Forgiveness

One of the things that I have learned how to do this year is to forgive. I always knew how to forgive and forget I suppose, but I had to learn how to forgive with boundaries so I don't get hurt anymore. Through a lot of pain the experiences of this year have taught me to forgive while at the same time protecting myself. That is a concept I hadn't really considered before.

You don't have to completely block the person out of your life to put up boundaries. Especially not if that person is family, or unavoidable for another reason. But don't allow yourself to be alone with said person--always have a trusted friend or family member close by. Also, don't ever feel obligated to spend time with someone or do something for them. That can be a form of control, and people are rarely obligated to do those things. If it feels like an obligation then you probably shouldn't do it anyway.

Don't ever be afraid to say no. If someone has hurt you repeatedly and wants back into your life, saying no is not the same as being unforgiving. Make them prove that they can be trusted before you give them that. If they can't, then they have things to work on that you are not responsible for. In addition to being unafraid to say no, do not let people guilt trip you. If they are guilt-tripping you into doing things for them or spending time with them, then they are controlling you and that is unhealthy for you. You can forgive that person without allowing them to come back into your life and control you.

Forgiveness is important. It brings freedom and peace. But realizing that forgiveness can come with boundaries is important too, because it can save you from future pain. As a Christian, I know I am supposed to forgive if a person asks for forgiveness. However, I don't believe God would ever want me to be pushed around or hurt. So forgiveness with boundaries is sometimes necessary. 

Listening

One thing I have definitely improved upon this past year is listening when God is telling me to do something. Whether or not I think it is a good idea for me. This probably came from a very short period of time where I wanted to do things my way, but it didn't work out for me.  It never will if I am following my desires.

Although I don't want to share that time of my life, I wanted to share with you all my realization. It is probably something you've heard before. He always gives you what is best for you, and He can see every other option. Don't be afraid to listen and follow His will for you. Like Moses, even if you are afraid to speak He will give you words.

Since about August I've been listening in a different way than before. I've always tried to listen, but sometimes I didn't consider what He might be telling me about things that are extremely personal. Because of that, I had to experience some things that could have easily been avoided. I started listening about everything, and putting Him above anything I might have considered personal. It really does happen that when you put God first, everything else falls into place! Some things that I thought were unable to mend, He fixed. But that came from me giving Him all of me and letting Him work in my life. Without the listening, the blessings do not happen. If we don't follow what He wants, how can we expect the best for us to happen?

I realize this is a very short post, but it is intended as more of a note than a story. Thank you for reading.

A Theme of Change

People change at an incredible rate. In good ways and in bad ways. Personally, a job that I held for seven months made me do a complete turnaround in personality for a while. That change began at about two months in and it continued to spiral until I "woke up" and remembered who I was. If only a few months can cause a person to change that drastically, what do you think a year can do to a person?

This month I will focus on what I have learned this year. How I have changed and how I have recognized change in the people around me. That is the theme for the month of December: change, specifically change in people.

This is just an introduction to the rest of the month--and my apologies for it taking until mid-month for me to post this. Be looking for different lessons from the life of Taylor. If you have something you would like to share, please feel free to comment below!

**Random disclaimer**

If you have read my previous posts about Yama-Con, those related to the topic in a way. I have changed in my taste in entertainment, as I have grown to appreciate anime.

My Final Report On Yama-Con 2015

Overview

Yama-Con is a fan-owned and fan-operated not for profit anime and gaming convention. "Yama" is the Japanese word for "mountain," so Yama-Con was the natural name for the event. It is a family friendly convention with pretty "strict" rules as far as what is appropriate and what is not. The security and other staff is very good at enforcing those rules. It is held annually in the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains, and I was blessed with the opportunity to visit Pigeon Forge, TN this past weekend as press to this event. 

The convention has a room (about twice the size of my church gym or a school gym) filled with games of all kinds. Video games on wiis, xbox, computers and other gaming systems. Board games, card games, traditional family games (like twister) and everything in between. There were usually anywhere from 50-100 people in this room all weekend long.

Adjacent to the gaming room (separated by a black curtain) was the Dealer's Room (or, as Mom calls it, the "marketplace"). Every convention has one of these. There were so many different booths offering everything from information about cosplay groups to art or plushies. I spent a lot of time in this room, but mostly I was looking at the cosplayers--especially the Kirito cosplayers--and appreciating their talents.

There were also anime-viewing rooms that showed different animes. I didn't get a good chance to survey those rooms, but that would definitely be a good place to be! As much as I enjoy anime, I can't imagine being bored in that room. Unless they were playing yaoi or hentai, which based on the family friendly regulations I cannot see that being the case. 

