(no subject)
Con essay that is mostly about meeting my favorite English language voice actor
Questions including: “What Ouran ship does the actor who voices the English-dubbed Kyouya support?”, “Which female Sci-Fi author has a heart of gold?”, “What will Sharpeslass’ cats break when left alone for three days?” and “What will Sharpeslass break in Canada?” are answered under the cut.
I’m wordy and this is a bit long. I won’t be offended if you skim it… or skip it!!
I got home from Canada Monday after spending several lovely days in Caseria’s beautiful historical country attic and visiting Anime North. My camera is broken, so sadly I did not take photos, but I did get a few from Caes-kun which I will include here. I'll try not to repeat the ones she used.
Caes lives in this beautiful country area which is green and full of massive trees and hills and rustic homes and farmland and stables. She lives in the converted attic of an historical house. It is an adorable apartment, but to get there you must first climb the Stairs of Death. I know Caes has naturally thin legs, but always wondered how, when she exercises about as often as I do, they were so toned. I no longer wonder. My upper thighs still ache. Getting my giant pink suitcase up there (twice) was something else.
“What will Sharpeslass break in Canada?”
We spent Friday questing for foods one cannot get in the U.S. (sausage rolls, pork pies and treacle tarts) and having our toes tended at a really luxe (yet not too pricey) day spa. I managed to snap a display shelf off the wall in the waiting room and got the side-eye of death from the proprietress but spent enough $$$ that she was smiling at us and telling us to come back soon by the time we departed.
I first met the gals on Thursday night after my flight arrived, and we met up again Friday night at an Asian restaurant/sauna for supper. We spent an hour or so chatting in the parking lot after the meal, since the restaurant was too warm for comfortable hanging. All of the girls ( epiphany_tiff, svana_vrika, theskywasblue, and seshats_prodigy ) were wonderful.
All of us at dinner
Seshats fairly shines with joy, humour and kindness. (Is having a good soul the secret to a glowing complexion???) Actually, they all do. I’m not a big seer of “auras”, or whatever you want to call ‘em, but these ladies have auras you can’t miss. They glow with goodness; they are just lovely souls through and through. There are far too few people with spirits like that in the world (or at least in mine) so it was rejuvenating to be around them.
Oh, and lest I forget, I met Seshat’s hubby as well. He is quite funny in a wry, misanthropic way and very comfortable hanging with fangirls. I’m always slightly fascinated by relationships that work without one or the other partner being subjugated in some way. I’m glad some people still have that.
The cute couple
Best photo of me from this trip
Saturday morning Caes and I packed up and lugged my giant pink suitcase down the stairs and got into the car to head to the con. We drove through at Tim Hortons - a coffee shop she speaks of often. I, a Starbucks junkie, was not impressed. They don’t have non-fat lattes (a Tim Horton’s latte has 900 calories). In fact, the place we went didn’t have lattes at all. They had iced cappuccinos, which sounded promising, but it turns out they were actually coffee milkshakes. Tasty, sure, but not what I’d had in mind. Caes ordered a steeped tea and got a coffee. So “Timmies” of legend was pretty much 0 for 0.
There were 15,000 people at the con, which spanned three hotels.
I’ve been to world con and I swear there weren’t that many people there.
A huge part of the reason I decided to attend this convention was that J. Michael Tatum (voice of Kyouya from Ouran, Komui Lee from D.Gray-man, Sebastian from Black Butler, France from Hetalia, Domeki from xxxHolic, and many, many, many more) was going to be there. I signed Kare and I up for the brunch knowing it would be our best chance to actually talk with him without an autograph line time limit. I’ve been to creation events of a similar nature but this was better: first of all, it was in no way over sold. I think there were maybe 30 people there max - including guests; secondly, it wasn’t expensive. Creation charges about $85 a ticket for these things. On the down-side (at first glance) it wasn’t as organized. Creation rotates its guests from table to table keeping the time spent at each pretty even. In this case, it was really up to the fen to go up and initiate a conversation. This is something I can’t do under the best of circumstances.
