A Journey Into the Land of Dreams

The Ultimate Convention

My best friend, Desirae and I arrived, super stoked for the ultimate convention of 2024. We grinned as we walked towards the doors of the hotel where everything was taking place, suitcases in hand. We traveled 8 hours to get here, so of course we had booked a room!
The doors opened automatically and we took in our surroundings. Posters advertising the convention were plastered all over the walls as far as the eye could see and the hotel itself was gorgeous with a beautiful waterfall display in the center of the lobby. The floor was creamy white polished marble. The walls were beautiful emerald green with gray hints about them. 
Cosplayers of all different animes were swarming the halls with excited murmurs among all of the different friend groups and couples that had come to this giant event. We felt our level of excitement rising every second we stood there! Finally we felt a tap on our shoulders and jumped. Her brother had come up behind us.
We walked over to the desk and checked in and got to our room. The people at the desk were warm and welcoming, tho they seemed exhausted. I shared a look with them that I hoped would encourage them, then we took our bags up to our room. Room 369. We instantly called dibs on the bed closest to the window while her brother, Brett settled for the bed closest to the bathroom. We got settled in then decided on our cosplays for the day.
We knew this convention was more than just anime though. This convention also included spice, and Melanie Martinez was coming to perform!
We quickly changed into our cosplays and freshened our makeup, made a sexual joke or two, which caused Brett to roll his eyes, and then we left to join the convention. The murmurs in the halls swarmed our ears as we also chatted excitedly among ourselves.
We headed down the hall to one of the very first panels of the day. This panel was over cosplay for beginners. The panel took roughly 30 minutes and the room was crowded with people. Thankfully, we had gotten the VIP tickets so we were in before most of everyone else. After the panel was over, we left the room and continued chattering excitedly and headed to look at what all of the vendors had to offer. I picked out a poster of my anime husband, Laito Sakamaki and Desirae got a poster of her horror husband, Scream. Brett got a couple of keychains and then it was time for the next panel. This one was spicy. Flogging and Paddling. This panel lasted maybe 45 minutes. We felt as though we learned quite a bit from it.
After, we needed to eat lunch. We ran over to Wendy's and had burgers and fries and got frosties for dessert. We then headed back to the hotel and got ready for the next panel. This one was over thrifting for cosplays. Desirae and I took in just about every word the cosplayer was saying and even took notes. Before long, the panel was over so we went back out to look at the vendors' tables.
The variety of goodies and artwork for sale was insane! We had only covered the smallest portion of vendors the first time around. We traveled upstairs where more vendors were, and I found an artist who did mainly horror drawings, black and white. He also had some of his other non-horror artwork on display, so I wound up getting a Nightmare Before Christmas piece and a Pennywise piece.
After I got my pieces, we went around to other vendors and I picked up three different baby octopi keychains and two different baby jellyfish keychains. I couldn't ever get enough of those. Desirae picked up three anime bracelets and Brett picked up a Sailor Moon poster.
We headed off to the main stage for the comedy show. Take One was the team doing it, and since this event was more for adults, they were able to make different jokes than the events that were more child-friendly. We couldn't help but laugh til the point we were crying when the show concluded two hours later.
We went and got drinks at the Knights of Brentwood Saloon and ate a small snack before going, once again, back to another section of vendors. Finally, the day concluded and it was time to head to the room to simmer down from all of the events of the day and go to sleep.
We woke up the next morning and once again felt our excitement take over for all the events of today. We headed downstairs and got our breakfast and prepared for the day in our cosplays. The first item on the table today was a kink workshop where we learned how to make our own implements for sexy time. I made a fairly sturdy wooden paddle with some holes drilled in it, and Desirae managed to put together a decent pair of nipple clamps. We were given bags to put the implements in so we wouldn't just have to carry them around in the open. We met back up with Brett, who wasn't interested in the kink workshop, so had instead, went to a different panel for writing menga. We made him peek in our bags, which in turn, resulted in him rolling his eyes at us. We just smirked at him.
