Welcome to Straywind.com!

Welcome to my Cosplay home on the net. My name is Rebecca (aka Stray Wind online). I've been Cosplaying since late 2001. I love the fellowship, challenges and creativity involved in making costumes. My forte is Cosplaying from survival horror video games as well as characters from Anime and games that I grew up enjoying. Since I began Cosplaying, I have worn over 100 costumes and I've attended over 120 conventions and major events. In 2018, I was lucky enough to work with Henchmen Studios on behalf of Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm and I was the official Cosplay model for Orphea when she was announced at BlizzCon 2018. Cosplaying is an exciting journey and I look forward to future projects and events as my journey in the world of Cosplay continues.

-+- Updates -+-

June 24th, 2026
I'm back from YetiCon and the weekend had its ups and downs, but overall I had a good time. To be honest, I hardly attended the con. I did get a weekend badge and I checked out the vendor hall each day of the event, but otherwise, I didn't view any of the panels or attend any of the special ticketed events. I had been tempted by the tea party, but it sold out before I bought a ticket. Apparently they forgot to have anyone run the tea party, so everything was thrown together at the last minute and they were late to serve tea. I guess I dodged a bullet there. I did attend the Glow Parade as Stillvisions was still running it. Boy, that event was crazy popular. I brought out a light up pumpkin and my Universal Halloween Horror Nights Lil Boo necklace, but was just wearing regular clothes. It was a bit chilly by the start of the parade so being comfy was nice.

I did Cosplay on Friday afternoon for a few hours as Madoka in the school uniform that I bought from DokiDoki Cosplay. As stated before, I did make a Madoka Magica school uniform back in 2017, but my costume no longer fits me. I still have the amazing wig that TechnoRanma made and I bought from her, so I wanted to wear it again. I bought the costume in size M and it barely fit me so wearing Madoka was basically a final hurrah to the costume. Stillvisions took a few photos of me, so hopefully there were a few highlights. If I ever did want to Cosplay her again, I can always buy the costume in size L. But the wig was a bit painful to wear after an hour, so I might just retire Cosplaying as Madoka. I've Cosplayed her a few times so it was a good run.

My other costume for the weekend was Maria from the Silent Hill 2 Remake. I wore it for a couple of hours in the evening on Saturday night of the con. I wanted photos at dusk and in the dark. Stillvisions was kind enough to shoot with me and we got some great photos from around the village. I already have a few initial photos including a cool shot by a fire pit the Westin hotel had outside. I put together the costume page and you can find the initial photos here. More will follow in the coming weeks.

That covers most of the actual con. I can't speak on the quality of many of the offerings. I got to swim a couple of times. I was staying at Seasons and on Sunday morning I had to walk over to the Grand Georgian to use their pool and hot tub because the Seasons' hot tub was drained. The Seasons was a really lousy hotel as they put us on the 4th floor for checking in early in the evening on Thursday and right from the start, only one of the two elevators at the hotel was working. I believe it was by Saturday afternoon that the second elevator stopped working too, so there were no elevators at all for half the trip. It wasn't so terrible for me, but one of my roommates had trouble using the stairs and it was a nightmare. It wasn't even fixed by checkout on Monday. Awful hotel. I definitely will not be staying at the Seasons again. We ended up there because the Weider Lodge pool was closed for the weekend and I was hoping to get a view of the village from the balcony, but it was totally not worth it.

I had Mile High Poutine once and my hotel roommates and I concluded the con by having dinner at the Northwinds Pub. Good food as usual. I went up the mountain on Sunday using the gondola and walked around for a bit. Otherwise, I mostly hung out in my hotel room and watched movies. There were Star Trek movie marathons happening on several tv channels, so I got to see the 2009 movie again and parts of Undiscovered Country, Generations and First Contact. We also watched most of the Lost World: Jurassic Park. Kevin brought a Blu-ray player and we watched a few episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. I did bring a third costume (Mio from the Fatal Frame Remake) but I just wasn't feeling too enthused about taking several hours to get into costume to walk around. I really wanted a chill weekend. That mostly happened. Before we drove to the con and on the way back to Toronto, my friend Kevin and I stopped at an Arby's in Burlington for lunch and it was a nice bookend to the event. This definitely wasn't the most exciting or memorable YetiCon, but I ran into friends here and there and had a good time Cosplaying. I'm definitely looking forward to next year and hopefully things will go a bit more smoothly and I'll have more energy and excitement for Cosplay and con events.

