Fanime 2015 - Day 2

It's super late already and I've gotta wake up to hopefully get to con at 10AM again tomorrow (mannn I'm gonna need to catch up on sleep after this), so let's get through this.

What a great day at con!  And a FULL day at that; I was there starting at 10AM, all the way until a little past midnight...there were a couple times when things were definitely winding down and I thought I was gonna leave, but nope--still stuff happening and people to say hi to and such, so I ended up having a very full day...

Things started off with me getting up (ugh, sleepy) and pulling myself together, putting on the Kikyo outfit and trying to make it to the Rumiko Takahashi gathering by 10AM.  Didn't bother with any makeup or anything--too tired and plus I didn't want to deal with it for the rest of the day anyhow.  Comfort first!

The Rumiko Takahashi gathering was fun; unfortunately I'm actually only familiar with Ranma 1/2 and a teeeny bit of Inuyasha, but good times regardless.  We actually had 3 Ryogas there, and super ironically, they were the FIRST ones there, which just seemed.....totally wrong. (Ryoga always gets lost and takes like 3+ extra days to get anywhere)  When I was looking for the gathering at first I was like "Oh, there's Ryoga.  I'll just follow him.   .......wait.  Bad idea."  Anyways, we had fun with our photos--I recognized Inuyasha and Kagome from last year I think.  We fought over Inuyasha a bit ;P

There was also the Chrono Trigger "gathering" today!  Well, we only had a Chrono and Ayla, but it was still so cool to see them!  So very awesome to see underrepresented characters like that...

Disney Extended Family gathering was also today but I left after a bit (ran into Bleu there though, which was nice!)...there were just too many people and it didn't really seem to have the right "energy"...maybe tomorrow Disney gathering will be different?  The awesome Cinderella stepsisters weren't there either...Lots of Hiro Hamada though, haha, that distinctive hair!  It's also an outfit that works really well for crossplay too...some Baymaxes...a really nice Mulan...a really cool Maleficent and King Stefan...and even someone from Inside Out! (Excited to go watch that next month!)

I got through all of Artist's Alley, which was pretty awesome!  Picked up some sweet stuff, including Journey charms and pins, a Journey notebook, and even a postcard print of Monument Valley (!).  I also picked up a Journey lanyard, which I immediately used to replace the Fanime badge lanyard--now my badge lanyard matched my outfit! *chirp*  Got stopped for some photos here and there, and also had some chats with the artists, mostly the ones with Journey merch, hahaha (though a lot of the time they didn't realize that I was cosplaying Journey at first, probably because I wasn't wearing my mask (wanted to be able to actually see artwork), and because they probably couldn't see the bottom of my cloak or my scarf...).  Didn't manage to find a replacement Journey bookmark that I lost yesterday, oh well!  Maybe if I remember I'll try to ask lost & found if it turned up at all.

Met up with Wendy, Russell, Kotz and crew to go to dinner--we ended up going to the same "Bo Town" Chinese restaurant that we went to last year, lolll.  Good times.

This is also the first year I've used the "Cosplay Hangout" room, where people take a break and work on costume repairs...I needed some repairs twice actually--once when I realized one of my toggle buttons had broken and I needed to sew one of the cords back on, and then another time when I accidentally scooted my chair onto my scarf and made one of the white symbols fall off.  Luckily they had an iron so I was able to just re-fuse it on.  The heat n bond ultrahold is good but not infallible, so I gave the entire scarf another go-over with my iron after coming back from con just to be sure everything is secure.  Luckily even when things do fall off it usually works if you just re-iron it.  At some point I'll want to fray-check a lot more of the stuff (besides just the very edges of the scarf), but....bleh, maybe next time.

