Fanime 2016 (Part 2)

Fanime finished off great!

After dropping my friend off and getting a fastpass ticket for the maid cafe I went through a good portion of the Dealer's Hall -- I didn't find much, but I =did= manage to find a nice print of Terra from FF6, which I definitely bought...it's always rare to see my favorite FF character represented!

We headed back to the Maid Cafe and had lunch there as we chatted with Cyane, which was fun!  We split off to head to some gatherings -- me and a friend stopped by the Steven Universe gathering, but it was hot and we had no good spot to see anything (sometimes larger gatherings aren't as fun because of issues like that) so we left and I finished up going through Dealer's Hall.  Didn't end up finding anything else that I wanted to buy, which I was totally fine with. (EDIT: except I actually found this one really cute Rilakkuma stationery set for a reasonable $8!  Picked that up and was quite happy with it)

I stopped by the Speed Dating registration to see if I could see what that was like and maybe make a new friend or two, but I was too late, *shrug*, so instead I went back to Artist's Alley and met up with the artist who had wanted to take my photo on Friday!  She was super excited and after she took my photo we actually just talked about Journey for a while and traded contact info so that we get in touch later after the con was over and maybe even set up a time to try and meet each other in-game and Journey around together.  So it looks like I may have made a friend!

I met up with Cyane, who was done with her shift and we got some food for her, then stopped by the car to drop off some stuff / change / etc. and then hung out at the cosplayer hangout area for a while.  I was also able to meet up with a friend from work, and introduced her to my other friends, yay!

After that we went to the Haikyuu! Q&A panel (where audience members ask them questions / pose them dares for them to do in-character), which was a nice time to sit back and enjoy them being super entertaining -- especially Bokuto and Tsukishima, they were a riot, hahaha.

The last thing that we did was stop by B&W Ball!  It actually went pretty well, mostly due to having another social dancer or two there to dance with (probably would have been too boring otherwise).  It also seemed MUCH bigger than I remember from the time I went before (years ago) when it was in a different location (with stairs?  maybe it was in the fairmont?  don't remember).  I just remember that other year when I went, I asked one of the instructors to dance a waltz and when we started I looked around and I was like "...uh....there is no possible way that I could ever do a traveling waltz in this crowd" since the floor was packed with couples and they were all staying in the same place...

Anyways, that was fun!  I saw some people I recognized from the Palo Alto/Stanford dance scene as well (and a Westie that I think I recognized?), which was cool.  After that it was time to leave -- it had been a good day.

There were a number of things that I didn't end up getting to do, including stopping by the rave/dance for some EDM music, playing some SF: 3rd Strike, and random things like just sitting down in the hallway "meditating" with my cloak sprawled out, but none of those things were really important at all, so I didn't mind.  Sunday was a great way to close out my Fanime and I was able to leave without any regrets.

I always say that Fanime is really different every year, and this year was no exception. (You can look at last year's recap if you want a better idea of how)  My Fanime last year was defined mainly by the fact that I debuted my Journey cosplay -- which I love -- and what stood out most in my mind was walking around in my red cloak, as well as the various conversations that I had with people who came up to me asking or talking to me about the costume and chatting about Journey things in general.  I still have a pretty vivid memory of the night when I was getting dinner at Subway while heading back to my car and someone asked for my photo and we chatted for a bit.  Journey fans are the best!

There were a few main differences about Fanime this year...obviously I was still doing my Journey costume so that part was the same as last year, but this time things were in general a little more chill -- I definitely did NOT try to do everything and anything that I had time for, and there were a lot of things that I skipped out on because I didn't care as much (this is a good thing).  There was also no TGM, so I didn't spend very much time in the gaming hall at all (which was fine too).  As a departure from previous years, I actually did attend some panels -- this was actually my first time attending these "Q&A"-type panels, so that was nice to get to see what that was all about.

Another big difference this year was that I was hanging out with people most of the time, which was a welcome change!  A lot of my previous memories of Fanime involve me roaming around the con by myself, and while that is definitely fun in its own way, it was much nicer having other people to hang out with and enjoy things with together, as well as just people to go out to lunch and dinner together with, made a big difference in my con experience.  So I'm really thankful for that.  Also, B&W ball happened, and because the circumstances were much different, I actually had quite some fun there!  So that's something to remember for future years, too.

It was a great time, and I'll definitely miss it.

EDIT: One more thing!  I forgot to mention that on Sunday morning I ran into a group of Final Fantasy Tactics cosplayers!!!  I barely managed to recognize them actually -- at first I just noticed the white mage, but then I realized that there was a whole group and noticed that one of them was a Samurai...I started putting the pieces together and then I was like OMG!

I actually didn't figure out most of their outfits at the time (I don't remember exactly what everyone looks like...), but looking back at it, it looks like they had a female White Mage/Priest, female Archer, female Onion Knight (!), female Geomancer, female Dancer, male Samurai, and female Black Mage/Wizard!  Super cool, especially the fact that they had a Geomancer and Dancer and everything...so awesome! :D

Also on Saturday I saw this girl cosplaying as SHANTAE!!!  *That* was definitely unexpected, and totally awesome.  Wow!!!  *sigh*...such is the awesomeness of Fanime -- that you can walk around and every once in a while you just randomly stumble upon something totally unexpected and awesome.  I'm glad to be a part of it. :)