Foxberry's Con Report

Okay my turn! Fanime Con Report!

As some of you might know I have been writing reports a lot lately but I’ve decided only to write reports for the conventions, no more gathering reports because it just burns me out to write so much detail nearly every week. Besides it usually just ends up to be 5 stars each time since I enjoy them so much.

With that being said let me get to the Fanime 2010 Con Report!

Day Zero: Jon and I left the apartment around 1pm to get to the convention around 4. So we rode the bus, bart and cal-train. It was a really nice commute I watched Jon play Patapon it’s very cute. But when we got to San Jose, my camera fell out of my pocket, which I didn’t realize till we got to the dash. I nearly flipped out and I said it had to be in one of the bags. Well we got to the convention center and realized it was gone, it had fallen out on the cal-train. I wanted to cry by that point but we decided to call the lost and found- it was just a recording… So we decided to just check in at the Fairmont; which we did rather quickly and then headed off back to the Calstation to check for my camera. Amazingly as son as we walked in a guy was turning it in. I was nearly in tears and squealed out it was my camera. He teased me a little but finally gave me the camera. With relief we returned to the convention and met up with Mel and her boyfriend then went off to wait in prereg line which took us 2hrs to get through.

I took several photos while we were in line and met a very nice indian couple they were very sweet. When we got to the end of the line a staffer said that “there will be cake” and Jon and I both were thinking PORTAL. Funny thing was when we were done the couple’s mother was like “they said that there would be cake”, lol I said “The cake is a lie” and she was like “It really is isn’t it?” not knowing anything about Portal. It was funny. We then went to the Swap Meet for a little, parted ways with our new friends and Natalie, Maria and a few others… We went to dinner, Jon and I at an amazing restaurant. McCormick and Schmickt Seafood (sorry for the shitty spelling). I got Kobe Beef Carpaccio, which is a very thin kobe beef served with virgin olive oil and some weird salad. It’s lightly seared but it might as well be tare-tare. Never the less it was an amazing dish. I also had bbq red potatoes that were delish. The mac was something we could have skipped. Jon got a Salmon Quesidia and we went back to the hotel… Which I must say was amazing. We then wandered back to the Swap Meet and got some amazing deals. Met up with Mel, EBK and Jessica. Once we were done we headed back to the hotel and enjoyed a well deserved sleep.

Day One: Friday we cosplayed from Avatar the Last Airbender, it took us a while to get ready but we were soon out the door and enjoying the convention. Not as small as Thursday but not as busy as Saturday Friday was a lot of fun. We had an avatar meetup and met several awesome people and hung out a little with Natalie and her friends. We switched out into our Black Rock Shooter cosplays after lunch, did a small photoshoot with EBK and hung around the convention a little before going to the Vocaloid gathering… Which imo was a bust. Jon and I, and another Black Rock Shooter (Rin) were pretty much shunned at the gathering and we were yelled at by some annoying Miko when we needed to stand to shift poses. Craig, also got shunned even though he was cosplaying a vocaloid. After this we were pretty irritated and overall troubled so we decided to switch into Scouts because our feet were killing us. Having switched costumes, my headpiece for Scout wanted to act up after we wandered around the con. Met up with Jessica and had dinner at the Loft… It wasn’t as good as I was hoping but eh… Whatever I had beef Capacio I wanted to see if it was as good as the seafood place, it wasn’t. We then went to the rave for a little after changing into my kitty rave gear. It was okay we weren’t really impressed and left- we met up with my friend who was cosplaying from Basara; Date. We hung out a little then went to the second day of the swap meet… Got even more deals, played some airhocky and we left only to return an hour later and got even better deals- manga for 50cents. After this was done we went back to our hotel room and slept.

