blackjackrocket, posts by tag: cons - LiveJournal

Here, have 550+ Kumoricon pictures

And for those of you wondering who I went as, what the mystery costume was...


So it seems there was almost no mystery at all, was there? Of course, me blabbing it all over the Kcon boards may have had something to do with that.



Also on an unrelated note, let me just say that I found this terribly amusing. As if I'm somehow the only wank magnet that RPs. I can barely keep up with SBG--when do these people think I have time for another game, especially one that involves an entire secret identity?


And to keep everyone here satisfied, evidence that I am indeed working on Obsession. Have a brief excerpt that I wrote yesterday!

( An excerpt from Ob23. It has ghosts. Sort of.Collapse )

So it's con time again! I'll be at ChibiChibicon in Olympia Washington this coming weekend. It's a one-day free event at Evergreen college if you all want to stop by and buy stuff from me. Buy stuff? That's right, I'm taking blackjacksales on the road!

Also I got in a new game! sumabura_gakuen now has a new ethics teacher.



Speaking of ethics and teachers (and here's where the entry gets serious and not in the way it's been), how is this "derailing"? I saw a post that was about abuse, didn't specify any kind, and for reasons that I still don't understand, said not to talk about white men. Even though neither of those traits were even remotely relevant for the sort of abuse I and my classmates went through. So I brought that up and got screamed at for derailing, for (somehow even though I never said such a thing) saying that white male privildge didn't exist, for being irrelevent, for talking about "outliers"--yes, apparently, classroom abuse doesn't matter. And I got banned from the journal.

Disgusting. We're never going to have everyone on equal ground until we start PUTTING them there, and that means seeing things as they are without unnecessary trappings. And in the cases of both me and my sister, and every classmate I cite in my summary, neither race nor gender mattered to our abusers. Yes these things matter in the world (although for the life of me I can't figure out WHY or HOW, but I know that they matter to people in general). But they're not the only reason everything ever happens. Even if some things under an umbrella happen for these reasons, other things under the umbrella may have nothing whatsoever to do with them. And that's what happened here. And I got told that I'm apparently a statisticial glitch. Classrooms after classrooms of 30+ kids, all statistical glitches.

Right.

And of course she closes it off with a flippant reference to something that not only happened four and a half years ago but also that got taken wildly out of context (when I said "outwalk a hurricane" I also said WITH A WEEK'S NOTICE, which never gets repeated).

God, people are fucking idiots today. Earlier I had to infract someone for trolling the blogs, and she reported me for harassment. At least the other mods have the good sense to recognize that she's an asswipe.

Oh here we go, edit time--one of the twerps from that thread replied talking about the leading forms of abuse. One of the ones she listed was child abuse. And then she screamed at me again for derailing...even though by her own definitions I was ON TOPIC. Unless she's using some new definition of "child abuse" that says it can't be done by teachers.

So wow, haven't touched this in over a month? Wow. 'Cause I'm on nearly every day, for most of the day. You know how it is when you have far too much to say but none of it comes out?

Still haven't gotten the con pictures up, but I had an awesome time. I was in Voice Actor Idol and knocked one of the judges out of his seat when I did the Kefka Laugh. See, the thing was we brought in scripts and did them, and I did the last battle intro from FFVI, a confrontation from Legend of Thunder (which was interesting because I had to make up a voice for Buson. Jimmy I just gave him a generic whiny voice), and a part from Cowboy Bebop when Faye finds someone she went to school with. Didn't win, but they said I was awesome. And oh yeah, that was on my birthday.

I also ran into someone interesting. See, for warewacollector I get fanarts when I go to cons, so I was describing what one should look like and the artist asked for the name of the character, so when I said "Jirarudan," this guy next to me goes "He's awesome! I love his image song!" So we got to talking and were going on for about five minutes before we finally introduced ourselves. He said "Jean!" and I'm all "Amber, but you can call me Blackjack." He freezes for a moment, then stares at my badge. Turns out he's Stardroidjean. So that was awesome and win.

