STATS

Picture Count: 224
FAILs Bagged: 6
Voice Actors Fangasming Over Rainbow: 4
DVDs Signed: 3
Doujinshi Bought: 4
Con Stalkers: 3

SWAG

3 Hellsing doujinshi (Alucard x Integra, Alucard x Seras, Alucard x Rip / Yumie & Heinkel x Vatican)
1 Naruto doujinshi (Orochimaru x Anko)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon manga, Vol. 1 - 4
Kingdom of Selfish Love manga
Pentacle
Orochimaru print
Tom Nook plushie (con present for Chris)

DAY 0

The trip up was uneventful, with one stop for gas and one to pick up another roommate in Fredericksburg. After getting everyone in the room, key cards distributed and sleeping arrangements handled, we headed down to get our passes and get dinner at Mackey's Pub.

Dinner hit a huge snag as we proceeded to wait an hour for the waitress to even take our order. The waitress never checked on us, refilled only a few of our drinks, and looked like she was smelling garbage whenever she looked our way. Her tone was very short and snitty whenever she spoke with us. At the end of dinner, she took forever to even bring us our check, which severely tempted me to advise everyone to walk out without paying. (Curse my honesty!)

Needless to say, I spoke with the manager before leaving about the waitress's behavior. Yes, we are weird and look funny in our costumes, but our money is as green as anyone else's. I will be avoiding this restaurant whenever I'm in the area.

That unpleasantness aside, we finished out the night by watching AMV porn and screwing around on my lappy.

Tomorrow, Hellsing gets some love!

DAY 1

Not as much Hellsing love as I expected, but those that recognized me as Integra loved my cosplay. The new suit actually does fit better, so it was a lot more comfortable and I didn't feel like I was going to die or have to peel it off.

After some initial wanderings, I ate lunch with JohnnyStarwind and cosplaygirl003 at the Maid Cafe and had their delicious pasta primavera and chocolate cake combo. It was $12 well spent. A quick sign-in for cosplay chess and I was off to help host a panel!

Waffles drafted me into her and Zand's "Preparing for a Con" panel, due to my experience with con-going and traveling in general. It looked like the panel was not going to happen due to no attendance, but people slowly started trickling in and Waffles got started. I was able to provide a lot of stories to illustrate her points. It was amusing to see Waffles so flustered, because I felt the same way during my panel at Librari-Con. She and Zand did wonderfully and I was honored to help out.

Afterwards, I wandered a bit in the dealer's room for shopping recon. While perusing the doujinshi booths, I met one of the best salesmen EVAR, who immediately saw me and said, "Let me guess. You are loooking for HELLSING SMUT!" I... was. He promptly pulled out his entire Hellsing inventory and let me look through them. I settled on two titles and decided to challenge him on a extremely rare find: Orochimaru x Tsunade.

No luck, but he did have some Naruto porn. Most of it featured pairings I didn't ship, but there was a very nice Orochimaru x Anko one. After perusing it with my roommates, it was decided that I have to do Anko. After seeing that doujinshi, I'm... not sure I wanna! But I'll take my Orochimaru smut where I can find it... as long as it isn't with Sasuke.

Next was Troy Baker's autograph signing, which was quick and painless. He liked my Integra costume (I didn't have time to change into Oboro like I wanted) and happily signed my Trinity Blood DVD with "Krushnick Kisses". More aimless wandering and cosplaygirl003 and I got ready for the ball.

After exhaling and grunting on my bustier and gown, we looked for the Hellsing shoot, which never happened. Ball it was then. We found some Hellsing peeps in there and hung out with them. We were amused to watch as the lead singer of the live band got steadily louder the more she noticed us attendees weren't paying attention to her. Since I was technically stag, I was free to dance with whomever I damn well pleased, like Jaraiya, Hollow Ichigo and Jeremiah. The last dance was with some random guy that actually flirted and hit on me a bit. He was a complete sweetheart that made me "sorry" that I had a husband waiting for me at home. I hung out with my fellow Hellsing fans a bit before climbing out of the dress and resting.

