I'm gunna try to keep my normally long winded rambling pretty brief as the memories I wish to share are more like anecdotes, which might make it easier to read or skim over for anyone curious. XD ( I'm halfway through and I think I can say I've failed at this attempt to keep things brief, lol) Also, unfortunately despite how excited I was about AX and AM^2 and cosplaying, it turned out to be probably my worst con experience ever (through no fault of the cons tho). There were fun times tho, which I will also share, so if it's a good rant I'll use a blue bullet, bad red. XD Here we go...
Anime Expo and AM²
-THE ARRIVAL- So you may recall how incredibly nervous I was about the drive since my last road trip was basically a disaster, but thankfully the trip was mostly uneventful. We did see/pass several car accidents, saw someone else's tire blow out, and I spent the majority of the trip melting in the backseat due to some disputes on running the AC versus making sure my car was driving smoothly. But, the important thing was we made it alive, even if I was pretty much drenched in my own sweat and running on no sleep btw haha. We stayed at the Sheraton, which had been our fav AX hotel, until this trip. First, they didn't let us stop at the lobby entrance to unload our immense amount of luggage and instead waved us on through to the parking garage, which by the way is shared between the hotel and the mini mall it connects to. So after we checked in, we got the pleasure of not being given a bellhop trolly to unload our stuff, and got to make several trips through the garage and mini mall back into the hotel to bring in all our stuff. ):< Also, the girl working the front desk was making things so complicated and difficult, and even though I had 4 people on my room list, the room we were given I strongly believe was only meant for two people as it was crazy small even when it was just the 3 of us there. Then, after a while we noticed there was pretty much no air circulation happening in our room even tho we'd turned the AC all the way down to freezing, so we call down and then send up a tech (45 minutes later), who points a thermometer at the vent, says there's cool air coming out and that we just have to wait a while, then leaves. ):< By this point we're starving, so we decide to go eat before making out next move. I wish I can say things got better after we had food in our bellies, but because of a mild miscommunication about registration there was some really unnecessary tension in the air. -_- Then there was even more drama involving ex's, and then more mild drama in the line for registration when we accidentally cut in front of a couple of girls as there was a huge gap between what we thought was the end of the line and them, so they accused us of cutting and tried to get us in trouble with staff and other BS, instead of just, you know, talking to US about it in a kind and civil manner instead of being a bitch. So after letting them and whoever else said they had been there before us go ahead (NO BIG DEAL), we mocked the whole ordeal for the rest of the wait, cuz we're mature like that. XD Luckily the wait was only about 2 hours (I've been suck in AX reg lines for 7 hours+ before so this was cake lol), but eve so the majority of it was spent outside in the gross humidity so when we finished up I felt thoroughly gross and exhausted. And, surprise, when we got back to the room it was still uncomfortably stuffy (if you remained stationary for long enough you cooled down), but by that point we were all too tired and hot to try and switch rooms, and we figured we wouldn't be in there much anyway so we should be able to handle it.
-DAY 1 @ AM^2- First day was Okami day!! And we were gunna spend the majority of it at AM^2. 
Getting ready, it was so awesome to see Meg and Chibi's outfits all together, it was truly like my sketches had come to life only 10 million times better. My outfit tho I felt dubious on, so even with the few pix we managed to take all I can do is look and nitpick everything I want to change. 
So, be on the look out for Amaterasu 2.0 haha. But yeah after getting ready and escaping our terrible humid room, we went to eat at IHOP before heading out to AM^2. It was so funny how many compliments we got just sitting there, and then those turned into random people asking for photos during our breakfast. XD; It was amusing and made me happy that our costumes seemed to be a hit even if people didn't necessarily know what we were.
After food we headed off to AM^2, and were perturbed at how empty it seemed for having so much awesome stuff going on (not to mention the Anaheim Con Center is like a million times nicer than stupid LA Con Center. I HATE IT~).
