#sorry i had to do the dcc reference

[autixel]

AUTIXEL HELL WEEK

May 10 - May 17

We at autixel are currently going through a very strenuous time, unfortunately we cannot disclose any details about anything to anyone because this is the internet.

But we would like to commemorate this trying time in the form of mentioning it on the autixel blog. There are 8 days of autixel Hell Week and the difficulty only gets worse as it continues.

While you have no idea what the autixels are going through, and you'll likely never know, you can be assured with the day completion that autixel is just a bit closer to not stressing themselves to death. And that's enough.

So get out there, autixels, and kill, kill, kill it!

[mirika]

This weekend I’ve been to my third Dutch Comic Con and it was once again a success. As usual I’m making a post covering both days, but anyone who follows my personal blog may have already seen the details below.

I am tagging this post so that people might be able to find photos of their own cosplay, or have made photos of me: please pop me a message! I can send full size photos out as well!

I was Mimi from Digimon, just like at Rotterdam Comic Con. I also added URLs to all my previous con experiences at the bottom.

Day one!

Travel aside, my first thing to do was visit Sean Maguire’s Q&A session. You know, freaking Robin Hood from Once Upon A Time! He answered a few questions he could answer, a few he couldn’t answer, and of course he was requested to sing.

Thank you Sean, ‘bear necessities’ has been stuck in my head during the entirety of that Saturday. The worst is that I did not have the original English version repeating itself in my head, but the terrible Dutch version. That was, of course, not the one he sung. Would have blown my mind away though!

It was a fun Q&A, but I had to leave my friend alone because she is still at S05E05 of Once Upon A Time, so as any Once fan knows, there are some heaaavy spoilers by now. After the Q&A my friend and I met up and went shopping, until I had to leave her alone again for the photo booth session.

The line took 30 minutes and I was shaking as soon as I saw less than 10 people in front of me in the line, and after I left the photo booth I was still shaking, except that I had now obtained a photo and was super happy with it. Sadly a photo only leaves option for small talk, such as Sean just asking me how I was doing and I returning the same question (and thanking him)... but that did allow me to not feel nervous about focusing on conversation. Also, that was some smooth leather he was wearing, haha.

The result of the photo was this.

Sadly the digital download costs an extra 8,50 euros on top of the 30 I paid for this photo (most actors ask this price). I am actually freaking amazed I wasn’t blushing like crazy, since as I already said I was shaking of being nervous. I had not met an actor before, you know.

Oh, whilst waiting in line for that photo, a friend of mine also found me and gifted me a key chain he found at a stand. I will post about that later. It is worth mentioning.

After the photo, my friend whom I went to DCC with and I went shopping again and made photos with cosplays. These are usually the two key activities at comic cons: shopping and taking photos.

I couldn’t find the Regina cosplay I saw post on Facebook, nor ANY of the World of Warcraft cosplays, but I did find a Hook cosplay! Sadly only a blurry photo.

I should have double checked the photos. I liked seeing Once cosplay (I saw few more through Facebook), I am sure it was because Sean came over. As for Sean, he also said it wasn’t the first time for him in The Netherlands, but considering the last time was like 18 years ago... yeah, doesn’t count. Sorry, I got distracted by the whole ‘I saw Sean!’ thing.

I also found Joel and Ellie!!!!!!

I love that they even thought of accessories and whatsoever. Joel carries a pipe, he’s got a backpack that you don’t see in the photo and Ellie’s holding the nail bomb. I really liked seeing this pair. I accidentally also carry an image in which Ellie was blinking, oops!

Lastly for Saturday’s cosplay photos, I took a photo with Ladybug.

This must’ve been one of the many Ladybug cosplayers from last year, when I was dressed as Ladybug too. For some reason she seems really familiar to me! I love to see that people still dress up as Miraculous Ladybug characters. It appears there was a Chat Noir somewhere too, but I missed it.

And that is it for Saturday, which brings me to merch.

So the gift I got from my friend was the Ladybug key chain below, since we’re on that subject. The gift that I got while waiting in line for Sean. I photographed it with another key chain.

