Personal Note: Otakon Report (Day 1)
Jul. 23rd, 2007 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nebroadweThis is going to be too long for a single post, so I shall divide my "What I Did Over Otakon Weekend" essay into two parts, of which this is the first. Enjoy!
Due to travel and weather conditions, I arrived in Maryland late, but fortunately not so late that I couldn't join my cohorts in a quick credentials run. We made it to the Convention Center at about quarter-to-closing, but had no difficulties parking or acquiring our badges and bags. What looked like a line outside the Pratt Street entrance turned out to be simply a crowd of the already-credentialed meeting and greeting and milling about. We were in and out in five minutes. I've never had a bad experience with Otakon staff, but I've had interesting ones: the gentleman who checked me in this year, for instance, had a long forked white beard balanced by a pair of fluffy white inumimi, which (he told me) were hand-sewn and very easy to care for (clean them with a little dishwashing liquid and warm water and fluff dry).
Next morning I rediscovered one of the disadvantages of group excursions. I love my friends dearly, but very few of them are early risers, while I am the lark's best friend. The last of our party had arrived at an ungodly late hour (travel and weather conditions, again), long after I had collapsed into sleep; I had the shower all to myself when I rolled out of bed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, at 6:30 am, and sat around twiddling my thumbs until 9:00. With nothing but a glass of juice to console me, but that's my own fault. I believe in breakfast, but I also believe that it's impolite to rifle your host's cupboards for a meal while they're asleep. Fortunately, my hosts arose to save me and to give me directions to the local Metro stop, so that I could depart in advance of the rest of the party (who were travel-exhausted to the point of sleeping right through their projected wake times. Sometimes you can't make that early-morning cosplay session, no matter how much you'd enjoy it).
I recommend the Metro -- it's clean, fast and cheap; if I ever come to Otakon and house myself on my own nickel, I'll probably look for a motel in the Glen Burnie area and Metro in and back every day, since I don't usually con-till-dawn. (On the current schedule, you're good till midnight, but then the trains all turn back into pumpkins.) I'm not the only one who thinks so, either; cosplayers in full regalia accompanied me both ways. (The evening commuters were more bemused by them than the morning ones, though -- or perhaps simply more awake.) So, after a leisurely ride in, I hopped off at the Convention Center and was just in time for a session of Japanese animation from the "Steamboat Willie" era. I missed the opening crawl, so I'm not sure who's released a box-set of these very charming cartoons, but I showed up for the right disc: "Momotaro", "The Inch-High Samurai", "The Monkey-Sword Masamune" and "The Stolen Lump" (a Japanese analogue of a European folktale I've encountered as "The Two Hunchbacks" -- a hunchback encounters the fairies and amuses them so much that they take his hunch; his nastier compatriot tries to repeat the feat and ends up with the first man's hunch as well as his own), as well as a live-action/animated short, "Taro's Toy Train" (a boy receives a toy train as a gift from his father and dreams about being a conductor on a train whose passengers are all anthropomorphized animals -- imagine hippos wearing geta), "The Baseball Match" (rabbits v. tanuki -- the rabbit catcher and pitcher signal with their ears; the tanuki slugger uses his tail as a bat; and the game ends in a draw when a frog eats the ball under the assumption it's an egg) and several song-based pieces, including a Fantasia-esque setting of the national anthem, which used silhouette puppets to act out mythological tableaux. I was charmed. Once the people who didn't get what they were seeing left the room, it was a very enjoyable show.
