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)!

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

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.

War:
In January I finally finished my War cosplay (started 2019). I had put time into the accessories in late 2023, as well as replacing the pants, but the wig/hairpiece was the biggest (i.e. most intimidating) and final piece. I made the faux-hawk and braid combo from scratch using the wefts from a ponytail clip (dyed to match my hair) and red wefts, both from Cactus Mafia. All the wefts were hand-sewn to a felt strip - probably not the best choice for my base, but it was convenient and a discrete colour. Then came lots of teasing for texture and volume, curling the top, pinning the top into place, and braiding the back. It's not exactly what I had envisioned (but what ever is?), and it definitely reads as War. In any case, it's better than having to use my own hair again next time I put on the costume.​

I have so many (far too many) things in-progress these days. I'm knitting on TV nights with my mother, which means I'm making very slow progress on my Impervious shawl. I love the pattern but it's somewhat tedious to knit, so maybe I'll make enough progress to show off in a future post. For now, this is the point I was at around the start of the year

Website updates are coming - I know I still have a few "new" cosplay galleries which are missing, but it's been really hard to set aside time for that kind of work. Sadly, costumes with actual deadlines have to come first with my scant time for hobbies.

Unrelated to cosplay or crafting, I'm still staying active with running and dancing at the gym, and still playing D&D (in the second year of our current campaign!)  I managed to squeeze in two visits to Kitchener to see friends, and celebrated my birthday at home with new and old friends. I finally defeated Ganondorf in Tears of the Kingdom so I can start a new game guilt-free (though I'm still working on finishing up all the side-quests).

That's enough for now - look forward to the next update after Costume-Con 42!

Anime North was back to business as usual this year, if not even bigger than before the pandemic. And as usual, I took very few photos... it seems like the bigger the event and the more people are there, the less I want to take out my camera. I need to work on that LOL.
Friday:
With the long drive in to Toronto from my hometown I arrived later than usual, but did manage to (barely) make it to the "Hot Moms" cosplay meet-up wearing Grace from The Umbrella Academy. Afterwards I ended up spending most of the evening in the Greenroom for the fashion show with Kurumasha and Sarcasm Hime (along with running into a handful of other friends between that and the drag show). After dinner, we wrapped up the night having a dessert party with the ninja crew.

Saturday:
Saturday was very by-the-books as AN goes: get in cosplay in the morning (season 1 Amity Blight), browse the artist alley/dealers room, visit friends where I find them, then change into the bathhouse uniform to work the masquerade. This year I ended up running for the Master division, which was a nice - it's cool to see friends competing again! Overall I think the masq ran as smoothly as usual, but there was a notable difference - there is always a sense of camaraderie, fellowship, and friendship in the greenroom, but this year the contestants had cranked the positivity and support up to 11 and the vibe was just amazing. So very glad I get to play a small part of the event every year.

Sunday:
I decided to double-up on Amity this weekend, so Sunday was my (relatively) new season 3.1 version. I hadn't planned to go back into the vendors hall but somehow ended up there anyways, mostly chatting with friends. Dan the Video Ninja and I found ourselves watching the idol showcase - I've never gone before and I'll admit it was a much more polished show than I was expecting. The showcase was followed by the Masquerade Awards presentation, and then I wrapped up the con by attending Zee and Stillvisions' Caramelldansen throwback panel. Good weekend, good con, good friends.

And now here's my photos from the weekend:

April 16 2023 marked the return of the Sarnia Pop Culture Show a.k.a SPCS​, which I had previously attended in 2019. Now that I have moved back to my hometown, I've been happy to see the local shows return since I've really been missing meeting new nerd people. There wasn't much programming to comment on (aside from a MtG pre-release tournament), but it's designed as a vendor-type show, and that's certainly better than nothing. There was a really good turn-out, and I got hall-photos of as many of the cosplayers as I reasonably could... so here's the gallery! Enjoy!

The end of 2017 is approaching and there's just a couple of cons that I haven't blogged about yet: GTA Comic Con in November, and Toronto Fan Days last week. So let's get them all tied up with a pretty bow!

GTA was an interesting experience - Mr Stark and I were invited as cosplay guests, but instead of doing panels like we usually would, we were asked to do something interesting/creative/interactive with our table space. Since I don't normally have a table to begin with, and Stark gets one occasionally, we pretty much had a blank slate to work with and it took us a little while to finally decide on a theme. So what did we go with? Pokémon. Specifically the Alola region from the most recent Sun and Moon games. We already had our Professor costumes, so the concept was to wear them, and battle/trade pokémon with attendees, as well as having some colouring pages available. We even did a (probably) one-time-only set of pokémon theme cosplay prints. I wish I could say that our table was bustling with Pokemon fans all day... but it wasn't. Sadly the colouring pages got missed while packing for the con and we needed a flashier sign for the table, but we did meet one very enthusiastic young pokémon fan who we were very happy to chat with about the franchise. I hope that we have the opportunity to use what we learned to improve and attempt a "Taste of Alola" table again at another event in the future. 

