I'm going to start off this post with an apology. I am very sorry if any parts of this post do not make sense. It is quite possible that large chunks of it will not, as I have just got back from Edinburgh after attending Auchinawa 2010 (as you may have guessed from the title of the post) and I am a little bit on the bone tired side and I haven't had enough coffee. Nowhere near enough.
Anyway, yeah, the last three days have been spent in a whirl of train rides, fast food, cosplays and cat hair. The cat hair actually has nothing to do with the con; me and the boyfriend were staying at a friend's place since she lived about ten minutes by train away from the hotel where the con was being held, and she has cats. And they shed. Everywhere. They also immediately claimed ownership of our stuff, and commandeered us for cuddles whenever they damn well pleased. We had to chase them out of our room each night before we could actually get into bed, and even then I spent the first night with a cat on my ankles. Yeah, typical cats. Everything is theirs, nothing is yours. They also stole a pair of boyfriend's socks this morning, although so did I since that was the one thing I forgot to pack.
The first day was fairly easygoing. We got to Haymarket at around one, me lugging around my beuatifully carved wooden staff for my Garnet cosplay. This was promptly removed from me when I got to the Ops room at the hotel, as all props had to be checked and although they complemented me on how nice the staff was, they told me they really couldn't let me keep it. Since I had to admit that I could easily bludgeon someone to death with it and also because hell, I didn't want to carry it around all weeked, I relinquished it quite happily. They did say they'd let me borrow it for picture, and they kept their word on that one, so I couldn't complain.
Moving on, my first purchase of the weekend was a great little pair of blue wings from Yaya Han, who is an epic cosplayer and made me insanely jealous since she's awesome at both costumes and props. She wasn't the only one either; the cosplay standard was amazing, highlights being an Ezio with working retractable wrist blades made from drawer slides, an Amatarasu (in human form) from Okami who rightly won the masqurade, several awesome Links, an Arkham Asylum Harley Quinn, Victor von Doom and so many more that my mind is actively rejecting the awesome. The point is that there was a ton of epic going on in the cosplay category.
And, because dammit I wanted to say that I'd done it at least once, I cosplayed on the second day of the con, as Garnet as I mentioned before. Since I hate wigs and also have no idea where to get good quality ones, my Friday night was spent sitting in my friend's bathroom as she dyed my hair and I sat gibbering because I'm a wuss and I've never dyed my hair before. Thankfully, it worked, and I did not look like some hideous mutant. That said, I still had to brave the train in a bright orange jumpsuit with big buckles on the legs, so my hair looking okay wasn't really the biggest issue on that front. But when I got to the con, I stopped feeling so weird, although there was that awkward moment when I thrashed a FFXIII Lightning at BlazBlue, complemented her on her costume and got an awkward 'yours is awesome too, but... who are you?'
This was the first of two occurences of that question, but there were many more of 'Oh my god you're Garnet' which was nice. My neighbour was nice enough to handmake my costume from scratch since I can't sew to save myself, and all her hard work paid off. It really paid off. It's a pretty awesome feeling when you have a Sephiroth (who was actually the proper height, and had a really great costume) running over because IX is his favourite game and can he please get a picture right now because that Garnet costume is awesome. I tried to play it cool and posed for him and everything. And then got all shy and mumbled something about getting a picture of him because I like VII. He was very nice about it, but I really will have to get over my public bumbling for the next con.
Now, as far as actual con events go, there was a fair few interesting things going on. I dropped into a blogging panel on the first day, which may have been helpful, but probably not really, given that it's me and I'm set in my ways. Then we hit the Opening Ceremony and watched a fun introductory video in the style of the Battle Royale information film. The next day we went to the Bad Anime panel, which was made of pure win. Pure so-bad-it's-awesome win. For the record, Garzey's Wing is one of the most hilarious things I have ever seen. It is also one of the most awful, and it was made by the same guy who did Gundam. Yeah.
There was also an Adult Event tonight, which we planned to be the last thing we did before heading home. They hyped it and hyped it all weekend, and then we got there, expecting to be shocked and appalled by hentai of all genres. What we got was less than satisfactory. It was a bunch of drunken idiots playing vaguely porn themed versions of cheesy old game shows and no actual porn. To put it in the correct terms; it was all build up, and no climax.
In between all of this, we spent a huge amount of time in the games room, where I learned how to kick ass at BlazBlue (with one of the characters anyway), learned that I do not kick ass at DDR and got to watch Vincent Valentine playing Sing Star. He was actually pretty good, and he complemented me on my wings, which made me happy. There were also instances of food, and a large amount of time in the dealers' room, where I spent pretty much all of my money on such things as a Kingdom Hearts wall scroll, the Persona 3 artbook I have wanted for like a year (I did indeed squee very loudly when I came across that), a thermos mug for my coffee (an essential) and a set of very cute earmuffs. I have about £10 left in my savings account, but damn I am happy.
There was, however, a severe lack of coffee. Like, I only had two cups of coffee all weekend. I don't know how I'm still alive you guys, I have more blood than caffeine in my system right now (I subsist on coffee and bagels. And Xbox games. That is my life). But that aside, I had a lot of fun. And didn't get too scarred, although there was that one Misty cosplayer who was a middle-aged man...
Actually, let's just stop there, shall we?
Mint, signing out and dropping off
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