We had a really nice day with friends today!!!!! Mimi and Magenta came up from Virginia to hang, which is part of what inspired the manic house cleaning XD But now our downstairs looks a lot better and we got to hang with friends XD

So, after chatting and showing them around the house some - and letting them pet Lumos, which was great because people are always amazed by how soft she is!!! - we ended up going out to eat a late lunch at one of our fave places in Hampden. Pat came along too, since Mimi was like "you're coming too, come on" and I'm just happy whenever friends meet & get along. I DIDN'T THINK IT WOULD GO BADLY but I have anxiety like, all the time.

And then we somehow ended up joking about Knights for too long on the drive back to our house, and now we're maybe cosplaying Knights together at Otakon??? idk exactly how this happened XD But Pat's gonna be Leo, which I think will be fun, and Liz and I are still trying to decide which one of us is gonna be Sena and Naru-chan. We're both fine with either, so it's like...okay I guess we need to figure it out soon-ish.

I usually like making our cosplays, but Mimi found some actually good looking ones to buy on aliexpress and Pat wants to remake some of the accessories when they arrive, so they won't look like cheapo costumes that we put no effort into. And we'll look very consistent if we all buy the same costume, which helps.

ALSO I JUST LOVE MAKING PLANS WITH FRIENDS IDK IT'S JUST NICE!!!!!!! friendship good ;w;

They stayed way later than they meant to but we were having such a nice time together...thus is life XD It was just a really nice day!!!! :D

AND THEN!!!! LUMOS IS SO FUCKING CUTE I LOVE HER!!!! I know it's after 3 am, but Liz is still grinding out the last points they need to get a 3rd copy of Shinobu so here we are!!! It means I get to share Lumos (and also some other pictures from today).


but also why does my cat look AI generated XD

( a few more pics under here! )

Last night I did end up screenrecording demon Madara in Halloween Rendezvous...and then also a few other MVs in his two feature scouts, because I was in the zone I guess???? idk I had fun! And now I have a ton of screencaps to make icons from OwO

Also I'm super achy because I had a long day but it was worth it so who cares!!! I'd do it again in a heartbeat ;D

Oh my god its fucking 2 am I was at the con for neay 16 hours today and it was somehow even better than yesterday!!!! I'm exhausted and I wanna pass out instead of write this, but we're currently in a huge line at McDonald's, sooooo I have time to work on this while we wait.

First of all: 10 am Trigun photoshoot, so that was hell to get to. We left Baltimore at around 8:30 and I made it on time (while Liz and Pat parked the car). The room it was in didn't even open until 10, so I ended up waiting around for a little bit just watching people go by. And then we fiiiiinally got let in :D Everyone looked so good again today and it was really exciting to see how many people made it to the shoot despite it being early on fucking Saturday.

INCLUDING A TRIMAX KNIVES!!!! I was too nervous to talk to them at first, but I ended up complimenting their costume and watching their bag for a bit, since I was too sore to take pics today. Eventually my emotional support wife showed up and I was able to properly strike up conversation. And we ended up chatting with them and one of the Legato cosplayers from yesterday for awhile, as well as some of the other people at the shoot. IT WAS SO NICE SOBS EVERYONE IS SO KIND AND LOVELY TO TALK TO!!! People have continued to be amazed by the fanfic booklets I made ;w; I'm blown away by people's reactions tbh, it's made my weekend so nice.

We ended up chatting for AWHILE, during which time we saw a Midvalley cosplayer with an actual fucking saxophone, which was awesome. After the many hours of standing and talking, I had to go sit and recover, because.....apparently I went too hard yesterday ;w; I did run around a ton, but I'm still sad I was so wiped today. Eventually I realized that I really couldn't keep walking, so Liz went and got me a wheelchair so I could actually keep doing stuff.

And then the return to artist alley so I could get a Knives button I'd seen yesterday :D I needed him for my lanyard~~~ I was gonna look around more, but we wanted to check in at the featured events room to see when we could line up for the Studio Orange panel. They ended up letting us go in at around 2 (despite the panel being at 4) because we needed accessibility accommodations.

