FailCon 2014, Day 4 - Last Day at C2E2 2014, Goodbyes and Final Thoughts
Click on these links to read about Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3. And, of course, I would be remiss not to mention the special episode of the Midnight Movie Exchange podcast noelct, jaklocke, phoenix_anew and jasondemotte did about C2E2. Check it out.
Last Day of C2E2 - Wrapping Up Loose Ends
Back on Saturday, Noel was talking about how he might simply not go to C2E2 on Sunday. And that's what he wound up doing. JD decided to sit the Sunday out, too. Jak and Angie went to a Let's Play panel (I think), wandered around for a bit and headed back to the hotel. I never would up running into them.
As for me, I wanted to attend one panel and take care of a few bits of unfinished business.
I missed the Supernatural City panel on Saturday, so I decided to do the next best thing and attend the Art of Worldbuilding panel, where authors Jacqueline Carey and Charlaine Harris (with some input from moderatior Chloe Neill, author of Chicagoland Vampires series) would talk about how they created their series' worlds. While that was a big part of the panel, for me it's less about learning anything from them then it is listening to authors talk about their craft and their writing process, which really was fascinating. And it reminded me that I never did read Carey's Kushiel's Dart, which Randi gifted me ages and ages ago. And it made me a bit curious about Neill's series. The few bits I read didn't grab me, but maybe I'd give it another shot. Eventually.
i got some more books and individual issues signed. I finally stopped by the "Random Penguin" table to grab one of the free books Noel told me about earlier. By that point, a lot of the books were gone. Based on the preview booklet I grabbed earlier, I decided to pick up a copy of Hounded by Kevin Hearne, the first book in the Iron Druid series. In a sad bit of irony, I wound up losing it the very next day, while covering the meeting for the newspaper. But by that point, I got far enough ahead to really get into it, and now I'm seriously considering buying it. Or at least grabbing a copy at the Chicago Public Library and finishing it.
And then, there's the matter of Yaya Han (daenerys).
I've written about her before on this LJ. As I mentioned in the last post, she is one of the very, very few cosplayers who actually seems to be earning a decent chunk of her money from cosplaying-related stuff (cosplay accessories, prints, TV appearances, etc). Believe it or not, I became interested in her cosplay largely on the strength of her craftsmanship. Especially when it came to her original costumes. I had followed her work on Twitter for a while without incident - until I decided to live-tweet Heroes of Cosplay.
The show, which aired on SyFy Channel last year, followed several cosplayers as they made costumes, prepared to attend conventions, etc. My opinion about this show could fit in their own post, but to sum it up, I thought the show was manipulative in terms of editing and presentation (quite obviously so), but, perhaps more egregiously, it made cosplay as a High Stakes, High Stress Thing that was terribly unfun. Which, to me, misses the point by a mile. Dressing up as a fictional character should be fun - otherwise, why do it? So I live-tweeted about the fakeness, about how the cosplayer presented as a villain actually came off sympathetic (earning me a fav from her then-fiance in one of the weirdest moments I've ever had on Twitter) and about how it was all so dreary.
I also may have gone on long tangent about Yaya Han's height. And her eyebrows. I knew she shaved her real ones and painted them on since, but it was really odd to see it on TV as opposed to in a photo, and I went on the long tangents about freaky eyebrows that don't move.
I'm still not entirely sure what part of that got Yaya Han to block me on Twitter (or if it was even something completely unrelated). But block me she did. And, once I found out she was going to have a booth at C2E2, I decided to... well, not confront her, exactly. Just apologize for the eyebrows and height jokes. I was willing to stand by my criticisms of the show, but after a year, those parts seemed petty. If she decides to keep blocking me, I could live with that. As a wise woman was told me, the point of an apology is to admit a wrong, not to get forgiveness.
I tried to catch Yaya Han on Saturday, but she wasn't in and I had other things to see. On Sunday, there was a bit of a line, but since it was the last day of C2E2 and I didn't have anywhere to go, I decided to stay.
But about ten minutes later, Yaya's husband, Brian Boling, told us that she was taking a 15-minute break. He counted us off to make sure we wouldn't lose our places in line and asked everybody to come back after the break.
As I left, I saw Yaya Han sitting in the booth chair, her back to the audience. Brian was trying to comfort her.
I'm still not entirely sure what happened. The gossip along the line was that someone said something mean. But by the time I came back, Yaya Han was as cheerful as ever, talking to everybody kindly and smiling at the compliments.