They really should have waited to build up a loyal fanbase before taking on Anime Expo. :/ But at any rate, as soon as we went into the vendor hall/artist alley/registration looking for where to pick up our "passports," we were accosted for photos and compliments. o.o And like I knew we looked cool, but probably not THAT cool to deserve the amount of attention we got, which only increased my worry that AM^2 must have been really slow/empty. We picked up our badges, which were designed literally to look like passport books that had the con's schedules and everything you needed to know inside, which I thought was such a brilliant design/idea. Then we were whisked away to a photo booth for pictures, and it was then I realized I really should have thought ahead more on poses, cuz I went totally blank haha. Add to that I wasn't feeling my costume to the fullest, and I feel like most of my pictures just came out so-so if not bad haha. Again the people at the booth seemed to just be in too much awe of our costumes, tho I happily took the compliments and was glad they were appreciated. ^__^ After we finished with the photo opp, we rushed to find where the h.naoto fashion show/heidi. concert was going to be, as I wanted to see both but also my friend was one of the models in the show. <3 So the fashion show was super cool, and we had some pretty awesome seats considering we'd made it so late in the seating line. After the fashion show, my friend joined us and we found some other pals seated near us, then heidi. took the stage. Firstly, it was bizarre because from a distance the guitarist, bassit, and drummer all looked like friends of ours, so when they walked in the fashion show we were really confused for a few moments. XD But yeah, other than marveling at the resemblance, heidi really surprised me! I liked their music well enough, but they're one of those bands you definitely appreciate that much more after seeing them live. They had such a great and fun energy and really worked the crowd! It sucked SO MUCH tho, because as soon as the concert started a lot of people left their seats and rushed to stand in front of the stage, like at a real concert. Somehow the staff made everyone return to their seats, AND then made everyone else sit down, so no one could even stand up at their seat to enjoy the show. D:< It made rocking out and giving energy and appreciation back to the band difficult, but it hardly seemed to phase them as they continued to cheerfully encourage hand waving and other interactions.
They were really, truly amazing and fun. I'd totally see them again if given the chance. <3 After the concert we wandered around a bit and met up with our other friends, and were trying to figure out the other conventions going on at the same time.. one of which was some organization called MOOSE, and it was mostly old people lol... a lot of them asked for pix with us, or simply stared... After one too many slightly inappropriate interactions with old men we decided we had enough of cosplay and changed into normal clothes, tho we kept the wigs and makeup on since it would have been ridiculous to try and deal with the disaster that was our hair after being stuck under a wig for so many hours. XD; So we were then like, casual Okami haha.
More wandering and fooling around with friends, then we made our way back to the concert room to see the Sadie concert. They surprised me in a different way haha... I didn't realize they were so hard/screamy.. somehow the few songs I had happened upon were all their more mellow or not as screamy songs. I'm not a fan of screamo rock (one reason I don't even listen to anything by Dir en grey after Withering to Death), so while they were good the concert just felt like one big song to me and I eventually just started wondering when it'd finally be over haha. We amused ourselves tho by playing "misheard lyrics" and telling each other what we thought the singer just sang. XD Also, we were sitting near these guys that had also been in the fashion show I think, and they looked familiar so I was kinda staring them down trying to remember where I had seen them before... then it hit me, they were the douchebags that had tried to start a mosh pit at one of the GLAY concerts a year or two ago now. If you've never listened to GLAY, even their "hard" stuff is hardly anything you can mosh to, headbanging/dancing/jumping yes... mosh pit, NO. And it wasn't even to one o their "hard" songs they tried to start one to.. not to mention, the audience was like 90% girls.. so yeah... this petite asian girl next to me got hit so hard by their rowdyness she nearly fell, and then finally when all of the girls got sick of their stupidity, it wasn't pretty haha. I saw a friend of mine come flying from no where to kick one of them in the ass, and then when they nearly slammed into the same Asian girl beside me I blocked her and punched the guy as hard as I could in the kidney with my big skull ring on. But yeah anyway, after I recognized them we then spent time snickering to ourselves about how they had got their asses kicked by a ton of angry GLAY fangirls lol. I will say, the singer of Sadie really looks and sounds remarkably like Kyo from Dir en grey, and he's SO TINY. I couldn't get over how little he was haha. I could put him in my pocket. 8D
After the concert, we made a group pilgrimage to Dennys, where we ran into yet more of them MOOSE people, and finally got an answer to what it was all about.. tho I missed part of the explanation lol. But I caught a bit when the lady was explaining they named their group after a Moose because they had tight family units... and I was like.. uhhh.. what?
