Sunday of the convention was very much up in the air for me. For one thing, I had originally planned to cosplay with Pete on the last day of the con, but with everything that had happened, we decided to put it off (hopefully only until Big Apple Comic Con 2019.) And no one else had anything really planned that needed a Crissy, so I could wear anything I wanted. I decided to rewear Tohru, because I really do love her character, and why waste all that work I had put into straightening my hair? Plus it's a fairly comfortable costume. So, off I went.

It was funny; I didn't really expect too many people would recognize me, but the *very first* cosplayer I ran into after going through the bag check, a really sweet Cammy from Street Fighter, ran over right away. "You're Tohru! Repping old school anime!" It hurt my heart a little to hear an anime that started in 2001 called "old school", but she was so excited it made me happy. We took a selfie together on her phone, and, feeling signifiantly more cheerful about my costume choice, made my way into the convention center. (Naturally, no one else recognized me for the rest of the day. Oh, well.)

It's amazing how much mainstream press coverage New York Comic Con gets as well; I watch Good Day New York weekday mornings while I'm getting ready for work, and out of habit I watch it while getting ready on Thursdays and Fridays for NYCC as well. When Greg Kelly was an anchor, he used to lose his nerdy little mind over watching the cosplayers line up to get in. Since he's been gone they still cover it, and as you can see in Appearances I've been on the news twice myself over the years. This year I didn't make it on T.V. (as far as I know), but a beautiful woman wearing Bombshell Mera on Sunday did, which really confused my family when watching the news that night! ("That's Crissy!" "That's not Crissy, she's too tall." "But it's the same costume!" "Lots of people wear the same costumes, Dad." <--conversation between my cousin and my uncle.)

As I've mentioned in previous reports, Sunday is Kids Day, and I love Love LOVE seeing the next generation of cosplayers! I'm always extra impressed when these kids are dressing up as characters that debuted *well* before they were born--clearly, their parents are making sure they are educated in the classics. I can't tell you how much that warms my nerdy little heart.

And, as usual, Sunday was a wonderful mix of genre: people wear comic book costumes to comic book conventions, but they also wear video game costumes, and Disney costumes, and anime costumes, and cult movie costumes--basically, if you have a fandom you've *always* wanted to dress up from, feel free. Odds are *somebody* will recognize you, and you just might make that person's day. It's an awful lot of fun.

I had absolutely nothing scheduled, so I decided to start with a photohunt, to make up for the few pictures I took the day before, and really all weekend. It's funny; I am very much NOT a fan of having to buy each day individually, rather than the 3 day and 4 day badges of the past, but, it does seem like more people cosplay on Sundays if they're buying the badges individually, than if every attendee has the option to go all four days. I have absolutely no figures to back that up, it's just a casual observation. But as you can see, I did have plenty of people to photograph!

(Also, I wanted Street Passes for my 3DS.)

So, first I walked from the south side of the convention center, through the outer hallway, to the north side. I confirmed that the North Hall is still under construction. (Apparently it's scheduled to be finished in 2021. But nothing ever gets done on time or under budget.) I saw no Terry Bogard cosplayers. (I'm not sure how I would have felt if I had. On the one hand, I'm always excited to see a Terry. On the other hand, I would've been so annoyed that I wasn't dressed as Lily.) And then I walked back to the south side. Okay, nothing too exciting, but I did see and photograph a lot of wonderful cosplayers.

And again, as it was Kids Day, that meant that not only were little kids dressing up, but often the whole family in themed costumes. I don't want kids, but I gotta tell you, it'd be nice to have a built-in cosplay partner or three. (Yes, I know kids often have interests that are wildly different from what their parents are into--in fact, it seems to be practically a prerequisite for teenagers. But you still have a good decade or so of getting some quality family costume time in.)

All right, I was back on the south side, now what? I figured I'd go into the Exhibition Hall and start in the very first aisle, and walk up and down every single one in order--something I always kind of mean to do, but I can't remember the last time I actually *got* to do. Very well, Aisle 100 it was. And it was a good idea! I saw a lot of cool stuff--there was this National Geographic channel booth there promoting their new series about Life on Mars--I think it was aimed at kids, but I mean, hi, I'm Sailor Mars, I need to do this too. So I got my picture taken in front of a green screen and they photoshopped me on Mars. I tried to pose "in character" as Tohru since I was in costume, but...I think I just looked like a dip? (Which, in retrospect...iiis a little in character for Tohru.) Whatever, I had fun.

I have to admit, it was *really nice* to have the time to actually *look* at everything that was in the booths-though I posit that the floor could be laid out a little better.  I was trying to go up one aisle and down the next, in a grid pattern, in order to make sure that I didn't miss anything.  However, some of the booths are larger than the others, and some are a little offset, so you think you're going down Aisle 400, but then one of the 400 booths are completely blocking your eastward progress, and no matter whether you go around it on the left or the right.yooou're suddenly in Aisle 500.  And a little further east, you're back in 200, all without ever having really made a right hand turn.  It's weird.

David texted me that he was arriving at the con around this time, so I left off my exploration and went to the front to meet him.  Once again, the dear man had a pair of socks for me (see my New York Comic Con 2016 Day Four report for the origin of this tradition): this time a pair of Black Widow socks!  Feel free to make all the Dobby jokes you like (I'm used to them by now), and I really do feel guilty accepting presents, but there's nothing like a nice thick pair of socks when your feet are unhappy.  Plus, I really like that it's kind of an in-joke between us.

David also pointed out that the day before had been our "Stanniversary"--two years to the day that we had gotten to meet and take a picture with Stan Lee!  Entirely thanks to him, but he's too much of a gentleman to point that out.  I, on the other hand, am forever grateful.  I don't know what I did to warrant meeting such wonderful people through such a frivolous hobby, but I am incredibly thankful.

