Anime North 2009 - Saturday

[dejana]

Now for the fun stuff.

Saturday

Even skipping the photoshoot, Saturday morning came way too early. I had a panel at 1, I think it was, and since it usually takes me two hours to get my cosplay on, we had to get started well before noon. mechaboydos (Dos) came down right when we were waking up, but since he's a boy and we girls were going to be changing and stuff, I had to send him away. Sorry, Dos. ^_^;;

As soon as shel_b_129 (Shel) arrived, we got started. Hair. Forehead sigils. Makeup. Jewelry. Then dresses. While I was lacing up my corset in the bathroom, misscheeveeuss (kelleh) showed up! I hadn't seen her since the last Otakon I went to, in 2006. I missed her meeting nephthysmoon (Kasey) for the first time, woe. :( But there was lots of kelleh time, as she stayed attached to us for most of the day. This probably ended up being less fun than she hoped, since we were doing cosplay and made her take pictures of us and hold our stuff, haha. But she got the bonus fun of seeing us make idiots out of ourselves with wig caps and stuff before leaving the hotel room. xD

This time around, I tried Sarcasm-hime's method: I put my hair in multiple braids and wrapped them around my head, used a real wig cap, and put hairpins straight through it into my hair all over instead of just at the edges. It worked like a charm. The wig stayed more secure than it ever had before and didn't feel as tight as usual. However, something about the wig cap killed me. I don't know if it's that there was too much weight pulling on the front without enough pins, or if I'm actually allergic to something in the wig cap (it gave me blisters!) but before long it really started to hurt along my hairline and by the time I was halfway through my panel I wanted to cry. It stopped hurting later in the day, but still. Agony for hours, and blisters. I'm going back to knee-high nylons next time.

At least we looked fabulous. I had to attach the trains with safety pins, since I hadn't had time to sew on any hooks, and Kasey's bow was a half-finished thing with some scrap fabric tied around it, but somehow everything ended up passable. Yay! We did end up having to use clear shoulder straps for the Serenity dress, it was just too heavy. :\



We headed downstairs and moseyed on over to the panels end of the hotel, where we ducked outside and made kelleh take some pictures of us. :3 Some better than others, but I'll show them all.



Reeeeeally should've taken this time to practice poses in front of a reflective surface. Shel and I had different facial expressions in pretty much every picture that day, I'm sure. Oh well. Happy Serenity is super happy! :D Srs Saturn is super srs. :| Hee.



Shel looked so amazing as Saturn. As soon as she put that wig on, she transformed from Shel into some experienced Hotaru cosplayer. It really surprised me.



Our Serenity was unusually naughty. You would not believe the number of people who wanted pictures of her doing this.



srs guardians are srs bzns.





Happy senshi! :D



Serenity thinks she can sneak out of the castle. >|



I don't think so.



Random picture is random and apparently full of costume adjustment.



The high train model for the Saturn and Pluto dresses was a compromise of sorts. I couldn't find a color match for the Saturn dress to give her a double-layer train like mine, so I made a new single-layer one in a more gray color for myself to coordinate with hers. I'd found some fabric that was unusually wide for this type, and I'd seen some pictures of other cosplayers with the train attached at the top of the dress, so I decided to give it a try. It's a little tricky because the train is quite heavy at this length, and I'll have to mess around a bit to keep it from pulling at the dresses, but I ended up really liking this style. It drapes toward the front without making side photos awkward, and I didn't get stepped on nearly as much as I have in the past. If I can make it work correctly, I may use this style all the time from now on. ^_^ Also, the Saturn train was totally a last-minute grab. I'd been to a bunch of stores and couldn't decide on a color, so I ended up running out of time and having to take whatever they had on my last stop. I wasn't crazy about the color I got at first, but attached to the dress it turned out to look really nice. :)

When we got back inside, we ran into a rare costume (that I wouldn't even have recognized if she hadn't identified herself ^^;;) - one of the fairies from the SuperS movie!



And upstairs near the panel rooms, Dr. Horrible!



And his nemesis!



Pimp Cane Serenity is Big Pimpin', though sadly out of focus.



