ACen 2011!
I'm finally home from ACen. It was awesome ♥. There will be pics, but I haven't photographed my shopping yet, so it'll go in its own post.
Oh, also, just so everyone knows, I’m having a bit of computer trouble. Hopefully it’ll be okay and get fixed soon, but abarero, if for some reason the daily just goes completely un-updated on Thursday and Friday, it’s because my computer is acting up and my dad’s is down. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but if it does I’ll just get on a friend’s computer as soon as I can (the latest of which being Saturday in the late afternoon) and do 2 day update for it from then. Hopefully that won’t happen, though.
Wednesday
This year was a bit different in that the people from Fort Wayne who came with me stayed the night on Wednesday. We took two cars this year, but wanted to start at the same time, so Rosie, Cassie, Vincent, and Kate (yuffsters) stayed over. We chatted and I packed while Vincent and Kate finished up their cosplays. It wasn’t particularly eventful, though, since I was so far from ready.
Thursday
Brooke arrived early after I woke up. We were all ready and packed and prepared to leave at around 9:15. It seemed as though it was too rainy for us to use the glass chalk on the van this year, though D:. There were two groups this year; myself, my mother, Kate, and Brooke in our van, and Rosie, Cassie, and Vincent in Rosie’s car. Before we took off, Brooke realized that she’d forgotten her badge, so we had to go get it. From there we headed to meet with Rosie’s group at the Essenhaus for breakfast. The Essenhaus was delicious as usual, and breakfast was laden with inappropriate jokes, mostly revolving around Cassie’s alleged pedophiliac tendencies. I think the best was when Vincent ate a sausage whole and Cassie was all “…did you seriously just do that?” and everyone was of course calling her a perv and a pedophile over it. We’re…bad people.
Once we finished eating breakfast we realized that it had stopped raining long enough that we were able to get the glass chalk out and decorate our cars! I sent 3 of the markers with Rosie’s group. Kate went with them because Rosie agreed to let her car take the brunt of the Homestuck jokes. It’s become Kate, Cassie, and Vincent’s main fandom. I enjoy it, but Hetalia is still my main fandom so I wanted my vehicle to reflect that. For the record neither Brooke nor Rosie have read any of it, though I get the feeling they will.
Once the cars were all decorated, which took about 40 minutes, we took off again. (Yes, there are pictures of the van. I will post them in the imagepost). This was for the most part uneventful. We listened to my iPod and dozed off a bit. Things got interesting, however, when my mom took a wrong turn. You see, my mom really hates driving on highways, or any place where she’s expected to drive faster than 55 mph. We have a GPS that we set to take us to the Hyatt, but mom ignores it until she gets into Chicago. She has her own way from there. But, she got off course and the GPS wanted her to take the toll road. If there’s any way to get this thing to avoid major highways, we don’t know it. So mom was freaking out. I insisted she let me take over the driving. I have my permit and I’m really good with highways and heavy traffic.
The end result was that we got to the Hyatt much faster than normal. Mom was really proud of me, and truthfully I was really proud of myself. Once we met with Rosie’s group, we checked in and lugged our things up to the hotel room. Immediately after that, we met up with Dee (deecherrywolf). We picked up our program guides, then got directions to Liberty Hall, where some con op stuff was going on. She had to get her badge fixed, and Vincent had to go with her to pick up his, since he and Kate both got theirs free because Dee won the Got Soap? slogan contest and had 2 free badges to give away. Kate got hers in the mail but Vincent didn’t. Picking it up went smoothly, though, thankfully.
After that, myself, my mom, Rosie, Brooke, Kate, and Dee all went to Mitsuwa to get Japanese food and such. We didn’t see any copies of Chopin magazine this year =<. I picked up a Megami since I got the feeling I wouldn’t find them in the dealer’s room due to Kinokuniya’s stupid new rule (I was right) since it had a couple Madoka posters. I also picked up a fair amount of food, including a box of mochi ice cream. We LEARNED from our mistake last year and didn’t get more than we could eat in the car. Also, toward the back they have gashapon machines, and this year one of them had those FIFA jersey phone strap gashapon. I really got into the World Cup last year, as most of you know, so I jumped on that. I would’ve been happy with pretty much any of them (except maybe Spain. I’m STILL a bit butthurt), but! Amazingly enough, on my first shot, I actually got the Germany one! That made me stupidly happy.
