Saboten Con 2012 Recap

In which I try to recount everything I did and everyone I met. I'll honestly be super amazed if anyone actually reads all of this LOL I'm warning you, I write MASSIVE con recaps, mostly because I try to mention EVERYONE. I really do try my hardest to mention you all, but I apologize if I forget anyone.

Special thanks to Kim aka WaterhalfFire, one of the cutest and nicest cosplayers ever! I'm so glad to have you and Ota as my friends HNG Thank you for everything
Also, a huge shoutout to Aicosu! THANK YOU SHEILA FOR SAVING MY BUTT AND HELPING ME WHEN I HAD AN EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN OMG I LOVE YOU <3
Talked to/Met up/hung out with old friends like verChiRoo kkanimegirl shadowamy88 Laminartz miracle-cliv SpicyTacoCosplay's yoko-chan012 witch13888 SoaringVisions inna-bina gustredcloude Ginmaart dead-pepper kyaptain
OH I also got to meet up with and talk to most of my old castmates from the Persona 4 cafe!  M-Is-For-Murder lulukohime electric-lady gacktstream dahowbbit Eshiza
Promised them I would make a facebook soon to talk more..still haven't done it sob
Met lots of new people like: JoiFuLStudios and BanzaiPro's SuperWeaselPrincess ChEsHiRe-K ValdaValsha and OztheNekoMaster I didn't get to talk to Valda and Oz as much, but it was amazing to meet you!
I also promised to bribe Cheshire-k with pizza and food to do a shoot with me lol
Thanks to all of the amazing photographers who did photoshoots with me! Noble-beast-photo Almost-Focused Eurobeat Kasumi, and Toshi Yamioka and RickyfromVegas for taking the only pics in existence of Strength!

Also, apparently several people came by when I was away from the table looking for me. I'm really sorry I wasn't there!! SOB SOB I APOLOGIZE TO YOU ALL
I also apologize to everyone who stopped by that I couldn't remember your names sob I feel so embarassed ; w ;
AND THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO CAME AND FOUND ME TO CHEER ME UP OR FEED ME FOOD IT MEANS A LOT TO ME!

Now to the con recap. AGAIN, THIS THING IS MASSIVE. I write these more for my personal memories ; w ;

Friday: Princess of Crystal from Mawaru Penguindrum
The con started off with me oversleeping, then a phone call from my tablemate that there was a problem with our vendor badges. Yay. As it turned out, someone came by on friday, claiming they were us and picked up the badges. Luckily, Greg (the convention head) was there and he helped me sort out the problem. They also sent out security to look out for the people who stole our badges. So I want to say thank you to all of the staff members who took the time to help me fix the problem, I appreciate it.
Once i got to the con I realized I FORGOT ALL OF MY WIGS AT HOME. FML. Got them later, but it gave me a mini heart attack.
After setting up, I changed into Princess of Crystal with the help of verChiRoo and met up with Sheila and Sylar of Aicosu. She was lending me her Himari wig since the wig company I bought mine from ripped me off /sigh
Anyway, HUGE thanks to her and Sylar!! The cosplay was waaaayyy more popular than I expected, I never thought there would be so many Penguindrum fans!! verChiRoo and Chibi-Kizumi were my super sexy Kanba and Shoma Takakura.

We closed the table at around 6, and some very nice people stopped and helped us carry our boxes through the super crowded halls. Let me tell you this, it is very very very difficult to walk through the halls with a huge dragging vinyl buttcape and carrying a million boxes. I really appreciate that those who saw us struggling took the time to stop and help us!
After that, we had a Mawaru Penguindrum photoshoot with Noble-beast-photo We wandered around for a spot that wasn't super crowded and didn't have horrible orange lighting and hideous carpet. YUP. THAT SPOT DOESN'T EXIST AT SABOTEN. Regardless, the shoot went very well, and we got some good shots!
Went to Otaku Closet and talked to many amazing and talented people, like LiKovacs Aicosu lulukohime Thank you so much Sheila and Joyce omg THEY SOLD ME TONS OF STUFF FOR SUPER CHEAP OMG They tried to give it to me for free but I was like "NO I NEED TO PAY YOU"
Sheila also convinced me to cosplay Rahzel from Dazzle >w< Anyone heard of it? Yes? No? ; w ;
Well we bonded over our love for the most obscure manga's ever lol
I didn't really go to sleep at all that night. My cosplay for the next day was still only 60% done, and I needed to do a LOT of work on it.

