rinlin | (no subject)

Here's my con report for Anime Crossroads!

After getting out of class at noon on Friday, Alie and I got ready to leave for the con (Greta and Nicole left later in the day after they got out of classes). She had slept walked and hidden bits of her cosplay around the house in her sleep. So...after taking an hour or so to find the various bits and pieces, we were ready to go. The con was only in Indianapolis, so we didn't have really far to drive and arrived without further incident.

This year was my first time going to ACross. All of my other friends had gone last year while I was in Japan and enjoyed it, so I went along with them this year. This year also happened to be the second year of the con. As a result it was a tiny little thing. I later found out that there were only around 700 attendees this year. Compare that to the 10,000+ attendees at Ohayocon and nearly 20,000 attendees at ACen and you can see why I thought it was so small. So, I had known it was going to be a small con, but maybe not quite that small. It was still a really fun time though!

We couldn't immediately get to our accommodations (I was one of the people in our group who was rooming at Jamie and yaexrae's place), so Alie and I changed into our costumes in the hotel bathroom. I decided that I was going to cosplay Izaya that day. The fortunate thing about the con being so small was that it made people easy to find. Half of the DLS (the Dog Lovers' Society, our cosplay group) found us getting ready in the bathroom and that saved us the trouble of looking for them. We spent some time just wondering around and chilling out, while we waited for the rest of the group to arrive. immelmanturn unfortunately couldn't go to the con, so I met up with her friend Amanda, who was going to join our group for the weekend. She was set up at her table in the artist's alley. Lunch was then gotten at the nearby Burger King. Nicole and Greta arrived a little later and I helped Greta and Alie get into their Kuroshitsuji cosplays. Greta was Ciel and Alie was Meirin. They both looked adorable.

Ciel & Meirin

Alie and a few other members of our group then started their work at the con's maid cafe. All of them were so cute!

Sebastian has had it with these maids. (This is Alie as Meirin, yaexrae as Sebastian, and Cat as Maria.)

The rest of the day was spent wondering the dealer's room and taking goofy pictures.

There was a shoe polishing chair in the hotel lobby that was perfect for Kuro photos.

"Polish my shoes, Sebastian." "Yes, my lord."

Those of us who were staying at Jamie and yaexrae's place then went back to their place to eat dinner and make some cosplay adjustments. We then returned to the con and went to the 21+ History of Sake panel. The panel itself was boring as hell, but we got some sake at the end and spent the rest of the time passing doodles amongst each other. Then we went and caught the end of the silly Cosplay Improv. We were going to wait for karaoke, but yaexrae, Greta, and I met Mike and got distracted talking to him. He was a rather pretty boy, who was pulling off a nice closet Sebastian cosplay. We then found out that he's a med student and he and yaexrae (she's going to dental school) bonded because they're both cosplayers in professional school, lol. I also ended up running into him several more times throughout the weekend and enjoyed talking to him. After that we decided that we were sort of tired, so we were going to turn in for the night, in order to be able to stay up quite late the next night. Upon returning to yaexrae's place we realized that Greta had somehow contacted poison ivy. That was not a fun discovery, but at that point there wasn't much more to do other than taking Benadryl and toughing it out until the end of the con. We decided that it was a good time to go to bed.

I made sure to get up at a decent time the next morning because I was on a mission. It was my job to buy some tickets for Lady Gaga's Chicago concert next year. So I had some breakfast, put my Izaya cosplay back on, and sat down with my laptop to wait for tickets to go on sale. They went so fast that I was sadly only able to get two out of the four tickets we had originally intended to buy for people. We were lucky enough to get two tickets together in the cheap seats, so Alie and I get to go see Gaga in February! I am so very excited about it! \o/

After everyone else was ready, it was onto the con. The first part of our day involved stopping at the Ouran photoshoot, where yaexrae was cosplaying Tamaki and Julie was Haruhi. It was full of cuteness. The rest of the morning basically involved more wondering around and buying stuff in the dealer's room/artist's alley. I got one of the cute little octopi that Amanda had knitted, a blind boxed Gurren Lagann figure that ended up being a sexy figure of Yoko (one of my favorite anime girls), and a small sketch commission of Izaya. I had been talking with the artist who I commissioned the sketch from the day before. She was sweet and her art was quite pretty. She was also giving away tiny cupcakes to the people who stopped by her table. So I figured, why not commission her?

In the afternoon it was time for the Kuroshitsuji photoshoot. Since half of our group was doing Kuro cosplay, we attended it. Got some awesome silly pics from it, too.

Pretty sure that Julie is the cutest Finny ever.

I love Cat's Grell and yaexrae's Sebastian so much.

Ciel is tired of Grell's creeping.

Brofist. (Lisa does a great job of being our srs face William, too.)

"Smile, bocchan~"

Group photo

At some point after this our group got food at Arby's and then Greta went to go change out of her cosplay because the poison ivy was bothering her. The group split to do several different things. I didn't have anything to be doing at the time, so I was left on my own for a bit. I headed back to the dealer's room and ended up running into Mike, who was also alone. We started talking again and walked around together for about 15 minutes or so. I enjoyed it! Eventually I found more members of my group. I ended up in the dealer's room again, this time with Julie, Nina, and Payne. I wasn't even looking to shop anymore, there just wasn't much else to do. Because the con was smaller, there weren't as many activities going on, and I wasn't particularly interested in any of the afternoon panels.