Also got to hang out with Christina and co for a while!  We mostly hung out in the gaming hall, where I got to play ParaPara for the first time (while wearing my full Journey outfit and mask!  Video to come soon I think), and also play some DDR.  I'm happy to report that while my DDR skills suck now (mental arrow reading skills are still "ok", physical movement skills suck, plus I was never great enough to begin with), the rate of decline in my skills is much less than the rate of difficulty rating inflation in the rating system they use now.  Before when 9 feet was the max rating I used to be able to do 7s comfortable, 8s OK, and 9s were a challenge (depending on which one).  Now I'm playing on things labeled as 8s and 10s or something and they're so easy, no sweat!  I tried like a 12 or something though and it was way too hard...dunno, if I ever started actually playing again and was playing a newer mix I'd just have to relearn what the ratings actually mean.  But it would be nice to just have good ol DDRExtreme or something.  Ah, that was a good machine...

Near the end of the day I got to play Bishi Bashi with Alex and his friend, ahhh!  That was so much fun!  Bishi Bashi is quite awesome.  I actually managed to last the furthest too!  But got screwed over when on stage 10 we got one of the games involving reading japanese...screwed up and then it was over.  But yeah, very fun game!  Wish I could play it with everybody, hahaha...

Got a lot more games in of TGM3, I think the total count is at like 20 or something now.  I got -somewhat- better at Master mode; still no clears and maybe nothing I'm really happy about but then again, maybe I'm just underestimating how hard TGM3 master mode is since I never play it.  Maybe I'm not even really supposed to be able to clear it?  The speed gets fast enough to where I died because a triple-rotate I was trying to do failed, so maybe the speed is just too high...(too many COOLs?  hahaha)  My Shirase runs have sucked, but eh.

Dunno, just need to stack better =/  I think when speeds are too fast the smart stacking just goes out the window and I revert to my "instinctual" play which is too pointy and doesn't put enough thought into just playing safe, keeping the stack clean, and SKIMMING.

What else happened...lots of people complimenting me on my cosplay--so happy that I was able to work out the design!  I'm definitely super glad I went with making an actual Journey-designed dress instead of just a normal circle cloak.  Apparently somebody from Artist's Alley really liked my cosplay and wants to meet me tomorrow if possible and their friend came up to me saying so and where to find them?  So that was cool!  Will definitely go and find them tomorrow.  While I was leaving con I bought something at Subway (subwayyyy), and while I was there I also ran into some other congoers who commented on my costume--one of them said they had seen it before and really liked it but didn't get a chance to say so. (I was probably in a rush, walking out of safeway or something).  Speaking of which, I still ended up parking at Safeway despite the fact that I probably could have parked at least one or two blocks closer...I was already running late, so like I tend to do, I just took the low risk/low reward option since I knew there would definitely be parking at Safeway.

Phew...I think that was basically everything.  Tomorrow is another busy day, hopefully I can stay awake?  There were definitely some times tonight that I felt myself totally drained...at one point I actually was getting a bit =depressed= b/c of general lack of energy and such, but it passed, fortunately.

Tomorrow's goals are...
- Go through Dealer's Hall
- Try to meet with Erica
- Hang out with Isabelle
- Go to Masquerade?
- Go to Rumiko Takahashi Gathering but also want to go to the Ghibli gathering, ahg, they are at the same time....although to be honest at this rate I probably won't even be able to get out of bed on time, pfffftt
- Haikyuu gathering
- Disney gathering
- Higurashi gathering?
- Try to find the Journey cosplayer from Friday to take some photos and such (didn't get a chance to today)
- Meet that person from Artist's Alley who wants to talk about my costume or just meet me or something
- Maybe stop by the dance??  They are spinning trance at 11PM...and some of my friends might go earlier when they are playing Jpop/anime music?
- Try to remember to watch Amy's performance at...1PM I think?

Ugh...will there be time for a nap?  Haha....

Maybe sometime I can just do a photoshoot separate from con for my costume.  That would be fun!

Ok...wish me a good rest and that I'll be able to wake up tomorrow....zzzzzzzzz