Yesterday was Day 2 of Otaku-Con 2009 in Spokane, and it was the first convention I had ever attended in my whole life. Right now I feel like I did after prom, when you have that sort of “hangover” from all the excitement and fun, and you just weren’t ready for it to end. After yesterday, I totally wasn’t ready for the con to end.
Several of my friends had attended the first day of Otaku-Con (Aug. 3rd), but I could only go on one day. After emailing the staff to get a schedule in advance, I decided to go on Tuesday, because there was an hour of open karaoke in the day’s events. 
After a rather interesting journey to SCC with Cody and Mango (we almost got lost ’cause of road construction on Freya, orz”), we checked into Otaku-Con, and I went to find Austin.
I had decided beforehand to cosplay a high school girl, right? But, after a night of restless sleep due to my sinuses being torn apart by the smoke in the air, I ditched my costume at the last minute, lol.
So, our first stop was the anime theatre room, where the staff had set up a screen to show different series. Except, today there wasn’t a screen, but the director of programming, Dave, and a volunteer, Chris (who was actually a rather attractive volunteer, lol), were on the stage waiting for people to show up for the skit contest. Chris, who also happened to be a martial artist, showed off his skills, with Dave promptly adding, “He could be a ninja!” which made the girls in the crowd burst into fangirl squeals. And then people kept taking Dave’s halo, lol, and throwing a white stuffed bear across the stage, and playing with a squirrel puppet from behind the curtain.
The skits weren’t that bad. The first one didn’t make sense, though, and the girls didn’t speak loudly enough, but the second skit was completely a Naruto fanservice skit, serving up SasuSaku, SasuNaru, and even a little KakaSasu set to music from Grease. Again, fangirls squealed, lol. Austin and I were totally laughing our heads off whenever Kakashi would start lipsyncing, “Tell me more, tell me more!” while waving his porn book around. Then, Link and Navi showed up to say hi, except…
Link was in a straitjacket, lol! (That’s Dave, btw, with his committee member halo.) The act following Link’s quick “Hello!” was a stand-up comic skit performed by a Code Geass cosplayer, and we all promptly lost The Game. And, uh, apparently we shunned a waffle-hater, too, who was also on staff, lol.
After the skits, Austin and Alex convinced me to join the glomp game.
Oh my gosh, it was so much fun! I was really nervous at first about hugging random people, but after playing for about ten minutes, it was really fun! A couple times there was gang-glomping, one group even growing to six people, lol. Austin and Alex were, like, all over the circle, and there were some people who basically tackled you. One kiddo jumped on me, but I caught him. I think working at a daycare paid off, lol. Part way through, I left the game to get Cody to come play with us, and I ended up playing a round of Fate/Unlimited Codes on his PS2. It was actually really fun! I liked playing as Lily Saber. She’s pretty~la.
After the glomp game, I went to get something to drink, since I hadn’t had water all day, and I kinda didn’t eat much of a breakfast, orz”. Austin and I went to find the other members of our posse, and did some shopping along the way, lol, and then we decided to get something to eat from the bookstore. Trail mix saved our life that day, lol. Then, after we left the bookstore and had stashed out stuff in a locker that one of Austin’s friends had rented, we were evicted from the locker! Still don’t know why we were, but there was probably a time limit or something.
Yes, we do, indeed, fail at camwhoring.
After we ate, we had alot of downtime, since the next event wouldn’t be starting til 4 PM. So, we wandered around the convention space, looked in on the anime theatre room, checked out the Lucky Star aerobics room but decided not to join in, and eventually we all ended up in a circle of comfy chairs to draw and talk, lol. Austin and I talked about Charter, and how much we wanted to go to the Masquerade Ball before we left the con, ’cause we hadn’t had a decent dance since June. And then one of Jon’s friends was all like, “wait, you know so-and-so?” and I was all, “Yeah! I’ve known him since he was in sixth grade,” and he was all, “Yeah, me too! He’s my brother’s best friend’s little brother. We go to the same church.”
I had been hanging out with Spidermonkey this whole time, even though I had been too shy to introduce myself when I first saw him at church way back in December! Lol, it’s great how fate works that way.
So after sitting for about an hour, Dave came to us and asked if we were going to go to the speed-dating event, and we told him we were gonna do karaoke instead. “Karaoke was cancelled,” he said. “We didn’t really have any lyrics.” NOOOO!!! I had been, like, practicing songs for almost two weeks for karaoke, orz”. Oh well, we went to speed-dating anyway, ’cause it’d be fun to try something new. I totally wish I had taken pictures, cause it was really interesting, lol. I talked to a guy who works at SCC, Sam (who had been hanging out with us), a girl who might have been on one of the committees (I think she was wearing a halo), a girl cosplaying L from Death Note, a guy cosplaying Zero/Lelouch, another girl attendee, Jon (lol), a guy named Andrew who was actually kinda cool to talk to and looked sorta like Harry Potter, and a guy who had just bought a pile of Black Cat volumes.
After speed-dating, I went to the “Let’s Draw Manga Faces” panel run by NDP Comics art director Danielle. It was actually a rather interesting class, since I learned a new technique for guidelines that I want to try out and see if it’ll improve my faces some. I talked to Danielle about being a colorist for NDP, and about their company and Aki-Con, which she has convinced me to go to, even though I can’t afford both Aki-Con and Sakura-Con, lol.
After the panel, I met up with Austin and Co. to have pizza and to just hang out. We didn’t really feel like attending theawards’ ceremony, so we skipped and hung out in the lobby looking through my sketchbook and sharing stories from classes at CCA. After the ceremony, we went to the Masquerade Ball, which had started earlier than usual. Of course, Austin and I kicked off our shoes and danced to the first track, a remix of “Motteke! Sailor Fuku” but after that “Passion” by Utada Hikaru came on thespeakers, which is totally not a dance song. It’s good for stuff like karaoke and chilling, but notsomuch for dancing. Then, after a mix of “One-Winged Angel” and “Kesenai Tsumi” by Nana Kitade, Austin and I decided the ball was a bust, and we left to let Cody and Mango know it was getting close to time to leave, since I had to work the next day. We said our good-byes, and then we left.
As soon as I got home, after being mauled by my two little dogs, both of whom were convinced that I hadn’t been home for years, I showed off my loot to my mom and my sister.
I got the Aki-Con promos from the NDP Comics booth when I was talking to Danielle, and I had also bought a Mokona plushie, a Boo plushie, a Yoko keychain, and a Mario mushroom plushie from the same booth earlier that day. The jewelry set was made by an artist on dA, whose link I’ll add later when I have it. Muffinelf
I bought two chibis by ~Salice-is-an-idiot
It’s Ammy, Waka, and Phoenix! <3 I bought the last Phoenix chibi too, lol.
Oh, and there was this really hot Suzaku cosplayer there, too. :3
Isn’t he just spectacular? <3 Too bad he’s got a girlfriend, orz”.
So, that’s my first con experience in a nutshell. It was so awesome, and I can’t wait to do it again!
So I have to run to the ONLY local supplier to pick up the color I need for $3 more than what I should be paying for it. Danielle from NDP Comics told me that paying $7 per pen plus tax is way over-priced, so as soon as possible I’m going to order a 72-piece Copic Sketch set from Dick Blick with my gift certificate from forever ago, lol.
Hurrah for Claire’s/Icing!). Anyway, I’ve been rewatching alot of the older Disney movies now, and replacing my ancient tapes with shiny, new DVDs. The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Beauty and the Beast still remain my most favorite Disney films, even if they did scare the crap outta me when I was little.
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Haha, I guess my work on WiiFit has gone to waste now.