After all that we went back and hung out in the hotel for a while before going to bed.
Friday
The first thing I did on Friday after waking up and getting a shower? Play Freitag, the terrifyingly hilarious German “fan” version of Rebecca Black’s Friday, of course! I think everyone hated me for that…I probably deserved it. I put on my Igiko cosplay, which only lasted for about a third of the day because it was so damn hot out, and charged into the dealer room. I’d stupidly forgotten my reference pictures for my commission, so I had to find someone with a phone that got internet to get it from. Thankfully, I did. The commission is still being worked on, I got an artist that does their stuff digitally so they have to print it off and mail it to you, and/or send you a digital copy via email. I’m getting both. The artist is definitely trustworthy, though; she showed me several WIP versions throughout the duration of the con, and she even gave me her cell phone number so I could check up on the progress that way. It looks fucking amazing, btw, judging from the WIPs. It’s Monaco/Liechtenstein, jsyk.
While wandering the artist alley, I ran into a Mami and Homura cosplayer and stopped them plus another Mami who happened by for a photo. The Homura was actually a crossplayer, and a really good one at that. I didn’t realize that he was a crossplayer until I heard him speak. Rosie fondly refers to him as HIMura <3. I noticed that he had some Madoka doujinshi and uh. Immediately beelined to the dealer room to nab some. I was successful and now I own 2 Homura/Madoka and 1 Mami/Madoka doujin, and also another really hot Mugi/Mio. Oh, and a Germancest doujin by Fizzcode. So my first Germancest doujin is still a Fizzcode one, even though it’s not Bad Rose now since I got this one in my possession first. While I was rooting around in the Hetalia doujinshi, I started talking to an Austria cosplayer in there. She was an absolute sweetheart, I must say, and we surprisingly shared similar ship biases. Aside from the fact that our levels of interest in AusHun and AusSwiss were opposites, it was practically a perfect match. We were chatting about how adorable those ships are, then she accidentally pulled a Prussia/Austria doujinshi and balked. That solidified it; she is a cool bro. We chatted a fair amount before parting. Later on at the photoshoot I saw her again and told her about a doujin booth I’d found later with a whole AusSwiss section. I found her again the next day and she had successfully gotten to it <3.
After piddling around the dealer room most of our group met up at the café attached to the convention center for lunch. While there I met up with Katie for a while! <33 We chatted until I opted to leave for the takurazuka panel. But uh. THE PANELISTS WERE NO SHOWS. NOT. FUCKING. COOL. But! Going to the Hilton wasn’t all for naught Because. I SAW A DORIAN RED GLORIA COSPLAYER OH MY FUCKING GOD. From Eroica With Love is such a good manga everyone should track it down and read it omfg. Later on she had a Klaus, too! I have pics of both just Dorian and Dorian with Klaus.
At one point myself, Rosie, and Brooke were sitting around at the statue on the street level floor. We met a really nice Mami and Chibitalia cosplayer who we proceeded to run into several times throughout the con. We couldn’t figure out who was stalking who rofl. Those two were so cool. We about died laughing when Chibitalia was trying to say “I like your boots” to Rosie but kept saying boobs, then said “bluts”. Also “Oh, that’s an Oddish, I thought it was marijuana”. Girl, you’re hilarious and ilu. Also there was a Scanty and Kneesocks up on the level above us that we could see through the glass. And well uh. I don’t think they were aware that everyone down there could see their panties. Scanty’s especially. Green polka dots. She wasn’t wearing 2 pairs, though. I was disappoint.
Later, I went back to the café to meet with Liz (gandmvsm). Oh my God, I feel so cool because this is the first time I’ve gotten to meet another APH anon memer! I finally feel like a ~real~ memegoer. Since most of us have met someone else from the meme at a con, but I’m in the middle of nowhere lol. Liz, you’re a total sweetie and I’m so glad I met you and we got to hang out. Also your Gakuen Hungary is seriously adorable ;3; And you killed me with cute at the photoshoot. Srsly.
Speaking of the photoshoot, I tagged along to it on Friday. It was really really fun. I ran into that sweet Austria again there and got her contact info. I still wish I’d been able to see her Switzerland, though. =<. I missed it. She had it on Saturday but I never ran into her when she was wearing it. Same with Liz’s War of Austrian Succession Hungary. But for the APH photoshoot? Well uh. I got a hilarious picture. Of a French Revolution!femFrance holding her sword up to that stalkerface Mami’s throat. I think the only people there who got the joke were myself, the Mami cosplayer, and Rosie, but it was so worth it.
