a love that's not all about smiles

Finally - Con Report (Day 4 & 5)

2008-12-04T18:02:57Z

Er, it's about time I did this, yes?

So, this would be Sunday, the final day of the Con and the day we went to the beach, yes/no?

Fabulous!

We got up late, AGAIN, on Sunday morning, and due to circumstances beyond our control, we were late, once again, in getting to the con on Sunday. Parking was a heck of a lot easier, thank goodness. This is what the hallway of the con looked like after we went to the AMV Contest, where Dej had her 'Cold Hearts' vid up (which is really good). There were several really funny AMVs, and some that were kind of weird.

After that, we kind of bailed on the con, really. We wanted to get Dej to the ocean before the sun went completely down, so we piled into the car and went for a nice, long drive from Orlando to Cocoa Beach. *nods* Before we could go swimming, though, we absolutely needed sustenance. So we stopped for food, and look what I witnessed:

CANNIBAL! CANNIBAL!

Then came the next installment in Things Kasey Licked:

And finally, we made it to the beach just after the sun went down, so we went swimming in the ocean, in the dark. I think we kind of freaked Dej out by telling her all the things that could happen if she swam out too far, didn't do the stingray shuffle and/or turned her back on the waves. Sorry about that, love.

Now, remember I mentioned that there was only one time that Shel's driving did not scare me? Well, it was because we saw another license plate - one we ABSOLUTELY had to get a picture of. And we had some trouble catching him...*shifty*

We did, though:

That was pretty much our Sunday, so I'm going to throw Monday's pictures of Disney in here for you guys to enjoy and explain Disney a bit.

We went to MGM (which they now call something else - whatever), and then to the Magic Kingdom. Dej had obviously never been, and Shel hadn't gone since she could remember, so me, being the Disney nut you know me to be, pretty much led them around the various parks for the whole day.

We went on the Tower of Terror first, which, btw, my father and I swore a pact that we'd never ride again like ten years ago, but whatever. Before that, though, we saw THIS and Shel made me take pictures:

Then came the Tower of Terror:

Shel's friend got us in for free and was awesome enough to take the one and only picture of the three of us together:

I love how in-depth Disney goes with the 'sets' of their rides. For example, this was the line up to the Tower of Terror:

Then we hit up the Aerosmith Rockin' Roller Coaster. Way cool.

After that, we headed over to the Magic Kingdom:

Of course, people like me - you know, smokers - are persona non grata at Disney, so I was relegated off to the corners of the park whenever the urge struck...

Lovely scenery, yes? The first thing we did when we got there was eat. OMG, we were SO hungry. We went to the hotdog joint just inside the park, on Main Street, and something VERY peculiar happened to Shel:

This woman was absolutely insane. I mean completely. It was hilarious. She was petting Shel's hair and being all weird. I laughed a lot.

Then it was off, in traditional Kasey-family fashion, to Adventureland, which is where you should always begin your Disney trip. The first place we hit up was the Swiss Family Robertson Treehouse, which is one of the few 'walking rides' that I actually get into, despite my enourmous fear of heights. Which is quite large, as Dej and Shel can tell you.

After that, we went to the ride that I'm sure everyone is eagerly looking forward to pictures of:

Once again, I had to take many pictures of the 'line' part of the ride, since it's just so damn cool the way they detail those out.

Not a bit of this has changed since I was a kid and rode this for the first time, but once you actually start the ride, there were a lot of changes: including to the storyline of the ride itself, which tends to irritate me, honestly, because it kind of sucks.

However, for all of you fangirls, here are a few shots, several that include your favorite pirate:

After that, we went to ride Splash Mountain, during which we will never forget standing in the bloody rain (Thanks Fay) for nearly 30 minutes. Given that it was raining, and we were in line for a water ride, you'd think people would get over it. Not so. This one couple was not only holding up the line by refusing to move out from underneath a sheltered section, but they were pointing at all the people stuck out in the line and LAUGHING. Evil!Kasey made an appearance, and made Dej VERY uncomfortable, because she was going to throw water on the stupid bitch...but Sane!Kasey prevailed and I gave the water bottle back to the cuties ahead of us in line. After that, we headed over to the Haunted Mansion.

