Sta.sh
After a night of finishing last minute pieces for costumes, and watching Magi and Kuroko no Basket with *electric-waffle, we finally crashed for my ritual one hour of sleep before getting back up and getting ready for take off!
Current Time- 8:45am EST
Thursday morning, we took off at 7:02am EST (roughly) and landed in DCA around 8:45-9:00am EST, and got picked up by ~sorairo-days and metro'ed to her humble home, where we dropped off our luggage, and went and got some 10/10 Pho
; A;Post-eating, we ended up just chilling at Sarah's house until ~batzypan and ninjadude73's bus arrived, and we took off via Suburban taxi for the Gaylord. We actually stayed in the Residents, across the street from the Gaylord, but w/e. Upon arriving, we dropped our loads in the room, and headed straight for the Gaylord to make the, "ahh, Katsucon.." official. We were slightly off-put by the other event going on the same weekend, especially with the gazebo area being off-limits for a portion of the weekend. While we, personally, didn't have a complete issue with it, we all know that there were cosplayers and photographers who would lose it completely, not being able to use the gazebo and gazebo area.
After a bit of a walk-through of the Gaylord, we set up camp in the lobby, to meet up with ~Janiekat so we could all get our KPOOPING on, and met up with ~cafe-lalonde who would be shooting us that night..
Kpoping with Daesung; ~Janiekat, Minzy; ~sorairo-days, Bom; myself, and HyunA; *electric-waffle, Photo by ~cafe-lalonde
While we froze a little outside shooting, I think we all had the mindset of "GOTTA LOOK LIKE WE AREN'T COLD AND LOOK HOT"
After shooting, we hung around in the Gaylord for a bit, ran into Chibiflora in her 999 cosplay, and socialized for a bit. Finally heading out, our room had a quick dinner at Baja Fresh, and then hit the hottub at the hotel, before finally turning in for sleep and funny internet videos...
Friday
Friday's Line-up
We woke up early to let ~Janiekat into our room, so she and I could get ready for our Karneval shoot at 9:30am with *kurozone and Kassie \o/
After powdering my wig, and Jane becoming a "cotton candy hooker", the two of us headed down to the Gaylord's lobby to meet up with Kuro and Kassie, while the others finished getting ready. While we were shooting down by the fountain, everyone else in the hotel room slowly made their way down, and I also was able to deliver my Shion stuff to inoiru, and then Kuro had us shoot outside for a while, which was really nice and not TOO COLD (still kind of cold though).. I got to be a literal tree-hugger, and we got still-cammed!
Check out our Karneval Trio at 3:12!
After shooting, Jane and I retreated indoors and reunited with ~sorairo-days *electric-waffle ~batzypan and ninjadude73, and they had acquired a *firewolf826 in her AMAZING Noatok cosplay * A*
The seven of us went out to lunch at Nando's, and then went back to our hotel room to simmer down for a little bit before heading back out for a bit.
Lunch with *firewolf826 ~sorairo-days ~Janiekat *electric-waffle ~batzypan and ninjadude73
Post-feeding time, Sarah, Zach, Kelsey, Courtney, and I proceeded to wander the Gaylord a bit, before I opted to head back to the room to get cleaned up before getting in Aomine, since I had a longer process to go through than Sarah did.
Courtney and I joked in the hotel room when I was getting ready, that I was going through the process of becoming a douchebag and getting my guiiiid on. She and I ended up hanging around the Gaylord for a bit while waiting for Sarah to transform into Kuroko, and then met up with Jane and ~skwinkography for our KnB shoot! SADLY inoiru wasn't able to join us as Kise, but we kept her lovely Kise face in our hearts, while we froze outside during the night shoot LOL.
After shooting with Steph, we united with everyone again, including *firewolf826 now in Colonial!Jack Frost, and ~bluucircles, who I was really excited to finally meet (since I had just been creepily following her on Instagram), and went and got Godiva milkshakes!!! At the Godiva store, we actually ran into ~deity1248 and friends, which was really fun. We ran back to the Gaylord to avoid freezing with our milkshakes, and relaxed in the lobby, talking to friends and gawking at amazing cosplays.
KnB preview shot by ~skwinkography! Aomine Daiki; myself, Tetsuya Kuroko; ~sorairo-days, Satsuki Momoi; ~Janiekat
Sarah and I went and took pictures of Chibiflora's FE Awakening Marth cosplay, while everyone else retreated to the room. After pictures, Sarah and I ended up wandering the Gaylord for a bit longer, running into ~t-fu ~Chibi-LeLe ~Lucifer-Taichou ~Hoshikorosu and ~SakuraiMisha, before finally heading back to the room to crash.
Saturday
Saturday's Line-up!
Was absolute MADNESS. Three of the five of us were body painting, and putting on ten billion layers of clothes and wigs, to ready ourselves for Steampunk Adventure Time. I have to admit, that it was the first time in a long while that I experienced the "stand in a pose for more than 5 minutes, and then have to stop right after we pick our stuff up to move", but it's always a blast to have people so impressed with your cosplays, so i never can complain about it. We ran into a bunch of other Adventure Time people and had fun with them, and finally ran into Mindoggy in her Conner cosplay from Assassin's Creed. While we all drooled over her craftmenship and work on the cosplay and props, Zach told her turkey his lemon ways.
We met up with ~HeadphoneStudios to do our first of two backtoback shoots, and braved the cold outdoors to get some killer shots. While outside in a pair, Sarah and I, got caught back another stillcammer, right outside the giant Homestuck meetup outside.
