MegaCon 2013, Saturday Favs!

Day two of MegaCon was the most overwhelming day of the con, since the crowds were, quite simply, NUTS. I'd hoped to arrive early enough to see Wil Wheaton's panel, but traffic was at a standstill miles out from the convention center, so by the time we made the long trek in from the parking lot and had my alter ego fully assembled, the panel had already begun. (Fooey.)
 
Happily, the rest of the day more than made up for it:

 

We have John to thank for all of today's photos, with me occasionally pointing him towards a costume that looked interesting through the colorful blur of my goggles. Heh. Oh, and thanks to a new addition to my costume - a microphone and speaker box - I could actually be heard most of the day. That was a HUGE benefit, since we met and chatted with so many of you readers!

In fact, do you guys remember last June when I mentioned the story of an autistic boy named Ben who loved Snow White's Scary Adventures at Disney? (If you don't remember, go see this.) Well, BEN WAS THERE! Here we are together with his dad, Ron:

In fact, this is a good time to mention that Ron has recently finished a beautiful book about Ben called 3500: An Autistic Boy's Ten-Year Romance with Snow White. I haven't read it all yet, but Cory over at BoingBoing gave the book a glowing review, so you should definitely check it out!

Here's my friend Christie again, together with her sister Robyn and their friend Dana as - are you ready for this? - the My Little Ponies of the Apocalypse:

  From the left, that's Death, War, and Famine.

After we chatted for a bit John suggested I get a photo with them, and even through my goggles I could tell most everyone around started to laugh once I got in position. I think you can see why:

 SHORT VADORE IS SHORT.

Props to Death for not cracking a smile while even War and Famine were succumbing to the giggles. Ha! (Oh, and Robyn & Christie have just started a new FB page with all of their cosplay pics, if you want to see more of their work!)

 K, time for some eye candy:

 Absolutely lovely.

 And here's the most stunning GLaDOS cosplay I've seen:

 

I might even have a little girl-crush. WHAT.

I just finished watching all of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and OMIGOSH THAT SHOW IS AWESOME. So, of course, I had a whole new appreciation for the Avatar cosplay groups:

Female Zuko FTW! (Per the comments, the gal in burgundy is Katara in her Painted Lady disguise. A-ha! Thx!) Oh, and we saw another group on Sunday that had Ang's glider - that'll be in my next post.



I'm not generally a fan of zombies, but I guess John is right: this Leeloo version is pretty rad:

 And also super creepy. Ick.

One of the most represented fandoms in costume was Homestuck, a web comic which I know very little about save there are "trolls" with gray skin and candy-corn-colored horns. At some points during the con it felt like one out of every ten teens was wearing horns and gray face paint - there were tons of them, often traveling in packs of up to a dozen at a time. Not knowing the characters it was hard to say which costumes were best, but these two looked pretty fantastic:

So now I'm thinking I have to go check out Homestuck. :)

Oh, and speaking of obscure fandoms: behold, Steam Powered Giraffe cosplay!

  Rabbit! Love it.

Veering back into more mainstream geekery, you'll never guess who this gal (yes, GAL) reminds me of:

Jareth! (Er, I mean, THE BABE!) She spotted my cane's new crystal ball topper, and called me over to chat for a bit. Isn't she fabulous? 

Bumblebee here upgraded his/her outfit on Sunday to include a green top hat and a "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" smock for St. Patrick's day. It was pretty hilarious:

 

Here's me again with a couple of dapper steampunk gents:

 
The chap on the right had an amazing backpack filled with spinning gears, lights, potions, and contraptions.

While we were stuck in traffic Saturday morning I saw a photo on Twitter of a little girl Hellboy (Hellgirl?), and I was thrilled to spot her in person just a few hours later. Funnily enough, she seemed equally thrilled to see me, so there was a whole lot of simultaneous fangirling and "OMG YOU LOOK SO COOL" going on just before this pic:

 My new hero. 

(I also just realized this is the only photo I have from the con where I'm not the shortest person in it. HA.)

I can't tell you how much I love seeing kids in homemade costumes, you guys. I saw a lot more store-bought costumes on kids, which is wonderful for getting them into the spirit of things and letting them join in the fun, but there's something so much MORE wonderful about the homemade versions. Talk about engendering a love of making and creativity at an early age!

Ok, mini soap box moment over.

And then, this happened:

 

Because WHY NOT.

John chased down this dapper group with a stellar steampunk stroller, so it wasn't until I was sorting photos today that I saw the little girl's expression:

Bwahaha! And, awwww. Someone is NOT happy. 

(Also, see the "Hill Valley" on the side? Excellent Back to The Future reference!)

This Codex used an extra large Christmas ornament for her staff:

Brilliant!

And I'll give you three guesses which of these Monster High girls is my fav:

C'mon. SHE HAS A CAKE FOR A PROP.

In all, I spent over seven hours in costume and on my feet Saturday, with no food breaks or chances to sit down save one five-minute rest. And it. was. awesome.

Granted, navigating the crowds was a nightmare, I'm sure I bumped into a million people thanks to my lack of peripheral vision, and my face was swollen and bruised from my mask by the end of the day, but the interactions John and I had with fans and random fellow con-goers alike were just fantastic. I met readers who were at their first con ever, readers who were overcoming their anxiety just to be there, readers who were wearing the goggles they'd made using my tutorial (!!), and readers who spanned all ages and backgrounds and interests, from parents with teenagers in tow to young pre-teens who dragged their extremely supportive parents all over the con hunting us down.

As usual, you guys made us feel like rock stars, so thank you.

Next up, stay tuned for my third and final installment from MegaCon!

PS - Like my last post, these are just a few of my favorite photos from Saturday, so head over to my Flickr account to see the rest!

PPS - Wil Wheaton has been blogging his thoughts and photos of MegaCon over at his blog, and today's post includes a story of a fan interaction that will leave you in tears - but in a good way. Grab a tissue and go read it!