Yuki The Snowman

Okay, so I lied about taking a break from drinking.  I took another shot of Viniq because I’m an alcoholic and it’s delicious.  But mostly because of the fact that I’m an alcoholic.  Okay, now I gotta prep and get somewhat sober for the Umineko/Higurashi meet.  I checked my phone for the time.  5:20PM.  Good.  Just forty minutes until I have to meet up with the cosplayers. That’s more than enough time to get ready which is great, given an old friend just messaged me on Facebook.

“Hey Ben! We drinking at the Red Bar!  Wanna join us?”

Tyler is an old online and ACEN  friend of mine.  I’ve known him since maybe around 2010 on the old Anime Central’s forums and /cgl/ (the cosplay and gothic lolita board of 4chan), way before the ACEN’s Facebook groups grew and became the shitholes that they are today.  He invited me to the Red Bar, one of the Hyatt’s overpriced bar and grill restaurant (great food though).

“They’ve food down there?  My dumbass started drinking on an empty stomach. I need some food badly.”  I replied.

“Yea, they got a great menu.  We’ll still be here by the time you get here.”

“Alright bet!” Food sounds great along with old friends and I already know I need the food for extra drinking.  Well, time to make my way to the Red Bar.
I hit the Red Bar up.  I spot Tyler and his crew sitting around a tall, smooth white glass table.  They had already finished eating and drinking, but stuck around for my food to arrive and eat.   The server gives me a menu and I look over it, trying to search for any foods with meat.

“Ben, you like pineapples and hamburgers?” Tyler asked.

“Yep, separate.  Never had the two combined. What’s up?”  I questioned him.  What weird food entrée  you’re trying to convince me to eat?  Ya white people be eating some weird shit.

“Try the Tsunami Burger.  It sounds weird, but trust me, it’s great.  It’s a little sloppy though.”

“Hmm, it does sounds good. I’ll take it!”

I placed my order.  As we waited, we reminisced on our wild days of /cgl/  and the ACEN message boards.  One topic that was brought up was whiny old ass, entitled ass nerdy crybabies who  blamed the rave for the parties and bad things happening.   They would spend hours from the precious day to bitch about how ACEN focused more on the raves and parties, than the actual anime related content.  Each rant ended with the following:

“I’M NEVER COMING BACK TO ANOTHER ACEN AGAIN!”

“IF ACEN KEEP THEIR FOCUS  ON THE PARTIES THEN I WILL GO TO ANIME MIDWEST INSTEAD!”

“Can I get a 420 hook up for next ACEN?”

“Who was that cute guy I blew at the rave you had such a huge dick I need it inside me again”

I tend to reply with a smartass remark such as “So we’re seeing ya next ACEN?” or “Nobody cares.  You’re coming back next time.”  I tend to get blocked bythe butthurt nerds as an result.

As we finished the story, my Tsunami Burger arrived.  As a proud, card carrying member of the FatAss Hamburger Eaters Society of America (FAMESOA for short), this burger gets my personal rank of “Top Tier Burger”.   Visually, the burger has a vivid aesthetic as supported by the chopped bright yellow Pineapples, flashy green from the green peppers, teriyaki paints the buns coast-to-coast, which overlaps the veggies and fruits toppings.

The sweetness from the pineapples and the light spice from the peppers work in synergy to provide a salty and sweet flavor from each bit- fuck this burger the buns are falling apart too much sauce and water based veggies and fruits. 0/10 this burger is banned from FAMESOA.  I do not recommend it to any other members.

Seriously, it was a great burger but again, tomatoes, pineapples, and teriyaki sauce weakens beard, thus creating a finger food mess.

Fuck, its 6:00.  Gotta head out!   I paid for my food and bid farewell to Tyler and his crew, and head to the smoker’s area, which the Higurashi/Umineko photoshot was taking place.

Wow.  Fuck, there’s only six When They Cry (WTC) cosplayers this year (Beatrice, Battler, Willard, Tohya, [Umineko], Rena, and Mion [Higurashi] cosplayers) compared to years past (I think there was about 15-20 WTC cosplayers in 2015 when Ryukishi07 was a guest).  The fandom is dying in the ACEN community.  It’s  disheartening to see a cosplay group I’ve supported for about 5 years fading away.   Maybe I should had brought my Goat-Kun cosplay with me this year despite years of damage on it.  Oh Well.

