Anime Detour 2009 - Sun, Mon
Blargh, I really want to get through the rest of this tonight if I can. It's the 12th, I'll have other things to post tonight. (It's the 12th, everybody! ;D)
On Sunday, the first thing on the agenda was the general fanfiction panel at 10 AM. If you want something done, you've got to do it yourself... no one else signed up to do a fanfic panel, so I did it. Last year I converted the contest awards session into a panel thing, and I didn't want that to become a trend. I had emailed everyone who entered the contest the week before to ask if any of them wanted to be on the panel with me, but I only got one volunteer, who was there when I got to the panel room but a) surprised to be the only other panelist and b) disappointed there wasn't a bigger crowd in attendance, as it was likely no one would know who she was. To tell you the truth, it's a bit of a bad sign when your panelist volunteers while telling you how popular they've become in fandom lately, but I didn't want to be up there all by myself, so. One of her friends joined us up front to provide another voice, but that gave us two Naruto writers, and me.
Despite some awkwardness and a bit of a quiet power struggle, all in all the panel went pretty well. I tried to keep things pretty general and gave plenty of audience members a chance to put in their own two cents, and to introduce themselves and their work if they wanted to. Why should the panelists be the only ones to self-promote? ;P The room filled up nicely after things got started, and it was a pretty good time. Hopefully next year I'll have some visiting friends to be on the panel with me.
After that I had a couple of hours off. I think I made another run through the dealer's room and AA, finished narrowing down the drabble contest entries and got them handed off to providers of second and third opinions, and ran back upstairs to get the main fanfic contest materials. Oh, right, I also grabbed something to eat from the volunteer consuite and finally got a picture I'd been wanting all weekend, of the room parties head (who was thrilled to hear my room party idea for next year, for obvious reasons!)
Wish I'd gotten her in a slightly more angled pose, so you could see the wig better. She said she and her friends might do all the Shitennou next year. :D
When I got back down to the panel rooms I ran into revolutionaryjo who provided me with the fanfic award trophies, which were ordered along with the AMV contest awards this year. I was a bit nervous about that, since I normally have everything with me in advance, but they were perfect and on time and there were no problems. And they got plenty of oohs and aahs from the writers. :)
The awards session was reasonably well-attended; two of the trophy winners and one of the Judge's Choice winners were there. We've had the same First Place winner two years in a row now, which makes me a bit uneasy, but if you're the best you're the best I guess. :\ I'm hoping to get the winners to become judges for the following year from now on, like Anime North does, which would spread things out a bit. I would have tried it this year if I hadn't lost all the email addresses in the hard drive crash. -_- I explained that to the writers at the awards session and they seemed fine with my decision to use online fanfic writer friends (who I still haven't emailed thanks and the results to, because I fail and lose >.>).
Then came the awkward part. I don't really know why, but I've always been bound and determined to have a live reading at the awards panel. I had no idea how well that would go over, but I went for it anyway. Of course, no one wanted to read their own, so I had to. xP (next year: bring water ftlog!) And it wasn't all that bad, really. We lost about half the group right off, which wasn't unexpected, but the winners and a number of interested others stuck around for at least the first couple of stories. I had enough printouts of all the winning stories to go around and I read a sample of all three top winners (the original plan was to read the First Place story entirely, but I liked being able to showcase a sample of all three; I think I'll stick with that in the future). By the end, only the winners and their friends were left, but as long as a few people are sticking around I'll keep doing this. We had some extra time at the end, so I included the one Judge's Choice story whose writer was in attendance as well, but I made her read her own. xP
It may be a stupid and lame thing to do, but I like it, so nyah. And now I've had some practice for when hell freezes over and I'm doing readings of my own published work. ;)
After that I dumped off the rest of my supplies upstairs, checked on the drabble judging progress, and went back downstairs for the Sailor Moon panel, which I was not at all involved with. It was being run by the Demand and Esmeraude cosplayers I posted a picture of earlier. It started way before its designated time, was packed to the gills, and was total chaos. I suppose it technically never had an official start... people just started chatting about the series and a panel just sort of happened. But it was a lot of completely separate conversations happening at once for a long time, and a lot of the audience ended up getting tired of it and leaving. A pity, since it's great to see so many fans still showing up at these things. My room party next year should see an impressive turnout. :D
(Also, the misinformation, good God! It's getting tiring always having to stand up for Takeuchi-san at these things. Manga-ka have no control over their creations once they become anime, people! It is not her fault that you can't buy the official DVDs anymore. Sheesh.)