Saturday: Strength from Black Rock Shooter
I would say I woke up, but I didn't really properly sleep. More like I worked on my cosplay the whole night and occasionally closed my eyes for a few min.
Wore POC in the morning again for another photoshoot.
Met up with ElectricLady to give her some Sailor Moon stuff for her cafe. Kara, sorry I didn't make it to the actual cafe!! ; w ;
I spent the majority of the day stuck in my hotel room working on Strength. I feel really bad about leaving Chibi-Kizumi alone to run the table, I swear I'll make it up to you.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by my hotel room to cheer me up! AmaraSama and :devdennasaur: of SoaringVisions came by and filmed me freaking out lol They also cheered me up and danced in my cosplay >_< www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPJJeL…
Later in the evening, I had craftsmanship judging. This was really a low point of the con. I was a few minutes late, and I had literally just glued on the fingers, so obviously the whole thing was falling apart. Almost-Focused AKA Fox lent me this really super amazing gaffers tape which seriously was the only thing holding half the cosplay together. I messed up a ton in front of the judges, Vampy/Pikmin Link/Chris Tang, but they were really kind to me and complimented me on what I had finished instead of pointing out the 30% of it that was unfinished. Chris told me my general technique was impressive, and considering he's the master of armor and huge props, that was really amazing! Vampy is a huge fan of BRS, and she said it was amazing to see a Strength cosplayer! I think that was when i peed myself in excitement lol
After craftsmanship judging was over, I finally went back to the table and took it down. As I was going back thru the halls, and the stress and worry about Strength and the fact that I'd wasted the whole day in my hotel room hit me full in the face and I just started sobbing pathetically as I ran through the halls (so embarassing orz)
I truly think I would've just given up and laid in my hotel room if it wasn't for the help of my friends.
Sheila of Aicosu noticed me crying (even though I thought I was hiding it pretty well orz) and called out to me to give me hugs and cheer me up. She helped me to see that it was ok if it was unfinished, I should just be proud of what I had done. SHEILA GOD I LOVE YOU ; w ;
SoaringVisions also stopped me for hugs and to talk.
In retrospect, I'm not really proud of the fact that I tried to cram as massive a project as Strength into the last few weeks before Saboten, and I will never try to do it again.
Instead of giving up, I recruited some friends, went back to the hotel room, and worked faster and harder than I ever have to get Strength done. Of course, glue doesn't dry in 30 minutes, and duct tape can only do so much, but I managed to semi-pull it together.
Headed down to the green room, and that was when everything got way better! My friend Toshi Yamioka was running one of the photobooths in there, and my seat happened to be near his booth so he helped me finish up the last bits of Strength and took one of the only pics in existence of it. Fox was also in there, and i got to chat with him for a while and even plan a shoot or two. I didn't get the chance to take pics with EBK, mostly because i never heard my name being called for his booth ; w ; But he came up to me later and we planned out shoots for the next day!
Banzai Pro's SuperWeaselPrincess ChEsHiRe-K ValdaValshaOztheNekoMaster and JoiFuLStudios was there in their AMAZING D Gray Man cosplays! I got to talk to them for a while, which was super nice! Some of them even found me on dA after the con, and it was really nice coming home to find their sweet little messages in my inbox! YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST OMG I CAN'T WAIT TO HANG WITH YOU OUTSIDE A CON HNG
Sat next to the cutest Madoka Magica cosplayers ever omg They had this adorable dance skit and everything. I WISH I REMEMBERED TO GET THEIR CONTACT INFO. IF ANYONE KNOWS THEM TELL ME.

My actual walk-on was so random OMG it took me 4 minutes and the help of two stagehands just to go up the little stairs, and about 30 seconds before my walk on I hit a chair and half of the fingers fell off. SO I spontaneously decided to rip off the rest of them and I pretty much just stumbled around on stage for a few seconds before stumbling back off. I don't even remember hearing the music, I was concentrating so hard on not knocking anything off LOL

BUT I ended up winning Judges Award from my cosplay idol VampyBitMe, which was amazing! I totally didn't expect to win anything, so after my walk on I threw my robot arms in a corner and went off to hang out with Soaring Visions. So I didn't have my arms for the award presentation, but it probably would've taken me waaayy too long to get on stage with them anyway.