I spotted my boy at the table next to ours as soon as we sat down and immediately lost my appetite and started to quiver. I did go get a plate (buffet) with Kare so that I wouldn’t just be sitting there watching him eat. I poked at a few potatoes, but was unable to choke down a thing. (If I could live in a constant state of nervous anxiety I would lose a lot of weight. Depression makes me hungry; stress makes me hungry; tiredness makes me hungry. The only two things that kill my appetite are utter and complete devastating heartbreak and nervousness.) When we went up for more coffee I mentioned that I’d be sad if we didn’t get to talk to him. A woman, who I thought at the time was with the con, overheard us and said that this group didn’t seem that organized but that I should go and talk to my voice actor. She said that she knew he would love to talk to fans like the two of us (read, I suspect, ‘not complete freaks.’ How little she knows!) and she had me point him out to her. She tried to lead me over but I was all, “No. I’m shy!! I don’t want to interrupt his breakfast!!” etc.
We went back to our table and ended up having an entertaining conversation with some of the event staff sitting at the same table. Of course my attention never fully wavered from the object of my affection and so I noticed when the woman who had been speaking with us earlier approached JMT and wasn’t entirely taken by surprise when he sauntered over (lithe and graceful as a jungle cat. Rowrl.) to our table.
“I hear someone over here is shy?” he said. I raised my quivering hand. “Me too!” he said exuberantly, manifesting complete anti-shyness. He sat down with us and, against all odds, I managed to converse like a normal person. Obviously I wouldn’t expect you to believe me on that one, but Caes said so. She said I didn’t act even slightly like a drooling idiot. We discussed Arlington, TX (where he lives and I used to live) and other kind of normal things. He put on my kitty cat ears. Daw!!! (You can see him in my kitty ears at Caes journal here: http://caeseria.livejournal.com/183876.html#cutid1 I didn’t want to repeat too many snaps, but that one is so worth looking at.)
“What Ouran ship does the actor who voices the English-dubbed Kyouya support?”
We did talk anime of course… it couldn’t be avoided really. I did mention thinking that Kyouya and Tamaki should have ended up together. He replied, rather adamantly, that he thought Kyouya and the twins should have ended up together. He really likes the twins and takes lots of photos of twin cosplayers. He showed me one of two actual male twins cosplaying the twins (with himself in between them) and we discussed how hot they were. Michael's partner of ten years (in the yaoi way. Score!) was a darling as well and seemed to be enjoying the general scene. They told a story of how some kids had been talking to Michael about what voices he had done etc., then turned to his partner and said, “Whose voice are you?” and he responded with “I’m the voice of reason.”
They are both clever and cute and I want them as my friends. Alas, my stupid ex husband lives in Arlington (along with an ex, crazy ass, threatened-to-kill-my-cat lover) so I cannot go back. Woe.
There was lots of hugging and picture taking and then the other fangirls who had been lurking on the periphery finally closed in and we decided we’d taken enough attention. I know that I've squeed badly here, but if you’d met him, you would squee as well. Even Caes was a convert to the cult of J.M.T. And she normally won’t look twice at a non-ninja.
“Which female Sci-Fi author has a heart of gold?”
Of course I was still rambling on about our close encounter whilst in the restroom stall afterward. I called out to Ceas, “None of that would have happened if that woman hadn’t helped us!” And someone said “I thought I recognized your voices!” I came out of the stall and there was the Helpful Woman/Saint. As it turns out, she is not a con organizer, but an actual writer of published science fiction novels. We all introduced ourselves (in the ladies room) and she pulled out one of her novels and autographed it for me and just gave it to me. Free of charge just like that. I tell you… What a NICE FUCKING HUMAN BEING, wot?
Her name is Julie E. Czerneda. Anyone know of her? Anyone read anything by her? I’ll be reading her now. I can’t not. I sort of floated around for the rest of the day on a cloud of “nice.” It has been a while since I’ve experienced that much kind person-ness all in one place.
