I've been tagged for this award a while back, but I've decided to take a spin on it and tell you guys about my trip to MegaCon! It was awesommmme! I will now finally officially unveil my newest cosplay. :) Thanks so much to Alison @ Alison's Wonderland Recipes and Rebekah @ Wordsmithing and Worldbuilding for tagging me! Sorry it took so long. I've been saving it for this. ^ ^
Les Rules:
Thank the blogger who nominated you and post the link of said blog. (I did!)
Share five facts about yourself to your readers. (Since I'm doing this by day I'm doing to share facts for each day of my trip!)
Nominate 15 to 20 blogs and notify all nominees via their social media or blogs. (I've seen this tag circulate so much that I'm not going to nominate this go around. If you haven't done this tag yet consider yourself nominated!)
Fact 1/Day 1:
French Seatmate & SusHi:
I got up at 5:30 am, so I could get a ride with my mom to be dropped off at the MARTA to go down to the bus station (I ride buses to Florida because I hate driving and it's way cheaper than paying for gas). While waiting for the bus I watched some hilarious GMM, then when I boarded I got the coolest seatmate, a French Catholic missionary. She was so cool! I've been to France so we had a lot to talk about and she had the loveliest accent. She even gave me French chocolates!
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| Your eyes don't deceive you that is indeed white chocolate shaped into lace. |
Nine hours later ...
I arrived in Orlando and my friends picked me up. I'd never stayed with them before, just met them in person and saw them a few times in person and mostly talked online. One of these friends is my editor-in-chief for GUG, so I talk to her mostly for professional matters. For dinner they took me to this place called SusHi Eatstation (pronounced Soos-high. No, I'm not misspelling sushi). It's basically like Subway for Sushi and it's awesome! The staff is so enthusiastic and they all have ninja names. I got a wonderful conglomeration of Asian goodness including shrimp, fried tofu, mango, sweet chili sauce, avocado, and kimchi!
Afterwards we drove to their house, and I got to meet their parents and then we worked a bit on part of our group cosplay before heading to bed.
Fact 2/Day 2:
Cosplaying With Friends & So Much Art!:
The first day of MegaCon doesn't begin until 2pm, so we had a relaxing start. I donned myself in my Mirkwood Elf costume (looking as fabulous as Thranduil with my new dyed hair if I do say so myself), Amy wore a Kingdom Hearts cosplay, and Casey wore one from Ace Attorney.
Following a lovely lunch of lasagna, we headed to the con. At this point, I've been to two other decently sized cons and this one was a totally different experience. We had to take a shuttle from the parking garage to the convention center. With DragonCon and MomoCon the MARTA takes you right to the locations. You literally just walk upstairs. The convention center for MegaCon is way more spacious than the four hotels for DragonCon and MomoCon. And there's also a lot more security at MomoCon. They checked our wristbands and had to put a ribbon around my bow.
It was so nice to cosplay with friends who took cosplaying seriously. I'd been with some friends who did some okay cosplays, but it was really cool to go with ones who really tried to get as accurate as possible. My friends even knew a guy who stuck with us and took some awesome photos of us in costume.
Also the artist alley at MegaCon was so BIG! It took us about two hours to get through the whole artist alley and I got some beautiful haul including a Guilty Crown poster, a Thranduil and Legolas picture, and a commissioned one-of-a-kind drawing of Qrow from RWBY to be signed by his voice actor. To end the day we went to the Trina Nishimura panel (actress for Mikasa Ackerman from Attack on Titan who was really funny) and then we went home to more lasagna rolls and continued to work on Saturday's cosplay.
Fact 3/Day 3:
Group Photo Shoot & New Cosplay:
Today I debuted my new cosplay of Ino Yamanaka from Naruto! I was so excited for a new cosplay! Casey went as Black Jack from from Black Jack and Amy went as Kaori from Your Lie in April.
This costume got lots of love, and I got stopped lots of times for pictures. My big goal for the day was to find a Sakura cosplayer and call her "billboard brow" which is the insult Ino calls her in the anime. So while wandering the vendors, I searched high and low for a Sakura cosplayer. I found one and well, she didn't have the enthusiasm as I did and sorta took a picture of me. I was a bit disappointed. Later on, I got my autograph from Trina Nishimura (which was awesome, now I have her autograph next to Bryce Pappenbrook's aka Eren Jaegar) and then I ran into some more Naruto cosplayers.
One of them asked me if I was going to the Naruto photoshoot that happened to be at 4pm on the day I'm wearing my Ino cosplay. How cool is that?! I say sure and then a few hours later I found my way to the meeting spot. Someone shouts, "INO PIG!" And a Sakura cosplayer comes running toward me with arms spread out wide. I've never met this person in my life, but you know it's a convention so I shout, "BILLBOARD BROW!" And run to meet her and we embrace. It was such an awesome moment. She was so enthusiastic and I turned out to be the only Ino cosplayer so she was elated to see me.
Thus I end up going to my first mass photoshoot ever. There were over sixty Naruto cosplayers! It was so incredibly epic! We did numerous group shots and though there weren't many cosplayers in my ninja squad there was an adorable little Shikamaru and the best Asuma ever. He was so nice. When he first saw Shikamaru and I he said, "Aw hello, Shikamaru." Then he looks at me. "Ino, you've grown!" I also asked him how it was talking with a cigarette with his mouth and he said, "Kinda hard, because I don't smoke."
After that hour long endeavor, Casey, Amy, me, and our photographer friend Chris decided to take our own cosplay shoot and we got some really fun shots in all of our costumes. Overall it was a wonderful day and we finished it off by eating quesadillas for dinner and finishing our group cosplay!