David hadn't really gotten to see *all* of the Exhibit Hall either (I really don't think you *can*, unless that's the main purpose you're going for, and you really dedicate time to it), so we decided to pick up where I had left off, and just take our time checking out all of the cool merch.  (With me slowing things up, as usual, by also taking time to photograph all of the cool costumes I saw.  It's my thing--I can't help it.  On the plus side, since no one recognized me, I wasn't really being stopped for photos, which saved us a lot of time.) 

I don't think either of us bought anything, but we weren't really shopping with the intent of spending money *now*, it's more about seeing the new toys that are going to come out in the near future.  (Giving you time to save up for them, I suppose.)  There's also usually at least a few booths handing out free swag, often in the form of pins or comic samples.  Small stuff, but still pretty cool.  (I've seen people decorate their lanyards with free pins they've collected over the years.  "Flair" is so much cooler when it's not mandatory.)

We also spent a bit of time trying to find a friend of David's on the floor; I'm lucky in that I've never had an issue, but some people seem to lose reception the closer they get to the very middle of the Javits Center.  There's WiFi, but you have to pay, and from what I've heard, it's *EXPENSIVE*--$8 per day I believe.  And God knows how many people are accessing it at once, because of course pretty much every single vendor needs to be able to use it if they want to be able to accept credit card payments.  If you're a casual attendee and you don't have a good data plan, you're pretty much screwed. But with a little bit of luck we were able to find him, and the three of us continued on together.

Another thing attending Comic Con reminds me is just how *far* out of touch I am with what's currently popular: case in point, I was wearing a costume from a show that debuted seventeen years ago. Saturday I wore a costume from a show that's even older than that. I've never seen Game of Thrones, I've never played Fortnite. I'm glad I'm at least more or less current with the Marvel movies. I don't know how people keep up with the glut of nerd-centric entertainment we have at our disposal now--I suspect they get by on a lot less sleep than I am capable of. I keep telling myself I will catch up "one of these days"...and then I find myself rereading The Sandman for the 17th time. Well, we all have our fandoms.

One more side note: you may have noticed I rarely mention eating at conventions. This is because I very rarely *eat* at conventions. 2017 was an anomaly; I stopped and bought food at kiosks (and by the last day, brought my own food from home) because I was having issues with my calcium levels, so I *needed* to eat. But normally, I just eat a big breakfast before I leave, and a big dinner when I get home. I don't necessarily recommend this, it's probably best to grab something in the middle of the day to make sure you don't crash your sugar levels or blood pressure or anything. I don't even necessarily *plan* not to eat, I'm just usually so busy and/or so involved that I don't think of it. There *are* places to eat--it's midtown Manhattan, everywhere is walking distance (if you have the time), but keep in mind the cheapest and nearest places (like the McDonald's about a block away) will have a line almost as long as the panels do. There are the kiosks I mentioned, a mall-esque food court down below, and even food trucks outside, but all of these will have lines, and none of them are super healthy. If you're not content with just skipping lunch the way I do, you might want to plan accordingly.

David and I went back to walking up and down the rows. I wasn't really paying that much attention to the booths, though that was ostensibly the main objective. It was just hard not to get caught up in conversation, since, while we talk on Facebook quite a bit, we only really get to see each other once a year, and this was the first time we had an uninterrupted few hours to really catch up. So by the time I got to aisle 2800, I really wasn't paying too much attention, when all of a sudden I spotted a familiar face...

...it was Soni! I can't remember when we first met, though it was, of course, through Sailor Moon Avatars. I do know that the last time I had seen her was Katsucon 2008: friggen TEN YEARS AGO. Where does the time go? At any rate, she was attending NYCC as a guest of ZOLOWORLD and if I hadn't made a dedicated effort to combing the con I never would have seen her--thanks to not being on Facebook much while the con is going on, I hadn't even known she was going! We jumped up and down a bit, and I introduced her to David, and spent some time swapping what we were up to, and all that good stuff. It just goes to show that in a crowd of thousands (I would love to know how many people attended NYCC on Sunday; I can find weekend numbers but not individual day numbers) you can still run into an old friend.

My feet, even in comfortable shoes, were pretty well worn out by this point, and I had my grandmother's birthday to get to afterwards, so David walked me to the main exit so we could say goodbye. I still don't think I saw *all* of the booths available, but I think I hit more than I ever have before. And I know I didn't see all the people I wanted to, including my adopted brother Ziggo, my smiley-eyed Thor, or some of the other DC people, but I think that's just part and parcel of a con weekend. It happens.

In writing this con report (which I started many months ago, and finished many months later) I tried to be mindful of why I was writing it: who was I writing it for? Convention reports used to be a big deal in the pre-social media days, it was almost like reading customer feedback for cons: is this con worth my time and money? Will I have a good time? Why? Even though I don't think many people are reading my reports, and none of them are reading them for that reason, that still creeps in to what I write about. If you are wondering if whether you'd enjoy NYCC, I'd like to give you a fairly accurate representation. If you don't like crowds, if you don't like walking around, if you don't like the mainstream polluting your comic purity, then this is not for you.

Finally, why do *I* go? Why do I shell out money, year after year, ruining my skin, torturing my feet? The simple answer is I enjoy it, and that's enough reason do to anything. I love seeing old friends. I love making new ones. I love the art form that is comic books. I love the technical mastery that goes into costumes. I love how I look in costume. I love writing about the good time I have. That's really why I write these: for me. So I can remember what a good time I had. So I can remember why I keep going.