( March TAC.. aka Toronto Comicon )


( Universal Studios Wizarding World, and Epcot )


( Cosplay Progress and Anime North )


Pottermore finally opened! For MONTHS _anatra_, jiyoon, glayish and I have been waiting to sign up and get official sorting from the sorting hat.

My username: NimbusGlow2758

As someone who has identified as a Gryffindor for over 10 years, it was like a stab to the gut getting sorted into Slytherin. :\

I'm profoundly glad I wore all my gryffindor merchandise on the weekend before, because now it feels like a lie OTL. *sob* I'm not surprised though. I was most afraid of being sorted Slytherin because I always suspected. I just wish I had sorted Gryffindor ='(

I suck at having patience for games though, so I likely won't be on there much after the initial curiosity for the content fades.

SO back from Katsucon and finally about to write about it.

Sometime in January, glayish and I got invited to Katsucon with Rock nam Lee (Mike) and his girlfriend Alex.

( Mike and Alex )

We got 4 people in a car and 4 people in a hotel room for $200/each so that was AMAZING considering what we ended up paying last year.

We started out on Thursday morning from North York and the ride down was fun- WAY better than being on Megabus has been last year (despite the fact that we missed out on a trip with most of the other Canadians going). Turns out Mike and I have the exact same taste in music (honestly the playlists were uncanny) :'D

We arrived at the Gaylord Hotel around 8:30pm in the evening and as soon as we pulled up, Kaiser-Mony and Andrew (Aerialdown) walked up o___0. LOL. How ironic the first people we encounter (even before a bellhop) when we arrive 500km+ from Toronto, are our friends from Toronto. XD;

Actually the Canadian flocking was unavoidable as we ran into stillvisions, and Jess while waiting as well~!

We got settled into our room, which ended up being cheaper because it was a handicapped room LOLLLLLLLL;;; Mike was sure the hotel staff had seen my Hetalia Italian flag and knew we were 'speshcial'..... OTL (The only thing different with the room was how low the beds were so it was a great idea XD)

We were starved so all four of us went to the bar & grill to eat dinner. Really American food does taste better and it's half the price of the typical restaurants up here.

Went back to the hotel, and got in contact with Ex-Shadow and his wife Malindachan who had arrived at the hotel too. glayish had eaten too much and managed to make herself sick (-_-; ..) so I went to visit their very busy room and chat a bit. I've admired both their cosplays sooo long and it's been years since we saw them at a convention (Anime Central 2009) so it was nice to talk to them!

Ended up just going back to the room to sleep and be exhausted from the long trip (9.5 hours).

Friday

In terms of cosplay for this convention, I DID manage to make something new! I finally finished the official genderbend of North Italy (nyotalia) ~!

( Nyotalia Italy cosplay )

It was very odd and uncomfortable being in a female cosplay lolz. I managed to fuck up my mascara into a sponge-bob like look, so I attempted to put on false eyelashes for the first time. Fuuuckkk lol, let's just say the glue globbed everywhere and they kept popping off until I found a moment to fix them.

glayish and I met up with izunadrop247 (one of our DBZ cosplay friends from Otakon) and joined the registration line. izunadrop247 was kind enough to help carry my bags and camera all of Friday :'D!! It's difficult to get around in heels and skirts, so that was very pleasant.

Of course the reg line was awful and I managed to slice my hand open on the schedule book and got a viciously bleeding paper cut. The band-aids I had gotten for North Italy (she wears one on her knee) came in handy then -_-;.... I got into an insane worked up mood too, so the con didn't start out perfectly;

izunadrop247 wore his Light Yagami cosplay to match with glayish's Misa Amane. They looked really good!!

( Death Note )

Anyway I'm glad they walked with me, because being alone in Hetalia cosplay is pretty lame XD;;

We 3 went to lunch at the bar/grill in the hotel atrium and then headed into the dealers room. We wandered around but I didn't really see anything I wanted to buy. The collection of DBZ figurines weren't very good so I didn't get any.

Stopped by the Funimation Booth and spotted sppandaaa in her China cosplay. Rushed up and molested her from behind like Hetalia fans must do bahahah XD.

