soc_puppet | Con Report Thing (part one)

This will include far too many details and pictures, so it's getting cut. Your friends lists will thank me for it.

Thursday:
Thursday involved me getting up at seven in the morning after going to bed at three (I had to finish my prop, okay?) I then waited around my house impatiently until 8:45, at which point Chris picked me up so we could get his cousin and then all go to Ceder Rapids together!!!1!1!! This worked pretty well up until a point, that point being the intended meetup-and-leaving time of 10:00 in the morning vs. the actual meetup-and-leaving time of 11-something in the morning. Nevertheless, the seven vehicles got out onto the road at something like an acceptable time, and we were on our way!

...This way included probably one or two too many (and too long) pit stops, but whatever, it got us where we were going.

The good news finally kicked in around the time we got there, when we were informed by Pat that her dad would be willing to let us crash on his floor so we didn't have to spend the night in Chris' truck. Yay for Pat's dad!

That night, we went out to the art museum (which is free on Thursdays from five to eight - lucky!) and saw lots of pretty pictures that looked much better than reproductions. We also made a quick stop by the registration line, which had indeed opened up that day. Thankfully, there was a nice table to the side where people who had already gotten their badges could pick up such things as panel information (though not timetables or maps yet) and, thankfully, badge cases for those who had not gotten theirs in the mail yet. This meant that I didn't have to worry about going around with a flimsy piece of paper clipped to my stupid lanyard thing (which they replaced with better stupid lanyard things anyway, thus negating the purpose of mailing the original stupid lanyards out in the first place, which is what they claimed held up the mail for so long), so hooray!

Pretty much nothing else happened on Thursday - or nothing eventful, at any rate - a fact for which I can only be thankful.

Friday:
Friday saw me getting up at seven-or-eightish (I don't remember which) and getting into costume for the first time since Hallowe'en. Once I (finally) had my hair in order (and damn is Katara's hair hard to deal with =_=), we set out for the dealer's room, which supposedly opened at nine. This was followed by miscommunication issues in the room outside the reg line and the dealer's room (etc), mostly involving whether or not there actually was a line for the dealer's room or not. Photographs of me were also taken, giving me the first solid proof that my prop had been a good idea ♥ I was also eventually informed that there was a Ty Lee in Artist's Alley, who I vowed that I must see as soon as humanly possible.

After getting the little miscommunication sorted out, mostly by stopping at the 'freebie' table in the reg room, our small, happy group wandered into Artist's Alley, where I was rewarded for my costume with a small Fire Nation Goomba button (♥ it's attatched to my Orange + 75 = Canada bag strap right now ^___^) and an eventual meetup with the aforementioned Ty Lee. Pictures followed :Db

"I have three poses that I do. Which pose do you want?" asks Ty Lee.
"Um, all three?" I say. And thus, I got three pose pictures :Db

"Okay, now I have a request," I say. "Katara vs. Ty Lee face off pic!"
"Awesome!" says Ty Lee. "Let's do it!"
We get into position, and pictures are taken for us. ...Except not mine, because my camera decides that, gee, aren't these batteries tasty :DDD? before getting an image in. So I then have to switch batteries.
"Okay, just one more thing," I say. "Can you poke my shoulder? :DDD?"
My shoulder is poked, rendering my arm 'useless', and my water falls to the ground at my side ¦D I am a very happy person when I get my camera back.

We exchange LJ names, with the promise on my side that Ty Lee will get a copy of the photo, and I somehow make my way back to my mini-group and into the dealer's room area.

...At which point we promptly split up again as I go in search of the Yuricon table.

"How much for one of everything? 8D?" I ask upon finding it.
"Forty dollars," Erica replies.
"...Oh hell yes," I say inside, because I want to appear polite. Outside, I dig out my wallet and fork over the cash. What a bargain!

Erica offers to sign both her book and Yuri Monogatari 4 (because she has a story in there) and I happily accept ♥ I then wandered off to find my group of friends again. Shortly after finding them, we run into one of the people traveling in our group, who I end up leading back to the Yuricon table ^^a He only has money to buy Erica's book, but he's happy even for that. We get a nice little mini-lecture/informal blog post on yuri and why Erica's yuri panel isn't going to be 18+ only while we're there, and he promises to go. I promise to try, which is the best I can do, as I kinda put "Spending time with CFUD friends" over "Going to a yuri panel with an admittedly cool author/reviewer" on my priorities list, and I don't know when/if the CFUD meeting is going to end. I then split up from my fellow yuri fan, and go to find Chris again. We make our way through the rest of the dealer's room, and then back towards the reg line, just to take a look.

