I am just the best at procrastination
doing my Otakon journal entry now, like almost 3 months since it took place FFF
if you guys ever want to see all the con pics, just go check out my Facebook!
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well, Otakon for me this past year went from August 9-11 and with Jose, Bri, and Vincent as my car buddies and our designated driver, Ms. Pomie, we set out on August 8th on a road trip to Georgetown, Maryland! Again, spent thursday night crying and sewing and packing and with no sleep, Thursday morning at 5, we loaded up, picked up all the kids, and by 8 am we were on the highway to Otakon! Nothing much to say about the drive other than it was 12 hours, REALLY long hours, we only took 4 stops for gas and bathroom breaks as well as food but it was a straight shot up. I sat as navigator and FFF stayed up the entire 12 hours while the kids in the back entertained themselves or slept. The scenery was nice and it was cool to see it change from palm trees to oaks
The trip was pretty smooth until the very last 2 hours when we were kinda lost in Virgina-Maryland line, we'd been using paper directions the majority of the way since a good ⅔ of the road was go straight on this road for 8 hours, but as we neared Maryland, we ended up in downtown Virginia and being around 10 at night it was hard to read anything. We attempted using my phone to navigate but to no avail it was getting drained. After many frantic phone calls we made it safely to my uncle's house>.<
Blackmail
Living situations for Otakon was like the best ever! My relatives there offered to let us stay at their house and though we were all kinda sketchy about it since what is explaining cosplay to my relatives and it was still a 45-60 minute drive to Baltimore, we ended up staying there to save money. They gave us their entire basement to live in and fed us breakfast everyday
We shared a bathroom with a shower for 5 people, there was a bed for everyone and also a whole separate room so Ms. Pomie could rest while we worked or chatted. And my little cousins were so amused by us (we taught them to be VERY annoying to their parents i bet OTL), they came down every morning to get us and just played with us so much:33
Thursday-
Upon arriving, we very quickly unloaded the car and Ms. Pomie just crashed after a shower. The rest of us took turns to shower and FFF continued to work on cosplay things. I helped to paint Bri's Riven sword and tried working on my own stuff but with 48 sleepless hours, i crashed at around 3 AM.
Friday-
We had set an alarm and everyone did manage to get up with my nagging>D (i like being on time!) We all got ready to go to OTAKON!!! Vincent didn't get to cosplay Friday since I just couldn't help rbi make his suit for his costume
the rest of us did tho, I cosplayed as the Robe of Yuen version of Erza from Fairy Tail, Bri did Riven from League of Legends, and Jose did genderbend Madoka from Madoka Magica. We drove the hour and got to Otakon at around 9 and proceeded to wait 30 minutes in line before making it into the convention hall to get our passes. Maryland summer heat is no joke, even for us Floridians, though it didn't feel it at all, the dry heat totally took its toll, Bri got a bit of a heat stroke and fainted a little bit as soon as we got in, she was okay after some rest thank goodness but this made us very wary of the heat and also reminded us to keep drinking water
After we got our badges, we found our friends Sarah (Godoka), Dani (Madoka), and Kat (Sayaka). The madoka group just stole all the love FFF. We wandered the con with them a bit, explored the dealers hall and just were amazed at this very large out of state con. At around 1, my cousin arrived and being the nice cousin i was, i waited an hour outside with her again to get her pass
When I had retrieved my cousin, we proceeded to find my friends, do the introductions and just hang out
(the rest here is kinda blurry because we literally just hung at the con and buy stuff and enjoyed company and stuff) Around dinner we did run into some slight drama with time and miscommunication where half of us went to eat, another few of us were somewhere else changing or something and a few of us were waiting for them. This turned out to be very problematic since some of us ended up not eating, some of us missed Vincent's birthday dinner, and relations were stressed. WHELP con drama is horrible
It ended up okay though since we did all meet up afterwards to hang out a bit before we had to head back. Ms. Pomie was just horribly wonderful to us, she stayed the whole time in Baltimore with us instead of going off on her own so she would be close if we ever needed her and she stayed with us at the con till midnight every night so we could enjoy the con for as long as possible. When we got back to the house, rotation of shower use and I helped to make an entire purple jumpsuit thing in one night along with fix my own things and finishing my costumes before we all passed out once again at 3 AM (what is sleep kids? I was so amazed at my endurance for this trip man)
Saturday-
The day that established the "go big or go home status" Saturday was our day for 2 cosplays! So on top of morning preparations, me, Jose, and Bri also had to pack up a whole other costume for night time cosplay
Saturday morning was the cutest thing ever for me because I cosplayed as Euphemia and my little cousins thought I was a princess and just played with us all morning because they were just super giggly about it. One of them work up and came down in her Ariel costume too <3
Sitting situation in the car was funny because my cousin had to sit in the front since there was no way I could fit in a seat OTL. When we got to the con, we went to our friend Dani's hotel room to leave our stuff there and also to finish getting ready. I was super happy with my makeup that day since it just came out so much better than before