( Funimation Booth )

GUESS WHAT WE WERE ACTUALLY WEARING HETALIA AT THE SAME TIME FOR ONCE!!! Though I failed by being in Nyotalia OTL. Oh well, this con was great in the fact that I actually got to see sppandaaa in costume more than once for a split second.

At the Funimation booth I had wanted to pick up the Slayers Revolution and Slayers Evolution-R boxsets, but apparently they didn't bother to bring those OTL. WHRYYY!!!? Shit I was looking forward to not having to pay for shipping and import on those. Gawhrh

Picked up Axis Powers Hetalia: Season 3 though, to watch with my axis glayish, _anatra_ and jiyoon <3

After checking out the dealers room we headed over to the atrium fountains where the Hetalia gathering was taking place. Stuck around for a bit then headed back to the dealers.

Saw grayhour and emudii!! <33

I totally forget all the shit we did now.. crap I usually don't take so long to write these reports so I can't remember it all in chronological order.

SO... Also on Friday..

Saw Nerdception from tumblr!
( Pic )

And also,

( Letelle and her gf as Uranus + Neptune )

Letelle and her gf as Uranus + Neptune! They were so pretty!! I remember them as USA and UK from last year's Katsucon. Letelle is one of my fav Hetalia cosplayers for sure.

Met with lonym82!! Rocky~ She is sooo nice, she found me while we were in Artist's Alley and got me a cute Italy bookmark/card. *-*!!! <3 I also found her later while she was in her Holy Roman Empire cosplay:

( Holy Rome~ I grew up to be a girl, see! )

I waited around the Gazebo area in the evening in hopes of seeing sppandaaa's full Nyotalia 2P group, but it turned out that they were late in getting together OTL;! I didn't get to see, but I did manage to catch Letelle and her friend as 2P Germany and Italy!

( 2P GerIta: Shitty nighttime pic )

After that glayish, izunadrop247 and I attempted to go to a few panels. "Con Horror Stories" and "DragonBall Evolution: Roast" SOUNDED promising, but after trying to sit for the either HORRENDOUSLY boring, or NOT FUNNY panels I remembered why we usually don't end up going to any. Both failed miserably to be entertaining.

Anyway, after that izunadrop247 went on his way and glayish and I ended up finding a whole bunch of Canadians in the Gazebo area. Sam Lau, solartempest, sakurak, and Mike/Alex our roomies to name a few!!

Thanks for the mini-shoot solartempest~!!! <33 And having a relaxing time being able to chat with sakurak was so nice and yet strange. WHY does it take being 500km away from Toronto for such an event to occur?? OTL. <3

Anyway, we went back to the room and I was very happy to change out of fem!Italy. The shoes weren't the most comfortable after 14 hours. Also, I had managed to forget to pack regular shoes. (I only had my intense snow boots). So I had to borrow glayish's flat Misa shoes in order to walk to the 18+ panels & anime. Roomate Mike (Rock nam Lee) joined us.

LONG STORY SHORT, the 18+ stuff failed as well OTL. LOL. See this is what we get for not knowing anime names and the new stuff. We ended up sitting in on an "Ikeburo after dark" panel that we thought was going to be 18+ anime viewing. It turned out to be some kind of yaoi role-play panel which had Mike shed frightened tears and bolt from his seat.

We found some 18+ anime to watch, but we only caught the ending, and it was generally just fanservice. It was late and we were all tired from the day anyway, so we just went back to the room to sleep.


Saturday

DRAGONBALL DAY. Lawd, lol, well it was damned difficult to wake up in the morning, but we somehow managed. glayish got into her Narcissa Malfoy cosplay, and I wore my Son Gohan (Android Saga) cosplay.

That version of Gohan has been one that I've wanted to do for ages, but it never quite fit with the groups that we had set up, so I never did it. I'm very happy with how the wig and cosplay turned out though!

( Android Saga Son Gohan )

The DragonBall gathering at the Gazebo/Atrium failed. Like.. what. Seriously nobody showed up at the right time. So glayish went around to try and get some workable photos of ourselves.

The weather was VERY much on our side. It was sunny with a high of 15 degrees. I did for once hope for snow with this costume though. It would have made for a nice photo for an "original timeline" kind of mood.

