OMFG AX. I mean...seriously. OMFG AX.

Good grief, where do I start? At the beginning? Where the hell is that? Blegh. I guess it starts when Anne picked me up. Get ready for a LONG ENTRY BECAUSE GOOD GOD A LOT HAPPENED. (This tends to happen at cons for me.)

So anyway, Anne picked me up at five thirty AM, we got to LA around seven something, we rested and had breakfast, blah, blah blah. (I don't like Anne's dad very much; I don't understand his sense of humor, especially at that hour of the morning. Marisa be literal.) We got to the con around nine (I don't remember why, I think it was because we wanted to go in full costume and I had to put on Anne's makeup), and...holy crap. Even at nine the line was atrocious and the heat was horrible. Worse, I forgot my water bottle, and I was pretty miserable because I had on both my wig and my hat and the shirt/vest combo that is remarkably hot when worn in the sun. I was lucky I had an orange, though--eating it hydrated me enough so I didn't melt like the Wicked Witch. Some pretty funny stuff happened, though--even before I got my badge I got mobbed, because I met up with a sexy!Ash and people wanted pictures. The only way we got away was because I yelled out that I wanted to get my badge and I hadn't even made it to Viridian City yet. Got a nice round of laughter and an escape route.

Anyway, we made friends with a very nice girl in the line and chatted about our respective states (I don't remember where she was from, though). FINALLY got our badges, met up with Amber, bid adeiu to our new friend, and headed back to the apartment to rest for a bit. I finished off my costume (had to paint on those goddamn Zs, it took forever!) and we headed back for the opening of the Exhibition Hall. It was great! Annie was dressed up as Murkrow, and while we lost Amber after a while (were expecting it) we met up with lots of other Pokemon cosplayers and even met up with a great group that had classic Ash, Gary, Brock, Misty, Oak, and...Surge, I think. Yeah, Surge. I think he bought a Raichu plush later to complete the cosplay. (DUDE THEY SOLD REALLY AWESOME RAICHU PLUSHIES. He's sitting next to me right now~ I'm so happy! Raichu was my first favorite Pokemon!)

So, everyone remembers Proposing Ash from Otakon, right? (I'm certain you all do; they're my most favorited pictures. That and the AAML picture.) Anyway, I decided to do it again this year, seeing as I figured no one at AX would have a heads-up warning like they would if I'd tried to pull that stunt again at Otakon. Anyway, since I had almost a year to prep for AX, and I worked at F21 for almost that whole year, I managed to get a crapload of really cheap diamond rings for this to give to all the ladies afterwards. (I mean, seriously, is there a single more awesome momento than that? I mean, a free one?)

Well, Proposing Ash went to work. Misty first, of course. But, for you shippers out there, and GOD but it made my brain hurt, I proposed to Gary too.

Yeah.

I hate you ALL.

So anyway, Gary took it pretty well. So I went off into the Hall, and it was a happy place. Not as happy as last year, but I don't think as many venders could afford to come this year. I was rather disappointed that Cosworx wasn't there, though. I REALLY wanted to pick up a wig for Brock and Dawn for next year (Ash is going to be retired after this, much as I love him). For those who are curious, if I can afford it I will be Sinnoh Brock next year, Glaceon (speaking of, OMG GLACEON PLUSHIE SQUEE!) and possibly Dawn, if I can get the wig and the costume done right. I love Dawn and I'm a perfectionist, so if it can't be done right, I don't want to do it. Much better to have one awesome costume than two mediocre costumes.

....FOCUSING.

So, the Exhibition Hall was cool, if a little lonely. Some new stuff this year, they're selling foam wings as well as cat ears and tails (and some very nice fox-tails and ears that they weren't selling last year), and there's going to be some pretty funny pictures of Ash trying on a corset, if they came out right--I don't think Anne took them the way I wanted them taken, with him looking in the mirror looking stunned, but...well, we'll see. (By the way, when I saw it on me the first time I nearly fell down I was laughing so hard. It really did look REDICULOUS, especially because his yellow stripes jumped up right up to where...well, y'know. It was funnier than maid!Ash, and that's SAYING something.)

There was other awesome fun, like at this point I ran into Aere and she became my new photo whore, and we were lucky enough to run into the best looking Brock I've seen in a long time. So of course we took normal pictures, and...bam. Proposal.

Which turned into the funniest goddamn thing I've seen in a WHILE. I hope someone got video this, because seriously...I mean...HOLY CRAP but this made me laugh. I don't know how I kept a straight face, I really don't.

Okay, so I get down on one knee and say, "Brock, will you marry me?" And Brock literally JUMPS BACK, his arms windmill like he's an anime character, and he has the most perfect shocked/stunned expression on his face that I'll treasure the memory of for a long, long time--eyes wide, eyebrows up, mouth open, the whole bit. "WHAT?!" Aere's snapping pictures and laughing her ass off, his friends are cackling, and I just said "Well?"

