General Pokémon Sales Post: kids and tomy figurines, plush, topps cards, TCG coins, tins, and more!

TCG Card Sales:
Holographics & Promos: includes ex, LV X, prime, legend, a few promo cards, and all of my Eevees/Eeveelutions
Non-Holographics: includes commons, uncommons, rares, reverse-holographics, and trainer cards, including old school cards

Things I either want to buy, want to trade for, or hope to randomly find in a convention's dealer's room one day. :D

Any Merch For:
Sewaddle, Swadloon or Leavanny (I already have the MPC plush of Sewaddle)
Joltik
Deino
Larvesta/Volcarona

Plush:


Articuno Bell Plush (grail)

  
Burger King keychain, TOMY Mascot Plush

   
Jakks 2007 Butterfree plush, Caterpie Friends plush, Caterpie Applause plush

 
Hoppip Hasbro beanie

       
Chimecho UFO plush, Chimecho throw plush, Hasbro Spoink Beanie, Reversible Pokeball Spheal

MPC Plush (when they are released) of:
Swadloon
Leavanny
Joltik
Deino
Larvesta
Volcarona
Tynamo
Elelectross

Kids Figures:


2010 Articuno, Clear Butterfree, 2010 Kimewaza Seel and Dewgong

 
2004 Breloom Kid, 2005 Swablu Kid, 2005 Spheal Kid, 1999 Bellossom Kid, 2010 Sneasel Kid, 2000 Mareep kid


2010 Oshawott, Tepig, Snivy, 2011 Mincinno, Sewaddle

Other Non-Flats:

Zukan, Pencil topper, Wind Chime! OMG DO WANT. :D


Butterfree line Zukan, Flygon line Zukan

Cards:
 
Majestic Dawn Articuno, Supreme Victors secret rare Articuno

 
Promo Articuno ex; Rocket's Articuno ex (Team Rocket Returns); Skyridge Articuno, Fossil Articuno (holographic)


Southern Islands Butterfree


Expedition (Holo or RH), Legendary Collection (RH), Fire Red/Leaf Green (Holo or RH), Great Encounters (rare or RH)


Nintendo Promo Flygon, Delta Species, Rising Rivals

 
Holon Phantoms, Dragon

    
Dragon, OP Series 4, Secret Wonders, ex Legend Maker, ex Power Keepers

Okay, so I'm not dead. But I'm really not using my Livejournal much any more. The last post I made was in August. I didn't even do a convention report for Anime Weekend Atlanta this year. I'm much more active on Tumblr than I ever was on LJ, because Tumblr just makes a bit more sense for me as a blog. I can spam random stuff and pictures there and not feel like I'm inconveniencing my followers, xD. In fact, that sort of behavior is kind of...encouraged? If that makes any sense.

So yeah. I'm not deleting my account, because there are still things that this LJ is useful to me for. I just won't be posting much if at all to this particular journal. It was a big part of my life for years, but I feel like now it's a chapter of my life that has come to a close. Feel free to un-friend me now if you like, and I won't be offended. ;3

And to everybody that was on my f-list and made my LJ experience awesome: thanks for all the memories!

-Artikgato

Another Otakon has come and gone. As usual, I had a blast. =D

Costumes Worn: 5
Pictures Taken: over 140, but a good chunk of those were derp. Non-derp pictures here.
Number of Times I Explained Arakawa Under the Bridge: too many to count

My favorite costume of the con to wear was, without a doubt, Elsie (from The World Only God Knows):



This may actually be my new favorite costume, period. I just love it! It's so comfortable, and fun to wear, and aside from a couple of minor difficulties (the sandals breaking, the gloves not staying on properly), I didn't have any issues wearing the costume. And have a mentioned how much I love Elsie's character? I can act like a complete idiot and I'm still in character. And it's really hard not to smile like a derp whenever I'm in this costume. Oh, and fire trucks. THEY WERE EVERYWHERE. I mean, it was downtown Baltimore. But seriously, FIRETRUCKS EVERYWHERE.

