After last year's gargantuan turnout, this year had a much smaller youtaite crowd and in particular I didn't have as many non-local close friends that came. ;o; On the one hand, it meant I didn't get to meet up with as many people that I rarely get the opportunity to hang out with, but that was okay!!! Because my hotel group (+ our friends who became honorary members) spent so much time together that it felt like we became a big comfortable family. 😭 This makes me sooo happy.... I love them allllllll T____T What a good group of good boys and good girls and gremlins and ninja bros! Kind of funny though that we went all the way to the biggest annual weeaboo gathering to mostly spend time with 80% folks that we already can see in NorCal but ayy the bonding was priceless.
Hi let me promote my friends:
🌼 chiisana 🌼 goddess multitalented singer, so cute she makes me mad, half of "chiichana loves yuchu," probably the most powerful person in the room
🍄 myst 🍄 the AX Youtaite Meetup is her baby. please thank her for making the meetup what it is. always drunk
💞 Hinoe 💞 a legendary Prison Girl, will teach u how to give hugs that make you more attractive, "chiichana loves yuchu," top but also whipped, not NorCal
🔥 fome aka Sean(from PHOENIX ASH) 🔥 PhD, literal rock star and CEO, Cypher, king of the Comfy Cove, big bro, will step on you without permission
🎤 Hakuro aka Chris 🎤 Sings, ChrisTakesPhotos, lil bro, cosplays Sean(from PHOENIX ASH), muscles but still not more powerful than chiisana, "wo shi baby"
🥞 sophie aka kuroko 🥞 arrives and immediately opens AE to render, the famous Rising Hope, daily updates on trash purchases, the sole reason we went to Denny's
🤨 Diji 🤨 Dori, ex-animator best known for Vivid Chemistry, dungeons and dragons DM, afraid of gremlins, sho loves him
🐸 sho 🐸 loves Diji, pls do your homework child, 20 questions, has a great voice he finally brought out this year we proud
💉 Kyle aka Kairu 💉 nurse and musical theater, Mom with capital M, massages change your life, "I recognize you from Youtaite React!!!"
👑 Ventus 👑 ethereal queen of Kalafina covers, spent like 6 hours getting new skates, a literal doctor, may need to sue a chicken restaurant for feeding her chlorine
🍾 Char 🍾 persuaded everyone to buy soju pajamas, "100 times the gremlin energy as everyone else," repping LGBTQ+ women in STEM, bought too many gundams, not NorCal
🍉 mork 🍉 fake youtaite, thiccc bro, probably the 2nd most powerful after chiisana, real wrasssling, vocal cords of steel, why doesn't he have a yt channel
THERE'S A LOT OF US, I KNOW. For the first time ever, we were successfully able to get two connecting rooms and honestly I don't know if I can go back..... It's too fun to be able to effortlessly hop between rooms, hang out all together and eavesdrop, use each other's bathrooms, and feel like we're all just one big loud fam. We called one the Chill Room and the other the Party Room but honestly sometimes there was no difference LOL.
I think this was an AX to remember (and I'm already forgetting) so I wanted to messily document all the fun times we had~ Skipping most of the negative things because we don't need those here.
I think this was an AX to remember (and I'm already forgetting) so I wanted to messily document all the fun times we had~ Skipping most of the negative things because we don't need those here.
//In hindsight, all the emojis made this post really hard to read, I'm sorry....//
- DAY ZERO -
7 hour road trip for all the NorCal folks! I finished sewing my cosplay gloves in the car lol. We all went to check out the hotel gym, split off into workout team and groceries team, then we reconvened with everyone—plus other friends PB🦄 and Brenda🍰 who are in the band JAMPS—to get chicken and waffles at Roscoe's which was highly recommended by mork🍉. "What could possibly be so special about this combination to make it a thing to be excited for? It's just....chicken....and waffles...." None of us understood. Oh, I'm so happy that our expectations were turned on their head and it was so delicious that when mork🍉 went again, I made him bring back waffles to go LOL.
