Medic goes to Comicon

And now for something completely different! Yesterday, I went to Cyprus Comic Con. Or CCC as it was called. I dressed up and everything! And because it’s somewhat gaming-related, I feel it’s worth talking about. Plus, I can’t let aabicus do all the real life articles!

So yeah, Cyprus Comic Con 2015. This is the second proper one they’ve done. I heard about the 2014 Comic Con last year literally two days too late, and swore I’d go this year. And that’s what I did. The original plan was to go as a TF2 character. But that notion was quickly shut down by real life people, who said I should go as someone “sexy and feminine” and all that bollocks. Apparently TF2 characters aren’t sexy (although the internet thinks otherwise). Sister (now referred to as Nommy) stuck her opinion in and said I should go as a League of Legends character, since she was going as Nidalee. I said Cho’Gath, since I already have that costume made. Nope, not allowed, not feminine. I ended up going as Malzahar. Because fuck cosplaying as a character of my own gender. Brother (Terroxy) was too cool for school to dress up.

I kinda dallied on making my costume. Most of it was already made, I just needed to do finishing touches, which I did this week. Nommy, who’s the queen of last minute, finished her costume on Friday.

The convention was in Nicosia, which is a 2 hour drive. First mistake I made was forgetting my boots at home, which I only realised about half way there. I also made the mistake of getting Nommy to do the directions. “Is this the turning, Nommy?” “No…” *goes past turn* “Oh wait it was, sorry.” It’s a damn good thing I stuck to my flip flops though because it was really fucking hot. Knee-length boots would have made me melt from the feet up.

We got there and there wasn’t much of a queue to get in. Terroxy had to cough up €2 for entry but me and Nommy got in for free. As we got changed, we bumped into someone dressed up as a female Ziggs, a fellow LoL champion (and basically a less cool and much furrier version of Demoman). We decided we didn’t want to enter the cosplay contest, since I felt subconscious, despite not being scantily dressed.

At the front of the convention were gaming areas for Watchdogs, Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and one of those Tom Clancy games, which Terroxy managed to single-handedly drag out for an extra 20 minutes because he barricaded every door and the other team couldn’t work out how to break the doors down. There were also contests for Smash Bros. and Street Fighter. We didn’t enter those. Further in there were booths for other games – Minecraft on PS4, several LEGO games and more Assassins Creed and Call of Duty. Whoever brought in Assassin’s Creed brought in a bunch of plants – people dressed as assassins. There were other assassins as well who weren’t related.

One of the highlights was a giant cake, taller than me, in the shape of the Incredible Hulk. Sadly, having sat there for quite a few hours, the cake didn’t taste too great, but still, it looked awesome. Terroxy grabbed a slice and chatted up a Gamora and a Dark Brotherhood recruit while me and Nommy posed for some pictures. The art section was amazing, the artists who were exhibiting were really good. I bought a couple of lovely LoL prints – one for Nommy and Terroxy and a random one for mum, because I dunno, why not.

Food stands were meh. Place really could have done with more food stands since they were all packed and constantly running out of food. Plenty of sweet things though, and there was a stall handing out free energy drinks. Really needed better food, since gaming, comics and anime go really well with good food. The many places selling over-priced models and stuff too were to be expected.

As for cosplayers, there were SO MANY DAMN NARUTO COSPLAYERS. And about 5 Green Arrows. And two Flashes. Amazingly, there were two Nidalees, my sister and someone else, but the other one wasn’t as good, simply because she just seemed uninterested in everything, while Nommy would smile and pose for pictures. Also Nommy’s spear was to scale. We counted up a load of League of Legends cosplayers, including ourselves: me as Malzahar, two Nidalees, Ziggs, Ashe, two Teemos (and 3 people in Teemo hats), Miss Fortune, Gnar, Pentakill Sona, Arctic Varus, Battle Bunny Riven.

Bonus points to the guy who dressed up as Reaper from Overwatch, the Big Daddy and Little Sister combo, the awesome Thor guy and the guy with a beard who ran around in a Sailor Moon costume. We also saw THREE Payday guys, all as Huston, one of whom had replaced the stars on the American Flag with the Cyprus flag.

Small problem, I didn’t take many pictures. I had no pockets and nowhere easy to put my phone. Same with Nommy. Tons of people wanted pictures with us (Nommy more than me – no wonder, she was in a bikini!) and we were recognised somewhat regularly. There was a lot of “Nerf Nidalee!” going around, and I’d constantly tut and mention Malzahar’s higher win rate.

We’ll definitely be going again. It was a lot of fun. The whole thing was absolutely packed out. There were no TF2 cosplayers this year, but don’t worry, the three of us will rectify that next year!