ColossalCon 2012
In which good times were had and bruises were amassed. Click on the pictures for full-size.
Every year I try to finish everything in time to safe myself the usual pre-con stress, and every year I fail. I did actually have most of my cosplay done two days before I was set to leave, but then I heard that the girl who was organizing my room needed someone to finish a cosplay dress for her after her seamstress bailed, and, well...I'm a nice person >.> So I spent the day before the con sewing like crazy, in addition to packing, meticulously bathing Atsuko in preparation for our photoshoot, accidentally ingesting bleaching powder and subsequently panicking about it, and throwing up the Chipotle I had for dinner.
Atsuko turned out really nice, though:
Anyway, I got all my stuff done and headed out to the con on Thursday afternoon, laden with cosplay, edibles for the roomies, and of course, beverages of an adult nature. The drive was uneventful, unless you count me missing one exit and having to get off the highway, get back on, and try again, and then later me fearing that I'd missed another exit only to realize that it wasn't me, it was just the that road signs along Rt. 2 are really poorly laid out. I met up with my roommates, all of whom were awesome, and we went down to get our badges. Our room leader had suggested getting everyone together for dinner on Thursday, but she'd only really expected about 10 people to go for it, not the whole room; this led to us trundling up and down Milan Rd. in Sandusky searching for a restaurant with enough space for 23 people. Eventually we wound up at Taco Bell, where a fight broke out in the parking lot. Police were called, and we all retired quickly and quietly to our hotel room, where we made the disturbing discovery that the hotel's pool is shaped like a penis. No, seriously:
Did they have no aerial view of this thing drawn up during the planning stages? This obviously wasn't constructed overnight - how is it possible that nobody involved looked at it and said "...are we seriously building a giant concrete dong for people to swim in?" I really wanted the hotel to have a guestbook just so I could write "Lovely weekend, enjoyed my stay, also your pool looks like a dick."
Sigh.
I'd paid for a bed space in my room, but since I showed up later than everyone else the only space left was on the couch, which folded out into a bed. This would have been fine for me except for the fact that we never actually folded the couch out for a bizzare combination of reasons - the girl I was sharing with was comfortable sleeping sitting up on one end, and I'd have to curl up on the other half and try to make myself comfortable. Since I thought I'd be getting an actual bed, I didn't bring any blankets either, and had to wrap myself in my yukata every night in order to not freeze to death from the air conditioning. As an aside, last night was the first in four days that I've slept in an actual bed with covers, and it was fantastic.
I awoke from my first night of discomfort at about 7 AM, and once I'd oriented myself properly, I scrambled into my Faith cosplay. Yo:
Faith is definitely going to become a con staple for me; she is fantastically comfortable, and she's really, really fun to wear. I also got stopped a ton of times for pictures, which is always nice - apparently there are a lot of Mirror's Edge fans attending ColossalCon, in addition to these cool people:
Friday was my busy day; I had a photoshoot at 1 (pictures forthcoming once I get them), a Portal panel to attend at 2 (which I ended up leaving early because the room was so cold), and then round 1 of ColossalCon Idol at 4. This is where things began to go downhill.
The rules on the forum said that contestants were allowed to sing acapella for the first round, and so I picked "Adieu" as my first song - it's something that fits my voice nicely, and that I can be fairly dramatic and engaging with. I practiced it acapella, and got used to singing it in my own style and timing, so you can imagine how jarring it was for the Idol DJ to play the original track for me to sing to instead of just letting me do it myself. With another song it might not have been such a problem, but "Adieu" is one of those songs where there's just no rhythm in the vocals to match up to. I've heard it a million times, so I at least tried to sing in time with the original vocal, but it tripped me up pretty badly, and I only came in fourth place for the first round. Also, when I sing it, I only do the first few minutes - with the full song playing, I had to stand there and try to be interesting through that huge instrumental, and I really hate when people at karaoke pick long, slow songs and make you sit through the entire thing. Rrrgh.
Still somewhat miffed about having my flow messed with, I shuffled off to prepare for my next event, the In-Character Cosplay Contest, in which one is given a minute on stage to become their character. I was still Faith, and my routine involved sprinting up onto the stage with my yellow bag, having a shootout with some imaginary police officers, and then sprinting off again, leaving behind the cargo. I didn't expect to win at all - it was just for fun, and also for something to do on Friday night. It went well enough, up until I tripped while making my high-speed exit and wiped out on the carpet in front of an entire room full of people.