I didn’t have a lot on my radar after YetiCon until maybe July, but I just heard about Anime Fiesta's summer con at Black Creek Pioneer Village this weekend and I'm intrigued. It could be a neat spot for photos of a costume like Ashley. I already have tons of photos of that costume, so I was thinking about wearing the Fatal Frame costume that I didn't end up wearing at YetiCon this year. Unfortunately, the con only runs during the day so no spooky photos at night, but another friend of mine bought a weekend pass but can't go, so a badge for the event might already be available to me. I'll have to see how I feel this weekend, but if the weather is nice, it seems like it could be fun for a few hours one day. If I go, I'll post about my experience here afterward.

-+- Past Updates -+-

June 15th, 2026
It's almost time for YetiCon. I leave for the con on Thursday. The weather is definitely looking a bit better for YetiCon versus AN, but it's still not the kind of weather that I had hoped for. Right now, Thursday is looking like a wash out for getting down to the event and checking out the venue before things kick off. The rest of the weekend is a bit on the cold side, which sucks for swimming in the pool. Hopefully the weather improves a bit. I believe my finalized plans are to bring my Madoka Magica school uniform and get some photos of Madoka, Maria from the Silent Hill 2 Remake, and a few weeks ago, I ordered a Mio costume from the Fatal Frame II Remake for fun. I'm planning to bring it as well. With the not so warm weather, I might not wear Mio. I'll have to see if I can find a time to squeeze it into my schedule since wearing it in the evening would be best. I'm thinking of wearing Madoka on Friday of the con, Maria on Saturday and maybe just relaxing on Sunday and not Cosplaying. Friday is the Glow Walk and my current plan is to have a Halloween theme with Halloween glowy bits. Otherwise, I'm just hoping for a fun weekend with good food, a nice chance to catch up with friends and hopefully some swimming. Of course, also see what the con is all about now that it has new owners and the new owners seem pretty ambitious with lots of activities and events.

In terms of this website, I've added a couple of new photos to my Dorothy costume page. Stillvisions sent me a few photos from the shoot we did right before Anime North, but a lot of them were blurry, so I'll have to wait for them to be re-sent. There were some great photos so I can't wait to post more. I looked at the photo previews on his computer along with photo previews of past shoots like M3gan and Mimikyuu from YetiCon a couple of years ago, so eventually there will be quite a few more photos coming of older costumes. I do intend to wear M3gan and Mimikyuu again for a proper shoot, but we'll see. Stillvisions also recently posted a costume highlight video of my Super Sailor Chibi Moon costume from YetiCon 2023. It's really cool to see the costume in action. I sold that fuku last year because I no longer fit into it, so it's great to have this video to look back on. You can find the video here.

Finally, last week was my birthday and my amazing friend Pan organized a Halloween themed birthday party for me on Saturday since it was a milestone birthday. We decorated a condo party room with lots of Halloween decorations from not just my collection, Pan and my friend Stillvisions contributed as well. It was really cool to hang out with my friends, share in food and enjoy the ambience. I've always dreamed of hosting a big Halloween party, so this was like a dream come true. I used to have a tradition of going to Swiss Chalet for dinner with my friends around my birthday, but with the pandemic and my local Swiss Chalet closing a few years ago, I haven't continued that tradition for quite a few years. One of my friends and her husband created a Swiss Chalet sandwich board costume board of the dipping sauce and it was an amazing gag costume to call back our outings to what we dubbed "the chicken palace". I'm really lucky to have such thoughtful and wonderful friends. I was so touched by folks coming out and I'm happy that quite a few of the people who came will be at YetiCon. It was a nice lead in to hopefully a really fun con weekend.

May 25th, 2026
Anime North is now over for another year. It definitely was a weird year for sure. I only ended up going on Friday and Sunday. I knew the weather for Saturday wasn't going to be great, but I never expected it was going to be as terrible as it was. Friday of the con still felt a bit off not having the Nominoichi to do. I did wear the Madoka Magica school uniform and was Madoka again. It was nice to Cosplay her again. I still love the wig, which was styled by Technoranma. The costume did fit alright, but I probably won't hang on to it for too long because it was quite tight and the stretchy fabric isn't the most forgiving. I arrived around 1:30 so we could get a nice parking spot. My friend Stillvisions was kind enough to offer me a lift the days I went to the con. We ended up parking near where the Anime cars were on display, which turned out to be a big mistake on several levels, but at the time it seemed great. I ended up getting Swiss Chalet for lunch with my friends Stillvisions and Adrien. That was a nice break, especially since the weather was a bit cold. Afterwards, I met up with friends at the Delta hotel and hung out there for a while. My wig was bugging me so I had to adjust it in a hotel room. My wig ended up being a pain for most of the day and I had to adjust it one more time later in a bathroom at the TCC south building. After hanging out for a bit, I ventured out to go to the TCC south building as it was close to 5 when the con opened.