Day Two: Saturday we cosplayed solely Avatar the Last Airbender, I was Toph. The meetup was amazing and was SOOO much fun! Many many photos and talked with several awesome people. Met up with Max and Nana, then we parted ways and I had lunch with Kris and Jon. We then returned for the Dodgeball event hosted by Jason (HappyHeretic) and played a bit before wandering around, had a photoshoot with Jorge and had dinner with Natalie (Thank you so much for driving us to wingstop!!). We then went to Whose Line Fanime which was amazing. Dante (Reuban) couldn’t keep his shirt on. After we were done we pretty much enjoyed the rest of the day, that being said we were slammed for photos ALL DAY LONG. It was really hard to get anywhere but it was worth it. Went back to the hotel after enjoying the rest of the evening.

Day Three: Sunday; we cosplayed from Soul Eater. I cosplayed Dr. Stein Jon cosplayed Papa. We hung out with Taryn/Hatsune Yuna for a bit and wandered the con most of the day checked out the AA and DH mainly this day as we weren’t slammed for photos. Had our photoshoot at 2pm with WinterWish and Vanessa. It was a fun photoshoot, but we had to blow off a group of Soul Eater cosplayers I felt so bad for it and later on I apologized when I saw them again. After that we went to McDonalds and Quicklys for lunch. It was hot as fire in Stein but we dealt with it. We went to the DH and registered for Yaoi-con, I won two posters while I was there. Went back to McCormick and Schmickt’s Seafood with Vanessa, Kris and Jon and again I had my Kobe Beef plate. Afterwards we did a photoshoot with Kris and Taryn which we thought we weren’t going to be able to do. Jon went to the Gong Show and was a bouncer for the panel which was funny. I hung out with Kris, Julie and Celina, and Taryn till Jon was done with the Gong show. We then packed and got ready for the last day and passed out.

Day Four: Monday; Woke up early made sure we had everything and then returned to the convention which is really depressing I feel… Everyone was really out of it and quiet and just it was a sad day. Jon’s gi ended up popping on Sunday so I couldn’t do a photoshoot with Max and Nana like I was hoping so we cosplayed scouts. We got several pics along the way. Checked the DH and AA one last time got our last bit of items and went to lunch at Jack in the Box… Returned to our room cleaned up a bit more and soon we were our way home. Somehow by some strange coincidence we ran into Craig and his friends and we were really happy because we didn’t have to commute alone. We then parted ways at the BART and returned home… On the bart a real weirdo started screaming on the bart and yeah that was about it… Then had dinner at Gerry’s.

Pros: +Awesome Avatar Meetup on Saturday
+Hung out with friends
+Found camera

Cons: -Vocaloid meetup sucked
-Heat on Saturday
-Lost camera

Overall & Stars: ***** AMAZING CONVENTION! My best convention thus far.

Shout Outs: Shoutouts to everyone I did not mention! I love you guys~!!

This time I did get sleep! OMG right!? But despite getting sleep I was still worn out by the end of the evening. Woke up around 7am to meet up with a group of cosplayers at 9am. Arrived after our (Jon and I’s) roommate (Rhett) dropped us off, thanks again Rhett. Met up with ININ and Elite Slayer, talked a little met up with a few other cosplayers and headed to Civic Center after eating breakfast at May’s Coffee.

On the way to the Civic Center I nearly had a wardrobe malfunction and I got catcalls from women and men both. ._. Kinda disturbing really. But anyway we arrived at the Civic Center with Blizzard Terrak and immediately we got stopped by people to take pics of us. Kei was the first actually and asked me to do a rather awesome pose. Thanks for being patient with me I was kind of derpy, Kei. ^^ Then a group of photographers came up and I was standing in said position 5-10 mins and my poor knee wanted to give out by that point.

Met up with Gloria (Cosplaying Matagari) and hung out with her and her friends. Saw Hanyaan and EBK, took some more photos, wandered around taking photos and getting photos taken which is why I only had near 60 pics. Met up with a neat Miku and Kaito… Saw Natalie and Maria, and Jason and San (I keep forgetting your name my apologies), and Celina, Julie and Mel had creepers come up to me and well yeah. Most of the time I hung out with people taking photos with them.

