#also i spent way too much money on a new vest for that cosplay because the one i had initially was way too small to fit me

[noraqrosa]

suddenly remembering the time (2017 or 2018 iirc) i went to an anime convention cosplaying as Grell Sutcliffe from Black Butler and proceeded to get misgendered by nearly everyone at the con. for the record, for those unaware, Grell is canonically a trans woman; in-story characters constantly misgender her, but these characters are very obviously being mean, and at every opportunity she asserts her gender.

(the same con i saw people persistently misgendering someone in a cosplay of Diamond from Land of the Lustrous, a series where the majority of the characters canonically go by they/them in official English translations)

what i'm saying is the late 2010s were a hellish time to be a trans person in cosplay, especially as a character who isn't a traditionally "passing" character (or, in the latter case, as one who doesn't go by he or she).

[scattershotmind]

Samyah (OC)

Gonna put it below the cut because this is probably going to be long! ALSO @eisehaus , you've been tagged!

The basics:

Birthday: May 30th, 2001 (Tropical Zodiac: Gemini, Chinese Zodiac: Snake)

Age: 19 Years

Gender: Female

Height: 5′5″

Eye Color: Gold

Hair Color: Jet Black

Skin Tone: (The photo above is a little too pale) Her skin tone is best describe as a light-medium, usually slightly tanned (from long hours spent in the sun working), beige with slight olive undertones

Pets: Two cats; one female orange tabby with amber eyes named Venus and one male black cat with green eyes named Titan. She also has a solid white female Blizzard Corn Snake (pictured above, she goes with Sam almost everywhere) that she named Astaroth.

Clothing style: Her favorite color is black, first of all. She has a weird sense of style, in all honesty. She doesn’t mind showing skin, as long as none of her cleavage is showing and as long as her butt is fully covered. She’ll wear shorts and crop tops as long as they meet the aforementioned requirements. She does prefer jeans, tank tops/t-shirts, typically steel-toed black combat boots, and her very prized black leather jacket. She loves leather in general though, so anything leather is bound to become part of her wardrobe, such as vests, jewelry, etc. She loves rings and necklaces, and tends to always have some type of choker on. Her favorite choker happens to be a gunmetal colored, medium-size linked chain that fits around her neck perfectly.

Piercings and tattoos: She’s only pierced on her ears, but those piercings climb up the outer side of her ears. Two piercings on the lobe, then 5 piercings spread out along her ear, going up into the cartilage at the top. As for tattoos, she has a black and white cat yin yang tattoo on the inside of her left arm, about 2 inches down from her wrist. On her back, she has a set tribal wings, the base of the wings sitting between her shoulder blades on either side of her spine with the actual wings stretching up to stop just below the top of her shoulders and coming to a stop at the middle of her back, the tips curling in towards each other. In between the two bases of the wings sits a simple trinity knot. On her right bicep, she has a Chinese stye dragon wrapped like a cuff, going all the way around her arm 3 times with the head at the top, pointing up towards her shoulder and the tail at the bottom, pointing down towards her elbow.

Body description: Coming in at 5′5″, she’s not really tall, nor is she specifically short by human standards. She’s on the slimmer side with some muscle definition in her biceps, thighs, calves, and, while not extremely sharp, you can see the six pack on her stomach. Her feminine assets are decent and fairly average, she doesn’t have many complaints there.

Likes: Rock/Metal music, drums, guitar, anime, video games, baking, belly dancing, tarot cards, working out, singing, chocolate, hugs, cats, snakes, pretty much all animals, cars, working on cars, medical stuff.

Dislikes: Most cleaning chores (Does them anyways though), yelling, fighting, being touched out of nowhere (like sneaking up on her and touching her, she will try and punch you), her parents, alcohol, drugs, typically kids but will put up with them, parties, large crowds of people.

Hobbies: Absolutely loves to work on cars and their engines, can and will tear engines down and rebuild them, playing guitar/drums, rescuing animals, loves learning about and has taken classes on medical stuff so she knows her basics of caring for wounds, and resuscitation.

