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Been meaning to do this, but I haven't had enough time to fit in a thimble. sweatdrop So here's what happened at the con and right before!

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At 8:30 AM, I arrived at the designated rendezous point, Burger King wearing, as promised to my dad, my Gir hoodie. My parents and I drove into the parking lot to see the other members of the party waiting for us, a pleasant surprise because I didn't expect to see two of them at all. We went inside and ate breakfast. Rachel, one of the friends, recorded us a little bit on her camcorder as we were there. We left around 9:04 AM and hit the road to Columbus!

It was a long car ride. I'm not on good speaking terms with one of the people who rode with us, so that made it a little awkward. But the other person kept the conversation going. We screamed "Respect" as lond as we could because that's what we do when we're going to and coming back from anime cons. Tradition, y'know? My parents were playing it on the CD player.

We arrived at the Hyatt Regency Center around 10:05 AM. We looked for parking for a couple minutes and found a nice little spot across the street from the center. Thank goodness we spotted some cosplayers to follow to the entrance! The building was huge! There were several conventions going on that day. We passed a home-owners one on the way to our con.

After five long hallways, two escalators, and a ramp we were there! Cosplayers dotted the scene! Noise was all around! The line for registery was a block long... We got in line and started to fill out the forms, leaning on the walls and windows nearby to write on. There was an Ouran cosplayer in front of us. 3nodding Our forms were given to us by the staff people, who were all clad in Moogle hats. It was a sight to behold. xd The line stretched down one hallway and did a sharp 90 degree turn into the next. The first half of the line was killer. gonk Very boring. The second half was cooler since we were around the corner and could see better.

Around three-forths of the way through the line, cosplayers started walking by in large groups. Everyone in my group was like "Oh my gosh, there goes Winry!" and "Look, look! A soul reaper!"; stuff of that nature. That's when I spotted them. Sitting maybe twenty feet away across the hallway, just relaxing.

Princess Tutu cosplayers.

heart

Allow me to illistrate my face through a face: D/8

So I totally go off into hysterics. "OHMYGODHOLYCRAPPRINCESSTUTCOSPLAYERSTHEY'REOVERTHEREHOLYCRAP!!!!!!!" Everyone in my group was like "What, slow down!" and I went "PRINCESSTUTUCOSPLAYERSDAMMITTHEY'RERIGHTTHERE!!!!! and I pointed over and over at them. I can only imagine how embarassed I'd have been if they had heard or seen me. My friends got it and were like "Erm, that's nice." because they don't like it nearly as much as I do. But my parents were wowed by the costumes. There was a Tutu, a Kraehe, and a Raven/Mytho. They were all girls and their outfits were amazing. I could go on for hours, so I'll stop there.

Shortly after, we got all registered! We decided to hit the Vendor's Room first since we had passed it while in line and knew where it was. The room was actually two rooms, though. But it was so awesome, wall to wall merchindise. I didn't know where to go first! There were figurines, plushies, figure keychains, metal keychains, rubber keychains, swords, fighting staffs, gloves, cosplay outfits, wall scrolls and posters, ring and bracelets, wallets, headbands, plastic kunai and shuriken, sandals, t-shirts, purses and satchels, notebooks, pens and pencils, manga, anime, the list goes on and on! It was amazing. I was too absorbed in looking to actually do some buying. It was heaven. heart When we were nearly out of the room, I spotted the PT cosplayers buying stuff, so I took the oppertuninty to babble to them about how cool they looked. xd I don't even remember what I said, but I know it was embarassing. They were nice though and let me babble until it got really awkward. Then I stopped myself, complimented them again and ran away. sweatdrop

We eventually dug ourselves out of the Vendor's Room completely and went to find the Artist's Alley which was actually up two more escalators. sweatdrop On the way up, I spotted a whole group of Sailor Moon cosplayers. They looked so cool! whee I was surprised to see how few Inuyashas there were, I'd only spotted one by this point. Anyway, we looked around the alley for a while. I found the artist that did the online comic Sticky Floors at Snafu! He was selling prints and such. 3nodding I bought two from him, both of Kingdom Hearts II characters. One had Sora, Kairi, and Riku and the other had Roxas, Hayner, Pence, and Olette. I really like the way he did them in his style. heart They are in my school binders now. I talked to him a little about KH and KHII. He and I agreed that KH had a better story line, but KHII was much better for gameplay. My parents said that everyone was getting hungry, so we went back down to get some lunch.

The food court had a bunch of stuff to choose from. My family got Chinese and my friends had Subway. While we were eating, a twn-year-old Kiba on Heeleys rolled by. It was hilarious. xd He even had a little stuffed puppy on his head. heart And Holly, another friend, insisted on going up and asking a Sephiroth, a Riku, and a Gaara for hugs. I went with her as to make sure she didn't express her joy in too destructive of a way like crushing their spines in the hug. 3nodding They were nice too, but the Gaara was way into character. I could have sworn that I heard him say "Do I have to?" when Holly asked him for a hug! xd And the Sephiroth was way out of character. Right before we went back to our table, he did this little skip thing. It was hysterical!! rofl The only other interesting thing that happened at lunch was that I ate a hot pepper by accident and nearly burned my tongue off. And we saw a Ryuichi walk by. He was in a mini jean vest that covered his nipples and was wearing a purple thong under his girl-pants. And he had a Kumogoro on his head. 3nodding I nearly died of shock. Holly, Rachel, and Tori were amazed in joy. My parents were appalled. xd Their faces were priceless...