As Caes reported, there was cosplaying and then there was drinking yummy drinks in our hotel room. I kind of nodded off during the fart joke portion of the evening, but kept one ear open in case any cock jokes happened. Over all I think the day had just been too much excitement for me (that or the tranquilizers I’d been forced to take when I first spotted JMT finally caught up with me).
At 4 a.m. (the party well over, for our group anyway) I went out to go have a smoke. A young man was out there smoking as well and turned to me and said, “Are you here with the con, or just staying at the hotel?” “I’m with the con,” I answered. “So you are young at heart, huh? That’s cool.”
Thanks kid; fucking feck off.
I smiled at him and laughed. But I really wanted to kick him in the junior mints so badly. How fucking old do I look anyway? Oh, well. It will be his turn someday. Heh.
Anyway, it was a great weekend full of great people and great food and a nice cat. Many thanks to the gals for hanging out wif me and to Caes for letting me stay at her place and going to the Brunch of No Eating (but who cares) with me (at least she ate; she bacon loaded).
“What will Sharpeslass’ cats break when left alone for three days?”
My cats survived without me and at least one of them reached new heights in my absence (ie: the nail polish shelf). There is some kind of modern artwork in iridescent pink, $14.50-a-bottle, Butter of London nail varnish on my tile bedroom floor as we speak. I’m thinking I might leave it there. Cat paintings sell for quite a bit these days…. I want to encourage their artistic impulses but I would like to steer them toward a less pricey (and destructive) medium. The broken glass is concerning.
Now I have to get ready for a visit from Lauand who is arriving tomorrow night!!!
For better con-reports, with lots more pictures, be sure to check out svana_vrika’s, theskywasblue’s, and caeseria’s posts at: http://svana-vrika.livejournal.com/56625.html, http://theskywasblue.livejournal.com/286097.html, and http://caeseria.livejournal.com/183876.html?view=3937604#t3937604.
Hopefully we will see something from seshats_prodigy, and epiphanytiff as well, since I believe they all had functioning cameras.
Questions including: “What Ouran ship does the actor who voices the English-dubbed Kyouya support?”, “Which female Sci-Fi author has a heart of gold?”, “What will Sharpeslass’ cats break when left alone for three days?” and “What will Sharpeslass break in Canada?” are answered under the cut.
I’m wordy and this is a bit long. I won’t be offended if you skim it… or skip it!!
I got home from Canada Monday after spending several lovely days in Caseria’s beautiful historical country attic and visiting Anime North. My camera is broken, so sadly I did not take photos, but I did get a few from Caes-kun which I will include here. I'll try not to repeat the ones she used.
Caes lives in this beautiful country area which is green and full of massive trees and hills and rustic homes and farmland and stables. She lives in the converted attic of an historical house. It is an adorable apartment, but to get there you must first climb the Stairs of Death. I know Caes has naturally thin legs, but always wondered how, when she exercises about as often as I do, they were so toned. I no longer wonder. My upper thighs still ache. Getting my giant pink suitcase up there (twice) was something else.
“What will Sharpeslass break in Canada?”
We spent Friday questing for foods one cannot get in the U.S. (sausage rolls, pork pies and treacle tarts) and having our toes tended at a really luxe (yet not too pricey) day spa. I managed to snap a display shelf off the wall in the waiting room and got the side-eye of death from the proprietress but spent enough $$$ that she was smiling at us and telling us to come back soon by the time we departed.
I first met the gals on Thursday night after my flight arrived, and we met up again Friday night at an Asian restaurant/sauna for supper. We spent an hour or so chatting in the parking lot after the meal, since the restaurant was too warm for comfortable hanging. All of the girls ( epiphany_tiff, svana_vrika, theskywasblue, and seshats_prodigy ) were wonderful.
All of us at dinner
Seshats fairly shines with joy, humour and kindness. (Is having a good soul the secret to a glowing complexion???) Actually, they all do. I’m not a big seer of “auras”, or whatever you want to call ‘em, but these ladies have auras you can’t miss. They glow with goodness; they are just lovely souls through and through. There are far too few people with spirits like that in the world (or at least in mine) so it was rejuvenating to be around them.