Personality: Samyah is a fairly feisty person. She talks shit back to people and can be very sassy if she’s in the mood for it. Her mouth is that of a sailor’s, and it has and will get her into trouble if she’s not careful. She doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind or stand up for others if she feels it’s needed. She’s fairly easy going and loves to have fun. She also is fairly soft for those she cares about. She can tend to become somewhat motherly, checking in on her loved ones, bringing them food, just basically trying to take care of them in small ways. She’ll gladly give them advice if they ask for it. If one of them falls sick, she can and will take care of them until they feel better, borderline hovering. Let’s not even get into how much of a doting and fawning person she becomes when caring for animals. Despite all of this, there are times where she becomes very shy and soft spoken. Conversely, when angered, she can and will lash out at the people around her. She tends to need time to vent out her frustrations, usually through music, playing drums/guitar, or working out. Occasionally, she’ll sing her feelings out, but would be extremely embarrassed if someone heard her.

Other info?: She’s lactose intolerant.

The backstory:

Sam was thrown into, as she calls it, ‘the system’ at the fairly young age of 13, right after the death of her (scumbag) father and subsequent disappearance of her (deadbeat) mother. Basically, she was abandoned, so she was put into the adoption system. Her life passed her by like dark storm clouds that just kept failing to release rain. She wasn’t adopted because people always preferred smaller, younger babies. So, around the time she turned 15, she became a bit of a problem child. She skipped school, and when she was at school she got into fights with kids who bullied her. She did keep away from smoking, but dabbled in alcoholic drinks occasionally. However, it was around this time that most of her passions began to surface. She made few friends, but those few introduced her to the things that helped her start to straighten up. She learned how to play the drums and electric guitar, and turned to those instruments instead of taking her anger out in a fight. She ended up learning how to read tarot cards, and even learned the only style of dance she knows to this day; belly dancing. She found a passion for weight lifting and working out in general, and began to aspire to build her strength to protect herself and her small friend group. Heck, her friends even got her into anime, video games, and cosplaying. They became as thick as thieves during their high school years.

Living in the system was no joke though. Between girls meaner than she was, and guardians who were only in it for the money, her life wasn’t exactly great. She often got bullied into doing chores for the other girls, and this is where the other side of her personality made itself known. While she wanted to be and acted like this badass, headstrong, fearless girl at school, she lacked most of her bravado at ‘home’. The quieter, perhaps even shy, side of her surfaced. She put up with the bullying and just did as she was told. She learned how to cook and bake from this, and did end up developing a love for baking.

When she turned 16, she received news of her mother’s overdose. She was officially an orphan, with both of her parents now dead. She often felt like there might have been something wrong with her, because she wasn’t even upset about it. Her abusive childhood under their roof, paired with the rougher life of living in an adoption home plus her frequent fighting and bullying made her more numb emotionally. Or, that’s how she preferred to be around others. When alone, she often felt sad and empty, though as the months passed she became happier again through a lot of work. She’d never have to worry about her crazy mother coming to find her, so that was a plus.

Eventually, she turned 18 and was allowed to move into her own place. She immediately got a job and worked towards going to college. Between 16 and 18, she got her shit together and straightened up, putting herself to the task of passing high school and graduating. She took both automotive classes and medical classes in high school, and she adored them both and couldn’t pick which one to major in when she went to college. She planned on waiting to enter college when she had a fairly decent amount saved up from her job, but things happened. She turned 19, and as the fall began to approach, she suddenly found herself waking up surrounded by demons in a different realm. Oh boy, she wasn’t ready for it.

BONUS:

Samyah's demon form, I finally decided on it lol

[edogawatranslations]

Danganronpa Kirigiri (3) - Chapter 2, Part 3

Table of Contents | Previous: Chapter 2, Part 2

As we walked, Lico once again brought up a serious topic out of nowhere.

“The two organizations pursuing Rei Mikagami today are a Chinese intelligence agency and a scientific investigative unit of the Russian army.”

These absurd statements no longer caught me off guard; I had fully accepted that the abnormal had become our new normal.

“You’re awfully informed about all this,” I commented.

“It’s my duty to relay you detailed information.” Lico turned around and flashed an innocent smile. “Both organizations have dispatched two unarmed individuals to Japan. Neither group is much of a threat, since they don’t use weapons when active outside of their home countries. The Russians especially; they belong to a team developing supersoldiers, which means they’re more so occult researchers than fighters.”