After that I wandered downstairs to ADV's first episode sampler (showing in a far larger room that seemed warranted by the crowd, or lack thereof) to get a look at Air. On the way I saw a very large cosplayer dressed as Kon from Bleach pushing a Rukia in a wheelchair. Bleach is by far the most popular cosplay option here -- last year's Amestrian military presence is much diminished, though I did see a number of FMA characters and older series like Trigun, Sailor Moon, Chobits, Inuyasha and Utena continue popular. Oh, and lots of Naruto, but this year Uruhara Kisuke's hat occupies the place Naruto's headband did last year (i.e., if your cosplay consists of only one item ... ) I complimented one Edward Elric on her automail arm and a Princess Tutu and a Kraehe on their costumes, though I must post over to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
princesstutu to apologize to the Kraehe for not making it clear my compliment included them both. We were in the Dealer's Room at the time and it was a little difficult to do anything but a walk-by lauding. Plenty of non-anime-related costuming as well: a nicely put-together group of Harry Potter and Co.; Westley as the Dread Pirate Roberts (whom I didn't see in action this year, just sacked out in a hallway napping with his ROUS over his face); and a Wii or two. The cleverest costume I saw all day, by the way, was a sundress built out of "POLICE LINE--DO NOT CROSS" tape -- sassy, but not annoying. One of my hosts was a first-time con-goer who found some of the costumes a wee bit ... over the top. We all agreed that it would be an act of mercy to explain to some of the exhibitionists that they needed to check their displays more thoroughly before opening (the theatrical costumer among us was scathing about people who didn't take proper account of their own body shapes when planning their outfits), but chickened out of actually doing so.
If all this sounds like a detour from the Air showing, well, it is. That's a half-hour of my life I'd prefer to have back. I probably should have left after the first seven minutes, but I don't like to snap-judge stories. I had thought, from what I'd heard, that it might be a reverse Hi, Lili with a more overt fantasy component, but I haven't wanted to stake my eyeballs this badly since I saw Piano last year. The male protagonist's WTH? response to all the jewel-eyed, confiding schoolgirls populating the unbearably cute seaside town (complete with a hyperglycemia-inducing stray dog whose character design was stolen from Kare Kano) was the only saving grace of this piece, but even he was stuck with (in the dub, anyway) the world's sappiest line to close the episode. Augh. Not recommended.
After that I made my first foray into the Dealer's Room, which was a complete zoo. People were swarming the discount manga retailers as if it were (to borrow a phrase) fish time at the seal tank. I dove for the bucket and managed to snag a copy of FMA 11 (Viz) for a friend on the cheap and copies of FMA 15 and 16 (Square Enix) for myself, as well as some Cardcaptor Sakura trading cards for my goddaughter and her sister, but otherwise I kept my purse buttoned. It actually took me a second go-round later in the afternoon to find the import manga -- the gent from whom I purchased FMA last year didn't have it this year, but fortunately Sasuga Books also had a booth -- which surprised me. Just shows how much the domestic market has grown, I guess. I mean, Borders had a booth. And so did Peter Beagle, but I just wandered shyly by without interacting. He was mostly sitting back and letting his rep do the talking.
Fighting my way out of the Dealer's Room took longer than I expected, and then I got hung up by the fact that the Convention Center had shut down a number of escalators on the Charles Street side of things in order to concentrate traffic along certain "highways" (some bright lad or lass actually put lane markings along the 300 level hallway, which helped keep things sensibly organized there), so I arrived late to the Pumpkin Scissors premiere, which seemed to have started early. May I say, "Augh!" again, but in the other direction? This looked plenty interesting -- a military drama about a relief unit with one of my favorite kinds of protagonist: the quiet guy with a past. Lovely animation (Gonzo appears to have been involved), sound work and voice work ... so of course I missed about half of it. Augh! I'll look forward to seeing this in R1 release.