When the chaos ended, I made a final trip to the dealer's room before it closed, and then made the final decision on the drabble contest. And then it was the Dead Hour, which I really wish would be gotten rid of. Everything closes down and there's nothing for anyone to do for the hour before Closing Ceremonies except hang around bored and get into trouble. Some people do get creative, though.
I had zero to do so I went down to Main Programming to wait for Closing Ceremonies to start, since I'd agreed to do the drabble contest announcement myself this year. While I was hanging around, Tech was discussing the video feed for Closing Ceremonies and they were short a camera person again. They saw me sitting there and enlisted me. :D That was the loveliest thing in the world, to be asked to pitch in. Of course, there was a problem; I was supposed to do the contest announcement. For a moment they tried to find someone else to handle the camera, but there was no one handy, so I had to leave it on a wide shot for 30 seconds while I went up on stage to announce the winner. There was still camera 1 for closeups, so I think it went all right. And I had my first moment on stage. >.> I mostly just tried not to think about it, haha. Just get up there, speak, and GTFO. Doing the readings earlier that morning probably helped.
So that was that. Ex-Chairman Yaarg reappeared and tried to sabatoge the con, but he was defeated and dispatched by the Tech department... or was he? (bum bum BAAAH) One of the banners failed to unfurl as planned, but other than that, all the technical flairs worked as advertised this year. The drabble contest winner was actually there this time, so I was able to give out the prize personally instead of mailing it for once. xP But I completely forgot to take pictures of the awards before handing them out like I usually do. Oops.
As people were filing out, I asked a nearby photographer for a favor. My dad's always been on my case to get pictures of me actually doing staff stuff, and I never have. It had occurred to me as I was going to bed Saturday night that it would've been nice to have a picture of me doing tech like I'd always wanted to. It was too late by then, but I had a second chance being asked to help with Closing Ceremonies as well. :3 I wish I'd thought of it Saturday, since we didn't use the headsets on Sunday, but it's better than nothing. So here I am looking like a dork in a heck of a lot of blue (forgot about the staff shirt factor when I packed >.<). But a happy and accomplished dork. :D
Don't hate me because I'm geeky. >.>
After that was tear-down time, what there was of it. Many of the departments packed up during Closing Ceremonies, and there wasn't a lot Ops could do before Monday, since Operations is "first in, last out." I was scheduled in Ops from 6 PM to 9 for the shutdown period and I did what I could, which was probably a lot of little things, it was too chaotic to remember now.
The shift got cut off early for the staff dinner, which popped up at the last minute, initially there wasn't going to be one this year. Staff is getting huge and we were downtown, where things would be awkward and expensive. But a place was found with an upstairs room where we could get a package deal as long as everyone ordered from a limited menu. Originally I had planned to skip the dinner thing, if there was any, but as it turned out I felt good enough about my contribution to the con this year to feel I had earned it. So I went, on the loooong walk to the place, made even longer by the use of the skywalk system.
