| Anime North Con Report AHOY! |
[May. 29th, 2007|07:39 pm] |
So, since this is epically long, I'm cutting it.
Anime North Convention Report
This is the second year that I’ve been to Anime North and the third convention that I have attended. So, one could guess that I’m a relative newby on the con circuit. Last time I rode Greyhound to Toronto, ON, but this time I was lucky to have my boyfriend and our friend Marce go with me to the con.
Lee, the exceptionally wonderful boyfriend, came and got me from Clarksville, IN on Wednesday night and we made our epic start of our journey Thursday morning. We traveled to Columbus, OH, home of the wonderfully talented seamstress and artist Marce to add to our party of adventurers. While waiting for Marce to get home from work Lee and Marce’s roommates Steph and Kat took us to the New Age store called Pearls of Wisdom.
Now, being the proud little Pagan girl I am who loves all things that shine that come from the ground save diamonds had a blast in this store. I spent nearly an hour buying interesting crystals for my collection. Their selection and prices was really good, unlike some stores that are simply religion commercialized. Funnily enough, I almost spent as much here as I did at the con, but to continue the epic tale!
Marce arrived home and fitted me for my costumes. Embarrassingly enough, I’d gained some weight since she last fitted me and that she had to take a few things out. However, we had a surprise costume for Lee at the con and it was fun trying to keep him away as we plotted and conspired this against him.
Much fun was had that night as I hung with Kat and Steph as Lee and Marce slaved away on the costumes. Poor Marce ended up pulling an all nighter that night trying to finish everything. Even more amusing is that Lee can make models of any gun you’d see in anime or else wise, but my boyfriend cannot use a needle and thread. The next morning we left a couple of hours late because of our costumes, but we were off on the true stretch of our Epic Journey.
I ended up sleeping on Lee’s awesome leather jacket for most of the way. We talked about future cosplays that we’d like to attempt. I pointed out that I wanted to do a really good Ed from Fullmetal Alchemist after I lost about a hundred pounds. See, most people who cosplay Ed are waifs who are too tall and do NOT get the hair correct. In reality Ed’s about 5’1-5’3 with his platform boots on, not to mention the character is rather compact and sturdy. So, guess who’s 5’0 and broad, specially for a girl with long blonde hair. Let’s just hope that the low-carb starts to work and I can keep exercising, because . . . Well, Ed does not wear leather pants and yet, every fangirl keeps putting him in them.
After more driving and sleeping, we arrive on the Canadian boarder. I immediately became scared. One reason is that, at least until next year, to drive into Canada one just needs a photo ID. However, going by plane or sea one needs a passport. I was afraid that they suddenly changed it ahead of schedule.
Then there was the custom’s officer.
The man was mean. And scary. Demanding questions and everything, which I understand why he has to, but he was way too intimidating and I was afraid he wasn’t going to let us into the boarder. Until he asked us why we were going to Canada and told him we were going to an Anime Convention. He dismissed us as harmless geeks and let us through. Even though his snort of disgust was sort of amusing.
After an hour of driving and fretting about currency exchange on my part, we reached the convention center. Marce, who’s a professional costume maker, and Lee were actually impressed by the costumes they saw as we parked her car and proceeded to get in line for registration. I was surprised by the lack of Naruto there and the more uncommon and old school anime cosplayers.
I spotted Ash and proceeded to say hello. I told her there were a few panels I’d like to go to tonight after we got registered, in our hotel room and costumed up. We agreed to meet later and my Epic Party and I waited in line. Registration was actually going very quickly and we were done in less than fifteen minutes. We headed off to our rooms at the
Marriot and proceeded to check in.
We lucked out and got the room with the double bed so Marce wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor. Go me! Anyway, we headed up to our room and proceeded to get into costumes and wigs. Last year I had some issues with my wig, but Marce is an experienced master of the wig.
I was dressing up as Arcueid Brunestud from Lunar Legend Tsukihime and, with my short plus-sized build I looked more like Neko-Arc than regular Arc. So, next time I’m wearing that costume I’m adding cat ears and a tail. Marce was Akiha and Lee was Shiki, the hero of the game/show. Marce looked just like the character, it was awesome. Anyway, we drove back to the convention center, Marce and Lee went to the dealer’s room as I rushed off to find Ash and get to the end of the Plus Sized Cosplay panel I wanted to go to.
