Nekocon 10

[iarejedi]

Ok so Riona is gonna get kicked in the butt for not posting a thread on this most awesome of conventions already. I'm not the kinda person to give you play by plays on everything we did. I will tell you we had a wonderful time. We saw some sweet costumes. We cosplayed too of course. We spent way to much money in the dealers room and art alley. We danced our butts off at the rave Friday night. And we met some awesome voice actors. Troy Baker, omg so hot!, Jerry Jewell, Aaron Dismuke (i think that's how you spell), Chris Ayres, Daniel Kevin Harrison, and we met up with Greg Ayres again.

Cool thing was that Greg Ayres actually recognized me and Ri. He was like 'Oh yeah! Emily and Melissa right!?' We both kinda went O.O Yeah! That's us! It was so cool that he remembered us. We told him we'd see him at Tekko next year. We're actually gonna see him sooner but he doesn't know that. Ha ha. Can't wait. He's one of the coolest guys ever.

Troy Baker was by far the cutest, funniest, and sweetest voice actor I've met. He is definitely a ham for attention. As he put it 'voice actors are wh--es for attention.' Or something like that. We went to one of his panels Saturday afternoon which ended up being very funny and interesting. He actually ended borrowing my laptop to show everyone pics and videos of his newest show Ascend. (Incredibly awesome show. Look it up...www.preparetoascend.com) I had to run all the way to our hotel room and back down to get it. But it was worth it. I got video of him playing on it (woot!) and talking to us. I'll post the links under all this mess.

We actually followed Troy around most of Saturday afternoon. We were his little mini entourage after the panel where he borrowed my laptop. I told him I was an air force cop and he thought that was hot. Go me! Sorry had to fan girl for a second. We got autographs from everyone previously mentioned. We were the first in line for the last autograph session on Sunday like an hour before it started. It was actually really funny. We started playing Crazy 8s with Ri's deck of FMA cards and ended up pulling in like three other people also waiting. We also got one of the staff guys to silly dance with us while we waited.

All in all it was an awesome con. It would have been more fun if Ri's teeth hadn't been killing her. Ah well. Anywho, on to pics and links of Troy footage. Woot!

Sorry footage is very quiet. It recorded it on my phone. You can hear me and Ri laughing and talking in some of it. Along with me threatening Ri's little sister, Kasey, occasionally.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmUKz540kLk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXUshiqK42Y

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePdkbXxhISk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCuhBLOvHT0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6YuFA9Xfts

[LadyRiona]

You stoled my pictures! Anyway. Yeah, I should be kicked in the butt for not posting sooner, but I'm lazy I guess.

But she's right, we did have a blast and met so many awesome people. We also spent way too much money in Arist Alley and the Dealer's Room, but I try to make it a policy to buy things at conventions that I know I can't get elsewhere.

This year, I managed to get a traditional Japanese tea set (four cups and a teapot), a bento box (lunchbox) and a bag with it, a hankie, two decks of cards (the FMA ones that were previously mentioned, and Kingdom Hearts 2 cards), an awesome hat from Pawstar that has lynx ears on it (people love it), an FMA messenger bag, some candy (even though I coudn't eat it), and some awesome artwork. That's all I remember from my goodies.

As for what all we did? Well, when we got there, all we did was get our junk up in the room, meet up with a friend of mine, then we went to the Dealer's Room since it opened at noon. We hung around there for a while (Bob/Iarejedi and my friend ran off for a little while) before going up to Opening Ceremonies. That was where we had our first impression of Troy, and it was hilarious! The man is TALL! And the first thing that he did when he got up was on stage was, "Hi everybody!" The second thing he did was, "Hold on, I have a feeling my fly is down..." so he turned around and did a little hop, then turned back around. Later, he confirmed that yes, his front door was open. That was crazy. But he talked for a little bit and spurred a couple what-are-now inside jokes between me and my fellow Nekocon goers. Then Greg got up there, and he was hilarious as always. Needless to say, Opening Ceremonies was a blast.

After that, I think we just hung around for a while. I remember I went to the LARP (Live Action Role Play) meeting, but I didn't larp that much. My sister and I were Sophie and Howl, respectively, from Howl's Moving Castle.

When it was just me and my sister running around, we stumbled into this panel for webcomics held by Chris Malone, aka Kilika. He's an awesome, sweet guy that does the webcomic Blue and Blond. I wasn't really into webcomics all that much, but I love his. I bought some art from him in Artist Alley the next day.

Considering my wisdom teeth were impacted that weekend, I ate very little, but we did go out to eat a bit. I just drugged up on Tylenol we got from the nearby Target all weekend. But before the rave, we went to Rally's for some food, which meant doing something illegal, piling four people into my three-seater Ford Ranger. But, ahem, I drove safely.

