The last time I was at G-Anime was 10 years ago, in 2016. Since pandemic restrictions were lifted I've felt I was long overdue for a trip to an Ottawa-area con to visit my friends there, and when Sakizo was announced as a GOH and friends started signing on, it seemed like the obvious choice! That having been said, for me the trip to Ottawa/Gatineau was much more about visiting friends rather than the con itself, so TBH I didn't spend much time at the convention overall.

On Friday I didn't end up going to G-Anime at all; Heavenly Visuals had organized a special on-location shoot at a deconsecrated cathedral (now event venue) which I'm so happy I was able to join! I wore my War cosplay in the interest of y'know, the Apocalypse and all and got a couple of stunning photos out of it from Heavenly and Elemental. Here I'll share the big group shots, as well as a few of my fave photos from my own camera.

On Saturday and Sunday we went to the convention! I didn't go to any panels or programming other than the masquerade (and masq awards), but spent the rest of the time I was there browsing the exhibitors hall and visiting with friends. I wore my Sailor Venus Witch on Saturday (along with Sha, Popfrocks, and Battlefrocks) and was planning to wear Amity on Sunday but ended up ditching the parts of the costume that made it a costume (wig, contacts, ears...) so that was a bit of a fail but I wasn't really feeling the cosplay vibes. The bottom line though is that I had a good time and hope to visit the Ottawa crew again next year! 

I'm always looking for new events to check out, even though scheduling and traveling challenges mean I tend to keep going to the same ones annually. However, this year everything worked out to be able to visit the (relatively) new Toronto Game Expo! I had a lot of friends going either as guests, panelists, or vendors and I was available to travel that weekend, so I had to see what it was all about!

While a large majority of the con was vendor and artist tables, that was perfectly fine for me, since November is a great time to shop for Christmas Gifts. I enjoyed looking at all the indie/local games in display, even though many didn't suit my taste, I still played demos of ones that were appealing. I attended a few presentations/panels (notably by Kamera Ninja, Holly Wolf, Zee the Raccoon, and Dart) though while the main stage worked well, the other panel/workshop area was pretty terrible for that kind of thing (basically tables in the noisy main exhibitors hall). 

Cosplay-wise, I wore my Mario Kart Rosalina on Saturday and Helly R on Sunday. As Rosalina I joined a small-but-mighty Nintendo/Smash Bros meet-up as well as taking lots of pics around the con. I didn't take nearly as many photos on Sunday (maybe I was feeling self-conscious about how big my wig had puffed up since Fan Expo) but still grabbed some photos from Paul Wishart at the official (and much cooler than my costume) photo booth. 

Overall I had a great time; loved getting to hang with the people mentioned above plus Dan the Video Ninja, Nt3rp and Lulu a la Mode, Captain Pira, A Sleepy Meow, and Bear Sailor Moon (who kicked my heeled butt at DDR). Will definitely consider returning next year if I have the time off again!

Fan Expo Canada hasn't been one of my favourite cons in a very long time (a glance through some previous Fan Ex posts will reveal heavily mixed reviews), but I had been keeping an eye open for an opportunity to see The Cybertronic Spree live again, so when their annual Fan Expo weekend show came up and the timing worked out perfectly to go to Toronto with my boyfriend, I decided I should also spend a day at the con. But first, let's start with the concert.

If you couldn't tell from the poster, the show was leaning hard into Scott Pilgrim influences (why not, since it was at Lee's Palace, right?) and they were specifically requesting Scott Pilgrim cosplay from attendees. So I re-thrifted my Kim Pine cosplay (since nothing of the original was still around) and was psyched for the show! Clay, Dan, Tyler and I went out for dinner before the show on Harbord st,  and then took a nostalgic little walk through my old neighbourhood before hitting Lee's Palace. I sadly didn't get any "cosplay photos" at the venue - I kinda thought there would be a whole collection of SP cosplayers to take pics with, but I actually only saw a couple of tansformers cosplayers, so that was also a little disappointing. Otherwise the show was lots of fun; Wordburglar was great, I've never seen Dragon Sounds before but they were fun, and of course Cybertronic Spree killed it.