I hadn't been planning to attend any actor panels, but at the last minute I wandered up to see Vic Mignogna and Steve Blum and was glad I did. They're both very articulate and witty and the audience kept the idiot squeeage to a minimum. (Well, except for the silly young man who stood in the middle of the main aisle waving his arms back in forth, hoping to be called on -- and was called on, with the comment that they figured they'd better give him his chance before he keeled over with exhaustion -- and then went back to doing it. It was rather childish of the Ed cosplayer sitting next to me to go up and stand behind him briefly and give him another pair of waving arms, but sometimes temptation is irresistible. Besides, the Ed was with a very well-outfitted Winry and a stellar Hughes, stray lock of hair and all, so I was feeling very much in charity with him.) I was impressed with how both actors handled the overwhelmed young girls who could barely speak for the wonderfulness of talking to them; Vic Mignogna in particular was very big-brotherly, which was helpful (one girl was so close to dissolving into a puddle of OMG that she was in danger of shorting out the mic, but he teased her out of it). A class act, these gentlemen, right through all the technical hitches, terrible puns and silly voices (and a "Real Fans of Genius: Dedicated Otakon Congoer" skit and a music video trumpeting the win of the Risembool Rangers over the Miniskirt Army at dodgeball at a Tennessee con -- also available on YouTube. :-)
I also attended a pair of discussion panels. I wasn't sure what to expect from Fanfiction 101 -- at this point, I'm pretty sure I could place out of an instructional 101 in the field, but one always returns to the basics of good writing and I know less about the subculture of fanfiction than I do about the process of producing it. So I grabbed a seat in the back. Unfortunately, the panelists had no presentation to make; they opened the floor up for questions immediately and the session never focused itself. A lot of pet peeves were aired and a few substantive issues (like how to get your work out where it can be noticed and the pros and cons of AUs and crossovers) were addressed, but it was a disappointing session. About fifteen minutes in I found myself wanting to give the panel, especially when one of the moderators said, "Someone should run a panel on Concrit 101." Yes, yes! Let me! :-) But I kept quiet till the end and left.
The other panel, "The Older Otaku," was exactly the opposite. The moderators, four gentlemen, came prepared both to present material themselves and to promote discussion. They also grabbed an articulate woman from the audience to join their panel about a quarter of the way in, because they had been looking for someone to represent the woman's perspective (she had a very funny riff on "Hello Kitty" girls hanging out with "Akira" guys in the eighties), and then one of the older Otakon staff members stepped up as well, and told the most amazing war stories from the really early days of fandom: closet-sized video rooms packed so full you literally had to crawl over people to enter or leave (woe betide the poor sap who got stuck running the projector) and AMVs edited together the old-fashioned way, with scissors and tape, and timed to the music by guess and by golly (having seen The Prisoner, this gent put together an AMV of Yamato battle scenes to "All You Need Is Love" -- sweet!). The discussion covered a range of topics but moved smoothly from one to the next. We talked about what shows got us involved, the changing dynamics of fandom, the changes in technology and their effect on the mainstreaming of anime, and these here young'uns and their Internetz and their yaoi/yuri paddles. Of course, we agreed, many things are much better now: just look at the utter lack of rapacious and unscrupulous retailers down in the Dealer's Room, for instance. :-) Heh. It was a wonderful hour. Someone mentioned that the folks responsible for Anime Boston are talking about holding something called the Providence Anime Conference in the fall of 2008, which will be aimed at the 21+ crowd and possibly have a scholarly component as well as a social and entertainment side. I'll be keeping my eye out for that.
After that, I hooked up with my compatriots again (we'd kept in touch via cell phone, another invention these young people seem awfully excited about) and walked up the street to the Luna del Sea Bistro for some seafood. Every eatery within walking distance of the Convention was packed to the gills, so we were a bit suspicious that no one seemed to be patronizing this one. But their sandwich board indicated reasonable prices for entrees, so we took a table and ordered drinks, and then had a look at the menus. And discovered to our dismay that the $12 entrees on the sandwich board had mysteriously been replaced by $24 ones. Eek! We contemplated just leaving, but we had ordered drinks, so we asked our waitress what the deal was with the sandwich board. She discussed it with the maitre d' and returned to tell us that it was their lunch menu. Oh, we said. Did we want to order off that menu? she asked. Yes, we said -- and she promptly switched in the lunch menus for us. A class act, that woman. We left her a nice tip. And I had an excellent crab omelet and a side of steamed veggies (yum!), all outside in the sunshine with cosplayers streaming by in an endless, colorful parade. (The slightly drunken gentlemen over on the other side of the patio were also entranced, but more rudely than we. Cosplayers are a hardy and forbearing breed; they posed for photographs without batting an eyelash.)
