Memoirs of the Angst-Bitch

Thus is the theme of this year's Otakon experience.

Aside from Gabi's shameful run-in with fate via After School Charisma and thus dooming us to a fire at the convention (which only lasted about an hour and a half) and Graham's equally horrific bout of food poisoning via our favorite sushi place, Otakon was enjoyable. Meet-ups went down as planned, time spent with yzak and anatari was awesome, Todd Habercorn and the Voice Actors After Dark panel was mind-blowingly hilarious, X-Japan was properly fangirled and I was able to blow most of my money on Durarara fanstuffs. Though we were all horribly sad the yaoi was a lie.

I also picked up Red Garden, Nabari no Ou and the final R2 set, along with the Vampire Knight artbook (because I am a sheep) and silly fanarts. Gabi got to learn what it's like to play with Nayami's whacky con schedule and even critiqued the Lelouch cosplayers... from a distance. Masquerade was hit or miss but the advanced set did have some magic in the form of "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" for Hetalia, "Telephone" for Utena: Black Rose Saga, "What's This Feeling" for Roy and Ed vs. fangirls, great Street Fighter demonstrations and sexy ninja break-dancing. Also, some great AMVs.

I think I will be waiting another day to return to the real world since Rachel and I have been mass-marathoning Avatar and I kind of want to watch Book 3 now. I enjoy remembering how much I used to love Avatar and shared with Rachel all of the fan reactions and crazy theories that followed all of the major episodes. Since she was only familiar with the movie, it was quite an experience!

In other news, I prefer the manga version of R2 to the anime, I think. Though I still haven't seen the last volume.

Oh yeah, for some reason Gabi broke down and bought the Night Class Vampire Knight outfit and we have since resigned ourselves to cosplay Zero and Aidou at Katsucon. I PREDICT AGONY. Now, to find me a weapon. *insert evil laugh here*

After taking a peak at the end of "Nightmare of Nunnally," I've decided I might actually buy it. It's not really Geass, but it's also not that far distanced from it anyway. I really like some of the creativity that went into it, even though it's clearly a girls fighting manga and the names for the various geasses are ridiculous. But it has some fun twists with Euphie, Lelouch and even Nunnally that I think add interesting layers to the story. I do wish it could cut down on the creepy loli-obsession. At least the final volume had none of that. And Rolo vi Britannia is fucking nuts.

"The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms" did not immediately endear itself to me, as it committed the worst possible error for me when it comes to fantasy. DO NOT INFO-DUMP YOUR WORLD BUILDING. As I have said countless times, I despise world-building, and it's one of the reasons I stray away from fantasy fiction. I can warm myself up to it if it's handled gradually and properly integrated into the story. Using a word/place you made up every other sentence? THAT'S INFO-DUMPING. I seriously wanted to throw the book out the window for the first chapter. Luckily, things got more interested in Chapter 2 and I calmed down. But yeah, the tribes, cities, royals, gods and whatever else they were rambling about every ten seconds definitely raised my ruff a bit. I have this nagging problem about needing to know what the hell people are talking about in the first chapter. Good example of word-building? Hunger Games. Take your time. Ease the reader into it. Don't expect me to know what the hell a Amn or Darre is because I don't care.

Second writing bit went well. I managed to make Lucian much less forgiving and irreverent and generally fixed the mood so it doesn't read like bad fanfic. It's my favorite writing piece I've done in a while. I want to poke a bit more at my first piece since I think the beginning still reads forced, but then I might get back to more social things. Here's hoping.

Eee I has cookies! Thank you happy gifters! They still make me want to bake real versions. I planned to come home and send more, but then I forgot that LJ in the Grinch at all things. So no more cookies. Sadness. Oh and the new Best Buy ads popping up on my unpaid journal are also not cool. No, LJ, I am not buying an account. And if you keep up this shit, I'm not going to use your service for my non-RP postings either.

More sadness comes from the new Code Geass manga being done by the Nightmare of Nunnally person. Granted, my only real issue with NoN is its art, which is, to put it bluntly, god-awful. And I'm cool with new main character, as long as Suzaku has a prominent part. HE BETTER HAVE A PROMINENT PART, CG. Ah, History of Geass backstory, well I guess we'll just see how it goes.

Random PSA: Christmas song should not reference the following. Child sexual abuse. Child prostitution. Drug abuse. Gang violence. No, Shania Twain, JUST NO. That is not a Christmas song; it's an "I want to sing about random issues and make you all feel guilty" song. Adding "Hallelujah" to the lyrics doesn't help. Now, if I want a song about ISSUES that's actually a CHRISTMAS SONG, I will listen to "My Grown-Up Christmas" list which manages to reference wars, abuse, hate and fear but with an overall message of hope. I want this "God Bless the Child" trash off my Christmas rotation music. Ugh. It's worse than that damn "Christmas Shoes." Seriously, here are some of its precious lyrics: "This child is homeless. That child's on crack. One plays with a gun, while the other takes a bullet in his back" and "Some have daddies who make them play games they don't want to play." NO. It doesn't even sound good.