Oh, it was EPIC, my friends. EPIC. Made my day. (Epilogue: I ended up running into him twice later that day, once in my Ash costume, where we joked about being married ((his other friends said he described the situation like this: "Oh, nothing much happened. Walked around, got a few things, got married...")) and later at the dance when I was actually dressed as a girl--he actually didn't recognize me because I was in a dress. Score one for the crossplay team.)

So, it will warm the cockles of my heart. Take that, yaoi fans.

ANYWAY. Ran into a Leaf and proposed to her because Leaf is EPIC AWESOME, ran into Cynthia but Cynthia declined proposal (mostly because Cynthia is WAY out of Ash's league--I mean, seriously, anyone who could possibly ship that is truly fantasizing), ran into more Misties, and ran into Tranny Misty (sorry, hon, but you'll forever be known as Tranny Misty in my book). Tranny Misty was by far the best Misty of them all--not so much costume as character. Her reaction when I proposed was: *GASP/SQUEE!* ....*pause*.... "NOT UNTIL YOU PAY ME BACK FOR MY BIKE!"

I literally fell down laughing. Tranny Misty, you ROCK.

So after that bit of awesome, we went back to Arist's Alley and got some commissions and prints. One of the commissions is gorgeous, but I lost the artist's card and my friend at the con can't find her, so I just have to hope she'll be there next year. (I wanted to get a second piece in full color.) Unfortunately, something really sucky happened around then--I accidentally left my pokeball in the bathroom, and when I finally remembered where I left it it was gone. No one's put it in lost and found, obviously, because it was awesome--actual size, nicely made, and given to me by a dear friend who bought it at the Pokemon Center in Japan. Nope, not replacing that in a hurry. I'll admit I cried a little.

Anyway, went to a panel that was supposed to be funny to cheer up. It was about this thing called Mega64--I'd never heard of it, but it was pretty funny, and it cheered me up. I'm the sort of person who needs to laugh if I'm upset, not be comforted. Being comforted makes me feel worse. So, laughing helped! Especially when one the panelists saw the guy cosplaying as Mustard (as in the condiment) and yelled out that Ketchup was better. Nice. (Side note: the next day I helped Mustard convince a girl that he was in a lost episode of Inuyasha where Inuyasha kills Kagome with mustard and Shippo kills Inuyasha in revenge. She bought it. It was awesome. I credit our ability to keep a straight face.)

So let's forward to THE DANCE.

It took a while to prep for this thing, and sadly I only have a few pictures of me for it. My costume was awesome. I was technically cosplaying as Ghastly, but as Aere described it: "You look like a pirate punk version of Ghastly." It was this sort of punk lolita dress that I wore with my Ash wig (dude, wig hair and a rave = not happening), with a purple bandana wrapped around the wig, with dark purple makeup and a little swirl drawn on my cheek, with pink and blue hair extensions on either side of my face hanging below my ears, with a great choker and fishnet fingerless gloves, fishnet stockings with purple-and-black kneehigh socks, and these sort of lolita three-in heeled Mary Janes with combat boot treads.

In short? I LOVE THIS COSTUME. Also, I will never, EVER wear it in the light of day. Two men on the walk on the con literally tried to get me to go home with them (....) and four more guys hit on me at the dance, including a really fat nerd that made me actually run away a bit when he started to GRIND ON ME. I'm sorry, but when you hit three hundred and it ain't muscle you are not allowed to do that without the lady's permission.

But what was AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME about the dance was that I made two more friends, Nikki and Panda. Great dancers, and really cool! And they told me how to do the most awesome thing in the dance: dance on the platform on the very front. See, the setup was about seven feet away from the DJ was this maybe 12 by 6 platform that was raised a couple of feet off the ground where about four people could dance comfortably. They were invariably girls, and you were only allowed if you asked the bouncer. HOWEVER, if you sneaked around the back and just ducked under the rope, the bouncer wouldn't kick you off because of ownership of cleavage and vagina. Sexy clothing helped.

Obviously I had all three, so I jumped right up there and danced like hell. I have to say, dancing on a platform is harder than dancing on the ground, because you know people are watching you. So at first I just mimicked the ladies next to me--then I said screw it and danced the way I wanted to. Usually I twirl more than I did up there, but it was very hard because the platform has some sort of texture so people couldn't slip off easily, unlike a dance floor. Still, it was great. I danced with one of the girls, and the girl behind me started dancing with us so we did this sandwich thing, which was actually a lot of fun. Probably caused a few erections too--those ladies were not ugly. And Nikki started a breakdance ring, so every time it was empty we clapped onstage until someone jumped in to encourage the crowd to do the same. Sometimes the DJ would come up and dance with us, too, which was pretty epic.