Later that day I went to the Type Moon panel. It was so fucking cool omfg. It looked at Type Moon’s major works (Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, and Kara no Kyoukai) from a literary analysis prospective and it was just really neat. We even got into the role of women in Type Moon’s stuff. Oh, and an Archer cosplayer felt the need to interrupt the panel with the Unlimited Blade Works chant. Fuck yeah!
After that panel I chilled in the hotel room with Brooke and Rosie for a while, then Brooke and I went downstairs to play Apples to Apples for a few hours. It was fun. I think my best win this time was when there was your typical awesome jackass Apples player who loved the really borderline offensive plays, he pulled the green card “playful”, and I played Rosa Parks. He was so amused that when he announced the winner he was laughing so hard he couldn’t even read the card and had to just hold it up. Also when I got the green card “magical”, Brooke had to go and play The Little Mermaid on me. So I broke into “HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THAT DENMARK GUY? HE’S SO COOL!” Yeah. It was fun. When we left and went back to the hotel room, we got into the hallway just in time for me to see this really sexy Black Rock Shooter cosplayer jump up and down. Dat bounce. Hngh. She was definitely busty. When we came back to the hotel room Brooke and I stood out on the balcony and chatted and were perverts and looked into a hotel room that was in our line of view. I don’t think the people in the room realized that people could see; they were prancing around in their underwear. Eventually we all went to bed.
Saturday
My Saturday started obscenely bright and early so I could make the 8:30 AM World Folklore panel. Thankfully my Sis Strider cosplay didn’t require much effort, and thankfully it was rainy on Saturday and therefore not horrifically hot out. I’m glad I made it to the panel. It wasn’t much different from last year, but I seriously eat this stuff up, and I made some cool suggestions to the panelists for next year. Also I may actually end up helping with it sometime! They want someone to help out with either the Eastern or Western side so they can focus more on the other. I of course want to take the Western side and abuse my power to talk about Faust. But yeah, the panelists are really nice people, too. I like talking to them.
I was going to stay in the room for the Durarara!! Panel, but ended up feeling way too restless. I wandered the dealer room to check up on my commission instead. I also ran into ”bluespikey” for a little bit. I wish we could’ve talked longer, girl! But it was good to see you~! As Sis I ran into a total of 3 Daves outside of the photoshoot to pester with my plush rumps. I also ran into another Sis, who was so sweet.
Brooke, Rosie, and I went to the autograph session for Saki, Mika Nomura, and Bob Shirohata. I didn’t get to any of their panels, but I’m glad I got my autographs. I brought my copy of the Marukaite Chikyuu single and had them sign the booklet. Saki’s signature is so cute! She uses a treble clef for her S. Also Rosie brought her program book and Bob drew a little America chibi doodle. She was so happy about it ;3; Also Saki? FUCKING ADORABLE. I wish Japanese people weren’t so hesitant to touch anyone, I wanted to give her a hug ;3;
More wandering occurred. I ran into Shelby and we chatted for a while and she came up to our room to see what we bought. Rosie wanted to go to the Americans in Anime panel, so I tagged along, as did Dee. I’m SO GLAD we did, that thing was HILARIOUS. They played a lot of clips of these various American characters. A lot of the clips were subbed and we were in the back so we could barely read them, but it was excellent nonetheless. After that, Dee came up to our room to chill for a little bit and look at what all we bought before she went back to get in line for the masquerade with her sister. Then I did a bit more dealer room wandering. I found one of my favorite artists, and she had actually made a print of her Der Erlkönig picture! Of course I bought it. After wandering I sat down at a table with 2 other girls. We got to talking, and they were both really cool. One of them turned out to be a 5 year German student, so we talked A LOT about Europe and such.
I went to the Homestuck photoshoot, too, which was great fun but I wore out pretty fast and had to go sit. Since the humans aren’t very popular I only had to stick around for a few shots anyway. The brosis fist pic was awesome, though! There were 2 Sis cosplayers counting me and a Bro. We all fistbumped.