Moose are solitary, and don't travel in groups or herds like other dear. XD; The closest they come is when you see a mother with her calf/calves... but yeah. Anyway after food with friends we made the drive back to our hotel at AX. I showered and waited up for our friend that arrived that night, and stayed up a while whispering sleep deprived jokes with him until I finally passed out. -DAY 2 @ AX- Angel Sanctuary daaaaaay! I was excited because not only had I fixed my costume from my first attempt at wearing it the year before, but I had also since commissioned Alexiel's sword, Nanatsusaya, so I felt awweeessooome. And I was so excited to see Meg and our friend Nick as Astarte and Astaroth, because I KNEW it was going to look amazing and they would be bombarded for pics even if no one knew who they were. 
People need to learn to trust my cosplay/design instincts. XD We also planned to check out AX's awesome vendor hall and artist alley, tho there was still issues about people not having badges and whatnot which we'd figure out once we got to the con center. Note that at conventions, my already troubled sleep only gets worse despite my exhaustion.. like I can only sleep for a few hours at a time it seems, as I always wake up way earlier than we intended lol. But, despite my X amount of days with little sleep, I was excited for the day.. tho people's morning crabbyness started to worry me some. I figured tho as soon as we got out of our cramped, stuffy, humid room everyone would feel better. I was right, for a little while at least.We got to the con center only for me to realize I forgot my camera, but Meg had hers so we decided just to just stick with that. First order of business was to get to reg to weigh various options about what to do about the badge situation for some of our group who were hesitant to shell out the $75 for a full badge if we were going to be going to both AX and AM^2. Anyway the con center is SO PACKED, it takes forever to get to the hall where reg was, only to find out the place we needed to go first is all the way where we just came from. *_* I offer to go alone, since it'll be faster getting through the horde with just one person than our little group. So I go, get the answer I needed to ditch Plan 1, and call the rest of my group to let them know what happened and that I'm on my way back... turns out in the short time I was away there was continued crabbyness and some infighting, so there's a momentary split in the group as I get Nanatsusaya peace bonded, then we get back together for a small handful of photos while we wait to see what people decide to do about the badge situation, still. We wander around the hall a little more, and finally Chibi is fed up with her costume as she's having some difficulties, and I'm feeling pretty gross myself as all my wasted efforts of running around has left me sweating like a man. Meg and Nick's costumes tho are a hit and they're getting bombarded with photos, me and Chibi tho weren't getting that much attention anyway, so we decided to go ahead and go change.
I don't really even want to specify exactly what happened after that, but the incidents that followed and the drama that came with it was so horrible that even tho they were resolved later that night, it pretty much put a damper on the rest of the convention for me. I didn't dwell or mope about it and made the most of the good times we did have, but in the back of my mind I worried "what ELSE is going to happen?"
