Alright, everything all at once this time! And there is actual commentary for photos, as I took so few of them - they're in two different locations because Gallery is doing weird things to a couple of them when I try to upload. Enjoy!


Friday

So, it's actually seven am Saturday morning as I'm writing this first bit, but Brooke and Jo are asleep still, and will be for the next three hours, and while I like long showers, I can't manage one that long. Let it go on the record, though, that Jo elbows people in her sleep. Which isn't actually the reason I'm up - that's more awful, awful lower back soreness that I couldn't sleep through. Yesterday was lots of running around, really, which is probably the reason for said lower back soreness - got up at eight, failed at using the caf waffle machine but eventually had waffles anyway, hauled all my stuff to English, hauled all my stuff to the bus loop, on the buses, and then through the airport. There were basically no lines in Vancouver; it was a bit amazing. Got to the con okay, picked up my badge - and then ran into trouble. Namely, I couldn't find any of the people who could have had my room key. I did, however, go to opening ceremonies, and I ran into Janelle, who was content to wander around with me and wait for people, in part because she didn't have her room key either.. It turned out that flights out of SeaTac were horribly delayed - Amber, Liz, and Reva didn't get in until eight or so. So, room keys were had, finally, Jo showed up from whereever she wandered off to, and Brooke's flight got in. It was a low-key night. I wore Tatsumi for all of an hour before the obi started giving me issues and I just gave up and changed. Went to the Cafe with Jo, Heather, and one of their friends, which was fun, although at that point I was starting to crash a little. And then we all actually did crash, although I think I've had about three hours of sleep total, unfortunately. Caffiene, yay!


Saturday

Currently in SFO - my flight boards in about half an hour, and hopefully I can stay awake that long - I'm hitting the usual post-con crash now that I'm not around everybody else. But I'll try to recap Saturday anyway. Brooke and Jo got up around nine, after I had taken a shower, watched some more Veronica Mars, and started to get changed. I scrapped my initial plan of starting with Seishirou and then switching to Leon when I got tired of not being able to breathe/see/walk fully, to starting with Leon and switching when I got tired of nobody recognizing me, mostly because Leon is infinitly more comfortable. Jo and I decided to go to the girl gamers/yaoi subtext in video games panel, while Brooke went to reg to get her badge. The panel was entertaining, but I think it proves that Final Fantasy is perhaps a little too popular - guys, it's really not the ultimate game series in any sense of the word. It's not even the ultimate RPG series. There was one definate upside, though - I decided I would consider myself lucky if even one person recognized me as Leon, particularly given the obscurity of Ada at AB (three people recognized me), and that's a much more well-known costume than a second alternate. But at the panel, not one but two people recognized me, a trend that actually continued through-out the day. I wasn't accosted quite as much as Jo for photos, but there was a surprising amount. Also a lot of shouts that I needed the Chicago Typewriter, which I swear, I really will have done the next time I wear that costume. So I ended up wearing it all day, instead of switching to Seishirou.

The afternoon was a lot of wandering - we hit up the dealer's room, my goods from which will be accounted later, got some photos, ran into Liz, Amber, and Reva, who were doing Tsubasa and looked rather awesome. Janelle and I had a sad lunch of Honey-Nut Cheerios and discussed porn in our room while other people were busy. Everybody but me opted to go to the AMV contest, which I opted out on as I never find it that fun. So I hung out in the dealer's room more, talking to one of the people at the Tales of Anime booth about DMC and RE before going to wait in line for the cosplay contest - Liz and company were entering, as were Clare and Jo. At this point, I was starting to feel a little moody from lack of sleep in food, and almost had a minor breakdown in line, but Brooke joined me and there were hugs, and things were okay. The masquerade...well, let's say that I've been horribly, horribly spoiled by AB, which has consistently had a pretty high standard of costuming. Yaoicon, however, does not - the winners for both costumes and skits were pretty apparent, as so many were in the not-so-great category. There were also tech issues like whoa - apparently they don't run rehersals, which would probably do that. Kakumei did well - best group costume, and their skit was definately one of the better ones. I was also quite impressed by the Kratos who won best individual costume.