Rosie, mom, and I ordered pizza instead of going to the How (not) to Write a Lemon panel. Mmmm, delicious pizza. Rosie and I talked to a really nice girl with a knockoff tokidoki corset and real tokidoki bags for quite a while as we waited and ate. We ordered too much pizza, so I took the leftovers to Liz and her friends, who were in line for the Soap Bubble. They were very thankful. <3.
After that, Rosie and I went to the Panty and Stocking panel. It was really fun! The main panelist was hot and really funny, too. Needless to say, this panel was pervy. We talked to the panelist after it was done to complement the panel (and her shirt that had a cleavage window), and Rosie said something about it being great despite technical difficulties. I somehow heard that as “tentacle difficulties” and have yet to shut up about it. “So, you know why Germany lost FIFA 2010? They ran into some tentacle difficulties. Damn it Paul”. It was kinda funny, too, how before the panel Rosie and I had been having an intelligent discussion about Hetalia headcanon, but then as we left? We sang D-City Rock down the street from the Hilton to the Hyatt. Once we got back upstairs I pranced around in my underwear and played music while packing and was obnoxious and hit on Rosie and Brooke a lot just for the hell of it. My friends are aware at this point that being friends with me means being subjected to playful flirting and occasional groping =T.
We also looked at porn on Rosie’s laptop. It was kind of hilarious; we were looking at a France/Prussia doujinshi, and while we were looking at it the Pokérap came up on my iPod. Oh God we just died laughing. After that we made a few Snape jokes and went to sleep.
Sunday
This was probably the most eventful Sunday ever. First thing we did after finishing packing was go down to the dealer room for a final sweep. I bought Rosie a few buttons as a birthday present since today’s her birthday (Monday I mean, in case I don’t get this posted on Monday). I also got a pair of Black Rock Shooter headphones. They weren’t on sale, but I got a booth to drop them to $30 if I bought something else. My total was approx. $42 counting tax for them and a really cute Mugi keychain ♥ We ran into that Mami and Chibitalia for the final time on our way to the dealer room and finally exchanged contact info. They’re such nice stalkers~
I ran into Shelby in the dealer room as well as Katie and Liz. We talked for a bit, then Shelby and I went on to the Hetalia fan panel that haro and abarero run. Rosie also came, she came late but was able to get a spot thankfully. The panel didn’t overflow this year. Probably because 1 it was on Sunday and 2 that was a last minute change. The panel was incredibly fun as usual! We played the match game again and I participated in it again. It was kind of hilarious. I think only two people got points at all ever because we were too busy being stupid. For example, I got a Canada question and wrote “WHO???” instead of answering. I got this one Russia question, “Russia is so scary he even made ____ cry”. I put Hitler. Two of the panelist responses were Putin and Voldemort. It was hilarious. Oh, and “The invincible Hungary is so strong she can do push ups with her ___” I was ridiculous and put “that thing that didn’t grow =’(“ I had way too much fun being stupid. And I got an HRE coaster for it, so yay!
The panel was mostly just a giant Q&A session, which was incredibly fun. Hey guys, I’m really sorry for how much speaking out of turn I did btw. I hope you didn’t mind, I just. Can’t be quiet sometimes. Orz. But I think everyone had fun, so! \o/ You guys ran a great panel yet again, keep being awesome!
After the panel we went back up to the hotel. Rosie’s group left pretty much immediately, mine stuck around to eat lunch at the hotel restaurant. Before we left, though, I spotted a sheep counting Hungary cosplayer! I akdhjad’d and got her picture. She said she had an Austria, too, so ofc I waited for the Austria to show up and got ttly adorable pictures ;3; so so so so cuuuuuuuuute~
I drove home. There was goddamn HAIL when we left the parking garage, wtf. But I was a GAR driver. Who probably sped too much. But you know what? I got us home within 4 hours. And that’s INCLUDING a rest stop break. I shit you not. I am GAR. At one point during the driving in Chicago, though, there was some construction so I needed to merge into the inside lane. Some nice girl let me in, and I said “what a sis”. Then Kate realized something. IT ACTUALLY WAS THE OTHER SIS COSPLAYER. So Sis was a total sis ♥.
So all in all, great ACen. Best yet, even! Miraculously, Brooke and I didn’t get into a single fight this year. That is a first, and a damn good one at that. There was absolutely no drama, actually. It rocked.
