Yes, indeed. It is time for the Otakon 2005 Con Report, written by yours truly! Warning for graphics intensitivity and whatever.

Getting there. This year, we stayed with one of whyyy's friends, littlhawk, who lives in the Baltimore area. It was great, especially her giant, shedding mass of happy collie. At any rate, we picked up our badges on Thursday so as not to be held up by the huge line. Unfortunately, the artist alley line was made doubly difficult by the fact that one of the staffers saw fit to tell us that if we "just needed our ribbons" we could move over to the shorter line. A FOUL, CONTEMPTIBLE LIE. We had to return to the line whence we came, but ended up setting up on time anyway.

This year, I went as part of the doujin circle Ars Arcanum, along with Aki (who was selling adorable little bookmarks) and whyyy (who had a bajillion prints, unlike me). On my left was Kappacino... uh... Productions? They had some sort of flash movie called "The Sword that Cuts Things" that was apparently showed in Otakon in a theater somewhere on Friday. They gave me a demo disk.

Review of Demo Disk: Not too great. I've seen better stuff on Newgrounds, as there was very little actual animation involved. It was heavily dialogue-drived, which was bad news because the loudest and most talkative character, Fox Kitsune, had the most annoying voice I've ever had the misfortune to hear. Not sure why it's called the Atom Kappa Show, because it's mostly Kitsune bitching in an extremely high-pitched fashion. On the other hand, the art was pretty good, and I think it would have been funny if not for Kitsune.

So, we set up, set out our art examples, and waited. And waited. And sold some stuff. But also... TOOK PICTURES!

Costume Report:

There was an adorable Kinko's!Kakashi (his apron reads "Kinko's copy ninja". And astonishingly enough, even a D.Gray-Man group! Those at my table, which were Rinali (Aki's friend), Allen (Aki herself), and Kanda (me), were very surprised indeed. Unfortunately, we didn't all show up on the same day. But STILL. Rabi. Mmm.

Also included: Howl and Sophie, L and Kira (handcuffed, no less), an AMAZINGLY AWESOME PYRAMID HEAD (who was complaining no one recognized her), a pair of fellows from the "Rejected" movie (silly hats only!), an amazing-fan!Temari, and two pictures of the Great Saiyaman, just because he did The Poses. Also, two Albel Noxes, not pictured here even though he is awesome.

Er, and once again, I forgot to take pictures of me. DAMMIT.

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The Alley:

Right, so. I mostly did commissions this time around, although those lucky enough to run into me got to purchase a joint SoraRiku doujinshi from me and Aki entitled "mais je t'aime" for the low low price of $5, because we feel that most American sellers are scalping everyone with their $15 doujins. I know for a fact you can get lovely ones in Japan for around 400 or 500 yen (four or five dollars, about)! Don't charge me $15 for that! Also a point of anger: Borders selling a 300 yen manga for $13. That is RIDICULOUS. Even Sasuga only charges $6. That is like a 300% markup. DON'T BUY THEM, LITTLE BABY OTAKU!

Right. Uh. There were some lovely artists this year (and some sketchy copy-work as well, but that's true for anywhere, I guess). And the people... well, by and large, they were great. Magic Kitsune and Launchpad came by and talked me up, although I think I missed a lot of people because I a) didn't have much DIVE stuff out and b) was in costume. On the other hand, there were the sketchy/rude. Sketchy being the guys who came up to whyyy and either gave her bizarre requests ("I want the pencil version of that picture you drew...but not the original.") or shoved a sketchbook under her nose and/or rambled on for hours about their own art. And as for the rude ones... a couple of girls came to my table and tried to read the doujin backwards, so I a) tried to correct them and b) asked them if they wanted one. They whispered to each other, giggled like a bunch of elementary schoolers, and scuttled away like crabs. Uh, right. Apparently, people no longer teach their kids to ANSWER QUESTIONS THAT ARE DIRECTED TO THEM. Or road safety, for that matter, but I already mentioned that somewhere else.