Lots of pics were taken and soon we went to the parade, by this point my poor blisters had blisters. Walked the route, heard people shout out for BLACK ROCK SHOOTER!! Which was awesome, and then a guy walked up and started playing our theme song, it was awesome. After the parade we went to eat with Blizzard and Jorge and Gloria and her friends.

Lunch took forever to get but hey it was busy. Then we walked around a bit, I met up with Jessica and we had a photoshoot, Ben and Michael met up with us there too. It was a lot of fun… And after a while we parted ways with Ben and the rest of us headed to the BART… Where a drunk woman came up to Michael and was like “IS DAT SWORD REAL!? *Grab!*” Poor Michael was very surprised. Then the woman came to me and was all “IS DAT YO REAL HAIR!?” I was like “Uh… No… *hobbles toward BART in her stillettos trying to evade crazy woman*”

We parted ways with Gloria and rode home on BART with Blizzard and had Rhett pick us up. Overall it was a wonderful time despite my exhaustion.

Pros: +Met awesome people
+Hung out with friends
+Amazing experience
+Had fans as BRS
+Parade was fun

Cons: -Creepers
-Catcalls
-Weirdos
-Heat
-Exhaustion
-Blisters

Overall & Stars:***** Just a wonderful time I will be going again.

Also: SHOUT OUTS TO EVERYONE I DID NOT MENTION!
*Also; sorry for disrupting you BartBoy- I hadn’t realized you were judging at the time. >< I feel really bad about that.

Images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/49034562@N04/sets/72157623769301777/

Friday: I did get some sleep before the con this time however it still wasn’t enough sleep as I was exhausted even when I got up. Sunday was worse. Never the less, I did not attend Friday as Jon had work and I had to finish up costumes before Saturday. My roommate originally was going to go three days but he didn’t want to, instead he gave me his badge for Sunday and said to make use of it… So why would I argue? Haha. Anyway…

Saturday: Saturday rolled around 6:30am and I was up, tired, but getting ready despite the cold weather I was fully aware I was involving myself with. Jon and I both got to the convention center, waited in the line for saturday which was crazy… But since we had preregged we did not have to wait hours on end to get into the show. We still had to wait a little but we got through rather easy… However the task to get through the ginormous Dealers Hall/Artist Alley was crazy!!

It took us nearly four hours to get through the DH/AA the first time. However this was not because I was trying to shop, nor was it because I wanted to look at everything, it was actually a mix of these PLUS the fact that my costume was very popular. I cosplayed Leeloo Dallas in the thermal-bandages!Version. I would literally stop at a booth to look, but have to turn away as someone asked for a photo, hand over my things to Jon, take the photo, get my stuff back, turn back to the booth and then take two steps and again stopped for another time. It was overwhelming. I know I had to have over 100 photos taken of me that day, I don’t know the exact number but I know it was over that.

I had a few little issues; a group of guys came up and were like “Pants are on aisle 5!” with big dorky grins, trying to flirt. And then another time I was walking through the DH some idiot grinned and waved and flashed his camera right in my face causing me to barely see anything. I wanted to kick his ass but whatever, I couldn’t stop and chew his ear off.

While in the DH/AA we caught up with Kris and Jorge and we finished up what we could in the DH/AA and decided to shop on Sunday. We then saw Steff and Becca cosplaying from Metalocalypse and they danced on stage of the “Just Dance” as “the bird is the word” it was hilarious. We also got to meet up with Vanessa and CherryTeaGirl who were cosplaying from DigiChara and who too, danced on the game for the Spice Girls. It was funny as all hell. We then parted ways a bit and caught back up and asked if Vanessa and her friends wanted to go to lunch. We spent quite a bit of time trying to find food… But we finally found it at this hole in the wall deli…

Funny thing is after our group of 7 they ran out of sandwiches but I did have a great pastrami sandwich! After we had lunch we all hung out a little and again parted ways, I had my photoshoot with Kris inside the convention because I didn’t want to just wear my Leeloo outfit outside with kids around. (There were a lot of kids outside at the Metreon, I didn’t think the parents would appreciate it). With that being said, we ended up parting ways with Kris, walked around the con a bit and went home at 7pm.