I quickly scanned the area. From what I could tell, there wasn’t a Russian in sight. The only people around were cheerful women roaming the mall with multiple shopping bags dangling from their arms.

“The three assassins pose the bigger problem,” Lico continued. Despite the grim topic, his expression didn’t change one bit.

Assassins...

We were intruding on their work. To reach Rei Mikagami, we couldn’t simply ignore them and walk on by.

“The first assassin is a woman of unknown nationality who goes by the name of ‘Copycat.’ As you may guess, she specializes in copycat crimes. She disposes of her targets by mimicking the M.O. of a serial killer active in the corresponding country or state, allowing her and her clients to fully escape suspicion, since the victim ends up tossed into the unrelated string of cases. Because of this, her work has mostly been attributed to other killers. Fortunately, this method prevents her from haphazardly killing someone. She acts deliberately and typically refrains from taking offensive measures.”

With the steady stream of information flowing from his mouth, Lico was giving Google a run for its money. His appearance already seemed rather other-worldly, but his information processing capabilities were all the more superhuman.

We rode the escalator one floor up to another women’s clothing department.

The ludicrous conversation continued in the perfectly average location.

“The second assassin is known as ‘Night Flyer.’ He’s rumored to be a Romanian of small build, but nobody has confirmed his identity. His killing style of choice is fairly standard: he approaches and shoots his target with a pistol equipped with a silencer. He’s inclined to be hot-headed, so consider him fairly hostile. Multiple people have witnessed him in the past heading to the nearest airport after completing a hit and flying off in a private jet, hence his nickname.”

“Is he friends with the first assassin you mentioned?”

“No, all of these assassins work alone. They see each other as rivals chasing the same target, so it would be fortunate for us if they took each other out.”

“What do you know about the third?”

“He’s Japanese. He doesn’t go by a particular nickname, but he’s an alumnus of Hope’s Peak Academy: the former Ultimate Rock Climber, Tsurugi Hitomoshi. After graduating, he spent some time abroad and made a name for himself conquering treacherous cliffs. At some point, he turned his climbing into a performance art, scaling historical monuments and buildings such as the Eiffel Tower and Angkor Wat, which caused backlash and eventually led to him being exiled from the climbing community. Only the criminal underworld is aware of his current activities as an assassin; he’s known as someone who can appear anywhere and eliminate anyone with one finger. He can easily bend the barrel of a rifle with one hand. I’ve also heard that he once crushed the heart of a police officer through a bulletproof vest with his bare hands.”

An assassin trained at an elite school. This was one gathering I didn’t want to have any involvement in.

I pitied Rei Mikagami, who had to deal with all these killers chasing after him. I guess prominent detectives were always roped into political schemes or conflicts, almost like how scientists around the world were killed or abducted during World War II for their work on weapons programs.

Someday, even Kyoko might be forced to serve someone for their personal gain. Or perhaps, she already has been...

While walking down the halls, Lico continued the conversation as if casually chatting about the weather.

“By the way, before the two of you arrived, I spotted a woman who fit the description of Copycat entering this department store.”

“Wh-What?” Suddenly sensing bloodlust in the air, I braced myself for action.

Nobody around looked particularly suspicious. Ladies clad in clothes from nearby stores were bustling about, as usual.

“You gotta tell us these things sooner! What did she look like?”

“She had on a coat with a red hood, kind of like Little Red Riding Hood. Blonde hair. She was rolling a small travel suitcase behind her.”

“Sounds like an easy to spot get-up, even from a distance. If we see her, let’s stay on our guard and avoid getting too close.”

“Avoiding her won’t get us any closer to Rei Mikagami,” Kyoko said. “We should follow her. We won’t make any headway without taking risks, right?”

“Yeah, but...”

Forget the possibility that we might have to fly into the face of danger—was this risk worth taking in the first place? We weren’t even sure Rei Mikagami was waiting at the end of this rainbow. None of this was rooted in certainty; it was almost like we were actually making plans to catch a ghost in a mirror.

“Yui,” Lico said, stopping in his tracks.

“Wh-What is it? Do you see one of the assassins?”

Lico pointed at a store in front of us. “There are swimsuits for sale up ahead.”

“Way to go, kid!”

