Host’s girlfriend who I will call “Fairy,” had left early to room with friends and would not be the lone woman in the group this year. We were joined by a new X chromosome.
The door opened and a woman in her twenties entered. She had very bright red hair, a tattoo on her chest, and many piercings on her face and apparently in all the taboo areas. She was going to share a bed with Host, who was already taken and was deemed trustworthy. I will refer to the lady in bed as “Red.”
We proceeded to the convention center to pick up our badges to gain entrance to the Famine’s many events and services. Ranger and Roll where dropped off to fend for themselves. The line for badge pickup was 5 lanes of people. The line didn’t move forward, it just became more convoluted as more people saved spots for friends. Red and Trance were going mad and Animal’s 3DS ran out of batteries. I was level grinding on my PSP, which is about the same necessary evil as waiting in line. After two and a half hours, we received our badges.
At most conventions, day 0 was only for registration. At Fanime, it was an extra half day of the convention. Host took his sale items and went to the upper level exhibit hall to meet Fairy in a joint venture of money making.
Exhibit hall number four was the location I spent almost all of my time in. It housed the arcade, console game room, table top game room, and the swap meet. The swap meet was a regular occurrence at Fanime. Attendees brought all of their items to sell. Some sellers even made cash to pay for their trip or to facilitate their small businesses. Host was selling many items including two X Arcade Joysticks and Fairy was selling Glow Sticks for those who would be attending the dance/rave later. They ended up making over $200 in profits.
That night I ran into some friends that I only see at the convention. One had his own booth, and two helped run the game room. My oldest convention acquaintance sold small plushies of the Touhou (shrine maiden girls) variety for 40 bucks a pop and made over 1600 dollars during the two swap meets. I will call him “Money.” The 2nd had Japanese import games for old systems and knew people who could translate them. He is “TV,” Due to his constant strains from moving of Televisions for the game room staff. The third one was studying to be an engineer and made his own custom Joysticks while running arcade games on custom hardware. He is “Supergun,” named after the custom arcade machine itself.
The swap meet continued on in the evenings for two days. The game room and its arcade ran 24 hours a day. My friends and I not wanting to waste any time were up until 1 am for day 0 festivities.
As almost always with conventions, I slept on the floor taking the green blanket off of the Xbox and using it as a cushion along with two comforters from the beds. Trance and Animal shared the first bed, the Host and Red, the other. Since my first Fanime, I had gone from sleeping on a hotel bed, to an air mattress on the floor, and now enjoyed the simple pleasure of sleeping on the floor. It didn’t matter really where I slept. I knew that I wouldn’t get much sleep anyway; my excitement would be the driving force during the convention.
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