That night however was really epically fun, especially considering how terrible the rest of the day had been. Also sucky was tickets were just completely sold out for both the Vocaloid concert and for Kalafina, so I had no fun events to distract me that night. Instead and possibly even better however, we got to hang out with some old friends and some of our usual group, and played an epic and hilarious game of Apples to Apples.I don't know if you know this, but Helen Keller it seems is the ultimate power card... no matter what adjective is put down, if you put Helen Keller down she's like an automatic win. XD Nothing can beat her! / 
-DAY 3 @ AX- This day we were supposed to go to AM^2 to cosplay Guilty Gear with our other friends, and also check out the special screening of Bunraku and see Scandal in concert. But, since we had been unable to check out the vendor hall yesterday, we decided we'd wake up early and see as much as we could of the dealer's room and try to get our friends to come to AX since we heard AM^2 was pretty sad and empty still (really we kept hearing conflicting reports, saying there was no one there or saying they had a lot of people at certain events at least... I dunno haha). Turns out they couldn't come to AX and were prolly gunna be leaving AM^2 early-ish... but before I could even feel guilty and convince my group to go over as we said we would, my health took a bit of a nose dive. Again I thought when we got out of the room and into the con I'd feel better, but not so haha. I managed to hang on until we got our whole group into the vendor hall, then I had to break the news to both my group at AX and my friends at AM^2 that I had to go change out of my cosplay and rest for a while. The lack of sleep, heat/humidity, and probably most of all stress had taken it's toll on me and I think my blood pressure went haywire. I felt dizzy and was having heart palpitations along with a tight feeling in my chest, and even a bit sick to my stomach... so before it got any worse I made my exit and made the trip that seemed to take a small eternity back to the room to change out of my costume and lay down for a while by myself in the quiet. It took so long that by the time I had started changing Chibi called me saying they had gotten worried because they hadn't heard from me, but that she was on her way back too to change.
I felt so bad we weren't able to make it to cosplay with our friends at AM^2, but they looked awesome all on their own. I waited for Chibi to come and change, and by that time I was feeling better, so we made our way back to the con and finally got to explore the dealer's room. After hunger took over eyegasming at merch, we met up with friends at Dennys and said farewell to other friends. ;3; We spent the rest of the evening chilling in our hotel room with pals, and I started to not feel well all over again so the last chance of maybe going to see Scandal was out the window. ::emo tears for a thousand years::
-DAY 4 @ AX- Day 4 was just a chill day. Went to the dealer's room to finish up shopping, including getting a new set of copics and eyeballing their air compressor which I wish I had. T_T Bought some munny's on sale at the dickblick booth, did some damage in Artist Alley.. but yeah really didn't go too crazy at this con haha. Rest of the day was just spent relaxing with friends, ordered some delicious pizza, then had to say goodbyes and pack up for the trip back home.
The trip back home was also, thankfully, uneventful. Except when we go into Picacho Peak, that's when we hit that huge dust storm that ended up swallowing Phoenix haha. It was pretty intense for a while but luckily we got out unscathed.
But yeah... so even with the fun times, which did outweigh the crappy, I can easily say this was the worst con experience I've ever had.
It's left such a bad taste in my mouth that I'm not even excited for San Diego Comic Con at the moment... it'll be my first, and I'm sure I'll be excited as it gets closer but man. I'm sure I'll be confronting people more about everything that happened when the time is right. For now all I can say is I hope nothing like this happens ever again.But yeah, I know some of you were hoping for some awesome pix of cosplay, but with all of the running around and drama there's really no pics of me to be found, and the few I have seen I don't like enough to show off haha. But, I'll be rewearing the costumes (in some cases new and improved versions) at upcoming cons so there'll be pics to show eventually haha. ^^
In the meantime, you can check out my handywork in part with
and 
Nuregami ( made with help from Chibi and Meg :3 )
:thumb217451169:
Astaroth and Astarte (combo of sewn pieces and store bought accessories/pieces )
:thumb217451583:Ino (THIS WAS A NIGHTMARE TO MAKE, WTF)
Thank you all for sticking with me! Next journal will be 90% more cheery hopefully! XD
† Bix †
IMPORTANT: Shipping outside the United States will be $5-$13.95 most likely, but at this time I can't give an exact amount because I don't have the book yet to weigh it, so I can only guess. However you can get an idea of the price range for shipping to your country by looking here (under the "Large Envelopes" section) : 
Bix Picks 
Commissions Information 
Ah, and I'd love to see heidi. There are some songs of theirs I'm attached to. 