I rushed forward, dragging Kyoko behind me. But my legs suddenly froze up.

Right as I was about to enter the shop, a red hood crossed the path in front of me.

I shot a glance back at Lico to confirm. He responded with a quick nod.

There was no mistaking it; that was Copycat.

We casually started tailing her. Thankfully, we were able to do so discreetly by blending in with the flocks of customers roaming the floor.

The red-hooded figure didn’t seem to have noticed us. Her left hand, which was noticeably white, was dragging a small bag. She wasn’t particularly tall, and her body was fairly slender. Her coat resembled a poncho. Two cat ear-like protrusions stuck out of her hood. Although the hood covered her head, I could see her blonde hair swaying to and fro as she walked.

“For an assassin, she sure sticks out like a sore thumb,” I whispered to Lico. “I didn’t think she’d look so frail and slender.”

“You don’t need strength to kill someone,” Lico replied with an angelic expression on his face.

After we followed after her for a while, she turned into a narrow passageway and went through a door labeled “Employees Only.”

The three of us huddled together beside the door.

“A staircase for employees... Where is she going?” I placed one hand on the door.

“Don’t,” Kyoko said, grabbing my arm. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Do you hear the grim reaper’s footsteps again? Don’t worry, I’m not gonna chase her too far. I wanna at least figure out if she went up or down.”

I slowly pushed the door open.

All of a sudden, a slender arm shot through the doorway and grabbed onto my wrist.

“Eek!”

The arm pulled me through to the dim stair landing on the other side. Standing adjacent to the door was Copycat, who was restraining me from behind. From far beyond the door, I could hear the cold, lifeless muffle of a storewide announcement playing over the PA system.

Why didn’t I listen to Kyoko?

I felt a sharp object pressed against my throat.

While slowly raising both my hands to signal my surrender, I snuck a glance at Copycat. Her face was white, reminiscent of a stunning European lady, and she had on a pair of thick high-index prescription glasses. A thin layer of makeup covered her face, enough to possibly be covering up any freckles. Her furrowed eyebrows and troubled expression seemed to suggest that she was more of the shy, introverted type. Did she have on cat ears because of her nickname, Copycat? Or was it because she was a fan of cosplay?

She started uttering some words in a foreign language and loosened her grip on me.

It was then that Lico burst through the door.

“Yui, are you alright?”

“N-Never better...” I stammered out, giving my best effort to sound composed even as I could no longer freely move my body. “Do you have any idea what she’s saying?”

“She’s asking, ‘Who are you?’”

Lico began conversing with Copycat. I had no clue what language they were speaking, but Copycat’s voice gradually grew calmer. Lico’s disarming smile was super effective.

It was then that I noticed—Kyoko wasn’t here.

“Hey, where’s Kyoko?” I asked, trying to interrupt Lico and Copycat’s chat. However, neither of them paid my words any mind. They were engrossed in their conversation.

Even though I was the hostage here, I felt like chopped liver.

“What are you two even talking about?” I asked.

“She’s asking who my favorite manga artist is,” Lico replied. “Let’s see, I would have to say—”

“You’re really having a friendly chat at a time like this?”

Was Lico successfully persuading her to lower her guard?

No... She was an assassin. And the way things were, she could easily kill me at any moment if she desired. I’d had a run of bad luck recently, but this was my first time being taken hostage by an assassin.

What should I do?

I had no knowledge of self-defense and no weapon by my side.

I thought about praying to God, but at the last second, I changed my mind and decided to pray to Kyoko instead.

Kyoko, please save me!

—Click.

A metallic clinking sound echoed out, causing Lico and the assassin to cut short their discussion. Noticing an abnormality, Copycat turned around, but by then, it was already too late.

Clamped around Copycat’s hand—the free wrist she hadn’t used to restrain me—was one end of a pair of handcuffs. The other end was secured to the handle of her bag.

As if having appeared out of nowhere, standing one step below the landing we were on was Kyoko. She was focused intently on pulling the bag down the stairs.

Copycat let out a yelp and rushed forward in an attempt to grab her bag, and as she reached out towards it, she released her grip on me.

The next moment, the bag began tumbling down the stairs. Copycat, linked to it by the handcuffs, plunged down along with it. The bag must’ve been much heavier than it looked, as the slender and light Little Red Riding Hood with cat ears was swiftly pulled down to the lower landing.