Hunger from my fellow roommates had us buying pizza and I scarfed down a few slices before slapping on Bondage-card and wandering around. Not much recognition, but those that did loved the costume and my masochism. I hung out with Greed and Renee to watch some cracked videos. Greed broke off to be with Renee and I joined up with JohnnyStarwind and cosplaygirl003 to listen to some bad fanfiction.

Realizing that I may want some sleep before waking up for cosplay chess in the morning, I said my good nights and slunk off to take off the leather, shower and set out a few things for the morning.

Tomorrow, I kill the con with CUTE!

DAY 2

Mission accomplished.

Rainbow Brite was her usual big hit. My day started with dragging my butt out of bed and hopping over to McD's to get a quick brekkie before pinning on Rainbow for cosplay chess. Apparently, I was an "alternate" piece, intended to fill in if a "planned" piece didn't show. However, a bunch of pieces did not show (predictably, though Waffles had a legit excuse of food poisoning), so we were grabbing random people from the con to fill in. Apparently, the coordinator forgot that I was a registered piece and was the first one to check in. So all my responsibility and ensuring I got everything done for the event was for naught. -10 points.

The coordinator seemed to have noticed that he had more or less overlooked me and had me help him with organization and handing out piece assignments. I took it upon myself to be the "clear-up" person and to rile up the crowd to get them into the match. After each battle, I swooped in to escort the defeated piece to Rainbowland.

Aside from my gripes about disorganization and disappointment over not being on the board, I did like some aspects about the organizational side, such as numbering the squares so the pieces could keep track of where they were and having the pieces clear the board to give the battlers a lot of room to fight. I can certainly see where the complaints about the event come from. The complaints can be resolved with being clearer with the communication and more firm about enforcing policies. Another suggestion would be taking a page out of the Animazement crew's playbook and delegating certain duties to different people, instead of having only one person do everything for what is a super-complicated event. If I make AUSA a regular stop on the tour, I would love to help out with the event, combining my experience from helping at AZ with what I've seen this year.

After chatting with the coordinator, I joined Zand for another trip to the Maid Cafe, which I consider the best part of the con. While eating with Zand, we watched the table beside us go through an epic game of Jenga. As I finished my cake, an impromptu karaoke contest was announced and I volunteered to sing "Moonlight Dentetsu" (the Sailor Moon theme). I won the contest because I knew (most of) the words in Japanese and, well, I'm Rainbow F'n Brite. My self-study of the language paid off because I knew what some of the words meant, so I could make gestures like pointing from me to the crowd during the "ima sugu aitai yo" ("I want to see you now") line.

My prize: A free picture with as many of the maids as I wanted. Since they were busy, I came back at close and grabbed four of them for a picture. (But all the maids wanted in!) I asked them to hold my rainbow for the picture and they ended up forming it into a heart! Baw! I can't wait to see how it turned out!

More wandering had me meeting up with the extremely awesome Kefka I met at Otakon earlier this year. To my surprise, he remembered me and mentioned the "political venture" we were embarking on to his friend. That meant that he read the demotivational "campaign" picture I made on my DeviantArt! I don't know why that tickles me so much, but I'm extremely flattered over it.

Afterwards, I wandered before the non-"anime" shoot. Unfortunately, my "squirrels on crank" assessment of con-goers proved to be spot-on once again, as the majority of people that said they were coming never showed. We made the best of it and I got perhaps my favorite picture of the con: Rainbow Brite cuddling with her new boyfriend Flapjack! And the aftermath of them finding Candy Island, thanks to a helpful dumping of candy wrappers on us.

A dizzy spell spelt "food time" for me, so I went to Chili's for a salad and fries. On the way down, the security guard for one of the buildings called me out and said that I was the first costume he recognized all day! *squeak* After feeding myself, I headed back to the room to rest and re-adjust my garments.

