@eikatsukiyomi replied to your chat “me, wiping tears from eyes: I just want a copy of Pokemon...”
I have a copy of SoulSilver that I don't play anymore, if you would like to have it! :) I still have the original box and instructions, too, just not the Pokewalker (I lost it).
I wish I had seen this before I went and bought one DD:
But thank you so much for the offer!! I did go out and get one from Game Stop yesterday after I saw they had a copy in a store near me. Still, though, thank you for offering me your copy. I do appreciate it ^u^
a soul and maka! iwould like to gift this espcially to soulsisterscosplay because their soul and maka panel at kumoricon got me obsessed with the show all over again!! you two were a perfect soul and maka!!!
UptownOtaku and I have just returned from an amazing weekend at Sakuracon 2015 in Seattle, Washington, thanks to our parents and their generous Christmas present to us of having our registration and hotel admission payed for. This marks our first time attending Sakuracon, and we had a TON of fun, so we dream longingly of the next opportunity to attend again!
I’ve felt sheepish lately for being so inactive on social media lately, so I’m going to try to make up for it with this post-con diary of the highlights of our convention weekend. (I still haven’t decided if I want to join FaceBook or not, but if I do, I’ll definitely let you all know!)
Friday, April 3rd - Day 1
Our Soul Eater: Soul & Maka panel was scheduled first thing at 9:00AM, so we had to get up around 4:00AM to give us time to eat breakfast and get ready.
We had the foresight to bring Uptown’s camera and a tripod with us to record our panels, but, as it turned out, the memory card wasn’t big enough to record more than half an hour, so it was considered a waste. :/ The panel itself, though, was a big success: we got lots of laughs, especially while reading one particular fanfic that we had dubbed “The Cluster-fic”. The girl who we picked from the audition to read as Death the Kid was very good, too! During the Q&A she asked us for advice on hosting a panel, which was a pleasant and flattering surprise, and later on, she sat with us and some other new friends and chatted with us.
After our panel, we went to check out the Exhibitor’s Hall and Artists’ Alley. The place was HUGE!! Imagine an Exhibit Hall two or three times the size of a ballroom, with rows upon rows upon rows upon rows upon rows upon ROWS of merchandise booths! It’s impossible to describe it properly...just look at this PDF to get a better idea of how amazing and dangerous this place is!
I bought a Soul Eater lanyard, a matching Soul Eater wrist wristband, Soul Eater vol. 25, and a pair of black silk gloves and a black masquerade mask for my future Black Dress Maka cosplay. All of the masquerade masks being sold were nice to have for all the people who hadn’t brought their own and wouldn’t be going to mask workshop. We also got our pictures taken next to a cardboard cutout of the cover of vol. 25, and got stopped for pictures by several people as we browsed. I was on the lookout for the Liz & Patty and Kid & Shinigami skull pins I needed to complete my Soul Eater pin collection, but no luck; they seem to pretty rare, since I only seem to find Maka & Soul and Black*Star & Tsubaki.
At 12:30PM, Uptown had to go to the Cosplay Chess Pre-meet. It was small panel room, so nobody who wasn’t a chess piece was allowed inside. I sat outside, and played Puzzle & Dragon on my iPhone and read Soul Eater vol. 25 that we had just bought in the Exhibitor’s Hall. A couple of people we met at our Soul Eater panel also came and sat down to chat with me. They were dressed as their own Soul Eater original characters, which I thought was very cool and creative of them!
We had some time to kill after this, so we went back to the Exhibitiors’ Hall and Artists Alley. We spent more time in the Artist’s Alley side this time, and I bought a print of a BADASS SEXY Death the Kid! We left just as they closed up for the night.
We walked back to our hotel around 4:00PM to eat lunch and get ready for the Masquerade Ball. I went as Liz, in a prom dress and a mask that I had decorated to match, and Uptown as Death the Kid, complete with his Shinigami mask. I had to pack my Liz top, jeans, sock, boots, tie, hat, bangles, etc. in my roll-along suitcase with he rest of my carry-along stuff to bring with me so that I could change for our Soul Eater 18+: Kid & Liz panel later that night after the ball. Luckily, there was a coat check where we could leave our bags and prints.