After dinner I trotted back to the con to catch a showing of The Little Norse Prince, which is notable for being an early (1968) directorial effort from Takahata Isao, with Miyazaki Hayao contributing as a key animator. It's a cute piece -- the animation is quite spiffy for its era and the character designs pleasant -- but the storytelling is a bit limp and repetitive (you'd think the village would simply give up throwing parties, the number of times the bad guys show up to interrupt a celebration). And they didn't subtitle any of the songs, which was annoying. Still, it was a pleasant way to end the day. I Metro'd back in the same car as a small passel of teenaged cosplayers on their way to a Harry Potter party. They spent a certain amount of time phoning their friends: "Are you already at Books-a-Million? We're on our way. We'll be in costume, but not, you know, Harry Potter costumes ... " (For the record, they seemed to be costumed for Bleach, Naruto, and something frilly I couldn't identify.)
And that was the first day ...
[Report continues here.]
Due to travel and weather conditions, I arrived in Maryland late, but fortunately not so late that I couldn't join my cohorts in a quick credentials run. We made it to the Convention Center at about quarter-to-closing, but had no difficulties parking or acquiring our badges and bags. What looked like a line outside the Pratt Street entrance turned out to be simply a crowd of the already-credentialed meeting and greeting and milling about. We were in and out in five minutes. I've never had a bad experience with Otakon staff, but I've had interesting ones: the gentleman who checked me in this year, for instance, had a long forked white beard balanced by a pair of fluffy white inumimi, which (he told me) were hand-sewn and very easy to care for (clean them with a little dishwashing liquid and warm water and fluff dry).
Next morning I rediscovered one of the disadvantages of group excursions. I love my friends dearly, but very few of them are early risers, while I am the lark's best friend. The last of our party had arrived at an ungodly late hour (travel and weather conditions, again), long after I had collapsed into sleep; I had the shower all to myself when I rolled out of bed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, at 6:30 am, and sat around twiddling my thumbs until 9:00. With nothing but a glass of juice to console me, but that's my own fault. I believe in breakfast, but I also believe that it's impolite to rifle your host's cupboards for a meal while they're asleep. Fortunately, my hosts arose to save me and to give me directions to the local Metro stop, so that I could depart in advance of the rest of the party (who were travel-exhausted to the point of sleeping right through their projected wake times. Sometimes you can't make that early-morning cosplay session, no matter how much you'd enjoy it).
I recommend the Metro -- it's clean, fast and cheap; if I ever come to Otakon and house myself on my own nickel, I'll probably look for a motel in the Glen Burnie area and Metro in and back every day, since I don't usually con-till-dawn. (On the current schedule, you're good till midnight, but then the trains all turn back into pumpkins.) I'm not the only one who thinks so, either; cosplayers in full regalia accompanied me both ways. (The evening commuters were more bemused by them than the morning ones, though -- or perhaps simply more awake.) So, after a leisurely ride in, I hopped off at the Convention Center and was just in time for a session of Japanese animation from the "Steamboat Willie" era. I missed the opening crawl, so I'm not sure who's released a box-set of these very charming cartoons, but I showed up for the right disc: "Momotaro", "The Inch-High Samurai", "The Monkey-Sword Masamune" and "The Stolen Lump" (a Japanese analogue of a European folktale I've encountered as "The Two Hunchbacks" -- a hunchback encounters the fairies and amuses them so much that they take his hunch; his nastier compatriot tries to repeat the feat and ends up with the first man's hunch as well as his own), as well as a live-action/animated short, "Taro's Toy Train" (a boy receives a toy train as a gift from his father and dreams about being a conductor on a train whose passengers are all anthropomorphized animals -- imagine hippos wearing geta), "The Baseball Match" (rabbits v. tanuki -- the rabbit catcher and pitcher signal with their ears; the tanuki slugger uses his tail as a bat; and the game ends in a draw when a frog eats the ball under the assumption it's an egg) and several song-based pieces, including a Fantasia-esque setting of the national anthem, which used silhouette puppets to act out mythological tableaux. I was charmed. Once the people who didn't get what they were seeing left the room, it was a very enjoyable show.