King made me cry again. ( Sob. )

Ummm, dear sweet Matsuri, you do realize there's a Twilight anime coming out, right? You might want to ixnay on the blatant Twilight atmosphere you give to Kaname and Yuuki, yes? That said, I want to know more about Kaname's secrets and less about how PSYCHOTIC he is around Yuuki. Though her practicing her balance was cute. And Zero and his not!daddy are seriously the duo from HELL. I like! ( Slight spoiler. ) I want more Takuma too! Also, color pic of Zero with his one red eye: hot.

I have neglected on my political ramblings. I may catch up tomorrow or not. They're entirely SARAH PALIN IS AN IDIOT oriented so nothing earth-shattering.

In the meantime, I have been catching up on Pandora Hearts. Catching up meaning that I had to read the entire thing from the beginning and hope to be done with the scanlations tonight. I love a good marathon. And some thing has come to my attention. Mainly that people do not recognize how awesome the Alice and Oz relationship is. Now, I am a slash fangirl at heart and Gil/Oz does give me those little leaps of joy whenever they have their moments. Gil is my favorite character after all. But Gil is also the knight. Whereas Alice and Oz have something very special. The scene where he explains what she means to him, describing her as his sun, and the scene where she explains to everyone else that simply "Oz is right here" shows how much they understand each other. Even without all the Jack and Will of the Abyss plot to give their relationship even more complexity, these two are just astounding around each other. Whether Alice is tormenting him or Oz is calling her shy or they both are realizing that they can be friends. He helps her develop just as much as she helps him develop. It's fascinating, and even the die-hard slash fangirls should pay more attention to it. Alice/Oz is what makes Pandora Hearts. And I don't mean that romantically either. Just the power of that relationship and how it effects everyone else.

In other news, Eliot is the most fantabulous character ever and vies with my Gil love. He will never take it because you can't ever surpass the "knight" when it comes to my types, but he does come damn close with his jesusing through rage. I also like his relationship with Gil more than Gil/Vincent, even though Vincent is quite a piece of work on his own. Of course, I love the hotness that is Jack.

I don't plan on joining any chats, comms or the like. I toyed with the notion. But then I remembered that my view of fandom and other's tends to clash and that I'm probably less likely to get into trouble if I keep my fangirling around those who know what a crazy bitch I can be and are willing to accept me for it. I need more PH icons.

To get over my issues, I've been reading Alive: The Final Evolution. At first, I was a bit turned off by the boring art style, but the story is really engaging. I find myself fascinated with almost all of the characters, especially the baddies.

Last night's Lost has been described as character-centric, I really was bored. I cared remotely about Juliette and Sawyer, but that was it. I also didn't like the annoying timeswitch they kept doing. Episodes without Ben or Locke blow.

Taylor Swift is coming to the area. Part of me wants to see her, but part of me also fears the tweenie audience she may attract, which I will then have to slay. Taylor is cute though. Now if it were Rascal Flatts, I'd cut off my right foot to see that. Mmm Rascal Flatts.

I've been hearing mixed reviews on Watchmen, but I'm still stupidly excited about seeing it. Even though I've only sparingly read the book. I won't lie; that many words on a page hurt my eyes and confuse me. I'm less cool about hearing how damn gory this thing will be. Synder, why must you do these things?

Got all the car stuff taken care of. It took entirely too long, but I finally managed to finish "Wish' amid all of it. Kohaku and Shuichiro do absolutely nothing for me, and the end was way rushed. Still, I love all the other characters, especially Kouryuu and Kokuyo. My coworker told me Kokuyo was the Seishirou clone, and I have to admit she was right. I think if "Wish" had been one volume longer, the end wouldn't have felt so blah and narration-y. Also, I would rather Kouryuu be with Kohaku than Shuichiro. Kouryuu has a personality.


Speaking of personalities, I am almost finished Shinshi Doumei Cross and hope to be done by today or tomorrow. I'm not Haine's biggest fan, but I love almost everyone else. My favorites are Maguri and Maora, although Takanari and Haine's little brother hold special places in my heart. As does Ushio. I'm so happy that for once the gay couple doesn't get screwed in shoujo. That said, Maguri and Takanari's relationship is precious.

I have a party tonight so I have to prettify myself later one. I want new Casshern.

... I was going to nap because I was completely unproductive today and in post-election bliss.

But then I got Counterattack! And Knight 5! This is officially my favoritest day ever! Let the horribly gay canon AU reading commence!

... And color page of Counterattack 2 has Lelouch with a supersoaker vs. totally unsuspecting Suzaku/Schneizel/Lloyd. The levels of awesome this encompasses cannot be measured. And is that Suzaku with a hose inside... When did you turn this gay, Counterattack? When? Was I just not paying attention in Volume 1?

So I am contemplating writing an essay about Geass, women and fandom. I probably won't post it until after Sunday since I imagine I will have to add/revise things. But it should help me wrap my head around how I feel about the way Geass treats its female cast. Read: I do not approve.

I'm saving my return trip for the 4th for tomorrow since I need to figure out how to feed my childrens and I don't want to mess with the hell traffic. Plus, I am having too much fun reading spoilers for the movies out in the theaters. It's how I procrastinate cleaning the rest of my clothes.

I want more Fairy Cube. So so badly. I might break down and go to the Barnes & Noble this weekend.

Wow, this post had no point.... Wait did my account just expire? DAMMIT.