My afternoon panel was the fanfiction panel, so again we ran into Chaos and ice_rose (Mel), as well as csi_tokyo3 (Nightbreak), who was also on the panel. Chaos reminded me of a series of silly pictures I wanted to take, and thank goodness he did, because that ended up being the only chance we had to do so. I only had three in mind, but Chaos, being Chaos, had more ideas. ._. In retrospect, we should've turned toward the camera more, but here they are anyway.

Somehow, his lordship Chaos has gotten ahold of both the Time Key and the Silence Glaive! Oh noes!





Um, ew. You should do that in the privacy of your own room, pal.



Uh oh.











Yeeeeeah... these would be some of his aforementioned "ideas." Mmhm.





Even Serenity gets in on the just(?) punishment.



Chaos: 0, Senshi: How many times have they defeated Chaos now?



Blargh, though. Face the camera, me. And get into the part more. Sigh.

The fanfic panel wasn't particularly spectacular, but well along the lines of most of the other fanfic panels I've been on, which is to say MUCH better than last year's uphill struggle. The questions and discussion were pretty standard (aside from the usual crazy crossover tangents that are inevitable whenever Chaos and Nightbreak get together ;P) but it was nice to handle them with people who actually know what they're talking about.

After the panel, we went to lunch. kelleh suggested Kelsey's, which I was a little iffy about since I remember spending way too much money there last year, but since it was just the once, it was okay. On the way out of the hotel we saw some more cute cosplay.





We kept running into this guy, in different Saturn costumes. I think he had Glaive envy. ^_~



Food time! Nothing quite like going into a restaurant in all this crazy costume stuff.



A kelleh cameo!



Yay!



Serenity's ready to EAT! Kasey got into character quite easily when she was hungry, haha.



Giving Princess Serenity bunny ears is kind of redundant, isn't it?



Finally, food! If anyone comes between Serenity and this burger, she's ready to KILL.



omnomnom



After food tiemz, we wandered back over to the convention center. I was a bit worried about the big glass windows behind us in the pictures we'd taken earlier, so we decided to take some more on the grass. kelleh was such a good sport about all this. ♥

Bright sunlight was bright, but the background was pretty.



You can see here the outer layer of the Serenity dress was fraying pretty badly. :\ Definitely needs hem tape.





Trying to imitate that famous shot from S. Next time we do cosplay together, I'm bringing some reference images.



Wish I'd been able to get Shel some gloves. :\





The backs of the dresses. I'll be adding a few more attach points to balance out the trains, I think. On the other hand, Saturn's looks fine as it is, it's just mine that seems awkwardly loose. Maybe I'll just shorten mine a bit. Gah, I've got another hole in my glove. >.o



My train hangs nicely from the side, though.



I love Kasey in this one.



A random Shel! Such a pretty Saturn!



I think at this point it was time for the AMVs. We ran into another Serenity on the way back to the hotel... or was she NQS? Did Princess Serenity have a tiara like this? It's a nice tiara, whatever version it is, and the long skirt is nice. I'd thought about trying to keep Kasey's longer like this, but ended up erring on the side of practicality. Extra-long skirts are lovely in photoshoots but not your friend at crowded conventions.



The AMVs were... okay. There were a few good ones. To be honest, I've never been blown away by the AMVs at Anime North. I'm not sure what it is. Momiji's Challenge was great this year, though. The theme was to take a non-anime theme song and set it to anime. The He-Man/Gurren Lagann one was brilliant. I wanted more of those.

During the contest we noticed part of the Silence Glaive was coming unglued, argh! >.< Fortunately it wasn't urgently serious, and was fine for the rest of the day as long as we were careful with it. Partway through, Kasey and Shel went outside for a break so Kasey could poison herself more :P and since the Masquerade lineup was beginning at that point, they weren't allowed back upstairs to the AMV room. That sucked, but we were able to meet up with them again downstairs afterwards. Thank goodness for cell phones and text messaging.

Around that time, we started to think about calling it quits on the cosplay thing. We were all pretty uncomfortable, and since I had another panel coming up at 10 PM, it was either get out of our costumes by 8:30 so I could shower before the panel or be stuck in them until after 11. We decided on sooner rather than later. But first, I talked everyone into walking across to the convention center one more time in case more people wanted to take pictures of us. And many did. :3 I also got some pictures of my own, and we had yummy ice cream! Hooray for the smart vendors who park their carts next to the TCC during the con.



Ran into this Saturn again, this time in the princess dress. Shel's enthusiasm is waning at this point, haha.





