This is the third in a series of three articles about Otakon 2016. You can read the first article here and the second here.
Sunday was the saddest day of the convention. Sunday meant that, after a few hours, the convention would be over. Done with. Just a memory. A very large part of me wasn’t ready to let the magic go, but the rational part of my brain reminded me that all good things have to come to an end. I had one goal and one goal only for the day:
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Spend all of my (allotted) money on art and miscellaneous items.
It’s the goal of most people on Sunday (or the last day) of any convention that has an artist or dealer hall. Usually I spend all of my money on Sunday, but I had allowed myself to cheat and buy a poster and some stickers that I knew would sell out on Saturday. The poster features Pidge from “Voltron: Legendary Defender,” an animated series put out by Dreamworks and Netflix about a bunch of teens flying magical, mechanical lions of differing colors that join together to make a giant robot named Voltron. (The series is fantastic, no matter how unorthodox the premise makes it seem. I highly suggest giving it a watch on Netflix when you get the chance.)
The stickers feature the rest of the main characters — Shiro, Keith, Lance, and Hunk — as well as Pidge. (Pidge is my favorite.) I have yet to hang the poster, but the stickers live on my laptop, along with some cute cat stickers that I got on Saturday as well.
I also bought a super neat fan on Saturday because it was extremely hot, even in the convention center. It was easily the best and most practical purchase of the convention.
In addition to the cat stickers that I painstakingly cut out by hand in the hotel room, I got the following:
A poster of Imperator Furiosa from “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
A poster of my astrological sign, Libra, because I am a glutton for astrology related things.
Four body lotions that smell completely amazing. (The one not pictured is Ginger Peach and it’s currently my favorite.)
A shirt that captures my personality perfectly
And a pin of a Chow Chow.
All in all, it was a great time and I spent all but one dollar of my allotted amount. (I’ll be honest, I forget the amount but it was under $200. Maybe it was $140. That sounds about right.)
Arms laden with posters and bags and wallet lighter than it was, Kait and I decided that we had nothing else to do. It was time to go home. Kait texted the rest of the group that we were heading out.
We hung out against one of the many empty walls in the convention center while we waited for Kait’s mom to come pick us up. We had already loaded everything into her car earlier. (Getting an elevator out of the hotel was not easy, believe you me. Kait and I ended up squishing in with many strangers. It was… interesting to say the least.) We just had to wait. So, wait we did. We talked about the best parts of the convention and about how sad we were that it was moving to DC. Neither of us wanted to make that commute.
Eventually, Kait’s mom arrived. We piled into the car and like that, we were homeward bound. Well, Kait was. I’d still have to drive myself back to my house.
When we got back to Kait’s house, I ended up crashing on the couch in the basement while Kait joined her "Fate Core" campaign via Google Hangouts. "Fate Core" is a "Dungeons and Dragons"-style game with different mechanics, and that’s all I really know about it.
Feeling slightly better after my nap, I decided to head home. It was the end of a very long adventure. Otakon 2016 had been so many first things for me: my first convention going with a group, my first convention staying at a hotel, my first convention since moving to my dad’s house, my first convention where I had more than one costume… It made me sad to think that those firsts could easily be lasts.
As I sat in my driveway, staring at my Tome of Koslun, I realized something. Otakon may be over. It may never come back to Baltimore, and I may never go to another Otakon again. I may never go to another convention in general again, but I’ll always have the memories of the good times to hold on to. I’ll have posters on my walls to remind me of the fun that I had. The memories and friends that came out of the group are truly irreplaceable.