We went to Pizza Pizza after the show and then I was sad and nostalgic again since I haven't spent time at that intersection since Honest Ed's was demolished. What a loss.

Saturday I headed over to Fan Expo, geared up in my Helly R (Severance) cosplay - considering the majority of the convention centre is underground I thought it was appropriate LOL. I'll start with the good stuff: I got to watch both the Avatar VA panel and the cosplay contest, and both were very fun. Always love getting to cheer on my friends competing. It was also lovely to run into the friends who I ran into and got to have a chat with!
Just about everything else was disappointing; nobody recognized (or commented on) my cosplay, I didn't find any of the books I was hunting for from the dealers, didn't have time to browse the whole AA, I ran into relatively few friends, and the ones I did see were working/volunteering (or in the Cosplay lounge where photos aren't allowed) so they couldn't wander with me. And being on my own meant that I had little to no interest in waiting in line for any of the big corporate activation booths, since doing that solo is not how I wanted to spend my day. I almost forgot that social anxiety hit hard enough that I skipped the chance to meet a couple of guests that I follow. It was as cramped and crowded as I remember and I can say with confidence that I don't need to go back again next year. Might be difference if I was still living in Toronto, but now that it's an expensive trip? Ugh, no thanks.

​Anyways, here's a few photos (mostly from the contest)!

I've been to Pretty Heroes a couple of times in the past, but it's never been a must-do con because I'm just not that big of a Sailor Moon fan (and while PH is more than just SM, it's still the driving fandom behind the con). But this year I was feeling the itch to go to more conventions, I had the time available, and for the first time ever I had a Sailor Moon-based costume. Since several members of our SM witches group were already going to be there, it was decided that we'd do the witches again (at least most of the non-Ottawa members of the group) with an additional Lulu joining and it gave me a reason to finish my costume the way I wanted to!
My other costume for the weekend was Amity from the Owl House - she's definitely a "magical girl" and when I realized that her Palisman staff could double as an Artemis staff for Venus, how could I deny the synergy?

Mindless Eye's Photography grabbed me for some photos both days, and nt3rp took a bunch of shots of our group, so I'm featuring some highlights from those sets in my con photos here

I also took a LOT of (admittedly not great) photos of the costume contest - they're here just in case anybody wants to see them.

Let's have a quick run-down of YetiCon!
I was ambitious on Friday and actually wore two costumes - Helly R from Severance (pretty much just for badge pick-up, dinner, and a couple of silly photos) and then a repeat of last year's Vaporeon for the glow parade (now with bubbles)! Helly was a thrown-together closet cosplay so I was pleasantly surprised by the positive response she got, especially for only being out for a little while - I'll be bringing her to more cons this year!
The Glow Parade was fun as usual, but man, it's so huge now - surprisingly hard just to keep our little Eeveeloutions group together.

Saturday consisted of two highlights: a "Witchy Vibes Sailor Moon" photoshoot, and big pot luck dinner in our suite. The Sailor Moon group was stunning - it was in the planning stages for about a year, and an unbelievable 16 people showed up in costume (unbelievable because its so rare that everyone who expresses interest actually pulls off a costume and makes it to the event). It was a lot of fun to be part of such a big group and we shot everyone with Kameraninja, who is always amazing. Unfortunately, between getting dressed and spending a couple hours doing private photos, and then having to get ready for dinner, we didn't actually get to walk the con as a group and show off the costumes, so that was a bit of a downer. 
Next time we will schedule time for the con itself (and yes there will be a next time, if for no other reason than my costume was incomplete and I need to wear it the way I had envisioned LOL)

Sunday was supposed to be my War cosplay, but time is always tight between check-out and the long drive home, and in the end I decided to skip cosplay and Clay and I spent some of our remaining time at Blue Mountain riding the coaster and zip-lining! We still had just enough time leftover before departing to make a last visit to the exhibitors hall and ran into (spooky) friends on the way. Another year of Yeti in the books!

