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Katsucon 2019 / Lately
Feb. 24th, 2019 01:52 amEdit: Twitter embeds are apparently useless so I'm leaving them but also embedding direct links to the pics???
Last weekend, I went to Katsucon, an anime convention in the DC metro area (southern Maryland technically) that is the only anime con I've ever been to. I went in 2009 when I was a senior in high school with the anime club. I went again in 2010 with a couple of people from said anime club, even though I wasn't particularly into many anime at all just to be going on a trip. At the time, I was into Hetalia (regrettably, though I don't fault it for helping me a tiny bit with remembering history and world geography in a way I hadn't before) and nostalgia childhood anime in a way that wasn't particularly deep. It made it hard to really key in with anything that was going on, but I wanted to be a part of something. Then, I lost touch with the people I went with and the next couple of times I even considered going, even after being more into at least one or two anime, I never really felt like I was welcome to include myself in their con plans anymore.
Going this year was something that crossed my mind only because I figured I'd be able to go given my inconsistent working days. However, given that, it also meant that I was gonna be spending about $400 for the weekend (I'm guessing that was about my total including room, food, and spending) while underemployed. However, I have like $200 cash back on my credit card that I was originally thinking would be a plane ticket subsidy come summer, but this year I doubted I was going to have enough money to do a thousand+ dollar trip anyway sooo I waffled. Then I almost talked myself out of it. Then, a friend from twitter whom I knew was going while she was stateside was suddenly in a bit of a pickle where a friend she'd reserved a room for had to cancel on the trip, so she was left with an extra hotel reservation that she either had to cancel or transfer. Given that I'd been publicly and in private conversation waffling about the matter (not fishing for help or anything), she offered to see if she could switch the reservation to my name. I figured that was something of a nudge that it might be good for me to go, so I decided to do it as the motel she'd found was like at least $50 cheaper for the weekend than anything I'd been looking at and I wouldn't be alone and terrified at least.
I drove up on Valentine's Day. I've really got to get better at preparing the night before for long drives. I finally arrived and decided to just go to bed without getting food. I was tired. However, by the time I got up, got dressed, and got to the convention center to even pick up my badge - a process which itself took about an hour - it was almost 24 hours since I'd eaten last. That was pretty miserable. Besides being weak and hungry, it also did a number on my gut feeling right until like laaaate Saturday. I'm getting old and my body actually punishes me for stupid shit.
The Friday of the con was pretty weird and lonely. I met a guy that I knew from twitter but mostly through someone else and we watched Steins;Gate 0 screening together for a while and occasionally spoke. I'm still strange AF around strange men, though, even though he was completely and totally nonthreatening. He was cool, though. I hope he didn't get a negative impression of me because I give off vibes of "omg you're a dude what if you try to harass me or worse" at every man regardless of how innocent and kind he is until I've been around them for a while. The last friend I developed a crush actually became a crush mostly because I got over that feeling in about an hour and my heart and hormones decided that this must be what attraction was. Sigh.
I wore a sort of closet cosplay of Shirou from Fate. However, I used my own natural hair, and it was "crossplay" of the laziest kind in the world. I sprayed reddish root cover-up in my hair. No one really recognized it unless I pointed it out. If I go next year, which I hope to given later developments, I either won't bother or will do something more elaborate. The thing is, most of the characters I'm very fond of AND relate to are either a) cis-male and b) wear really normal clothing, so it's hard to cosplay in any meaningful way.
Friday was surreal, weird, and lonely as I was saying. I wandered around, and every time I almost decided to go to a panel, I would end up with sort of conflicting ideas about it. I finally communicate well enough with Friend Rin (not the Fate character Rin but she was cosplaying her that day) to find out when the informal Fate photoshoot was happening. I sure as hell didn't wanna be in it given how silly and underdeveloped my closet cosplay was even for closet cosplay, but I wanted to see other people in costume, and I wanted a medium of experience to meet Rin through. She already knew the other two people in our motel whom she had coordinated reservations with, so I was in this single room, alone, and felt like I was intruding in a way. I did meet them, and I had a great time once my initial "oh no I'm interrupting your lives" panic was over.
I didn't take many pictures, though I hope to access the albums they made. I did take one, though, which Rin posted rather than me, and given that she is more twitter-popular than I am it got some traffic! It was the funniest picture I've ever taken tbh. I'm pretty proud of it.
This took like a year to scroll down to on twitter:
Anyway, if anyone wants to see me more frequently, I'm on twitter like every day these days. I'm![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
prixofheroes.
I was considering going to a Fate meet-up at the con at like 1am, but I decided to head back to the motel with Rin and her friends (the one stomping Shirou, the Saber standing regally with her sword beside her who isn't directly attacking him, and the Dark Sakura kneeling by him) to eat Chinese takeout. I had the BEST crab rangoon I've ever tasted.
