For some reason this year literally everything that could be happening on Memorial Day Weekend is happening on Memorial Day Weekend. One would think without the Disney 24 Hour Day, Orlando might get some peace and quiet but one would be wrong. This year we have Pandora, Volcano Bay, MegaCon, Pirates of the Caribbean 5, and SeaWorld’s new bubble show, just to name a few. Now you might be thinking, “One of those is a movie, that’s not really an important thing happening this weekend.” My friends and I dressed in full pirate garb for Gasparilla, a pirate festival in Tampa, in sixty degree weather, a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie is a very big deal.
To be fair, I really only care about one of these things: MegaCon. MegaCon is the Southeast’s largest nerd convention and brings in thousands of people each year. I’ve been attending every year since 2014. I will admit, I preferred when it was a three day convention that was not held on a holiday weekend, because as someone who works in the hospitality industry it was hard enough to get a three day weekend when it didn’t involve Memorial Day, but clearly the holiday weekend strategy is working for them, since they broke 100,000 guests last year. I originally planned on doing the four day pass for $99 since it was a good deal, but the closer it got to the convention the less time I realized I would have. With only Thursday/Friday off, and my friends wanting to do Pirates Thursday night, I settled on just spending Friday at the con.
Also in my original plans, I was just going to wear my Korra cosplay that I’ve had forever. My friend Polly made it in 2012 for a parody we were working on at the time and since then it’s been to MegaCon twice, Magic Kingdom three times and Hollywood Studios once. I also have a Jedi Korra that’s been to Star Wars Weekends twice and Tampa Bay Comic Con, and Gryffindor Korra for Harry Potter Celebration. If I could have gotten away with making my pirate costume Korra, believe me I would have, but at the time I was on a tight budget and then I came up with the whole mermaid backstory anyway. There is one Korra crossover I’ve been dying to do for years, but never had the resources to do the way I wanted: Kingdom Hearts Korra. Basically what Korra would look like if she appeared in the Kingdom Hearts series, complete with keyblade. My friend Melanie and I were talking about new cosplays I could do, and I tossed out the Kingdom Hearts idea. I did my best to describe to her what I had in mind, since I don’t draw, and it wasn’t like I could do it very well myself. Next thing I knew, she had drawn up concept art for me and it looked amazing. We went fabric shopping and she got started on it the next week. Then our work schedules decided to be polar opposites right up until the con and she had to finish it without me, so we decided I’d pick it up literally on my way to MegaCon.
Robert, Victoria, Jay and I had tickets for the 7 pm showing of Pirates on Thursday night at Disney Springs. Jay and I spent the day at their place working on a variety of costume pieces. I told the boys almost three weeks out I needed a keyblade built, and they of course left it to the last minute and I “only gave them five hours to build it!” Not true at all, I gave them twenty days’ notice. Not my fault they didn’t manage to get together sooner. Okay, it’s probably partially my fault. While they worked on the keyblade, intermittently with working on Jay’s Sith cosplay, I hung out with Victoria and made new hair pieces. I’ve had three different sets of them over the years for different costumes, but I have absolutely no idea where the original ones are, so I just made new ones. I tried something different this time and I’m not sure I like the effect. I usually use cut PVC pipe for the small ones and a coupling for the big one. This time I used couplings for all three of them, and fur for the trim instead of cord. The effect was much larger this time around and while it worked for Kingdom Hearts, I’m going to have to make another set before I break out my standard Korra cosplay again.
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Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for us!
[/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”true”]Around five I told the boys the keyblade was as good as it was going to get, and that it was time to get ready. Victoria had already done my hair and make-up out for the full mermaid effect, and I was borrowing an actual steel-boned corset from her instead of my usual one. Ooof. For once I was really grateful AMC Disney Springs had gone to reserved seating, as it worked out very well in our favor.[/lgc_column]
Except I accidentally put us on the front row of the balcony, which I love but I’m not sure everyone else liked it. I was really sad Disney didn’t do more for the premier. When Rogue One came out they had droids and characters out at Disney Springs, but we were the only pirates there. At least we looked fantastic.
It was almost eleven by the time we left the Hangar Bar, and I was supposed to be at Melanie’s by 8:30 the next morning. I knew that wasn’t happening, but I managed it by 9:00. I did my make-up in the car, which would have worked great if not for the construction that made eye-liner very difficult. Jay was planning on wearing his Darth Valice cosplay (Valice is an original character he created many moons ago), except we discovered one critical flaw in our planning: most of the Sith had been left at Robert and Victoria’s where they had been working on it while the paint on the keyblade was drying. Whoops. I don’t know how. I thought we got everything. So Jay donned his pirate costume for the second day in a row.