A lot of people were already there when we arrived, and at first there was room for all but one of us at the occupied tables. Guess who was the leftover. Brin kindly didn't leave me sitting alone, but it still put me in an "it figures" gloomy mood for a while, even when more people arrived and things were shuffled around and we ended up fitting with the rest of the Ops folks. The truth is I can't even remember what it's like anymore, to not feel alone in a crowd. Maybe I just can't recognize a welcoming environment these days even when one exists, I dunno. But before long Kale came around on his round of personal thanks and that perked me right up, as it does. I don't really remember what he said, exactly, it was loud there and there was a lot going on, but the lift from it lasted into Monday. :)
After chatting with everyone for a while I decided to duck out a bit early. It was my sister's birthday, the second year in a row Detour had landed on it ^^; and I wanted to at least take her out for dessert. Lee was heading back to the hotel as well, so I walked back with him, taking the direct route this time... and boarded an elevator for the first time since Thursday. Whew! Ran a very belated weekly update on .moon, which I had forgotten to do before leaving for dinner >.< (and about which dark_branwen helpfully texted me when I didn't show up, although there was nothing I could do about it at that point - I really need to get that set up so I can do it from my phone), and got on the road. I picked up my sister and took her out for a late dinner at TGI Friday's, where I had a single pumpkin cupcake, haha, I was way too full for anything else. With everything else, I had completely forgotten I had told jambosana I might come visit her and her friends if I had spare time on Sunday night. By the time I remembered, it was really, really late. I'm sorry ;_; I had really hoped to fit it all in, but there was only so much time. :\
I teared up a little on my way back to the hotel and hid out in my car for a bit, where the board president almost caught me. >.> Awkward! Fortunately I was able to handwave it and go inside, where I pretty much went straight up to my room. I was planning to go back down and wander around a bit, like I tend to do on Sunday, but I ended up chatting with my roommates instead. And wearing my badge and staff shirt until the last possible minute, as I'll never wear them again. It's funny the things that hit you.
Monday morning it was really move-out time. I was up pretty early and downstairs loading my car and getting Ops ready to move. There was a delay getting the truck in, so we waited around for a while, until I finally prodded everyone into sorting out the Lost & Found items. Those things can get pretty mixed up in the computer system. I'm hoping to improve it a bit before I hand over the Ops computer.
Things didn't really get rolling until much later than planned, so I wasn't able to help much before I had to leave. I was short on vacation time for Anime North, so I had to go in to work Monday afternoon, and I had to bring the Ops head back to my house first to pick up her car. I went to work for four hours, from 2 to 6 PM, which proved to be a short but interesting shift since I was still in con mode. It's funny, really. I'm very fast, efficient, and professional when I'm in con mode... you'd think it would be my actual paying job that would bring that out in me. xD I kind of wish I could function in con mode all the time. I'd probably be a better person.
I had hoped to go to Kale's after-party thing like I did last year, but by the time I got off work at 6 PM I had no idea what the situation was. So I went home, and slept for a hundred years. The end.
2009 was a excellent con experience to go out on. I was busy, I did lots of stuff, I hurt myself a couple of times, I felt like I'd been run over by a truck by Monday. It was great. All I've ever wanted was to pull my own weight like everyone else, to be as tired as everyone else. I was so glad to be able to walk out of there feeling happy and accomplished instead of bitter and emo. It really couldn't have gone any better. Of course, then I end up thinking, "Is it really that bad? Do I really want to give this up?" But the fact is that con afterglow is a deceiving thing. I felt good after last year's con, too, but it wasn't long before everything went back to how it always was. I suppose I should have tried harder, or maybe I just hadn't found the right spot for me yet... I guess I'll never know, now. Of course, if certain recent events are any indication, I really am doing the right thing here. :| (Ignore the paranoia, bb...)
In more ways than one, really. I was totally overinvested in this thing. I would've made Detour my entire life, if it had wanted me. I'm sure we'd all agree that's Bad. (On the other hand, though, what exactly is a life? People are always saying you should get one... but if you're not married, and you don't have kids, what is this all-important life you're supposed to be focused on? If not a shared hobby obsession, than what? Your job? Hell with that.)
Anyway, so I'll technically be moving to revolutionaryjo's department so I can keep running the fanfiction contests, but I'll be at-con staff only, at most, from now on. Done is done. So that is the end of that.