After this we got out of our costumes, cleaned up, and broke apart to do other things. And I discovered I had two voicemails, which was one of my major WTF moments during the con. No one from Detour ever calls me, ever, unless it's related to con business or some official thing. And now that I'm out of the country I get calls within a few hours of each other, from stuckintraffik and Erick inviting me to do stuff. WEIRD. stuckintraffik's invite was for the following day, so I called him back right away and his wife answered. After I explained to her why I couldn't make it, she said "Have fun at the convention" and I heard Kale's offended shout in the background: "She's at another convention?? She's two-timing us!" Hee. Don't worry, Detour's still my favorite. ♥

After taking a shower and putting on normal clothes Kasey and I made an attempt to walk to Western Union to pick up some money she'd been sent. The front desk had told her it was only a couple of long blocks away, so we hoped to get there and back in time to catch another panel. On the way out, I finally ran into jelynne, who I'd been hoping to see but had to say a quick hi and bye to as we headed out the door. X( And it turned out to be a heck of a lot more than two blocks. When we reached a third stoplight after maybe 20 minutes with no Western Union in sight, we decided to give up and turn back. We were very late, but still caught the second half of the only panel I wasn't on that I'd really had my heart set on attending: Fic Fic Fic Boom, an hour of sarcastic hilarity. This year the panelists were Nightbreak, Chaos, Steve Savage and Sean Gaffney, and they once again did a brilliant job of instructing a roomful of eager authors on how to become infamous in fandom. (Use Evanescence song lyrics! Write sex scenes with no knowledge of basic anatomy! Hold chapters hostage for reviews!) Complete with emergency cyanide capsules and synchronized headdesking. Such a great panel. I'm glad Kasey got to see some of it.

Also in the audience was hysteriachan, another person I'd really been hoping to see, but sadly Nightbreak and I had to rush off to the other end of the building for the Death Note panel. Now that was a painful reminder of why randomly throwing panelists together is a bad idea. The moderator was too sick to focus on anything, aside from a few lengthy tangents on religious allegory, and the other two panelists amused themselves by building stacks of things on the table. Oh well, we tried. It was a full room, because duh Death Note, so I hope Nightbreak and I were able to at least make things passable for them. There were a variety of opinions and some good discussion.

Kasey had gone back up to our hotel room after the fic panel. I got a text from Shel saying there was no answer when she knocked on our door, so I figured Kasey was already asleep. I wandered around for a while to look for familiar faces, then decided to hop over to the convenience store for some extra bottles of water. On my way to the door I ran into hysteriachan, lordshipmayhem and some other Fanboys folk, hooray! So I got some chat time in with friends and felt a lot better about the whole thing. :)

I got my water and a late-night snack before heading up to the room... where the elevator doors opened to reveal this:



Someone was bored...

Upon entering our hotel room I found Kasey laying awake waiting for Shel, who'd gone to bed thinking Kasey was asleep. Whoops. At least we got to chat more, I guess? And were somewhat disturbed when I unplugged the hotel alarm clock and it kept right on working like nothing had happened. POSSESSED. Gah.

The room was trashed from cosplay, but happily we didn't have to worry about it. Hooray for Monday departure!

This post is crazy long due to pictures, so I'll split the con report again here.

Comments

[shel-b-129.livejournal.com]

The thing you've got to remember about your train was that, while it may have gotten stepped on less, it still go stepped on a handful of times at least. By Kasey mostly...but what are you gonna do. By the time we got to the outside pictures of the three of us your train had been pulled off a couple times and we had to lift a safety pin from somewhere else to attach it back up in the middle.

Also, Shel's enthusiasm was not waning! Man-Saturn stalking us was freaking me out! Glaive envy or not... Remember, other than having those friction issues I was comfy in my gown and wig. :D Lucky short haired costume is lucky.

I think that the other Serenity was NQS to. The crown was hers. QS didn't have a grown at all, did she? Just a different dress... And, honestly, I prefer the look of Kasey's skirt to the pooling of the other. But it might just look better on her because she's tall. And I think that Kasey's skirt looking so great is due in part to the superior craftmanship(?) of the chest of the dress. It is so much more involved, it makes the whole thing look waaaay more elegant.

Cabaret Shel is not so cabaret! XD I was twirling my train and being all can-can when Kelly snapped that shot.

