo fic?

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

YAY PICS! And ooooooh, which Azula outfit are you thinking of? And yeah, this opposite-coast thing sucks. It could be so much fun to meet and geek in person!

It's been long enough (and it was really late at night so I was super-punchy) so I don't remember the conversation verbatim. But basically this guy sat down next to me, which sort of set warning bells ringing since it was the wee hours so the video room was not packed, you could walk in and get a whole row to yourself, so there was no reason to sit next to someone unless it was a deliberate choice. So he introduces himself and there's some other line or two of pointless chit-chit and then he's asking if I want to go back to his room. No flattery, no "that's a sexy outfit" or "you look good" or anything of the sort, just "well, if you're just killing time while you're waiting for your friends to wake up..." Which was just o_O time -- what, being an unaccompanied female in a vaguely fetishy coat watching the T&A-tastic Witchblade anime means you're easy and have nothing better to do than screw random strangers? Sheesh. I managed not to laugh and just said I was trying to watch the show, and he skulked off with his tail between his legs.

And yes, awesome Hakkai/Yaone (http://community.livejournal.com/saiyuki_time/26823.html)! There's also been a few Gonou/Kanan pieces and quite a bit of very good gen, particularly for the first two prompts; it's really spawning a ridiculous amount of good fic.

I've actually done two chibi-Gojyo snippets at this point -- I did another chunk this morning when I realized that one of the other scenes could be made to fit the current prompt. Perhaps if I keep doing it in little drips and drabs like this over time, I can manage to get the whole thing written eventually without wanting to drink myself blind afterwards...
No Lullabye (http://community.livejournal.com/saiyuki_time/9321.html)
How To Play Dead (http://community.livejournal.com/saiyuki_time/27739.html)

Both are depressing, although I don't think I need to warn you what my ideas for that were like...

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I know, I so wish I could geek in person.

I'm thinking her 'main' costume - what she wears from her intro until the bitch steals Suki's clothes. Right now I'm pondering how best to make it look super-awesome - I have a friend who's cosplay moto is, 'you don't have to worry about doing someone everyone does, you just have to do the best job' which... I don't think they'll be a lot of Azula cosplayers, but I want my costume to be really good, you know?

Oh, those fics are delightful!

[renegadekitsune.livejournal.com]

So far, EBK has posted all of his on ACParadise.com

I've been checking these daily:

http://www.cosplay.com/showthread.php?t=143177

http://www.cosplay.com/showthread.php?p=2354110

First one is EBK's personal thread and the second is the "CON PHOTOS! POST LINKS!"

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks!

[silver-spotted.livejournal.com]

that sounds like so much fun!

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

It really was.

[mzminola.livejournal.com]

All those photos are pretty much like the ones I got, though I think I have a few different. I'm not sure how to do the "letting other people look in the folder" thingy, so likely I'll try to put them on my LJ too.

(Eeeeew, icky non-glomper. Glomp=/= picking up, bad fanboy. Eeeeeeew. If it happens at any other cons, I recomend a loud "Put me down!"
...if something similar happened to me I'd probably be too shocked to do anything for a moment. *shudders* Ew.)

Hooray for fabulous swag! And photos!
I got a shot of the screen when Vic was doing his performance. There were sequins on his shirt.

The cosplay contest was apparently in the reverse order from usual, with the best first. By the time it was over, the floor was shaking because of the dance next door and it was freaking me out.

Your friends' art was really awesome.

I still say your Kyoshi outfit was the best one.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's one of those things where you think up the perfect thing to say or do after it's over.

I'm sorry to hear the cosplay was in reverse order -by the end, you must not have been having too much fun. And the floor was shaking Friday night, too - when it started I thought I was hallucinating from exhaustion, and Danni thought she was going crazy from hunger.

We looked and each other and were like, '...do you feel that too?'

And thanks so much! I really like pzb's art, and I'm thrilled that you liked my costume.

[mzminola.livejournal.com]

The floor weirded me out so much. At first my geology-class-brain was all "Earthquake? Naaaah..." and then we figured out it was the dance. Which helped my conscious mind deal with it. But my subconscious was all "Floor. Moving. No reason in sight. Fleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" This does not a happy camper make.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

My friend from Texas was the same way. She was like, "earthquake safety what?"

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

L'esprit d'escalier is a total bitch.

But if you can manage to collect yourself enough to think of a zinger, I do second the suggestion of saying something disapproving loud enough for bystanders to overhear. In a public setting like that, the shaming of being called out like that really can work -- I've used that against skeezy guys rubbing up against me on the bus. Bleah. But here's hoping you never have to test that out in practice!

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, is it ever.

What's really frustrating is that for that to work, you have to really be ready - it was five minutes later that I stopped going, "was that actually his penis?" and started going, "that was his penis, because if it wasn't, I wouldn't be having the reaction I'm having now."

And next time a guy asks to glomp me, I think I'm going to pass.

[(Anonymous)]

HEY! I know you! Man, that was soooooo much fun! Your Suki costume was amazing! (This is green-clad Toph - you know, the one with the awesome bangs? xD)

I wish I could find the woman who said she'd post all the Avatar pictures. I checked cosplay.com and the Sakura-con forums but still nothing.

Too bad there were no Sokkas there; he would have been raped. xP

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

*waves*

Hi! And yes, Sakura Con was SOOO much fun this year. I posted a link to someone who had a whole bunch of photo shoot ones, and mzminola has some up.

And if there had been a Sokka, he would have been the rope in several games of tug-of-war. ^_^

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

You are very awesome. Congrats on the costume going so well!

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[kimiren.livejournal.com]

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we did have a blast.

And another Hakkai x Yaone fan! *glees* Feel free to friend me - most of my livejournal is not under a friends lock. Not to be rude, but I don't automatically friend people back - I worry about keeping my flist managable.

Also, that icon is adorable.

[kimiren.livejournal.com]

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't worry, there is always fics in the works.

^^

[m-cyrus-weiss.livejournal.com]

(http://s126.photobucket.com/albums/p108/M_Weiss/?action=view&current=Suki.jpg)

We saw you at con~ obviously, right?

Sorry, I'm in a picture spamming mood. ^^;

Re: ^^

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Not a problem - and yep, that's me. ^_^