Tekko 2025

I really missed Tekko after I was unable to attend last year (family reunion vacation was same weekend)! It was so nice to be back.

Some out of order thoughts:

Masquerade

• A friend of mine, NimbusGrey, won best in show at the masquerade! It was so lovely seeing their hard work rewarded.

• I love craftsmanship competitions.. I didn't finish my next comp piece in time for it, but maybe next year!! (I want to do Gramophone Miku.)

• The emcee did a poor job introducing the walk-ons, though. They didn't even have time to make it to the middle of the stage, or even their first position, before he called on the next one..... I personally think he was phoning it in, because I've seen him operate panels at this con too, and honestly he is kind of unprofessional--- particularly in the Straight-Up Mean kind of way. i hope they pick someone else next year LMAO

• The masq as a whole ended up running overtime, so the poor craftsmanship judge had to rush and could barely give the winners their awards on-stage. Felt pretty bad, man. But I am faithful that they will rectify this for next year. When I attended in 2023 it was fine; they just had SO many submissions this year, and I assume budgeted the time blocks poorly. I hear other cons  jury their skit submissions ahead of time partially to recitfy this, so maybe they should do that too?... Even though that would require submitters to have a very clear idea of what they're doing ahead of time. RIP

Ribbons

• I attended a Ribbon Game meetup for the first time ever. It was kind of chaotic. I had fun, but I definitely learned a lot about what to do for next time--- namely, print one(1) ribbon design that you give out for free, and reserve the ribbons designs you actually care about for trading, haha. I only printed 75 of each of my HRT designs, and it was a little sad to give them out to folks who were more invested in "having a ribbon" than they were in the contents of said ribbon, particularly when I didn't get anything back. (Excluding children from this--- they can participate any way they want in my book!) The longtime ribbon experts definitely knew how to handle that feeling!

• I also saw very cool ribbon containers that I should invest in instead of shoving my ribbons in a plastic bag and then having to scrabble around for them in my bag. The ribbon containers also made it more obvious that you had ribbons to trade in the first place!

• I think I prefer just handing out ribbons to congoers as I move about the con, though. It's much more fun for someone to go "hey I like your [X] costume!" and then get to reply with "thanks! Do you want a [related] ribbon?". Lots of joy there. Or the reverse--- me saying "I love your [X] costume! Here's a ribbon related to it!". Getting to give folks a little gift that they will definitely like is so great.

My horses.

Flea Market

• I purchased a table (~$21) for Sunday morning to sell off some figures and miscellaneous merch. I only had like 20 items total. I was kind of mortified to be there with my dinky little setup when I was surrounded by folks with TONS of stuff--- clearly experts in the field lol--- but once I got over that cringe, I managed to sell almost everything I'd brought, and got to come home with an empty plastic tub. Yay!!!!! People bought my things!!! People were excited to get figures that were off the market!!!! Yippeeeeee!!!!!

• One seller tried to lowball me for my Kotobukiya Red&Pikachu figure though. I was selling it for $45, and the flea market hadn't even opened yet when they asked for $30... I had it packed up nicely in its original box, and i've seen it for $400 online!!!!! Genuinely what are you trying to pull on me. I'm already scamming myself as it is. LMFAO

Panels

• Bits Burgh Brass Band played a set and it was so fuckign good, dude. Holy shit. I love brass bands and jazz bands and instrumence. More of this please.... ← Magfest liker

• A friendly acquaintance and firstime panelist ran a Twisted Wonderland Jeopardy panel, and I had a lot of fun! I WAS on the winning team but we won completely by accident (we did our math wrong when betting points on the final Q and ended up in the lead) so, uh, draw your own conclusions. LMFSLOIHFDJSD

• Not a panel, but the photo backdrops provided for cosplayers to pose in went SO hard. I love it so much....... And i didn't get a photo of myself in them, but i did get:

nehehehehehe

• We should have a "little guy" plush doll gathering, or plush doll backdrops too. I think that would be super cute. Maybe I'll run one next year lmaooo

Folks

• Everyone I spoke with at the con (barring the emcee mentioned above) was very kind and friendly. I was attending by myself, but I had no problem calling out to cosplayers I wanted photos of, et cetera... and I got a lot of very nice compliments from strangers that pinpointed parts of my costumes that I wasn't as confident in. Such as "the back of your wig looks lovely" for Azul (twst), and "your face paint is perfect" for Kris (deltarune)! Sooo so nice. I got lots of curiosity about my Demon Cleric costume as well, even when no one knew what it was from. I will post more about that costume in the costume construction post :)