In Propinquity: Metrocon 2017

Everyone who's been paying attention to the stuff I'm doing lately probably knows I was at Metrocon this weekend. :)

Metrocon is a Tampa convention that was founded as an anime convention but, like many cons of its ilk, has branched off into other interests that the core audience tends to share. My friend Victor bought me a ticket for the entire weekend, and Jeaux joined us for two of those days.

On Friday I went to the convention wearing some nerdy clothes but didn't dress up.

My bag, packed and ready

The first night was fun. We went to a Steven Universe panel called "Don't Forget the Lyrics." It was run by convention attendees dressed up like Lapis Lazuli and Garnet. (For those who haven't been paying attention, Garnet is my favorite character, haha.)

Participants had to pick between two songs on a theme, let the presenters play the song, and then they have to identify the next line when the presenters stop the song. If they win, they get a Pearl Point. But the hosts forgot their Pearl Points, and I happened to have some, so I let them give mine out! (My friends were joking that I "saved" the panel.)

And of course I won a Pearl Point during my turn. There wasn't a song I didn't know every lyric to, but um, no one is surprised by that.

The hosts of the lyrics panel.
The ribbons in Garnet's hair almost made me die.

After the lyrics panel, we mostly just wandered around looking at costumes, checked out an anime viewing room showing a cartoon we hadn't seen before called Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto, and did a scavenger hunt.

Marge from The Simpsons!

Greg and Lapis from Steven Universe

Korra from Legend of Korra

Lum from Urusei Yatsura

Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
(At least, I'm thinking it's a humanized version of a pony
rather than being an Equestria Girls version, but I don't
watch either one so I dunno)

Rose and Greg from Steven Universe
(Steven's parents!)

This Steven cosplayer had all kinds of props in that backpack.

Steven Universe cosplayers without wigs. :)
There's Pearl on the right, and I think the one on the left is a Stevonnie.
(Someone else said maybe Steven, but I don't think so with the crop top and shorts.)

Great Tinker Bell costume!

Peridot and "Bad" Pearl, the Wonder Nerds of Steven Universe

Here they are again. :D

The scavenger hunt was unexpectedly fun--I usually don't like stuff like that, but it was one of the most fun things we did all night. We had to gather or photograph things like a cup, a costume prop, and a photo of someone hugging a Metrocon volunteer. (My friend Michael was volunteering at the con so I found and hugged him for the photo.) We were also instructed to bring a photo of "something yaoi," which if you don't know is the term for guy-on-guy erotic material, so Jeaux and Victor posed suggestively like they were about to make out and I took a photo of that. I will not share it. And someone had to do 10 pushups for the completion of the hunt, so I did that. I didn't know I could do 10 pushups. ^___^ I got to pick the prize, which was a cool piece of art.

Hugging Michael, our Metrocon volunteer

Jeaux wore an easy costume to the convention Friday night: His Dipper costume from last year's Halloween, a character from Gravity Falls. It's basically a shirt, a vest, a pair of shorts, and a hat, so if you didn't know who he was then you might think he's not even in costume. But he was. And we saw some others from his show too.

Dippy Fresh and his Grunkle.

Jeaux has opinions about Dippy Fresh.

Double Dipper.

He found a Mabel--his sister in the show--who reminded us
she's the Alpha Twin because she's taller. Mmkay.

Then we come to Saturday, which was my first day in costume. I went to the convention as Stevonnie from Steven Universe, who is not supposed to be short and pale like me, but whatever. ;) I even modified my ukulele to look like Steven's.

Jeaux came as Tiger Millionaire from Steven Universe, a costume he's done before, but his wig didn't work out. Still looked cute. His giant cell phone is from, like, a seven-second clip of the show, but everyone who knew Tiger seemed to get it. Tiger Millionaire is Steven Universe's wrestling alter ego, so it's sort of a costume of a costume.

And Victor had a really impressive costume. He came as Batman of the Opera. His mask was homemade and he used gory makeup to give himself a disfigured face.

Man, he looked amazing. I'm sad that he was so hot and sort of uncomfortable with the makeup coming off and bugging him. It was such a cool costume!

We came to the convention pretty early because there was a panel I wanted to go to called Steven Universe PJ Party. I am not sure what it was supposed to be initially because the hosts didn't show up to run it.

If something like that happens, the con volunteers either cancel the panel or let the attendees decide what to do with it. Our group did the latter. The audience decided that people in Steven Universe cosplay (like me!) should go up on the stage and, uh, do something to run the panel. So we did. I played some songs from the cartoon on my ukulele and someone else played some songs out of a speaker, and we did a little singalong, and then I ran a little quiz session and Jeaux gave people Jungle Bucks as a reward. (Jungle Bucks are a Tiger Millionaire thing.) My questions were really hard but they were multiple choice. Still faked some people out with them, though. ;) And at the end they played an improv game. All in all, it was a pretty excellent panel for something that was abandoned by its hosts.

Another Stevonnie! Who requested the theme song.

Rose, Steven, and Lion.

After that event, we chilled looking at art and dealer room stuff, checking out costumes, and having a bite to eat. I think the costumes are my favorite thing at conventions like these. They made me so happy.

Genderflipped Adventure Time characters

Loyal Homeworld Gems Holly Blue Agate and Navy Ruby.
(They weren't together, but were together in my picture!)