But yes! Did I mention warewacollector? I did? OH JOY! Because I have something to show you aaaaaaalll.
WE HAVE WEBSITE!
That's right! After years of there being no Jirarudan sites out there, now we made one! And it's beeeeeautiful. xpassionflower programmed it, and innt it lovely? We want to get it on pokemon-search and possibly have a webring (if Alberto can have one and Zero can have several, Jiri can have one). And of course submissions are always welcome.
(oh yeah, Passionflower, if you're reading this, we still need the link for where to buy the soundtrack, since we have the clips from it)

And I have some somber news. Anyone who was in The Network and wants to save the files from it, do so now, because nbeat, nscene, and narchive are being shut down this week. I'll see if I can save them on unionroom, but that may depend on what everyone else wants.

Oh yeah. Click mah eggs!

Con was all right. Not great, but not bad.

Some highlights:

-Meeting two VAs from CyberSix, which was one of the most awesome shows ever.

-Getting some fanarts done (I got more than Jiri, but those're the only ones I scanned. I also got Kaede and Oikawa).

-A METRIC CRAPTON OF PICTURES (actually just 234 of them, but hey. Also they start at the end and go backwards).

And now what you all came here for--GRATUTIOUS TEAM ROCKET PIX.

( Field agent Kaede reporting for duty!Collapse )

Off to Anime Evolution! I hope to meet two VAs from a series I adore while I'm there, so keep your fingers crossed.

To keep you all busy, I remind you of this. Because it's awesome.

Also, warewacollector is having Fanart Month, as well as the themes of flight and technology, so get working! (and don't forget rocket100 either!)

And I'm sick of being ignored. I asked for the panel presentation months ago and got no reply. So I asked more insistantly, then I begged and pleaded, and finally on SATURDAY I had to tell them all I was sick of it. Months and months of not getting any replies for it from anyone involved in it, and having at one point to ask the list if anyone was even getting my messages because that was the only reason I could think of that no one would reply. So then I had to take matters into my own hands and write a new presentation myself, which wouldn't have been so bad if I'd have been able to start it back in May.

*sigh* And people have been picking fights with me left and right lately, both online and off. Is there something about this time of year or something? For some reason August tends to be a really bad month for me. But at least I haven't had panic attacks in ages.

Anyway! I finished my costume, getting the wig yesterday (I had it, but it had to be washed and styled). I'll give you all pictures...after the con, of course. Hahahaha.

I was hoping to be able to just cosplay Kaede this year, but at Kcon I'll have to be Oikawa again what with Richard Epcar there. He was Myotismon, so you see my reasoning. But that's not till next week so yeah.

See you all Monday!

So today's been a productive day.

-I finally got pants and boots for my Kaede costume. Although the boots are made for winter and are awfully warm, but oh well.
-I got my butt to Burger King to get the new Pokémon toys. I got a Pikachu standee with a card, but I haven't opened it yet (should I?)
-I found out I won an icontest! There were two themes and everyone else did Izzy, so my Game Over icon was all by its lonesome...but finally, making Oikawa icons paid off! And it wasn't that complicated either; the hardest thing was brushing the timestamp off Yukio's hair.
-And I made pokemacros. I was very surprised that I couldn't find any Pokémon macro comms already, but hey.

Oh yeah, I wrote three fics, all about the same characters. Violence for 30_kisses, then cowrote Dream and Normal with angellover89 for rocket100. Violence is...pretty sadistic but only has one direct act of violence despite the title, Dream is a crackfic and has some gross humor, while Normal has illness-related things and an excerpt from an indavertently hilarious sex scene from some novel (Buson's reading it aloud and it actually makes Bashou laugh). Oh yeah, and Normal is a followup to Dream, so read Dream first.
It occurs to me how few of my fics really tie into each other, so Dream>Normal>(rest of the arc) is a rarity. Probably because I usually kill characters off (like in Violence) that I need back in later fics.

Now to resume work on the two Sacredshippy fics I was doing.