It was really nice, just hanging out in a hotel room and getting to know people. I despise that it is impossible to just have social situations where you have dinner with similarly aged and interested people. Rin and I are much closer in age than Saber and Lolly were, but it was okay. I enjoyed that part a lot.
The following morning, I decided to go with Rin and Lolly to DC in an Uber while Saber decided they needed to sleep more than they needed to go on a bus tour. I'd never actually been to DC.
We didn't get back to the con until pretty late, and I saw the HUGE Fate photoshoot. Unfortunately, my dreams of meeting a lot more people to actually talk to didn't really come true, but all in all I was proud that I was even able to get to know the people I was directly around. I suck at people.
Rin said she was really glad I came, given that she got a clearer read on me and that I definitely liked her than her older friends. I think her other friends like her and that she and I are just closer in age and the other two had had a chance to close ranks on their ride down, but that should be fine. I'm just so happy that someone actually likes me as a person who isn't someone I've inflicted myself upon for years.
While the other three cleared out to start travel on Sunday, I checked out of the motel but went back to the con for a couple hours. I ate at Nando's twice while I was in the area. The only other not-fast-food I was interested in was perhaps some seafood since it isn't so landlocked, but I couldn't find a well-rated one in the area that didn't seem like a gamble. I'd eat Nando's every day if it were feasible. Give me one locally pleeease.
I bought items to fill out an itabag I purchased (probably for too much money) form a booth. I finally put together the Rough Draft Fate Itabag 1.0 last night. I had about half of the materials, and the other half I bought. I needed a Shirou and I got two.
My Fate fanning was a success, and I bought One (1) Steins;Gate keychain which was the only SciAdv merch I saw all weekend. My heart cries that I couldn't even find Robotics;Notes art to buy given that DaSH just came out. Alas my poor obscure second anime(/etc) love. The one lady selling the Fate keychains I bought at the con must've thought I was insane but happily so as I spent like $120 at her one booth and it was pretty much the only merch I bought besides the itabag itself.
You can see my twitter for a lot of my stream of consciousness thoughts along and after the trip, but my more articulated thought round-up is something like this. I'm very glad I went. I'm thrilled that Rin and I bonded, and especially if she gets to go through with making plans to return, I want to go back. I hope that if I do my time management and participation skills and confidence are a little higher so as not to make it feel quite so overpriced as an experience, even though I tried to be sane GIVEN what I was doing. I hope that over the course of the next year, I have more and better opportunities to meet people outside of insane weirdo congregation trips.
The drive home was an emotional rollercoaster, and it makes me really wish we had reliable railways... I'm lonely, still, but I'm glad I made the decision to go through with this experience.
Last weekend, I went to Katsucon, an anime convention in the DC metro area (southern Maryland technically) that is the only anime con I've ever been to. I went in 2009 when I was a senior in high school with the anime club. I went again in 2010 with a couple of people from said anime club, even though I wasn't particularly into many anime at all just to be going on a trip. At the time, I was into Hetalia (regrettably, though I don't fault it for helping me a tiny bit with remembering history and world geography in a way I hadn't before) and nostalgia childhood anime in a way that wasn't particularly deep. It made it hard to really key in with anything that was going on, but I wanted to be a part of something. Then, I lost touch with the people I went with and the next couple of times I even considered going, even after being more into at least one or two anime, I never really felt like I was welcome to include myself in their con plans anymore.
Going this year was something that crossed my mind only because I figured I'd be able to go given my inconsistent working days. However, given that, it also meant that I was gonna be spending about $400 for the weekend (I'm guessing that was about my total including room, food, and spending) while underemployed. However, I have like $200 cash back on my credit card that I was originally thinking would be a plane ticket subsidy come summer, but this year I doubted I was going to have enough money to do a thousand+ dollar trip anyway sooo I waffled. Then I almost talked myself out of it. Then, a friend from twitter whom I knew was going while she was stateside was suddenly in a bit of a pickle where a friend she'd reserved a room for had to cancel on the trip, so she was left with an extra hotel reservation that she either had to cancel or transfer. Given that I'd been publicly and in private conversation waffling about the matter (not fishing for help or anything), she offered to see if she could switch the reservation to my name. I figured that was something of a nudge that it might be good for me to go, so I decided to do it as the motel she'd found was like at least $50 cheaper for the weekend than anything I'd been looking at and I wouldn't be alone and terrified at least.
I drove up on Valentine's Day. I've really got to get better at preparing the night before for long drives. I finally arrived and decided to just go to bed without getting food. I was tired. However, by the time I got up, got dressed, and got to the convention center to even pick up my badge - a process which itself took about an hour - it was almost 24 hours since I'd eaten last. That was pretty miserable. Besides being weak and hungry, it also did a number on my gut feeling right until like laaaate Saturday. I'm getting old and my body actually punishes me for stupid shit.