Piercing shrieks filled the air as she fell, but before long, her body slammed against the wall of the landing one floor down. She squirmed on the ground and feebly groaned.

“Yui, are you okay?” Kyoko ran up to where I was standing.

“Y-Yeah, I think so. How did you get over there?”

“I took a different staircase down and made my way up from below.” Kyoko puffed out her chest and placed her hands on her hips to make a sort of superhero pose.

Her quick thinking saved me again. Without her by my side, I would’ve met my demise many times over.

A fountain pen rolled up to my feet. That must’ve been the object Copycat held against my throat.

The three of us regrouped, made our way down the flight of stairs, and surrounded Copycat. She hadn’t lost consciousness, but since her whole body took a beating, she was lying down, unable to move.

I unzipped her bag. Inside were a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about serial killers, a few publications detailing cold cases, and a mountain of Japanese manga and doujinshi. No wonder her bag was so heavy. There were also a couple of passports stuffed inside. I couldn’t tell which one was real, but then again, all of them may have been forged.

There was nothing that resembled a weapon among her possessions. The fountain pen was probably the most dangerous item she had with her.

“She’s the kind of assassin to kill her target only after having conceived of a detailed plan,” Lico explained. “Her goal today was likely only to scout out her mark, so she wasn’t at the final phase of carrying out the hit yet.”

“Thank god she’s type A,” I sighed in relief.

“Would you like me to finish her off?”

“N-No, that’s okay.” I laughed nervously. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Are you sure? As long as she lives, innocent people will continue to die. Don’t forget, she’s an assassin.”

“That has nothing to do with why we came here today. We’re here to track down Rei Mikagami, and nothing more.”

Lico stared at me for a few seconds, but didn’t press the issue any further.

“I can’t find anything about Rei Mikagami in her things,” Kyoko reported, standing next to Copycat’s bag.

“Lico, did you get any information out of her?” I asked.

“She apparently doesn’t know anything about Rei Mikagami’s identity. The reason she came here was because she was informed her mark would appear on the rooftop plaza of this department store at four in the afternoon.”

“Why didn’t you say that sooner?! That’s exactly what we needed to know!”

Rei Mikagami will appear at four!

I checked the clock on my phone.

3:55 PM.

“Shoot, it’s almost time.”

“Shall we head up?” Lico suggested, still magically calm.

The rooftop plaza was located above the ninth floor. I imagined the struggle running up all those stairs, but we’d arrive with time to spare.

“Yeah, let’s go,” I replied. “Kyoko, come on.”

“Give me one second.”

Kyoko crouched down next to Copycat’s body and unfastened the handcuffs.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Retrieving these handcuffs. They’re kind of a memento.”

“Oh, from back then...”

Kyoko stuffed the handcuffs into the pocket of her uniform. So that was where she’d been hiding them all this time.

We abandoned Copycat on the landing and started rushing up the stairs.

Next: Chapter 2, Part 4

[twentysomethinginorlando]

Gasparilla: the Invasion of Tampa Bay

New Post has been published on https://twentysomethinginorlando.com/gasparilla-invasion-tampa-bay/

Gasparilla: the Invasion of Tampa Bay

Every January, the tide brings a strange sighting to the Tampa Bay: a fully rigged Pirate ship sailing into port known as the Jose Gasparilla. The ship is named for José Gaspar, a legendary pirate who commanded the Gulf of Mexico and Spanish Main back in ye old days of pirates. Whether he was a real historical figure or merely folklore is debated, but since 1904 Tampa has been throwing a huge pirate themed festival and parade in his honor during which the Mayor surrenders the city to the pirates. Despite living in Florida for four years now, I had never heard of it until about a month prior when I was told to request the day off.

Rewind a few months. I like costuming and cosplay. I can’t sew to save my life, but I have some very talented friends and I’m good at putting things together. Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party had snuck up on us, and I realized we didn’t have the time or money to put together the costumes we really wanted. While I could have done Korra for the fourth year in a row, it felt time to change it up. Jay already had a pretty good pirate outfit from his Renaissance Fair days, so that meant we could invest most of our available funds into mine, and thus our pirate outfits were born. When the pictures popped up on Facebook, they attracted the attention of some of our friends, Robert and Victoria, who are really into pirating and costuming, and they invited us out to pillage and plunder with them in Tampa.

