Otakon 2014

This year marked my third Otakon! It fell the weekend before my birthday again, and I've gotta say it's really cool to consider such a con as a sort of "birthday gift" from whatever luck of fate landed it that weekend.

That said, that luck of fate didn't quite carry over into the first part of the weekend.

On Wed, Emily and I tried to do some last-minute cosplay prep for her. We tried dyeing two different white tops for her rave Snow White cosplay, and both turned out purple instead of the intended blue. Luckily, the one she initially wanted to use turned out indigo when we left both in the dye overnight, so she was able to use it.

Emily and I decided to try Thursday badge pickup this year. And in case you didn't hear, it really backfired for everyone this year. We ended up getting a late start up to Baltimore that evening, getting in line sometime around 8:30, and unfortunately we were one of the thousands of people in line at 10:30 when they announced they were closing the doors. That really wasn't executed well -- while I can't blame the con for computer problems, the staffers were just yelling the news from where they were standing, and we really only heard from word-of-mouth spreading through the line. There were even a few staffers standing in front of the main entrance that had megaphones in their hands but weren't using them. So that wasn't very cool.

So Emily and I woke up early on Friday morning and started again with our usual camp-out until the doors opened. And it went much better. We were much further in the line than in the previous years, most likely due to the people in our situation, so I was a little worried about how long we'd have to wait. However, staff was able to open up registration earlier than planned, so while we were in line since sometime around 7, we were inside with our badges around 9. We were really grateful for that.

All in all, Otakon felt a little more chill than the other two years had. My original cosplay plans had fallen through for the most part, so the most recognition I'd gotten was on Friday as Annabeth Chase. I had a lot more fun than I expected as Annabeth! A lot of people recognized the cosplay or at least that I was from Camp Half-Blood. I didn't complete my Hibiya and Isaac cosplays because I figured the wigs wouldn't come in time. So of course they showed up Saturday while we were at the con;; Saturday I wore my Sailor Moon wig and a cute dress I liked, and on Sunday I went as an OC from my novel using the wig for Hibiya.

While I didn't go to any of the Sailor Moon panels or get any autographs, I was lucky enough to get the special coin! It took me all three days;; The Sailor Moon cosplayer had given both Emily and I the stamp sheets on Friday, so I was carrying around her unwanted one in my bag. I was only able to get two of the scouts on Friday, so Saturday morning I asked Emily to grab the sheet off my desk and she grabbed her empty one instead .... Luckily I was able to get the two I'd missed on Saturday, and on Sunday they were all much closer to the Viz booth, so I finished pretty soon after they'd started the event for the day! I also got pictures of all five scouts. I didn't get any of the shirts that they supposedly had, but I got two different official artwork posters, so I don't really mind.

I also totally overspent on Friday but managed to come in under budget in the long run! On Friday, I really only bought the things that I knew I wanted from artists I followed before the con had even started. Saturday and Sunday I bought less. My haul consisted of mainly posters, but I also came home with a Luna plushie, a shirt with "fight like a magical girl" on it, and a little Tuxedo Mask figurine from a blind box!

TL;DR despite the slight rocky start Otakon had, it was still a really good con overall! My con vlogs can be found here, and hopefully I'll have a new video up every Thursday!

Now begins the prep for Anime USA...

Books I've Read -- July

Still not spending as much time reading as I expected. I ended up not finishing half the books I checked out at the beginning of the summer...

Anything But Ordinary by Lara Avery, finished 7/5. The premise of Anything But Ordinary was really interesting, but it didn't really live up to it. Bryce was kind of an idiot and all of the characters are kind of static. Her powers were never really explained and didn't really even affect the plot as much as they should have, considering the description of the book. And it has a really disappointing ending. I think it might've been interesting as a series, maybe, but it didn't solve anything with the way it ended. It just introduced a lot of problems and just kind of left them there.

Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan, finished 7/11. This book series is going to be the death of me, I swear. I'd been trying not to read it in a hurry, especially because I still have a stack of library books from the start of the summer, but I ended up starting to read it again during an all-nighter and finished about half the book in one sitting this afternoon. And I loved it. I think part of that might've been finally learning to keep Google Maps open as I read. Even though I caught a couple little geographical inaccuracies, it was really helpful to build a more accurate mental map. And the geographical inaccuracies were really just because I'd been to Anchorage already and realized some of the street names in the book didn't match up exactly to real life. Anyway, I'm really glad I bought a copy of this book. And now I just want Mark of Athena. Right now. It ended almost the exact same way as The Lost Hero did and I really don't want to have to freaking wait to keep reading.

Vortex by SJ Kincaid, finished 7/14. You know, I don't think I ever wrote a review for Insignia. So I'll kind of combine them. I really like the premise of the series, since it's almost like Ender's Game but a lot closer to home -- also considering it takes place just across the Potomac. I've gotta admit, Tom is a complete idiot, but combined with the rest of the cast, his dynamic is super interesting. It's also kind of similar to Legend, I think, in the way of futuristic things and war and politics. Vortex did surprise me with what it pulled, so I'm really looking forward to reading Catalyst when it comes out.

Starglass by Phoebe North, finished 7/16. Starglass reminds me a lot of the Across the Universe series. It's mainly just because they kind of have the same premise, what with traveling in a spaceship to colonize a new planet. It was really interesting to read, and I've gotta say I did enjoy it more than I liked Across the Universe.  There was one part that tied in to the end of Starglass that's a little questionable, but I'm hoping it'll be explained more in the coming book. I also wish there was more of the diaries that were given to Terra, but that's just something small.

Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan, finished 7/21. Mark of Athena, man. I think it might be my favorite so far. 600 pages, and I read it in 24 hours. That's a record. It was great. Annabeth is definitely my favorite character, and I'm super excited to cosplay her at Otakon. All of the characters are great, honestly, and there's so much more to everyone than I'd figured. Their dynamic is the best. They're so much stronger than I could ever be in the situations they've been thrown into. I didn't keep Google Maps open with this like I did for Son of Neptune, but they were moving out of my area of personal knowledge and more into what I'd learned back in, like, middle school, so I did pretty okay. I also didn't really have a computer handy for most of the time I was reading.

Allies by SJ Kincaid, finished 7/28. I was really only able to read Allies because the library happened to have a digital copy on Overdrive. And I really enjoyed it! I liked learning more about Wyatt, especially since it was kind of hard for me to remember what Insignia established about her. It was nice to learn things through her point of view, especially regarding her personal history.

House of Hades by Rick Riordan, finished 7/31. I ended up rating House of Hades a little lower than I had the first three books in the Heroes of Olympus series, but that is probably just because it came directly after Mark of Athena and I was still kind of reeling from that. It also was missing the dynamic that I had liked, since Annabeth and Percy were basically stuck in Hell and everyone was kind of struggling. It still was really interesting, though I have to say the ending wasn't as strong as the endings of the other books. I'm super excited for the final book to come out in the fall. I'm really curious as to how the series will wrap up. That said, I'm kind of torn as to how to feel about it ending so soon after I finally got into the series -- I'm glad that I'll be able to read the final book along with everyone else, but I've only been able to enjoy this for seven months, and it's ending.