So, this passed weekend, there was an anime convention. I was looking forward to it since I learned about it, because I enjoy hugging my favorite characters and showing off my sewing talents. I have them. I've been learning and doing pretty good. I even bled on my last one. Yay.

I've been to anime conventions before, Anime St. Louis, Kawakon, Anime North, and I go to Archon every year no matter what, even if it's only for Saturday. It's tradition, I have to go. I even went when it was Nasfic, even though someone paid for half my ticket. However, when I got home, my family asked me "so, how was it?" That is a very loaded and complicated question.

Natuscon, which was the name of the convention, was running it's first year and for the first year, had a fantastic showing and a great guest. I went with some of my very good friends and we all had a great time piling and yaoi-ing and taking pictures (they took pictures, I always forget to take pictures, oddly enough), seeing and meeting new people and what not. However, the hotel they picked absolutely wretched and the whole weekend concerning the hotel turned into something out of the "twilight zone", as my mom calls it.

So, we all get there. I reserved the room, had never done it before, made sure that everything was confirmed and where it was supposed to be. I asked if I could pay in cash, asked if it was okay, if there were any add-ons or whatnot and they said "no", so I thought we were good. We get to the hotel and the front desk is like "oh, you're paying in cash, you have to give us a 50 dollar deposit on top of what you're already paying or else we won't let you have it. Sorry." It would have been nice to KNOW THAT A HEAD OF TIME. THANKS. So we didn't plan for it. It was obvious that they couldn't hit me with the "well, you're not 18, so you can't sign in" crap that they were giving other people. And even THAT was bizarre. First is was "it's okay if you're 18" over the phone, then once this other group got there, it was "you can't sign in unless you're 21", then it was "the person whose signing in has to be related to you" and it just got more complicated after that.

The manager of the hotel became known as the "frog lady", because she always seemed to look like a pissed off toad, her eyes bugging out as she watched us go past. She and the rest of the hotel staff called us names like "freaks" and "weirdos" and other not nice names loud enough so we could hear them. She mentioned to me and my friend as we walked through the lobby with a chain hooked to our collars that we couldn't "do that here, it would frighten the NORMAL guests". Eventually name-calling turned into out-right madness, with the staff making up rules that didn't exist at the beginning of the convention. A boyfriend and a girlfriend were sitting on a couch, the girl with her legs on her boyfriend and the manager said that they couldn't "do that here", that they would have to "get a room".

A groupe of people were playing duck-duck-goose out on the lawn, away from the hotel and the manager said that if they continued to do that they would be "escorted off the premises". They threatened to call the cops on us for just BEING THERE, no other reason, and then the con organizers and the hotel talked and the hotel said it was just a "misunderstanding" and an hour later they called the cops on us anyway. The hotel staff said that we had to keep moving or else we would be "removed" from the hotel without being able to acquire our stuff. You couldn't walk around barefoot, and a couple of girls called to complain about being treated so poorly, and then the hotel threw them out.

On another note. I finished my Ashura-Tsubasa costume and wore it maybe for four hours, and then I dressed up as Soubi the rest of the time. There are some great yaoi shots to this. The rest of the con rocked though, I was with some great friends, they were having fun, I got to see Kurgie's new car, Fai got to dress up like Iggie and Chris Patton is a very hilarious gay-dude who likes to say "f*ck".

I met some new friends xchibichibi and xirucem, and outside of the very bad service of the hotel, had a great time.