Much to our surprise, we find Thalia (an awesome cosplayer and cool person all around) near the reg line! We find out she has been in the area since one that morning, though we had expected her to maybe catch a bus in with Pat (who had not been able to make it in that day). I don't remember all of what happens next, except that there is some sort of fire drill going on at the hotel when we leave the dealer's room (cleared up fairly quickly, I'm glad to say), I get food somehow (probably just bread from the room) and drop off most of my recent purchases (which includes the Dominic Deegan book one-and-a-half (also signed) that I forgot to mention getting, and which brings my total money spent up to a cool $60.00 =_=). Around three, I meet up with Pat's dad, and we catch a train to the bus terminal to meet her. ...Her bus is running late. She eventually arrives, just as her dad is getting up to check out the bus schedule again. We catch up with him, there is a bathroom break somehow involved, and we get back on the train to head once again to the hotel.

We arrive around six-ish, meet up with Chris and Thalia, and Pat goes to check in electronically. At some point around here, we meet up with Kat somehow, who is another awesome ~~and also hot~~ cosplayer and cool person, who is with her sister. We drag our stuff up to Pat's room, Pat arranges to get more room keys, eating happens sometime around here, and Kat irons her spare costume so her sister can go around dressed as Rukia. She also fixes up her own costume somewhat, and pulls it off spectacularly:

Oh Kat, how did you get to be so awesome? Also, why are you always cosplaying the ultra-hot blond bombshells ~~that I have fangirl crushes on~~. Not that I'm in any way complaining, of course.

Events blur together a bit for me here, but I think we go to "What happens at con, stays at con" (which is not nearly as much about conventions as we had been lead to believe), and Thalia becomes involved in full cosplay twister. ...Though actually, the twister thing could well happen on the next day, or have happened earlier in the day, or something. Iiii'm pretty sure that Thalia and I watched AMVs in there somewhere? One of which was really creepy and disgusting and only got polite clappage? Yeah.

Sleep happened after the eventful stuff. I ended up on the couch, which was a little short, but otherwise not too bad. This paved the way for Saturday, The Best Day Ever 8D

Saturday (First Half):
Saturday, like Friday, began for me with getting into my costume and attempting to bring order to my hair. (Friday was very windy, which did not bode well for my hair style. Soooo many flyaways =_=) I head downstairs at 9:30-ish so I can meet up with other Avatar cosplayers for the 10:00 photoshoot ^^v Spent a little time stressing out a being the only one there so far, then met up with someone cosplaying Foaming Mouth Guy, at which point I figured I was just insanely early and who explained that some people might not know where Children's Programming was. We waited around some more, and eventually a Katara and Kyoshi wandered down, and we bonded. ...I also found out that Foamy was indeed cosplaying Foaming Mouth Guy, as up to that point I had assumed she was playing someone from another series ^^a Pictures were taken :Db

I was also relieved not to be the only (or even one of two) Avatar cosplayer there, as Foamy had mentioned that a photographer from Avatar Spirit was coming, and I didn't want to be ridiculed for my stupid panels being the wrong way 'round if I had to be almost alone DD: If I was one of many, or at least one of more than one Katara, then it would be okay. (In the end it was more than okay, because we ended up with four Kataras, but that comes later :3)

More cosplayers showed up, we made our way upstairs, and still more cosplayers showed up, including the Ty Lee from the day before, another Ty Lee, a Mai, an Azula, two more Kataras, a Suki and a Toph. (No Zukos, though I heard there were some running around somewhere.) We rearranged ourselves at the fountain outside, and pictures were taken :Db

There were group shots first, which I didn't get any of. Oops?

Then came Dangerous Ladies pics, which I heartily approved of :Db

As you can see there, Ty Lee is an acrobatic girl :Db

Then came Katara group pictures. I passed my camera onto someone else for these.

Group bending!

Then the second Ty Lee ran through and poked all of our arms. We were sad/annoyed little disabled water benders D:

Earth Kingdom pics were next, and involved a much more diverse group :3b

At that point, pretty much all the official picture stuff was done, and it was time for the silly stuff :D

Mai and her knives ^___^ ♥

Toph being badass ♥♥♥

...Toph flipping us the bird X3 IT'S BULRRY, BUT I SHARE IT WITH YOU ANYWAY.

Mai and Ty Lee acting very IC, IMHO.

"Wheee, hog-monkey-back ride!"
"...whatever."

OH NO, IT'S A RAY GUN! ...Okay, water gun actually, but Katara could be damn dangerous with one of those.

During the crack part of the photoshoot, I took the opportunity to Convention Marry Toph, Mai, and the second Ty Lee, which made me quite happy :3 Azula, sadly, declined engagement, but I at least got a mini Avatar harem. Everyone was also given Avatar fruit gummies, which were tasty.

The Avatar cosplay group wandered around together for a little while, and then eventually split up. I made my way back up to the room for lunch around 11:00, anticipating 1:00.

Ending there for now, 'cuz that's a lot of text to get through. Coming up in the next post, the CFUD meetup! Also, NotEvil!Aizen and Gin :3b ...Mostly Aizen. Stuff will probably go up tomorrow, as I've got a volunteer class today from 5:00 to 7:30 at the animal shelter, and the computer lab is closing at 8:00 for the summer. (If I volunteer enough, Mom might bring me my internet connection back >: I mean, even without me having a job.)

More later, etc.