We got quite a bit of swag that day and I bougt a tribble, which oh! Reminds me…

When we headed back to the con, there were two amazing Klingon cosplayers who I got my photo with. >3 Including the tribbles, one started screaming in Klingon the other was like “awwww I can translate for it”.

Sunday: Forcing myself out of bed on Sunday was amazingly difficult. I cosplayed Reno (Before Crisis) from FF7 and Jon cosplayed Turk!Vincent. We chose to do these because we realized any comic or movie cosplay was going to be troublesome to cosplay there. So we actually got shopping done. However when we were on the bus I realized I forgot my camera… So we stopped and got a disposable. Luckily there weren’t a lot of cosplayers on Sunday. Also what was lucky for us was the fact that Jon got his Sunday badge very quickly.

Afterwards we headed into the DH/AA. I got two volumes of Mouse Guard, hardback, a tribble shirt and a squid plushie which I carried around the entire con pretty much. we met up with Gloria and her friend, suggested food and said I wanted to look at the rest of the DH/AA. Which I did, I met up with Bunnywarez which I didn’t get to visit as Leeloo, and drew their first bunny for the day on their large sheet of paper. It was awesome. Afterwards we left the DH/AA to get food, contacted Gloria but ran into Celina and Julie who were cosplaying Amy and Yun Sung from SC4, we decided to wait for Gloria so we could get food, meanwhile I spoke a little with a really awesome Batman. Once Gloria and her friend caught up we went to Mel’s diner with our party of 9.

We then split up again from Julie and Celina and their friend Donna who was cosplaying a Lugia Giginka. Finished our meal, I had an amazing cheesecake and chicken tenders and fries. And GLORIOUS coca-cola since I have gone 40 days without soda. We then headed back to the con, it was raining and it sucked. But we got there without too much problem. Went back to the DH/AA and went to a raffle at the Squib booth, where I got my squid. I won a postcard pack which is really awesome, then we went to the Final Fantasy booth type thing where Jon knew an ex-coworker and he won the Grand Prize! A white-mage chocobo plush. It’s so cute. XD

Afterwards we pretty much just hung out and wandered around with Celina and Julie. Though while we were sitting down near the balcony type thing a group of high-on-sugar teenagers came up to take pics of Donna’s costume but turned to Jon and was like “Wow you look really asian!” He was like ‘o_o uh… That’s because I am…” Everyone laughed and we enjoyed the rest of the hour we had and soon parted ways. On the way back home, we had forgotten our umbrellas, and got soaking wet, I hope I didn’t get sick >< but yeah… It was not fun going home. Then walgreen’s photo place was under maintenance so now I have to go pick up the image cd when Jon gets home.

Overall it was a wonderful time.

Pros: +Very mature convention, no squealing fangirls.
+Wonderful security! They even complemented me on my costume several times.
+DH/AA had wonderful guests, wish I could have gotten Kacee’s autograph from Chuck.
+Registration was very easy.
+Had fun taking photos.
+Met a bunch of awesome people and hung out with friends.
+Awesome photoshoot with Kris.
+Klingons
+Mel’s Diner
+So many other things I won’t lengthen the list with.

Cons: -Couldn’t do shopping at all on Saturday but that was alright. 4 1/2hrs to get through DH/AA
-Kind of wish that the DH/AA was split up it was very hard to get through.
-Some idiot flashed me with his camera.
-Some idiot fanboys flirting with pants joke, but I admit it was pretty funny.
-Didn’t get Kacee’s autograph from Chuck.
-Missed Millia Jovich she was at an RE panel. ;_;
-Some other things I’m sure but I can’t think of them right off.

Overall: Awesome con, I will be returning next year. I just hope to have certain costumes done by then.

*****Stars: Surprising right!? AOD had 5 stars, and now Wondercon. But Wondercon isn’t your typical convention either.

Photos will be up shortly.

