So last weekend I went to Aki-con. Sadly, I am late and behind on my blogging, but you really must forgive me. And it’s not like I’ve had much time, I’ve been catching up on my sleep and working. Unfortunately as I write this I am undoing all that good work. Oh well.
The first day I woke up at 5AM to be ready to go for 6AM. Not too bad, but I hate mornings to begin with. My cosplay buddies and I got the border with ease, firstly because no one was there, and secondly, because we had a border guard whole was knowledgeable of cosplay. It was pretty awesome.
We arrived at the Hilton at about 8:30 and tried to check into our room early. No such luck. I then proceeded to make a small but manageable mess of the hotel bathroom while I painted my arms and face grey. I ended up forgetting an important element of my costume (Fake lashes) that I was not able to put on until getting the hotel room at 3-ish, and that really ended up completing the costume. I have also discovered that I look good in crazy false eyelashes. Who knew?
I feel I must say I was very pleased with the end result. It was also really nice to meet other Homestuck fans for the first time. Next was the shock at how I was about 4 years older than everyone else there. This explained the mystery as to why Homestuckers are so noisy. I never liked high school kids much even when I was a high school kid. The whole getting louder and louder until someone shouts to stop gets old fast when you are surrounded with no way out for hours on end.
The nicest thing about the costume was that I received a large amount of praise for a job well done. Before Aki-con I have never gotten so much positive feedback. It was a good feeling that may have gone to my head more than a bit. I bought a squid plushie from the dealer’s room that went with my costume and was relative to the fandom.
The second day involved me dressing up as Riku from Kingdom Hearts. While I had a very good wig, I had forgotten about how it is too small for my head, so my day involved a lot of wig removal and replacing to allow the blood flow to my brain. I was very unsure about this costume because I don’t like to cosplay men (I like looking pretty) and I have never played any of the games. And do not plan to. Though I must say I did enjoy being a dapper gentleman with glowing horns and a top hat.
The only frustrating thing about day 2 was that there were more Homestuck cosplayers and I could not be one of them. However, the day was made (and perhaps even the entire con) because I found a manga novel in the dealers room, for $5, that I had been looking for, for about 3-4 years. Everywhere else that I’ve looked has had it for upwards of $100. Silly internets.
By day 3 I was pretty much done and tired of the con. Luckily I wasn’t alone as one of my con buddies also felt the same way, so we ended up hanging out in the library together a lot. Due to a strange misfortune the karaoke/rock bad stage just so happened to be not far from the open doors. It was highly distracting. I picked up an internally lit up materia for half off, which I am very glad I did not buy on the first or second day.
Blind Mag!
Now, on day 2 (or I should say night), the same con buddy and I decided we wanted real food and not instant noodles. So we drove through Bellevue. Nothing. We drove south towards Seattle. Still nothing. We drive through Seattle, get lost, and decided to settle for the next Subway we see after the first 4 and despair at the alarming lack of McDonalds. Luckily for us the guy serving us was nice enough to look up the route back to the highway so we could get back to Bellevue. Were we missed? Not at all.
On the way home the next day there were an abundance of McDonalds. All we had to do was drive north. But it was fun.
And I would say, all in all it was a very good weekend. Especially when coming home to a brand new and shiny Netflix subscription.