Oh, and lest I forget, I met Seshat’s hubby as well. He is quite funny in a wry, misanthropic way and very comfortable hanging with fangirls. I’m always slightly fascinated by relationships that work without one or the other partner being subjugated in some way. I’m glad some people still have that.
The cute couple
Best photo of me from this trip
Saturday morning Caes and I packed up and lugged my giant pink suitcase down the stairs and got into the car to head to the con. We drove through at Tim Hortons - a coffee shop she speaks of often. I, a Starbucks junkie, was not impressed. They don’t have non-fat lattes (a Tim Horton’s latte has 900 calories). In fact, the place we went didn’t have lattes at all. They had iced cappuccinos, which sounded promising, but it turns out they were actually coffee milkshakes. Tasty, sure, but not what I’d had in mind. Caes ordered a steeped tea and got a coffee. So “Timmies” of legend was pretty much 0 for 0.
There were 15,000 people at the con, which spanned three hotels.
I’ve been to world con and I swear there weren’t that many people there.
A huge part of the reason I decided to attend this convention was that J. Michael Tatum (voice of Kyouya from Ouran, Komui Lee from D.Gray-man, Sebastian from Black Butler, France from Hetalia, Domeki from xxxHolic, and many, many, many more) was going to be there. I signed Kare and I up for the brunch knowing it would be our best chance to actually talk with him without an autograph line time limit. I’ve been to creation events of a similar nature but this was better: first of all, it was in no way over sold. I think there were maybe 30 people there max - including guests; secondly, it wasn’t expensive. Creation charges about $85 a ticket for these things. On the down-side (at first glance) it wasn’t as organized. Creation rotates its guests from table to table keeping the time spent at each pretty even. In this case, it was really up to the fen to go up and initiate a conversation. This is something I can’t do under the best of circumstances.
I spotted my boy at the table next to ours as soon as we sat down and immediately lost my appetite and started to quiver. I did go get a plate (buffet) with Kare so that I wouldn’t just be sitting there watching him eat. I poked at a few potatoes, but was unable to choke down a thing. (If I could live in a constant state of nervous anxiety I would lose a lot of weight. Depression makes me hungry; stress makes me hungry; tiredness makes me hungry. The only two things that kill my appetite are utter and complete devastating heartbreak and nervousness.) When we went up for more coffee I mentioned that I’d be sad if we didn’t get to talk to him. A woman, who I thought at the time was with the con, overheard us and said that this group didn’t seem that organized but that I should go and talk to my voice actor. She said that she knew he would love to talk to fans like the two of us (read, I suspect, ‘not complete freaks.’ How little she knows!) and she had me point him out to her. She tried to lead me over but I was all, “No. I’m shy!! I don’t want to interrupt his breakfast!!” etc.
We went back to our table and ended up having an entertaining conversation with some of the event staff sitting at the same table. Of course my attention never fully wavered from the object of my affection and so I noticed when the woman who had been speaking with us earlier approached JMT and wasn’t entirely taken by surprise when he sauntered over (lithe and graceful as a jungle cat. Rowrl.) to our table.
“I hear someone over here is shy?” he said. I raised my quivering hand. “Me too!” he said exuberantly, manifesting complete anti-shyness. He sat down with us and, against all odds, I managed to converse like a normal person. Obviously I wouldn’t expect you to believe me on that one, but Caes said so. She said I didn’t act even slightly like a drooling idiot. We discussed Arlington, TX (where he lives and I used to live) and other kind of normal things. He put on my kitty cat ears. Daw!!! (You can see him in my kitty ears at Caes journal here: http://caeseria.livejournal.com/183876.html#cutid1 I didn’t want to repeat too many snaps, but that one is so worth looking at.)
“What Ouran ship does the actor who voices the English-dubbed Kyouya support?”