After that, we wandered aimlessly for a bit, finally deciding on the Buzz Lightyear ride:

Then it was time for Peter Pan's Flight, which, it must be said, is one of my favorites:

We did end up riding, against my wishes (:P), It's a Small World. It creeps me out, all those freaky little dolls. Dej and I tried extremely unsuccessfully to take pictures of the castle at night, but none of them turned out well. We rode several more rides, and I got a lecture from Tom about going to an amusement park when a hurricane was coming, and then, I found out the real kicker. Greyhound cancelled all busses the next day! And I was supposed to go home! So, Tom had to drive over to Orlando and pick me up from Shel's. It was so hard to leave them. I just wanted to stay and snuggle up with my darlings for the whole evening/night, but it was not to be.

And that, my dears, is the end of the adventures of the Great Bacon Warrior and the Goddess Nephthys and the Demigoddess Shel. We will all meet again for AN next year and there will be many pictures of that event as well.

The End.

it's kink but you don't ever tell her

2008-09-10T15:45:16Z

Between this song and this icon, I have an incredible urge to write smut today. Of course, the song now will always remind me of waiting in line for the 'Rockin' Rollercoaster' at Disney's Hollywood Studios with Dej and Shel...I was being all goofy and dancing and singing in line. It was seriously one of the easiest lines to wait in - EVAR! How could it not be, when the music was so damn good? AND, Shel finally solved my dilemma! Of course, now I can't remember if she decided that he should be the Ugliest Sexy Man or the Sexiest Ugly Man, but I am pretty sure it was the latter. And speaking of that whole trip, I suppose I should turn this entry into Con Report, Day 3, yes?

So, welcome to AFO Day 3 (Saturday, August 16, 2008)

Once again, Shel neglected to wake us up early. When we finally did wake up, it was to see this:

Grey, gloomy day, indeed. That was taken from Shel's back porch, where I went to 'poison myself' as Dej put it. We got a bit of a late start, and we drove up to the con. It was pretty ugly out, and it was on the way there that we saw this guy:

Yes, his license plate read SEXYFYD. We about died laughing. OMG, it was hilarious. Once we got to the con, it took forever to find a parking space - the place was a MADHOUSE! BUT, thankfully, the sun had come out by then. Which gave us an EXCELLENT view of this:

Yes, that is exactly what it appears to be: a blow-up doll on a hotel balcony. Once again, much laughter was had by all. And many, many snorts.

Once we got inside there were loads of cosplayers, which was so cool. I'll lump most of their pictures together. Our first panel today was another Photoshop panel run by a guy who is actually pretty known, I guess. And this panel is where we met Sven, The Swedish Viking - the gay Swedish Viking. Sven was fucking cool!img src="http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g266/hogwartsduchess/AFO/afo2008-13.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket">

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Sven was drawn, from scratch, throughout the panel, and it was the coolest thing I've ever seen anyone do in photoshop.

Afterwards we stuck around for an AMV Critique panel. While Dej was kicking herself for not bringing one of her AMVs, I was trying to work up the courage to pull out Mamoru the USB Drive and have my rough opening of Sick Cycle Carousel critiqued. Except - by that point, I'd already decided on how I was going to change it and it seemed silly to waste the guy's time critiquing something that I had no intention of making in even a remotely similar fashion...We ended up sneaking out of that panel as well. After that, we pretty much just got in line for the Cosplay Skit Contest. It was while waiting in that line that Shel, being the far more productive of the three of us, used her time wisely to write in her notebook. I wrote one sentence all weekend, as I've mentioned, and it was during this time. Mostly I gaped at some of the cosplay and chatted with Dej while Shel wrote her smut.

In line came segment number two of Things Kasey Licked!

And, a picture of Kasey and Dejana! YAYZ!

Yes, I think she's trying to shoot me with her water bottle. The pictures I got from the contest weren't so great - but afterwards, as we were deciding where to go for dinner, I saw this sign and I absolutely couldn't resist taking a picture. Too bad it didn't have a phone number on it!

*drools at image* Anyway, we ended up going to TGI Friday's, where we had really, really good food...and we started the MoonCon Round Robin, 1st Edition. It can be found, in all its glory, HERE, on .moon.