Getting to wear this costume, especially at Otakon where I was recognized quite a bit AND ran into other cosplayers from Kaminomi was just so freaking awesome. Definitely outweighed all of the bads that happened over the weekend...but there weren't even that many of those. :D

But anyway.

Friday and Saturday I helped out ACP and Anime Pavillion with an Arakawa Under the Bridge event. The screening was a ton of fun, I had a blast drawing people in by telling them "It's the best anime ever about bums that live under a bridge". Working at the Anime Pavillion booth in the dealer's room was less fun, but only because I'm actually kind of a shy person, so approaching people about Arakawa was a bit difficult. After a while it was kind of entertaining, though. I ended up making a sign that said "This show has a crossdressing nun! Buy it!", which at least caught people's attention. A lot more people liked Arakawa than I expected. My Nino cosplay was also pretty comfortable, wig aside. The jacket (which was fleece lined...) was terrible to wear outside but a godsend in the cold Dealer's room, and on the plus I had plenty of pockets to store things in while wearing the costume.

I dragged my Kallen (Code Geass) out of retirement for a photoshoot, and also to wear with a CC cosplayer who went with us to the con. Wearing it again was a lot of fun, but I remember there were a lot of very good reasons why I disliked wearing the costume. Namely, it was very, very uncomfortable. But still, I got some pretty good pictures, so there was at least that.

After Kallen I changed into Twilight Suzuka (Outlaw Star), another one I pulled out of retirement, thanks to Zipchan cosplaying Melfina. I had to do some pretty major repairs and remake a few things about the costume (and iron the HELL out of it) before I could wear it, but I do still love wearing that cosplay. It's once again pretty comfy, and as an added bonus it has kimono sleeves, which are my favorite thing ever, as you can store things like cameras and badges inside of them. Convenience!

Saturday after wearing Nino for the Arakawa event, I wore Elsie. All day. And OMG it was so much fun. I mostly just wandered around the Dealer's Room, and spent a while waiting on various people, which seems to be mostly what I do at conventions - wait on people. xD But I got stopped for pictures a lot, and got pictures with two separate Keimas and a Haqua, so that was pretty awesome. Oh, and then there was the Saturday night Tokusatsu gathering. Despite not being in a toku costume I went to take pictures, and that was rather entertaining.

Sunday we went to the one and only panel that I absolutely wanted to go to during the entire convention - the Abridged panel, which was all kinds of awesome. I had to miss the toku panel as they were scheduled at the same time...sadface. :( Then there was the usual - checkout stress, finding lunch, saying bye to people (in some cases seeing them for the first flipping time). Ran around as White/Touko/Hilda (which seems to be my signature/staple costume now) with Zip as Bianca/Belle. Fun times. I found some awesome stuff in the Dealer's Room and Artist's Alley...but funnily enough, it was more stuff that Zip wanted rather than me. xD BUT BUT BUT I got the most adorable tiny little Kurumiru/Sewaddle plush EVER and I also found the first volume of the Twin Signal manga! WORTH IT.

As I said, overall it was a lot of fun. The bad points were few and far between, but they were certainly bad. After a certain unpleasantness from the beginning of July, I was a LOT more freaked out by the large amount of hobos that were hanging around the area, especially in all of the places we had to walk in order to actually get from our hotel to the convention center. I also hated being outside at night, especially alone. It was also really, really hot. I got dehydrated a lot, but fortunately I only got dangerously dehydrated once and one of my friends brought me water quickly enough. I spent more than I should have, but I always do that anyway. The drive was also really long, but it's always really long...so the usual. Oh, and we got accosted by a lady that called us racist and begged us for money. *sigh*

So. I haven't updated in a while. My paid account expired on here and now I don't want to use LJ as much, xDD. Also I blame Tumblr. Also also, a lot of stuff has happened recently, mostly bad but some good.

Oh yeah, and Otakon happened, too. I'll have a con report for that up in a bit.

But yeah, between work and cosplay and moving, I haven't had much time for anything recently.