Looking at her in real life, I realized something that TV didn't show. She wore a lot of make-up. Complete with one of those super-large eyelashes.
And when it came my turn, I would up complimenting her costume-making skills and apologizing for calling her short on Twitter. I didn't give any further context. Partly because I felt guilty trying to bring up drama. And maybe part of me lost my nerve. And, of course, Yaya Han shrugged it off, saying that, it's okay, yeah, she was short. She even took a picture with me (where I wound up looking like crap, which is why I'm not posting it).
In the end, it felt... incomplete. That I should have either said everything or nothing at all. And, if Mrs Han comes to Chicago again, I wonder if it would be worth it to try to figure out why the heck I was blocked. Maybe it doesn't matter.
But then again, I'm not the type of person to just let matters drop. It still bugs me that things between queenanthai and I aren't settled, even though it's been three years and circumstances changed. On other hand, maybe it's not the best mindset to approach these kinds of things with.
Well, I don't have to figure it out now.
After that, there wasn't much to do. I stopped by a wooden TARDIS replica, where, in a rare crossing of streams, I ran into Alex, a reporter for Niles Bugle, one of our competing newspapers. I wasn't surprised to see him there - we talked a bit about going to C2E2 while we were covering a board meeting. It was actually kind of nice to run into him outside work, and I got to meet his girlfriend (who seemed pretty cool).
Alex took a picture of me inside the TARDIS replica. Now that, I will link.
Oh, and shortly after that happened, I discovered something I missed the previous two days. There was a lower, basement level under the convention floor. And there were several shoe-shining stations near the entrance. There were only two shoe-shiners at 12 stations, but they readily offered to polish the shoes - or boots - of anyone that passed by.
Last Day at C2E2 - Cosplay
Naturally, I took some shots of cosplayers (who weren't Yaya Han) on Sunday as well.
Filed under "not sure what it is, but it looks cool"
At first, I wasn't sure if this was cosplay or just a woman dressed up the way she usually does. Turned out she was cosplaying Elvira
The Rule 63 3rd Doctor cosplayer who was in line for Yaya Han's booth ahead of me
Silver Power Ranger from Power Rangers Super Megaforce season and Black Zeo Power Ranger - the "sixth rangers" on their respective seasons
Death and Dream of the Endless. Honestly, I was amazed to see one Dream cosplayer, let alone two.
Father and son Ghostbusters cosplay. To be honest, the kid didn't seem to happy to be photographed
Cloud and Gambit. Gambits seemed to be fairly popular this year at C2E2
Deadpool and (I'm actually not sure who the guy on the left is) posing with a family
Goodbyes, and Bad Directions Strike Again
After that... Well, there's not much else to say. I went to grab lunch at Ricobene's. Taking lessons from the previous day's non-pizza delays, I got a slice of pizza. I hung out with Noel, JD, Jak and Angie for a bit. We talked, I showed them one of the issues of the newspaper, so they'll have an idea of how I earn most of my living. But then, it was time to say goodbye.
Angie and Jak would leave early next morning. They had a long ride ahead of them, and it was made even longer because they had to dodge some tornado-type weather. They would up arriving in New Orleans way, way late at night.
I saw Noel and JD off the next morning. Took them as far as Jackson/Dearborn Blue Line 'L' station, and we said our goodbyes one last time before I headed back north. I had an assignment to get ready for.
But that was on Monday. On Sunday, I said goodbyes to Angie and Jak and headed back to C2E2. I knew skybreak_seeker wanted to stop by at C2E2. I figured that, by that point, he's already been there for an hour or two, and that maybe we could hang out a bit before I head for Randolph Street Argo Tea to upload my C2E2 photos.
But it turned out that, because of CTA-related delays, he was still on his way. And later, once I got to McCormick Place, it turned out that GoogleMaps gave him terrible directions, asking him to walk from Roosevelt 'L' station to McCormick Place.
As you can see from FailCon blogs, I'm no stranger to long walks, but this was ridiculous. Especially since taking a bus was so much easier and faster.
At this point, my phone was running very low on batteries. While I was hanging out at the hotel, Noel let me use his charger, but it turned out that it did jack squat. If I had a fully charged phone, I would have tried to find Adam and guide him to C2E2 personally. But instead, I found myself trying to direct him by texts with my phone plugged into a phone charger.