After lunch we went in search of the place where the autograph panels were going to be. It was down a flight of stairs and down a hallway. The ceilings were much lower then upstairs which gave it a warmer feeling. The panel room was right across the hall from the DDR room, so we watched some people DDRing for a little bit before me, mom, Rachel, and Holly got in line for entry to the panel room. Jennifer and Tori didn't want autographs and stayed to watch the people DDR. Dad had to stay with them.

While in line, I was talking about how I wondered if Chris Patton was there and the guy in front of us delivered the news that he never showed. cry I about cried. But I didn't recognize any of the names of the people that were in the panel, so I was a little reapproachfull. But I was outvoted when I suggested we go somewhere else, so we stuck it out. As we were waiting in line, a guy dressed as Harley from Pokemon walked by, like, three times. Rachel was totally spastic over the poor guy, asking for hugs and recording him every time he went by. sweatdrop He was glad to though. He was fun. 3nodding Lots of others cosplayers walked by, it was so amazing. One guy walked by that I didn't know, but Holly and Rachel recognized who he was dressed as, so he gave them sugar cigarettes. xd I was laughing way hard. My mom was freaked. She and my dad were talking about at lunch how anime cons are a ***** dream come true to which I replied "Yes, but they are the shizz. 3nodding " My parents are so cool. heart Anyway, yes. Rachel and Holly got many more hugs in line than anywhere else. Dad popped over a few minutes before we got let in and gave me a program, which, thank God, had a place for autographs in the very back. I didn't really have anything for them to sign. sweatdrop But that program saved me.

When we were finally let in, there were about twenty rows of chairs, about thirteen to each row, on each side of the room all facing the long table at the front where the voice actors were sitting. The staff herded us like cattle into the rows so there were no extra seats. It was a good thing we got in line to get in early, we made the third row. Once there were no more seats, they closed the doors to the room. I could hear angry groans from the other side of the doors. I felt a little bad for the guys that barely missed it. Anyway, once we were all calmed down, they called one row at a time to go up to get autpgraphs. I noted that a ton a people had stuff for Evangelion, so I guessed that some major cast members were up there, but I had no clue. One of the guys getting autographs actually had them sign his shirt. The one he was wearing. And he took it off. It was gross. xd He needed a belt, too. *laughs*

We got up there in about fifteen minutes. The first guy was nice and a little talkative. He said that he had done the voice of a guy making fun of Kyo in Fruits Basket! He did the voice and I totally remembered and laughed! xd He was like "Ha ha ha, Kyon-Kyon!" and I was highly amused. I didn't recognize anything else he did. I felt pretty bad. sweatdrop I didn't recognize any of the other voice actors at all, I felt so guilty. cry But they all talked about my name. One said it made her think of the song "I Feel So Lucky" and she started singing it. I told her it reminded me of Kylie Minogue and I started singing "I Can't Get You Out of My Head". xd It was so fun. Two of the voice actor were married and their kid was running around causing general amuck. He was adorable. whee

After we got our autographs, we got in line for the second autograph panel. Tori, Jennifer, and Dad propped up a banister while we were in line again. A guy dressed as Spike walked by and Rachel and Holly became like his new best friends. There was much discussion and recording and hugging. And me and mom watched. xd I'm too embarassed to ask complete strangers for hugs. If I am offered a hug, I can't refuse though. 3nodding Anyway, Spike-man was awesomly cool. He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth! It was the perfect touch, I thought. He was sooooo freakin' tall. eek But the Ryuichi was taller. Come to think of it, Harley was pretty tall too... Anyway, waiting in line this time was much better because we knew a lot of the voice actors that we would be getting autographs from. Time went by pretty quickly. I saw twelve Sasukes of all different shapes and sizes walk by during both the line-waits combined. xd There was a little, tiny seven-year-old Sasuke walking around. I nearly died from how cute he was. 4laugh Anyway! The girl in front of us the second time bought a talking Sumomo doll. It was precious! heart She let me play with it a little bit. (I've noticed that people at cons are really, crazy nice. Cosplayers and un-cosplayers both. 3nodding ) The woman behind us in line was in costume too. It surprised me because she wasn't as young as most of the people there, but she was sweet. She and my mom talked a lot. My mom looked pretty bored up 'til then. sweatdrop My parents aren't into anime like I am, the closet they get is Superman or Star Trek. xd