Anime North tends to be almost routine after 20 years (go to friends' panels on Friday, vendors chaos on Saturday until Greenroom muster-time then masquerade, Sunday return to vendors for last chance at shopping), but there was a twist this year as I had arrived at Pearson after a flight from France on Thursday, and just stayed in Toronto for the con starting the next day. So I may have been a little more tired than usual, a little less elaborately-costumed, and a lot more overwhelmed. But I made it work! YOLO, right?

Friday started a LOT earlier than usual for me, since I wasn't dealing with a 3-4 hour drive into the city. So I ended up running into a whole slew of friends who were also around and got right to work surprise-volunteering for Doll North and giving them a hand with their load-in. Eventually I got into the hotel room, got kitted out in Vaporeon, and (as usual) went to a panel and then just hung out with my pals.

Saturday's cosplay was Izutsumi from Dungeon Meshi - sorta. If you know what the AN masquerade runners tend to do, we cosplay whatever we cosplay in the morning on Saturday and then change into Spirited Away Bathhouse uniforms for the Greenroom. Since I didn't manage to get Izutsumi finished for the con, I figured I'd just put her in different traditional Japanese clothing and wear the pink outfit all day. It was fun, and threw a couple of Dungeon Meshi fans for a loop (especially since Kurumasha did the same thing and wore her Marcille stuff with bathhouse all day). 

Sunday ended up being a no-cosplay day for me (just an old-school tee from Rancid Yogurt); did some shopping and then headed back home relatively early so I could try to unpack and prepare to get back to work on Monday after my vacation. So I've only got a couple of photos, mostly (entirely?) taken by Dan the Video Ninja

Sarnia Pop Culture Show! It happened! I decided to wear my "Butterfly Fae" outfit from Ragz's wedding to the show since I've wired up the wings since then. In hindsight, probably not the best idea since they made navigation through the aisles a pain, but at least I felt pretty :) I only took a handful of photos this year, but also took advantage of the location to get some cosplay photos by the river while we were out in costume.

I've been working on something new, but not a full costume. A group of my cosplay friends thought it would be fun to all purchase the Mobbunny cozy/sexy Eeveeloutions costumes, add light-up skirts/accessories, and wear them for the Glow Parade at Yeticon this year. I ended up choosing Vaporeon, so I wanted my skirt to have a watery vibe. I ended up designing a layered skirt which I hoped would resemble a waterfall, and make it out of sheer fabrics with lights sewn into the bottom layer to light the whole thing up. After a trip to Fabricland, I had 5 fabrics with a variety of textures: tulle with a dark blue to navy gradient, plain blue chiffon, bright blue tulle with flocked white dots, baby blue gauze with little tufts, and white tulle with little iridescent hearts on it (hearts were the closest I could get to "bubble" shapes with that one).
Thinking back to my Rosalina Gown, I cut an offset circle skirt from each fabric, at 5 different sizes - the largest from the darkest fabric and so forth. That way I would have little to no skirt in the front, and all the party in the back. At this point I started hand-sewing strings of lights to the bottom layer of tulle (I had anticipated sewing by machine but the light diodes turned out to be just a little too big for that plan). It wasn't fun but at least I got my skirt to light up.
I split the narrow section of each layer so that the waistband could be an easy-to-wear front closure and hemmed each layer with fishing line to get that nice ruffled edge. That part was a challenge with these specific fabric choices so some layers look better than others, but overall I think it worked OK. Then it was just a matter of sewing all the layers to my elastic waistband (for comfort) and VOILA! Waterfall-butt!

