LJI Week 17: Scare Quotes

[deza]

I went to Otakon this past weekend. For those who don't want to click the link (clickyclicky!), Otakon is the second-largest anime convention in the US, and has been running for over 20 years. If you have any interest in anime, manga, gaming, science fiction, fantasy or horror, Otakon has your people in abundance. The attendance cap this year was 35,000 people, and it was reached. People who wanted to buy a ticket late Saturday or Sunday were SOL.

I'm one of the freaks that cosplays at these conventions. This year, I did Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Lucille Ball and Ice Queen from Adventure Time. Making the Ice Queen dress took about two months. The sewing machine is still on my dining room table, and wig heads are taking up the back windshield ledge of the car.

Ice Queen and Ballet Princess Gunter

The down side of being in a crowded convention center with 35,000 of your closest fanatics is there is always SOMEONE who doesn't feel so good but doesn't want to lose out on the money already spent and then attends the con anyways. This anonymous SOMEONE is "patient zero" for the dreaded "Con Crud."

"Con Crud" this year is manifesting as a cough, sore throat, running nose and itchy eyes. That's much better than some outbreaks, like the Emerald City Comicon bout in 2012 that sidelined people for up to a week and appears to have been a flu variant. Hopefully the virus will clear it's way out of my system in a week or so and I can go back to wearing contacts and using mascara.

I've just spent three days with my kids and grandkid, enjoying a rich environment filled with the most fantastical outfits. We had fun as a family, indulged in quite a few flights of fancy about winning the lottery and being at a con every weekend, learned some new techniques for our own costume building, explored new-to-us anime options and generally had a blast. I even got to have dinner with our very own alycewilson, Kung Fu Panda (who is absolutely adorable) and the Gryphon. What's a week of being sick compared to that?

Comments

[reprobayt.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you had a good time. :)

[deza.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Just missed the Atlanta folks a bit.

[reprobayt.livejournal.com]

You are always missed, hotness.

[grail76.livejournal.com]

I've never done one that big and it's been a while.
I've always wondered what being in costume would be like.

[deza.livejournal.com]

There's only one way to find out. DOOOOO EEEEET!

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

Wow. It never would have occurred to me before your story that such occasions my breed viruses.

I am one of the lucky people who don't get sick before or during a vacation, only afterward, and even though I have heard many stories from others who are the contrary and almost always either sick or just recovering during their time off, I never knew it could be like that.

[deza.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately that many people in that small a space has a petri dish effect.

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

Iceeee Queeeeeeeen. :D

I kind of wanted to one day go to a con with myself and my child doing cosplay together, but I don't have the talent to pull off making my own cosplay. *sigh*

(At least Finn would be easy for me to do? Maybe we could one day go as Finn and Fionna, lolol)

[deza.livejournal.com]

You don't have to make one. I bought all the ingredients for my daughter's Fionna off of Amazon, and she looked great. Same for the baby's Marshall Lee. A lot of characters can be easily done using stuff people already have in their closets. Last year, my daughter's Misty (Pokemon) used a pair of shorts I'd had since high school, a $5 tank top and a $3 set of red suspenders.

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

Oh, Fionna and Finn are the easiest to do without actually making anything. :) That's specifically why I mentioned them.

However, cosplaying say, Mikasa from Attack on Titan (with my son as Armin, lol) wouldn't be quiet as feasible. Because I'd have to make the jackets, and sew on the patches, and --

And that's not if I wanted to do Kenshin instead, or any others. :)

[deza.livejournal.com]

AoT cosplay is more mainstream than you think. http://www.amazon.com/Shingeki-Kyojin-Scouting-Cosplay-Custom-Made/dp/B00CVJQF2K
Even the movement gear belts are easy to get. http://www.amazon.com/Attack-Titan-Belt-Harness/dp/B00DA9SMRQ/ref=pd_sim_a_10?ie=UTF8&refRID=1TF9VKCCBTFE6A3E3W4D

Trust me, it's worth doing.

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

Omggg. Are you serious?? That's ridiculous; I am seriously impressed that these things exist (especially the thigh bondage 3DMG belts) o.o

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

That's an awesome outfit! I've never been to Otakon (I'm more a SciFi con goer than an Anime/Manga con goer) and I'm jealous you got to meet alycewilson!!

[deza.livejournal.com]

There is so much bleed-over now at cons that really anything goes. Anime has a heavy s/f influence as is -- look at Attack on Titan, for instance. They discuss how generations previously it was believed that if all the people of the world had a common enemy to face, then racial differences would be forgotten. So scientists created the titans to be that common enemy. Doesn't that sound like the kind of idiocy that modern science would look into?

Oh, you were a topic of discussion, btw. We both decided you would be an absolutely fascinating person to meet. :)

[kajel.livejournal.com]

Great costume! So jealous of your meet up also. lol

[deza.livejournal.com]

Thank you. We had fun. :)

[n3m3sis43.livejournal.com]

Oh, con crud. Nobody warned me about that before (or during) my first con (DragonCon 2002). It was only after, when I was over at a friend's house and we both started feeling like death warmed over, that I found out. That year's crud was a flu-variant and it was roughhhhhh.

[deza.livejournal.com]

I remember that one! It was my first con after Kyle was born, and I was sick with it for a full week with a year-old toddler and a three-year-old.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

How nice that you got to meet up with Alyce and her family? I was hoping, after her entry, that you might have.

That Ice Queen costume is fantastic. Adventuretime is something my son and I have stumbled over, and many of the episodes seem like pure crack. With a touch of genius. :D

[deza.livejournal.com]

Thank you. If you haven't yet, make sure you catch the gender switch episodes. :)

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

Keep watching it.

The Ice King and (spoiler) will destroy all of your fucking feelings by season 3.

I'm not kidding. ;) I showed Sarah one of the episodes ("I Remember You,") and even knowing what was going to happen in it I was in tears at the end. It kills me, every time.

[deza.livejournal.com]

I actually had a (spoiler) cosplayer ask me to sing I Remember You with him at the con.

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

I think I would have died on the spot, hah. That's really awesome.

[jem0000000.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Although I hope you feel better soon.

[deza.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[jem0000000.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

[swirlsofblue.livejournal.com]

Sounds fun and awesome costume!

[deza.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It was a great time.

[eternal-ot.livejournal.com]

Wow! Nice to hear about this...Glad to know you had fun..:) (get well soon)

[deza.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It was great.

[ryl.livejournal.com]

That's an amazing costume and a very cute poodle.

[deza.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Tassie is my seizure alert dog; she goes everywhere with me.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

It was so great to see you in person! Can you believe I forget to get a picture of the two of us? But then again, you had so many pics of you taken during our short time together that maybe I'm in the edges of some stranger's pic.

[deza.livejournal.com]

EEEEEEE! May I post this on FB?

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

I just posted it. There will be more Otakon pics this weekend, but I promised to take KFP to the park today.