We did talk anime of course… it couldn’t be avoided really. I did mention thinking that Kyouya and Tamaki should have ended up together. He replied, rather adamantly, that he thought Kyouya and the twins should have ended up together. He really likes the twins and takes lots of photos of twin cosplayers. He showed me one of two actual male twins cosplaying the twins (with himself in between them) and we discussed how hot they were. Michael's partner of ten years (in the yaoi way. Score!) was a darling as well and seemed to be enjoying the general scene. They told a story of how some kids had been talking to Michael about what voices he had done etc., then turned to his partner and said, “Whose voice are you?” and he responded with “I’m the voice of reason.”
They are both clever and cute and I want them as my friends. Alas, my stupid ex husband lives in Arlington (along with an ex, crazy ass, threatened-to-kill-my-cat lover) so I cannot go back. Woe.
There was lots of hugging and picture taking and then the other fangirls who had been lurking on the periphery finally closed in and we decided we’d taken enough attention. I know that I've squeed badly here, but if you’d met him, you would squee as well. Even Caes was a convert to the cult of J.M.T. And she normally won’t look twice at a non-ninja.
“Which female Sci-Fi author has a heart of gold?”
Of course I was still rambling on about our close encounter whilst in the restroom stall afterward. I called out to Ceas, “None of that would have happened if that woman hadn’t helped us!” And someone said “I thought I recognized your voices!” I came out of the stall and there was the Helpful Woman/Saint. As it turns out, she is not a con organizer, but an actual writer of published science fiction novels. We all introduced ourselves (in the ladies room) and she pulled out one of her novels and autographed it for me and just gave it to me. Free of charge just like that. I tell you… What a NICE FUCKING HUMAN BEING, wot?
Her name is Julie E. Czerneda. Anyone know of her? Anyone read anything by her? I’ll be reading her now. I can’t not. I sort of floated around for the rest of the day on a cloud of “nice.” It has been a while since I’ve experienced that much kind person-ness all in one place.
As Caes reported, there was cosplaying and then there was drinking yummy drinks in our hotel room. I kind of nodded off during the fart joke portion of the evening, but kept one ear open in case any cock jokes happened. Over all I think the day had just been too much excitement for me (that or the tranquilizers I’d been forced to take when I first spotted JMT finally caught up with me).
At 4 a.m. (the party well over, for our group anyway) I went out to go have a smoke. A young man was out there smoking as well and turned to me and said, “Are you here with the con, or just staying at the hotel?” “I’m with the con,” I answered. “So you are young at heart, huh? That’s cool.”
Thanks kid; fucking feck off.
I smiled at him and laughed. But I really wanted to kick him in the junior mints so badly. How fucking old do I look anyway? Oh, well. It will be his turn someday. Heh.
Anyway, it was a great weekend full of great people and great food and a nice cat. Many thanks to the gals for hanging out wif me and to Caes for letting me stay at her place and going to the Brunch of No Eating (but who cares) with me (at least she ate; she bacon loaded).
“What will Sharpeslass’ cats break when left alone for three days?”
My cats survived without me and at least one of them reached new heights in my absence (ie: the nail polish shelf). There is some kind of modern artwork in iridescent pink, $14.50-a-bottle, Butter of London nail varnish on my tile bedroom floor as we speak. I’m thinking I might leave it there. Cat paintings sell for quite a bit these days…. I want to encourage their artistic impulses but I would like to steer them toward a less pricey (and destructive) medium. The broken glass is concerning.
Now I have to get ready for a visit from Lauand who is arriving tomorrow night!!!
For better con-reports, with lots more pictures, be sure to check out svana_vrika’s, theskywasblue’s, and caeseria’s posts at: http://svana-vrika.livejournal.com/56625.html, http://theskywasblue.livejournal.com/286097.html, and http://caeseria.livejournal.com/183876.html?view=3937604#t3937604.
Hopefully we will see something from seshats_prodigy, and epiphanytiff as well, since I believe they all had functioning cameras.