My friend found the Ladybug key chain at a stand that I could not find myself after visiting all the stands. He said there were more I believe, and I really want to see the others, and I wanted to see if there was a Chat Noir one as well so I could use them together. Maybe next time, or maybe I stumble upon it online. I was so happy to get it though, I am sure he noticed how happy a silly little thing like that could make me smile like an idiot.

The key chain on the right is Sylvanas, which will be my first self-bought World of Warcraft merchandise now, hehe. I did consider buying a Murloc plush, but I realized ‘why the heck would I’ considering I don’t understand the whole joke around Murlocs. I’ve seen the music video, and I still don’t understand the joke. But that is me getting sidetracked.

As for the Ladybug one, I do have to show you what it looks like when you flip it, because it’s freaking clever.

Marinette and Tiki! Ahhh. I love double printed key chains. The Sylvanas one is not double printed, but I really wanted to purchase it anyway and it was the first item I purchased at DCC.

I even feared I would not find any other merchandise there at all, but then... the Funko’s appeared...

Lara Croft was the first I found. I had not seen it before other than the email I received about new Funko releases. I also was surprised to see that there were Pets Funko’s! These have been on my birthday wishlist since their release announcement, so I am happy I was able to add them to my collection.

I also found Once Upon A Time Funko’s, which means my Once collection is almost complete.

Belle and Zelena! I was actually super afraid of purchasing Belle as I was not sure whether I had her already, but thank goodness I kept track of my birthday wish list well: when I got home I saw I did not have her yet! Phew! 

I must admit it felt wrong to purchase Zelena the same day I’ve stood side-by-side with Sean though, but I had to complete my collection. So now all I need is Regina with the fireball... until they release new Funko’s again. I actually heard this weekend that Rumplestiltskin is going to leave the Funko production and I am extremely surprised by this. Either he didn’t sell well, or he is going to become one of those rare expensive Funko’s. Hmmm.

I also saw the floofy bunnies again like the one I purchased in Rotterdam. The dark blue one and the deep purple one were trying to seduce me, but I resisted. I have yet to see if the floofs purchased from some Chinese website are the same ones, cause that’d be cheaper.

I did make a photo of the floofs.

The deep purple and dark blue ones were at a different stand, so these are not on the photo. The purple in this image is not the one I meant. My friend bought a gray one if I recall correctly. I too own a gray one, although I felt like it had some blue to it. My current headcanon is that these floofs could cause world peace if everyone owned one.

That’ll be it for Saturday, now off to Sunday.

Day two!

Upon entering the building I already saw someone I wanted to take a photo with - a cosplay of Alice Madness Returns, but not the usual common outfit or hysteria look (which are amazing as well, but I like variation).

It’s the dollhouse outfit and she even brought a large hobby horse! I loooove her skirt.

Other than that I also found a World of Warcraft cosplayer. It’s Tyrande.

Last year I would not have recognized a single (World of) Warcraft cosplay, haha. I started playing less than a year ago and I love seeing these people now. I also know I missed a Lich King cosplayer Saturday, but nothing I can do about it.

The next cosplay has a funny story, but was probably more amusing on the spot rather than written out here.

I was combing my friend’s wig after she finished applying make-up. She could not really see what it looked like from behind, so we stood in front of the mirror where she applied her make-up, and suddenly I gasp... and oh, I gasped LOUDLY.

What I saw in the mirror was a Fire Emblem Fates cosplay walk into the bathroom. It was Kaden, whom I refer to as ‘Vossenjongen’ (’fox boy’) ever since I started playing, and I gasped cause I never expected to find a Fates cosplay.

However, I was gasping whilst combing my friend’s wig, right? So the first thing she thought was ‘MY WIG’, fearing that I might have ruined her wig entirely, cause quite frankly why else would I gasp so loud all of a sudden. This Kaden cosplay and her friend (whose name is also Laura) were also afraid it had to do with the wig if I recall correctly, but I quickly pointed out it was because of Kaden (I believe the cosplayer’s name was Brenda, sorry if I am wrong - she’d be the first cosplayer whose name I actually remember so that is amazing enough).