Pictures of what little con swag I picked up will be added when I remember to take them. Maybe tonight.
On Sunday, the first thing on the agenda was the general fanfiction panel at 10 AM. If you want something done, you've got to do it yourself... no one else signed up to do a fanfic panel, so I did it. Last year I converted the contest awards session into a panel thing, and I didn't want that to become a trend. I had emailed everyone who entered the contest the week before to ask if any of them wanted to be on the panel with me, but I only got one volunteer, who was there when I got to the panel room but a) surprised to be the only other panelist and b) disappointed there wasn't a bigger crowd in attendance, as it was likely no one would know who she was. To tell you the truth, it's a bit of a bad sign when your panelist volunteers while telling you how popular they've become in fandom lately, but I didn't want to be up there all by myself, so. One of her friends joined us up front to provide another voice, but that gave us two Naruto writers, and me.
Despite some awkwardness and a bit of a quiet power struggle, all in all the panel went pretty well. I tried to keep things pretty general and gave plenty of audience members a chance to put in their own two cents, and to introduce themselves and their work if they wanted to. Why should the panelists be the only ones to self-promote? ;P The room filled up nicely after things got started, and it was a pretty good time. Hopefully next year I'll have some visiting friends to be on the panel with me.
After that I had a couple of hours off. I think I made another run through the dealer's room and AA, finished narrowing down the drabble contest entries and got them handed off to providers of second and third opinions, and ran back upstairs to get the main fanfic contest materials. Oh, right, I also grabbed something to eat from the volunteer consuite and finally got a picture I'd been wanting all weekend, of the room parties head (who was thrilled to hear my room party idea for next year, for obvious reasons!)
Wish I'd gotten her in a slightly more angled pose, so you could see the wig better. She said she and her friends might do all the Shitennou next year. :D
When I got back down to the panel rooms I ran into revolutionaryjo who provided me with the fanfic award trophies, which were ordered along with the AMV contest awards this year. I was a bit nervous about that, since I normally have everything with me in advance, but they were perfect and on time and there were no problems. And they got plenty of oohs and aahs from the writers. :)
The awards session was reasonably well-attended; two of the trophy winners and one of the Judge's Choice winners were there. We've had the same First Place winner two years in a row now, which makes me a bit uneasy, but if you're the best you're the best I guess. :\ I'm hoping to get the winners to become judges for the following year from now on, like Anime North does, which would spread things out a bit. I would have tried it this year if I hadn't lost all the email addresses in the hard drive crash. -_- I explained that to the writers at the awards session and they seemed fine with my decision to use online fanfic writer friends (who I still haven't emailed thanks and the results to, because I fail and lose >.>).
Then came the awkward part. I don't really know why, but I've always been bound and determined to have a live reading at the awards panel. I had no idea how well that would go over, but I went for it anyway. Of course, no one wanted to read their own, so I had to. xP (next year: bring water ftlog!) And it wasn't all that bad, really. We lost about half the group right off, which wasn't unexpected, but the winners and a number of interested others stuck around for at least the first couple of stories. I had enough printouts of all the winning stories to go around and I read a sample of all three top winners (the original plan was to read the First Place story entirely, but I liked being able to showcase a sample of all three; I think I'll stick with that in the future). By the end, only the winners and their friends were left, but as long as a few people are sticking around I'll keep doing this. We had some extra time at the end, so I included the one Judge's Choice story whose writer was in attendance as well, but I made her read her own. xP
It may be a stupid and lame thing to do, but I like it, so nyah. And now I've had some practice for when hell freezes over and I'm doing readings of my own published work. ;)
After that I dumped off the rest of my supplies upstairs, checked on the drabble judging progress, and went back downstairs for the Sailor Moon panel, which I was not at all involved with. It was being run by the Demand and Esmeraude cosplayers I posted a picture of earlier. It started way before its designated time, was packed to the gills, and was total chaos. I suppose it technically never had an official start... people just started chatting about the series and a panel just sort of happened. But it was a lot of completely separate conversations happening at once for a long time, and a lot of the audience ended up getting tired of it and leaving. A pity, since it's great to see so many fans still showing up at these things. My room party next year should see an impressive turnout. :D
(Also, the misinformation, good God! It's getting tiring always having to stand up for Takeuchi-san at these things. Manga-ka have no control over their creations once they become anime, people! It is not her fault that you can't buy the official DVDs anymore. Sheesh.)