So my regular laptop (Avocado) has a virus. Is it bad that I've seen my computer get infected with so many of the "fake malware protection/security scan" type viruses that I barely even bat an eyelash any more? Probably.

Anyway, so I grabbed my old laptop, which I keep around just for situations just like this, and that's what I'm posting from right now. The thing about it is, I have barely used this computer at all in at least three years, probably longer, so going back to using it is a bit weird. Not just because the screen is bigger, the keys are in weird places, and it's kind of broken in a couple of places. Mostly because I haven't updated this thing in at least three years. It all feels so...ancient! And wow, Windows XP is... actually, I don't mind that. I miss Windows XP.

I'm also loling so hard at some of my bookmarks. I forgot all about the fun time-waster Winter Bells, for example. Also, remember Animebreaker, back when it still had anime? Or Onemanga, back when it still had manga? Good times, good times. This was also back before I got into Kamen Rider, and back before Pokemon was popular again, so everything on this computer is nothing but Fullmetal Alchemist and Final Fantasy. The dark ages! XD

I went to work today thinking: "Today I'm going to be productive when I get home from work! I'll pay my bills! I'll balance my finances! I'll cook early! I'll clean up the craft room! I'll take pictures of a bunch of my more recent plushies and put them on DA! I'll start watching Gekiranger/Gokaiger/Madoka/Kaminomi Season 2/etc! Maybe if there's time left I'll play some Harvest Moon!"

Instead I get home to find out that my bank account is magically -$100, despite me having kept very detailed notes about what I've been spending. The problem being, I didn't anticipate random, unplanned, totally uncalled for money being taken out of my account without my authorization, and with no warning to boot. =/ I guess it's my fault for not checking my actual account EVERY FREAKING MINUTE OF MY LIFE.

Long story short, the hotel from Animazement owes me over $230, and as soon as I can get a damned accounting representative on the phone I'm going to find out EXACTLY why the $100 incidentals charge was never refunded to my account and WHY on last Saturday they charged me $130 more without any reason or notification. That's nearly two weeks after the convention. WTF.

There goes my day. This on top of being sick all week and the poor decisions I made on Sunday...agh.

I was having such a great day, too. I found out about the remake of the Hana-Kimi j-drama that has Renn Kiriyama as Namba-sempai. I found out some of the casting for the Ouran j-drama. I got to have coffee this morning without it making my cold worse. And then THIS happened. I seriously haven't overdrafted once since the incident two years ago with Bank of America. I never wanted to. This time it isn't even my fault, but I feel...upset. Angry, hurt, practically betrayed. Hopefully my current bank will be understanding and nice and refund me the overdraft fee tomorrow when I go to see them. I tried today and arrived quite literally ten minutes after they closed. >>

Okay, so actually this whole weekend was just plain weird. Saturday I woke up feeling like I'd been run over by a bus several times, and after two and a half unsuccessful hours I finally got someone to pick up at work so that I could call in sick. Gah. I spent the day...playing Harvest Moon. And just feeling generally bleh. I got plenty of rest, though.

Yesterday I went home to see my folks. Not so weird, right? I have a car, I had the day off, I had a tank of gas...oh wait, one of those things wasn't true, even though I had no idea at the time. Apparently I was scheduled to work at the old job yesterday, too. I had no flipping idea. At all.. So about halfway through my visit at home I get a call from my manager wanting to know if I was on my way in to work, and all I could do was go "wait what?" Needless to say, she was mad. Everybody was mad. Ugh. =_= I feel so terrible!

BUT! That's by far not the weirdest thing that happened yesterday. As I was nearing the end of my visit I went to go see my aunt, who has a bunch of tiny adorable kittens at her house. I've never had the intention of adopting one. Not once. I've been over there before with the kittens and never had the sudden urge to bring one home. But for some reason I did this time.