Oh also I should probably note that I spent a large part of the weekend talking about that DENMARK guy.
Oh, also, just so everyone knows, I’m having a bit of computer trouble. Hopefully it’ll be okay and get fixed soon, but abarero, if for some reason the daily just goes completely un-updated on Thursday and Friday, it’s because my computer is acting up and my dad’s is down. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but if it does I’ll just get on a friend’s computer as soon as I can (the latest of which being Saturday in the late afternoon) and do 2 day update for it from then. Hopefully that won’t happen, though.
Wednesday
This year was a bit different in that the people from Fort Wayne who came with me stayed the night on Wednesday. We took two cars this year, but wanted to start at the same time, so Rosie, Cassie, Vincent, and Kate (yuffsters) stayed over. We chatted and I packed while Vincent and Kate finished up their cosplays. It wasn’t particularly eventful, though, since I was so far from ready.
Thursday
Brooke arrived early after I woke up. We were all ready and packed and prepared to leave at around 9:15. It seemed as though it was too rainy for us to use the glass chalk on the van this year, though D:. There were two groups this year; myself, my mother, Kate, and Brooke in our van, and Rosie, Cassie, and Vincent in Rosie’s car. Before we took off, Brooke realized that she’d forgotten her badge, so we had to go get it. From there we headed to meet with Rosie’s group at the Essenhaus for breakfast. The Essenhaus was delicious as usual, and breakfast was laden with inappropriate jokes, mostly revolving around Cassie’s alleged pedophiliac tendencies. I think the best was when Vincent ate a sausage whole and Cassie was all “…did you seriously just do that?” and everyone was of course calling her a perv and a pedophile over it. We’re…bad people.
Once we finished eating breakfast we realized that it had stopped raining long enough that we were able to get the glass chalk out and decorate our cars! I sent 3 of the markers with Rosie’s group. Kate went with them because Rosie agreed to let her car take the brunt of the Homestuck jokes. It’s become Kate, Cassie, and Vincent’s main fandom. I enjoy it, but Hetalia is still my main fandom so I wanted my vehicle to reflect that. For the record neither Brooke nor Rosie have read any of it, though I get the feeling they will.
Once the cars were all decorated, which took about 40 minutes, we took off again. (Yes, there are pictures of the van. I will post them in the imagepost). This was for the most part uneventful. We listened to my iPod and dozed off a bit. Things got interesting, however, when my mom took a wrong turn. You see, my mom really hates driving on highways, or any place where she’s expected to drive faster than 55 mph. We have a GPS that we set to take us to the Hyatt, but mom ignores it until she gets into Chicago. She has her own way from there. But, she got off course and the GPS wanted her to take the toll road. If there’s any way to get this thing to avoid major highways, we don’t know it. So mom was freaking out. I insisted she let me take over the driving. I have my permit and I’m really good with highways and heavy traffic.
The end result was that we got to the Hyatt much faster than normal. Mom was really proud of me, and truthfully I was really proud of myself. Once we met with Rosie’s group, we checked in and lugged our things up to the hotel room. Immediately after that, we met up with Dee (deecherrywolf). We picked up our program guides, then got directions to Liberty Hall, where some con op stuff was going on. She had to get her badge fixed, and Vincent had to go with her to pick up his, since he and Kate both got theirs free because Dee won the Got Soap? slogan contest and had 2 free badges to give away. Kate got hers in the mail but Vincent didn’t. Picking it up went smoothly, though, thankfully.
After that, myself, my mom, Rosie, Brooke, Kate, and Dee all went to Mitsuwa to get Japanese food and such. We didn’t see any copies of Chopin magazine this year =<. I picked up a Megami since I got the feeling I wouldn’t find them in the dealer’s room due to Kinokuniya’s stupid new rule (I was right) since it had a couple Madoka posters. I also picked up a fair amount of food, including a box of mochi ice cream. We LEARNED from our mistake last year and didn’t get more than we could eat in the car. Also, toward the back they have gashapon machines, and this year one of them had those FIFA jersey phone strap gashapon. I really got into the World Cup last year, as most of you know, so I jumped on that. I would’ve been happy with pretty much any of them (except maybe Spain. I’m STILL a bit butthurt), but! Amazingly enough, on my first shot, I actually got the Germany one! That made me stupidly happy.
After all that we went back and hung out in the hotel for a while before going to bed.