Honestly, if you tried to imagine someone stumbling and falling flat on their face, you could not imagine it being done any more neatly and perfectly than how I did it. The room went completely silent when it happened, and I just lay there for a little while in kind of a daze. The judges were very, very kind and tried to play it off like I'd done it on purpose, and I think it might actually have worked for the people who were sitting on the other side of the room and not really paying attention. I tried to brush it off like it had been no big deal, and like I didn't have a sore spot the size of a dessert plate on my hip; after all, the rave was coming up, and what better way exists to lift one's spirits?
Only then I realized that I'd forgotten to bring both glowstick connectors and earplugs, and had to go borrow some from my ex-boyfriend. RRRRGH.
I'd somehow managed to leave my phone in my room, and when I went back (in a thoroughly foul mood) to retrieve it, I found that the rest of my roommates were there, having returned from the formal ball. They were about to have a drink in preparation for both the rave and the 18+ Oregon Trail playthrough that was about to occur beforehand, and I figured I'd had a bad enough day that it would be a good idea to join them. Three cocktails later and I was downstairs trying to hand the lady at the door to the panel my bank card instead of my driver's license. I didn't even make it through the whole thing, much less to the rave; I had to go back upstairs and curl up on my half of the couch again because I kept falling asleep. u_u
Oh, and I also lost track of my iPod charger, which didn't turn up until we were packing, so I couldn't use it all weekend. It turned out that someone had borrowed it without asking me.
I seriously considered going home the next day, simply because Friday had been so awful and I really wasn't feeling the con at all - still, I put on my cosplay (I was the Major this time), went downstairs, and then went back up because nothing was going on and nobody was recognizing me. This was especially frustrating because I put a lot of work into making the less obscure outfit - I think I might just have to break down and do the no-pants one after all >.>
Soon enough, it was time to go take Acchan's cover off and pull her around for my second photoshoot, and I don't know if it's just because I was finally having pictures taken or because I love Atsuko dearly and hadn't spent much time with her in the last two days (we're usually together every day), but I started to feel better. The shoot was fun, although I was getting tired of rearranging my cosplay every time I moved (the front and back of the pink thing would slip out of my pants constantly, so I had it safety-pinned to my underwear to at least keep it in place.) It became such a pain that afterward I decided to just go upstairs and change into my yukata for the rest of the day.
Bizzarely, I got more requests for pictures wearing that than I did when I was actually cosplaying. Go figure.
There wasn't much going on on Saturday, so I spent the time between my photoshoot and the second round of the Idol contest just hanging out in the hallways, browsing the dealer's room and taking pictures.
I also saw this guy:
Then it was time to go sing! A decent chunk of my room actually came down to support me, so when I got up to the front of the room, I had this huge section of people cheering for me before I even did anything. I ended up going last with "Yasashii Yoake" from .hack//SIGN, which is kind of my go-to karaoke song.
I was so nervous that I didn't notice the microphone wasn't on until I'd finished the first line, although apparently I'm loud enough that the audience didn't pick up on it either ^_^; I'm not sure if anybody was filming this, but if video turns up, I'll post it later.
Because of the thing with the mic and the fact that I actually kind of choked on a wad of my own spit toward the end of the first chorus, I didn't really expect to place at all, and was actually pretty shocked when it turned out that I came in second! I was also really happy that the guy who took first won - he had a magnificent voice, which he put to excellent use on an old, dramatic, mecha show theme song.
The contest was right before the Saturday rave, and I was so excited that I actually left my iPod in the karaoke room - huge props to roomie AJ for chasing me down the hall with it ^-^ I'd really wanted to wear Faith to the rave on Friday (I even got a ton of red glowsticks to go with the cosplay), so I hurried upstairs with everyone else to change. After a quick bowl of chicken ramen spiked with blue curacao (MUCH better than it looks and sounds) I was ready go head downstairs again and party.
So. The rave.
You might not imagine it looking at me or interacting with me from day to day, but I come alive at raves. I love to dance, I love to be crazy and show off, and when I've got great music behind me, I can go for hours. I started off just dancing in a little group with the roommates who were already there, but they began to peel off to go check out the karaoke room or sit down for a while, and I moved up closer to the stage for safety - the creepers tend to hang out in the back of the room, and I felt safer by myself up in the more brightly lit area. Eventually I was right up next to the speakers, and not long after I found myself being asked to come up and dance on the stage.
