Elegant Death: The Italian Rapier
CTCon seems to combine elements from comic book conventions, anime conventions, and science fiction fantasy shindigs. I stumbled upon a demonstration room where they were giving out free lessons in European martial arts. A Boston based sword play group was hosting this workshop. There were lessons in long swords and short swords. There were also lessons in Victorian boxing. Despite the title, it was still nice to see different things being offered at CTCon to make the price of admission worth it. If I weren't wearing my Sailor Pluto cosplay, I probably would have tried it, but it was still fun to learn a few moves and techniques upon observation.

Burlesque 105: Current Figures
To kill time before masquerade, I went to Lady Scorn's burlesque panel. Lady Scorn is a burlesque performer from SUNY New Paltz. This was a really good introduction to the art of burlesque; a rather elegant artform of choreographed stripping. While I have attended one burlesque show on the east coast (Katsucon 2013), this was very insightful. Lady Scorn showed various performances from well known performers such as Dita Von Teese, Lady Indigo, and Tigger. Lady Scorn showed different styles of burlesque from classic to creepy cute. It was interesting to see how the art and performance has evolved through the years and that an event like CTCon is open minded for panels such as these. I think the most interesting video clip Lady Scorn showed was one from a well known burlesque performer from New York who did a dinosaur routine; the performer is one of the oldest and best in the business, hence the ancient reptile motif.

Masquerade
Masquerade is the premiere event on Saturday evening. The east coast still hails masquerade as the must-go-to event. Seats were filled to capacity during the performance portion. The theme to this masquerade was combining Lord of the Rings and the Hunger Games for an all out survival of the fittest cosplayers in search of the one ring. Just follow me on this one. The pre-video had characters from both Hunger Games and Lord of the Rings searching for the ring. Then there was trivia on screen to get the audience riled up and pumped for masquerade.

The hosts were cosplayers dressed as Peeta and Katniss from The Hunger Games. While the motif described above seems so off the wall on paper, it was entertaining on stage. Highlights of masquerade included a group that did a PSY parody of "Gangnam Style" to "Otaku Style" - complete with original lyrics. It was one of the more original skits that utilized the PSY summer anthem in cosplay contests. My performance can be seen below:

Shortly after the skit portion, the judges met to decide on the winners. The walkons who entered for craftsmanship judging did their thing on the runway to a remix of "Thrift Shop" by Mackelmore. It seems that skits were very much encouraged this year. However, there was some amazing work in the walk-on portion of masquerade. Otherwise, it was a very entertaining show and I was proud to have been a part of it.

Fan Music Videos and Masquerade Award Winners
Masquerade halftime consisted of the Lord of the Rings / Hunger Games crew settling the on going drama to get Peeta to propose to Katniss by using the one ring. The whole thing ended as Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn did a dance to One Direction to encourage Peeta to get the courage to ask Katniss out. It was really cute and it kept us entertained. After that, we were treated to the Fan Music Video award winners. This was the first time I saw the winners when I did watch the contest. Top honors went to the Count's Counting Song to Detroit Metal City, dubstep set to various end of the world / machines are taking over live action movie footage, a romance in Sword Art Online, and the Madoka one set to a LSD documentary from the late 1960s. It kept the audience entertained as we patietly awaited for the masquerade winners to be announced. Winners were announced around 10:30PM. Best of Show went to the Otaku Style group. They won an award statue and hockey tickets. We actually did take home a judges award, and ended up celebrating at Vivo by Jameson shots.

You can watch the full masquerade on MrMonochromatic's YT playlist.

21+ Dance
I decided to check ou the 21+ dance for myself. You can smell the fanboy funk on the ballroom level of the Marriott from the 18+ dance. Also, I had my tote bag with me and they were very strict on bags. The 21+ dance was held at the lounge. Instead of rave music, we had top 40 music. I entered in as "Clarity" by Zed was playing. My roommates were right; there was not much going on in the 21+ lounge. While it was nice that I could carry my tote bag, it felt like an awkward high school dance. I already had drinks previously, it was not quite poppin' as the 18+ dance.

There was plenty of nightlife at CTCon on Saturday. Shoutouts to the gang of computer engineering nerds that invited me to have a late night dinner with them at Vivo. There were plenty of 18+ panels that were filled to the brim that it was next to impossible grabbing a last minute seat. Most of them had to have you line up right after the masquerade performances. However, there was always something to do, even if it meant just hanging out with friends on the lobby side of the convention center.

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