After that I wandered downstairs to ADV's first episode sampler (showing in a far larger room that seemed warranted by the crowd, or lack thereof) to get a look at Air. On the way I saw a very large cosplayer dressed as Kon from Bleach pushing a Rukia in a wheelchair. Bleach is by far the most popular cosplay option here -- last year's Amestrian military presence is much diminished, though I did see a number of FMA characters and older series like Trigun, Sailor Moon, Chobits, Inuyasha and Utena continue popular. Oh, and lots of Naruto, but this year Uruhara Kisuke's hat occupies the place Naruto's headband did last year (i.e., if your cosplay consists of only one item ... ) I complimented one Edward Elric on her automail arm and a Princess Tutu and a Kraehe on their costumes, though I must post over to
princesstutu to apologize to the Kraehe for not making it clear my compliment included them both. We were in the Dealer's Room at the time and it was a little difficult to do anything but a walk-by lauding. Plenty of non-anime-related costuming as well: a nicely put-together group of Harry Potter and Co.; Westley as the Dread Pirate Roberts (whom I didn't see in action this year, just sacked out in a hallway napping with his ROUS over his face); and a Wii or two. The cleverest costume I saw all day, by the way, was a sundress built out of "POLICE LINE--DO NOT CROSS" tape -- sassy, but not annoying. One of my hosts was a first-time con-goer who found some of the costumes a wee bit ... over the top. We all agreed that it would be an act of mercy to explain to some of the exhibitionists that they needed to check their displays more thoroughly before opening (the theatrical costumer among us was scathing about people who didn't take proper account of their own body shapes when planning their outfits), but chickened out of actually doing so. If all this sounds like a detour from the Air showing, well, it is. That's a half-hour of my life I'd prefer to have back. I probably should have left after the first seven minutes, but I don't like to snap-judge stories. I had thought, from what I'd heard, that it might be a reverse Hi, Lili with a more overt fantasy component, but I haven't wanted to stake my eyeballs this badly since I saw Piano last year. The male protagonist's WTH? response to all the jewel-eyed, confiding schoolgirls populating the unbearably cute seaside town (complete with a hyperglycemia-inducing stray dog whose character design was stolen from Kare Kano) was the only saving grace of this piece, but even he was stuck with (in the dub, anyway) the world's sappiest line to close the episode. Augh. Not recommended.
After that I made my first foray into the Dealer's Room, which was a complete zoo. People were swarming the discount manga retailers as if it were (to borrow a phrase) fish time at the seal tank. I dove for the bucket and managed to snag a copy of FMA 11 (Viz) for a friend on the cheap and copies of FMA 15 and 16 (Square Enix) for myself, as well as some Cardcaptor Sakura trading cards for my goddaughter and her sister, but otherwise I kept my purse buttoned. It actually took me a second go-round later in the afternoon to find the import manga -- the gent from whom I purchased FMA last year didn't have it this year, but fortunately Sasuga Books also had a booth -- which surprised me. Just shows how much the domestic market has grown, I guess. I mean, Borders had a booth. And so did Peter Beagle, but I just wandered shyly by without interacting. He was mostly sitting back and letting his rep do the talking.
Fighting my way out of the Dealer's Room took longer than I expected, and then I got hung up by the fact that the Convention Center had shut down a number of escalators on the Charles Street side of things in order to concentrate traffic along certain "highways" (some bright lad or lass actually put lane markings along the 300 level hallway, which helped keep things sensibly organized there), so I arrived late to the Pumpkin Scissors premiere, which seemed to have started early. May I say, "Augh!" again, but in the other direction? This looked plenty interesting -- a military drama about a relief unit with one of my favorite kinds of protagonist: the quiet guy with a past. Lovely animation (Gonzo appears to have been involved), sound work and voice work ... so of course I missed about half of it. Augh! I'll look forward to seeing this in R1 release.
