ACeeen!
Okay, so...I have the feeling this is going to be a very long entry. Yay for cuts, huh? xD
Hmm...where to start? Right, so...we left for ACen around 2:30 on Friday, and as soon as we (myself, my mom, Arielle, and Hope [whokindataggedalongatthelastminute] got into the hotel lobby, guess who we saw? Axel, Riku, and Demyx cosplayers. x3 Not to mention, the Riku had a yaoi paddle, so I was, like, "OMG! I wonder if they'll yaoi for pocky! :DD" ...I totally would have gone over and taken pictures, but both my camera and my boxes of pocky were still in the suitcases. Dx I meant to find them again later, but...they vanished. >>; Damn, I missed out.
Moving on...by the time we got to the convention center, the pre-registration line was nearly three hours long. @_@ We got in line at 4:15, and we didn't get out until around 6:45, though. Arielle whipped out her DS and got on PictoChat, and I took pictures of the people in front of us who thought it would be funny to see who could hold their arm up in the air the longest. The last I saw, they kept their arms up for at least an hour and a half. xD; Hmm...what else happened at registration? Oh...I gave one of the security team members some pocky, and he gave me a hug in return. :D
After registration, we made our way over to the Hyatt and wandered around the lobby. I sat down next to the escalators to go through my stuff and...I dropped my camera. Even though my hand had been, like, a foot above the ground, the camera's collision with the tile was enough to completely destroy the zoom lens. I spent at least a half-hour trying to fix it, but all I managed to do was snap the zoom lens off completely. ...Mom was really pissed. -_-;
But...yeah, after that, we headed over to the shounen-ai panel. The people who hosted it were good, but I really could have been spared the history/gender relations lecture. It was, like, "I came here to talk about pretty boys getting it on, not listen to some guy ask complicated questions regarding the paper he's writing in pursuit of his double-master's degree! D:" Geez, way to bore us to death. Dx The pictures were pretty, though. Oh, we also met a cool KH2!Riku cosplayer named Jennifer there. :3 More on her and her friends later.
Mm, after the shounen-ai panel, we headed back to the room, since it was about 9:45. Coming out of the skybridge, we saw two people holding posterboard signs that said, "FREE HUGS!" How could we resist something like that? x3 So...yeah, we eventually made it back to the room, and we decided to watch Borat on my laptop in the bathtub. ='D My ass hurt so badly by the time the movie was over.
Saturday:
We hit the dealer room around ten. I very stupidly forgot to find a working ATM, so Arielle had to pay for Kenan's birthday present. By then, we had to go to the Hyatt for the FFXII panel. Since I haven't finished the game yet (ha, not even close!), I pretty much tuned out the spoilers and worked on trying to fix my camera. Sadly, I did not succeed. It suffered an excruciating death. D: R.I.P. camera.
Oh, we bumped into some really cool FFXII cosplayers at the panel. They had a Basch, a Balthier, a Larsa, and...a judge, I think? It might have been Gabranth. Anyway...yeah, we kept running into the Basch all day, and every time we saw him(?), we shouted, "BASCH LIVES! 8D" God, I loved that part of the game. <3
After hitt, we hung around in the hallway outside the main ballroom and waited for the High and Mighty Color concert to start so we could line up for the Masquerade. We bumped into Melissa, Diana, and Erin there, and we hung onto their bags while they went to the concert. An hour and a half later, word starts to spread that anyone who wants to go to the masquerade needs a ticket to get in. We went to customer service, and they said the tickets were already gone. As we had really, really been looking forward to going to the masquerade, we were pretty pissed off. And we weren't the only ones, either. As ACen hadn't made a formal announcement regarding the ticket situation, pretty much no one knew about it until about twenty minutes before the line was supposed to start forming. Hell, the security team didn't even know! ...I have a feeling the congoers who couldn't get in raised a hullabaloo about it at the gripe session this morning. ^^;
Anyway, we went around ranting to anyone who would listen about the stupid ticket policy, and...we actually got really, really lucky. Two girls who happened to come upon tickets felt sorry for us, since we had already been waiting for so long, so they gave us their tickets. Oh, my God, I can't even describe how happy we were at that point. We both glomped them and thanked them, like, a bazillion times. x3; So...yeah. we got in line and...it was magical. :D