We get there on the second half of the panel. I was happy to see that the people heading the panel were plus sized, save for the one guy. The two women were as big or even bigger than I am as were most of the people sitting on the panel. Ash, poor Ash who is probably 110 pounds soaking wet after a good meal, sat beside me.
I brought up the issue of finding shoes for cosplay. I have a short foot, but its really wide. In fact, I had bought a pair of pumps for Arc, but they were too loose around the ankle yet barely big enough for the widest part of my foot. I even took off my shoes to show this off.
One panelist talked about having shoes custom made for me, but the prices he was quoting was outlandish. Another talked about going to an army surplus store for boots. Ash, actually had the best idea from being a former dancer. She said get dancing costume shoes. Which makes since, because they’re made to wear and look good.
Other points brought up was cross-playing, girls dressing up as boys. (Lee isn’t thrilled with that idea, save for the Ed.) Another was props. An amazing prop can take attention away from a chubby person in a mediocre costume. It was jokingly said that spend a month on your costume and the other eleven on your prop.
One of the people in front, a wire thin guy dressed as Ash from the Evil Dead Trilogy lifted up his props and well, they were special. One was of a chainsaw made of a shoebox, cardboard and, I kid you not, a tomato sauce can which was still stained red from its contents. Not to mention he was a strawberry blond while Bruce Campbell has black hair.
However, when he lifted his props I had to say, “Groovy!” in that deep, sardonic voice. The only person who got my joke was the guy sitting across from me. He proceeded to giggle like a little girl as his eyes gleamed under his glasses with mirth.
The panel ended with the guy panelist, who made the comment on props because he was carrying a coffin and two honking guns, posing for pictures. He said something to someone and proceeded to break out into an old 70’s song. I sang the following lyric and he looked at me and smiled.
Just because I’m twenty-four and look like I’m twelve doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate classic rock.
The next panel was in the same room and it was for Hellsing, which is one of my favorite animes of all time. Oddly enough, I didn’t see any real Hellsing Cosplayers in there save for one Anderson, but there were several at the con. The guys leading the panel reminded me of heavy metal rock stars and were quite cool. They asked how far everyone had gotten into the series and the manga and apparently I was one of the most spoiled in the room. (I also pimped out Steph’s awesome Vladicard costume she made. Let’s just say it’s a set of medieval armor made completely from sheet metal. The lead panelist proceeded to state he had to find it and see it.) After finding out about how far everyone was in the series, it was issued how far we would talk about and to what point.
We talked about the Hellsing prequel The Dawn and to up to part seven in the manga. Then the tide turned to the strong female characters of Hellsing such as Seras Victoria and my personal favorite, Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing. Interestingly enough, Japan never really had a feminist movement, hence the roll that women often take in anime, the rolls that that Integra shatters with an iron fist.
Part of why the fans think there’s so many strong female characters in Hellsing is that it takes place in England who’s known for strong female rulers such as the Elizabeths and so on and so forth. The lead panelist and I were going back and forth, not arguing mind you, just bouncing back ideas and observations we had about the characters. Almost every girl in the room was becoming animated and agreeing with me as I kept bringing up more and more points on how wonderful a strong female lead Integra was.
Then the main panelist pointed at me and said, “You’re coming to my Gender Roles in Anime panel tomorrow.” He didn’t ask if I would come, but he demanded it. Which amused the hell out of me.
We also talked about sub VS dub and it was nice to see a diehard Hellsing fan not trash Dark Horse’s Translation of the manga. Also discussed was Alucard’s boredom with everything around him and how humans fascinate him as well as why he turned Seras and his relationship to Integra. I noted that most of the girls in the room were also fans of the Integra/Alucard pairing as well.
That panel ended with a high note and Ash and I moved on to our next panel, Lemon Writing 101. For those who don’t know, Lemons are fanfictions with high sexual contents. So this was nerd porn in literary form.
