Obviously, a lot has happened in the three months since the last post, so there is a lot to write about. One of the things that happened was, well, ECG itself, so this will also be the final post on this blog. (Well, unless one of the other megucas disagree, of course.) But don't despair - in less than six months, the next danish ECG team will be selected (who will hopefully be better at blogging than us) and on top of that, we have something for you at the end of this post. But for now - let the retelling begin!
So, the last time we wrote, there was two and a half week left until ECG, and we were stressed out of our minds but still certain that we would make it. After all, you always make those crazy deadlines somehow, right? Well, surprise, we didn't. At least not in the truest sense of the word.
I'll spare you the gory details and just tell you that the last two and a half weeks before ECG were, quite possibly, the most stress-filled and sleep-deprived two and a half weeks of any of our lives. We most likely wouldn't be alive now if not for the amazing friends who came by to help us out during those days - so let this be an official 'thank you' to Mona, Abena, Casper, Mickey, Jill, Keon, Julia and Rasmus, as well as anyone else I might have forgotten in the intervening months.
Still, despite all that help, we were still not finished when we hit the ultimate deadline - the flight to Paris on wednesday. So there we were - underslept, still not finished, with the event coming right up - I'll admit, I felt like hurling myself in front of the airplane would've been a damn good idea at that point, but surprisingly, things actually started going our way once we made it to Paris. First of all, Air France actually managed to NOT lose any of our belongings (for those who don't know the reason for that particular fear - ECG team Denmark 2011 had their bags thrown away by Air France and had to wait in the airport for most of ECG to get them back, missing the catwalk and the candyswapping). Secondly, we made it to the hotel with no problems. And third, Party Bus. Just... Party Bus.
Okay, that one probably needs some explaining too - this year, the good folks at Japan Expo had hired a glitzy party bus (think one of those long, cojoined buses, only with a dance floor inside) to drive us around Paris and do photo-ops in front of Louvre and the Eiffel Tower to promote ECG - all in cosplay, of course. It was a ton of fun - and a great way to meet the other participants, since we were dancing around the bus, but every time we hit the highway, we had to sit down, so you got to sit next to a LOT of different people. AMAZING different people. So - dancing, music, sightseeing, meeting amazing cosplayers, spooking the locals - it's no wonder our spirits were lifted tremendously after that night.
However, there were still those unfinished costumes. So there we were, in Paris, in the hotel, and we still needed approximately one day's worth of work. So what to do? Well, thankfully, there WAS exactly one day left to work in - the good folks at ECG had given all participants tuesday off to go see the convention or the city, so we spent that whole day in the exciting confines of one of our rooms, and with the help of Mona, Abena and Julia, we actually, god help me, we actually finished the costumes. I might have cried tears of joy. MIGHT.
So with that FINALLY out of the way, it was time to enjoy ECG 2012 for real. Thankfully we had all been to Japan Expo the previous year, because the time we had to just wander around the convention was pretty limited. The only thing I'm really sad we missed was the WCS qualifications, but, well, practice comes first. Friday, we got our first taste of the main stage as everybody did a small catwalk before one of the regular Japan Expo cosplay contests. Like most teams, we used our qualification costumes for it, so yes, Team Meguca was indeed Meguca in Paris. And we got to be less than two meters from FLOW! It was quite funny - while we were standing backstage, everybody was talking about those japanese guys hanging around the backstage area, being like "who are they?" "are they someone?" "they aren't FLOW are they?" and then they were called on stage and 'GO!' started playing, and I was like, "oh, right, they WERE FLOW". XD And then, we went on stage to 'GO!' and everything was grand and amazing.
Afterwards, we had a presentation on the small stage, and then it was back to street clothes before the grand rehearsals. Maru and I then went off to practice our fight in a parking lot (there were a buch of normal congoers hanging out there as well, who must have thought we were kind of weird) and for the first time, I felt like we really got the hang of it (we had been practicing a lot at home as well, but it never felt quite that right). Then we had the rehearsals on the main stage. It was amazing to see what everyone had come up with, even though we were all in normal clothes still. And our rehearsal? It actually went WELL. As in REALLY REALLY WELL. That never happens. And after the no-rehearsal fiasco at J-popcon, I was ecstatic. But in the back of my head, a small voice kept whispering that if the rehearsal went that well, things were bound to go wrong later.
And so, next day, Maru was sick.
At that point, I just felt like laughing at the world. We had a second rehearsal in the morning that FriedDeer and I had to go to, so we went on stage without Maru. Let me tell you one thing: fighting the air is HARD. And also pretty ridiculous, if your act is choreographed for two people. Time went by as we waited for news from the hotel. Would we be able to perform at all? I had already started thinking about how we could re-coreograph the performance for Genki's stage and at least be able to perform the damn thing, when a text message came in - Maru was heading our way! We would be able to go on stage! Oh all that is joyful in the world!