[dark-branwen.livejournal.com]

I think that the other Serenity was NQS to. The crown was hers. QS didn't have a grown at all, did she? Just a different dress... And, honestly, I prefer the look of Kasey's skirt to the pooling of the other. But it might just look better on her because she's tall. And I think that Kasey's skirt looking so great is due in part to the superior craftmanship(?) of the chest of the dress. It is so much more involved, it makes the whole thing look waaaay more elegant.

I agree.

(lazy reply is lazy)

[shel-b-129.livejournal.com]

Eh!!! Jackin' my well thought out comment! After I'd been haranged for not commenting too! Unfair!

[dejana.livejournal.com]

The few times the train was stepped on could easily be solved by shortening it a little more. No problem. Actual hooks instead of safety pins will help, too.

I was referring to your enthusiasm for taking pictures with that particular Saturn. ;P

The more I look at the other Serenity picture, the more I think it may be NQS, but it's hard to say. The pooled skirt would make sense if it is, but I can't remember much else about how NQS looks in the manga.

[ice-rose.livejournal.com]

Man-Saturn was following you guys around? o.o I don't blame you for feeling freaked out! Like I said in my first comment....that guy was creepy!

>,> <,< Too bad you all couldn't have smite him with your props!

[nephthysmoon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ManSaturn did follow us a bit. At one point I think he jumped into a few shots people were taking of the three of us, though I've yet to see them posted online anywhere.

[ice-rose.livejournal.com]

Phil had way too much fun during that photo shoot. He's always such an attention hog whenever there's a camera around ^,^; He'll be happy that the pictures came out so well!

And that Saturn cosplayer most definitely had glaive envy. One of the times he walked by he couldn't stop staring at it....I could almost see him starting to drool! ^,~ Unlike Shel who was a great Saturn, he was a very scary. Most the times I saw him over the weekend he was walking around with a 5 o'clock shadow! *shudders*

I think the fanfiction panel went alright. Would've liked a bit more discussion and questions about the actual writing of fanfiction (i.e. - what traps/pitfalls not to fall into when writing a fanfic, how to develop good plots and character development, the importance of beta readers/editors/proofreading and making sure there's consistency & story continuity, etc) ....instead of mostly talking about different fandoms. But at least the audience seemed to enjoy themselves and like what was covered during the panel.

The one thing I could have done without, though, was the guy who kept plugging his own fics and fandoms. I felt so bad whenever someone else, including us panelists, wanted to say something and he wouldn't stop talking or interrupted them halfway through whatever they were trying to say.

[dejana.livejournal.com]

There's always that one audience member who clearly thinks he should've been on the panel, whatever panel it is. I've seen panelists get carried away like that too. The rule I always try to keep in mind is "Don't mention titles unless someone asks." It seems to be the line between discussion and self-promotion.

I do feel good about how the panel went, I'm sorry if that wasn't clear in my report. It wasn't OMG GREATEST EVAR (more general questions about the writing process would've helped, as you said), but it was firmly on the level with other good panels I've been on. :)

If Chaos wants full-resolution copies of any of the pictures, let me know. ^_^ Animated icons are pending. :3

[ice-rose.livejournal.com]

I'll let him know :D

That's a good rule to follow whenever you're on a panel. Unless it's a panel about your own stuff....like whenever the Fanboys have a live confic reading.

I felt really out of my element on the fanfic panel, at least given type of discussion the audience members were interested in, since I'm not into a lot of the "popular" fandoms (i.e. - Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist). So whenever people started talking about their favorite fanfic pairings and crack pairings, I was at a complete loss for anything to add to the discussion. ^^;;

[dejana.livejournal.com]

Yeah, same here, come to think of it. I know those fandoms, but I'm not really in them. That's why it's good to keep the discussion as general as possible - if some of the panelists are being alienated, some of the audience is as well. That might be something to make an effort to steer clear of in future years.

My head hurt so much during the panel that I don't actually remember the details of the discussion that went on ^^;; just the positive feeling I had on the whole about how it went.

[csi-tokyo3.livejournal.com]

I tended to get like that on previous years when the panel was random people and I wasn't on it. ^^;; Although, hee on all the Chaos pics. :D

[shel-b-129.livejournal.com]

I. Want. An icon!

[nephthysmoon.livejournal.com]

LOL! ME TOO!