Now, by the time I got back to C2E2, it was about an hour and a half before the convention closing time. When, about half an hour later, Adam got hopelessly lost and decided to turn around, I didn't blame him. I was just sorry he missed the convention completely. And, let us be honest, that I didn't get to see him one last time before he headed home.
If I knew things were going to pan out like that, I would've given Adam very detailed directions when I saw him on Saturday evening. But... Well, hindsight is useless like that.
After letting my phone charge a bit more, I decided to head to Argo Tea after all. By that point, most people were leaving anyway.
Until next year, C2E2. Until next year.
Final Thoughts
All the way back on Saturday, NoelCT argued that maybe we went about this event all wrong. That next time, we shouldn't try to organize it around the convention. It made people who don't particularly like comics less interested in coming, and it didn't give us that much time to just hang around.
He had a point. Because, as I wrote last Sunday, that was the part I missed the most. Having so many people I largely know through the Internet hanging out together.
Thanks to FailCon, I know a bit more about jasondemotte, and Julie turned from a Stranger Who Followed Me on Twitter Out of the Blue to an Interesting Person That Followed Me on Twitter Out of the Blue. It would be interesting to see what happens next.
I'm not sure when all of us will be able to get together in one place again. Or when cherrymaryberry, sirius20_81, westonian and Bethany, who didn't make it this time, might be able to make it to Windy City. I do hope that someday, mysticowl and, by some miracle, CC, might be able make it out here. And I kind of want ceilidh_ann to visit just so I could show her Women and Children First bookstore (and everybody else would be welcome to come, because that place is amazing).
And, of course, in the ideal world, I want to figure out some way to get them all to meet Randi and Don. I would like them to meet my brother and sister, though I'm not sure if they would want to meet them. tweelore knows them, and alliancesjr knows some things about them, but, for everybody else, they are pretty much unknown factors.
(vladiatorr and I did discuss the possibility of me bringing some people to the bar where he works, but it quickly became apperant that it just wasn't going to work)
Angie invited all of us to visit her in New Orleans. She has been inviting me since 2012, and I actually came close to saving enough money to make the trip not once but twice. I have some legal things I need to sort out first, some debt that I need to pay off, but once that's taken care of... We'll see.
But until we meet again, in some way, this is the last FailCon blog. We will now be returing to the regular programming - the increasingly messy situation in Ukraine, some Chicago political things and new Urbis Arcana stories.
Well, at there's one part I'm looking forward to.
Last Day of C2E2 - Wrapping Up Loose Ends
Back on Saturday, Noel was talking about how he might simply not go to C2E2 on Sunday. And that's what he wound up doing. JD decided to sit the Sunday out, too. Jak and Angie went to a Let's Play panel (I think), wandered around for a bit and headed back to the hotel. I never would up running into them.
As for me, I wanted to attend one panel and take care of a few bits of unfinished business.
I missed the Supernatural City panel on Saturday, so I decided to do the next best thing and attend the Art of Worldbuilding panel, where authors Jacqueline Carey and Charlaine Harris (with some input from moderatior Chloe Neill, author of Chicagoland Vampires series) would talk about how they created their series' worlds. While that was a big part of the panel, for me it's less about learning anything from them then it is listening to authors talk about their craft and their writing process, which really was fascinating. And it reminded me that I never did read Carey's Kushiel's Dart, which Randi gifted me ages and ages ago. And it made me a bit curious about Neill's series. The few bits I read didn't grab me, but maybe I'd give it another shot. Eventually.
i got some more books and individual issues signed. I finally stopped by the "Random Penguin" table to grab one of the free books Noel told me about earlier. By that point, a lot of the books were gone. Based on the preview booklet I grabbed earlier, I decided to pick up a copy of Hounded by Kevin Hearne, the first book in the Iron Druid series. In a sad bit of irony, I wound up losing it the very next day, while covering the meeting for the newspaper. But by that point, I got far enough ahead to really get into it, and now I'm seriously considering buying it. Or at least grabbing a copy at the Chicago Public Library and finishing it.
And then, there's the matter of Yaya Han (daenerys).
I've written about her before on this LJ. As I mentioned in the last post, she is one of the very, very few cosplayers who actually seems to be earning a decent chunk of her money from cosplaying-related stuff (cosplay accessories, prints, TV appearances, etc). Believe it or not, I became interested in her cosplay largely on the strength of her craftsmanship. Especially when it came to her original costumes. I had followed her work on Twitter for a while without incident - until I decided to live-tweet Heroes of Cosplay.