Actually ran into the DBZ people later in the dealer's room. glayish snapped this pic for me!

( DBZ at Katsucon )

Saturday we kept running into Kaiser-Mony, Jess and Andrew (Aerialdown) (ALL of whom looked amazing in their outfits!!)

It was also the day where I was trying to run around and meet up with the girl who bought my Chibi Trunks cosplay off of me. It proved difficult to meet up with her because she wasn't staying in the Gaylord Hotel;;;

Anyway, glayish and I did manage to check out some programming! The Masquerade was well done with plenty of great skits. Seriously the costuming is some of the best at Katsucon.

( My favourite skit was definitely the Ranma 1/2 skit! )

Unfortunately I didn't see the World Cosplay Summit. I was busy trying to meet up with that girl for the Chibi Trunks cosplay, and then the need for food won out. glayish and I had wanted to try that awesome Chinese restaurant in the National Harbour, but the wait was an HOUR;;; Lol the hostess and some local patrons KNEW I was from DragonBall Z though. This is what I like about America (and Baltimore), DBZ is so well received and known!! (mostly cause of Black people.... lol... love DBZ I guess)

Jess and Andrew (Aerialdown) joined us for dinner (:'D) and in the end we picked up some Mexican fast food and went back to the hotel to eat in the atrium.

Later on I finally was able to hand off the Chibi Trunks cosplay, and glayish, Mike & Alex, and I decided to make another try at 18+ anime and programming.

We sat in for the 18+ Anime Music Video awards. There were only about 5 videos played, and the crowd got obnoxiously biligerent >_<. So the panelists put on a hentai series called Dark Love.

UMMM YEAH WTF LOL *SOBS*. That video will haunt me. After the scenes with the worms and the bleeding sex scenes and so on we picked up and headed back to the room for sleep.


Sunday

Sunday we woke up and immediately got everything packed up and put into the car. Didn't bother to cosplay since it would have been too much of a hassle. glayish and I did our last tour around the dealer's room and Artist Alley picking up a few things for gifts for people at home.

It should be noted, since I recently got [S][H][E][R]locked by the BBC series Sherlock, glayish and I entertained ourselves by taking photos of all the BBC Sherlock cosplayers we could find.

There were actually plenty of great ones @_@!!

Our Photos from Katsucon 2012

There was an awkward moment where glayish almost rushed a woman in a blue scarf and dark coat, thinking she was a Femlock, but she was actually just a normal woman XD;;;

Mike & Alex, and glayish and I met up for 3pm and we started the long drive home. I'm definitely glad we stayed with Mike & Alex. They were funny to talk to and it was a great rooming experience and roadtrip!

Overall Katsucon 2012 wasn't as good as 2011 (WE MISSED YOU _anatra_ ). But it was good anyway! Great time seeing more of our American friends and I got to churn out 2 new cosplays that I've been meaning to complete.

It was fun!

THANK YOU shadowtwinz!!!!!! I received the card and the Deathly Hallows journal in the mail!!!!! ;_;!!!! You're so amazing, thank you thank you for that!!! Also I got the Eric Stuart autograph FINALLY @_@ *kills Canada post* <3333!!!

and THANK YOU didgeridoodle!!!!!!! OTL ;_;!!!!!! for the $25.00 for the blue contact lenses!! I'll be getting a pair for this con season. OTL!! You are my favourite person ever!!

( KATSUCON - Plans )

Anyway it'd be nice to see people on the East Coast U.S.A. again, considering Otakon was kind of immensely fail for meeting up.


Totally missed the Toronto Cosplay Skating get together this past Saturday (lol sleep schedule is fucked from staying up till 5am), but managed to get downtown for some Japanese food with SutekiGo, Aerialdown, Iggyboo, LiquidCocaine-Photography, and Kaiser-Mony! We did some quick karaoke afterward then went home. The weather in Toronto has been beautiful considering it's January o_0!