I hadn't been planning to attend any actor panels, but at the last minute I wandered up to see Vic Mignogna and Steve Blum and was glad I did. They're both very articulate and witty and the audience kept the idiot squeeage to a minimum. (Well, except for the silly young man who stood in the middle of the main aisle waving his arms back in forth, hoping to be called on -- and was called on, with the comment that they figured they'd better give him his chance before he keeled over with exhaustion -- and then went back to doing it. It was rather childish of the Ed cosplayer sitting next to me to go up and stand behind him briefly and give him another pair of waving arms, but sometimes temptation is irresistible. Besides, the Ed was with a very well-outfitted Winry and a stellar Hughes, stray lock of hair and all, so I was feeling very much in charity with him.) I was impressed with how both actors handled the overwhelmed young girls who could barely speak for the wonderfulness of talking to them; Vic Mignogna in particular was very big-brotherly, which was helpful (one girl was so close to dissolving into a puddle of OMG that she was in danger of shorting out the mic, but he teased her out of it). A class act, these gentlemen, right through all the technical hitches, terrible puns and silly voices (and a "Real Fans of Genius: Dedicated Otakon Congoer" skit and a music video trumpeting the win of the Risembool Rangers over the Miniskirt Army at dodgeball at a Tennessee con -- also available on YouTube. :-)
I also attended a pair of discussion panels. I wasn't sure what to expect from Fanfiction 101 -- at this point, I'm pretty sure I could place out of an instructional 101 in the field, but one always returns to the basics of good writing and I know less about the subculture of fanfiction than I do about the process of producing it. So I grabbed a seat in the back. Unfortunately, the panelists had no presentation to make; they opened the floor up for questions immediately and the session never focused itself. A lot of pet peeves were aired and a few substantive issues (like how to get your work out where it can be noticed and the pros and cons of AUs and crossovers) were addressed, but it was a disappointing session. About fifteen minutes in I found myself wanting to give the panel, especially when one of the moderators said, "Someone should run a panel on Concrit 101." Yes, yes! Let me! :-) But I kept quiet till the end and left.
The other panel, "The Older Otaku," was exactly the opposite. The moderators, four gentlemen, came prepared both to present material themselves and to promote discussion. They also grabbed an articulate woman from the audience to join their panel about a quarter of the way in, because they had been looking for someone to represent the woman's perspective (she had a very funny riff on "Hello Kitty" girls hanging out with "Akira" guys in the eighties), and then one of the older Otakon staff members stepped up as well, and told the most amazing war stories from the really early days of fandom: closet-sized video rooms packed so full you literally had to crawl over people to enter or leave (woe betide the poor sap who got stuck running the projector) and AMVs edited together the old-fashioned way, with scissors and tape, and timed to the music by guess and by golly (having seen The Prisoner, this gent put together an AMV of Yamato battle scenes to "All You Need Is Love" -- sweet!). The discussion covered a range of topics but moved smoothly from one to the next. We talked about what shows got us involved, the changing dynamics of fandom, the changes in technology and their effect on the mainstreaming of anime, and these here young'uns and their Internetz and their yaoi/yuri paddles. Of course, we agreed, many things are much better now: just look at the utter lack of rapacious and unscrupulous retailers down in the Dealer's Room, for instance. :-) Heh. It was a wonderful hour. Someone mentioned that the folks responsible for Anime Boston are talking about holding something called the Providence Anime Conference in the fall of 2008, which will be aimed at the 21+ crowd and possibly have a scholarly component as well as a social and entertainment side. I'll be keeping my eye out for that.
After that, I hooked up with my compatriots again (we'd kept in touch via cell phone, another invention these young people seem awfully excited about) and walked up the street to the Luna del Sea Bistro for some seafood. Every eatery within walking distance of the Convention was packed to the gills, so we were a bit suspicious that no one seemed to be patronizing this one. But their sandwich board indicated reasonable prices for entrees, so we took a table and ordered drinks, and then had a look at the menus. And discovered to our dismay that the $12 entrees on the sandwich board had mysteriously been replaced by $24 ones. Eek! We contemplated just leaving, but we had ordered drinks, so we asked our waitress what the deal was with the sandwich board. She discussed it with the maitre d' and returned to tell us that it was their lunch menu. Oh, we said. Did we want to order off that menu? she asked. Yes, we said -- and she promptly switched in the lunch menus for us. A class act, that woman. We left her a nice tip. And I had an excellent crab omelet and a side of steamed veggies (yum!), all outside in the sunshine with cosplayers streaming by in an endless, colorful parade. (The slightly drunken gentlemen over on the other side of the patio were also entranced, but more rudely than we. Cosplayers are a hardy and forbearing breed; they posed for photographs without batting an eyelash.)