This time it was Dej and Shel who took a random picture while I was in the bathroom.

I had one of my absolute FAVORITE drinks in the world - one I haven't had in a year - since BC, Lex and I were waiting for Kayling to get off the plane for the DH release: A Hawaiian Volcano - which, of course - I had to lick:

Dinner took a while, so we ended up getting back too late to do a few of the panels we were interested in, but really, for me - it wasn't about doing panels, it was about spending time with these two incredible women, so it was not a problem at all to spend the time while waiting for the Internet Shenanigans panel chatting and working on the Round Robin. After that, there was a 'FakeDub' panel that seemed really interesting, so we waited in line to go to it. While in line, I got to talk to some really awesome Zuko & Katara cosplayers (pics to follow) and took this insane picture of myself:

Proof, as though proof were needed, that I'm a nutjob. The guy typing things on the screen in the fakedub panel was not only adorable, but hilarious:

After the fake dub panel, there wasn't much going on, and we were all getting pretty beat. Dej showed us how to play Pandemic II this night, which began the Plague of MoonCon and moving to Madagascar. It was also Saturday that Tom told us about Fay. As in, TS Fay who was predicted, at that point, to head right for my home.

Now for some random cosplay pictures from Saturday:

I'm not the world's best photographer, obviously. But I had so much fun. The pictures of Sven, the one of me writing in the MoonCon notebook, the one of Shel and Dej, and two of the fake-dub humor ones were taken by Dej and gakked by me.

Finally - Con Report (Day 2)

2008-08-27T19:39:34Z

Day 2 was Friday, August 15th.

I know, I'm unforgiveably slow on this, but I've been fighting the nasty headache since Sunday.

As I said, shel_b_129 to wake us up bright and early...she'd made threats to that effect. Yes, well, she didn't. We made it to the convention about 3:30ish, I think it was, and we had really nothing on our agenda after registration until the class in Cel Shading that I wanted to attend.

I did learn how to do a few things I didn't know how to do, but since I don't have a graphics tablet, it was kind of a pointless class for me to take. *shrug* We sneaked out early, and it was outside of that room, when we were returning for the fanfic panel, that I saw her:

SUKI! & MOMO!

Now, I'll confess, Suki isn't my favorite character, and I'm not going to lie - she was a Katara/Aang fan. However, she was a sweet girl. After she posed for two pictures, bless her heart, she and I struck up a conversation. I didn't mention my ship affiliation at that particular moment (nor did I mention that Suki is one of my least favorite characters). We started talking about fanfic, and I got her penname, and she mine and we all went into the fanfic panel.

While we were waiting for it to start, Dej and Shel chatted and I talked to 'Suki' (whose name I can't remember anyway). And - she got a glimpse of the handwritten original copy of Blood and Ashes. Yes - someone actually got to read that. She was so amazed that I actually carried my fanfic with me like that.

Yes, that is it. Blood and Ashes. If you can make out what the page says, then you have a sneak peak. *shrug*

Well, we waited - and waited...and waited...but the panel organizer wasn't showing. I urged Dej to get up and lead it - it's not like she's never led a fanfic panel before. With some more encouragement, she stood up and asked if anyone cared if we led a hostile takeover. IT WAS SO COOL!

OMG! It was awesome! Shel didn't say much, but 'Suki' made up for Shel's quietness. It was - an odd experience to be sitting up there and having these people looking at us and asking us questions like we were some kind of respected panel of fanfic authors. Not a soul in the room had ever heard of us before, so why did they listen to us? Did we just sound that knowledgeable, or was it just because we had the guts to get up and lead the panel? It was awesome, but somewhat intimidating. I think I scared one of the guys. Someone asked what kind of music, etc we listened to while writing fanfic, and I mentioned the dark, gothic music that I favor for my epics, and he asked if it was dark as my soul...and I answered yes. *snort*

After the panel was over (and we kind of ran over, because they just kept asking us questions), we were all pretty hungry. There was a Perkins across the street, so we went over there. Dej got up to go to the ladies' room, and Shel and I took a quick snapshot:

Yes, we are goofballs. I had a delicious breakfast-for-dinner, and I was so stuffed half-way through my pancakes...