What made the whole thing even better is that the Riku from the night before got in line with her friends right behind us. We were all, like, "Hey, we know you! 8D" I showed her my yummy KH merchandise I had scooped up from the artist alley, and she talked about how she ran around at the KH photoshoot and made out, with, like, everyone. x3; So...yeah. I have to e-mail her and get pics. 8D
Oh, but...the masquerade itself was amazing. The two hosts cosplayed as Elvis!Sephiroth and Barret, and they were hysterical. Some of their reactions to the more suggestive skits were priceless. ("These people have destroyed my sanity. Oh, God, brain bleach! D8") ...Yeah. x3 The walk-ons were really good (OMG, Anti-Form!Sora with glowing eyes and Stage-DivingToSaveHisDonuts!Vash~ 8DD), but the skits...damn. x33 The best one, in my opinion, was done by the guy who used to cosplay as Stripper!Vash and...some other guy. :D; They were Yazoo and Kadaj, and they did this crazy thing where they Velcroed Jenova boxes to their crotches and rapped/danced around the stage. It was so fucking funny...='DD If they didn't, they totally should have won. <33 Oh, and...the guy performing the last skit used the opportunity to propose to his girlfriend of five years. Itwascool. <3 The entire room (700+ people) burst out in applause and started screaming when she said yes. x3
So...yeah. At this point, our ACen adventure was coming to an end, as it was 8:30ish by the time we got out of the masquerade. We walked around and listened to the Spoony Bards perform for a while before going back to the ballroom to get in line for the Your Favorite Anime Sucks panel. For those of you who haven't been, it's a panel where the audience shouts out anime titles, and four guys say exactly why it sucks. It's quite amusing. ='D One of their best commentaries was for Advent Children. They were all, like, "Okay, the whole plot of the movie is that Cloud is sick with something. He has a status ailment. Now, this can't possibly be so because, look at his arm! He has a ribbon equipped!" I LOL'd so fucking hard. ='D
Mm, yeah...we got back to the room at 12:15 AM, and we spent some time reminiscing, because we were leaving first thing on Sunday morning. 'Twas sad when we realized we wouldn't be able to come back for another year. I mean...everyone's so nice at cons! People there understand you and don't judge you (as much) for what you like. Why can't real-life be like that? Ah, well...ACen 08's only 363 days away. <3~
P.S. Pictures'll be up in a separate post as soon as I have enough money to get them developed. :D;
Hmm...where to start? Right, so...we left for ACen around 2:30 on Friday, and as soon as we (myself, my mom, Arielle, and Hope [whokindataggedalongatthelastminute] got into the hotel lobby, guess who we saw? Axel, Riku, and Demyx cosplayers. x3 Not to mention, the Riku had a yaoi paddle, so I was, like, "OMG! I wonder if they'll yaoi for pocky! :DD" ...I totally would have gone over and taken pictures, but both my camera and my boxes of pocky were still in the suitcases. Dx I meant to find them again later, but...they vanished. >>; Damn, I missed out.
Moving on...by the time we got to the convention center, the pre-registration line was nearly three hours long. @_@ We got in line at 4:15, and we didn't get out until around 6:45, though. Arielle whipped out her DS and got on PictoChat, and I took pictures of the people in front of us who thought it would be funny to see who could hold their arm up in the air the longest. The last I saw, they kept their arms up for at least an hour and a half. xD; Hmm...what else happened at registration? Oh...I gave one of the security team members some pocky, and he gave me a hug in return. :D
After registration, we made our way over to the Hyatt and wandered around the lobby. I sat down next to the escalators to go through my stuff and...I dropped my camera. Even though my hand had been, like, a foot above the ground, the camera's collision with the tile was enough to completely destroy the zoom lens. I spent at least a half-hour trying to fix it, but all I managed to do was snap the zoom lens off completely. ...Mom was really pissed. -_-;
But...yeah, after that, we headed over to the shounen-ai panel. The people who hosted it were good, but I really could have been spared the history/gender relations lecture. It was, like, "I came here to talk about pretty boys getting it on, not listen to some guy ask complicated questions regarding the paper he's writing in pursuit of his double-master's degree! D:" Geez, way to bore us to death. Dx The pictures were pretty, though. Oh, we also met a cool KH2!Riku cosplayer named Jennifer there. :3 More on her and her friends later.
Mm, after the shounen-ai panel, we headed back to the room, since it was about 9:45. Coming out of the skybridge, we saw two people holding posterboard signs that said, "FREE HUGS!" How could we resist something like that? x3 So...yeah, we eventually made it back to the room, and we decided to watch Borat on my laptop in the bathtub. ='D My ass hurt so badly by the time the movie was over.