When the chaos ended, I made a final trip to the dealer's room before it closed, and then made the final decision on the drabble contest. And then it was the Dead Hour, which I really wish would be gotten rid of. Everything closes down and there's nothing for anyone to do for the hour before Closing Ceremonies except hang around bored and get into trouble. Some people do get creative, though.
I had zero to do so I went down to Main Programming to wait for Closing Ceremonies to start, since I'd agreed to do the drabble contest announcement myself this year. While I was hanging around, Tech was discussing the video feed for Closing Ceremonies and they were short a camera person again. They saw me sitting there and enlisted me. :D That was the loveliest thing in the world, to be asked to pitch in. Of course, there was a problem; I was supposed to do the contest announcement. For a moment they tried to find someone else to handle the camera, but there was no one handy, so I had to leave it on a wide shot for 30 seconds while I went up on stage to announce the winner. There was still camera 1 for closeups, so I think it went all right. And I had my first moment on stage. >.> I mostly just tried not to think about it, haha. Just get up there, speak, and GTFO. Doing the readings earlier that morning probably helped.
So that was that. Ex-Chairman Yaarg reappeared and tried to sabatoge the con, but he was defeated and dispatched by the Tech department... or was he? (bum bum BAAAH) One of the banners failed to unfurl as planned, but other than that, all the technical flairs worked as advertised this year. The drabble contest winner was actually there this time, so I was able to give out the prize personally instead of mailing it for once. xP But I completely forgot to take pictures of the awards before handing them out like I usually do. Oops.
As people were filing out, I asked a nearby photographer for a favor. My dad's always been on my case to get pictures of me actually doing staff stuff, and I never have. It had occurred to me as I was going to bed Saturday night that it would've been nice to have a picture of me doing tech like I'd always wanted to. It was too late by then, but I had a second chance being asked to help with Closing Ceremonies as well. :3 I wish I'd thought of it Saturday, since we didn't use the headsets on Sunday, but it's better than nothing. So here I am looking like a dork in a heck of a lot of blue (forgot about the staff shirt factor when I packed >.<). But a happy and accomplished dork. :D
Don't hate me because I'm geeky. >.>
After that was tear-down time, what there was of it. Many of the departments packed up during Closing Ceremonies, and there wasn't a lot Ops could do before Monday, since Operations is "first in, last out." I was scheduled in Ops from 6 PM to 9 for the shutdown period and I did what I could, which was probably a lot of little things, it was too chaotic to remember now.
The shift got cut off early for the staff dinner, which popped up at the last minute, initially there wasn't going to be one this year. Staff is getting huge and we were downtown, where things would be awkward and expensive. But a place was found with an upstairs room where we could get a package deal as long as everyone ordered from a limited menu. Originally I had planned to skip the dinner thing, if there was any, but as it turned out I felt good enough about my contribution to the con this year to feel I had earned it. So I went, on the loooong walk to the place, made even longer by the use of the skywalk system.