Sniff, sniff, sniff.  No.  That’s not me crying at the eventually death of the Higurashi/Umineko cosplay community.  I’m sniffing some good kush.  Normally,  I’ll be okay with people smoking tress, but around an area where there are photoshoots  going on? You know ,there are young kids and non weed smokers around my dude?  Come  on now!  At least wait until after sunset when all the straight edge baby nerds are gone. If you gotta smoke, at least get a vape so you won’t have that loud smell carrying over or go to the woods by the Hyatt.

Goddammit you fucking stupid idiots are ruining this shit for everyone else.

After the photoshoot (which was literally 10 minutes), we spent the reminding 50 minutes talking about the When They Cry series, Touhou, and general otaku shit that I forgotten over the course of a week due to alcoholism.  Tohya, the leader of the WTC cosplay group, brought up the Umineko fighting game “Golden Fantasia”, and my face lit up.  I have the game on my laptop, and I haven’t play against a human opponent in years. Chance time!

(If you do not know about Golden Fantasia, imagine Marvel Vs. Capcom 1 meets Guilty Gear, but with Umineko no Naku Koro ni characters throw into the mix.  It’s a fun but obscured anime fighting game, but with a very small community. It is getting an official English release soon, and I hope it’ll revive the community.)

Seriously,  I want more people cosplaying from Umineko at ACEN next year.  If you’re an Umineko  or Higurashi cosplayer reading, please cosplay as a character from the series next year. I won’t though ha ha ha!

Tohya and I headed back to my room.  Upon arrival, he was impressed by the alcohol I had laying around the room.

“Are you planning to make a bunch of screwdrivers tonight?” I had some vodkas and a giant bottle of orange juice on the table of my room.

“Nah, just have them around for a friend’s party tomorrow.  Although having some Screwdrivers don’t sound too bad right now!”  I laugh while setting up my laptop and the game.  God I got a problem with alcohol.

Alright! Game is booted and we’re ready to roll!  I gave him a fair warning that I wasn’t going to go easy on me, in which he replied he won’t do the same for me.  I like that!  The respect between two fighting game players that understand you must play at your full best.  We chose our characters, me with the sibling team Battler and Ange, and him with the “Oh you piece of fucking  shit you’re making me hate you” team of Dlanor and Ronove.

So, Dlnaor and Ronove.  Fuck them.  In Golden Fantasia’s meta, the combination of these two gives the player a pure defense  heavy team, as they’re consider to have the best defense in the game, and it doesn’t help that their already large health stack up with one another.  Yay.

And then we have  their godddamn synergy of their fucking skills. Jesus.  Dlanor’s skill is “Armor Boost”, which  does what it says on the tin.  It increases her and her ally’s defense by 50%. Ronove’s skill is Counter Boost, which increase damage from counter hits. Dlanor has great poking counter tools, and Ronove, who’s already a fucking walking brick wall can do stupid bullshit by having Dlanor’s Armor Boost on him.  It’s annoying.

So if you ever play this game I hope you enjoy fucking fighting a loli tank with a sword and a butler tank with a sexy mustache.  Because I did not for the first match.

We’re playing, getting into the fight.  Tohya’s jamming to Jay Z’s “Dead Presidents 2”, which I “modded” into the game’s music soundtrack (I just simply replaced the audio track of Ange’s stage). During our first match of the game, I combo into  Battler’s grope special from his bread-and-button combo.  Tohya’s friend Battler (the Battler cosplayer who I also invited) made a funny in-fandom joke.

“Why is Battler trying to grope Dlanor?  There’s nothing there! Also, I wonder what happens if  he tried to grope Ange, his sister, with that move?”

I replied “Well, I’m pretty Ange would enjoy being groped by her own brother.  She has a pretty heavy brother complex.” We all laughed because it’s the truth.

(One of her in-game endings has her stepping and grinding her shoe on Battler’s head, demanding that he calls her “Mistress Ange” each time she spanks him.  See, that would be incredibly hot if it wasn’t her brother.  Maybe if the sub was either her friend Lucifer or best friend Mammon, then it’d be totally hot).

