Sunday at the con'. It's the quiet day. The tired day. The day your feet have had enough. You don't quite want to go home, but you're definitely tired of walking. Also, Sunday decided to start raining. And that was just sad.
And this was the day of the Fantasy Fight Tournament. That said, this is going to be a fun report because this is oh so beautifully off the record from convention and other such things . . .
But first, Uncharted photoshoot! So again, I was up early, putting on all the gross clothes I've been wearing all weekend (must remember to bring the Febreeze next time), jeans, shirts, annoying gel hair, guns . . . badge . . . and I was out the door by 10am. Kiddo wanted to hit up the dealer's before it was all too late, her two friends were making their way over to our hotel before we all went to the con', Jed' . . . was Jed' . . . in any case, the plan was for everyone to be back at the hotel room by 11am so we could pack up and check out with plenty of time to spare for the fight and whatnot.
"See ya at 11!" I said as I rushed out the door.
Into the con', I saw a girl dressed up as Chloe Frazer.
"You Tuomas's friend?" I asked. She was indeed Kenshiro's friend. The two of us sat on the stairs a little shooting the breeze, getting to know each other beyond "oh hai, we dress like the same game!" Neat girl.
Kenshiro came roaring in about five, ten minutes later with two photogs in tow. I was excited at that point because they were the two guys I know the best out of the local photogs. And frankly, they're awesome.
Kenshiro, ever the general, suggested we go straight outside to the courtyard. One, because they were packing some really sweet replica revolvers that had no chance in hell of getting past con security (and because "peacebonding is shit for photoshoots"). Two, because it was wet and mucky outside, it'd look good for an Uncharted photoshoot. All were in agreement.
So the six of us (three cosplayers, two photogs, and one other dude) spend the next half an hour playing around, making really good use of time splitting up, coming together, lending out really sweet revolver replicas to the poor Vancouver boy "for some variety" . . . oh, we also rolled in the mud for authenticity. And then I jumped off a thing into the cameras.
After going back in, we were talking about the Fight Tournament a little, about what's been good and bad in the past and stuff. I've always liked how frank he's been with me about how things have gone, and I hope that'll stay - for one thing, he knows I'm pretty much his strongest supporter outside of the organizers an stuff because I'm always the first to jump at ideas and theories about how the game works. I'm also usually the first person to plug it wherever I am, be it in new forums or to random people at the con. Anyway, I needed to start heading back to the hotel to change my hair, my clothes, and to pack everything up.
But first, Eurobeat King photographed us. Mud and all.
So it's just coming to 11am, I'm just getting back into the hotel to get out of my now-muddy clothes . . . which actually really sucks because those were the jeans in which I planned on driving back home. Ah well . . . bigger problems, really. For one, kiddo and the others didn't leave for the dealers until quite late, and as such were not at the hotel to pack. For another, much of our stuff still wasn't packed. For another, kiddo's buddies were now at the hotel wondering why the plan had gone to hell.
This was one of only two times that I really kinda stressed during this con' trip.
I more or less started packing kiddo's stuff for her so that once she was back we could book it. I also packed a day pack for us so we could carry money, extra clothes, and all our fight props around. I didn't like having lost about 40 minutes for us to just relax and prep before the fight (as well as wanting to beat the 12:00 checkout rush), but what could ya do, right?
I eventually called one guy, and requsted kiddo's return. Once she was back, we still had a bit of a prep to do (wig, flowers, etc.). Yeah, I stressed. thankfully, Alexa's buddies gave us two extra sets of hands to bring all our stuff down without calling for a hotel dolly. Into the elevator, one guy got in the checkout line for us while the rest took our stuff outside so we could get the car. Of course at this point I felt a bit nervous because the check-in was on my credit card and as such I should be there for that. However, once the car arrives, it'll be my car and it could be awkward for Jed' to have to drive it if I'm not outside. Well, if that was the worst of it, then so be it. So I left Jed' and the others outside with my faith in his ability to drive my car should the need arise, and I went in to relieve the other guy of his place in the line.
As it turned out, check-out queues move fast and I was out extremely quickly. I started stressing less. Got back outside, saw the car wasn't out yet; we were back on top of things! Well, car came up, we loaded it up, and then mentioned that we were gonna park it in the parkade across from the convention center so we could be fully done with the hotel.
Hotel guy said parking was paid for until 6pm. We gave back my keys to hotel guy and headed to the con!
Once again, Team F.A.P. was on the move in the con'. We had new toys to peacebond for the fight so we went to do that. Funny enough, the peacebond guy actually told us to take off the ribbons before the event so that we wouldn't send mixed signals to viewers about clanging/pointing weapons at each other. I liked that idea. Ultimately, though, it was just funny because that point on, there were quite a few random pictures of Flynn and Rapunzel, but Flynn with a giant Nerf longsword and/or musket. Such are cons.
So Justin and Brett, kiddo's buddies, wanted to buy Yu-Gi-Oh! cards from the dealer's room. Fine, so be it. We would wait for them outside dealers. We still had a little time before the 1pm rally at the main stage for the Fantasy Fight Tournament.
On the plus side . . . I finally found Damon! Damon, the little cosplay legend, somehow became one of my Sakura-Con traditions. Every year he grows a little more, finds himself talking a little more . . . and every year I try to get some video of him being himself to YouTube. It's kinda neat, and his dad actually went "Damon, look! It's your photographer!" This year is actually a little sad. Apparently some jerkass kid at school told Damon that he "looked like a girl", so he cut all his hair because of it. Because of that, he was wearing a wig at the con, and the wig was being pesky and making him ornery. Poor kid. Anyway, the most words I got out of him were when he looked at my Flynn cosplay and asked me, "where's the crown?"
Y'know, we joked all month about the people calling us out on things that "weren't accurate". I never suspected I'd get it from little Damon, though . . . whatever, he's still awesome.
Anyway, It was suddenly getting closer and closer to 1pm, and now I was getting nervous again . . . you see, the idiot boys who decided to look for Yu-Gi-Oh! cards had our day pack. Y'know, the one with ALL our toys.
This was the second time I seriously stressed during this con'.
Eventually we decided that kiddo would wait for them there with my cell phone and Jed' and I would check in with the event. Not ideal, but you gotta roll with it.
Met up with the other teams and stuff at the main stage, talked about how excited we were . . . I went around recruiting for a summon attack that I would eventually not use (and looking back now will probably never use because it's really not as good as I was thinking). Got a good laugh when Kenshiro called out "Team F.A.P., you here?" and I got to go "Yo!" Ahhh, F.A.P. . . .
Kenshiro ran over the rules and guidelines for us. He also motioned out that they were going to be cool with light touches - B. and I shared a glance and smiled, for we were excited to face each other and wow the crowd . . . we also found out that we were on the same half of the tournament bracket, so if we both won our first matches we'd be up against each other next. So we both had to win!
All the assassins also came in to meet with us as our summons. I thanked them all for coming again and briefed them on where they needed to be and what they needed to do. They were all just as excited as we were. Bene...
Oh yeah, I also found another Flynn cosplayer. We freaked out a little and hugged and got into a photo together. That was good times.
Aaaaaand y'know what? I think we need a page break!
