I GAVE TERRANCE COFFEE AHHHHHH

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And now for some semi-intelligent commentary.

So, after an awesome week in Florida - my first time ever going to Florida! - with my best friend Kayla, she and I got to go with our friend Bonny to Chicago for a Repo! The Genetic Opera and The Devil's Carnival double feature event!

Firstly, yay road trips!! I've finally realized how much I love to travel and having Kayla as a travel buddy makes everything all the more awesome!!

And on to details!!

So I dressed as 21st Century Cure Shilo, Kayla was GraveRobber, Bonny was End-Of-The-Movie Amber, and Bonny's friends Cain and Anthony who met us there were dressed as Pavi and Luigi!!

Kayla and I had Ringmaster Meet and Greet tickets, so we actually got to meet and have our picture taken with Terrance Zdunich, Darren Lynn Bousman, Saar Hendelman, and Emilie Autumn!! Terrance actually called me Shilo when he shook my hand and asked me what my name was, so I was all excited and flattered. Here's where the title of this post comes into play: Kayla reads Terrance's blog and found out that he really loves coffee. I work as a barista at Starbucks. I get a free pound of coffee every week. See where this is going? I'm a shy individual, so the thought of meeting these people, let alone giving them coffee, was quite intimidating. I went back and forth about it for a long time in the weeks leading up to this event. My roommate told me in no uncertain terms that I had to do it for the sake of awesomeness and I finally decided for certain. I took three pounds, since I didn't want to leave Darren and Saar out, and waited nervously. When we got done with the picture, I thought, "It's now or I lose my nerve forever" and I started talking really fast and jumbled about how I worked at Starbucks and Terrance kinda smiled at my probably near-incoherence and then when I finally got out "I have three pounds of coffee in my bag if you'd like it," Darren pops his head out of nowhere and goes "Are you serious right now??" I ended up actually doing the hand-off in two parts, where I tossed a bag to Darren during the Q&A as an apology for not having seen The Devil's Carnival yet, and then later I gave the last two bags to Terrance when he came into our row to get stuff a girl sitting behind us had for him. It was so sweet, because I gave them to him and he thanked me and mentioned how he was nervous about singing live so he might just start eating the un-ground coffee beans and so if the tempo was too fast it was because he'd eaten half the bag. xD Also I managed to get up enough courage to ask him for a hug, which he very kindly acquiesced to!!

There were such great interactions as the following:

Darren: Who hasn't seen The Devil's Carnival?
Me: *stupidly raises hand and is the only one in the room to do so*
Darren: REALLY?! *points at exit door* Get out.
Me: *shamefaced, buries face in Kayla's shoulder*
Kayla: You're not splitting us up.
Terrance: Yeah, I don't think Shilo's dad lets her watch that kind of stuff.
Kayla(remember, she's GraveRobber): Yeah, well, she's with me now.
Terrance: *raises eyebrows* Ohhhhhh. Well then.

Also everyone kept wanting to interact with our cosplay group which was totally awesome, made more so by the fact that besides the five of us being in costume and in character, there was also a Rotti, a Zydrate Anatomy Amber, a black-and-white dress Amber, a Seventeen Shilo, an Opera Shilo, a Repo Man, an addict, and two genterns!! Rotti was my favorite - played by this awesome girl who was so so good at it and in character and watching her as Rotti interacting with the Largo siblings was priceless. xD We all had our pictures taken a lot of times, none of which I have on my own memory card because I stupidly left my camera in the car. Oh well. At least other people were nice enough to share their images on tumblr and facebook!!

So I saw The Devil's Carnival for the first time and it was all right but I'm still processing it and I much prefer Repo. Speaking of....our Pavi and Luigi broke the ice for shadowcasting when they got up to perform Mark It Up. So after that, Kayla and Bonny and a girl dressed as an addict and I got up and did Zydrate Anatomy.

Now for the craziest bit of the evening! Keep in mind that I have always been an extremely shy individual, and I have only recently become comfortable with my singing voice. The Seventeen Shilo ended up getting up with the Repo Man to perform Let The Monster Rise, but our Pavi arranged for me to get up and do I Didn't Know I'd Love You So Much with aforementioned Repo Man. So I got on stage, in front of probably 100-150 people, and sang emotionally to a guy I'd never met before while he 'died' in my arms. Oh, and we had a spotlight on us. So we finish the song, in a spotlight, and after he 'died', he whispered to me, "Okay, now it's up to you to finish it" and I realized 'holy crap it is I essentially have to close out the movie holy crap' but because I was having such an amazing time as Shilo I wasn't even nervous at all. The spotlight stayed on me and followed me as I sang Genetic Emancipation, standing and walking and descending the stairs and moving up the aisle at the right times and everything. It was amazing and magical and just like the movie. The audience even stood up for me like they did with Shilo and I was absolutely on top of the world.

Video here, courtesy of ! : www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtpASP…

Then she did GraveRobber's bits and the Largo siblings did their bits and everyone cheered like mad and it was AMAZING!!!! And complete improv!!! I've heard that a lot of the other stops had official shadowcasts for the showings so I feel extra privileged that we got to do it at all and that people complimented us so highly!! We even got invited to join the temporarily-disbanded official Chicago shadowcast, before they found out we were from Ohio. xD The rest of the night is a blur of excited feelings and Denny's at 4 am and accidentally winding up in Michigan where we got a hotel for the night before we finished driving back to Ohio. xD

So. I may have to update this as I remember more of the awesomeness, but this is a pretty good summary of the general flood of sheer amazingness that was the Chicago Repo/TDC Double Feature!!

TESTIFY!!