moonwise | ^ ^ WTF mate?

Oh so tired.

Hokay. Sssso.

Lots of fun this year, as always. I'll post pics later, but it always takes me forever to get the right pics cropped and the quips ready, and by then everyone else has already recapped.

The weekend started out on Wednesday morning. I finished the Tenten outfit into its "as done as it gets for now" version, packed up some last-minute stuff, and burned a couple of CDs.

jaina's flight arrived in Newark around noon, and I'm pleased to say that the trip into Newark gets easier to handle every time. We hied ourselves off to Mitsuwa for lunch and Pocky, and had a Mapquest Adventure in the process. Maybe I'm an idiot, but the directions seemed to tell us to go south along the river, and we should clearly have been going north. Anyway, we got there and it was good.

jaina got to meet my husband before we left for South Jersey. She gave me a CD of Photoshop shinies, yay. We decided to leave from my folks' house because it's a straight shot to Baltimore and a convenient meeting place.

irenak joined us for dinner just as

jaina and I were finishing up the last disc of Haibane Renmei (sniffle), and

fadingembers and

pale_jezebel arrived around 9 PM. I hadn't met

pale_jezebel before and she has the cutest voice of anyone ever. We looked at doujinshi and watched some AMVs and the pilot of Firefly before calling it a night. Sadly, the AC was broken at my folks' house, but the ceiling fans made sleeping arrangements more bearable.

We left for the con around lunchtime after a morning of Invader Zim and the rest of Firefly. Checkout was chaos, since a lot of the rooms weren't ready yet, but the girl at the counter helped us out and made sure we got a double (phew.) The prereg line was long as hell, but it moved along very quickly and we were badged and ready in about 1.5 hours. Whilst we stood in line,

ramothhe called, and afterwards we said hello. (V. cute mallet, btw.) I also bumped into

jersey_phooka on the way back out.

It was nostalgic to stay at the Wyndham Inner Harbor, since that's where

fireceremony and I stayed with PK our first Otakon. The walk is still a drag, though. It was hot and humid in Baltimore, and even though the Wyndham isn't too far from the con even compared to other hotels, the walk seemed to get longer every time.

I'm having a blank on what anime we watched, probably because there were crafty things to do re: gluing feathers onto

jaina's and

fadingembers's Haibane wings. For the record, you WILL get a burn from the hot glue, even if your husband claims that the glue doesn't get hot enough to burn. And burn me it did, and

fadingembers was my angel and brought me some ice.

sache arrived at the con by bus and joined us at the hotel late. As

jaina described, she is indeed cute like an Ewok. We watched Nescaflowne and turned in not too long after that to save resources for the con.

Next morning was first cosplay day. I'd brought three costumes - Tenten from Naruto for Friday, Nemu from Haibane Renmei for Saturday, and Seung Mina just in case. Naruto definitely seemed to be the big cosplay this year - it's still a puzzlement to me that it hasn't been licensed yet. On our way down to the con, I freaked the hell out of

littlelicks with a patented Fangirl Glomp (but, it WAS nice to see you!)

I was supposed to meet

ramothhe for the Naruto photoshoot on Fri. AM, but she was running late and the shoot wasn't any great shakes anyway. Afterwards,

fadingembers,

pale_jezebel,

irenak, and I waited in line for the dealers' room because there really wasn't much else to do. We did see the Jewish Wolfwood while waiting, and he is a very funny guy and bar mitzvah'ed a Vash when we were taking his picture.

The dealers' room was the usual - overpriced merchandise and a zillion people. There were a couple good deals to be had, and the usual glut of free stuff, but I decided to go back and change into the Seung Mina outfit instead of hanging around there. On the way out, I met

ramothhe and

neochichiri at the fountains, and got my forehead protector thingy from their talented friend Kuma. We took a couple pics and then I went and got changed for the SC shoot at 3 PM.