Friday
The first thing I did on Friday after waking up and getting a shower? Play Freitag, the terrifyingly hilarious German “fan” version of Rebecca Black’s Friday, of course! I think everyone hated me for that…I probably deserved it. I put on my Igiko cosplay, which only lasted for about a third of the day because it was so damn hot out, and charged into the dealer room. I’d stupidly forgotten my reference pictures for my commission, so I had to find someone with a phone that got internet to get it from. Thankfully, I did. The commission is still being worked on, I got an artist that does their stuff digitally so they have to print it off and mail it to you, and/or send you a digital copy via email. I’m getting both. The artist is definitely trustworthy, though; she showed me several WIP versions throughout the duration of the con, and she even gave me her cell phone number so I could check up on the progress that way. It looks fucking amazing, btw, judging from the WIPs. It’s Monaco/Liechtenstein, jsyk.
While wandering the artist alley, I ran into a Mami and Homura cosplayer and stopped them plus another Mami who happened by for a photo. The Homura was actually a crossplayer, and a really good one at that. I didn’t realize that he was a crossplayer until I heard him speak. Rosie fondly refers to him as HIMura <3. I noticed that he had some Madoka doujinshi and uh. Immediately beelined to the dealer room to nab some. I was successful and now I own 2 Homura/Madoka and 1 Mami/Madoka doujin, and also another really hot Mugi/Mio. Oh, and a Germancest doujin by Fizzcode. So my first Germancest doujin is still a Fizzcode one, even though it’s not Bad Rose now since I got this one in my possession first. While I was rooting around in the Hetalia doujinshi, I started talking to an Austria cosplayer in there. She was an absolute sweetheart, I must say, and we surprisingly shared similar ship biases. Aside from the fact that our levels of interest in AusHun and AusSwiss were opposites, it was practically a perfect match. We were chatting about how adorable those ships are, then she accidentally pulled a Prussia/Austria doujinshi and balked. That solidified it; she is a cool bro. We chatted a fair amount before parting. Later on at the photoshoot I saw her again and told her about a doujin booth I’d found later with a whole AusSwiss section. I found her again the next day and she had successfully gotten to it <3.
After piddling around the dealer room most of our group met up at the café attached to the convention center for lunch. While there I met up with Katie for a while! <33 We chatted until I opted to leave for the takurazuka panel. But uh. THE PANELISTS WERE NO SHOWS. NOT. FUCKING. COOL. But! Going to the Hilton wasn’t all for naught Because. I SAW A DORIAN RED GLORIA COSPLAYER OH MY FUCKING GOD. From Eroica With Love is such a good manga everyone should track it down and read it omfg. Later on she had a Klaus, too! I have pics of both just Dorian and Dorian with Klaus.
At one point myself, Rosie, and Brooke were sitting around at the statue on the street level floor. We met a really nice Mami and Chibitalia cosplayer who we proceeded to run into several times throughout the con. We couldn’t figure out who was stalking who rofl. Those two were so cool. We about died laughing when Chibitalia was trying to say “I like your boots” to Rosie but kept saying boobs, then said “bluts”. Also “Oh, that’s an Oddish, I thought it was marijuana”. Girl, you’re hilarious and ilu. Also there was a Scanty and Kneesocks up on the level above us that we could see through the glass. And well uh. I don’t think they were aware that everyone down there could see their panties. Scanty’s especially. Green polka dots. She wasn’t wearing 2 pairs, though. I was disappoint.
Later, I went back to the café to meet with Liz (gandmvsm). Oh my God, I feel so cool because this is the first time I’ve gotten to meet another APH anon memer! I finally feel like a ~real~ memegoer. Since most of us have met someone else from the meme at a con, but I’m in the middle of nowhere lol. Liz, you’re a total sweetie and I’m so glad I met you and we got to hang out. Also your Gakuen Hungary is seriously adorable ;3; And you killed me with cute at the photoshoot. Srsly.
Speaking of the photoshoot, I tagged along to it on Friday. It was really really fun. I ran into that sweet Austria again there and got her contact info. I still wish I’d been able to see her Switzerland, though. =<. I missed it. She had it on Saturday but I never ran into her when she was wearing it. Same with Liz’s War of Austrian Succession Hungary. But for the APH photoshoot? Well uh. I got a hilarious picture. Of a French Revolution!femFrance holding her sword up to that stalkerface Mami’s throat. I think the only people there who got the joke were myself, the Mami cosplayer, and Rosie, but it was so worth it.