I was worried about not knowing what to do for the weekend, but I ended up meeting up with my friend Pan and along with Stillvisions and Adrien, we spent over 3 hours just looking at the Artist Alley. I will say, every year I've tried to do AA on the Sunday, I can barely move around, so actually being able to explore it on Friday meant I saw pretty much every table fairly well and I got the pick of some of the most interesting pieces. Having said that, I didn't buy that much. I was able to buy an adorable blueberry pie themed crossbody bag from one artist. It was the only one she had and I thought it was so cute. I also bought an Ashley (RE4 Remake) keychain and a neat key necklace. On Sunday, I went back to a table and bought a cute Halloween themed ghost pumpkin patch print. Exploring Artist Alley really did take most of the day. Finally, around 9:30, I went over to the Nomi hall with Pan and Adrien and checked that out. There were some neat finds, but I resisted buying much. My only purchase was a cute Li Syaoran rubber strap.

The big mistake was trying to go home just after 10pm when most of the south TCC building closed. I was pretty exhausted and my feet were hurting. We started leaving probably around 10:20pm, but we didn't end up making it out of the parking lot until close to 11pm. It was brutal. Firstly, we decided to head for the back entrance, which was further away, and the traffic was so much worse because so much of the con shut down. It didn't help that the people parked by the north building or in the vendor parking lot of the south building, all merged into the lane of traffic we were in and seemed to be much more aggressive. We only moved like 4 car lengths in 20 minutes at times. At least the rest of the ride home was fast, but that was a lesson. Best to leave later or earlier or park closer to the north building if we want to use the back exit.

Skipping Saturday was a really smart move. I knew the weather was going to be rainy, but who could have anticipated it being constant rain all day and intense wind. I heard everyone was soaked even if you were only outside briefly and there were umbrella graveyards from broken umbrellas ruined by the wind. It was definitely one of the worst Saturdays I've ever experienced for Anime North.

I went back on Sunday and arrived around 11am. Even with that, we parked in the TCC lot close to the grass behind the north building. The lot was already pretty full. This time I wasn't Cosplaying. I just spent Sunday checking out the vendor halls in the north and south buildings as well as the industry area. Checking out the vendor hall took a couple of hours. I didn't actually buy much, but I did get a really cute Lolita blouse although it was humbling to learn I'm no longer in the small sizing for Japanese brands. My other purchases were clearance items from the Littlest Gift Boutique including a cute Card Captor Sakura Dream Wand pen. I grabbed some snacks from the Japanese table in the Delta hotel after finishing shopping and hung out with some friends. Before leaving the con around 4pm, I did try to wear the inflatable Vulpix costume that Kevin had brought, but the battery packs were not working properly. I ended up wearing it for about 30 seconds before it deflated. Oh well. Kind of symbolized the state of Anime North for the weekend. It definitely was a challenging year.

The con overall was still a lot of fun. I do enjoy seeing the neat LEGO displays in the industry area and what cool things different artists have for sale. It's still fun to Cosplay and see friends even if Cosplayers feel like wallpaper at cons now. It was weird wearing Madoka and only getting a handful of compliments and photos. It was a very different experience from when I wore my own homemade Madoka school uniform a decade ago. The whole con just makes me hope that next year we have better weather and I would love it if I actually managed to get a table for the Nomi (even though it is a ton of work leading up to the con). But even if I don't, at least I can still find lots to see and do at the con. Next up is YetiCon in a little over 3 weeks. Hopefully the weather will be more summer-like by then!

May 21st, 2026
Tomorrow is the start of Anime North and will be my 23rd time attending the con. Wow, I didn't realize I've been going to AN for nearly 25 years. I've been looking at the programming book and not much has tickled my fancy, so I'll probably just be wandering the con looking for friends and checking out places like the vendor hall and artist alley. My current plan is to attend the con tomorrow and Sunday. I will say, in my 23 years of attending the con, the weather for this weekend is definitely one of the worst con forecasts that I can remember. It's going to be cold or at least cool pretty much every day and raining for a lot of the weekend. Yikes. Saturday's forecast is really bad. Definitely seems like a day worth skipping especially since wandering outside is a big part of the con experience.