Immediately after that, I went up to the room to change into something less warm and get something to eat, because I was starting to get a little shakey. Some more cereal and a granola bar helped, though. Everybody else stayed downstairs to hear the cosplay winners announced and watch part of the bishounen auction. I joined them, and we ended up meeting Al (Eurobeat King on Cosplay.com), who is apparently sort of friends with the Kakumei people, and went for a late dinner. Unfortunately, Al's car sat six people, and we had eight. Seating people on top of each other got everybody into the car, but, as we were trying to find a restaurant still open, we got pulled over by the cops. Al got off without a ticket, luckily, probably because none of us were minors and nobody had been drinking, but it was a little nerve-wracking. There was a Chinese place still open, so we ended up there, and ordered a frightening amount of food, and, even more frighteningly, managed to eat almost all of it. I myself had several platefuls of delicious chicken fried rice, and the conversation was good, so I was revitalized. Despite getting pulled over on the way out, we piled everyone in again - Clare ended up crouched on the floor of the front passenger seat, with Reva and Brooke's legs on top of her, and Amber laid flat across me, Jo, and Liz in the backseat, and we made it back to the hotel unscathed. A bunch of us decided to go to the dance, which was a little lame at first - techno remixes of j-pop and anime songs, ugh - but they switched DJs about an hour after we arrived, and there was synthpop and industrial goodness, song highlights of which were Combichrist's 'This Shit Will Fuck You Up' (I thought of you, Ashley!), 'Closer', which is really good for sexing other people up to, and VNV Nation's 'Kingdom', which I requested. Ran into a few other people we knew there, many of whom were pretty wasted. The one advantage of not being drunk at a dance is that you can laugh at all the people who are. I also learned that while Karisu is pretty damn good looking in photos, she is smoking hot in person. Which makes me feel a little awkward, because she's old enough to be my mom. Everyone else kind of went back to the room and crashed part way through, so I ended up dancing by myself, and getting progressively less shy, as tends to happen. I actually got asked to dance by two other women, and took them up on it, which resulted in some sexy grindage - nice to know that I don't just attract the sketchy old men at con dances. I also managed to accomplish one of my several unwritten con goals, right before finally hitting the sack myself.


Sunday

We managed to actually all sleep in, probably because the dance ended at four am. There was a knock on our door of people bringing gifts of delicious lemon pound cake, which was nice. Jo and I put on Dante and Virgil, and debated how many people would recognize us. Jo thought nobody to one or two person, I figured maybe a bit more after the success of Leon the previous day. I ended up being right - while it wasn't nearly as many as recognized Leon, the ones who got the joke loved it, which made it totally and completely worth it, as did the 'WTF?' expressions we got from those who didn't get it. I tagged along with Jo to the panel on racial bias, which was definately interesting, although I feel it's a touch hypocritical to be ranting about putting characters as seme or uke based on skin color, only to use the height rule instead. The rest of the day was dedicated to wandering, pretty much, which a small stop to get some sandwiches for lunch, with kidavi. Most of us left in the mid-afternoon - I headed out to the airport after Jo and kidavi went to go take naps in their room. Ran into Anne Marie on the airport shuttle and chatted a bit, which was nice, and then managed to get off at the wrong terminal stop, because my flight was an Air Canada flight, but run by United, and they're in different buildings. Trip was pretty uneventful, and I came home and feel happily asleep in my dorm room for once - as horrible as that mattress is, it is all mine.



Dealer's Room buys
Yeah, it gets it's own little section, because I actually bought more than two things, and none of it was manga or artbooks for once! I usually only buy official stuff, but this weekend was all fanworks of some variety. Went in with the goal of buying at least one bit of horrible smut, as I now legally can, which was in fact accomplished. So, the final stash:
-three of kidavi's mini-prints - two D/V, one D/V/L
-one fan postcard of Dante and Vergil in casual clothing
-the Y-con '05 fan anthology
-horrible, horrible RE4 Leon-smut doujinshi called 'An empty closure'. Contains Krauser/Saddler/Saddler's tentacle-cock/Leon - glad to know it wasn't just me and Ben making those jokes.
-Far less horrible, though still smutty D/V doujinshi called 'Nighty Night' - haven't had a chance to look through it completely


Photos

Rufus and Turks
Some of the Cafe action
Me and Jo as Leon
Some guy I don't recognize 1 and 2 (Jo took the photos on my camera)
Adorable Rebecca
Vergil
Sailor Moon at Y-con seems a bit weird, but that was a beautiful costume
Some of the few X cosplayers that weekend
Totally awesome Kratos
Liz and Reva as Fai and Kurogane
The most WTF of all the masq skits
Amber, Liz and Reva in their skit
Me as mafia!Leon
The underpinings of the the above, so to speak
A shikifuku!S/S pair - props on the scythe
Wonderful Yami group - I think we all kind of collectively wanted to steal the shikigami and bring them home with us, particularly the Touda
Dante and Virgil - yeah, Jo actually held to her promise
Virgil carrying Dante, AKA four months of working out pay off
Virgil leading Dante through the dark forest
Virgil getting glomped by fanboy!Dante