Eventually it was time for us to go see the masquerade. The masquerade was tiny, just like the rest of the con. It was hosted by the lovely cosplayers from And Sewing is Half the Battle though. And yaexrae, Cat, and Lisa were in it with their Kuroshitsuji skit! They were fabulous and ended up winning Best in Show! Here's their skit, if you're curious (they're the first group in the video). After the masq we gathered everyone together to go out to eat. This took a while and involved chilling out in the hallway waiting for people. While we were waiting we played with an adorable baby who was attending the con with her parents. She decided that she liked Cat's Grell chainsaw, so we got some adorable pictures of her with it. We also have pictures of her licking the best in show trophy, lol.

Our winners with their trophy. Score another one for the DLS!

Adorable baby playing with Grell's chainsaw~

The real best in show winner. So cute!

Dancing with adorable baby.

Then it was finally time for food. The thirteen of us descended on the diner next to the hotel, in cosplay. They totally put us in the back section of the diner, away from the rest of the customers. We lol'd. After dinner Greta wasn't feeling too hot because of the poison ivy, so part of the group took her back to yaexrae's place. The rest of us headed back to the con. We set up Jenga in the main hall of the con and soon had a group of more than a dozen people playing with us. This somehow morphed into Apples to Apples. Then the rest of the girls came back. yaexrae had changed into her Shizuo cosplay for me, so we could run around as Shizuo and Izaya.

Izaya & Shizuo

Izaya is about to make Shizuo quite angry~

Some of the girls had also stashed mini bottles on wine in their pockets, which we passed around. Then, we were all set for karaoke. Cat and Lisa did a great acapella version of "Still Alive". yaexrae ended up singing "I Will Survive" and dedicated it to me (Izaya). Near the end of the song I went up and attacked her and we fought while she sang the rest of the song. It was loltastic. I think Payne has video footage of it somewhere. After that, the whole DLS went up and sang "Bad Romance". There were so many of us that we were even able to sing all the melodies and harmonies. It was awesome. Sadly, it was then after 2 AM and Julie and Nina needed to leave. We spent about a half an hour saying goodbye to them and then talking some more with Mike (he was a cat boy in a skirt at that point and was so cute X3). We eventually parted ways and headed back to go to sleep. We probably didn't get to bed until nearly 4 AM. I was a good night.

We got a bit of a late start the next morning because we were tired. Cat and yaexrae had to drive Lisa to the airport early in the morning. Then, some of us dressed in our FMA cosplays to do a mini photoshoot. So, I was Ed for the day.

Ed & Hawkeye, ready to fight.

Ed says GTFO Lust.

Payne and I doing a military salute.

yaexrae makes such a pretty Lust.

I always seem to lack good pics of my Ed cosplay, so we fixed that this time.

Going to perform some alchemy.

After photoshooting Payne had to leave, so we said goodbye to her. Greta and Nicole left soon after that because Greta was itchy. I ended up spending a good part of the afternoon chilling in the maid cafe. There was a real lull in activity just like there is every Sunday afternoon at a con, but stuff really died down at this one because it was such a small con. For a while I stole Zury's copy of Tobira and attempted to study for the vocab test the next day. It didn't go so well though because I kept getting distracted by everything that was going on around me. A bunch of other people ended up at our cafe table, so I spent a while chatting with them. There was another cute Ed cosplayer who was there with her Roy. I also ended up talking with another girl and sharing her mp3 player while we listened to Gundam music. She squealed quite loudly when she found out that I also cosplay Tieria. Eventually, it was time for the cafe to close down. Alie was one of the main staff at the cafe, so I had to wait until she was done before we could leave. Then she decided that she wanted to go to the closing ceremonies. We stayed for part of them and then met up with Cat and yaexrae.

Two of the awesome judges, Laura and Michelle, from the masquerade wanted to have dinner with Cat and yaexrae because they had won the masq, so we were invited along, too! We were about to head out for dinner with them when everyone was called back for one last staff meeting. All of my friends were on staff (for the cafe) except me and there was nothing else for me to do, so they snuck me into the staff meeting with them. So I got the inner 411 on how the con went. I also spent time silently squeeing over the adorableness of Bushido, the con dog who was wondering around the meeting. He's the director's dog. I believe he's a mix of dachshund and basset hound. He was such a well behaved dog who would just follow the con staff around all weekend. I think they're considering making him an official con mascot. At the end of the (rather long) meeting the director surprised us with pizza, so we all opted to eat the pizza instead of going out for food. So the judges and the remainder of our group ate pizza together. We also discussed the possibility of a group Christmas Kuroshitsuji cosplay, since next year's ACross in actually going to be held the week before Christmas. I don't know if I'll be able to attend next year or not, but the thought of cosplaying with And Sewing is Half the Battle is very exciting, since I really admire their cosplay skills! (If this ends up happening I really want to put together a Joker cosplay for our Kuro group). We would have loved to have talked more with them, but sadly we needed to get home. It was time for Alie, Cat, and I to hit the road. We didn't end up getting back in town until almost 10 PM. I was tired, but happy.

It was a good weekend. I wasn't quite sure what to expect because I had never been to a con that small before. The small size had it's disadvantages (smaller dealer's room/artist's alley, less events and guests), but it also had advantages, too. Because of the small size things were much more relaxed. It's also easier to meet and talk with people, since you end up running into the same people all weekend. So, all in all, it was a lovely time! I'll be happy if I get to go back next year.

ETA: Sorry, for the excess amount of LJ cut links. I don't know what happened, but I don't want to go mess with the formatting to figure it out because I'll probably just end up fucking all the formatting up. XD;