But look at them. They were so tasty, and so delicious-looking, that I couldn't help it.

Yes - I licked my pancakes. This began the Things Kasey Licked saga of the weekend. Shel stole my camera and took a rare picture of the Great Bacon Warrior:

After dinner, we went back to Shel's house and hid in her bedroom, as her boyfriend and their roommate were having a very loud party in the living room. We vegetated on the bed with laptops, hijacked one another's .moon accounts, and Shel handed me her cards so I could do a reading for her. Only...the cards weren't like any deck I've ever worked with before.

I had the layout set-up and started trying to interpret the cards in the traditional positions and meanings and couldn't make heads nor tails of the reading! That has rarely, if ever, happened to me. The cards had been a gift and Shel had never really looked through them, so I started reading the book that went with them. Yeah - they were ORACLE cards. Fae Oracle cards, at that. I had no clue. I read the book a bit, and pulled a typical Oracle reading out of my rear that Shel said made sense to her, so I guess my long period of no practice reading hasn't injured my knack any.

When it was all said and done, Dej and I had another late night of giggles after we retired to our room and groaned, because we'd made Shelby promise to wake us up early on Saturday.

TBC...

Random pictures of the con from Friday:

That I took just for jasonulloa . I'm sorry I couldn't rip the paper off her for you.

I promise I took more pictures on Saturday. Also, if you'd like to see more, from someone experienced at con-reports, go look at this post.
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Finally - Con Report (Day 1)

2008-08-26T12:56:21Z

Well, Thursday afternoon was pretty much made of fail and lose, with the insanity of the bus station, so I had to catch a later bus, putting me in Orlando some 2 hours later than I'd planned on.

The ride from St. Pete to Tampa wasn't too terrible, actually. No one bothered me and I was able to listen to music quietly, not have to share a seat with any one, etc.

A picture of my luggage. Please to be recalling the pink-polka-dot bag, which died a sad death over the weekend:

A nice view of Tropicana Field, where the Tampa Bay Rays play baseball (yes, it's in St. Pete):

As you can see, it was a gloomy, wet day in Florida. Little did I know what it was a precursor for.

Anyway, I got to Tampa and had to wait around. If I were more bold, I would have taken pictures of The Pretty. Seriously - I could have looked at this boy all day. I had started chatting up some people that had been on the bus from St. Pete to Tampa with me, and when I saw him, I went into what I can only describe as Makoto-after-every-cute-guy-she-ever-sees-mode. My little monologue went something a bit like this:

"OMG, look at The Pretty! Look at that hair. He can sit in front of me the whole way there just so I can look at him. OOH! I wonder if he'd let me play with his hair."

Mind you, this was NOT an internal monologue. This was vocalized by me to complete strangers. However, The Pretty ended up sitting behind me, and I only got another good look at him when I was getting off the bus. The ride itself wasn't too bad, but before we left Tampa for Orlando, someone in the front got sick. And there was a stench - an unholy stench - on that bus. I had my Orange-Ginger shampoo and conditioner in the pink-polka-dot bag, so I spread some of the conditioner under my nose, and it really helped the smell. It wasn't until I was getting off the bus that I realized something was wrong.

The pink-polka-dot bag was wet on the bottom. And it was emitting a stench. *sobs* It went into the trash can before I even left the bus station. It is no more, thanks to whatever person got ill on the bus. I wanted to scream at them. Of course, I had to tell Shel and Dej all about The Pretty - and how he sat right behind me - and of course, Murphy dictates that The Pretty would have to walk past me right then. *facepalm*

We drove to Shel's and made camp in her spare room/office, where Dej and I started watching Cowboy Bebop (which I thought was fabulous, btw).

Shel's driving kind of scared me, except one time, which I won't talk about yet...Since that didn't happen until Sunday.

Thursday night, no one seemed comfortable enough with one another to really want their picture taken, as Shel proved when I tried to take on of her:

Thankfully, we all loosened up considerably.Stay tuned for Friday-Monday, Things Kasey Licked, Disney and - a hurricane?

also, a general warning

2008-08-19T19:15:29Z

No matter how fun it might sound to sing 'Secret Tunnel' at the top of your lungs while riding a rollercoaster through the dark (example: Space Mountain) - DO NOT DO IT!