The Friday of the con was pretty weird and lonely. I met a guy that I knew from twitter but mostly through someone else and we watched Steins;Gate 0 screening together for a while and occasionally spoke. I'm still strange AF around strange men, though, even though he was completely and totally nonthreatening. He was cool, though. I hope he didn't get a negative impression of me because I give off vibes of "omg you're a dude what if you try to harass me or worse" at every man regardless of how innocent and kind he is until I've been around them for a while. The last friend I developed a crush actually became a crush mostly because I got over that feeling in about an hour and my heart and hormones decided that this must be what attraction was. Sigh.
I wore a sort of closet cosplay of Shirou from Fate. However, I used my own natural hair, and it was "crossplay" of the laziest kind in the world. I sprayed reddish root cover-up in my hair. No one really recognized it unless I pointed it out. If I go next year, which I hope to given later developments, I either won't bother or will do something more elaborate. The thing is, most of the characters I'm very fond of AND relate to are either a) cis-male and b) wear really normal clothing, so it's hard to cosplay in any meaningful way.
Friday was surreal, weird, and lonely as I was saying. I wandered around, and every time I almost decided to go to a panel, I would end up with sort of conflicting ideas about it. I finally communicate well enough with Friend Rin (not the Fate character Rin but she was cosplaying her that day) to find out when the informal Fate photoshoot was happening. I sure as hell didn't wanna be in it given how silly and underdeveloped my closet cosplay was even for closet cosplay, but I wanted to see other people in costume, and I wanted a medium of experience to meet Rin through. She already knew the other two people in our motel whom she had coordinated reservations with, so I was in this single room, alone, and felt like I was intruding in a way. I did meet them, and I had a great time once my initial "oh no I'm interrupting your lives" panic was over.
I didn't take many pictures, though I hope to access the albums they made. I did take one, though, which Rin posted rather than me, and given that she is more twitter-popular than I am it got some traffic! It was the funniest picture I've ever taken tbh. I'm pretty proud of it.
This took like a year to scroll down to on twitter:
Anyway, if anyone wants to see me more frequently, I'm on twitter like every day these days. I'm
I was considering going to a Fate meet-up at the con at like 1am, but I decided to head back to the motel with Rin and her friends (the one stomping Shirou, the Saber standing regally with her sword beside her who isn't directly attacking him, and the Dark Sakura kneeling by him) to eat Chinese takeout. I had the BEST crab rangoon I've ever tasted.
It was really nice, just hanging out in a hotel room and getting to know people. I despise that it is impossible to just have social situations where you have dinner with similarly aged and interested people. Rin and I are much closer in age than Saber and Lolly were, but it was okay. I enjoyed that part a lot.
The following morning, I decided to go with Rin and Lolly to DC in an Uber while Saber decided they needed to sleep more than they needed to go on a bus tour. I'd never actually been to DC.
We didn't get back to the con until pretty late, and I saw the HUGE Fate photoshoot. Unfortunately, my dreams of meeting a lot more people to actually talk to didn't really come true, but all in all I was proud that I was even able to get to know the people I was directly around. I suck at people.
Rin said she was really glad I came, given that she got a clearer read on me and that I definitely liked her than her older friends. I think her other friends like her and that she and I are just closer in age and the other two had had a chance to close ranks on their ride down, but that should be fine. I'm just so happy that someone actually likes me as a person who isn't someone I've inflicted myself upon for years.
While the other three cleared out to start travel on Sunday, I checked out of the motel but went back to the con for a couple hours. I ate at Nando's twice while I was in the area. The only other not-fast-food I was interested in was perhaps some seafood since it isn't so landlocked, but I couldn't find a well-rated one in the area that didn't seem like a gamble. I'd eat Nando's every day if it were feasible. Give me one locally pleeease.
I bought items to fill out an itabag I purchased (probably for too much money) form a booth. I finally put together the Rough Draft Fate Itabag 1.0 last night. I had about half of the materials, and the other half I bought. I needed a Shirou and I got two.
My Fate fanning was a success, and I bought One (1) Steins;Gate keychain which was the only SciAdv merch I saw all weekend. My heart cries that I couldn't even find Robotics;Notes art to buy given that DaSH just came out. Alas my poor obscure second anime(/etc) love. The one lady selling the Fate keychains I bought at the con must've thought I was insane but happily so as I spent like $120 at her one booth and it was pretty much the only merch I bought besides the itabag itself.
You can see my twitter for a lot of my stream of consciousness thoughts along and after the trip, but my more articulated thought round-up is something like this. I'm very glad I went. I'm thrilled that Rin and I bonded, and especially if she gets to go through with making plans to return, I want to go back. I hope that if I do my time management and participation skills and confidence are a little higher so as not to make it feel quite so overpriced as an experience, even though I tried to be sane GIVEN what I was doing. I hope that over the course of the next year, I have more and better opportunities to meet people outside of insane weirdo congregation trips.
The drive home was an emotional rollercoaster, and it makes me really wish we had reliable railways... I'm lonely, still, but I'm glad I made the decision to go through with this experience.