We went on for a few more matches, and talked about how deep and fun the game is.  He also shared my hopes that MangaGamer’s English release will bring back interest to the series to the West, as we  are passionate about the Umineko series and want the community to strive once more.

Okay, enough of that heart felt sappy  side of me and my weeaboo longing for my favorite fanbase  to be revived.  You guys are here to read about my tales of debauchery and I promise to deliver!  As Tohya and I were finishing up some final matches, my boy “Bucket Wave” (fake named inspired by his love for vaporwave and bucket hats) came through with his giant Bluetooth speaker, lights, trees, and Whiskey!

Yea, it’s turn up party time!  It’s Friday night of ACEN and we’re getting fucked up.

Fair warning: The following is straight up pure debauchery.  Some debauchery I may have forgotten over the course of the aftermath of ACEN.  To remember some things from the ACEN weekend, the following paragraphs were written with me under the influence of alcohol pre-editing.   Took some shots of the reminder Martell I had and some UV Blue mixed with sprite while watching Otaku no Video (it’s a great OVA).  Hopefully it’ll give me drunken recall.

You’ve been warned.

Alright, so drunken memory recall did not work.  It only made me drunk.  Fuck it, here’s what I can recall from Friday night up until I had passed out around 5 in the morning the following Saturday (which was more of an exciting day).

Bucket Wave and I took some shots of  whiskey, waiting for my boys “Bowser”, “KW”, and “Yakuza” (he’s not an actual Yakuza, he’s a fan of the  Sega video game series) to come up and pre-game with us.  I owed Bowser some money for a blunt, Yakuza is an old internet friend of mines from the Persona group “Shin Megami Tensei Network” (who apparently members of said group were helping co-hosting the Persona orgy at ACEN) and I promised JW I’ll drink with him and do shots to help get us right for the night.

Following the whiskey and Hennessy shots (provided by Yakuza), Bucket Wave suggested we do some dabs off his wax pen.   Usually, dabs get me incredibly fucked up.  Like you ever seen the Truth Commercial with the girl “Sara” straight up melting into the couch, stoned the fuck outta her mind?  Yeah, that’s me off dabs.

Oh well, it’s Friday night of ACEN, and we’re getting fucked up at 9:00PM. I plan to be fucked up throughout the night. You think I’m just gonna  end with 3 shots of Hennessy, 3 shots of Whiskey, an alpha version of my Sailor Saturn cocktail, and hits of dabs?  Nah fuck that! We’re about to head to the smoker’s circle and smoke some blunts too!

The Smoker Circle is already bumping.  Nigga, there are half naked ravers and cosplayers walking about and shaking their asses and doing cool tricks with the raver sticks (I don’t know nor care about what they’re actually call), some young college-aged nerds doing keg stands (how the fuck did these white boys manager to sneak in a keg I dunno),   s a d b o y s sippin’ lean and listening to vaporwave, crazy cosplayers snorting Special K, and us smart niggas smoking trees and drinking alcohol because we are good noodles.

Fuck that lame ass rave. The Smoker’s Circle is where it at.

My crew settled at the little cut inside the stone pillar (the cut that has the door that leads into the maintenance center of the Hyatt) and sparked up a blunt.  Maybe two blunts?  I can’t remember, I should have made notes as I went along.  Just know  the kush was making me feel good along with whatever else I had in my system.  I get a message from my boy “Flash” asking if I was still pregaming and if I wanna kick it with “Bgod” (actual nickname) their crew.  Of course I’m down.

So, here’s a funny story about Flash and I.  Around pre ACEN 2015 (or 2014, can’t remember), me and Flash had an online beef.  I was doing my usual shitposting and trolling on the groups when I had went  after Flash. Flash got mad and wanted to meet up to fight in Chicago, so I could back up my “internet tough guy” talk in real life.  I was like “Alright.  I ain’t from Chicago, but meet up in ACEN wit that shit nigga”.
ACEN 2014 or 2015 came about.  I’m at my boy’s party smoking a Black and Mild on the balconey.  I spot a group of young cats breaking down trees, upset they forgot to grab a rillo (White Owls, Game, Zig-Zag, etc.) beforehand.   Me being the utter asshole I am, I gave them my last Black and Mild so they didn’t have to walk 20 minutes to the Moblie station for a rillo.