Unless, of course, you don't mind having no voice. Then go ahead.

Coming up...

Why you don't want the plague, pandemic of mooncon, Things Kasey Licked This Weekend, and more...

nephthysmoon @ 2008-08-14T17:12:00

2008-08-14T21:12:27Z

So, here I am, rushing around like a madwoman all fucking day long to try to get on a 3:40 bus to Orlando so I can get in at/around the same time as Dej. So, of course, Tom was running behind and it was after 3 when I left my office. The whole way down we're praying that I've not missed this bus. We arrive, and it's fucking nuts. There's no bus, people everywhere...one woman was really freaking insane, and I don't mean in that good way, or even in the angry way - I mean she was downright scary/sad insane. FINALLY, about 4ish, we go inside to ask, because Tom has to go back to work, and there is NO WAY I'm waiting there for more than ten minutes alone. The bus hadn't even made its scheduled stop in Sarasota yet (which is like an hour and a half away from here, btw). So, I called my office, and the boss was like, yeah, just come up here and I'll take you back down when I leave. So, here I sit, in my office, waiting for the boss to be ready to leave so I can catch the 7:10 bus to Orlando.

/story

This has been an epic production of Mini-MoonCon Florida, 2008.

Shel, if you're reading this, dude - scarier than the fucking ghetto in ATL. For serious.

and i won't be anyone's excuse to cry

2008-08-13T15:12:22Z

So, I've hesitated on posting about this, because until last night, I was still so uncertain that I'd be able to go after all. In fact, until I talk to Dej again, I can't be positive even now. But I'm 98% certain that in about 29 hours, I'll be boarding a bus to Orlando. Why? Anime Festival Orlando. shel_b_129, dejana and I are planning on a long weekend of mischief and mayhem and general insanity. Well, Shel and I are. I'm afraid Dej is going to think we're absolute boobs. Our schedule is as follows:

1. Arrive Thursday Night.
2. Con on Friday
3. Con on Saturday
4. Con/beach on Sunday
5. Disney on Monday
6. Go home (*tear) on Tuesday

I'll personally be leaving first thing Tuesday morning and returning to work at noon! EEP! You know how bloody EXHAUSTED I'm going to be?

In addition to that, my interwebz crapped out on me last night, and I did another dumb thing with my Sims2 game in response. I installed Free Time, thinking I'd have lots of fun playing my AWESOME new sims (Pretty!) in it. Yeah. It wouldn't run. So, I uninstalled it. A note to those who play Sims2. When you install a new expansion pack and it tells you to back up your game before installing, do it!

All my custom content (including my hot little Zuko sim and my freaking beautiful Heath sim) is GONE! *WOE* It took me MONTHS to collect all that stuff and now I'm going to have to try to find it all again. *sigh* I'm a dope sometimes, I really, really am. But YAY! Rachel made it to Orlando safely and is once more back in the land of sunshine, thunderstorms and ME! We are going to have to have a meet up at some point, hon!

Now that I've made my SPEW announcement, I can make my general announcement. I've left MNFF. My author's page is empty, save for a link back to my writing journal's profile (which is actually a field on their site to fill in), which will then link the person to .moon. My reasons really boil down to a personal opinion, and reflect in no way upon the management of MNFF. I know how hard the mods there work, having been one, and I know the battles they fight that the average user will never be aware of - the average user has no idea what the mods and admins have to put up with so that the users can have a pleasant experience on MNFF.

However, most people know that I found a site last summer that seemed custom-made for me, and in the past year, I've only grown fonder of it. www.dotmoon.net is truly a home for me, and in taking a mod post there later last year, I pretty much cemented my decision to slowly make it my fanfiction home. My fandom interests have switched from being primarily Harry Potter to being varied and diverse - and with that switch comes the realization that I need a place where I can grow. I was stagnant at MNFF. I was never going to get past the Forced to Love stage of my writing there, and, let's face it, I needed to. .moon is the place for me to do that.

I'll still be on AIM, and I'll still be on LJ and I'm not leaving the fandom, nor am I neglecting my MNFF friends - I'm just leaving the site to go where I need to go.