This ended up working out really well, because we got a little section of wall to hang out at while we waited. And then, various people we'd met yesterday and today recognized us and came to chill with us. AND THEN DURING THIS CONVO WE REALIZED THAT THE LEGATO COSPLAYER WE HUNG OUT WITH THIS MORNING ALSO LIVES IN Baltimore!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There was just a ton of good conversation in general with people, including the trimax Knives that I am apparently eternally enamored with *w* They also had told an artist about the fics I gave them and wanted to introduce me to said artist... but after the panel, obviously.

THE PANEL!!!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We got to sit in the very front row, thanks to cripple powers accessibility, and I just sorta charisma'd our entire group with me uwu Liz recorded the entire thing and I took a bunch of pictures, but there's so fucking much that I think it needs its own post tbh. Just know that they were playing my song in the room (MILLIONS KNIVES -Vocal Ver-) and I was so happy for it. Also, Studio Orange was just so nice and excited so see how many people love Trigun here in America ;w;

ANYWAY!!! We then went off to the artist alley with our Knives friend and met up with the artist....who I'd gotten some charms from yesterday!!! They were super fucking impressed with our fics and very grateful, and it's just been so fun to see everyone's reactions ;w; I GOTTA BRING MORE TO THE NEXT CON BUT THE PRINTER BROKE SO I'M FUCKING DYING OVER IT.

uhhhhh

There was a lot of wandering around artist alley before finally being like fuck we should eat because it's after 6 and we still haven't eaten, like, all day. Dinner of champions: Lunchables and pudding/jello cups! :D

Okay, so after eating, we went on a wandering adventure through the con center, looking for something to do. We tried to see the Ota Museum, but it was already closed. And then we hiked back across the con center to try to go to the manga librar...which had closed early. fucking. We ALSO found out that we had to return the wheelchair by 9, because I guess disabled people don't exist after sunset????? Whatever.

OH RIGHT OKAY we'd been preaching the good word of Knives/Legato all weekend, and even gotten some people to join our discord server :D Which worked out because one of them ended up mentioning that they were just chilling outside of artist alley and since we didn't have any other plans, we went to hang with our new friend the Livio cosplayer~ For like, hours, just chatting with them and a Wolfwood cosplayer they'd met. It was very much like the best kind of con energy tbh!!!!

Once it was around 11? 11:15? We were all like fuck shit it's getting late - the Livio had to pack up for check out tomorrow and we had an hour drive home - so we parted ways. We went up the escalators towards the exit and...ran into the Knives and Legato cosplayers we hung out with a ton earlier XD So it's Saturday after dark and we're literally about to leave to go home, but I'm just like JUST KIDDING, TIME TO HANG OUT WITH FRIENDS AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!! We ended up wandering with them and their friends for a bit before finally going to see the AMVs after dark...because nothing says the beginning of a beautiful friendship like watching hentai together ;D

And those went until 1:30 am, which is when the con closed for the day. They were basically like "okay you saw your Frosty the Snowman hentai, now get the fuck out of here" and we did!! The end- for now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

god I'm so fucking tired. This was written over the course of our drive home and finished up from the comfort of my own couch. I'm gonna go pass out so I can experience more con tomorrow~~~~~

aka, I made this as a post on tumblr but now I'm gonna make it into a post here...no promises that I improve it or anything because it was a rambling list on tumblr and I'm not sure I'm smart enough to do anything else with it.

So here it is: the highlights of our stupidity~~~

• telling our waitress at Waffle House about Trigun because I brought a volume of the manga into the restaurant and she was like oh, I usually just watch anime but is that manga any good?
• why the fuck are half the rest stops on the NJ turnpike closed right now????
• going to Brooklyn for the Uhaul and forgetting to play Brooklyn Rage despite discussing it multiple times over the past week
• trying to find parking in Hell's Kitchen for said Uhaul
• giving up and just illegally parking it because fuck it, we aren’t going to be leaving it unattended anyway
• sorta planning to caravan because Liz + Pat were in the Uhaul and I was in my car with Chi + her dog, but those plans pretty much immediately fell apart
• me bemoaning not having time to go to the Starbucks Reserve Roastery, aka the worst, most pretentious sbux I’ve ever been to, because my keychain from it broke. not five minutes later we drove past it by accident BUT THERE WAS NOWHERE TO PULL OVER and Chi was like “lol oh well” at my suffering.
• part two of sbux: a truck pulled out, leaving the perfect space for me to park in and run inside for a new, terrible keychain.
• part three of sbux: THEY DON’T SELL FUCKING KEYCHAINS ANYMORE MY LIFE IS A MOCKERY
• getting a huge pizza + garlic knots before leaving NYC because 1) IT’S NYC and 2) there’s no good pizza in Baltimore I gotta take what I can get
• meeting up at the Alexander Hamilton rest stop - cue Liz singing from Hamilton - to eat said pizza in the parking lot, because it was impossible to find anywhere to park and chill in NYC