It was a disgustingly hot walk back (long sleeves + silk + polyester = sweat through your costume, ick ick ick) but the shoot was fun.

jaina was a very good sport and took a lot of photos for me, including a fun one of three of us as Seung Mina's three outfits. Husband was pleased to hear that he'd yet again gotten the Best Pokey Stick prize. (ph33r it!)

We went to the Wanky Fanfic Panel again this year, and I'm happy to report that it was less Wanky, although we did have a condition that none of us could leave until we'd written a drabble. There were some fan parodies that night, but we'd seen most of them and didn't go, opting instead for the Artist's Alley, where

ghostfire was exhibiting.

ramothhe did tell me that the Voltron parody was pretty funny, so I'm sorry to have missed that. :P

We went to see Saikano for a while, but it was silly IMHO. ("Oh! By the way, I'm the ultimate weapon! Are you okay with that?") The show wasn't helped by the hordes of screaming yaoi fangirls in the next room over watching Gravitation. Now, I had a damn fun time watching Bronze/Zetsuai/whatever it was called at Otakon 2002, but for crying out loud, it is not necessary to shriek like a 12-year-old every time there's one little snog.

Somewhere between Friday night and Saturday morning, we fit in Fanboy Bebop, Fruits Basket, Samurai Deeper Kyo, and Kaleido Star. Fruits Basket is teh cuteness and might require further watching, esp. the kitty guy. (KITTY!)

jaina,

fadingembers, and I got into our Haibane outfits, and we were indeed adorable. Sadly, the sailor scarf on the back of

jaina's Rakka dress had not been altered for her wings, so she had to wear her wings over the dress. We met up with

littlelicks,

warflower, and her boyfriend Rob, and went down to the con to take a couple pictures. We did find some other Haibane there and took a group shot before our horde went to watch the AMV contest.

None of the AMVs this year were too exciting, I have to say, but we did watch them all and vote.

irenak left early to change back into her Crazy 88 costume for a Kill Bill shoot at 3 PM. Afterwards, some of the group went off to the dealers' room, and before the other half left, we were shanghai'ed by none other than

lushdesolation, who had admirably managed to pick us out from the crowd. We had a nice chat and took a couple pictures before we had to go back to the room and change for dinner at Legal Seafood.

Dinner was a great improvement over last year, when I was too sick to my stomach to enjoy anything. lj user="littlelicks">,

warflower, and Rob joined us for dinner, and I had a very tasty Peach Fuzz Cosmo. Afterwards, we squeaked in a couple eps of Utena before the fan parodies. We saw the lines for the L'Arc~en~Ciel concert on the way there and back, and holy shit but I've never seen humanity packed up like that in line for anything, and I include playoff games in that statement.

The fan parodies were disappointing, in short. The first one was kind of funny, and ReDeath ReDux was of course hilarious, but the new Non.D.E. Studios effort was random and boringly unfunny in stretches. There were some funny bits, like the recurring ninja jokes and the "Yaoi Ai for the Shounen Guy," but the Kenshin bit was stupid and so was the Ranma bit. I realize it would be hard to follow up something as hilarious as "This is Otakudom," but come on.

We finished Utena back at the hotel and followed it up with out yearly Bad Fanfic Reading, with interpretive dance by

fadingembers. By then, it was getting late, and it was sadly time for bed.

Not a whole lot to say about Sunday. We packed up the room and had to deal with the Magical Up and Down Elevator on our way out, which led to taking the stairs down 17 floors. I finally got to browse the dealers' room, and picked up a Battle of the Planets DVD for husband, the Now and Then, Here and There boxset and Grave of the Fireflies from the Central Park Media stand, and the "How to Put on Kimono" DVD from Rising Sun Imports. After that, we took a Now We Dead From Con picture, and it was time to go home. Sad goodbyes to everyone, and then

irenak and I left in one car and

jaina,

fadingembers,

sache, and

pale_jezebel left in another.

Then I went home and husband gave me lots of hugs and dinner at Willie's Taverne.

The End!

Hope to see you all at Ohayocon!