Holy shit. Holy shit.
I can't even begin to put into words how much fun I had. Between the energy of the music and the energy of the crowd, I just kind of kept going - I was up there for easily two straight hours, if not longer. The con staff was great, making sure that all of the girls up on stage were doing okay and that we all had enough water; they even got us napkins so we could wipe the sweat off of our faces from time to time. When they pulled everyone off toward the end of the night because the staffers were leaving, the guy who showed me back out onto the dance floor actually said that they'd love for me to come back up next year too. I will be there :D
Also, DJ Speedycake played a ton of Kyarypamyupamyu, and I knew all of the dances. LOVE.
I woke up the next morning with every part of my body searing in agony from all of the physical activity the night before, but it was totally worth it. After packing my stuff up and hauling it out to the car, I decided to go hit up the dealer's room for my usual post-con snacks, and then check out the flea market. I actually found some pretty cool stuff; an original program book from the Japanese theatrical release of Appleseed 2004, another Shirow-illustrated Ghost in the Shell poster, a Lain wallscroll, and a couple of real, licensed, honest-to-god Shaman King posters. In 2012. I did not know this was allowed to happen.
I'm also scrambling for space to hang all of this stuff now, so Mylene-nee, as soon as I get your updated address, you will have a slightly used but fully legit Utena poster heading your way ^_^
The con was pretty much done at this point, so I went to the waterpark with the roomies who were still there for a few hours. It was a lot of fun, and I actually went on some of the slides (although only the ones where I was sitting on something, because I was afraid of my bikini top flipping up or coming undone.) I got a magnificent sunburn, and apparently when you bleach your hair and dye it purple, chlorine will turn it slate gray. Then we all went out for dinner at this really great buffet place that had all-you-can-eat steak. Needless to say, I ate all that I could.
Even though Friday was horrible, Saturday was wonderful enough to make the entire con worthwhile, and my roommates were all fantastic people to be crammed into a suite with for a weekend. I really hope I can go with them again next year, and that we have just as much fun as we did this year. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to rub more aloe on my shoulders.
Every year I try to finish everything in time to safe myself the usual pre-con stress, and every year I fail. I did actually have most of my cosplay done two days before I was set to leave, but then I heard that the girl who was organizing my room needed someone to finish a cosplay dress for her after her seamstress bailed, and, well...I'm a nice person >.> So I spent the day before the con sewing like crazy, in addition to packing, meticulously bathing Atsuko in preparation for our photoshoot, accidentally ingesting bleaching powder and subsequently panicking about it, and throwing up the Chipotle I had for dinner.
Atsuko turned out really nice, though:
Anyway, I got all my stuff done and headed out to the con on Thursday afternoon, laden with cosplay, edibles for the roomies, and of course, beverages of an adult nature. The drive was uneventful, unless you count me missing one exit and having to get off the highway, get back on, and try again, and then later me fearing that I'd missed another exit only to realize that it wasn't me, it was just the that road signs along Rt. 2 are really poorly laid out. I met up with my roommates, all of whom were awesome, and we went down to get our badges. Our room leader had suggested getting everyone together for dinner on Thursday, but she'd only really expected about 10 people to go for it, not the whole room; this led to us trundling up and down Milan Rd. in Sandusky searching for a restaurant with enough space for 23 people. Eventually we wound up at Taco Bell, where a fight broke out in the parking lot. Police were called, and we all retired quickly and quietly to our hotel room, where we made the disturbing discovery that the hotel's pool is shaped like a penis. No, seriously:
Did they have no aerial view of this thing drawn up during the planning stages? This obviously wasn't constructed overnight - how is it possible that nobody involved looked at it and said "...are we seriously building a giant concrete dong for people to swim in?" I really wanted the hotel to have a guestbook just so I could write "Lovely weekend, enjoyed my stay, also your pool looks like a dick."
Sigh.
I'd paid for a bed space in my room, but since I showed up later than everyone else the only space left was on the couch, which folded out into a bed. This would have been fine for me except for the fact that we never actually folded the couch out for a bizzare combination of reasons - the girl I was sharing with was comfortable sleeping sitting up on one end, and I'd have to curl up on the other half and try to make myself comfortable. Since I thought I'd be getting an actual bed, I didn't bring any blankets either, and had to wrap myself in my yukata every night in order to not freeze to death from the air conditioning. As an aside, last night was the first in four days that I've slept in an actual bed with covers, and it was fantastic.