As I gave a random guy form the group a rillo he asks “Are you Ben Snow?”

“Yes.” I replied back.

“I’m Flash.  The guy who wants to fight you.  I didn’t know you were actually nice and chill in real life!  Sorry about that whole shit, it just that people love to run their mouths online around Chicago and not back it up in real life.”
This dude wasn’t an internet tough guy as I originally thought.  The dude was well built as well as looking like he can legit fight physically.  We talked about nerdy shit for about an hour and clicked well, and ended our online beef right there.    Back to the present,  I’m up in their place smoking one of my blunts with his crew, just chilling and talking about our own ACEN plans and trying to find more parties to kick it.  As we are trying to figure out our next move, something told me to check my phone.

‘Room 10xx.  Throwing a crazy party like last year.’

“Ayy, ‘Sid’ is throwing a party at his suite again this year. Let’s hit that up!” I suggested to everyone.  So Sid and his legendary parties he hosts at ACEN.  Oh man, holy hell! For the past five years I’ve known Sid and attending his parties, they always are so lit and wild.  There’s a 90% chance that it’ll get shut down by the police, hotel staff, and convention security because of noise complaints.  And I don’t mean his next door neighbors bitching.  I mean, the entire floor in which he host his parties tend to rant and bitch about the noise levels.   When you go to this man’s parties,  it’s standing room only. Good luck trying to find space to sit down and chill, because you won’t.

Well, time to go to one of the ACEN’s masters of lit parties.

As always, Sid’s party is packed and wild.   Even with him having a two story vast suite, the room is jammed with people.  Music and voices are sounding thunderous,  dominating all other noises. Do not try to speak over the music, you’ll lose. That’s how lit Sid’s party can be.

While chatting with people I know who’re already at the party, Sid comes up to me and we reunite for another night of alcoholic and drug fuled madness.   He jokingly tells me that he was hosting one of the many ACEN origies on the top floor, and that I should join in.  I laughed, and headed up there with Bucket.

There were people on the top floor, but no fucking.  One very small (perverted) part of me was low-key hoping there was an orgy going down.  However, I’m socially awkward and shy around people I do not know, so I wouldn’t get any action regardless.

Poor me I blame society and Christianity for making me like this. Especially Christianity

I’m on the top floor, talking to Bucket, drinking beers and what now when our friend came up to us. They’re clearly distressed, upset, and scared.  Something happened.  Something that pretty much made me want to fight.  Somebody who I thought was a friend did something to another friend of ours ( I won’t go into details because I don’t wanna stir up drama).

I was furious.  How could somebody who I called a “friend” for years could do this to another friend?  Nah, nah, nah, fuck this nigga, I’m killing him in front of all these people for what he did. How could you do that to a friend man? Before I lost wheatver  sense I had left, I decided to leave the party.  Alcohol+my temper+that bullshit =  me being arrested for murder.  Somebody in our crew suggested to go to one last party.  Good.  Because I can’t be here any longer.

My boy heard word about a VIP suite party going on in the Hyatt.  A VIP suite party must be banging as hell. I mean, it has the word “VIP” in it, so it must be a great party.  Let’s head there!  We get to the room, and it’s mostly dead.  I can’t really be too upset, it’s almost 3:30 in the morning, and most, if not all parties  were wrapping up.  There were a few stragglers partying about but nothing major really.  Eh, nothing is really going on here, the alcohol and weed is getting to me, and I’m tired as all hell.  I’m gonna head back to my room and past out.

I get near my room, and outside of it I see my friend “Goro” either getting in or out of his cosplay (Goro from Persona 5), I dun care, I just wanna past out (and finish this part of the story).  I get in our room and crash on the bed.

“4:00am?  Fuck, I’ve been out that long huh?  Fuck it, I’ll get up the morning and go to a few panels or something.”

Oh, Ben.  You’re cute.

Stay tune for Night 2! Wait, night 2?  You mean Day 2 right Ben?

Nope!