We had two separate crafting nights working on the outfits beforehand, and there are still supplies strewn all over my house. Sword belts, painted toy guns, a flag, earrings, you name it, and we probably made it. By we, I mean mostly them. My contribution was a hand-drawn map that I don’t think ever left the house. Jay’s pirate has a name, and a very elaborate backstory, so I came up with one for my pirate that would fit in with his.

Turns out Robert’s pirate also has a backstory, and the two of them concocted a story about how two captains and two first mates were sailing under the same flag. (No, really, this was a two hour process.) My pirate’s name is Seraphina and once upon a time she was a mermaid before she became entangled with Captain Bartholomew Grimm. I’m extremely happy I told Victoria this because she came up with this amazing mermaid makeup that I would have never known how to do and made me some seashell and octopus accessories.

The four of us stayed up entirely too late the night before to get up at an hour that should not be permitted on a Saturday and piled into the car to make the hour plus drive to Tampa.

Everything was smooth sailing until we got closer to the bay where streets were closed and traffic was tight. We made our way to the hotel where friends of Robert and Victoria were staying in a room with a harbor view so we could wait for the ship to sail in. We had a crew of nine in total, all decked out to nines, or I guess pieces of eight in this case. I made friends with a gentleman who said he answered to Captain (his real name is Aaron), and runs a blog of his own called Urban Scallywag. We spent about an hour in the room staring out at the bay watching different types of boats cruising around, everything from tiny little motor boats to huge yachts that could crush the motor boats. Finally our waiting paid off as the Jose Gasparilla, the world’s only fully rigged pirate ship, sailed into view. We were too far for a good look but she boasts three masts with full sails and no engine to power her. At 147 feet long, she’s mighty impressive.

The ship pulling into the bay. Photo by Urban Scallywag.

We headed down for the disembarking. Duffy stayed in the safety of the hotel room to hang out with another girl’s Eeyore pillow pet because I was afraid he’d get beer spilled on him. I thought we were actually going to watch the ship dock but I guess we weren’t fast enough, by the time we were down there the crew was already coming off.

The crews coming off the ships. Photo by Urban Scallywag.

Gasparilla is a whole lot like Mardi Gras. You get handed lots of swag, or get swag thrown at you, and if you’re a girl in a pirate outfit, you get a lot more. They had everything from beads to eyepatches to doubloons. The crew coming off the ship has limited edition items that you can apparently only get from them, like collectors’ coins stamped with the year and the date. So Victoria took up one spot, and I took up another, and the guys sort of hung back behind me. I got a decent amount of beads, a couple of coins, coins on a necklace and a light-up eye patch. I was heartbroken when the kid next to me got the rubber duck, but I suppose that was to be expected. Victoria did better than I did, but this was where we learned my years of playing Ultimate Frisbee paid off, I’m actually really good at snatching things flying out of midair. This skill would continue to pay off as we moved to the parade route.

Another float. Photo by Urban Scallywag.

A parade float. Photo by Urban Scallywag.

Robert and Victoria.

We had to cross a bridge and walk a few blocks in order to get to the parade route. I kept ending up in the front, which was a terrible plan seeing as I had no idea where I was actually going. But we eventually figured it out, and found a spot behind a row of people who were sitting down. So we waited, but it wasn’t more than half an hour before the floats started rolling through. A series of cop cars came first, followed by the Budweiser Clydesdales which I was ecstatic to see. They had been appearing in Orlando and I hadn’t been able to go see them. (I just like horses, and I miss the days when they were at SeaWorld.) Then came the actual floats. Some of them were almost as impressive as Disney floats, some of them not so much. My favorites were the people who looked like they were having fun. Almost every single person was throwing beads or coins or something of that nature. The other girls in our group made their way to the front of the fence over time while I hung back for the most part, talking with the guys and commentating.