I dawdled until it was time to head down for Steve Blum. I picked up Orochi-Chan (my Orochimaru plushie) and the two DVD sets I brought to have signed. It was good that I arrived early because quite a line was already forming for the signing. Unsurprising, since he's in everything.

Two children approached me while I was in line, with one of them asking me: "May I ask where you got that Orochimaru plushie?" After my initial shock at how well-spoken this kid was, I explained that I got Orochi-chan at Hero's Con. And then the children itemized their list of Naruto swag and their knowledge of the show. I was quite impressed. Kids never cease to amaze me. A mother brought her daughter over to introduce me and get pictures as well. The chibi overload served as a distraction for the two and a half hours I stood in line. When I finally got to Steve, he loved my Rainbow costume and my "sweet" voice. He even told me that I may want to consider voice acting because my Rainbow voice was so good!

On a whim, I bought an Orochimaru print for him to sign and he used the Orochimaru voice as he wrote, "Let's throw up snakes together!" I was biting my thumb to keep from squealing! He also signed my Big O set ("Kat! Showtime forever! Ah... memories!") and my Cowboy Bebop set ("Kat! Bang."). He posed for a picture with me and Orochi-chan after signing my stuff. When I wandered back around three hours later, he was still at it! That is some dedication!

I swung back upstairs to deposit my stuff, grab a snack and wandered around to give out my sugar fixes. Close to midnight, I hung out in the room to get ready for a panel that my friends wanted to drag me to. The panel wasn't my cup of tea and I was feeling a little manky in the costume, so I bowed out for one last lap around the hotel before retiring for the night.

Now, a little sleep and the last day of the con. And thanks to a request from a mother, Rainbow's getting another day of spreading the cute!

DAY 3

I decided to sleep in a bit because I didn't really have anywhere to be. When I finally rolled out of bed around 10 am, I went to put on Rainbow Brite. cosplaygirl003 told me as I was dressing that there was a chibi Rainbow Brite looking for me. So I rushed to get everything on, which, of course, invoked Murphy's Law. The elastic was falling out of my bloomer leg, eliciting a quick repair. My safety pins spilled all over the place while I was pinning myself. And my makeup proved to be temperamental. Finally, I got everything on, booted up the Rainbow Voice of Cute and DOOM and went to find Chibi Brite. As I wandered, I scored some super cheap manga ($1/each): volumes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and a yaoi that I heard good things about. (The fact that I was dressed as a 5-year-old while buying it was not lost on anyone.) I also scored a nice pentacle to replace the one I lost at Nekocon.

I posed with several children that recognized the cosplay. Disturbingly enough, one of the little girls that fangirled over me said that she was going to friend me on Facebook and wanted to chat with me and be my bestest friend in the whole world. My mind wandered back to the doujinshi squirreled away in my suitcase... and broke my mind as this child waxed poetic about befriending Rainbow Brite.

As I was talking to a fellow cosplay chess participant and her partner, I got surprise glomped by Chibi Brite. There was also a rave-style Brite running around. Chibi Brite insisted that we had to find her together, with Mom coming along for the ride. I didn't have the heart to say no (as long as it was cool with Mom) and texted my friends that I had been kidnapped by Chibi Brite. The child grabbed my hand and dragged me all over the convention areas. We quite literally killed my friend Fory-san with teh cute and had a few small mobs taking pictures of us.

Finally, it was time for them to pack up and leave, which prompted Chibi Brite to start to pout. To stop the tears before they started, I promised her with all my heart and soul that she could talk to me online and send me Emails. And I would see her again soon enough. I had to go back to Rainbowland and help the Color Kids!

Ye Gods. I think I've earned a fan for life. Fo realz. It's the perfect touch for this weekend.

I hiked back up to the hotel room and peeled off the costume. Those of us still around went to have a post-con dinner at Chili's, where we told dirty jokes and compared con experiences. Then back to the room to look at pictures and trade more con stories.