Melanie was in the process of doing her room-mate Liah’s body paint for Ursula, but she was still nice enough to stop to help me with my hair. It takes me about forty-five minutes to do Korra’s three pony tails. It took her about twelve. I love having super talented friends.
With a quick stop at Chick-fil-a for breakfast and a Walgreens for bobby pins (because I forgot them), we were on our way at last.There were shuttles running from the parking garages, but we chose to walk. It was just faster and easier and I didn’t really feel like taking my keyblade on a bus. Getting through doors was hard enough.
We ran into my friend Paul on the walk in. He’s a member of the Improvengers, which I had heard of previously but had no idea he was in until he posted about their show on Facebook. I wanted to stop by but I completely lost track of time and missed it. Then we had to go through prop check. I was really worried because I had read online it would be a sticker and I thought it would take paint off, but it would up being plastic string they could tie around the handle. Jay was mad I wouldn’t let him bring his guns since he painted over the orange tips, but they weren’t checking that closely. I think it worked out though since it meant we could put his phone in the holster instead. I love all the pouches on the pirate costume. Korra has no pockets and nowhere to put anything!
Where I have been to MegaCon for four years now, Jay had never been. He went with me to Tampa Bay two years ago, and he’s been to plenty of other cons around the country, but this was his first MegaCon. I think he had no idea what he was getting into.
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]Picking up our tickets took no time at all and we headed onto the floor. We were in the middle of the vendor booths, which I like to a point but for the most part you can find all that stuff online pretty easily at major retailers. We had a sword we were looking for that Robert wanted, so we swung by the first sword booth we found with no luck. We had been there for all of five minutes before we got stopped for our first photo. [/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”true”]
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It is something we’ve gotten very used to over the years, and I try really hard not to say no when people ask for photos but sometimes it’s so hard when you’re in a hurry.
Artist Alley is my favorite part of MegaCon so that’s where we headed first. Melanie and Liah were letting me join them for their photo op with James Marsters and Nicholas Brendan from Buffy (Spike and Xander), but that wasn’t until 12:45 and we still had plenty of time first.
I have been strategically hoarding all my cash for the last several months specifically for MegaCon and spending in artist alley. A lot of the vendors can take credit cards but it’s easier for everyone if you can just pay cash. It also keeps me from overspending because once I’m out, I’m out.
We popped out of the vendor section about a third of the way into Artist Alley. I insisted on going to the far end and working our way down each row. My plan was to look first and then decide what I thought was worth coming back to buy. I’m really bad at impulse buying at cons, and I always feel bad when I look at an artist’s work and then don’t want to buy it. I worry about hurting people’s feelings because you know they poured their heart and soul into whatever they made. So I try to take business cards for everything I really like, and plan to comeback for the good stuff. If I still want it an hour later, it seems more worth it.
In theory.
This quickly got thrown out the window. The aisles were wider this year, which was wonderful, but it made it harder to look at both sides at once. So there were things I missed obviously. Jay stopped me to point out a Moana print and then I froze as I recognized the art. It was Moana as a Waterbender! There’s an artist that I have followed for years that does art of Disney character crossovers as benders, and other crossover art. Moana was the last piece of art so I had to backtrack a few steps to see the rest of the display. It was all the art I’ve been following for years!
“Are you Robby Cook?”
“Yes I am!”
I had to hold in a squeak. I am bad at talking to celebrities and artists. I am so bad at it. I apologized and said, “I’m just trying really hard not to fangirl right now.” Then I told him I’d been following him for years and I approached him about a commission once and he was super awesome and nice, but I couldn’t afford it and I felt bad. I told him he probably didn’t remember me and that was okay, and I didn’t even mention what the commission was in case he did. I’m worried how my last reply came off. He had two prints for $20 so I picked up his Kida/Korra crossover and his Guardians of the Galaxy/Disney crossover, which features Flynn Rider as Star Lord and Stitch as Rocket Raccoon.
