Saturday I dressed up in the Japanese schoolgirl outfit I bought a while back and went to the con. Unfortunately, all my acquaintances bailed on me last minute and my mother forgot to charge her camera so I had no one to take pictures / take pictures with.
Day 89 - February 14th is on a Wednesday This Year
"This is crazy."
He cocked back the handle of his shotgun. "You're the one who agreed to come along."
"Yes, but..." She tripped over an exposed crack in the curb, stumbling forward a few steps before catching her balance. "I'd thought you'd be teaching indoors, at least--how am I supposed to learn like this?!"
"Hands-on experience, missy--things ain't always like they are in the books."
The virus had spread throughout the small city's population slower than what had been expected, allowing the citizens time to prepare themselves, dusting down old bomb shelters and underground hide-outs alike while storing them full with as many supplies as space would allow. The virus only affected humans who were already dead; as long as the cemetaries and morgues were barred off, they were, for the most part, safe in their fallouts.
Time passed, however, and as supplies ran low, the bravest few were chosen as scouts, to lift spare supplies from long-abandoned conveinence stores and scope out possible survivors left abandoned.
She's not entirely certain what possessed her to tag along as his student, but her unrequited admiration had gone on long enough. The last scout from Shelter 471 never returned, they needed a volunteer to take his stead. Her hand had risen in the air on its own accord, and for once in her life, her own better judgement took the backseat.
But when she takes careful notice of the way the muscles in his arm go taut as his grip on his shotgun tightens, or how the determination in his stare furrows his brow and turns his gaze intent...she doesn't bring herself to regret the decision to have him teach her his ways.
That was, of course, until he decided to purposely take the most dangerous route to the Drug Mart on the corner of Anderson & Main.
Machine gun loose in her untrained grasp, she stuck close behind him, but not close enough to make her look like a coward. It might've been broad daylight out, but she could still spot the silhouettes of slow-walking zombies all around them, meandering and stumbling aimlessly through the dirt.
"It's Valentine's Day today."
"R--really?" she said, only half-paying attention as her eyes went wide at the growing number of zombies in the inner city. "Hadn't noticed."
He snorted, amused. "As if. You're probably expecting flowers from someone when we get back."
"No. Never liked flowers," she mumbled. Oh God that one in the distance was slowly heading this way.
"Really? Never met a girl who didn't like flowers before, unless she was allergic or something."
"Flowers send off a bad message. 'I think you're beautiful and you smell nice but once those looks fade, I'll throw you away and buy someone new'."
"What'd you take then?"
"Anything would be as arbitrary as the next. Might as well give me a freakin' potato."
He raised an eyebrow. "A potato."
"Yeah. See, potatoes might be dirty and ugly and misshapen but they don't die was easily as flowers. It's like saying your love'll last forever no matter what you look like."
They stopped in their tracks. She shut herself up, realizing she'd let herself ramble again. He was smiling a little as he opened his mouth to speak, but just as he did, she felt a hot breath creep down her neck.
The young woman gave a high-pitched scream and whipped around, firing wildly ahead of her with her eyes shut tight. She didn't stop screaming even after her bullets ran out and the zombie was nothing more than a mangled heap on the ground.
"Hey, hey, hey!" He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him.
She quieted down and gathered the courage to open her eyes. He was staring straight at her; she could already feel the heat rising to her face.
Laughing, he let her go, and they kept walking the streets in silence.
"Yo..." he started awkwardly, scratching @ the back of his head. "After we finish up here, did you wanna go to McDonald's and steal some fries?"
"I--I'd like that."
I bought a hat. And I met up with a buddy afterwards to binge on gratuitous amounts of Sushi and Pocky. I don't even like Pocky. It was a weeabootastic day.
Sunday, seeing as I'd paid $30 for the weekend and I wanted to make as much use of it as possible, I decided to go back and watch the AMV Contest finalists. Standing at the bus stop, I glanced down at my outfit. Black/red striped arm-warmers, Ash Ketchum's hat, black/red backpack, red shirt, black jacket. I checked my watch. Six minutes until the bus was scheduled to arrive. I booked it home, grabbed my Mudkip, and made it back just in time to catch the bus. Jist of it is I went to the second day of the con in a half-assed cosplay of a Pokémon trainer. It was pretty damn awesome.
[Copypasta from Twitter: A cute guy came up to me, aimed his Pokewalker at me, and said "If you don't have one, I'll be disappointed." I don't have one. FML]
My favourite part of AMV competitions is, hands down, the new music and anime I get exposed to, media which I would have probably never heard or seen any other way. If I were to be completely honest, I'm not that big of an anime fan, but I will choose to watch and ultimately obsess over certain series if I hear good things + if they're interesting. This year, thanks to the contest, I'll be watching Legend of Black Heaven, which from what I gather is about washed-out rock stars regrouping to relive their glory days, and Fate/Stay Night, which--get this--goes off on an Alternate Reality tangent where King Arthur was actually female. The action sequences look epic. I was exposed to a brilliant essay entitled Everybody's Free, one which fills me with an emotion and perspective about life I can't really put into words--if you only click one link in today's entry, for the love of God, let it be that one. I also discovered a kick-ass techno-ish track full of energy that probably makes you feel like a total pimp if you decided to work out while it's playing, a melancholy-yet-strangely-hopeful song with an indie-like sound that makes my heart hurt in the most glorious way possible while listening to it, and a slightly-repetitive dreamy instrumental reminiscent of Mogwai on synth. As for AMVs themselves, there was only one I actually liked enough to remember. I effin' laughed my ass off at 1:37, along with so many other parts (DEAR GOD SO MANY REFERENCES). This video is an example of why AMVs exist in the first place.
I had some time to spare afterwards, so I went down the Artist's Alley and bought a print of some Joker/Harley fanart. I met the artist and shook his hand and tried not to get jealous of the fact he couldn't have been older than I. Dude's a real talent.
Then I returned home, for I was scheduled to work until closing that day. I spent a couple hundred dollars on a mobile internet stick because employees got a discount, and I'm using it right now with thankfully little problem.
Today I worked again. The best part of the day was my store manager, the manager of our in-store mobile phone kiosk, and myself crowding around the box of foam mini-soccer balls we received to sell in preparatory celebration of the World Cup. We spent a healthy majority of our respective shifts attempting to peer through the light stretch marks across the gold wrappings to get a peek of the colours lying beneath, wildly guessing at the teams so that we could buy only the ones bearing the flags we wanted. I wanted Switzerland because it was red and white and the little cross it had on it reminded me of Medic from TF2 because I'm a tard like that. Guess which one I got? Shit was so cash.
Tonight I ran to the corner supermarket to pick up a couple of missing ingredients for dinner. I now realize the only driving thought which encourages me to do anything that involves me leaving my room is 'maybe something interesting will happen'. "Sure, I'll go grab you a lemon from the store. Maybe something interesting will happen." "Sure, I'll walk the dog. Maybe something interesting will happen." "Sure, I'll go to school today. Maybe something interesting will happen." Unsurprisingly, something never does. As a watched pot never boils, it's not a wise idea to spend every day of your life holding your breath...but at least in that case you won't find yourself constantly drowning in pointlessness.