Later that day I went to the Type Moon panel. It was so fucking cool omfg. It looked at Type Moon’s major works (Tsukihime, Fate/Stay Night, and Kara no Kyoukai) from a literary analysis prospective and it was just really neat. We even got into the role of women in Type Moon’s stuff. Oh, and an Archer cosplayer felt the need to interrupt the panel with the Unlimited Blade Works chant. Fuck yeah!
After that panel I chilled in the hotel room with Brooke and Rosie for a while, then Brooke and I went downstairs to play Apples to Apples for a few hours. It was fun. I think my best win this time was when there was your typical awesome jackass Apples player who loved the really borderline offensive plays, he pulled the green card “playful”, and I played Rosa Parks. He was so amused that when he announced the winner he was laughing so hard he couldn’t even read the card and had to just hold it up. Also when I got the green card “magical”, Brooke had to go and play The Little Mermaid on me. So I broke into “HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THAT DENMARK GUY? HE’S SO COOL!” Yeah. It was fun. When we left and went back to the hotel room, we got into the hallway just in time for me to see this really sexy Black Rock Shooter cosplayer jump up and down. Dat bounce. Hngh. She was definitely busty. When we came back to the hotel room Brooke and I stood out on the balcony and chatted and were perverts and looked into a hotel room that was in our line of view. I don’t think the people in the room realized that people could see; they were prancing around in their underwear. Eventually we all went to bed.
Saturday
My Saturday started obscenely bright and early so I could make the 8:30 AM World Folklore panel. Thankfully my Sis Strider cosplay didn’t require much effort, and thankfully it was rainy on Saturday and therefore not horrifically hot out. I’m glad I made it to the panel. It wasn’t much different from last year, but I seriously eat this stuff up, and I made some cool suggestions to the panelists for next year. Also I may actually end up helping with it sometime! They want someone to help out with either the Eastern or Western side so they can focus more on the other. I of course want to take the Western side and abuse my power to talk about Faust. But yeah, the panelists are really nice people, too. I like talking to them.
I was going to stay in the room for the Durarara!! Panel, but ended up feeling way too restless. I wandered the dealer room to check up on my commission instead. I also ran into ”bluespikey” for a little bit. I wish we could’ve talked longer, girl! But it was good to see you~! As Sis I ran into a total of 3 Daves outside of the photoshoot to pester with my plush rumps. I also ran into another Sis, who was so sweet.
Brooke, Rosie, and I went to the autograph session for Saki, Mika Nomura, and Bob Shirohata. I didn’t get to any of their panels, but I’m glad I got my autographs. I brought my copy of the Marukaite Chikyuu single and had them sign the booklet. Saki’s signature is so cute! She uses a treble clef for her S. Also Rosie brought her program book and Bob drew a little America chibi doodle. She was so happy about it ;3; Also Saki? FUCKING ADORABLE. I wish Japanese people weren’t so hesitant to touch anyone, I wanted to give her a hug ;3;
More wandering occurred. I ran into Shelby and we chatted for a while and she came up to our room to see what we bought. Rosie wanted to go to the Americans in Anime panel, so I tagged along, as did Dee. I’m SO GLAD we did, that thing was HILARIOUS. They played a lot of clips of these various American characters. A lot of the clips were subbed and we were in the back so we could barely read them, but it was excellent nonetheless. After that, Dee came up to our room to chill for a little bit and look at what all we bought before she went back to get in line for the masquerade with her sister. Then I did a bit more dealer room wandering. I found one of my favorite artists, and she had actually made a print of her Der Erlkönig picture! Of course I bought it. After wandering I sat down at a table with 2 other girls. We got to talking, and they were both really cool. One of them turned out to be a 5 year German student, so we talked A LOT about Europe and such.
I went to the Homestuck photoshoot, too, which was great fun but I wore out pretty fast and had to go sit. Since the humans aren’t very popular I only had to stick around for a few shots anyway. The brosis fist pic was awesome, though! There were 2 Sis cosplayers counting me and a Bro. We all fistbumped.