A lot of people were already there when we arrived, and at first there was room for all but one of us at the occupied tables. Guess who was the leftover. Brin kindly didn't leave me sitting alone, but it still put me in an "it figures" gloomy mood for a while, even when more people arrived and things were shuffled around and we ended up fitting with the rest of the Ops folks. The truth is I can't even remember what it's like anymore, to not feel alone in a crowd. Maybe I just can't recognize a welcoming environment these days even when one exists, I dunno. But before long Kale came around on his round of personal thanks and that perked me right up, as it does. I don't really remember what he said, exactly, it was loud there and there was a lot going on, but the lift from it lasted into Monday. :)
After chatting with everyone for a while I decided to duck out a bit early. It was my sister's birthday, the second year in a row Detour had landed on it ^^; and I wanted to at least take her out for dessert. Lee was heading back to the hotel as well, so I walked back with him, taking the direct route this time... and boarded an elevator for the first time since Thursday. Whew! Ran a very belated weekly update on .moon, which I had forgotten to do before leaving for dinner >.< (and about which dark_branwen helpfully texted me when I didn't show up, although there was nothing I could do about it at that point - I really need to get that set up so I can do it from my phone), and got on the road. I picked up my sister and took her out for a late dinner at TGI Friday's, where I had a single pumpkin cupcake, haha, I was way too full for anything else. With everything else, I had completely forgotten I had told jambosana I might come visit her and her friends if I had spare time on Sunday night. By the time I remembered, it was really, really late. I'm sorry ;_; I had really hoped to fit it all in, but there was only so much time. :\
I teared up a little on my way back to the hotel and hid out in my car for a bit, where the board president almost caught me. >.> Awkward! Fortunately I was able to handwave it and go inside, where I pretty much went straight up to my room. I was planning to go back down and wander around a bit, like I tend to do on Sunday, but I ended up chatting with my roommates instead. And wearing my badge and staff shirt until the last possible minute, as I'll never wear them again. It's funny the things that hit you.
Monday morning it was really move-out time. I was up pretty early and downstairs loading my car and getting Ops ready to move. There was a delay getting the truck in, so we waited around for a while, until I finally prodded everyone into sorting out the Lost & Found items. Those things can get pretty mixed up in the computer system. I'm hoping to improve it a bit before I hand over the Ops computer.
Things didn't really get rolling until much later than planned, so I wasn't able to help much before I had to leave. I was short on vacation time for Anime North, so I had to go in to work Monday afternoon, and I had to bring the Ops head back to my house first to pick up her car. I went to work for four hours, from 2 to 6 PM, which proved to be a short but interesting shift since I was still in con mode. It's funny, really. I'm very fast, efficient, and professional when I'm in con mode... you'd think it would be my actual paying job that would bring that out in me. xD I kind of wish I could function in con mode all the time. I'd probably be a better person.
I had hoped to go to Kale's after-party thing like I did last year, but by the time I got off work at 6 PM I had no idea what the situation was. So I went home, and slept for a hundred years. The end.
2009 was a excellent con experience to go out on. I was busy, I did lots of stuff, I hurt myself a couple of times, I felt like I'd been run over by a truck by Monday. It was great. All I've ever wanted was to pull my own weight like everyone else, to be as tired as everyone else. I was so glad to be able to walk out of there feeling happy and accomplished instead of bitter and emo. It really couldn't have gone any better. Of course, then I end up thinking, "Is it really that bad? Do I really want to give this up?" But the fact is that con afterglow is a deceiving thing. I felt good after last year's con, too, but it wasn't long before everything went back to how it always was. I suppose I should have tried harder, or maybe I just hadn't found the right spot for me yet... I guess I'll never know, now. Of course, if certain recent events are any indication, I really am doing the right thing here. :| (Ignore the paranoia, bb...)
In more ways than one, really. I was totally overinvested in this thing. I would've made Detour my entire life, if it had wanted me. I'm sure we'd all agree that's Bad. (On the other hand, though, what exactly is a life? People are always saying you should get one... but if you're not married, and you don't have kids, what is this all-important life you're supposed to be focused on? If not a shared hobby obsession, than what? Your job? Hell with that.)
Anyway, so I'll technically be moving to revolutionaryjo's department so I can keep running the fanfiction contests, but I'll be at-con staff only, at most, from now on. Done is done. So that is the end of that.
Pictures of what little con swag I picked up will be added when I remember to take them. Maybe tonight.