In other news, made it to Season 3 of Star Trek: The Original Series (and got the Star Trek movies on Blu-Ray for boxing week), so I'm plowing through yesteryear. It's funny, the Star Trek (2009) J.J. Abrams movie (AND ITS SEQUEL WHICH BEGINS FILMING THIS WEEK) is what made me want to watch ST: TOS in the first place.... (I grew up with The Next Generation, DS9, and Voyager) .... but the MORE I watch the original, the LESS I like what was done with the script and especially Spock in the rebooted movie. They fucked up his character so bad. Even though the actor Zachary Quinto looked the part and did a great job, it just seems like it was way too much to change for Spock. seriously? giving Spock romantic interludes with Uhura? Ruins the whole classic McCoy vs Spock banter on feelings. Not to mention there was a serious lack of a political and socially just message for humanity. A lot of action and amazing scenes, but, it's not Star Trek: TOS unless there is some kind of allegory for the current political discourse.

>:U ffff.

Anyway, I also started watching the BBC series Sherlock. WHY? Because my Tumblr dash has been full of Sherlock since I got it, and Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) is cast as a lead in the Star Trek rebooted movie sequel. I had to see what was going on with that... and wow LOL. I didn't realise that all the .gifs and slashy quotes were actually REAL. Not that I'm slashing indiscriminately until I watch more, but I can see why it's gotten so popular.

TBH I never watched Sherlock because I disliked the Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey Jr. & Jude Law. But I'm liking the BBC television series, if only because it's not steam-punk theme'd.

SO.. I return. It's been awhile, I can't believe it's been so long since my last entry, time always flies by so damn fast this time of year.

Work and family health issues have cropped up since last entry, but those are always things best kept private, and not expounded upon at length. I have recently had it pointed out to me that I don't seem real because I lack any kind of real life posts, but... honestly;... I rarely want my personal thoughts on real-life things to be up for dissection. Really saves me the trouble of my perspective offending somebody (as it usually always does).......

Anyway:

<3

Firstly, I have holiday cards drawn and little gifts ready and sparkly~*~*~*, but I just haven't gotten the chance to pack and mail them OTL;;!! *fails* I'll definitely be getting everything out once Canada Post opens up again (fffuck;), so.. just know... I'm so sorry if I told you I was sending something and you didn't get it. Nobody has gotten anything yet from me <_>;;;

Much love to jiyoon, _anatra_, and glayish this year ;_;! So lucky to have such amazing friends like you <3!! My whole Holiday Gift list got filled just by them alone. So SO much love. Can't wait to work on more Nyotalia North Italy and Gohan wig over the break!!!

<3

DTAC (December Toronto Anime Con) happened, and DBTrio attended like we have almost every year since Hobby Star started it. The Saturday before, _anatra_, glayish, jiyoon and I got together downtown with the intent of getting more photographs of our Gakuen Hetalia Axis Powers cosplays (originally worn at Anime Central 2011)!

We missed getting the photos that day though, because of intense hunger winning out XD;;
Ate lots and hung out and had lots of fun together. Next morning we got up really early and threw on Gakuen outfits to grab photos before DTAC. We ran over to the U of T campus and jiyoon snapped some shots of all three of us together!


Gakuen Axis Powers 2 by *TechnoRanma on deviantART


Gakuen Axis Powers 3 by *TechnoRanma on deviantART

THOSE PANTS!!!! OTL. It was FREEZING COLD outside, but we can finally not wear these unflattering plaid pants ever again. My wig is fried beyond anything. I can't even count the number of times I've worn it. Italy is officially my most worn character/costume. I haven't even worn Gohan that much OTL XD;;

Anyway, directly after that we all changed into Yu-Gi-Oh! for the con itself. I wore Yugi, glayish wore Joey, and _anatra_ wore Kaiba.

Here's a pic SutekiGo took of us!



Still waiting to get the pics off _anatra_'s cam for edit... what few photos we actually DID get, that is. The MTCC security were full of shit. Even just last year the event wasn't run so awfully. There have been many accurate rants already written about the crap that went on at DTAC, so I'll leave out my own rant. But honestly the only things that made it worth getting into costume and going were meeting up with SutekiGo's Erin, Lindy, and Lisa, as well as Andrew and Jess who we met earlier this year at MTAC.

We all left the con and had a great time hanging out together at Jack Astor's then later at Tim Horton's until after midnight XD.