I'm planning to wear the Madoka Magica school uniform that I bought from DokiDoki Cosplay last year tomorrow. I'll be Madoka using the beautiful wig that I bought from TechnoRanma. The costume was a bit tight when I tried it on a week ago, so I'm hoping it fits ok when I go to wear it tomorrow. On Sunday, I probably won't Cosplay. Honestly, I may need to find some cozy sweaters to wear with the forecast. That's my current plan. I may end up wearing an inflatable costume care of Stillvisions at some point. We'll see. Hopefully, despite the weather, it'll still be a fun weekend.

In other costume news, I did finish fixing up my Maria costume. I originally bought the costume over a year ago. The fact the costume was so poorly made really made it hard to focus on fixing it, but over the last few weeks, I adjusted the belt on the jacket and finally used dye to make the ends of the wig pink. I also attempted to style the wig a bit as it was falling flat. With that, the costume is done. I plan to wear it to YetiCon next month as one of probably only a couple of costumes I'm thinking of bringing to that event. Depending on how Madoka is fitting tomorrow, I might bring that to YetiCon for photos. I'm pretty happy with the work that I did on fixing my Maria costume and I'm pretty excited for YetiCon to happen to wear it. Hopefully the weather for YetiCon will be a big improvement over Anime North!

April 14th, 2026
It's been a while since my last post and we're now approaching con season. It looks like I have a few events on the horizon. May 9th & 10th is the Toronto Oddities & Curiosities Expo. I've wanted to check out that event for the last couple of years, but it's usually during YetiCon. This year the timing is much more favourable. I haven't decided which day I'll go yet. I don't think I'll Cosplay or anything like that, although it might be a nice venue to re-wear the M3gan costume that I have. That's definitely something to think about.

The next event in May is Anime North. As mentioned in my last update, I was eager to see how things would turn out with the Nominoichi lottery. Just as things have turned out the last two years, I yet again did not get picked for a table through the lottery. That's three years I've applied and struck out. I've been lucky the last two years that other friends have been willing to share a table with me, but I'm not going to ask around about it this time. The whole lottery system and how it gets abused feels so defeating. I know two other people who applied and didn't get picked either this year or last year. Supposedly, both this year and last year there was a 50/50 chance you would get a table, but the odds seem a lot worse that amongst three people two years in a row, none of us even made it onto the standby list. That's some lousy luck. If you want to entice some of the lucky few people who did get tables to possibly add you to their table, you have to practically offer to pay for the full table fee, so that feels very exploitative. I know the event will always be popular, but I wish as Nerd Market has implemented, AN would start charging a small deposit to lock in your table before the event. I bet that would clear out the standby list really quickly and they could possibly have more openings still. I mean, last year the table beside the one I was at was a no show, so I ended up getting to use it for a reduced fee. And yet last year I didn't even get on the standby list. I guess I have to hope my luck is better in 2027. I suppose I'll try again. If it wasn't impossible to ship to the States now with all the tariff fees, I would just give up and rely totally on places like eBay. It's definitely less stressful than hoping to luck out with getting a table at the Nomi.

Now that I failed with the Nomi, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do at Anime North. The Nomi gave me purpose and structure to my weekend and was a great Friday activity. I'm pretty far out of the loop with modern Anime, so I'm not sure how much of the programming will appeal to me. I don't know if I'll attend all three days or just go for a couple. I guess I'll spend Friday Cosplaying and checking out Artist Alley and the vendor hall. Hopefully I'll find some other things to do. Right now I'm thinking about wearing the Madoka school uniform that I bought last year and maybe something like Ashley from the RE4 Remake or Maria from the Silent Hill 2 Remake if I finish fixing the jacket and wig. I might walk around for a bit in Kevin's Vulpix costume too. We'll see. I guess there is always a trip to the Swiss Chalet by the con to look forward to. On the bright side, at least I don't have to be at the event until it's super late on the Friday. It probably means I would have the energy to go back on the Saturday. Anyway, I'll update here as I make plans.

Finally, the last event coming up in the next couple of months is YetiCon. Everything is still looking good for that event. I'm still deciding what I want to bring and wear, but the con is really bursting with activities and events. It's still a bit far out there to lock down plans and I don't plan to Cosplay much, but I'm just excited for the vacation. As usual, I can't wait to relax and swim in the pool.

I guess besides maybe fixing up Maria to finally wear it, I'll have a relaxing lead up to Anime North for once. In a way, taking a break one year from the Nomi is good. That event definitely makes things very stressful leading up to the con and having to watch the table like a hawk and be on my feet for hours is very exhausting. I guess I'll look forward to taking it easy and hopefully enjoying some nice spring weather (if the weather finally starts staying consistently warm). I hope we're at least finally done with snow days until November!

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