Back at the convention, I left my sister in the care of a friend's mother while we went to the rave. We met a convention worker who looked like Seth Green, it was amazing. And he was flirting with me and Bob. It was hilarious, because he'd walk by and talk to us, hang around, then walk by again a few minutes later.

Before that, I don't remember when, I met Troy at the hotel. He'd just come out of the elevators and I managed to catch him, say hi, and get a picture (the one with his arm around me, I have on the lynx hat). Later that night, I met up with him again at the elevators and he was with a friend, carrying a bottle of wine, so I can imagine he was already tipsy. He started to lean on me then asked, "Hey, want to have a lean war?" Okay, since this guy is like over 6 foot, and I'm only 5'6", I was thinking, "Oh...wow...um..." I told him I'd pass, and he was like, "Aw, why?" Then I brought up that he's a giant, I'm not, then he said, "Hey, size has nothing to do with it." Then I switched gears and said, "All right, well I'm a massage therapy student, so I have really nice leg muscles." Then he was like, "Oh, I'm scared now!" Then we piled into the elevator with a handful of other people, and when the person nearest the buttons asked what floors, his friend said, "Two," then Troy was like, "Nine...teen! No, two, I was kidding." He's such a goofy guy.

But anyway, after the rave, we headed back to the room and passed out.

The next morning, Jerry Jewell's panel, but he wasn't there at first, because he overslept...haha. So Daniel Kevin Harrison filled in for him for the first half hour. I had to run back to the room to get my friend's badge for her, since she didn't have a key, and I ran into Troy, again, on the way over there. When I got back, Jerry was in the panel and he was funny. He plays Kyo Sohma in Fruits Basket. When he was asked if he had any lines he remembered from that role, he was like, "I have one. It's a staple. ....'DAMMIT!'" and we all had a huge LOL moment.

After the panel with Jerry, we went to Troy's panel. When I got in there, Troy looked at me and wagged his finger, then said, "You're late. Ah, just kidding, I knew she was getting coffee." So I believe we became his favorites over the weekend. After that panel, we said goodbye for a little while, then went to the Dealer's Room, where Bob found this awesome shirt that I bought for Troy. It said, "I don't have ADD, I just...Ooh shiny!" We thought that fit him perfectly because he commented so many times that morning about having the worst ADD, and he does.

Later on, Troy had another panel where he talked about Ascend. It is an amazing sounding anime, and the artwork is beautiful. It gives me chills thinking about it. This is where Bob ran off to get her laptop for him because he wanted to show us pictures and stuff from it. When he was talking about it, the way he told us about it was so intense and so engaging that it was like we were so caught up in it. When he stopped talking about it to show us pictures, it was so sudden that it felt like a jolt back to reality. It's just like, "Whoa." It sounds amazing, so be sure to check out the website. Ascend Just amazing.

Troy talks a lot, so he went over the hour time, but I managed to get the ADD shirt to him. He loved it, he was like, "Aw, yay, thank you baby! It's my new favorite shirt!" After that, we walked with him outside while he had a smoke, then over to his signing session, where we got special treatment. He signed Emily's FMA manga book (Troy played Frank Archer), my and my sister's badges, and some other kid's souvineer. It was pretty sweet. We told him bye, then went off on our way.

We went back to the hotel (just across a walkway, no driving needed) and it was happy hour, so Bob got some drinks, and they were strong. Good, but strong. I had non-alcoholic drinks since I'm not old enough yet, but she let me taste hers. But within a drink and a half, she was rather buzzed, so we went back up to the hotel room. During that time, though, we saw Greg, and my sister saw Jerry and Aaron.

(That reminds me, earlier in the day while browsing Artist Alley, we met Jerry and Aaron. They're both so cute! Jerry looks like an elf, and Aaron is tall and adorable. They took pictures with my sister, in which they got down on their knees, and Aaron signed her Alphonse pillow. Later on, we found them again and I had Jerry sign a fanart picture of Kyo that I'd bought. Since I hadn't gotten a hug from Aaron yet, I got one from him at that time, which was funny. He'd slid down to the ground against a wall, something he seems to like to do, so when I asked for a hug, he got up to his knees to hug me. He was still really tall on his knees! o.o Anyway.)

In the hotel room, Bob, my sis, and I just cut up. A friend of ours showed up and stole my sister's badge to check out the rave and see some friends of his, but he also hung out with us a little bit.

Sunday morning wasn't too eventful. We got some last minute shopping done, I think we went to a panel, and then we were, as Bob said, the first in line (by an hour) to the final signing session that was supposed to have Jerry, Chris Ayres, Greg Ayres, Troy, and Aaron, but only Chris, Greg, and Aaron showed up. The other two guys slept in...oh well. So I had those three sign my badge (yay!), and after that we left. Saddening.

But anyway. That was our weekend, in nice detail, at NekoCon 10, the best con I've been to yet.