Can't wait for our Silent Restricted Section party. Which, will need to be planned asap. *gets on it!*


In fandom news, I've totally gone on a Star Trek binge. The J.J. Abrams reboot got a sequel greenlit and it should be something epic. At least, y'know, I want it to be...

The first one was awesome (cause seriously budget and effects like THAT on a Trek movie?? Hell yes!), but it was definitely not completely Trek. I'm looking, hopefully, for a return of Star Trek's penchant for politically and socially forward storylines, as well as that hardcore sci-fi (topped off with some existentialism)! (Some true Kirk/Spock relationship would be nice too come on, that's the original SLASH. The one that started it all., though Shatner and Nimoy (Shatnoy) did it best)

I never fully appreciated the movie fandom (other than puella_nerdii and mithrigil's hot and intelligent Kirk/Spock fic)... but by now there's a whole lot to look at @_@!

( STAR TREK (KIRK/SPOCK) RECS )

Mom and Dad got me Star Trek: The Original Series on BluRay, so this holiday will have lots of marathon Trek for sure XD

Finally wrote up my wishlist @ glayish, jiyoon, and _anatra_! I'll try my best to give gifts to all my friends who make one this year ^^! <3

( My Holiday Wish List )

I had a bunch of anime DVDs (Slayers Revolution-R blu-ray boxset & Hetalia: Axis Powers season 3) that I wanted, but then I checked and they only come out Dec. 27th - January XD;... Save that for my b-day

Hi all, please take a look if you get a chance! :'D



( Wigs & Wefted Extensions (Styled and unstyled) )


( Cosplay Garments & Shoes )


( Cosplay Props & Plushies )


( Fur )


( =Payment and Shipment Info )

Thanks for looking! Slooowly cleaning out my cosplay closet. If you've ever been interested in anything from my Cosplay Gallery, don't hesitate to ask a question or make an offer ^^

x-posted to torontocosplay & cosplay

Gah, so somehow this year it felt like I hadn't really made many new cosplays, but I actually made a lot o_o;

( 2011 Cosplays )

Recently freaked out at how many wigs, shoes, fabric, furs, resin casting materials, etc. that glayish and I have stockpiled... hahahha X_x;;;. I realised I haven't had a list to keep track of my plans for a LONG time OTL. So I have made one.

( 2012 cosplay plans )

FUNimation's Hetalia Fan Video Contest.

...

WE WON. (FUNimation Blog post)



*deliriously throws self around!!*

This really makes me feel proud, excited... a whole lot of things, really.

The whole thing was so last minute. When I found out about the contest (thanks to the tumblr blog of TristenCitrine Hetalia Brand manager), I immediately knew this sort of thing was perfect for _anatra_, glayish, and I!

We've already been making stupid videos for, what... 5 years? Lol. Ever since we've known each other anyway.

_anatra_ and I hastily wrote 2 scripts for 2 separate entries so we'd have more of a chance. We really didn't have much time to film at ALL. Right after work on Friday we grabbed _anatra_ at Finch, and then drove back up to our house to film as many scenes as we could.

We ended up filming until 11pm at night, then stayed up to around 1am prepping our costumes for the morning. We got up DAMNED EARLY for a Saturday (7am, whyy). Literally flew straight into costume and filmed non-stop until noon. Ate a much needed lunch (pastaaa), and then we jumped into the Mustang to drop _anatra_ off at her LARP for the rest of the weekend. (Which, by the way, is in the middle of NO WHERE, and I had to drive on a crazy dirt road in a forest wtffff!!;;; )

After that we edited our entries and submitted them on youtube as per the contest's rules....

( My Entry and Anatra's Entry )

WE THOUGHT THE CONTEST WAS GOING TO STAY 18+, OK? LOL. (They opened the contest to younger fans a couple days before deadline, and we had already submitted.. otherwise I probably would've tried to be a bit more tastful XD;).

Apparently there were almost 100 entries!! INSANE. I didn't get a chance to watch all of them, but from the ones I did, a lot of people had really good things to say. It made me worried about us even getting in X_x! (You can find all the entries by searching FUNimation Hetalia Fan Video on youtube search).