We were around the mid-point in the show, so we had to wait for a while backstage - but since there were both water, flatscreens and awesome people to talk to, it was no sweat. Well, for two of us. Poor FriedDeer definitely had the hottest costume out of the three of us, and because her veil had to be attached very loosely, she couldn't sit down or move much at all. About five performances from ours, she first turned very quiet and the whispered something to the meaning of "if you don't mind me, I'm going to faint now", and I got pretty desperately and rushed to one of the helpers who pretty much ripped a fan out of Nadia Baiardi's hands (if you're reading this: sorry, Nadia! -_-; ) so we could get FriedDeer cooled down as fast as possible. It worked.
And then we went on stage.
I never remember much from when I'm on stage - I try to be the character as much as possible up there, so I don't notice the audience, the lighting, or what anyone else is doing unless I'm interacting with them. I do remember things going pretty well, though, and the poor helpers looking VERY desperate when our styrofoam cross dropped backwards into the lights. Ooops.
But hey, judge for yourselves!
Afterwards, we were all pretty damn exhausted, but that didn't matter becuse it was all over now. We had actually made it to that stage, nobody died, everything was bliss. After the contest, we went outside to have some pctures taken with a few of the INCREDIBLE photographers that show up to Japan Expo, and then... *dun dun DUN* THE RESULTS!
</entering rambling idiot mode> As far as I remember, they called the third and second places for solos first (Italy/France tie 3rd, Switzerland 2nd), and then they moved on to groups, and Italy was called as number three and they were both amazing crazy cupcakes and I was like holy shit if that's third then who's second, and we all held hands and then THEY CALLED DENMARK WE WON SECOND PLACE and I was all HOLYSHITHOLYSHIT and someone gave us paintings and I still don't remember what mine looks like since I was too happy and it's still in the box and then they called FRANCE for first which was great since they were awesome and had crazy details and glowing stuff and slo-mo and then they called our good friend Bell for GERMANY in solo and she almost cried and everything was amazing and we danced to some Pink song on the catwalk and I almost stabbed someone in the eye with the swords but no cosplayers were harmed in the making of this blog post except us and someone told us that this was the first time Denmark had ever won ANYTHING and that was just more awesome even though now we can't use the 'Denmark never wins anything' excuse anymore but that doesn't matter since it was all incredible and I got my first trophy ever that's really pretty and cute except at first I thought it looked like a buttplug and this sentence is way too long and OMG OMG OMGGGGGGGGGG!!! </end rambling idiot mode>
*Ahem*
So, anyway, that was good.
The rest of the weekend was a good deal more relaxing than, well, anything that had happened to us since May. Saturday night was the candy swapping, which is always a great tradition - we fed Draculas to the french organizer which almost choked her, and I tried some italian biscuit that you were supposed to dip in alcohol which made it taste like toilet cleaner so now France just needs to hurt Italy and then we're all even. Of course, not everybody had brought pain instead of candy - Switzerland had AMAZING chocolate (well, they ARE switzerland), Germany had brought an ungodly amount of Haribo, and the dutch finally got their Skildpadder.
Sunday was the photoshoot day, so we put on TB again, this time with Mona joining our group as Astaroshe, and went to the various photographers hanging around the cosplay area and had a lot of INCREDIBLE pictures taken. Compared to Denmark, France has a completely different photography culture - we NEVER have photographers setting up shop at the con like these did, nor do we have people stopping you for photos every five steps like what happened to us when we made the foolish decision to cross the hall in TB (foolish, but very enjoyable, I might add. Just not very practical if you're going from A to B in a hurry.) We also had time to take off the costumes and explore the con for the first time during Japan Expo - and of course, hang out with all the awesome friends we had made during the previous five days.
Sunday was also, sadly, the last day of ECG, so after the final dinner (at McDonald's) we had to say goodbye to everyone, which was terrible - but at least, we all live on the same continent, so I'm sure we'll meet again.
***
So, that was that. Three months have passed since we arrived back at Copenhagen airport, tired, exhausted and blissful. Lots of stuff has happened since then as well - in my case, I headed back to airport the very next day to go to Japan on a five-week trip - but that is not the subject matter of this blog.
So it's a good thing we have new blogs, right? =D
Raptor's corner
is Marus' new cosplay blog. She also changed her name to Raptor (
Ice-nine battles the pink robots
is my new cosplay blog - so new, in fact, that I made it today. My old blog was a livejournal, and that just doesn't work in today's fancy world of smartphones (that I don't have), flat-screen TVs (that I don't have) and flying cars (that I don't have). Huh. Maybe I should've kept that anachronism of a blog after all...
FriedDeer doesn't have a blog right now, but if she gets one, I will obviously post about it here - otherwise, look for news of her in our blogs, since chances are whatever we do next will probably involve her.
***
And with that, I think I've finally ran out of things to say.
Thank you so much for reading and following our exploits over the last nine months, and thank you everyone for the comments and support - it really helped in those dark times.
Maru, FriedDeer and I are done being ECG Team Denmark 2012 and ready to pass the torch to Team 2013 - but we will forever be Team Meguca.
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| Photo by CoolADN |
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