After the masq, everyone started leaving the green room. Of course, the arms weighed a billion pounds each, not to mention they had fallen apart, so I called my friends to come help me carry them. Immediately after that, some rude security guy came over and kinda started yelling at me to get out, saying they needed to start setting up for the rave. All my stuff was in a corner out of the way, and i told him I had people coming to help me, but he just stood there yelling at me. ; w ; I still don't know what he expected me to do, I obviously couldn't carry everything alone through the huge crowd outside the doors!
Luckily Toshi and his helpers saw what was happening and came by to help me out. Another security guy saw me being harassed by the first guy and told him to back off, and even cleared a nice little path for me and my posse of helpers thru the crowd!
When I got back to my hotel room, my friends verChiRoo and Chibi-Kizumi did something that made my whole weekend 50X better and instantly erased all of the stress and worry. They gave me the most gorgeous, most beautiful Princess of Crystal figure I've ever seen! I'd been eyeing it all weekend, but just couldn't bring myself to spend anymore money when I'd already spent so much on cosplay.
You can see my reaction here LOL: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oatk1C…

Also ran into Vampy again after the masquerade! She told me that she was proud of me for finishing Strength in time, and the other judges were very impressed!!! BRB EMOTIONAL BREAKDOWN THINKING ABOUT IT SHE SAID SHE WAS PROUD OF ME HELP I'M CRYING JUST THINKING ABOUT IT

Monday: Tsugumi Sendo from Guilty Crown, Reimu Hakurei from Touhou
Woke up early for another photoshoot, this time Guilty Crown. I went up to my friend WaterhalfFire's hotel room in the hopes that I would be useful in helping her get ready. YUP. I WAS USELESS. All i did was cat fight with her boyfriend over who loves her more and woke up poor Betsy and Toshi ; w ; I know Toshi had a long day working the photobooth, I seriously feel super bad for waking them up omg
Met up with Ginmaart and Chibi-Kizumi to plan out our panel. We had about 10 minutes to plan the whole hour long panel called Artists' Alley 101. OBVIOUSLY NOT MUCH TIME. WE MOSTLY JUST KINDA WINGED IT. Anyway, thanks to my good friend kkanimegirl for filming it!
After the panel, I had another photoshoot with the super talented Eurobeat Kasumi. He and I talked for a while in the masq green room, and he said he would be interested in shooting some of my cosplays.
I was only at the table for a little bit, mostly cause BanzaiPro promised to stop by to see me. I kinda showered them in stickers and keychains lol. I wish I had gotten to talk to you all longer, but I had to run off to meet people and stuff.
Changed into Reimu, went to the gathering, met the amazing Fishcaek-Chan who is the most adorable Flandre ever OMG I WANNA DO A PHOTOSHOOT WITH YOU SOMEDAY
The other Touhou cosplayers there invited me to a photoshoot, and i really wish I could've gone. I was so busy, and i had tons of people to find I simply couldn't squeeze it in there. ;  w ;
Everything got super crazy after this, I had to run and find Luluko cause i was donating art to her Umineko panel, stopped by Toshi's booth to return Kim's wig, only to find SHE WAS ON A PLANE TO ALASKA OK WTF AT LEAST TEXT ME WHEN YOU FLY TO ALASKA FOR MONTHS AND MONTHS, ran around for a while looking for Sheila and Sylar Soaring Visions told me she was in BanzaiPro's panel (explains why Sheila's phone was off orz), so I ran there to return her wig and thank her with keychains, said bye to her and Sylar, talked to some of Banzai, hugged my beautiful Lavi, ran to the table to fix a problem, packed up the hotel room and loaded the car, packed the table, said bye to a million more people, did another photoshoot with EBK, etc...
I actually have no idea what happened omg
Only after I was on the way home did I realized I missed 2 photoshoots. ASKJFKJSAHKJD I STILL FEEL BAD ABOUT IT. I texted the photographers and apologized a million times but I still feel guilty. I'm not used to being this busy at cons, I didn't manage time very well orz

ANYWAY, Thank you to everyone who supported and hung out with me at Saboten! It means a lot to me omg
AND A HUGE THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO FOUND ME ONLINE AFTER THE CON AND TALKED TO ME!
I LOVE TALKING TO EVERYONE!

I'll be announcing my cosplay/con plans very soon!