We settle into the panel. I point out that my costume is actually from an H-Game (no one has recognized me yet) and the head makes a crack about it. And the other people on the panel are editors for gay men’s magazines or gay men’s porn magazines. Now, I have no problem with Yaoi. (For the uninitiated, yaoi is boy/boy with sexual content while Shonen Ai is simply boy’s romance.) I sometimes even read it and look at the art. I just like het better.
As the panel goes on I ask why is there so much yaoi but little heterosexual romance. Part of it is that’s what’s popular in the fandom right now. On the flip side, there is hardly any yuri (girl/girl) out there. Then it goes into that there are eight year old girls writing yaoi out there and posting it on the web.
Next was about the oddity of everything in fanfiction, such as you can find almost everything. Which lead to the priceless comment about there being a fanfiction of an Anamophic Elephant man going on a rape rampage. Then one of the magazine editors told of a story involving Santa Clause that she edited at once, which was disturbing and hilarious at the same time.
Then there was one person who decided to be a major asshat and ridicule the fact that fandom is stagnant because we have a collection of slang that we use. He went on and on about how we get set in such terms and so on and so forth. Luckily the panelist shot him down while the rest of us wanted to kill the heckler.
So I brought up the issue of research in erotic fiction. Such as the lack of condoms or lubricant in the yaoi fanfiction, or my personal favorite, “I read one time, ‘He then thrust his penis into her clitoris!’” Every girl in the room cringed and crossed their legs and a couple of them even moaned.
One of the panelists said that one of her friends refused to write about lubricants and condoms because they weren’t sexy. Then said panelist said that her friend was “doing it wrong”. This went back and forth for a while, then the lack of reviews for good fics or the people begging for reviews was brought up.
In many fanfictions, authors beg for reviews or they threaten they won’t write the next chapter or so on and so forth. Or the reviews one gets is mainly, as I like to call it, blowing sunshine up one’s ass and telling them how great it is and so on and so forth. When someone offers creative criticism and tries to teach them how to improve their writing a lot of these authors go ballistic.
This brought up being a panel on how to write reviews for next year. I don’t know if it’ll go through or not, but it is an interesting idea. The panel ends and I’m a little hungry so Ash and I head off to Tim Horton’s.
As we’re walking I’m noticing a burning sensation on my thighs, like carpet burn. I’m wearing hose with the control top, but each step hurts a lot no matter how I readjust the flipping things. We get to Tim Horton’s and I get some doughnuts because at after midnight they really don’t have anything else left.
Ash and I are sitting, chatting and eating doughnuts when a cute Asian guy recognizes Ash’s costume and starts to talk to her. He’s pretty enamored of her and they’re dressed from the same game. He then says how young he feels and we tell him our ages.
He proceeds to tell us he’s fifteen.
Talk about feeling like a dirty old woman. The kid looked like he was eighteen at the least. What happened to people actually looking their ages? I mean, the kid looked legal.
After that Ash and I walk back to my hotel. Amusingly enough, there are sprinklers going off everywhere and we’re having to dash to avoid them. We didn’t know this when we were reserving the hotel, but it’s like half a mile away from the convention. I tell Ash goodnight and head off to my room. Marce and Lee are mostly asleep and I join them.
I get woken up the next morning at around 6:30 by a combination of alarm and music. It scares the crap out of me and I jolt out of bed. Marce still had some of the costume to work on before I headed off to the Fanfiction Awards panel. I wake up about an hour later and take my shower and stuff.
The costume is a giant poofy ball gown made of light velvet and taffeta complete with a petticoat to make it bellow out even more. Marce finishes painting it and we put it on. Then we have the wig. I then proceed to haul ass to the Fanfiction Awards panel in the fluffy dress.
I get there after getting lost in the hotel and running in the dress. I sit down at the back and listen to the conversation. As I’m sitting there I realize that one of the guys there keeps staring at me. I look down to notice my dress is drooping sort of low and I’m flashing people. I fold my arms over my chest so it’s not as bad.
I get invited to sit with the rest of the group. Apparently, again, I didn’t win anything. The conversation is more of the same of the last night without the porn. Then the issue of original characters are brought up. A lot of fanfiction authors are not comfortable of making their own worlds.