(I'd been severely under-eating—I say severely because I'm unhealthily underweight—over the past month in preparation for wearing my cosplay, so I only ate two wings—although I initially intended to only have one—I'M SOOO SADDDDDD I NEED TO GO BACKKKKK)
chiisana🌼 and I probably spent 40 minutes guessing sho🐸's real name and after we FINALLY got it, Hinoe💞—who was right next to us—hilariously revealed that she heard none of it and wanted to guess his name too LOL. Bit of drinking and gossip that night. :>
(I'd been severely under-eating—I say severely because I'm unhealthily underweight—over the past month in preparation for wearing my cosplay, so I only ate two wings—although I initially intended to only have one—I'M SOOO SADDDDDD I NEED TO GO BACKKKKK)
chiisana🌼 and I probably spent 40 minutes guessing sho🐸's real name and after we FINALLY got it, Hinoe💞—who was right next to us—hilariously revealed that she heard none of it and wanted to guess his name too LOL. Bit of drinking and gossip that night. :>
- DAY ONE -
My girls are so pretty I love them 😭💕 my ax gals forever pic.twitter.com/NEczUlTVFy— HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiinoe @ 我是baby (@yuibunni) July 5, 2019
Oh fuck. The day I wore my K/DA Kai'Sa cosplay................. Because I was feeling horribly nervous about everything, hadn't figured out or practiced what to do for make-up at all, in fact I never even tried on the shirt after I finished making it, it took me a long ass time to get ready. :c Also there was a terrifyingly long earthquake that came with a lot of 16th floor swaying.
A couple of us attended the Vocaloid panel, which provided a few chuckles but....not....much...else. Yawn. Later on, basically all of us and our friends went to the Cosplay Wrestling Federation which mork🍉 introduced to us last year and IT'S SO FREAKIN FUN. Actors in cosplay dissing each other but in character. While the audience yells and chants. It's hilarious and the chants stuck with us for the rest of the week ahaha.
Then I...o<-< had a photoshoot with Elmer📷 who's one of the few people I'm............less uncomfortable with having photograph me as he's a friend and Phoenix Ash's manager. He's graciously editing them so pictures to come later! Hopefully!!! if any of them turn out in a way that doesn't make me feel sick at the thought of other people seeing 'em!! screams
HAPPY TIMES: a bunch of us went to high ass quality all-you-can-eat korean BBQ with sweet boy Rhaps🤠 and good friend Xephy🔹 whom I ended up hanging out with basically everyday. ^^ Note that I'd been under-eating for weeks and since I'd just finished wearing my midriff cosplay, I INHALED. SO MUCH MEAT. DELICIOUS, DELICIOUS, MEDIUM-RARE MEAT. I FELT SO REWARDED.
Afterwards, friends came back to our hotel to drink with us. Sadly I missed the majority of the fun tipsy times while trying to remove my post-cosplay grossness....... Learned that lychee beer is delicious!
The big day!!! The AX Youtaite Meetup!!!!! We decided not to film Youtaite React this year and I'm very thankful because I'm exhausted as it is and can't imagine how much more dead we'd be. Very different vibe since the attendance was like....half that of last year's? and we weren't able to have a jam session. However as an icebreaker I made this scavenger hunt and it seems like a lot of people enjoyed it so I'm glad! ;u; Last year my regret was not getting enough chances to really meet new people that I wouldn't have the opportunity to outside of the meetup; this year was some redemption!! It was nice to talk to a bunch of new faces even though I'm a little awkward //v//
Afterwards I ended up accidentally spending a lot of bonding time with NorCal friend Lee❄ because our Zombieland Saga panel hopes fell through 8D;; Then we joined up with friends to explore the Exhibitors' Hall and Hinoe💞, Xephy🔹, sho🐸, and I decided to hit up sushi & oyster dinner and two delicious ice cream places hehehe! We were also joined by Mem🌙 (NorCal animator friend) as well as Astral🌠 who was sho🐸's friend whom none of us knew but ended up adopting as one of our own. :3 THE SHUTTLE TO LITTLE TOKYO WAS THE ABSOLUTE WORST. BIGGEST REGRET OF 2K19. Also another terrifyingly long earthquake.