Once we were done, we headed to the con! I was kinda sad we missed the Code Geass shoot that morning at 10, we had finished and went to the con at 11, and i thought i was going to see some CG cosers but they all just disappeared, I didn't see a single one! We went to the dealers room first to try to find Yaya Han's table to see if we could meet her (with no luck) and also shopped. I got lots of compliments on how pretty my dress was which made me very happy
At 12 there was a league of legends shoot and after seeing the initial meet up, I split up with Bri (Riven), Vince (i honestly don't remember the name of his character) and Kat (Katarina) and instead hung out with Lien. I met up with Lien at the outside fountain, had to walk 2 blocks and you couldn't even imagine the looks i got. Regular folks came up to me in the middle of the road to take my picture (which we of course did safely on the sidewalk). I kept getting stopped too so it took a while to walk there. After I found lien, she took some pics of me (and lots of other people took pics of me as well) and a videographer even stopped to get shots of me
As we were doing this stuff, I found another CG coser!! I wish I had actually asked her to take a full body shot instead of just a selca
but i guess better than nothing
We also saw Nick, Chalisa (Sakizo), and Jackie (Yuna). After a while, I split with lien to meet back up with Bri, Vince and Kat. We rested, I actually got another videographer to take shots of me (I never found his clip tho sadly) and then we shoved off again to refind Lien. Me and Kat sat and hung out when Lien did Bri and Vince's League shoot and after that we went to change out into our nighttime stuff. Vincent found some friends and stayed with my cousin at the con while me and rbi changed into Persona! It took a bit but we were finally Persona sisters together, Metis and Aegis
D still incomplete but I was at least able to wear it this time round.
We slowly made our way to the con, all along the way just kept on getting stopped (so bad because we just melted in that Baltimore heat). When we finally got there, with great caution we went up 2 flights of escalators to the con area and just sat and waited. We hung around with people, got lots of pics taken, promoted the midnight Persona shoot and really just hung out. When we found the meet up area, we still had an hour to go so we hung with the other Persona kids who were early, I learned that no one really knew who Metis was because she shows up at the very end of the special ending of the Persona3 game. I was the only one tho i guess FFF. We also got to explore the game room. This room was horrifying for me. Because of the way Metis' helmet was made to be dual headphones and helmet and also because of my poor eyesight (couldn't wear glasses with the helmet since it was fit perfectly to my head) being in a darkish room with a super echoey helmet and on 3-5 inch heelless shoes was just very difficult. It was like being claustrophobic by myself in a dark goldfish bowl. Basically I couldn't hear anything except the very loud bass blasting from music from god knows where and the echo of the room itself and then background noise. It gave me a great headache and just overall made me very discombobulated. Eventually I really had to leave and Bri kindly led me out. At the strike of 12, we made our way outside and a happy accident happened. Me and Bri accidentally left our badges in the con and before we noticed we were locked outside the con. One of the best Persona cosplayers ever that we totally looked up to helped us out and got them for us! Happy accident!! The shoot was really fun, it was super dark, I was very tired but everyone was super nice and it was too awesome. Dani even made it there with us as the only Fuuka cosplay
It was 2 AM when the shoot finished so 3 AM when we got back to the house. IM SO SORRY TO MY RELATIVES who had to stay up and wait for us><
Sunday-
Sunday morning I literally got up at 7 to finish a costume before waking the rest of the crew up. Once everyone was up, We all got dressed and headed out to the con once again. Bri and Vince did their League duo, I went as Sailor Mars, and Jose was Kuja from FF. As soon as we hit the con, we rushed to the dealers room to buy last minutes things. Unknown to us laid-back florida con-goers, big cons like Otakon are on the ball with schedule, they said the con is over by 3 so its no joke that by 3 the con was empty of all things otakon. We ran around like mad people buying last minute things before the place closed. I got my little cousins cute alpaca toys and and also a new wallet for myself! We managed to find Luka and Eyon on the last day as Link and Sheik but only managed to lose them very quickly afterwards since they were on a rampage to buy things as well. We met up all together with everyone to do last minute plans on things such as how we were getting our stuff from hotel rooms and saying goodbye and things. We never managed to find Lien and Chalisa's group again since they apparently had a VERY early flight back to Orlando. We hung out with the Christmas Leaguers Dani and Kat before making a small split to get food and luggage. Dani and Kat left first for their flight back to Orlando and it was just us 4 again before we met up with other friends (Ceci, Rae, and Steve and company) for food and also a quick shoot.
After some snacks, we all had to head back home and stuff we we all said our sad goodbyes. When we got back to my relatives house they had prepared this huge dinner and my friends got to experience authentic chinese food
After the noms, we packed, super cleaned and just rested and slept before the big drive back.
The drive back was really the same as the drive there but I definitely nodded out a lot more. When we reached Florida, we made the sketchiest gas run in Jacksonville, then had a nice last dinner for us road trip buddies at TGI Fridays and it was around 10-11 when we all got home home.
Otakon was super fun! would totally do it again but probably not drive again^^" wayy to stressful, plus flying would be fun (though con luggage would be horrible since we're all such big packers hence the road trip!)