Saturday:
We hit the dealer room around ten. I very stupidly forgot to find a working ATM, so Arielle had to pay for Kenan's birthday present. By then, we had to go to the Hyatt for the FFXII panel. Since I haven't finished the game yet (ha, not even close!), I pretty much tuned out the spoilers and worked on trying to fix my camera. Sadly, I did not succeed. It suffered an excruciating death. D: R.I.P. camera.
Oh, we bumped into some really cool FFXII cosplayers at the panel. They had a Basch, a Balthier, a Larsa, and...a judge, I think? It might have been Gabranth. Anyway...yeah, we kept running into the Basch all day, and every time we saw him(?), we shouted, "BASCH LIVES! 8D" God, I loved that part of the game. <3
After hitt, we hung around in the hallway outside the main ballroom and waited for the High and Mighty Color concert to start so we could line up for the Masquerade. We bumped into Melissa, Diana, and Erin there, and we hung onto their bags while they went to the concert. An hour and a half later, word starts to spread that anyone who wants to go to the masquerade needs a ticket to get in. We went to customer service, and they said the tickets were already gone. As we had really, really been looking forward to going to the masquerade, we were pretty pissed off. And we weren't the only ones, either. As ACen hadn't made a formal announcement regarding the ticket situation, pretty much no one knew about it until about twenty minutes before the line was supposed to start forming. Hell, the security team didn't even know! ...I have a feeling the congoers who couldn't get in raised a hullabaloo about it at the gripe session this morning. ^^;
Anyway, we went around ranting to anyone who would listen about the stupid ticket policy, and...we actually got really, really lucky. Two girls who happened to come upon tickets felt sorry for us, since we had already been waiting for so long, so they gave us their tickets. Oh, my God, I can't even describe how happy we were at that point. We both glomped them and thanked them, like, a bazillion times. x3; So...yeah. we got in line and...it was magical. :D
What made the whole thing even better is that the Riku from the night before got in line with her friends right behind us. We were all, like, "Hey, we know you! 8D" I showed her my yummy KH merchandise I had scooped up from the artist alley, and she talked about how she ran around at the KH photoshoot and made out, with, like, everyone. x3; So...yeah. I have to e-mail her and get pics. 8D
Oh, but...the masquerade itself was amazing. The two hosts cosplayed as Elvis!Sephiroth and Barret, and they were hysterical. Some of their reactions to the more suggestive skits were priceless. ("These people have destroyed my sanity. Oh, God, brain bleach! D8") ...Yeah. x3 The walk-ons were really good (OMG, Anti-Form!Sora with glowing eyes and Stage-DivingToSaveHisDonuts!Vash~ 8DD), but the skits...damn. x33 The best one, in my opinion, was done by the guy who used to cosplay as Stripper!Vash and...some other guy. :D; They were Yazoo and Kadaj, and they did this crazy thing where they Velcroed Jenova boxes to their crotches and rapped/danced around the stage. It was so fucking funny...='DD If they didn't, they totally should have won. <33 Oh, and...the guy performing the last skit used the opportunity to propose to his girlfriend of five years. Itwascool. <3 The entire room (700+ people) burst out in applause and started screaming when she said yes. x3
So...yeah. At this point, our ACen adventure was coming to an end, as it was 8:30ish by the time we got out of the masquerade. We walked around and listened to the Spoony Bards perform for a while before going back to the ballroom to get in line for the Your Favorite Anime Sucks panel. For those of you who haven't been, it's a panel where the audience shouts out anime titles, and four guys say exactly why it sucks. It's quite amusing. ='D One of their best commentaries was for Advent Children. They were all, like, "Okay, the whole plot of the movie is that Cloud is sick with something. He has a status ailment. Now, this can't possibly be so because, look at his arm! He has a ribbon equipped!" I LOL'd so fucking hard. ='D
Mm, yeah...we got back to the room at 12:15 AM, and we spent some time reminiscing, because we were leaving first thing on Sunday morning. 'Twas sad when we realized we wouldn't be able to come back for another year. I mean...everyone's so nice at cons! People there understand you and don't judge you (as much) for what you like. Why can't real-life be like that? Ah, well...ACen 08's only 363 days away. <3~
P.S. Pictures'll be up in a separate post as soon as I have enough money to get them developed. :D;