#Since I was the only precure cosplay he had seen all weekend!!!!

[blossyossyossy]

CURE PEACH AND THE FOUNDING FATHERS???

[careless-seafoam]

Katsucon 2017! ✨

It’s been a while since I’ve actually been on Tumblr, hi! I was at Katsucon this past weekend and now that I’ve rested up a bit, I wanted to write about my time there! Be warned, this is going to be long.

This was my second year at Katsucon. Last year I had so much fun that I got some serious post-con blues afterwards, which influenced me to attend more conventions and make more costumes than ever before. I made more costumes in 2016 than in all of the previous years that I’ve been sewing combined. This year, I’m attending more conventions, but I’m trying to be more reasonable in the number of costumes I make so that I can still afford to eat and pay my bills. But I digress.

Preparing for Katsucon this year was a little weird for me because I didn’t make any new costumes specifically for this convention. I did buy a new costume to debut at Katsucon and I brought a couple of costumes that I’d made and worn before, but I missed that excitement of making something new and showing it off for the first time. It was nice to not have to stress over getting everything ready in time for the convention, but at the same time it almost felt wrong to be the only one of my friends not plagued by the dreaded Katsucrunch.

Thursday my friends and I carpooled to the convention center. In retrospect I should have eaten more before we’d left because I got hangry, but it ended up being okay. We got in line for badge pickup and this year it wasn’t too bad! We got our badges in about an hour and then there was no wait to eat at National Pastime, which is the sports bar in the Gaylord. They even had Katsucon drink specials!

A funny thing that happened on Thursday: I was talking to my friend about Fire Emblem when we first got to the room and we discussed who we’d married in the games. When we left to get our badges, I mentioned that I brought my 3ds because I was going to talk to my husband. I guess one of the dudes in our group didn’t catch that I was talking about Fire Emblem because later he asked how long I’d been married?? So that was a thing.

I ended up sleeping on the floor of our hotel room, but it was cool because I have an air mattress and a kigurumi for when my blanket wasn’t warm enough. 😊

By the way, pro tip for bringing an air mattress to a con: always test it before you go just to make sure you won’t have any problems with it when you get to the hotel! Storytime: the first air mattress I bought for Otakon 2015 actually didn’t come with the valve that was supposed to be built into it, so I couldn’t use it. And then when I replaced it I accidentally bought an air pump that only had a car adapter, but luckily when I went to test it at home before Katsucon I still had time to replace it. But anyway.

Friday at Katsucon always feels a little weird to me. I don’t know if it just takes me some time to get acclimated to the convention environment again or if I just have trouble because of the costumes I usually choose for the Friday of the con, but I always feel a little off at first. I wore my fairy Rin costume (the one I bought), and it was fun but also super awkward because of the wings. As much as I enjoy the dramatic effect of a cosplay with wings, it’s really difficult to get around with them.

The Love Live gathering was pretty fun. I was incredibly shy because there were a lot of people at the meetup and I was feeling self conscious about my costume, but everyone was very friendly and I managed to find a couple of other fairies to commiserate with about the difficulties of navigating a crowded convention center while wearing wings.

A cool thing that happened: an artist gave me a figure stand with Rin’s name on it in wooden block letters because I was his favorite Rin at the meetup.

I had to leave the Love Live gathering a little early to run up to the room and take my wings off before meeting up for the maid cafe reservation I’d made with my friends. We were attended by a maid named Koneko, who was an absolute sweetie. 💕 I ordered green tea, onigiri filled with salmon, and strawberry shortcake, which came with a macaron decorated with a kitty face on it. My friends played Jenga and some of us made wishes for the wish tree, I got a Polaroid photo taken with Koneko and Izumi (one of the butlers), one of our friends got to dress up as a maid, and we talked with Koneko about our costumes and anime. The food was a little expensive, but I thought the entire experience was definitely worth it and can’t wait to go back next year!

I didn’t do many exciting things after the maid cafe. I changed into my kigurumi, went to a couple of panels, briefly checked out the dealer’s room, stopped by the idol PJ party, wandered a bit and ran into a few friends, and went back to the room to call it a night.

By Saturday I felt more a lot more confident and comfortable at the convention. I wasn’t particularly attached to any of the morning panels I’d considered attending so I slept in a bit and took my time getting ready. I spent the first part of the day as Kaze from Fire Emblem Fates, and I managed to catch most of my friend’s Precure panel before I had to meet @jfoxphoto / @disco-vader for an absolutely amazing photoshoot! The weather was beautiful so we were able to shoot outside and I’m really excited about the preview photos he’s posted already. 💞

After the photoshoot, I went to the Fire Emblem meetup, which was massive even compared to the Love Live gathering. But it was really fun! I saw a few familiar faces and was able to make friends with a couple of cosplayers I’d met at AnimeNEXT and MAGfest. There were a lot of amazing cosplayers there and it inspired me to start playing Conquest again, which I had to put down back in December when I was working on my Kaze cosplay.

I got to hang out with a few friends briefly afterward, but at that point I needed a break and went back to the room to change out of my costume and wash my makeup off. I ended up taking a nap and woke up just in time for the food we ordered from Domino’s.

After we ate everyone started getting ready for the formal ball. I wore my Princess Venus costume that I had made for last year’s ball and met up with more friends at the ball. I can’t dance but I danced a lot anyway, and it was a good time. They played the Time Warp again this year and I broke the left strap of my gown during the song, hahaha oops. We also went to Cosplay Burlesque, but we didn’t get good seats so we ended up leaving early to start packing up the cars.

I spent most of my Sunday wandering the dealer’s room and artist’s alley with friends, and although I tried not to buy everything I still ended up spending way too much money.

On the drive back my car got separated from the rest of our group and we ended up having to meet up at a Wendy’s in the middle of Maryland. I had a To Wong Foo moment when I was pumping gas in full cosplay, but nobody in my car had seen the movie so I had to explain it to them.

Another funny thing that happened: a kid in a car across the street from us when we were outside Wendy’s started shouting questions at us because we were still in cosplay and I answered with all lies. “Are you going to a party?” Yes. “Is that a wig?” No. “Are you Robin Hood?” Yes.

The car ride back is always fun because we get to share stories from the weekend and talk about all of our random nerdy stuff, and before I knew it we were already home! 😢 I’m still feeling the post-con sadness now because it was such a great weekend and it went by so quickly, but I’m trying to stay positive! For now I’m trying to focus on enjoying the Katsucon memories and getting hyped about Zenkaikon because I’m already working on a new costume and I can’t wait to finish it! 💖