It is now 4 am and one of our roommates is packing to go home. I will try to sleep before driving through VA and all over NC to drop off everyone and then sleep the sleep of sleeping sleeps.

Final Notes

Gripes:

- The con did not seem to be that organized initially and it was difficult to get information at some points. I'm guessing that being understaffed is the cause of that. However, when rules are being changed on the fly (such as the ball's "no boots" rule turning into a "formal and Ren boots only" rule and back to "no boots" and then letting people like me in when I'm wearing my bitch boots), that weakens my faith in one's ability to organize.

- A request of the con-goers at the Crystal City Hyatt: Please stop messing with the elevators. Hitting every button on the panel is something 4-year-olds do. And closing the door on an infant in a stroller doesn't make you funny. It makes you a complete douchebag. (Luckily, the baby's mom was able to pull the stroller back in time before the doors closed on it.)

- Not really a gripe, but a disappointment: Low FAIL count is low. My friends kept insisting on drawing me into the 18+ / porn panels because my reactions are always amusing. (The best thing about Rule #5* is that there's no telling what will set me off.) By the time I could break away to change and start the Hunt, I was done for the night. Damn you, my friends, for causing me to shun my duties of publicly humiliating sleeping con-goers to watch bad porn!

- I had to go into Bitch Kitty mode for Waffles on Day 3, due to a booty call going way too far. (She was uncomfortable with confronting the involved parties, so I stepped in for her.) While I don't like being Bitch Kitty, her presence was necessary this time. In light of this situation, one party has made everyone's permanent blacklist. The other two did have the decency to apologize about it, yet still made everyone's blacklist but mine (but I did give one a pretty stern talking-to). I don't know what made them think taking the situation that far was okay, but I'm never allowing it to happen when I host. Booty calls in my room are now officially banned. Either take it somewhere else or keep it in your pants.

- The same person that made things awkward Sunday night decided to be a complete dillweed the next day while I was driving him home and kept intentionally giving me the wrong directions to his house. I was tempted to just pull over, throw his stuff out of my car and tell him to walk home because I was quite tired of his BS. (Especially considering that I still had to take Greed home and the girls' mom asked me at the last minute to bring them home to Smithfield instead of sticking to the original plan of picking them up at my house/Hypermind. I didn't get home until 11:30 pm as a result. Couldn't be helped this time, but not something I want to make a habit of doing.)

- I don't know what it is about DC, but the DC cons tend to draw out the trolls. I noticed more idiocy at Katsucon and AUSA than I did at Animazement and Nekocon. Treating other con-goers like garbage and pulling stunts that the hotel staff have to clean up and/or repair later doesn't make you cool and edgy. It just shows how immature you are.

Love:

- The Maid Cafe and Ball are easily the best parts of the con! The food in the cafe is delicious and the maids work hard to entertain us. And it's all reasonably priced! And the Ball is a great alternative for those of us that don't like the dances, but still want to dress up and look pretty. I made so many new friends by grabbing random people to dance.

- My roommates were WIN! With the above-mentioned exceptions, I loved everyone I roomed with! Watching awful hentai AMVs and making inappropriate one-liners made the trip worth it. Thank you so much, Waffles, for having me.

- The mom in me loves making the con for kids and seeing the little kids gushing over Orochi-chan and Rainbow Brite filled my BAW-meter to bursting.

- New friends! New friends! New friends!

- Props to AUSA staff for being on top of con idiocy. Namely, a bunch of frat-looking boys pulling some kind of stunt on the escalators and security telling them: "Do it again and you're out of here." Much love for that!

The Verdict

I'm definitely considering coming back next year. The Hyatt is an awesome hotel and it's a nice chill con (without being a "hang-out" con, like Nekocon or ConCarolinas) to finish out the year with.

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*Rule #5: Don't give Tigress ideas. She takes them to bad places.