NCC’s March Meetup

So like normal; I did not get sleep before said event. Which of course made me overly hyper and quite talkative. I suppose that’s a good thing to some extent, after all if I wasn’t like this I probably would have not been as outgoing. I’m rather anti-social, so lack of sleep apparently helps. Haha.In any case, I got ready to cosplay Reno, had a little issues with the face tattoos but got them fixed, Jon did not cosplay to this event, never the less we soon headed off to the BART, SamTrans is getting worse by the minute so we opted to walk to the BART while I spoke with a friend on the phone. Arrived at the BART, met up with Gloria who was going to cosplay Tsung, but decided on last minute that she didn’t want to wear the wig for him and ended up as Vincent Valentine as a Turk. And… That was pretty much it, fastest cosplay decision we’ve ever done. Got to the MUNI and then Japan Town, I was late by 10 minutes but luckily no one was there. We chatted up for a bit and Kei cosplaying as Grell ended up showing up but had to take care of things. Our second person was Kris (BlizzardTerrak) and overall we just goofed off. I made a comment on how it would be funny if we were screwed over and no one showed up I just had a blank stare from my small group of friends. Heh heh… So I was like what if everyone shows up again blank stare. Foxberry is not a comedian to say the very least. We soon gained more people, EliteSlayer and Mkamzng1 showed up, then Steff (Anti-Ai-Chan) and lastly Hatsune-Yuna and SuperTuna, we also had two other photographers, Maria and (I’m sorry but I forget your name all the time).

While we waited for Hatsune-Yuna to change into Yuna and take her stuff back to the car, we introduced each other and a bit about ourselves. Which was a lot of fun actually lol. Once Hatsune-Yuna returned, we went out for lunch at a very yummy place I forget their name all the time. We had about 13 members at that point who showed up. I figured “eh that’s fine it’s still a success” but Kei’s friends showed up and they waited for us which I still feel bad about… It took the restaurant a while to get our check. The food was good, which I always enjoy from the restaurant, no complaints there just a slow bill but that was to be expected. We then went back to the Peace Pagoda, ran into even more people and a Hetalia group. By this point our members were near 25 or so. We all decided to go to the market down the street and get snacks and stuff. I just wanted a drink since I couldn’t have soda at the restaurant (personal lenting promise blah). After that we headed back to the Pagoda and hung out for the rest of the evening pretty much there. We met up with Julie and Celina while we were there and that of course required me to give them hugs. X3 I luff you guys~!

A rather prominent photographer in the cosplay scene took photos and I was surprised to hear that I’d be on his cover for the meetup (sadly I forget his name and I cannot for the life of me remember who he is if anyone can tell me or lead me to a homepage of his I’d love to credit him!!). More people showed up by this point, Roxas, Sanji and others I really don’t recall their names but we all hung out by this point. However a security guard clearly wasn’t happy that we were there. He kept watching us as if we were delinquents, overall our cosplay group didn’t have any issues no one was rude or acting out. Only children who weren’t a part of our group were an issue. None the less he wouldn’t go away for the longest time. I guess it’s bound to happen.

By this point we had about 30-40 people around the area scattered. It started to get cold and many people opted to leave or go into the Mall, which we chose to do. We hung out a little longer near the steps but soon decided that it would be best to head home. Saying our goodbyes to our friends and the people who I didn’t know, we soon headed home, exhausted and happy. Saying goodbye till the next time always makes me a little sad, we dropped Gloria off at the BART and soon Jon and I went home, I crashed sometime after- tired.

Overall it was a wonderful experience and I enjoyed every moment. I really didn’t have any complaints other than the security guard. I can’t wait till April 10th where we will all meet again at Embarcadero Plaza if it’s not raining.

Pros: -Overall a wonderful meetup and I got to see friends and make new friends!

-Got to eat Taiyaki XD but that’s more of a personal thing than an event maker.

Cons: -Length of time to get a hold of the restauraunt bill

-Creepy security guard who kept lurking near by.

Stars: ****1/2 Because of restaurant bill issue and the creepy security guard

Hope to see you all there!

-Foxberry