BTS our Steampunk Adventure Time shoot with ~HeadphoneStudios! Lemongrab; ninjadude73, Flame Princess; ~sorairo-days, Marceline; *electric-waffle, Princess Bubblegum; myself
After shooting with Katsuya, we ran into :devmalinachan: getting ready to shoot her amazing Link cosplay, and then ran back inside for warmth. Following directly after that shoot, we met up with Blanko /Gianna, for our second shoot! Lucky for us, she said it was way too cold to go back outside
. Shooting was really fun, and we ended up getting cammed two more times, including by Ackson, which was literally a dream come true I think for all of us!!Everyone we shot with, whether through photo or video, on Saturday was really so amazing to work with and I definitely can't wait for an opportunity to work with any of them again in the future!
Otakuleague's 2/3 Katsucon video; Check out ~sorairo-days and I at 2:53!
Acksonl's 3/5 Katsucon video; our group starts at 1:00!
TWreck Films' Katsucon video; Steampunk Adventure Time at 0:16!
Once we finished shooting with Gianna, Sarah and co ran downstairs to try and catch *CatalystSirene's Toothianna, while I stayed upstairs and caught up with =wisecraxx looking HOT as Sharrkan. And after a VERY LONG day in Steampunk Adventure Time, we headed back to the room so we who were painted could take a shower, and change into Magi cosplays, while Zach changed into Gravity Falls to go meet up with Jane for some Robbie/Wendy action
Courtney and I debuted Age 14!Sinbad and Age 10!Ja'far (both which I threw together in a couple of hours and spent maybe $10 total on them together), and Sarah debuted Aladdin! I had to learn how to breath and quasi-speak with my mouth covered, which was a slight challenge. I ran into Jafar, so of course pictures had to be taken, regardless of if he was aware of the joke or not (dudes though he looks AWESOME). We finally reunited with ~t-fu ~SakuraiMisha ~Hoshikorosu ~Lucifer-Taichou and ~Chibi-LeLe and of course had some time shenanigans and whatnot; THE USUAL
Shenanigans, what else is new?
And after finally acknowledging that we were freezing in Magi, we ran BACK to the hotel, but didn't stay because Zach and Kelsey were still out and about with Jane, and I needed to get some of the stuff I'd loaned people back before I left in the morning, SOO Sarah and I threw KnB back on, except this time I went with Akashi, who originally got dropped from my plans...
The pro though to being in cosplay still at like 10pm, is that we got to live the ~Katsucon Dream~ and take gazebo pictures, and we also got some cool lighting shots on the stairs. We ended up hanging around the gazebo until about 12:30am, waiting for the person I loaned makeup to, to show up and do the trade off. By the end of the night, everyone was very tired and very grumpy, so we all pretty much went straight to bed when we got back to the room finally.
Akashi and Kuroko's true characters' revealed late at night
SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY
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Sunday's Line-up
THE LAST DAAAAY T AT
Needless to say, everyone was super tired, so it was a slow day for us all. Our fun little Adventure Time group slowly neandered the Gaylord for the last time, stopping to sit and try and stay conscious as often as possible. We met up with Jane in her casual Jane (Disney) cosplay, and hung around there until we feared literally falling asleep, and moved around a little. Later, I met up with inoiru in the lobby to grab my Shion stuff back, and said bye to her. We really hit a resting place when we ran into ~bluucircles in Vanellope von Schwetz, *firewolf826 in her Todd Allison cosplay and =wisecraxx in Petunia. We all hung out in the same area before Sarah took =wisecraxx and *firewolf826 out to shoot them, and the rest of us watched ~bluucircles have her Vanellope shot. The five of us caught up with Jane and her other two casual Disney princesses, and we all went and got lunch at the restaurant in the Gaylord. Post-lunch, Sarah and I went ahead of everyone to say goodbye to Mindoggy, and then we all proceeded to chill up my the gazebo, eventually getting to snap a couple Lady Rainicorn pictures in it before a fairly-rude cosplayer flew in, demanding we get out so she could have pictures in it...(UGH). We met back up with *firewolf826, =wisecraxx and ~bluucircles right outside of the gazebo, and basically remained there until we finally had to head out, saying our goodbyes to everyone.
Back at the hotel, we grabbed our stuff, and got comfy until our taxi (this time an Escalade) picked us up and delivered us back to Sarah's humble apartment complex. It was a pretty hood right ngl though. Our driver was tight as shit yo. We all changed ans got super comfy at Sarah's house, and said goodbye to Zach and Kelsey as they left for their bus back to the city. I unpacked and repacked because I didn't pack right, and we spent the rest of the afternoon on tumblr/watching already posted cam videos from Katsu, and eating Chinese food and bubble tea, before Courtney and I had to leave for the airport :c
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a very dark picture of *electric-waffle and I on the flight back home Sunday 
Funny enough, at our gate, we ran into Brittany, who I actually met at SwampCon back in January, and Courtney had met earlier in the school year, as she's a fellow Flagler goer like Courtney and I are. So that was fun/funny, and we talked about the con some since we were all at out, though we never ran into each other.
One two-hour flight later, and Courtney and I were barreling into my mom's car, and headed to my house (and from there, Courtney to her house) to finally get some quasi-decent sleep in our own beds, and prepare for the next day at school.
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I really loved Katsucon this year (if you couldn't tell from the above; props to those who read the whole thing). I heard a bunch of negative things about stuff that went down between Katsucon attendees and the BBYO people, though nothing bad happened to us or anyone we directly knew, so I don't really have anything to say about it, other than the stuff I've heard from other people has been terrible :/
ANYWAYS!!! I'm going to make a seperate journal for "what's next" instead of making this beast an even bigger monster
Thank you again, Katsucon staff, for another enjoyable year! And I sincerely look forward to next year!
Lauren
Tired 