-me and Liz being cringe, much to everyone else’s dismay

• seriously tho why the fuck are half the NJ turnpike rest stops closed right now
• Chi’s dog experiencing grass for the first time (at a NJ turnpike rest stop) and liking it
• Chi’s dog experiencing being in a car for the first time and NOT liking it
• Liz being apparently too damn efficient at driving and somehow overtaking me despite being in a Uhaul
• subjecting Chi to many of my Trigun opinions because she was stuck in a car with me for four hours and I have can’t shut the fuck up disease

-Chi @ me, tho I can’t even remember why now XD

• calling each other’s vehicles multiple times throughout the trip to yell about passing each other on the road and/or whatever other dumb thoughts we all had that couldn’t be contained to just one car
• SIX FUCKING DOLLARS for vending machine offbrand dippin dots
• Chi’s dog experiencing yards for the first time and not wanting to leave the yard to go inside our house
• Ethyl being the peace bringer and somehow calming down Chi’s dog and Lumos and helping them meet

And now I have to figure out how I want to format that quotes but I'm also tired of looking at this entry XD I have a bunch of pictures to share once I go through them, too. I brought my fancy camera and only had so much time to use it, but ohhhh well. I'm still sleepy, okay, it was a long day.

Day 4 | Comment to someone you haven't ever interacted with before or introduce yourself to someone you've interacted with and friend/follow them.

I've been trying this a lot, actually, since I've rejoined Dreamwidth, and it's been nice!! I'm also gonna use this space to just talk a little about how important fandom friendships have been in my life. Outside the internet, I cosplay and go to cons, and most of the close friends I have now are people I met because I went out of my way to meet new people while at cons. Hell, I met my wife through a friend I made at a con, and if that doesn't show how important meeting new people can be, I dunno what does!

Online, I actually tend to be a little more nervous about talking to people, but in the past few years I've really put forth the effort to meet new friends through fandom. And I've gotten some fantastic experiences out of it :D

CAKE MAKING EXPEDITION OF AWESOME:

So, last Thursday, Hannah and I made the most delicious cake I have ever eaten in my entire life. If you like peanut butter and chocolate, you must make this cake. It took all day but it was worth every second of it. Really. It's required for your life.

It was a baking day of fun. Hannah made delicious wings and I focused on the cake. The day began with making the cake batter and then baking the cakes. After they came out and cooled, the three layers were wrapped in wax paper and frozen. I had to run and take my brother to art class, but then I returned to her house.

Then, the building of the layers and the initial icing. The icing is a cream cheese peanut butter icing which basically tastes like clouds flavored with peanut butter. It was light and fluffy and just so perfect that I almost just ate the icing alone. God, so delicious.

Sooo after that I stuck the cake back in the freeze until it would be iced for real. Hannah had her therapist meeting so we went to that while the cake froze again. Upon return, I made the final part (the chocolate peanut butter ganache to be drizzled on it) and mmmmmm. SO TASTY!!! Holly showed up for the final bits to help us eat and finish the cake~

IT. WAS. AMAZING. If you never make any other cake, make this one. I cannot stress this enough. It's incredibly rich and delicious and just...I cannot put into words how good this cake was.

So now, PICTURES!!! And then the recipe :3

( exciting times for delicious cake )

oh man oh man, it's been too long. I've just been SO BUSY.

TEKKOSHOCON. IT WAS AMAZING. SO AMAZING!!!!!! AHHHHH! :D :D :D This is only part one, I cannot be arsed to write all of it down...so much!!!