We then covered the next portion of vendors, and got even more stuff. I wound up buying some different candies and drinks and some different artworks while Desirae got mainly more keychains. Brett grabbed two posters of a blonde anime girl and a brunette anime girl.
We then went to several other panels and ate some lunch and then retired back to the room for a little bit to get away from the mass of people. I accidentally snoozed off, then Desirae woke me up because it was time to go back down and rejoin the mass of people for the first concert of the convention. They had invited Eminem! We crowded into the performance room, and managed to swipe front seat rows. The perks of VIP. He performed several of his hits, including Rap God. After that, we grabbed dinner and went back to the room for the night.
I got a shower, and so did Brett and Desirae. Afterwards, we stayed up a little bit and watched a few episodes of Diabolic Lovers, the anime we had watched together so many times growing up. Brett was already asleep by the time the third episode was over and so we figured we should follow suit and quickly fell asleep ourselves.
The next morning, we got ready after eating breakfast and chattered in excitement because Melanie Martinez was having her concert tonight! Someone who we weren't quite sure who he was, was going on before Melanie. He was apparently a smaller-known artist, but had similar style to Melanie.
We changed into our very last cosplays and went down to join the crowds and went to the few panels we had left that we actually wanted to go to, and visited as many vendors as we could before lunch.
After lunch, we went to the meet and greet with different voice actors from Bleach, Akame Ga Kill, and a couple other animes. We also saw Jenson Ackles and Jared Padalecki there from Supernatural and I absolutely lost my shit! I practically dragged Desirae over to them and met them. I did my best not to fangirl but was completely geeking the fuck out internally.
After that, we visited the gift shop to pick up some souvenirs then headed back up to the room to put all of our bags down. We chilled in the room for a little bit then headed back down at 8pm to get to the concert on time. We stood in the VIP line and managed again to snag front row seats! Soon, the first guy came on. He was actually pretty handsome, with shoulder length, chestnut brown, wavy hair and blue eyes. He was fairly skinny but definitely had muscle. His skin was a milky white and he looked so beautiful under the stage lights.
We made direct eye contact, and I felt myself blush. He smirked and winked then introduced himself. Chandler Bradford. He started to sing and his voice was strange and beautiful. It was a strong rich tone that could put anybody in a trance. We found ourselves locking eyes throughout his whole concert, until it was time to go off.
While setting up for Melanie, I felt a hand lightly touch my shoulder. I turned to my left and there he was! "Is this seat taken?"
"N-no!" I smiled sheepishly.
"Sweet!" He said, grinning.
Just like that, the beautiful man was right beside me and Melanie Martinez had entered onto the stage. The crowd went wild, and so did I. Soon, everything went silent as the intro to her first song of the night came on. It was crazy, being this close to her! I could reach out and touch her if I wanted to,  but I knew what respect meant.
She continued performing and I felt eyes on me. I looked left, and Chandler was staring at me and not even trying to hide it. I blushed again and then turned my attention back to Melanie.
After the concert, I continued talking to Chandler and the chemistry was definitely there. We exchanged numbers and I caught Desirae staring at us. She had the biggest smile on her face and I had to shoot her a "stop it" look. She threw her hands up and gave us some space. Finally, we decided to head out and I playfully ran away from Chandler. Desirae was fast on my heels. Finally, he caught up behind the last row of seats. "Let's get out of here" he said. I looked at Desirae and Brett and they nodded.
We headed out from the ultimate convention all as a group and went to eat dinner. Afterwards, Chandler came back with us up to the room. We all simmered down, and watched a movie. After the movie was over, Chandler said goodnight to Brett and Desirae and I walked him out into the hall. There, we shared a goodbye kiss and promised to stay in touch.
Four years later, we were married with two beautiful children and Desirae became their aunt, of course, and Brett, their uncle. Chandler had made it big as a singer so we wound up living in a nice house out in the country with Desirae in the house right beside ours. All of this was thanks to that ultimate convention four years ago.