The first panel ran long, though, so we didn't get into the room until, like, thirty minutes after we were supposed to. But once again, we were lucky and got in the fourth row. wink I actually could identify over half the voice actors up there! Rachel was majorly excited to meet Greg Ayres and me and Holly wanted to talk to Chris Sabat the most. We adore Chris. heart He was at Ohayocon last year and Holly and I chatted with him. He kicks so much a**, it's crazy. We were all in crazy anxious anticipation. It seemed to take three times as long to get up to the table the second time. But in actuality it took less time because since they were running late, the staff limited the number of objects that the VAs could sign to one. Uno. 3nodding Which had some people in hysterics of "OHMYGODWHATSHOULDIPICKFORTHEMTOSIGNIBROUGHTMYWHOLEROOMJUSTINCASE!??!". It was pretty funny to see their faces. whee

Finally, we were called forward after what had seemed like days of jumpy eagerness. We sprung up from our seats and practically ran up to the line for the table. By then we were nearly twitching. xd We would have beaten the crap out of anybody if they said that we couldn't get to the VAs, I totally mean it! *laughs*

The first VA was Chris Ayres. 3nodding We had a nice conversation about how people are stupid and can't pronounce names correctly. He was like "They always say "Airs" or "Aries" or "Aye-rays"!" and I was like "I know!" xd My name was a hot topic for the VAs, they liked it. 3nodding Chris was sweet, I'd love to see him again at a con.

The second VA was Brittney Karbowski. heart She looked at me as I approched, smiled real big, and stuck her hand out. She said "Hi, I'm Brittney!" and shook my hand. whee She was so cute! But I didn't know any of the roles she did. She was upset cuz she thought my name was better than hers. She was like "Your name schools mine." and I was like "Not at all!". It was so awesome. She was just fun to talk to! heart

The third VA was Greg Ayres. whee I was just sliding over to him for an autograph pretty pleased that I'm not making a fool of myself to badly. I look up at Greg and he glances up at me. He sees my hoodie in a milli-second. His eyes grow to the size of baseballs and he springs up from his chair, finger pointing at my hoodie in such vigor that it's shaking. He completly starts spazzing out going "OHMYGODOHMYGODYOURHOODIE!!!" jumping up and down. I am totally freaked and am staring in horror. Then he calms down a little and looks at me with a breathless grin on his face and he goes "Your hoodie is ******** awesome!!!" I was stunned I kinda went "Uhhhhhm.... thank you...". *laughs* Oh my GOD, he scared the crap out of me!!! xd But he and I started talking and he's sooooo freakin' cool!! He was babbling on and on about Invader Zim, it was great! He was wearing a Gir guitar pick around his neck so I told him "I love your bling." and he went "Why thank you, I have four more different ones, too." and I just laughed. whee Then he went "Oh my gosh, have you met Rikki?!" and I went "No... o_o" and he went "Oh my gosh, Rikki Simmons, he does the voice of Gir! He's up in the Artist's Alley working a booth. He's a colorer too!" and I went "Oh my God, NO WAI!!" and he went "YA WAI!!". xd And I was like " D: " and he was like " biggrin ". *laughs* But on my autograph from him, he wrote "Much Zim heart 4 Kylie!!". And at the top of my program, he wrote "Let's make buscuits!!!". xd He was so amazingly cool. I know now why Rachel adores him. 3nodding I totally wanna talk to him again!

The fourth VA was Tiffany Grant. 3nodding She was really calm and collected unlike Mr. Hyperactive who I had talked to before her. She had two little Pinky St. dolls by her, so we talked about that. I said "Aww, I love Pinky St. dolls!" and she said "Yeah, they're adorable." I also told her that I really thought that she kicked a** as Winry. She was happy. 3nodding She was so pretty and charming. I wanna talk to her again. heart

The fifth VA was supposed to be Mike McFarland, but he had gotten up to give the people at the end of the line autographs, so I never got him. cry But instead I got CHRIS SABOT!!! heart He was on the other side of the table walking down the line from the beginning to end so he'd meet Mike in the middle. Before me was Holly, so she got to talk to Chris before me. He wrote in her Howto Draw Manga book "How to write awesome" then he wrote his name in dashes like in morse code and signed. xd It looks so cool. Then, he got to me and I went "Hi Chris!". He went "Hi!!" and gave me a hug like we were best friends! xd It made me warm and fuzzy inside. *laughs* Then I go "Can you sign this please?" and he goes "Of course!". So I give him my program, but there's a problem. He can't find a place to sign it on, the table was too cramped to reach. So I realize it and start to turn around, but before I do, he shoves the thing right on my face and starts signing it on my forehead. xd I gapped for a minute, then I started laughing, but I was trying not to laugh so hard because then I'd shake and mess him up, so there I am nearly shaking with laughter. rofl Then he gives it back and says "There ya go!" and I go "...Thanks...!" It was so wowing, I still can't believe he did it. My friends were just as freaked as I was, about Chris and Greg! xd

The sixth and last VA was Monica Rial. whee She was so sweet and polite. She looked at Chris's signature in Holly's book and she went "Oh, that's so like him! Well, fine then." then she proceeded to write "How to write cooler than Chris Sabot" and sign her name in dashes. 3nodding

I don't feel up to writing more yet, check back later!!