I awoke from my first night of discomfort at about 7 AM, and once I'd oriented myself properly, I scrambled into my Faith cosplay. Yo:
Faith is definitely going to become a con staple for me; she is fantastically comfortable, and she's really, really fun to wear. I also got stopped a ton of times for pictures, which is always nice - apparently there are a lot of Mirror's Edge fans attending ColossalCon, in addition to these cool people:
Friday was my busy day; I had a photoshoot at 1 (pictures forthcoming once I get them), a Portal panel to attend at 2 (which I ended up leaving early because the room was so cold), and then round 1 of ColossalCon Idol at 4. This is where things began to go downhill.
The rules on the forum said that contestants were allowed to sing acapella for the first round, and so I picked "Adieu" as my first song - it's something that fits my voice nicely, and that I can be fairly dramatic and engaging with. I practiced it acapella, and got used to singing it in my own style and timing, so you can imagine how jarring it was for the Idol DJ to play the original track for me to sing to instead of just letting me do it myself. With another song it might not have been such a problem, but "Adieu" is one of those songs where there's just no rhythm in the vocals to match up to. I've heard it a million times, so I at least tried to sing in time with the original vocal, but it tripped me up pretty badly, and I only came in fourth place for the first round. Also, when I sing it, I only do the first few minutes - with the full song playing, I had to stand there and try to be interesting through that huge instrumental, and I really hate when people at karaoke pick long, slow songs and make you sit through the entire thing. Rrrgh.
Still somewhat miffed about having my flow messed with, I shuffled off to prepare for my next event, the In-Character Cosplay Contest, in which one is given a minute on stage to become their character. I was still Faith, and my routine involved sprinting up onto the stage with my yellow bag, having a shootout with some imaginary police officers, and then sprinting off again, leaving behind the cargo. I didn't expect to win at all - it was just for fun, and also for something to do on Friday night. It went well enough, up until I tripped while making my high-speed exit and wiped out on the carpet in front of an entire room full of people.
Honestly, if you tried to imagine someone stumbling and falling flat on their face, you could not imagine it being done any more neatly and perfectly than how I did it. The room went completely silent when it happened, and I just lay there for a little while in kind of a daze. The judges were very, very kind and tried to play it off like I'd done it on purpose, and I think it might actually have worked for the people who were sitting on the other side of the room and not really paying attention. I tried to brush it off like it had been no big deal, and like I didn't have a sore spot the size of a dessert plate on my hip; after all, the rave was coming up, and what better way exists to lift one's spirits?
Only then I realized that I'd forgotten to bring both glowstick connectors and earplugs, and had to go borrow some from my ex-boyfriend. RRRRGH.
I'd somehow managed to leave my phone in my room, and when I went back (in a thoroughly foul mood) to retrieve it, I found that the rest of my roommates were there, having returned from the formal ball. They were about to have a drink in preparation for both the rave and the 18+ Oregon Trail playthrough that was about to occur beforehand, and I figured I'd had a bad enough day that it would be a good idea to join them. Three cocktails later and I was downstairs trying to hand the lady at the door to the panel my bank card instead of my driver's license. I didn't even make it through the whole thing, much less to the rave; I had to go back upstairs and curl up on my half of the couch again because I kept falling asleep. u_u
Oh, and I also lost track of my iPod charger, which didn't turn up until we were packing, so I couldn't use it all weekend. It turned out that someone had borrowed it without asking me.
I seriously considered going home the next day, simply because Friday had been so awful and I really wasn't feeling the con at all - still, I put on my cosplay (I was the Major this time), went downstairs, and then went back up because nothing was going on and nobody was recognizing me. This was especially frustrating because I put a lot of work into making the less obscure outfit - I think I might just have to break down and do the no-pants one after all >.>
Soon enough, it was time to go take Acchan's cover off and pull her around for my second photoshoot, and I don't know if it's just because I was finally having pictures taken or because I love Atsuko dearly and hadn't spent much time with her in the last two days (we're usually together every day), but I started to feel better. The shoot was fun, although I was getting tired of rearranging my cosplay every time I moved (the front and back of the pink thing would slip out of my pants constantly, so I had it safety-pinned to my underwear to at least keep it in place.) It became such a pain that afterward I decided to just go upstairs and change into my yukata for the rest of the day.