The ball was held in the Main Stage hall were the cosplay contests were going to be the next day, so all the chairs were in rows that we had to walk past to get to the dance floor. It wasn’t the most attractive or convenient setup for a dance--we liked Newcon’s setup of chairs around round tables much better--but at least the dance floor was fairly big. We were also very grateful for the water coolers, though I think putting all three of them together off to the side wasn’t the best way to do it. I also thought that the music mix was a little too far on the prom-y side. There were classier dances, but I would have liked fewer of the Top-40 remixes.
Even if this ball wasn’t quite the nicest we had attended, we still had a great time! In addition to the fun of seeing everyone in their ballroom cosplays, it was fun to see all of the masquerade masks. Uptown got a lot of attention for her awesome Shinigami mask, and made a a Death the Kid fan’s evening by dancing with her. This girl and her friend were really nice to hang out with later during con.
After the ball, which ran from 7:00 to 9:00, we got tracked down a restroom to get ready for our panel. All Uptown had to do was take off her wig, take off the extra wig cap with the magnet on it, and put her wig back on. I had to get out of my dress and into my Liz cosplay. We sat down to rest our feet for a while until half an hour before midnight, when we headed for where our panel was scheduled to be.
This was our time hosting a 18+ panel, so were nervous about things were going to go. As it turned out, we needed have worried: it turned out to be a raucous success! We got so many great laughs, and the audience had so many questions that we didn’t have time to cover all of the material we had brought! And the guy we picked to read as Patty for the fanfic was HILARIOUS! X’D At the end of the panel, we invited everyone to stay afterwards in the hall for the “epilogue” reading we had prepared, and those that stayed for it seemed to love it! We finally struck some poses for pictures, handed out cards, and then left to wait for our mother to pick us up.
I remember forgetting it was still only Day 1 as the ball began. This first day was so busy and fun-filled, it felt like two days! We only had 4 or 5 hours of sleep to look forward to, but we felt so happy and accomplished with the success of our two panels, making new friends, and the treasures we bought. A huge thanks to everyone who came to our panels, and who stopped to say hello to us!
I am absolutely LOVING your Budding Trees fan fiction! Can you tell me about your writing process? I want to write Soul Eater fan fiction too, but when I try to write, I get frozen by writer's block every time. Any advice? :)
Thank you! :D
Ah, writer's block, my old friend. I wish I had some miracle always-does-the-trick advice, but alas, I do not. I wish I could tell you that writing the right thing is always easy, or always fun. It isn't.
Here's something I've heard elsewhere that I've found to (mostly) be true: writer's block is less some insurmountable thing and more that something just isn't working. The thing that isn't working can be different -- maybe you're not writing the right story, or the right scene. Maybe you're at a less fun part of the story and you just want to get to the good stuff, but you gotta slog through the transition junk first. Maybe you tried to take the characters somewhere they didn't want to go and they're like "haha nope *middle finger*." Maybe you're trying to mimic someone else's style and you haven't found your own yet. All of which is okay and part of the process!
You've heard of plotters and pantsers? Plotters outline every detail before they write, pantsers are just like I LET THE MUSE TAKE ME WHERE IT WILL. Well, I'm a plantser. I almost always have a loose outline of a story in my head before I even put down a word. All the major beats, at least (inciting incident, pinch points, midpoint, climax). Then I let the details fill themselves in. It helps me to have a landmark to walk toward instead of just wandering.
Also, I am always drabbling. Out-of-context dialogue, a single pretty line, an outline for a scene, a note about a bad guy I want to write. I listen to a veritable shit-ton of music, trying to find the songs that fit the mood of the story I'm writing (I have a 25-song playlist for Budding Trees currently) and "see" the scenes in my head. It helps keep the juices going and gives me something solid that I can look at and go "okay this line is FUCKING FUNNY and now I have to figure out how to incorporate it." So I do.
Also-also, I've literally been writing since I was 13 and I am, uh, considerably older than 13 now. My writing has not always been likeable, I swear. The stuff I wrote as a teen was rambling and stilted and awkward. I kept going. I got better. It got easier (sort of).
LAST THING: writing advice is hard, because literally every single writer is different. What works for my brain may not work for yours. You just have to find your groove, whatever that groove is. But you know, try a loose outline if you're getting stuck, maybe. And know that writing isn't always fun, and sometimes you have to slog to get to the fun.