Rosie, mom, and I ordered pizza instead of going to the How (not) to Write a Lemon panel. Mmmm, delicious pizza. Rosie and I talked to a really nice girl with a knockoff tokidoki corset and real tokidoki bags for quite a while as we waited and ate. We ordered too much pizza, so I took the leftovers to Liz and her friends, who were in line for the Soap Bubble. They were very thankful. <3.
After that, Rosie and I went to the Panty and Stocking panel. It was really fun! The main panelist was hot and really funny, too. Needless to say, this panel was pervy. We talked to the panelist after it was done to complement the panel (and her shirt that had a cleavage window), and Rosie said something about it being great despite technical difficulties. I somehow heard that as “tentacle difficulties” and have yet to shut up about it. “So, you know why Germany lost FIFA 2010? They ran into some tentacle difficulties. Damn it Paul”. It was kinda funny, too, how before the panel Rosie and I had been having an intelligent discussion about Hetalia headcanon, but then as we left? We sang D-City Rock down the street from the Hilton to the Hyatt. Once we got back upstairs I pranced around in my underwear and played music while packing and was obnoxious and hit on Rosie and Brooke a lot just for the hell of it. My friends are aware at this point that being friends with me means being subjected to playful flirting and occasional groping =T.
We also looked at porn on Rosie’s laptop. It was kind of hilarious; we were looking at a France/Prussia doujinshi, and while we were looking at it the Pokérap came up on my iPod. Oh God we just died laughing. After that we made a few Snape jokes and went to sleep.
Sunday
This was probably the most eventful Sunday ever. First thing we did after finishing packing was go down to the dealer room for a final sweep. I bought Rosie a few buttons as a birthday present since today’s her birthday (Monday I mean, in case I don’t get this posted on Monday). I also got a pair of Black Rock Shooter headphones. They weren’t on sale, but I got a booth to drop them to $30 if I bought something else. My total was approx. $42 counting tax for them and a really cute Mugi keychain ♥ We ran into that Mami and Chibitalia for the final time on our way to the dealer room and finally exchanged contact info. They’re such nice stalkers~
I ran into Shelby in the dealer room as well as Katie and Liz. We talked for a bit, then Shelby and I went on to the Hetalia fan panel that haro and abarero run. Rosie also came, she came late but was able to get a spot thankfully. The panel didn’t overflow this year. Probably because 1 it was on Sunday and 2 that was a last minute change. The panel was incredibly fun as usual! We played the match game again and I participated in it again. It was kind of hilarious. I think only two people got points at all ever because we were too busy being stupid. For example, I got a Canada question and wrote “WHO???” instead of answering. I got this one Russia question, “Russia is so scary he even made ____ cry”. I put Hitler. Two of the panelist responses were Putin and Voldemort. It was hilarious. Oh, and “The invincible Hungary is so strong she can do push ups with her ___” I was ridiculous and put “that thing that didn’t grow =’(“ I had way too much fun being stupid. And I got an HRE coaster for it, so yay!
The panel was mostly just a giant Q&A session, which was incredibly fun. Hey guys, I’m really sorry for how much speaking out of turn I did btw. I hope you didn’t mind, I just. Can’t be quiet sometimes. Orz. But I think everyone had fun, so! \o/ You guys ran a great panel yet again, keep being awesome!
After the panel we went back up to the hotel. Rosie’s group left pretty much immediately, mine stuck around to eat lunch at the hotel restaurant. Before we left, though, I spotted a sheep counting Hungary cosplayer! I akdhjad’d and got her picture. She said she had an Austria, too, so ofc I waited for the Austria to show up and got ttly adorable pictures ;3; so so so so cuuuuuuuuute~
I drove home. There was goddamn HAIL when we left the parking garage, wtf. But I was a GAR driver. Who probably sped too much. But you know what? I got us home within 4 hours. And that’s INCLUDING a rest stop break. I shit you not. I am GAR. At one point during the driving in Chicago, though, there was some construction so I needed to merge into the inside lane. Some nice girl let me in, and I said “what a sis”. Then Kate realized something. IT ACTUALLY WAS THE OTHER SIS COSPLAYER. So Sis was a total sis ♥.
So all in all, great ACen. Best yet, even! Miraculously, Brooke and I didn’t get into a single fight this year. That is a first, and a damn good one at that. There was absolutely no drama, actually. It rocked.
Oh also I should probably note that I spent a large part of the weekend talking about that DENMARK guy.