Oh yes, this past week there was some...interesting news. You know Anime Evolution, the fic I go to British Columbia for? It was scheduled for the week before Kumoricon, so next month...and then we get emails saying that AE has been "postponed". Apparently the place it was going to be at decided to have teacher conferences instead, even though AE's been scheduled since early this year. So now they're trying to find a new location for that weekend (it won't interfere with Kumori, though--people are very insistant that it not, since there's another con in Seattle at the same time as well). I'm good with pretty much whenever, but a lot of people are possibly out a considerable amount of money.

And, since I started off the entry talking at least partially about icons, here's some of the others I've made recently! Most of them about Jiri, of course.
God damn, it took me this long to realize that two verses of that song fit Jiri in that scene perfectly? There's something WRONG with me, considering how long I spent obsessed with that movie.
Yes I did another Jiri icon with that caption. I don't care.
I don't know if these are funny or sad. Or both.
'sup indeed.
NotJiri is...interesting. He's like Jiri, but he's a raving lunatic psycho and is totally undistingushed.


And speaking of raving lunatic psychos! Because when am I going to have a segue like that again? (ok, probably more than one would think) I made FFVI icons playing off a recent icon trend which is probably nearly over now that the movie it's about is finally out.



I need someone to kick me into gear with Turquoise and/or Obsession. You all know the drill. And on the subject of "the drill", remember to look at my fics to see what you think I should submit to Kumoricon. Although since I'm working at it, I can only submit three fics total, so that limits the playing field even more, but hey, ANY suggestions work!

Oh yes, I found a fanvid that does what's so rare in the fandom--it UNDERSTANDS Oikawa. It's awesome so I thought I'd spread it around.

See you next time!

I figure it's been well over a week so I may as well stop putting it off and write up my con report.

Otafest went great! Well, that's the short version anyway. The long version follows:

( Thursday!Collapse )

( Friday!Collapse )

And that brings us to...the end! Of this entry anyway! It took me two hours to type just that, so the rest will have to wait.

In the meantime, pictures. Probably twice what I usually take.


Oh yeah, I figured out my next costume. It'll for sure be Kaede from PokeWake. But since the only Gloom doll out there is about two inches tall, I'm taking my Vileplume doll and'll just say it evolved.

Anyway, I'll get to this in a few days. Keep on me about it.

This time in 48 hours I'll be in Calgary! But I managed to squeeze in one more con this past weekend--Kumoricon Lite! It was held at the big university downtown as both a promo for their anime club and as a means to test out equipment for the big event at the end of August. So it was small, but quite fun. Here's pictures! I didn't dress up for it, though, but I got my JP costume fixed!

Anyway, at a point, a group of us went in search of cupcakes. We heard of the fabled Saint Cupcake and set out to find it. Problem was it was about a twenty minute ride by streetcar...and then another 20 minutes to walk there! But we found it...and found another group of minicongoers as well! So my group got cupcakes but we were kinda hurried out of there because the first group wanted to leave and we all wanted to head back together. We got to the streetcar station when Satchi (this gal I run into every so often) noticed a bubble tea place across the street. And goodness knows I loves me my bubble tea. So we (me, her, and some of her friends) broke off from the combined group and went and indulged ourselves. I got something called the Director's Cut, which was lychee tea with star fruit. It was awesome and had coconut jellies and was delicious.

And then we went back to the con area, and soon after, my mom called me. See, she and dad and my sister were out of town visiting my baby cousin and my grandparents (who came in to see said baby too), and had just come back in. But on the way to take my sister back to her place, they (mom and Heather; dad stayed in Olympia another day and came back on the train) stopped downtown to pick up some dinner...and it turned out they were about two blocks from where the minicon was! So they picked me up and we went back home.

Rhiannon's still here too, so that's been interesting. She's so awesome. But with her, that'll be one more person here when my sister has her surgery...which is the day I leave for Otafest. A few months ago, she wrenched her shoulder at work and now she has to have it pieced back up. So she'll be here for a few days, but I'll be gone for most of those, if not all. Oh well, I got her a book about sisters to keep her company. And the dog and cats too.