I was still happy to leap for anything that came my way, which got more and more challenging as the day went on. There were guys on either side of our group that were well over six feet tall, and it was an overcast, chilly day so my hands stopped working as well over time. I know what you’re thinking: Florida doesn’t get cold. But when you’re used to seventy-plus degrees year round, the low sixties is incredibly cold, especially when you’re wearing a sleeveless corset with a skirt. I actually wound up with both Robert’s coat and Aaron’s vest before it was all said and done. Jay was colder than I was and fighting a cold so taking his was out of the question.

The Gasparilla parade literally lasted a solid three to four hours, and there was plenty of trading spots along the fence and chatting with strangers next to us. Some random girls one group down from us saw me miss a big bead catch and came over to put five or six around my neck, which I didn’t understand but was very sweet. Some of the parade marchers were trading bigger favors for alcohol from the crowd. Several of the floats were firing mini cannons that made me jump a foot in the air the first time I heard one.

A parade float. Photo by Urban Scallywag.

Photo by Urban Scallywag.

One of the cannons was actually blasting out coins, or maybe they just timed their throws to make it seem that way. I made my way up to the fence at one point to try a turn at getting things handed to me rather than thrown. If you’re not looking, those beads get dangerous after a while, especially when they throw them in a big bunch instead of individually. Poor Aaron actually took one in the side of the head and his ear was bright red for the next half hour or so. I wasn’t as good at drawing attention to myself as the other girls in our group and I gave up after a little while, going back to find the captains (Jay, Robert and Aaron) arguing the logistics of there now being three of them. My favorite moment of the whole day came from this.

Robert: See, if anything be happenin’ to me, you be answerin’ to him!

He pointed at Jay.

Robert: If anything happened to him, you’d be answerin’ to me! And if anything happened to the both of us, you be answerin’ to her!

He pointed at me and Jay laughed. The beauty of having your first mate be a former mermaid, there’s this whole lore about being able to sing and lure men to their doom and stir up storms. Aaron looked at me and back to them.

Aaron: Aye, but that be why I’ve been befriendin’ her!

Admittedly, he wasn’t wrong. I spent more time talking to him than I did the rest of the new crew.

Jay, Aaron and Robert.

The parade wrapped up sometime after five, Jay and I actually missed the end of it because I gave in and went to use the port-a-potty. My skirt was actually three skirts layered together, and without exaggeration must have weighed twelve pounds. Fitting those skirts inside was no easy task, let me tell you. We went back to find our crew and began the long slow march back to the hotel in the thick of the crowds. Jay and I led the way with everyone else trailing behind, but the giant pirate flag made it easy for us to regroup. It was after six by the time we got up to the room thanks to the long wait for the elevators. It was about that time that Jay and I realized we hadn’t really eaten anything since breakfast. We’d never actually been near the food stands to look at getting anything. Room service was ordered, but we somehow missed out on that. Jay took the arm chair and I settled for laying on the floor because sitting up in the corset and keeping my back straight was just too much work. I don’t know how long it was before Robert and Jay headed to get the car. Victoria and I waited a little bit before we headed down to the lobby for them to pick us up. They left the box of all our gear and swag for me to bring, but it was heavier than I anticipated so Aaron was nice enough to carry it down.

We loaded everything up, said our good-byes, and I would have slept the whole way home if not for the stop at the McDonald’s drive through.

Later, Jay and I went through the piles of loot, and were pleasantly surprised with how much booty we actually managed to pilfer. We wound up with several of the Gasparilla collectors coins, a necklace medallion and tons of beads. That was the good news. The bad news was the belt on my corset was broken, an earring was missing and someone who was not me had blisters. Combat boots for the win!

Jay, Me, Victoria, and Robert.

All in all, we had a very successful day of pillaging and plundering Tampa Bay. Gasparilla is a lot of fun, whether you want to dress up as a pirate or not. Dressing up will help you get more loot, and possibly your picture taken. It reminds me of what little I’ve seen of tailgating at a Tennessee football game: drinking, waiting, yelling and more drinking. This was also the day I learned that marijuana smells like skunk! (This was explained to me after the third time I asked if anyone else smelled a skunk.) This is NOT a place meant to be family friendly. The weekend before they have another festival for children, so if you have little ones I would advise going to check that one out.

Gasparilla is something that must be experienced to truly know what you’re getting yourself into. I’m sure our crew will be there again next year in one form or another. Drink up me hearties, yo ho!