We moved on. A spray painted painting of Jack and Sally caught Jay’s eye, and I promised we could come back if he wanted. There were a few booths I was specifically looking for and I just like to browse, you never know what you’re going to find. There was so much amazing stuff, but I’m really REALLY proud of how responsible I managed to be. By that, I mean that I managed not to spend all my money. My only problem is I feel horribly guilty when I look at an artist’s work and I like it, but not enough to buy it. I hate getting their hopes up and it usually leads to me buying things I don’t really want, but last year Kimberly taught me to take business cards and it worked out so much better.
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Ashley of Valerious.
[/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”40″ tablet_grid=”40″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”true”]We got to the end of a row and saw a large group of cosplayers taking a photo together, and then I realized I recognized Moana as she handed the photographer a business card. It was my friend Ashley, who makes the skirts I wear when I do RunDisney. Better yet, I made those business cards for her! [/lgc_column]
Her cosplay group Valerious needed them so I volunteered my services. We swapped cards because now I have my own too, and took a quick photo. She looked amazing, but she always does.
I got a text just after noon from Melanie asking me to meet her at 12:30 for the photo. We finished two more rows and then headed towards the celebrity photo op area. We beat her over there, despite getting stopped for multiple photos along the way. Jay and I were taking pictures of each other’s costumes when she caught up to us, and we were second in line for the non-VIP photos. Several people came to take their photos, you don’t see a lot of Ariel and Ursula together, and some of them even wanted me even though I didn’t match. We waited a bit, and waited some more. It was already after 12:45, but the line hadn’t started moving. A man came out to tell us that James was running late, but he was finally in the car. It wasn’t until he stepped behind the curtain we realized it was Xander himself! A moment later we saw James walk by and the VIP line started moving. Then the lady in front of us was up with her baby, and it was super cute because the… I want to say character attendant but this isn’t Disney, handler I guess. The handler was trying to get the baby’s attention with the flashlight on her phone and Nicholas had to ask them to take the photo over because he realized he was looking at the phone instead of the camera. I thought it was really sweet he cared.
We were up in no time at all, and there wasn’t much time to figure out how we wanted to pose. Of course we hadn’t discussed how we were standing previously because that would make too much sense. Melanie wound up in the middle between them and Liah on Xander’s arm, while I got Spike. I was hoping for hugs but I got a hand shake from James before the photo, and Nicholas afterwards, and he called me “darlin'”. Internal squeak. I actually really like the photo ops because they’re so fast they don’t give you time to talk and I can’t make a fool of myself. They had the photo printed immediately as we left and it turned out super well. Liah was sad she hadn’t wound up next to Spike and I felt really guilty since I sort of crashed their photo, but I was also dying slightly of happiness inside.
Me, Spike, Melanie, Xander and Liah.
We went out to find Jay who was waiting with my keyblade. I had elected not to take it in because I just knew I would accidentally hit one of them with it and die of embarrassment. I don’t know if you can kill a vampire with a keyblade, but I just didn’t see it ending well. I met a couple of Melanie’s friends and then we split back up so Jay and I could grab snacks. I wound up taking the photo because we were the only ones with a bag to put it in and we slid it securely between the two Robby Cook prints.
After some rather overpriced snacks and bottles of water, we headed towards the Cosplay Park, a set of themed backgrounds you could take photos with for free. It’s an absolutely brilliant idea and I loved it, but there wasn’t a single background that worked with either of our costumes. I still probably should have taken a few, but I was distracted by the Pikachu bug. That’s probably not its official name, but speaking as someone who has her own nerd car, I was very impressed. (Although admittedly Pikachu merchandise is easier to find than Appa.) I took a picture with it, and I am determined while it might not be my next car, I will own a yellow bug in the future I can Pika out.
We saw the Batmobile which was a photo op for charity, then the Droid Builders area with all sorts of R2-D2s. We had seen several of them beeping around throughout the day, but there were seven or eight all together. Then we found a booth with the TARDIS, a few Daleks, and I squeaked out loud when I saw K-9.
K9 and the Daleks.
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]From there, we made our way back towards Artist Alley. We knew where we had stopped before, at the fine art cats, and now we were just going to work our way back until we got to that point. I tried to make note of the booths that most interested me so I could find them again. There were some cute Disney parks style buttons, an independent comic that Jay was particularly interested in, bookmarks, and tons of awesome prints. I had my photo taken plenty of times and even found an Aang cosplayer, complete with glider.[/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”true”]
A meeting of the Avatars.
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Check out Part Two, in which I talk about the awesome James Marsters panel, meeting my favorite artist Karen Hallion, and talking to the girls from the Hillywood Show. Also I got interviewed by a YouTube gaming channel.
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