Bizzarely, I got more requests for pictures wearing that than I did when I was actually cosplaying. Go figure.
There wasn't much going on on Saturday, so I spent the time between my photoshoot and the second round of the Idol contest just hanging out in the hallways, browsing the dealer's room and taking pictures.
I also saw this guy:
Click to viewThen it was time to go sing! A decent chunk of my room actually came down to support me, so when I got up to the front of the room, I had this huge section of people cheering for me before I even did anything. I ended up going last with "Yasashii Yoake" from .hack//SIGN, which is kind of my go-to karaoke song.
I was so nervous that I didn't notice the microphone wasn't on until I'd finished the first line, although apparently I'm loud enough that the audience didn't pick up on it either ^_^; I'm not sure if anybody was filming this, but if video turns up, I'll post it later.
Because of the thing with the mic and the fact that I actually kind of choked on a wad of my own spit toward the end of the first chorus, I didn't really expect to place at all, and was actually pretty shocked when it turned out that I came in second! I was also really happy that the guy who took first won - he had a magnificent voice, which he put to excellent use on an old, dramatic, mecha show theme song.
The contest was right before the Saturday rave, and I was so excited that I actually left my iPod in the karaoke room - huge props to roomie AJ for chasing me down the hall with it ^-^ I'd really wanted to wear Faith to the rave on Friday (I even got a ton of red glowsticks to go with the cosplay), so I hurried upstairs with everyone else to change. After a quick bowl of chicken ramen spiked with blue curacao (MUCH better than it looks and sounds) I was ready go head downstairs again and party.
So. The rave.
You might not imagine it looking at me or interacting with me from day to day, but I come alive at raves. I love to dance, I love to be crazy and show off, and when I've got great music behind me, I can go for hours. I started off just dancing in a little group with the roommates who were already there, but they began to peel off to go check out the karaoke room or sit down for a while, and I moved up closer to the stage for safety - the creepers tend to hang out in the back of the room, and I felt safer by myself up in the more brightly lit area. Eventually I was right up next to the speakers, and not long after I found myself being asked to come up and dance on the stage.
Holy shit. Holy shit.
I can't even begin to put into words how much fun I had. Between the energy of the music and the energy of the crowd, I just kind of kept going - I was up there for easily two straight hours, if not longer. The con staff was great, making sure that all of the girls up on stage were doing okay and that we all had enough water; they even got us napkins so we could wipe the sweat off of our faces from time to time. When they pulled everyone off toward the end of the night because the staffers were leaving, the guy who showed me back out onto the dance floor actually said that they'd love for me to come back up next year too. I will be there :D
Also, DJ Speedycake played a ton of Kyarypamyupamyu, and I knew all of the dances. LOVE.
I woke up the next morning with every part of my body searing in agony from all of the physical activity the night before, but it was totally worth it. After packing my stuff up and hauling it out to the car, I decided to go hit up the dealer's room for my usual post-con snacks, and then check out the flea market. I actually found some pretty cool stuff; an original program book from the Japanese theatrical release of Appleseed 2004, another Shirow-illustrated Ghost in the Shell poster, a Lain wallscroll, and a couple of real, licensed, honest-to-god Shaman King posters. In 2012. I did not know this was allowed to happen.
I'm also scrambling for space to hang all of this stuff now, so Mylene-nee, as soon as I get your updated address, you will have a slightly used but fully legit Utena poster heading your way ^_^
The con was pretty much done at this point, so I went to the waterpark with the roomies who were still there for a few hours. It was a lot of fun, and I actually went on some of the slides (although only the ones where I was sitting on something, because I was afraid of my bikini top flipping up or coming undone.) I got a magnificent sunburn, and apparently when you bleach your hair and dye it purple, chlorine will turn it slate gray. Then we all went out for dinner at this really great buffet place that had all-you-can-eat steak. Needless to say, I ate all that I could.
Even though Friday was horrible, Saturday was wonderful enough to make the entire con worthwhile, and my roommates were all fantastic people to be crammed into a suite with for a weekend. I really hope I can go with them again next year, and that we have just as much fun as we did this year. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to rub more aloe on my shoulders.