The show, which aired on SyFy Channel last year, followed several cosplayers as they made costumes, prepared to attend conventions, etc. My opinion about this show could fit in their own post, but to sum it up, I thought the show was manipulative in terms of editing and presentation (quite obviously so), but, perhaps more egregiously, it made cosplay as a High Stakes, High Stress Thing that was terribly unfun. Which, to me, misses the point by a mile. Dressing up as a fictional character should be fun - otherwise, why do it? So I live-tweeted about the fakeness, about how the cosplayer presented as a villain actually came off sympathetic (earning me a fav from her then-fiance in one of the weirdest moments I've ever had on Twitter) and about how it was all so dreary.
I also may have gone on long tangent about Yaya Han's height. And her eyebrows. I knew she shaved her real ones and painted them on since, but it was really odd to see it on TV as opposed to in a photo, and I went on the long tangents about freaky eyebrows that don't move.
I'm still not entirely sure what part of that got Yaya Han to block me on Twitter (or if it was even something completely unrelated). But block me she did. And, once I found out she was going to have a booth at C2E2, I decided to... well, not confront her, exactly. Just apologize for the eyebrows and height jokes. I was willing to stand by my criticisms of the show, but after a year, those parts seemed petty. If she decides to keep blocking me, I could live with that. As a wise woman was told me, the point of an apology is to admit a wrong, not to get forgiveness.
I tried to catch Yaya Han on Saturday, but she wasn't in and I had other things to see. On Sunday, there was a bit of a line, but since it was the last day of C2E2 and I didn't have anywhere to go, I decided to stay.
But about ten minutes later, Yaya's husband, Brian Boling, told us that she was taking a 15-minute break. He counted us off to make sure we wouldn't lose our places in line and asked everybody to come back after the break.
As I left, I saw Yaya Han sitting in the booth chair, her back to the audience. Brian was trying to comfort her.
I'm still not entirely sure what happened. The gossip along the line was that someone said something mean. But by the time I came back, Yaya Han was as cheerful as ever, talking to everybody kindly and smiling at the compliments.
Looking at her in real life, I realized something that TV didn't show. She wore a lot of make-up. Complete with one of those super-large eyelashes.
And when it came my turn, I would up complimenting her costume-making skills and apologizing for calling her short on Twitter. I didn't give any further context. Partly because I felt guilty trying to bring up drama. And maybe part of me lost my nerve. And, of course, Yaya Han shrugged it off, saying that, it's okay, yeah, she was short. She even took a picture with me (where I wound up looking like crap, which is why I'm not posting it).
In the end, it felt... incomplete. That I should have either said everything or nothing at all. And, if Mrs Han comes to Chicago again, I wonder if it would be worth it to try to figure out why the heck I was blocked. Maybe it doesn't matter.
But then again, I'm not the type of person to just let matters drop. It still bugs me that things between queenanthai and I aren't settled, even though it's been three years and circumstances changed. On other hand, maybe it's not the best mindset to approach these kinds of things with.
Well, I don't have to figure it out now.
After that, there wasn't much to do. I stopped by a wooden TARDIS replica, where, in a rare crossing of streams, I ran into Alex, a reporter for Niles Bugle, one of our competing newspapers. I wasn't surprised to see him there - we talked a bit about going to C2E2 while we were covering a board meeting. It was actually kind of nice to run into him outside work, and I got to meet his girlfriend (who seemed pretty cool).
Alex took a picture of me inside the TARDIS replica. Now that, I will link.
Oh, and shortly after that happened, I discovered something I missed the previous two days. There was a lower, basement level under the convention floor. And there were several shoe-shining stations near the entrance. There were only two shoe-shiners at 12 stations, but they readily offered to polish the shoes - or boots - of anyone that passed by.
Last Day at C2E2 - Cosplay
Naturally, I took some shots of cosplayers (who weren't Yaya Han) on Sunday as well.
Filed under "not sure what it is, but it looks cool"
At first, I wasn't sure if this was cosplay or just a woman dressed up the way she usually does. Turned out she was cosplaying Elvira
The Rule 63 3rd Doctor cosplayer who was in line for Yaya Han's booth ahead of me
Silver Power Ranger from Power Rangers Super Megaforce season and Black Zeo Power Ranger - the "sixth rangers" on their respective seasons
Death and Dream of the Endless. Honestly, I was amazed to see one Dream cosplayer, let alone two.