( cut for super long entry cat of awesome )

More coming tomorrow or something...a lot happened and I'm still mourning over Bleach D:

Cait & I made ourselves dinner tonight! It was super exciting :3

So, back story. Cait got back from Megacon on Sunday night and has been craving ramune soda since then. There was a snow day on Monday!!! during which we just sat around and playing KH2. I'm replaying it so Cait can get all the storyline. I've made a KH fangirl out of her :3

Also, we did a photoshoot out in the snow. She's Sakura from Naruto, but as if she were in the Akatsuki. She ran around in the snow while I froze my fingers off taking pictures. Also I know nothing about Naruto, so like the whole thing makes no sense to me...I'm reading it soon though, I just get distracted easily...

SO!! Today after class, we took the zipcar out to hunt down Japanese food. The first Asian food store we went to was in the ghetto and was SUPER epic. It was literally a warehouse. It just had a slab of wood as the door, the inside had no heat, barely any light, and just had huge amounts of rice, Japanese food, and chairs for sale. wtf at the chairs. But yeah, it was AMAZING. Super ghetto too, which reminds me of home...I feel like I'm living in such a fancy neighborhood these days XD

ANYWAY. Since they didn't have the soda, we went to the next place. We pulled into a Panera parking lot to borrow their wireless so we could Google maps the directions. When we got there, it turned out that they were closed on Tuesdays.

Instead of hunting down more free wireless, we went to CVS and bought a map of Baltimore. FINALLY. So we used the map to get to another Asian food store. We drove past the street once because it was named something different, which made me laugh. ALL of Pittsburgh is like that...or there are just no street names listed ANYWHERE. It's great.

This place was AWESOME. We ended up buying dumplings, a BUNCH of snack foods (oh shrimp chips, you are super delicious!!), chow mein noodles, soy sauce, a teriyaki marinade, tons of ramune soda, and other miscellaneous things. Then we stopped at Super Fresh to buy chicken, vegetables, and vegetable oil to fry things in.

Dinner went...interestingly. I cooked everything because Cait is a cooking hazard. The chicken was delicious, if I do say so myself. The first round of dumplings sort of fell apart, but the other ones worked fine.

The chow mein noodles...not so much. They would NOT fry D: They just turned into a gooey mass >_< So we ended up tossing them after I tried in vain to save them. Ah well. Everything else was really tasty though!!! :D Cleaning up was a bitch, but it was totally worth it.

( cut for KH ramblings... )

Classes haven't even started yet and I'm still fairly busy...any free time I have is spent talking to Patti ♥ I miss her so much, but I can take a Greyhound bus to see her for a weekend and it's under $80. I think I'll end up doing that once a month, if I can afford it.

I miss her loads, I can't even describe it really well. All summer I saw her nearly every day...I think the longest we went without seeing each other was four days? So this is going to be a MASSIVE change.

I have been making some amazing friends at college, though! Randi, my roommate, is supa spiff :D And I've met other people from my dorm and around campus that are hilarious and great so far. I don't know yet who will be my "close friends" and who will just be acquaintances, of course. But we'll see as the year goes on.

Anyway, I have to sleep and write my letter to Patti for the day ♥ I think Wednesday I should have time to update on everything that has happened so far!!!

WELL HELLO THAR MY LJ FRIENDS. I have been quite busy this first week of school XD It was, basically, amazing. Okays? AMAZING. My classes are the best, except for Biology...I hated it last year before I dropped it and it's still just as boring...

Anyway! My two favourite classes so far are Calculus and Anthropology. There's only four people - including me! - in my calculus class and the teacher is the best math teacher ever, I swear. I love her. And wow, just anthro is amazing. We started the year by talking about polygamy...how can it get any better?! The teacher is one of my favourites in the entire school, too...she's so interesting! It's the best!

Plus! Sheep is in half my classes! Bio, JAVA, orchestra, and gym, plus half of my frees. It's really spiff. PLUS OMG PATTI MIGHT START TAKING JAVA WITH US! It'd be amazing~! So far it's only me and Sheep in the class, so one more person would be cool.

