Louis went to NYCC on Thursday, and got to do all sorts of cool stuff like see the preview of Assassin's Creed 3, and seeing Yoshinori Ono dressed as Chun Li (though the line was too long so he didn't get to meet him), but as I didn't get to join him, you'd have to check That's What He Said for Thursday details.

Most of Friday was spent getting the lay of the land, so to speak, seeing how they had laid out the Javits Center and where everything was.  A lot of the layout was about the same, with the largest displays nearest the main entrance to the show floor, then other booths radiating out and away from them in more or less order of importance (or how much money they paid, which usually amounts to the same thing), and then more merchandising as you get further towards the back end.

There seemed to be an even more balanced mix of costumes this year than I had seen previously, which surprised me, as this was the first year that the New York Anime Festival part of the con had been eliminated completely. Then again, I suppose it's possible that the anime fans had stuck to the portions of the Javits Center dedicated to the Festival to a greater extent, but given that the programming for the anime portion had always seemed relatively sparse...well, I don't know.

Chun Li is one of those costumes that is almost universally recognized, and I was happy to see there were quite a few other Street Fighter cosplayers to kid around with, so in addition to being on my own photo hunt, I was asked to pose for a few pictures.  Vash, of course, can't get through even one segment of one aisle without being stopped.

By far the coolest thing that happened to us that day was getting stopped and being asked to be filmed by the crew of Toy Hunter, one of the new shows on the Travel Channel.  This took quite a while, as I had decided my "go to" pose of the day was going to be balancing on one leg while drawing the other up as if ready to attack…and on five inch heels, that's not easy.

It took quite a few takes before I was able to stay steady long enough for the camera man to get the "up and down" shot he was looking for.  (Louis was smart enough to stick to aiming his gun menacingly at the camcorder.) Regrettably, the footage shot of us ended up not being used by Toy Hunter, and I can't help but wonder if my clumsiness cost us our shot at television! (Well, next shot, anyway.  The news agencies sure seem to like me.)

As we reached the middle of the show floor, there was--incongruously--a large display of cars.  I never did find out why, though I do know they were Chevrolets.  The cars didn't attract my attention nearly so much as the Psylocke cosplayer I happened to see near them, so I asked her if I could take her picture, and then, rare for me, after I took the first shot, I asked if I could suggest a pose. 

After I had taken that one, I thanked her, and then backed away--almost into a throng of people who crowded around a dry erase "Graffiti Board", complete with markers, that people were signing and drawing little pictures on.

Sure enough, as I began to turn around, I noticed the board swaying alarmingly...and then fall one way, and smack a small Asian girl squarely on the head, and then be pushed off of her and onto the crowd on the other side.  The ridiculous hero complex in me surfaced and I went to her to see if she was okay, but luckily she had quite a few friends with her who immediately began to take care of her.  Since there seemed little I could do, I started to go, then turned to see if Louis was following me.

Louis was standing on the edge of the circle of people who by now had wrestled the dry erase board back into place, with a dazed look on his face. "Louis?"  He didn’t answer me.  Concerned, I walked back to him--and noticed blood running down the side of his temple.

Stupid me!  In my preoccupation with the Asian girl that I saw get bonked, I hadn't realized that when the board was pushed back the other way, the metal edge of frame had glanced off of the side of Louis's head, cutting him. And while I didn't *think* it was bad, it was bleeding, so I couldn't really get a good look at it, and at any rate, that had to be stopped. 

But I didn't know what to do!  I hadn't a thing on me--stupid, I know.  I've given enough advice to newbie con goers that it's best to carry supplies to be prepared for anything, from bottles of water, to safety pins, to CERTAINLY Band-Aids (excuse me, Kevin Smith: adhesive strips.)  But when you're getting dressed in the morning and you think about having to carry all of that stuff around--and, more importantly, set it down and pick it back up every single time you have to pose for a picture--and you end up bringing just the "essentials": wallet, phone, and camera.

All of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, a woman showed up.  She looked into Louis's eyes and asked him if he was okay, if he had blacked out at any point, and asked him a few questions, like his name and the date.  She called a male friend over, and digging into a bag, found an antiseptic towlette, which she used to swab the blood off of his temple.  

Next she produced a Ban...adhesive strip, which she put over the cut (which, thankfully, was a lot smaller than I feared; head wounds just bleed a lot). Finally, she told him it was probably going to hurt, so she gave him a single dose packet of Tylenol, and told him he was going to be okay.

What the...where the...how is it that we found the one woman most equipped to take care of Louis exactly when we needed her!  We thanked her profusely, and she acted like it was no big deal--which, granted, maybe this isn't exactly performing a tracheotomy with a pen or anything, but she was still able to do exactly what I was unable to, and we were so, so grateful. 

Some super heroes we turned out to be--Laurie (if I'm remembering her name correctly) was far, far more effective than we were.  I asked if she'd let me take a picture of her with Louis (who was still too disoriented to really protest) so that we would never forget her--and if she ever finds this, thank you, thank you again.

Once Louis seemed a little less out of it, I asked him if he wanted to go home, but he said it wasn't that bad (and I'm sure the Tylenol helped a lot) and that he wanted to press on, because we still hadn't seen even half of the con.  So we tried to regroup and kept walking.

We finished our circuit of the main show floor, and then found the small passageway--stopping to pose with another Chun Li cosplayer, which was an awful lot of fun--and continued on to the other side of the Javits Center, which seemed to be focused more on video games.  Fine by me--I had my Nintendo 3DS on me, and was dying to collect some Street Passes!  (I had gotten more the Friday night of Otakon than I had the entire year preceding it!)

We saw some more booths--nothing that really jumped out at us--and took some more pictures, but after having completed our walkthrough, there really wasn't much else to do, and we decided that we should go home, so that we could eat dinner at a reasonable expense instead of paying Manhattan prices, and before Louis's Tylenol completely wore off.  

We took one more quick peek into the main area, which let me see Jessie!  I so love running into her at cons, even though she’s usually working and without exception very busy.  After that last pic, it was time to head home.

Special Agent Chun Li reporting for duty, Captain!

What is this I don't even.

The first shot of Psylocke

I know I'm biased towards my Vashu-san, but the other kid is actually a really good Vash too.

We're aware we're starring in your dreams tonight.

It took me FOREVER to capture this shot of Chun Li's kick rebounding off of Captain America's shield!

Louis loves him some Chun Li

Louis with the third Vash.

Best fight in the whole animated movie, in my very biased opinion.

Ladies of Capcom

I think this is the only shot of the two of us together!