Father and son Ghostbusters cosplay. To be honest, the kid didn't seem to happy to be photographed
Cloud and Gambit. Gambits seemed to be fairly popular this year at C2E2
Deadpool and (I'm actually not sure who the guy on the left is) posing with a family
Goodbyes, and Bad Directions Strike Again
After that... Well, there's not much else to say. I went to grab lunch at Ricobene's. Taking lessons from the previous day's non-pizza delays, I got a slice of pizza. I hung out with Noel, JD, Jak and Angie for a bit. We talked, I showed them one of the issues of the newspaper, so they'll have an idea of how I earn most of my living. But then, it was time to say goodbye.
Angie and Jak would leave early next morning. They had a long ride ahead of them, and it was made even longer because they had to dodge some tornado-type weather. They would up arriving in New Orleans way, way late at night.
I saw Noel and JD off the next morning. Took them as far as Jackson/Dearborn Blue Line 'L' station, and we said our goodbyes one last time before I headed back north. I had an assignment to get ready for.
But that was on Monday. On Sunday, I said goodbyes to Angie and Jak and headed back to C2E2. I knew skybreak_seeker wanted to stop by at C2E2. I figured that, by that point, he's already been there for an hour or two, and that maybe we could hang out a bit before I head for Randolph Street Argo Tea to upload my C2E2 photos.
But it turned out that, because of CTA-related delays, he was still on his way. And later, once I got to McCormick Place, it turned out that GoogleMaps gave him terrible directions, asking him to walk from Roosevelt 'L' station to McCormick Place.
As you can see from FailCon blogs, I'm no stranger to long walks, but this was ridiculous. Especially since taking a bus was so much easier and faster.
At this point, my phone was running very low on batteries. While I was hanging out at the hotel, Noel let me use his charger, but it turned out that it did jack squat. If I had a fully charged phone, I would have tried to find Adam and guide him to C2E2 personally. But instead, I found myself trying to direct him by texts with my phone plugged into a phone charger.
Now, by the time I got back to C2E2, it was about an hour and a half before the convention closing time. When, about half an hour later, Adam got hopelessly lost and decided to turn around, I didn't blame him. I was just sorry he missed the convention completely. And, let us be honest, that I didn't get to see him one last time before he headed home.
If I knew things were going to pan out like that, I would've given Adam very detailed directions when I saw him on Saturday evening. But... Well, hindsight is useless like that.
After letting my phone charge a bit more, I decided to head to Argo Tea after all. By that point, most people were leaving anyway.
Until next year, C2E2. Until next year.
Final Thoughts
All the way back on Saturday, NoelCT argued that maybe we went about this event all wrong. That next time, we shouldn't try to organize it around the convention. It made people who don't particularly like comics less interested in coming, and it didn't give us that much time to just hang around.
He had a point. Because, as I wrote last Sunday, that was the part I missed the most. Having so many people I largely know through the Internet hanging out together.
Thanks to FailCon, I know a bit more about jasondemotte, and Julie turned from a Stranger Who Followed Me on Twitter Out of the Blue to an Interesting Person That Followed Me on Twitter Out of the Blue. It would be interesting to see what happens next.
I'm not sure when all of us will be able to get together in one place again. Or when cherrymaryberry, sirius20_81, westonian and Bethany, who didn't make it this time, might be able to make it to Windy City. I do hope that someday, mysticowl and, by some miracle, CC, might be able make it out here. And I kind of want ceilidh_ann to visit just so I could show her Women and Children First bookstore (and everybody else would be welcome to come, because that place is amazing).
And, of course, in the ideal world, I want to figure out some way to get them all to meet Randi and Don. I would like them to meet my brother and sister, though I'm not sure if they would want to meet them. tweelore knows them, and alliancesjr knows some things about them, but, for everybody else, they are pretty much unknown factors.
(vladiatorr and I did discuss the possibility of me bringing some people to the bar where he works, but it quickly became apperant that it just wasn't going to work)
Angie invited all of us to visit her in New Orleans. She has been inviting me since 2012, and I actually came close to saving enough money to make the trip not once but twice. I have some legal things I need to sort out first, some debt that I need to pay off, but once that's taken care of... We'll see.
But until we meet again, in some way, this is the last FailCon blog. We will now be returing to the regular programming - the increasingly messy situation in Ukraine, some Chicago political things and new Urbis Arcana stories.
Well, at there's one part I'm looking forward to.