Some of the pieces in the art show were similarly amazing. I mean, there was the one with Advent Children!Cloud that was absolutely gorgeous. I also liked this subway scene with a bunch of bishounen (littlhawk had seen her work before, apparently). The naked Ed with a snake was scary/hilarious. I mean, generally, I'm all up for naked Ed, but... yeah. It was a strange picture.

I almost bought a Bag Brothers Three poster. But no. I have nowhere to put it.

You know, most of my commissions were....guys. Maybe my art is not shoujo enough? Maybe. Hmm. Anyway, I still have two to finish. Twoooo!

The Hobos:

It seems that every time I go into the city, I come back with a Bad Hobo Story and some extra points to add to my Hates Hobos attribute. This year, the worst example was a couple that came up to us asking for directions to the local shelter because everyone else laughed at them or made fun of them and they'd been walking around in the hot sun alllll day. Apparently, they'd come from North Virginia to get jobs, but the guy providing them backed out. Was there any way on God's Green Earth that we could suggest somewhere to go and by the way admission to the YMCA costs $8?

Several things wrong with this story.

a) Otakon-congoers do not generally laugh at hobos. They are wide-eyed teenagers who spill money like pinatas spill candy and are generally easily shamed into giving even the most shameless hobo money.

b) Hobos who didn't know where the nearest shelter was, but apparently knew enough to hang around the BCC and target congoers? Please. Not only that, there was another hobo a few feet away. You're telling me they couldn't ask ANOTHER HOBO for that information?

c) In order to know how much it costs to get into the Y in Baltimore, don't you need to know not only where the Y is, but ask someone there how much it costs? On top of that, they somehow failed to ask said Y official where the shelters were? Why IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY would you know where the freaking YMCA is without being able to locate a shelter?

d) As soon as littlhawk took out a ten, said hobos immediately added, "It's $8 PER PERSON". Yeah. And then they immediately turn to us and ask us if we could spare anything. Of course they brought God into it too. I'm surprised they didn't start with the Hail Marys.

I hate hobos. They think they are so goddamn smart. In a way they are, I suppose, because they don't have to do any actual work. BAH.

One day, I would like to meet a hobo that is actually a relatively honest person and doesn't LIE THROUGH THEIR TEETH to try and get money from me. Because a lot of people write stories about hobos who only need a little help and actually have hearts of gold, but I've never met one. I only meet using-God's-name-in-vain hobos, pretending-to-be-deaf-or-crippled hobos, etc. So...you know... if you ever have a nice hobo friend... oh, whatever.

Boughtened Things:

The dealer's room was uber-overpriced this year, so I got only a handful of things: the newest FMA manga, a picture of Roy and his team of loyal dorks, a Kon plushie whose belly protrudes so much I must poke him constantly, and a portrait of Roy. Grinning. With TEETH SPARKLING. Imagine Roy in the Lee/Gai Nice Guy pose, except that instead of a thumbs up, he has a "I'm scheming something" chin-rubbing thing going on. So great. I wanted a pencil case shaped like a Konoha scroll, but that was also insanely expensive.

FMA makes me spend D:. I actually bought a Kon tea cup off ebay because I couldn't find it at the con. It says something like, "Drink! Drink up! You're not refusing my tea, are you?!" That brings my total of extremely dorky eating merchandise to two. I think I can live with that.

The Food:

Not bad, but only because we went outside to eat. The BCC has an exclusive contract with Aramark (the very same soulless Aramark that supplies Brandeis, which is where I go to school, no less), which means that all food inside the con center is revolting. The hot dogs are crunchy, the soda is lukewarm, the Pocky is overpriced, etc, etc. So we ended up going to the Harbor...Harborplace? And also a Thai place, and Legal Seafood. Delicious, delicious Sea-Food. So delicious, in fact, that I must use an emoticon to indicate how delicious it was :9.

Things I am Glad I Did:

Came in on Thursday to pick up my passes. Got an artist table. Had business cards and change. Did the doujin. Stayed away from the dub actors once again (yess!).

Things I must Remember to Do:

Don't start conversations with the sketchy people who come to my table. Stay away from hobos. Draw more stuff. Somehow make up a DIVE-related display.

I am definitely going to Anime Boston.

And now, back to...whatever.