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Managed to drag myself to the local anime con Waicon today despite sleeping in until 9am. I had a lot of fun! The last time I went was pre wheelchair, so super tiring, and I was disappointed by how old and isolated I felt. So this time I put on my incredibly half arsed Jane Crocker "cosplay" (shirt plus printer transfer, blue jeans, red jewelry and random pretty shoes) and prepared myself to at best get a smile or two of recognition from other Homestuck fans and maybe bump into one or two people but mostly be surrounded by tiny adorable teenaged strangers, attend two panels, buy some stuff, and then go home.

Having set up such low expectations I was pleasantly surprised, but also tired out, by how things actually progressed.

The con seemed SUPER QUIET when I arrived, with no visible stalls, and my panel was cancelled. Not a good start. And then I discovered there was a whole second level with all the stalls and most of the people. And yes, most of them were much younger strangers, but there were plenty of people my age or older (not all of them acting as chaperones) and enough people I knew scattered throughout the con to keep things friendly. Anyway just looking at people's costumes was fun.

I chatted to several people from Swancon running stalls, got some money out, chatted to more people from Swancon, then went to my next panel about the computer game industry. Which turned out to be run by sonictail (who I met at JAFWA but also see at Swancon :)) It was quite interesting, even though I have no intention of moving beyond being a hobbyist.
Then I looked at the stalls some more, tried not to spend too much money on cute little things (SO MANY CUTE LITTLE THINGS) and played the demo of Freedom Fall, a fun little game being made by several people I know. Then I navigated the MASSIVE CROWDS lining up for the cosplay competition to get to the webcomics panel, also run by sonictail (as always) By the end it became the Homestuck panel, what with people in Homestuck outfits filling like half the room :) Afterwards some of them invited me to join the local Homestuck fan group Perthstuck, though when I said I felt a bit too old they said "Oh, but there's lots of people who are, like...twenty five". WOW, THAT OLD? (They do seem nice though. Also the Perthstuck tag on tumblr has lots of cool Waicon pics. I should upload the pic I took of the maid!girl!Equius. She was giving out chocolate!)

At this point I had well run out of social spoons so left. While I was eating soup in an interesting (and wheelchair accessible!) if overpriced new little Japanese place on Barrack street called Zen Saki I bumped into another friend. I had various disasters getting home: the Perth station lift was broken so I had to drive to McIver, and then when I was trying to leave the train my wheels got jammed in the gap and I had to be pushed out by some fellow passengers. Also I think I'm a little sunburned. So overall: TIRED. But it was fun :)

EDIT: Posted two photos and a little more description at tumblr.