The panels and events were some of the best parts of Yama-Con 2015! Some of the fan panels included "Doctor Who's Line Is It Anyway?," "Anime Feelstrip," "Black Butler: Book of Clues," and "Con Crash Course." The panels were usually fun and informative. Because of the scheduling of these panels, it is impossible to go to all of them. You have to select your favorites and fix your schedule accordingly. That being said, Autumn and I didn't exactly follow our planned schedule while we were at Yama-Con. We had so many different things we wanted to do that we kind of just went with the flow, and that is okay too. There is a difference between fan-panels and main event panels, though. The main event panels are usually concerts, Q&As with famous voice actors like Chuck Hubert (Ash from Black Butler) and Johnny Yong Bosch (all of the Power Rangers), cosplay contests and other things. 

Cosplayers of all kinds come to Comic/anime/gaming conventions like Yama-Con and I have to admit that is one of my favorite parts of the con! (For those of you who don't know what cosplay is, it is the art of creating/buying a costume of your favorite character and then being that character for any event. Kind of like Halloween, but cooler and not just on October 31st. The best/most impressive cosplayers are those who create their own cosplays.) Autumn spend months creating cosplay outfits for both of us (and our older sister, who only went to the con on Friday). She had prepared Riza (FMA) and Kiba (Naruto) for herself for the last two days, and Ino and Hinata (both from Naruto) for me. We ended up only wearing Kiba and Hinata the last two days for various reasons. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a photo of our cosplays (if you have one, feel free to post it in the comments!). 

Dealer's Room

There were several different artists at Yama-Con this year. Some of my personal favorites were Alex Ogle--I loved the silhouette style of his art-- and the Chalk Twins. All of the art was creative and elaborate, I just preferred some over others. I've included some photos of the art below and captioned them with the artists' names.

Alex Olge's Art

The Chalk Twins

Dealers had many different items! Anything from plushies to elaborate cosplay items. Some of my favorites were Cordy's Corner, K.O. Fashions, Daydream Crochet and Tokyo Toybox. Jenny Murray from Daydream Crochet was very talented and easy to get along with. It always helps when the dealers have a great personality! Some of the things at her booth were absolutely adorable and it's probably a good thing I didn't have any cash on me at the moment. Cordy's Corner and K.O. Fashions had some cool accessories of different sorts. Cordy's Corner had more everyday items while K.O. Fashions would be more for cosplay or fancy events. I was very tempted to buy some lace gloves and a Doctor Who backpack at both of those places. Once again, it is probably good that I didn't have any cash on me at the time. 

Sorry it's blurry! This was K.O. Fashions

K.O. Fashions

K.O. Fashions

K.O. Fashions

K.O. Fashions (Corsets)

Daydream Crochet (I dunno what this is, but it's adorable!)

The Anime Palace

The Anime Palace

The Anime Palace

Cordy's Corner

Cordy's Corner

Cordy's Corner (Grell!)

Cordy's Corner (Bassy and Ciel)

Cordy's Corner (The bag made this picture look weird, but you can still see what it is supposed to be.)

Cordy's Corner

Cordy's Corner

Cordy's Corner (Naruto!)

Cordy's Corner (I really wanted one of these!)

Cordy's Corner (authentic Naruto Ninja headbands)

I believe this was "Hell On Wheels Traveling Hobby Shop"

She had to go to great depths to get this necklace! (Get it?) This was right beside the beautiful bat mask above. 

The remaining booths were advertising events, radio stations or other such things. They weren't really selling anything in particular. I liked the SURGE CLUB booth, because they are a cosplay group and it was very interesting to see their cosplays. And there was a Kirito. There was also invitations to ShudderCon, Yama-Con's annual charity auction and AniBlaze Anime and Fan Convention (J. Michael Tatum will be there!! He is Sebastian Michaelis!). Shudder Con is a horror/sci-fi/anime convention in Chattanooga Tennessee. I'm not a big fan of horror. But I'll be more than happy to go see J. Michael Tatum at AniBlaze! 

Charity Auction

Chicka, an OC from FNAF who will be at ShudderCon

This guy was very nice and extremely helpful!!!

Another thing in the Dealer's Room was props. Like the TARDIS, the Jurassic Park car, the Mystery Machine and PIKA3. It would be easier to show you these props than it would be for me to describe them. 

The Mystery Machine

 Jurassic Park

 PIKA3

  The TARDIS

Cosplays (BE PREPARED FOR PICTURES)

Because Yama-Con is a family friendly convention, not too many of the cosplays were overly revealing or distasteful. There were a few, but those people usually didn't stay for long--or they were only there in the evenings for raves and/or concerts. I got some pictures of the cosplays, but I didn't get as many as Autumn did. (Check out Ani Maze Me for more of Autumn's pictures!) I'll post my pictures below, and caption them with my thoughts. 

We found Waldo!

My favorite cosplayer! Even though it is a little blurry. This is my little sister, Autumn, as Yami (the Yama-Con mascot)!

Yami (Autumn) in front of the Le Conte Center

It looks like a donkey parrot, but it is apparently an angel dragon. The cosplayer made this cosplay, she didn't purchase it. She is very sweet and I enjoyed talking with her!

Yami enjoying some peace and quiet ^_^

Autumn's favorite ever. Shizuo!

My favorite ever. Kirito! This guy was pretty great, too. He was there all weekend.