The last song I danced to was a Ramstein remix, which was awesome because I love heavy metal. Lots of stomping involved, which killed my feet, but what the hell, it was the last dance, no? When I finally jumped down I was so drenched even my wig was clumped together from sweat, and the extensions were soaked as though I'd dipped them in water. Went and rested the rest of the dance, then went with Aere's friend Chanel to get driven home, cos while I'm not a far walk from the con, I would NOT walk it alone in that costume at two in the morning when I was too footsore to run.

...Thaaaat's when the Oddessey happened. I'm so very, very serious.

Chanel left her car in the con center's parking lot. So we had to take a shuttle to the con, right? Well, we took the very last shuttle from the hotel to the con--but we missed the con's stop because we were so exhausted. Fortunately we were able to get off a couple of blocks away from the con center...a couple of CITY blocks. Mind I've been dancing for four hours in very not foot-friendly shoes, on top of walking half a mile to get to this dance in the first place. My feet do not like me, but I walk this anyway, of course. We make it to the center, but we're on the wrong side. We have to walk to the OTHER side.

The doors are locked. We walk to the garage. The garage has a honkin' huge gate across it. There is no way to get to our car, and it's almost three in the morning.

Yeeeeah.

FORTUNATELY one of the con's mall cops drives by and we are able to explain our problem. I'm about dying here, cause I think at that point I've walked at least a half mile, maybe more, in godawful painful pumps because walking barefoot hurts even more. (Trust me, I tried it.) Anyway, we finally, finally, FINALLY manage to make it to the car, and they drop me off. So I got home at around 3:30 in the morning, but ended up going to sleep around 4:30 due to undressing, showering, etc.

STILL IT WAS GODDAMN WORTH IT! I mean, holy crap! I don't think I'll ever be able to dance in a situation like that again! (Which is pretty much what got me up there in the first place. When WOULD I ever get to do that again?) Anyway, Anne was kind enough to wake me up at nine in the morning, I nearly mauled her but couldn't call up the energy, went back to sleep, woke up, got ready, and we headed to the con center around 11:40 to get to the steampunk gathering at noon. I don't really care one way or another about steampunk, though I met some quite nice and well done steampunkers who were just as confused as me when I tried to find it. Anyway, the IMPORTANT BIT is the Pokemon Gathering at 2 PM.

Holy. Living. Shit. There had to be at LEAST 100 cosplayers there, more likely 150+. I mean, GOD.

And yet I didn't run into a single Dawn. Sorry, shippers, no proposals for you. Also, this further convinces me to cosplay as Sinnoh Brock because seriously! There were like three or four Brocks, and ALL of them were Kanto! ASH IS NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH COSTUME CHANGES, PEOPLE.

Anyway, there's no way to describe all the awesome of the gathering, so highlights:

* Proposing to James. After the big, huge proposal to Misty, I took requests. One was James. (...No comment.) So TR was doing a great pose, and when they were done I said my usual "James, I have a question for you" *get one one knee* "Will you mar--"

And instantly Meowth jumped up, splayed his arms across James and yelled "No he's MINE!"

It was so popular we had to do it again so people could videotape it. I have a feeling it's already on youtube. (Oddly enough, no one thought of a Jessie x Ash request, or of taking the ring and having James propose to Jessie. Ah well. Maybe it's just FUNNIER when Ash does it.)

The other awesome was proposing to Katara. Bwahahaha.

See, after the gathering I hung out with Cynthia and Leaf and their friends, since they're awesome and fun to hang with. We got to talking about crossover proposals, which led to one of the funniest things I've ever done. The awesome does not come across when I describe it, but basically Ash proposes to Katara, and...well, some really funny things happen from there.

After that I went to pick up commissions and Aere, Chanel, Aere's guy friend whose name I don't remember, Ann, and I all went to Little Tokyo. We got lost going there, but we got there in the end, and it was great because it was the one part of the city where wandering around in costume got you no odd looks. Then again, it sucked because it was the one part of the city where wandering around in costume got you no odd looks. (What? Wandering around in costume in normal circumstances is hilarious and can be even more fun than being at the con, especially in LA!) Anyway, we got a few steamed buns, went to the bookstore and Chanel got Cosmode, and wandered around a bit taking pictures of landmarks. Was much fun. Wish we coulda gone to the arcade or kareoke, though. Pounding on that drum game in costume? Beautiful. Then again, that arcade's pretty expensive, and since I need to buy a new pokeball, I should be glad we didn't make it.

Anyway, that's Moony's con report. Slept about ten hours after I got home last night in recovery. Today has been meh, because while the sun's out and the beach is beautful it's also cold and windy. Meh, I should go inland--it would be nice and hot there!

Side note: I don't update DA very often because it's blocked on the computers I tend to use. If you want to keep in better touch with me, email or lj is the way to go. I'll try to stay active here, though. It's just a little harder.