I bring up how I created SPF and that I used fanfiction as sort of a way to practice my writing before I became confidant enough to write my own stuff. I talk a little bit about it and the guy heading the panel asks, “You know they’re going to write yaoi fanfic about it right? You’re just asking for it.”
I reply that I was expecting that and, truthfully, looking forward to it. I mentioned that I was being published and that you could even reserve the anthology I’m in on Amazon.com. I got teased for self-promotion, mocked for it even.
I’m sorry, but isn’t the point of being published also selling one’s work if they want to make a living of it? I haven’t written a fanfic in ages except for the one for last year’s contest and the one for this year. Then someone brought up that next year there should be a panel for pimping one’s work.
The conversation turned to a crossover generator that someone had put on line that throws up series and even parings for writing exercises. Crossovers were brought up and the conversation became even geekier and geekier. I’m a geek too, but I was reminded of the people who live in their mom’s basement while playing D&D non stop.
Writing is something than more than just fun. It’s a part of who I am. If you ask me what I am the first thing I’ll answer you is a writer, then Cherokee/Shawnee, but the writer always comes first. I’m not going to write some epic Fullmetal Alchemist story, but I’ll create a paranormal world with unique and fun characters that’ll suck you in.
With that I decide that I’m not going to enter next year’s fanfiction contest if I even get to go to Anime North.
My days of fandom have been long dead. Sitting with a bunch of geeks like that made me realize that. So, with a heavy heart I go off to find Lee and Marce at the Dealer’s Room of the con so I can also get some pictures commissioned from Artists Alley.
Being with Marce and Lee make me feel better. We look around and there’s not really impressing me this time. However, I do commission a cute sketch of Aurora for five bucks at one booth. At another there’s one who does digital coloring and her stuff is pretty amazing. So, I get a couple of characters that I’ve never had artwork done for before from her. As we’re walking someone recognizes me from the commission I asked for last year.
She happened to do the awesome Gabriel Umbra sketch for me last year. I get excited and happy that she not only recognized me and that my character was one of the most fun things she’s ever drawn for anyone. So, I get her to sketch Quinn Frost for me.
After that we head out to the Dealer’s Room. Lee gets me a plushie of Ed from FMA and a creepy yet adorable Ryuk from Death Note plushie. I get him a set of statues he’s been coveting for a long time and more fun times are had.
We’re getting stopped for photos quite a bit too since we’re all dressed from Tsukihime. That’s always nice to whore up for pictures. It’s rather fun.
Then after some massive phone confusion I hook up with Ash and Hollie. Hollie has my beautiful commission of Forest for me and I adore it. I’ll share it at a later date once it’s all scannified.
We hang out together and much fun is had. The rest of the con isn’t really event worthy. Or rather, some things went on Saturday night that were fun but better left unsaid, you get me? Like Lee and Marce stumbling in tipsy while, half asleep I ask, “Why did you get drunk?”
Next morning comes and we get into our last cosplays and hit the Dealer’s Room one last time. I pick up my remaining sketch and then it’s back to the US. All and all, Anime North was a very fun convention with a lot of nice people and great cosplays. |
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![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/68455862/4307421) | From: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dracschick
2007-05-30 01:05 am (UTC)
glad you had a good time....... | (Link)
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yep, writing (and my universe) is part of who I am as well:)
LOL, it sounds like it was a fun con! I'm sorry I missed it! <3
From: (Anonymous)
2007-05-30 11:21 pm (UTC)
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Yeah, it was lots of good times with some REALLY good cosplayers. It was funny, the cosplayers were either really good or epic fail with not much middle ground.
I was on that Hellsing panel! :D I was the guy wearing a black dress and red head-wrap.
Rock-star huh? :D
If you're who I think I'm remembering, you really helped contribute to the panel, thanks a lot. I'm glad my comments about Alucard's general-boredom human-fascination and Japan's lack of a feminist movement stuck with you. (:
Oh yes! I remember you!
Yes, you both looked like Rock Stars. XD
I was the short blonde in the bad wig, white turtleneck and plum dress waxing about Integra. So yep, that was probably me. Also, I'm the one who described Trinity Blood as: "Mix Vampire Hunter D, Trigun, Hellsing and Crap into a blender and you get Trinity Blood." | |
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cheerful