Fact 4/Day 4:
Group Cosplaying & Autographs:
Saturday is always the biggest day at conventions. It's when the best cosplays come out, the brightest stars are ready for pictures and autographs, and the most people are there. We all got up bright and early so we could get our elaborate costumes on. Casey spent hours on her make up, and our belts took forever to put on, but we all looked epic, if I do say so myself, in our Attack on Titan group cosplay.
After dealing with traffic, we had to park really far out from the convention center--and we had a lot of equipment to carry. Channeling our inner survey corp, we hauled drywall stilts and foam wings all the way to the shuttle. Now, in these elaborate 3DM gear, it is really hard to bend over. You have to kneel. When we got into the shuttle, one of the drywall stilts belt dropped off the stilts. We winced and all looked down sadly at the belt. Thankfully, someone picked it up. We took the pilgrimage all the way to the convention center and had to refuse a few pictures until we could get all of the gear on. But the results were sooooooo worth it. We were stopped so often we could barely get anywhere. So many fangirls.
Eventually, we made our way to the autograph area, so we could get some signatures from Vic Mignona (Ed Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist, Qrow from RWBY) and Elden Hensen (Foggy from Daredevil, Pollux from the Mockingjay Part 1 & 2). First stop was Vic. I was so excited to meet this guy, because he's a strong Christian actor and incredibly talented. He wasn't at his seat yet so we had to hover in line. Someone behind Amy, put his hand on her arm and said, "You look so beautiful! What's your name? I can't wait to see you in a minute!" I peek around seven-foot-tall Amy in stilts and see, holy crap, it's Vic Mignona. She didn't recognize him, but Casey and I are in shock. She said, "He was so nice!" thinking he was a Han Solo cosplayer, and me and Casey say, "Uh Amy, that was Vic Mignona." And she wigged out. Vic Mignona is so nice! And he signed my commissioned piece gladly and it was so great to meet him!
Next, we went to get Elden Hensen's autograph. In line, we had an Edna from the Incredibles cosplayer want to take a picture of us. Then my friend Casey recognized her as Edna and then Edna got up into Casey's face and said, "No capes!" It was awesome. XD Elden Hensen was really cool. I didn't get to talk to him much because nerves and not wanting to hold up the line, but it was really cool!
Next, we did today's photoshoot and got some really cool shots. One of them with me playing dead will only be understood by people who have seen the show, but if you have seen the show here's a huge bucket of feels on your head. I also got to see my cousin in the middle of the shoot, which was cool too.
We returned back to the house to a lovely dinner of steak and other BBQ goodness and well, I ate like Sasha Braus.
Fact 5/Day 5:
Vic Mignona's Awesome Panel & Seeing My Bestie:
Sunday was the last day of the convention and all of us were feeling a bit sad and surreal. It was such a fun weekend, and we'd grown a lot closer over those four short days. We took it easy and wore simple costumes for that day. I did Katniss from the Hunger Games and Amy and Casey did Turks from Final Fantasy.
After a last sweep of the vendors and artist alley we picked up a few more things. I got a beautiful Legend of Zelda poster, a fairy in a bottle necklace, and a teeny tiny little sting ray in a spoon (for all of you who don't know sting rays are my favorite fish).
Then we went to the Vic Mignona panel and oh. my. gosh. It was worth the long line. I've been to several actors panels at this point and this was the best one ever! Vic is so funny and kind and so open with his faith. Listening to his panel was truly a blessing. I've never met an actor so open with his Christian faith. He told us funny stories and about some of his struggles with being a Christian and an actor. I'm so blown away by this guy. It's so refreshing to finally meet a mainstream, very successful actor who isn't afraid to tell people, "I love God and I'm going to live up to his Word." He utterly inspired me. Here's a clip of him answering the request of a fan who asked him to give a pep talk to short people in the voice of Ed Elric.
We did one last photoshoot with Chris as the con began to wind down and got some pretty good ending shots.
Then we headed to meet up with my bestie at SusHi since MegaCon cosplayers get a free appetizer! How cool is that? It was so nice seeing my best friend again since I hadn't seen her since January. I'd missed her so much.
When we returned to the house, we shared pictures with Casey and Amy's parents and I told them many of the stories that I've told you all in this post. It was a really sweet nostalgic time that I need to make a habit of when I go to conventions.
Fact 6/Day 6:
Journey & Journey Home:
So before bed on Saturday night at 11pm (which branched over to midnight hence why I'm putting it over here hence I need more content for this section don't judge me!), Casey and Amy decided to watch me play the game Journey. I'd never played it before, but I'd heard about it and seen cosplayers. Someone gave us a free sticker from the game which spurred this notion and Casey and Amy loved it so much and the gameplay is short, so it was a perfect way to end the trip.
This is such a beautiful game. You can't fully understand it until you've played it, but there is no dialogue and it's very speculative, but it has a way of gripping you emotionally. The music and scenery is just gorgeous. And it has so much neat spiritual symbolism. I highly recommend it.
Early the next morning my friends took me to the bus station. I really didn't want to go. We even started making plans for the next trip down. I'm hoping to go for Disney's Halloween event in October. *crossing fingers* This was truly an amazing experience. I grew in my friendships with Amy and Casey, and it was a much needed renewal in vigor after all of the crappiness going on in my life lately. I'll never forget this.
That's it! I hope you enjoyed me ranting about MegaCon. I love conventions. Thanks for reading!
Have you been to a convention before? Which one(s)? Have you ever cosplayed? If so who? Have you ever met any celebrities?
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You all looked so amazing! How did you make the wings? (I bet it took a long time, but they look really cool!) I haven't been to a convention before as there aren't any English-speaking ones in the city where I live, but I hope to one day. They look like heaps of fun! Thanks for sharing. XD
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