So this what could have been terror ended up fun. I’ll show the photo now.

Kaden’s even got a tail and everything, I love it!

So that was the Kaden story, and how I almost made my friend’s chest implode of shock.

Back on the Alice Madness Returns rollercoaster (or the first game that I did not play), I found another cosplayer. This time it wasn’t Alice at all! It’s the Queen of Hearts, and look at her amazing hands that are creeping up on my shoulder!

I do hope I assumed correctly she’s from that game, but I find it very unlikely that she’s another character from some other media that happens to look so much like the Queen of Hearts, haha.

Lastly I found some Zootropolis Zootopia gems and some photo bombers.

Saw them wandering and knew what I had to do: run after them and take a photo. We look very colourful together, don’t we? Even the photo bombers splash in well. I fear I don’t know who they represent though, so I will call them Purple Person and Mr Pink. Apologies if I should have recognized what they are from.

That’s basically it for cosplay. There was an artist who had drawn herself in a Mimi cosplay though. That was really fun to see! She had a really nice art style. Downside was that she was selling buttons and posters, which are two things I don’t really invest in. I never know what to do with buttons; if she had charms or key chains like the two I purchased Saturday, that would have been perfect (she had a really nice Ladybug and Chat Noir button).

We also tried to find Sean again, but he wasn’t in his seat. He said Saturday during his Q&A it was okay to walk up to him for a hug and I figured I might as well do that, but when I saw a note saying ‘autograph 30 euros, selfies 15 euros’, I was afraid of waiting for him without any purchase at all. I just wanted to ask for a hug and ask him how his stay in The Netherlands has been, but for me it didn’t feel like it would be enough to stand in line for. Too bad, though.

Of course by the end of the event I did not find all the awesome cosplay I’ve seen on Facebook, but I am happy with the photos I took. I just can’t help but think ‘man, I wish I had seen them.�� Oh geez, I just remembered there was a Dirk Gently cosplay wandering around as well...

There was even a cosplay of a Dutch politician apparently, I laughed my freaking ass off when I saw this on Facebook. The name of the politician is ‘Jesse Klaver’ from the politician party ‘GroenLinks.’ This dude was always on TV it always seemed, and I am saying that as someone who is hardly invested in politics. Every time I saw my parents watch debates, I felt like he was always there.

I did bump into a friend whom I did not expect to be there at all on Sunday. Apparently he came to DCC, because you could play the new Fire Emblem game there. He is really excited about it, so that’s good news for the Fire Emblem fans out there. He posted about it on Reddit (he said something about AMA but I only just learnt what AMA means). Considering I don’t know his Reddit username, I can’t redirect anyone to it.

I did not buy merchandise on Sunday, but I did buy food. The salmon onigiri was gone before I could take a photo, but I did take a photo of these:

I never liked Pocky (don’t like the flavour of the sticks), but I figured I would give tiramisu flavour a chance. It appeared to be pretty good. Not sure if I’d really buy it again, but when offered to me I wouldn’t decline it.

As for the Pop Tarts, holy cow! Root Beer flavour? I have never thought this would exist! As a European (or at least as a Dutch person) I don’t exactly get in touch with Root Beer in the first place, nor with Pop Tarts... so this was a great find! They taste good as well. So far the red velvet Pop Tarts are my favourite. Ah, red velvet, also not that common here in my country. It’s trying to make a breakthrough though, as I seem to find red velvet themed things more often.

That summarizes another Comic Con. This time Dutch Comic Con. I had great fun.

Dutch Comic Con will always prove to be the best comic con in my country. I also figured that by now I might want to link to all my previous Comic Con experiences, mostly for myself.

DCC 2017 - Mimi (Digimon) RCC 2017 - Mimi (Digimon) ACC 2016 - Hook (Once Upon A Time) DCC 2016 - Ladybug (Miraculous Ladybug) DCC 2015 - Sunday - Hobbit (Lord of the Rings) DCC 2015 - Saturday - Ellie (The Last of Us)

I have been to Elfia in 2015, but I cannot find this post. I was Donna Noble and I actually had a really bad day, which is why I have never returned to Elfia.