[shel-b-129.livejournal.com]

Oh man!!! Kasey kept looking at me with Death in her eyes everytime the dude started talking! There was one on the SM panel too. Just wanted to look at him and tell him to get his own panel! Panel stealer!

[ice-rose.livejournal.com]

I kept trying not to roll my eyes every time he opened his mouth. He probably thought he could have done a better job as a panelist than we did...since apparently he knows absolutely everything about fanfiction since he's been writing it forever and ever. *rolls eyes*

And oh god, the guy from the SM panel. I assume you're talking about the older gentleman who was in the front row who kept addressing Phil as Lord Chaos? -.-; At least he wasn't as bad as the fanfiction guy. I swear, there's always at least one know-it-all in the audience at every panel!

[shel-b-129.livejournal.com]

Exactly!!!! I like going to panels because it is safe to assume that the people holding the panel know more than me. I go to listen, to enjoy; not to take over the freaking thing because I can do better... Unless it's the panel I got roped into hijacking because the panelist didn't show up and Dej wanted to mount a hostile take-over. That was amusing...and uncomfortable...I didn't like being up there. I admire ya'll soooo much!

[nephthysmoon.livejournal.com]

LOL! You had fun, admit it. We did not HIJACK IT! We merely decided to run it ourselves when it was apparent that the panelist wasn't going to show.

[dark-branwen.livejournal.com]

:( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

Envyyyyyyyyy...

[dejana.livejournal.com]

Hey, no sad faces! You can cosplay with us when you come to AB! :D?

[dark-branwen.livejournal.com]

I want to BUT WHAT IF THINGS GO HORRIBLY AWRY! :O

[dejana.livejournal.com]

??? What could possibly go wrong? Your dress falls off and you get chased by crazed Haruka cosplayers? ...would that even be a bad thing? ;3

[dark-branwen.livejournal.com]

:P I was speaking more in terms of money failure or life conflicts.

[dejana.livejournal.com]

Hee. I figured, but my crisis sounded more fun. ;)

[shel-b-129.livejournal.com]

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. And if you're preparing not to be able to go now then there is little to no chance that you won't be able to go since you were preparing now for then. You see? :D

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

Those are some pretty awesome pictures. ^_^ And I'm glad we did get a chance to talk a bit eventually, even if it wasn't for long. (;_;)

[dejana.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Me too. :)

[dejana.livejournal.com]

:P I'll be there next year.

[shel-b-129.livejournal.com]

Oh!!! I was having soooooo much trouble during the Chaos-shoot. I had to be srs-Shel-Saturn and I was having me some srs trouble! I was so freaking funny!

[shel-b-129.livejournal.com]

It* Sorry....

[dejana.livejournal.com]

Suuuure, we all know about your ego :P

[nephthysmoon.livejournal.com]

Dude, how I could I not jump in on the Chaos-thrashing?

The pics did turn out lovely, though there are a startling number of me at the restaurant. What's up with that. Me eating a cheeseburger is not that interesting. Unless you have some kind of weird fetish-thing going.

And it wasn't just the food thing that got me into character. I did just drop to the ground and start wailing loudly at one point.

[dejana.livejournal.com]

They were good pictures!

[misscheeveeuss.livejournal.com]

Hahahha I was making the cheesiest grins all weekend. There are seriously no good pictures of me. Especially not in comparison to you three all dolled up, and being right next to Kasey's BOOBS! (not that I'll complain >:) )

And don't worry, I had so much fun hanging out with you guys all day. I was so excited to see you all and I wish we had another day! Yay girl time! It's so foreign to me usually, haha.

You guys looked BEAUTIFUL. I couldn't have wished to have been anyone else's photag/bitch for the day. ;)

[dejana.livejournal.com]

Hey, I like the one at the restaurant! And not just because of Kasey's boobs. :P

It sounds like my sister might be coming to AB with me, so if you join us, you'll be off the hook on the stuff-holding. ;)

[misscheeveeuss.livejournal.com]

Hahah, nice! It'd be fun to go, but you know me and my problems with thinking too far ahead. :P You guys should totally make a pit-stop in Philly no matter what though.

[dejana.livejournal.com]

I'll be flying to AB, so. Join us or be left out. ;P

[misscheeveeuss.livejournal.com]

Pshhh whatevs!