After dinner I trotted back to the con to catch a showing of The Little Norse Prince, which is notable for being an early (1968) directorial effort from Takahata Isao, with Miyazaki Hayao contributing as a key animator. It's a cute piece -- the animation is quite spiffy for its era and the character designs pleasant -- but the storytelling is a bit limp and repetitive (you'd think the village would simply give up throwing parties, the number of times the bad guys show up to interrupt a celebration). And they didn't subtitle any of the songs, which was annoying. Still, it was a pleasant way to end the day. I Metro'd back in the same car as a small passel of teenaged cosplayers on their way to a Harry Potter party. They spent a certain amount of time phoning their friends: "Are you already at Books-a-Million? We're on our way. We'll be in costume, but not, you know, Harry Potter costumes ... " (For the record, they seemed to be costumed for Bleach, Naruto, and something frilly I couldn't identify.)
And that was the first day ...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-28 01:37 am (UTC)Yours and
... and made guesses on two more.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-28 02:36 pm (UTC)Yeah, I realized after I posted it that a regular thing I do might stand out but it was too late to take it back.
I have a few guesses out. I'm waiting to see what happens with them. *grins*
Logic? Umm...I do twisted logic. It doesn't always work. I'm sure I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Oh, and my prompt prompted a second story, since the scene I started wouldn't fit into the original story but I'm not finished with it yet. Hmmm, I need time...more time. Why can't I be independently wealthy rather than working for an attorney?
no subject
Date: 2007-07-28 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-28 03:04 pm (UTC)Been there, done that ... and actually do have the t-shirt (designed by the students, it has the oddballest metaphor on the front. The Powers-That-Be didn't go for the much more stylish brain-in-a-vat design, but they were under rhetorical assault from some local evangelical Christian group for teaching the kids to think logically -- which, I hasten to add, was rhetorical code for teaching them to think independently. Sometimes I blush for my fellow theists and sometimes I just want to hit them with a ball-peen hammer. The accusation that the head of the program was a lesbian witch bemused the married, heterosexual, churchgoing MALE biology professor running the academic side of the program. And then a local radio station tried to get him on air to comment on the two-headed turtle someone in the county had discovered in their pond ...). As you say, never again.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-28 03:11 pm (UTC)btw I did finally get around to friending you (I'm so terrible at remembering when I want to do that)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-28 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-28 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-28 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-28 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-28 03:07 pm (UTC)[resists temptation to go back and reread your oeuvre to see if I can figure out what it is]
I have a few guesses out. I'm waiting to see what happens with them. *grins*
I've promised myself that I won't try to take credit for any guesses I didn't actually make. It's sooo easy to cheat when one's not actually on the record and I like to seem omniscient. It's an occupational hazard left over from my years in academia. :-)
Oh, and my prompt prompted a second story, since the scene I started wouldn't fit into the original story but I'm not finished with it yet. Hmmm, I need time...more time. Why can't I be independently wealthy rather than working for an attorney?
When you find the answer to that question, do let me know. I'd like more time to finish the two-four-eight-sixteen story ideas I've got clamoring for the attention of my forebrain ...
no subject
Date: 2007-07-28 03:35 pm (UTC)It's sooo easy to cheat when one's not actually on the record and I like to seem omniscient.
I know. It's so annoying for other people not to realize that, too, isn't it? *grins*
When you find the answer to that question, do let me know. I'd like more time to finish the two-four-eight-sixteen story ideas I've got clamoring for the attention of my forebrain ...
I'm just thrilled one of the original characters stepped up to the plate the other night and spilled a nice little puddle of angst for me to write about. *is proud* I was starting to wonder if I could do anything other than fanfic.
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Date: 2007-07-28 03:44 pm (UTC)Congrats! Excelsior!
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Date: 2007-07-28 04:29 pm (UTC)