- DAY TWO -
The big day!!! The AX Youtaite Meetup!!!!! We decided not to film Youtaite React this year and I'm very thankful because I'm exhausted as it is and can't imagine how much more dead we'd be. Very different vibe since the attendance was like....half that of last year's? and we weren't able to have a jam session. However as an icebreaker I made this scavenger hunt and it seems like a lot of people enjoyed it so I'm glad! ;u; Last year my regret was not getting enough chances to really meet new people that I wouldn't have the opportunity to outside of the meetup; this year was some redemption!! It was nice to talk to a bunch of new faces even though I'm a little awkward //v//
summary of tonight: can't tell if shook from beautiful sashimi, how cute friends are, or terrifying earthquake pic.twitter.com/gYXisaRbvm— Eva @ Anime Expo (@waterpixieva) July 6, 2019
Then we tried something new and exciting!!!! In all these years, I've probably never once been at the convention past 7-8 PM. We were all exhausted but what we heard about the silliness of the Karaoke Gong Show made us curious enough to muster the will to return to the con at 10 PM. How glad we were that we did!! sho🐸 and Astral🌠 overcame all their fears and signed up to participate as a duo, I'm so proud!!!!! The point of the show is to be unique and entertaining—and you bet that they were the most unique and entertaining out of all the participants with their kazoo duet of Magnet while hooking their arms as if taking a love shot. Yes. It was incredible. They won "Worst Concept" and we're so proud.
We got back to the hotel after midnight and drank and chatted. :'D Not sure if you're noticing a pattern here. I think this was the night of Char🍾's maximum gremlin energy and us watching her continually find creative ways to eat fish snacks lolol..... Although our group was getting inebriated every night, I kind of regret not drinking much at all and never really getting tipsy with everyone despite this being the prime opportunity to. ;A;
- DAY THREE -
Holy shit. The craziest fucking day. There were no more large earthquakes but the day itself was messy enough to make all of us quake. Skipping most of the negatives but it was a pretty bad day for pretty much everyone. ;;
Here are some positives! Interesting stories were shared over food court lunch and I got to spend bonding time with Kyle💉 as we headed to the Jpop dance workshop! Then chiisana🌼, y🌸 (NorCal good friendo and amazing animator-singer), Mimi🎀 (my Gemini/DREAMSCAPE bbyqurl! also NorCal), and I went around Exhibitors and I actually bought some cute stuff!! ;v;
BIG POSITIVE: fome🔥's band Phoenix Ash performed in Lounge 21 so a bunch of youtaite came to support him—it was so much fun jumping around with everyone! At the end, a long line of non-youtaite formed for a photo op with the band and we were proud HAHA. We got a big group picture with them!
We checked out the tail end of the official Youtaite Karaoke Room Takeover! Friends sang; was proud. Big group of friends ended up at a Korean chicken restaurant for dinner and here's a negative thing I'll talk about because it leads to hilarious things..... As they serve us water, Ventus👑 takes a gulp only to find that it tastes repulsive—we sniff our cups and they smell strongly of chlorine. D: It became a pretty big deal as we feared the potential of it being bleach, Ventus👑 became quite nauseated, she was taken to the kitchen by the restaurant's manager to investigate where they wash their dishes and what sorts of cleaning agents they use... sophie🥞 and Diji🤨's research concluded that it was likely to be a chlorine-based sanitizing agent and that Ventus👑 ought to be fine if she drinks a lot of water. Also notable that she's a doctor, handled the situation very well, and asked all the right things!
So we stop freaking out about it and go on with eating our chicken wings. Then this young waiter approaches our table with a bottle of sparkling water for Ventus👑, frantically asks if she's okay, and he starts telling us in sort of a jumpy way about how after the report, he went and tried drinking some of that same water........... And now he's not sure he's feeling so well and he's "tripping out" and "I HEARD YOU'RE A DOCTOR! NOW I'M SCARED THIS IS BAD" "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO" and "If anything happens, I'm suing my boss!!!"
So now we're all like, "You're probably fine!!!!! Take a break please!! Just drink a lot of water!!!" and consoling the waiter LOOOOOL. Apparently as soon as he walked away, he went and chugged an entire bottle of sparkling water. He was so earnestly endearing, we all loved his poor soul. I joked that we should "adopt" him and assign a fake name to call him by. We all spent a moment in silence as none of us could come up with a good name to suggest.
fome🔥: ......what about.................................jae.......kyun
And that's how "I HOPE JAEKYUN IS DOING OKAY" became our favorite line of the night. Poor Jaekyun. We'll never forget you.