...BUT. We did get in!! Thank you FUNimation :'D!

My entry got into the top 12 finalists and was uploaded onto the FUNimation Channel.

The rules were that the Grand Prize Winner & Fan's Choice would be the video with the most amount of views until Oct. 20th, 11:59PM, and another grand prize winner would be chosen by the FUNimation team.

SO...

Of course I was at home constantly f5-ing the blog page for our link to go up, so I could start spreading it far and wide.

Due to some aggravating youtube issue (still not sure why), 7 of the 12 videos went public, while 5 of them remained unwatchable. (YEAH our entry was one of the unwatchable ones, OF COURSE OTL; ). For at least 2 hours we kind of agonized over this fact considering FUNimation's youtube channel has close to 300K subscribers, and the views were going up into the hundreds for the other vids.

As soon as the video went public:

LINK SPAM FURY!

I definitely could never have done any of this without glayish and _anatra_. They both may be Slytherins, but they put up with me and my moods and my issues with pure unadultered COURAGE.

_anatra_ and I posted little Help the Axis! videos we had prepared beforehand just in case we got through to the finals.

( Help the Axis win! )


msdbzbabe (MsDBZbabe on YouTube ), our friend who was INCREDIBLE and WONDERFUL, helped us too, by posting a little vid on her channel to her 27,000+ subscribers!

( MsDBZBabe's vid for help the Axis win! )

Can't thank her enough for all her help in pimping our video. We're all major fans of DragonBall Z and each others' fanwork, so for her to post about Axis Powers Hetalia (which she is not currently into) was really amazing of her. Then again she's always been super generous and somebody funny yet unbelievably kind. We're lucky to have met her at Anime Central 2010 and hung out with her the following year at Anime Central 2011! ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

jiyoon (Adri aka Cho to my Harry Potter), was the best damn friend EVER. ;_;. She tirelessly watched the video OVER AND OVER for every single hour it was up so that our view count would soar to the top. She didn't even sleep. She got her boss at work and her boyfriend to do it, too. Her boss slowly started questioning his sexuality because of our crossplaying.. XD.

Seriously, I know we could not have done it without jiyoon. ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥


Those two weren't the only ones, either ;_;!!

Malindachan (DevART)
Kaiser-Mony (DevART)
evilqueen112 (of APH-Yaoi Club ) (DevART)
LiquidCocaine-Photos (DevART)
Polveremagica (Tumblr)
akintak (Tumblr)
GoodHetaliaCosplay (Tumblr)
tamayouchi (DevART)
LivingIchigo (FaceBook)
Carolanne (FaceBook)
Shelley (FaceBook)
Morisa (FaceBook)

ALL OF THEM blogged or posted about our video so that we could get more viewers!! Forever thanks!! All it took was a simple post from these fantastic people and our video went up thousands of views. T_T

And I can't forget everybody who said they watched & rooted!!

lonym82
blulious
izunadrop247
kintaei
neocloud9
shadowtwinz
sppandaaa
darth_teca (congrats on winning the Team Hetalia chosen Grand Prize!! I knew it would be you! <3!!)
animetomboy
tylika
didgeridoodle
+ more from FaceBook & YouTube!

Thank you guys, it was because of you that we won!

Also, every single last person on my DevART Page and on YouTube who watched over and over and shared the link with others. It was all because of that.


( Now for a few things I don't usually talk about... )

I guess what I've taken from this whole thing is that I am very lucky to have such close, funny, loyal, and talented friends who will pull together at a moment's notice to do stupid stuff like dress up and brave windchill and cold and no sleep and broken f5 keys to come out on top.

If you want something to happen, you have to ask for the help and do whatever you can to make sure that what you want becomes yours.

It's not really Hetalia I love... it's everyone who helped and worked and stayed by me to make this a reality.


Thanks all....
We're the Axis Powers! :'D

k, so I really wonder why there has been no official response or announcement concerning the unfair headstart 7 of the entries got (mine NOT being one of them >:U ) in views.

I'm torn between crushing depression and going insane.

JUST. GOTTA BE POSITIVE. KEEP UP THE VIEWS!!! ;_;