Lapis and partially corrupted Jasper,
plus a person in Steveny clothes who might be Stevonnie
or might just be in Steveny clothes?

Donut Kids Sadie and Lars, Steven Universe

Lion eating a Lion Licker.
I've never seen someone make a Lion Licker prop before.

Very pretty Jasper from Steven Universe!

Stevonnie's eating fries. Hey, these aren't the bits!
(Dr. Maheswaran would not approve.)

Promcoming Lumpy Space Princess and Lady Rainicorn.
Adventure Time characters.

Jeaux almost got tackled by this Purple Puma cosplayer!
In the show, Steven and Amethyst wrestle as their alter
egos Tiger Millionaire and the Purple Puma.
They found each other!

Rose Quartz wearing a Mr. Universe shirt.

Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle. She even has a Calcifer!

My starry toes.

Stevonnie and Blue Pearl.

A Stevonnie with a hat!

Uncle Andy! (Steven Universe)

Amethyst's latest outfit! So cute.

Two Bad Pearls, one Mystery Girl, WHAT!!
(Steven Universe cosplay)

Me with a super-tall Doctor! He said he was 6'7".

After we messed around a while, we went to another Steven Universe panel called "A Crystal Trivia." Unfortunately it was two hours long and ran into the anime music video contest, which I also wanted to see, but I stayed for the whole thing and Victor left to go see the videos. (We'd discussed this possibility previously, but I actually didn't notice when he got up and left because we weren't sitting together.) Crystal Trivia was run by some other SU cosplayers, most notably Tuxedo Pearl.

We were asked to answer complicated questions in exchange for a hand-made rose. I know a ridiculous amount of stuff about this show so I felt like it would be rude to bogart the panel and raise my hand for everything. I ended up raising my hand and volunteering answers only when it seemed like people were just guessing or didn't know the answer. (I also answered the first question because it was an obscure question about the comic books, which apparently not too many people have read.) Correct answer providers got to pick a song to listen to. I played along on my ukulele sometimes if I knew the song.

I liked the idea of the panel and had fun, but to be 100% honest, I felt like some of the questions were more about "figure out what the question-writer meant" instead of "test your knowledge of the show." Questions like "how many songs are in Season 2?" aren't very fair if you're not defining what you count as a song and some of the decisions seemed relatively arbitrary, so I didn't answer questions like that. There were a couple where they accepted wrong answers or didn't accept right answers, or did something pretty weird like asking for a count for how many characters fit in a certain group and then randomly disincluding one because she "doesn't count" even though she indisputably counts. It's relatively petty but I get kind of irritated and less inclined to participate in stuff if it seems like there's no objective order to things that do have objective answers. I didn't answer any questions wrong myself but I was disappointed when there were discrepancies like that.

We went to the anime music video contest after that and couldn't find where Victor was sitting so we just met him after. Jeaux left to go home and sleep before work and Victor and I got ice cream. Then we checked out some anime that we didn't really care for and went back to looking at costumes. We ran into our friend Joy, who was also in a Steven Universe–related costume!

Joy as a Zooman (Zoo Human from Pink Diamond's zoo)

We stood around for quite a long time just enjoying the costumes and sometimes watching people play silly games or do dances. I was disappointed to hear that Joy had been to a panel I decided not to go to (the SU singalong panel) because some cute things happened there, including someone proposing to someone else with a promise ring, in character.

A cute Stevonnie

Mysterious Blue Diamond, bored Bob Lapis

BMO dress! (Adventure Time cosplay)

A Night Vale eternal scout

Garnet, Amethyst (Fun Mom!), and Peridot

Grunkle Stan, Gravity Falls

Lapis Lazuli, looking about to fly away

A really sweet Pearl

Pink Lars! Bingo Bongo, y'all. (Steven Universe cosplay)

This Rose Quartz yelled "HEY BABY, I see you!" at me.

Steven and Connie. I said, "I really like your costumes for some reason."
(Heh. I am dressed as their relationship. Of course I would like them.)

Toph Beifong and Zuko, Avatar cosplay

A very in-character Yellow Pearl with Stevonnie

Joy, posing in response to a prompt from Victor about her potential Choosening

We left after that and I finally got to take my dang wig off. Yowch.

Wig head

Sunday I decided to come in costume as well. When I got out of the car in the morning, someone yelled HEY STEVONNIEEEEE! and when I looked the person was wearing a Stevonnie t-shirt. :D :D :D

Me at the con in the morning, pic taken by c00lpatrol on Instagram

I didn't really have anything big on my agenda to do at the convention besides looking at more costumes, but Victor wanted to go to a silicon mold making class, and I told him I'd be glad to go with him even though I didn't want to pay the materials fee or make a mold. It had been a pretty long day the day before though, so both of us were pretty sleepy, and I was cold.

Victor being productive

Me being cold

Me being a nerd with my uke

I drew a picture of Garnet instead of making a mold

Marceline the Vampire Queen (from Adventure Time) was in the workshop!

After the workshop we got some food, looked at the dealer room items, and basically just played around looking at costumes for the rest of the afternoon. One guy asked me to play the Steven Universe theme song on ukulele while he recorded it with his phone and jumped in to sing with me. I dunno if he posted it online--I didn't find it.