Crew's also been pretty fun...I love it! The weather has been pretty good, so it's been nice out on the river every day~! Plus, you know, half of my friends row, so it's all good fun.

Um. So, Friday was cool. Patti, Sheep, Sara, Hannah, and I went to Walnut Street for dinner and stuff after school. Bryan and Paul met us there too~! Yay hot German exchange student XD XD XD Then we hung out at the Apple store and stuffs. It was fun. Oh, and then Patti, Sheep, Paul, Bryan, and I walked back to Ellis - my school - to get picked up. We hung out in a playground for awhile, that was cool...

Then Patti slept over! Whoot! We were actually quite tired...so we basically just watched some Monty Python's Flying Circus and then passed out in bed... Crew Saturday morning, then a day of homework and fun! My parents went up to Ohio to meet up with my aunt and uncle to go to wineries...so, free reign of the house! We did homework, played KH2, and made dinner...which I got drunk on, AGAIN. I am not allowed to cook with alcohol anymore XD We walked with my other friend Hannah and took pictures for my photography class...then Patti went home and I slept.

TODAY WAS AMAZING WH00T. Patti, Sara, Sheep, and I went up to the Pittsburgh ren faire. YES I DO GO TO A FAIR (haha, an unintended pun!) AMOUNT OF THESE I'M COOL. It was neat, not as nice as the Great Lakes one that Patti was in, but still fun. I saw a bunch of people there from the other one I went to! Apparently people remember me XD So that was really cool. I got this spiffy henna design done on my hand and some knee high striped socks in my school colours. It was just fun in general, I dunno, no way to describe it.

Of course, my fun days always turn into LET'S ANALYZE MYSELF TO DEATH days by the evening...I had a long conversation with Patti on the way back, which basically got to nothing. Well, Patti admits that the only reason that she won't date me is my fucking gender. I HATE THIS OH GODS I AM SO WHINY TODAY. But gods...I dunno, that's more than she would admit to back in May, but still. gods. Sheep is convinced that she just needs to be liberalized more...but I don't know.

This is so frustrating D: D: D: I am not a very patient person, either. And I keep trying to stop myself from being fucking IN LOVE with one of my best friends, what with Keith and the hot German exchange student and I would still rather date Patti than any of them. wtf at me.

Right. HIGH SCHOOL IS THE BEST TIME OF MY LIFE, RIGHT. Fuck you, adults, fuck you. It's just a mess of confusing emotions and in the end no one really knows what's going on anyway.

omg, so today? AMAZING. Just, wow, so much fun! I had crew in the morning where I coxed (basically, I got to steer the boat) and that was cool :D Then it was Kennywood time! Kennywood is this local amusement park and it's so great. It's tradition to go every year :D

This year I went with Patti and her brother, Josh. He's about a year younger than the two of us, so he's pretty cool. Then Bryan happened to be there. He's hosting an exchange student from Germany, Paul, for the year and he was showing him different Pittsburgh-y things. HE IS SO CUTE. Ahhhhh. Anyway, we ended up meeting up with the two of them and FUN WAS HAD BY ALL.

Even though it did pout down rain for about twenty minutes...we hung out in an arcade and then Patti and I rode one of the lamest rides. ahaha, it's this inside one called the "Musik Express" and it just plays hilariously bad music while going in a circle. GOOD TIMES. We rode basically all of my favourite rides except for the bungee jump, and that's because it costs extra money. I needed all of mine for food XD

Oh! And there was a parade in the evening and it was hilarious. The floats were so trippy! This was one of a lady in a pool with a giraffe, wtf. But this one marching band played like, marching band music REMIX. It was all techno-y sounding. Pretty spiffy.

All in all, good times! No pictures, because all I took was money and a cell phone. I am lazy and don't like to carry shit around all day at one of these places. Then Bryan ended up having a backpack anyway, but oh well. I couldn't have been assed to take pics anyway...too busy ^^;;

Also posted in my GJ...I'm in the process of moving here, so the entries are basically going to be the same at both places for a bit :D

Oh and in LJ news...I need to change my mood theme. GODS I HATE DOING THAT. *opens up ye olde Microsoft Word* Now to find my mood theme photobucket... *grumble grumble*