As for YetiCon itself, the weekend started out with our traditional visit to Chuck Burger for dinner, where we ran into so may friends! After eating, a group of us put on our first costumes of the weekend: easy/casual/mostly-closet-cosplay Team Rocket grunts! Popfrocks provided us with beautiful glitter "R" logos to stick to our clothes and off we went to try to find some Pokemon. It was a really fun time and I hope we get to do it again in the future!

There was a second cosplay for Friday night though - our Eeveeloutions group for the Glow Parade! I didn't get many photos (too busy glowing LOL) but we had a good time, and ended up with allllmost every eevee! Jolteon was missing, but then Jolteon was out of stock for the whole run-up to the con so that wasn't even an "us" problem. The parade itself was as the previous year - good silly glowing fun.

Saturday started out rough despite a nice brunch at Sunset Grill (I stayed up way too late with friends after the Glow Parade) and it was a little chilly, so I decided to put on my NasKart Rosalina outfit (as opposed my alternate cosplay, Tennis Rosalina). I ended up running into friends in a big Mario Tennis group (and maybe slightly wished I'd worn the other costume) but it was still just nice to see them and grab some photos. I did some shopping in the exhibitors hall, witnessed the "wedding" meet-up, and then squeezed in some lunch. For unknown reasons I started feeling a little unwell, so I kinda called it a day mid-afternoon and spent the rest of the day in the hotel just hanging with friends and having dinner.  

Sunday was our designated chill/activity day, which kinda worked out. Clay and I put on our Team Rocket outfits again, hoping to have the group together again, but most of my friends were in better costumes looking to win cosplay awards LOL. We also messed up the timing of our activity passes so we only had time for one coaster ride and one trip on the gondola. On the up-side, we stayed at the hotel Sunday night this year, so we had the whole evening for hot-tubbing, date-night dinner, and celebrating friends' prizes while learning contact juggling. It's so nice to get to enjoy Sunday at Yeti without thinking about timing the long drive back home.

I definitely don't want to call Anime North "routine", but I've been going since 2004 and being on staff yearly now, there is a definite pattern to my weekends. I'll try not to say "as usual" too often here LOL.

For Friday of Anime North this year I decided to bring out Megara again! She needs to be seen more while she still fits! It was a pretty typical AN Friday: I met up with my friends and roomies, picked up badges, and sat in on a couple of cosplay competition-related panels by Kurumasha and Hatless_Sheep. I managed to snag Kameraninja for some fantastic parking lot photos of Meg before wrapping up the night with Ninja hangouts.

​Sunday was the Canadian debut of Kart Rosalina! Nice and comfy for check-out, shopping, and watching the Masquerade awards ceremony before hitting the the road for home. I picked up some super cute luma earrings from Krafty Ninja's Hobby Shack which I had to put on IMMEDIATELY lol. I was also super pleased to grab a photo with Witchy Rosalina and Witchy Peach (CottageCosplay and Witch.cos respectively) at the masq awards - I loved their costumes!

OK, so neither of these events is really "small" but they're not cons with tens of thousands of attendees either so they're pairing up today.

​SPCS (Sarnia Pop Culture Show) was in April, and coincided with Cherry Blossom season! So we went to the con, did some shopping, said hi to friends, had a catch-up with RayGreyCosplay before heading out to the park for photos! I wore my Mario Kart Rosalina (because it's new and shiny so of course), and Karen (Kiki) and I had fun posing with the trees. Park photos from WCES, and convention backdrop photos from D.Groombridge photography

Meagan's Hug is an annual fundraiser for pediatric brain tumors, and every year they invite cosplayers to entertain the kids and families who are participating. I went in 2022 but had to skip it last year, so I was happy to get to be there again! I brought out good old Holtzmann and once again had a great time with the group! Small group photo is from Guelph Spiderman, and the full photo in front of Sick Kids Hospital is from The Last Son Cosplay.
If I am invited back next year, maybe I'll actually wear shoes that won't destroy my feet after a 5km walk, because I need to break this streak! lol