For #AnimeGeeks-- Where or where has our Luffy Gone? I have found him! Even though the picture was blurry.

The Black Butler group. These guys were absolutely adorable! And their cosplays were flawless! Acting included.

Sebastian and Ciel

I love this pose. Can't help it!

#PoolParty
Dead Pools. There is at least 1 at every con. The pools at Yama-Con were all fantastic! 

These guys placed in the Cosplay Contest

Robert (as Ash) and Haley (as Misty). These guys were some of my favorite cosplayers! Gotta love the classics.

The TARDIS. Very creative! I love love love this cosplay!

Pokemon group photo shoot. Only a few of them are actually paying attention.

Events/Panels 

We were most active on Saturday, but we did some fun stuff on Friday and Sunday too. Friday we mainly cruised the gaming and dealer's rooms. We also went to Disney Karaoke, and Autumn almost got me to sing in front of the Fandom. There were a bunch of talented singers at the Con! My personal favorites were Aloise and Ciel (Black Butler characters, I didn't get the cosplayers names) who sang Meg's song (Hercules). They turned it into a comedy, which I won't explain because it will make no sense to anyone who is not in the fandom (if you want to hear the story, feel free to comment below or email me and I will share it with you). It was fun to see people comfortable enough to sing. I definitely enjoyed the karaoke (even though I do not sing in front of people)! Sunday we started at a corset fan-panel, but we had to leave early for breakfast because of diabetes-related issues. After breakfast we enjoyed going to The Slants food panel. I'd just like to say it was a good thing we had already eaten. The Slants were professional-fun, and we definitely enjoyed their "What the Pho" Asian Food discussion. It was very informative and interesting. I especially like how the band interacts with each other and with their audience. From watching them throughout our entire Yama-Con experience, I would say they are very easy to get along with and they are just friendly with everyone. That is probably part of the experience for them. 

Saturday was a very full day! We were at the Le Conte center at 11 am and enjoyed several different events that day! The cosplay contest and Iron Cosplay are annual events hosted by Yama-Con. A cosplay contest is self explanatory, but Iron Cosplay was something I found unique to Yama-Con. At this event, three groups of contestants were provided with a box of supplies and instructed to build a boat (the Con was pirate themed this year). After the boats were constructed, they had to race them across the stage. The winning team got "Dealer's Room Bucks" (money they could spend only in the Dealer's Room) and the two losing teams got Krispy Kreme. I think I would have thrown that competition for the donuts, just sayin'. 

*I don't actually remember if Iron Cosplay was on Friday or Saturday*

We also attended two concerts on Saturday night! Johnny Yong Bosch's band Eyeshine played earlier in the evening, and we were able to attend The Slants entire concert. (I've already posted about these events). I enjoyed The Slants much more than Eyeshine for the reasons I mentioned before. There was a rave late Saturday night (from 9pm-Midnight) which Autumn and I went to the first half of. We didn't do much dancing, but we did join a conga line. That conga line was more like a run-as-fast-as-you-can-and-try-to-keep-up-line. We left at about 10 pm. 

Highlights/Favorite Parts 

My last blog post talked about the conga-line lead by Dead Pool on Saturday (which I have decided was a #CongaCon #PoolParty, but I find that more humorous than anyone I've told does). The dead pool conga line was definitely my favorite part of the Con, possibly over The Slants concert. Those two main parts are tied for first. I enjoyed both because of the experiences, but it was pretty amazing to feel like my fandom was having its own Thanksgiving in the conga-line. That's the only way I know how to describe it. 

As a side note-- I had a major fangirl moment on Sunday. One of my favorite characters from Black Butler is Ash (the angel. I don't like their use of angels, but I like Ash!). He is voiced by Chuck Huber, whom happened to be in the Dealer's Room. Chuck talked to me in Ash's voice! And then he signed my Press Pass! (Is it bad that I was more excited about him talking to me in Ash's voice?) 

Autumn and I dressed as Hinata and Kiba for the last two days, and we had several people ask for our pictures. We had one photo opportunity with another group of Naruto Cosplayers, which was very special for Autumn. I thought it was great that people enjoyed our cosplays and wanted pictures of them. For me, that means that I did something right. Our cosplays weren't overly special, but they were special to us. So thanks to anyone who asked for a picture. You helped make my Yama-Con experience a great one! 

Analysis/Review 

If I had to give Yama-Con a grade, I would give them an A. There are several reasons for this grade, but the majority of it has to do with the staff and volunteers at the event. In addition, the "Senpai Central" location and activities helped to keep it a family friendly atmosphere. The panels were informative and fun, and the special quests were all very friendly and easy to talk to. I mean, if Chuck Huber was willing to talk to me in Ash's voice, then you have to believe the special guests were inviting. Altogether, it felt like a small-town Con misplaced in a decent-sized city or tourist town. That is my favorite kind of convention. Small town life is like a family in every aspect, including in the geek-ish world of comic cons. It felt comfortable and familiar, even though I had never been to a Yama-Con in my life. That is the kind of place that I want to be. Hoping to get to attend again next year!