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BECAUSE THAT'S ALL I USE MY JOURNAL FOR NOW. reporting after events. |D anyway, i've been back in dunedin for a couple of days now so i figured i might as well write something up about the long weekend. so, without further ado...

saturday.
like every true cosplayer, i was sewing an hour before my plane left (hemming lightning's cape and fudging up the black glove out of nowhere). the con actually starts on saturday but since i got flown up for free as part of the trans-tasman competition, we couldn't decide when to turn up so i landed in auckland at about... 11.30. and there was no shuttle there to meet me. NGL i had a wee cry because the week had been difficult already and i didn't really savour the idea of being stranded at the airport. after a lot of panicked texting and phonecalls, i eventually just caught a taxi to the convention and got reimbursed. mostly i was just happy i finally got there! so thanks to sylvie/steph/jp for the support orz.

i cosplayed achi!cirno from touhou project on the saturday, with ~hinoame as cirno!nee and ~Suixelo as cirno, plus alice as yukari which was AWESOME. one or two people even knew who we were, too. |D plus, i had some amaaaaazing fire wings made for me FOR FREE by aaron which were incredible, plus they attracted a lot of compliments (despite the fact we mcguyvered them onto me with elastic in about five minutes). took some photos on my canon but was pretty frazzled from traveling so i didn't go to any panels. after the cosplay parade, i got a ride to our hotel from jp and then met up with over 9000 people for dinner/giapo. the rest of the night was pretty (incredibly) stressful, but i got through it thanks to the help of some special people.

sunday.
cosplay games panel day! got to the con pretty early and got my blazer off of ~hinoame, then rehearsed stuff for the games with ~JVCA. since the panel was persona 4 themed, ~JVCA and i cohosted it as amagi yukiko and kujikawa rise respectively and it was HEAPS of fun. seriously, the games went so well i was really happy, and everyone seemed to enjoy them? so jess and i were really pleased. (: i tried to run around and get a lot of photos on the sunday to try and level up my photography skills but my shoes were killing me so i could only do it for a wee while.

after that, we had a small photoshoot with *static-sidhe but i was having some bad heart problems (i suffer from acute arrhythmia quite a bit) so i was out of action for a wee while as the beta blockers kicked in. BUT IT WENT AWAY which was good, so we got some amazing photos. rinse and repeat with going for icecream THEN dinner (SYLVIE WANTED TO), which was a hilarious event within itself. there was still quite a bit of comp stuff left to do, like there always is, so cue aaron and me trying to finish all of lightning's costume in my hotel room at like 1 in the morning, complete with the most awful films i have seen on tv. if anyone has seen the captivity or the quiet, you'll know what i'm talking about. :9

monday.
COMP DAY. after 3-4 hours of sleep, got into costume and headed down to check out from the hotel, encountering a wild ~toydivision on the way in her amazing warhammer 40k sister of battle costume! after some wrangling, we managed to hitch a shuttle with the VAs into the con and despite apparently being shut in, we found a way out of the dealers hall and dumped our bags at the info desk. luckily, judging was an hour later than we thought so our competition group (~hdtheory) managed to get a few rehearsals of our skit in and to get in costume, along with our 5kgs of bananas. judging went well, but as always, the competition was pretty fierce-- the standard in nz gets better every time i go to a convention! there were so many beautiful costumes it made me really proud to be part of the community here. (: there was a couple of low points, esp. when meghan crashed from her chronic fatigue and had to leave accompanied by ambulance people-- we were all really worried about her and are glad she's feeling better now. overall, however, the day went pretty well! i was in serah farron that day, along with *static-sidhe as oerba yun fang, ~s-in-c as hope estheim and *Midsummer-snow as lightning farron. what really confused me is about three people called me vanille, hahasldkfjg. i didn't get how you can confuse serah and vanille BUT APPARENTLY IT IS POSSIBLE.



whittled away the rest of the day, then the cosplay judging + trans-tasman competition rolled around. there were some incredibly amazing skits during the comp (which i was excited for, as the performance aspect is my favourite part), not to mention costumes-- and although nz lost the trans-tasman cup, ~Asham more than deserved to take it for australia. a look at her chopin costume was totally flooring, and you could only imagine the amount of effort that had gone into it. (: it was a tough competition though, considering the nz representatives (team rocketfuel) also had incredibly beautiful costumes. our group took out hon. mention in performance, open division, which we were totally stoked for-- we didn't expect to get anything at all considering what a clusterfuck the weekend had been and trying to get everything finished, so THANKYOU to everyone who enjoyed our skit! it was so much fun to do & i'm glad it was well appreciated. (:

a link to our skit is here! -> [link]

congratulations to EVERYONE who entered the contest, and to those who won awards-- you were all amazing, and even if you didn't get anything, the standard this year was so incredibly high i don't envy the judges having to make those decisions.

THANKYOUS.
i think this part is needed. :9

~hinoame - thankyou for being so supportive and such a great friend all weekend, for feeding me on sunday and helping out on saturday night. i REALLY appreciated that and all the hard work you put into my rise costume. 8( you are just so awesome.
~JVCA - thankyou for doing so much for the cosplay games! they wouldn't've happened at all without you, and i'm grateful that you put so much effort into it, especially with writing such an amazing script. i'm sorry i couldn't do more to help because of university, but i will strive to take some of the work and stress away from you next year. also, GAG GLASSES.
*static-sidhe - I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU.
~toydivision - it was great hanging out with you and getting to chat to you more! you are such an amazing, talented person & i felt pretty honoured to be on the same playing field as you for the trans-tasman representation. your sister of battle was SO AMAZING.
aaron - I KNOW YOU'RE NOT ON DA but for all the support you gave me in the weekend, the late hours you put in trying to finish lightning's props and for the cirno wings, THANKYOU SO MUCH. you have no idea how much i appreciate what you did for me over the weekend. (: HEY GUYS ARE YOU EATIN' CHEESE

PEOPLE I HAVEN'T MENTIONED BUT MISS ALREADY.
alex, kylie, lennon, meghan, shannon, tammy, steph, ange (x2), mandie, maddie, icarus, tails, etc. etc. OH MY GOD IT WOULD TAKE FOREVER TO LIST

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