Afterwards, we all went to probably what I consider to be my favorite matcha soft serve ice cream place, thanks to Xephy🔹's recommendation. ^^ We started talking about how it compared to another popular matcha soft serve place..................and I just thought..........well...........................wouldn't it be better to compare them by eating them one after another........? For research.......... I freaking love my friends for being spontaneously down AHAHAHAHA. Some of the group went back to the hotel early which left me, chiisana🌼, mork🍉, Xephy🔹, Chris🎤, y🌸, and Dibur🥔 (NorCal friend and fabulous composer) to embark on the first of hopefully many legendary Matcha Marathons™.
On the walk to matcha destination #2, we passed by an unexpected soft serve ice cream place which had matcha, however the menu seemed to imply that they only offered swirls and we only wanted "purebred matcha seeped for 1000 hours." At destination #2, we ordered one soft serve for all of us to share—except for mork🍉 whose mission was to compare smoothies—and it was pretty good but very distinctly different; the group was split on which they preferred more.
Then chiisana🌼 goes on Yelp and finds out that the place we'd passed by earlier does serve matcha by itself........... Onwards to destination #3! We'd decided to be environmental so all walked down the street carrying our spoons to reuse which was a funny sight. While taking the second photo, a spoonless hand suddenly joined in the circle and WTF we kind of freak out at a stranger's audacity to photobomb us??! IT TURNS OUT TO BE CHIIKA🍭 LOL. She's passing by with her friends including Rhaps🤠!
The best night gets even better... Now we've started evaluating each of the matcha soft serves as if we were chorus battle judges—commenting on the mixing, mastering, visuals, coloring, PARTICLES—and we joke that there'll be an elimination and for round 2 we'll go again to just our top two places LOL. I loved this group so much.
On this night, most peeps got really drunk and giggly haha. At one point we realized that we had a room full of inebriated people, one puking myst🍄, and no more water....... So chiisana🌼, sho🐸, and I gathered all the empty water bottles that we could find, went down to the hotel gym, and filled them up at the water dispenser. ^^ After most of the drunk people went home or fell asleep, The Remaining™ had a fun discussion about crushes hehe :'D Somehow we ended up doing this half-planned-half-unplanned cursed recreation of the handshake in SAO Alicization......................
{ featuring fome🔥 as Eugeo, Chris🎤 as Kirito, sho🐸 as dude you can't see, me as embarrassed girl #1, Hinoe💞 as embarrassed girl #2, mork🍉 as wtf guy, Astral🌠 as GENUINELY CLAPPING BOY, Brenda🍰 as face coverer, and PB🦄 as videographer. }
- DAY FOUR -
RIP, a bunch of us were hoping to go to the Bunny Girl Senpai movie premiere but the line had capped 5 hours in advance, ridiculous........ With sophie🥞's VERY ADAMANT PERSUASION—"I genuinely like Denny's!"—we somehow actually. . purposely. . went to Denny's. . . intentionally. with Diji🤨, sho🐸, Astral🌠, and Kurono🐀 (another NorCal friend who'd been coming over in the mornings to work out with our more active roommates RESPECT BUT CAN'T RELATE). Okay alright fine, the food was pretty good and we had some enlightening discussions. ;v;
Back to the con for last minute shopping/visiting artist friends! Somehow ended up crawling through the aisles with sophie🥞 and Astral🌠—and those who know us would know that we're an extremely unlikely, very random combination of a group LOL..... It was really nice getting to spend time with them I never would've expected to like this! :> Met up with a bunch of friends to explore Entertainment Hall and then convened with everyone to get yummy bingsoo!! Just for fun, Astral🌠 was eating taiyaki with tabasco lololol so I tried a spoon of black sesame bingsoo with tabasco—bad times.
Back to the hotel to hang out more as Xephy🔹, Hinoe💞, chiisana🌼, and I watched the recent episode of PRODUCE X 101 which was super fun!!!! Wish I could watch every episode in the same room as them TuT For some reason we had what we were calling alcoholic La Croix?? And everyone started imitating ninjas......... The stupid energy was through the roof.
- BONUS -
The fome🔥 Chris🎤 mork🍉 car went to get Thai crispy fish when they made it back up to NorCal which made me, myst🍄, and chiisana🌼 jealous so we went to that exact restaurant location the next day and recreated their picture. LOOOOOOOOLLL ugh I love friends. and crispy fish.
Now I need a week without responsibilities to recover from AX please.
Go to Denny's with me eva-chaaaaan
ReplyDelete...................fine.......................
Delete