Okay. So bringing home a new cat isn't that weird. I knew it would be a lot of work, and money, and take a long time for the two older cats to adjust to having a kitten running around, and I was okay with that. I made sure it was okay with the one roommate that's still in the USA at the moment. I was more than financially capable of caring for this cat, a relatively new thing in my life. I've always had cats, so it's not like I'm not well-versed in the science of raising cats. I just...I couldn't keep him. Despite acting almost entirely different at my aunt's, when I got him home he turned from an adorably social, but not overly clingy kitten into a needy, whiny, clingy ball of fluff. I know kittens do that when you separate them from their mothers/siblings/etc. But not like this cat. This cat would be at my feet constantly. He couldn't sleep unless part of his tiny cat body was touching part of mine. If I managed to leave the room he immediately started meowing really loudly, even if he'd been asleep when I very quietly snuck out. And he didn't stop. Ever. Even when I was downstairs. So I decided to try to sleep in the same room as him, hoping that he'd curl up on my stomach and sleep through the night, or something. He didn't. I was already regretting the decision to bring him home because I knew that I'd just have to leave him home for over eight hours the next day.

I just could not live with the idea of leaving him in a strange house with strange cats, completely alone, when until just a few hours earlier he'd been surrounded by eight cats and a dog at all times. I've dealt with loneliness, and I really just couldn't bear the thought of this poor cat having to go through that just because I thought he was cute and I wanted a pet. I struggled with my options while I futilely tried to sleep, and ultimately decided to just drive back home and return him, despite how much gas and time it was going to take, and also how I totally had work the next day. So I got up insanely early and drove him back home, gambling with being able to beat the traffic and get to work in time. All with about two hours of sleep. Yeah.

After all that I managed to get to work only one minute late this morning, after having dropped him back off at home, where as my mom tells me he promptly was re-accepted back into the herd like he never left. He's probably forgotten all about me, and yesterday seems just way too surreal to me right now (that might be the lack of sleep talking, though). The two older cats have already forgiven and forgotten. There are no traces at all that he was even here. I've actually had weird, psychedelic dreams that made more sense than yesterday as a whole.

Did I mention I was sick all weekend? And I'm somehow worse today? Also, I went and apologized to my boss at the old job, and formally quit. It was weird, and literally it's just under two years since I was hired there, but it doesn't feel like a bad decision. Taking the cat back doesn't feel like a bad decision, either.

So, yeah. Just...weird.

And now, to lighten the mood, have Matsuda Kenji in drag!

WHAT IS THIS.



I DON'T EVEN.

So funny story. I actually had my Animazement con report typed up and ready to post the day after the convention. My computer died and I stupidly didn't save it, and I haven't felt like re-typing it, so now here it is, two weeks out from the convention and no con report yet. xD So instead of a big, long, wordy con report here's an incredibly lazy bullet-style report:

Animazement 2011
Costumes worn: 3
Pictures taken: 60. Most of them were either Pokemon, my friends being crazy, or both. xD
Masquerade Awards won: 1
Times My Plush Tempura were squee'd over: too many to count

The Good:
-Artist's alley was pretty successful, considering we were only really open on Friday and Sunday
-Our skit (which we barely prepared for) got a judge's choice/honorable mention award!
-I actually got recognized wearing HGSS Sabrina
-Sooooo many picture requests when I wore Yuzuruha
-Scored random free VHS Slayers tapes
-Good finds in the Dealer's Room

The Bad:
-It seems like recently, every other Animazement there is some annoying, ugly con drama. :/
-We didn't have the AA table open on Saturday except for a while in the morning
-The masquerade felt...weird. It was well-run, but the awards felt "off" somehow...
-Most of the skits were terrible, and we could barely hear the ones that were actually good.
-Didn't feel like I was prepared enough for AA
-Lost my Pokewalker. D:

Overall the "goods" outweighed the "bads". I did enjoy the convention, and getting to do a skit again, regardless of the result, was really fun. :D

Here's our skit, which we spent all of one day on. Seriously. I came up with the skit idea on Thursday at work. We fine-tined it, got the script worked out, recorded the audio, shaved it down to under 2 minutes, mixed the audio and figured out blocking all in one night. And we got a judge's award for it. :D It's Pokemon (Black and White) in Wonderland, BTW.