Table business aside, it was nice to see a handful or friends there and have prime seats for the costume contest (since we were right next to the stage) and our table-neighbours Joshua of the North and ReyGrey Cosplay were both awesome and fun to be sitting with. We even all traded photos at the end of the day. And speaking of photos... here are mine from the event!

And now the last con of the year (unless New Year's Eve counts... does it count?).... the event that used to be called D-TAC and is now Toronto Fan Days Holiday Show. Or DTAC for short. I didn't go to do any shopping, but just as one last time* to see a lot of my local cosplay friends, all in one place. I was hoping to get a little Riverdale cosplay group together but in the end half the people couldn't make it but I chose to wear Betty anyways since it was easy and available.* I wasn't as festive as the last couple of years, just adding some antlers, but that was partially because Betty is such a simple costume that I didn't want to cover up any details, and also because I was short on prep time.* Anyways, the mission of seeing friends and cute holiday costumes was successful and I took lots of photos: see below!

And to wrap-up, Betty ended up in this cute Fan Days cosplay montage ^_^

​*what's with all these notations? Something I haven't really posted about yet - at the end of December I'm moving from Toronto to Kitchener! So a lot of my costumes and cosplay supplies are packed or just inaccessible right now, and I won't be able to make it out to as many Toronto events next year. Related.... I'm selling a handful of my costumes and other assorted supplies, check here for all the details.

Despite spending most of my time at the Cosplay Recovery Lounge at Fan Expo this year, the weekend was somehow a whirlwind blur of old friends and new faces. I wish I had been able to go to some panels or celebrity Q&A's, but as usual, I was just too busy and/or distracted by the rest of the con.

As the last big con of the year, I had to bring out my favourite costumes of the year. Friday was Cersei, Saturday was Holtzmann, and Sunday was Alice for the Ain't No Pretty Princess group (I couldn't make it on Thursday because of my work schedule). Friday was a very early morning for me but somehow I managed to arrive at the MTCC in full costume in time for my opening shift at the Cosplay Recovery Lounge. I didn't take many photos during my shift (since the room is a "no photography" zone) but I did have a chance to talk with some awesome cosplayers who visited the room and had fun with Alex and Kat - my coworkers for the early shift ^_^  Once the afternoon shift arrived for the lounge I ran off for lunch and then sadly missed getting to hang out with The Marvelous Girls of KW. Boo: timing. However, I ran into Snowhawk and King of the Freaks instead and spent the rest of the con mostly checking out the North building with them, which was a nice chill way to wrap up Friday.

I started off Saturday with a photoshoot with Elemental, who is always a blast to work with. As always, I'm looking forward to seeing the photos from the set! Once we parted ways I decided to visit the Ontario Ghostbusters table (because of course) in the time before my shift at the lounge. It was nice chatting with them (and hopping in on some photo requests) and of course I took advantage of the opportunity to try out their equipment! After that I was off to work again, this time with Alex, Megan, and Kiga. Despite being busy, fortunately we had things covered and it was a chill afternoon/evening of helping people and making more new connections in the community, which are two of my favourite cosplay things. I didn't hit up any of the after-parties, but I did go out for dinner with Ragz and Jonathan afterwards which was certainly better XD

Sunday was my day of relative freedom to actually see the South building. We started the day off with an "Ain't No Pretty Princess" shoot with the fantastic Paul Hillier - I'm super psyched to see the shots he got! We had the largest gathering of the band yet - Merida, Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, Kida, Ariel, Belle, and me in Alice! I had to change up the details of my costume a bit this time - my feet were rejecting the black boots I usually wear, so I swapped them out for my new red chucks...and of course my art-brain screamed that I couldn't just wear red shoes with a blue and white outfit so I added the red rose, lipstick, and Easter-egg-esque Queen of Hearts stuffed in my top. I think it works, and the forced creativity gave me some ideas for next time I wear her.

Then I finally got to see the South hall! I needed to visit my friends at their tables (unfortunately I only found Ice Phoenix Art and Chibik3r0, but hey, at least I found them!), and I wanted to check out the Vikings booth (last year I spent a lot of time in front of it but now I've actually watched a few seasons of the show so I HAVE CONTEXT), but the thing I was most psyched for was seeing the Thor Ragnarok costumes on display. I'm not planning to make any of them, but I just love seeing costumes in real life, and I took TONS OF PHOTOS. I think some friends might appreciate the reference material... >_>

Here are my selfies and other photos from the weekend for your entertainment:

Let's finish up with a few of my fave photos that other people took ^_^