Our big foofy cat Tabitha had to go to the vet this week, since she wasn't eating. Turns out one of the other cats bit her and it abcessed, which must be incredibly painful. But she's on the mend. Mom was really worried though since Tabby turns ten this year (by best estimation), but it was unrelated to that.

I've been coming up with a new original series to put out maybe after Turquoise...or before, at the rate I'm going with that one. It's about heroes who save the world...and then have to adjust to normal life after that. The "saving the world" part takes place in the first episode. And as to be expected from me, there's a lot of angst and frustration.

And speaking of angst and frustration and my fics, I have a new one out! It's called Drop, and it's about Vicious after his humilating defeat in movie 4. By the way, what the hell is his beard/goatee thing called, anyway? It's really neither of those, it's closer to a soul patch, but it's so bushy...


Well anyway, I'll see you guys next week! And to keep busy in the meantime, I remind you that the Pokémon Kink Meme is still going! And we have so many requests but hardly any writers! Lots of interesting requests up there to fill, you guys.

And when I return, I'll be loaded down with pictures and con stories! Wish me luck on my panels!

With this post, Ob17 is knocked off the front page of my journal. And the only work I've done on 18 is a brief overview of what I want to cover in either it or (dare I say) 19. And I need help on it like crazy. I don't even know where to begin researching the stuff in it, things like money transfers and investments and all that. Yes, Jiri's going to start making his fortune in 17. And I need to bring Veronica back into it. Remember her from way back when? I also need to put Lucrezia and her son back in it. They don't really serve any storyline purpose, but they're nice for setting tone.

Rhiannon's been staying with us for a few days, until she can find a place. She's had a lot of trouble with her landlords and the whole building, so she's waiting for a place downtown to open up.

Today we went to the museum. There was an exhibit on impressionists, but that was pretty much all we saw. I'm not sure why mom and dad wanted to leave right away. But now I have a membership (or rather, their membership now includes me) so I can go any time I want. Maybe I'll go for a few hours and see what comes of Obsession. As it was, though, I got that tight feeling in my chest that I described to you ages ago around a few of the pictures. And I wonder if that's a normal reaction or if I'm getting too into character or what.

Lately that's gotten stronger. I identify with Jiri more...and I think I figured out why. With Network ending, I need to channel that into someone, and who better than him? Which reminds me, I need to finish his story in the game. Since I ghosted him as an NPC and all. I figure I'll give him a happy ending...

But letting go of Domino will be tough. I've played her for over three years, and I know I can always write her in other things, but that storyline...yeah. It's been so wonderful and so incredible that I'm really sad to see it go.

Domino will have a happy ending too. I can't bear to give her anything but, especially with what she's gone through lately.

But I'm not sure why I'm focusing on Jiri instead of her then. Maybe it's because he has his own world, that he alone controls. But even then, he lost it all. Why would I identify so much with someone who can't connect to reality?

I mean, if I was going to fixate on a character over how similar I am to them, it'd have to be JP from Digimon Frontier. He's basically me only younger, male, Japanese, and a bit less geeky (but he could learn on that last one). We're social outcasts and both revel in our isolation and try everything we can to be accepted. That's why, as I said last summer, I feel like I always have to be "on". JP's the same way, thinking that by being the center of attention he'll get people to like him.

I wish I could be as brave as JP learned to be. Or even as brave as Domino, albiet her bravery is for a different reason.

In less than two weeks, I'll be heading to Otafest. I hope to get a new fic finished by then. Oddly, despite all the characters I've been talking about in this post, it's about the Marauder. And yes, it's for R100. I can't enter it in anything at the con, or anything at all really since I'm considered staff for it. But I'll take stuff to read, that's for sure!

This week, my grandparents come to visit, but I can't stand them. My grandpa's boring as hell, and my grandma's just plain mean. My mom tries to lay the "but you have to spend time with them, they're old" line on me, but frankly, I don't see why. Boring and mean are boring and mean at any age. At least they're only spending one night here, then back up to Olympia to visit my new cousin.

I wonder what I'll be like in my 80s. Hell, I wonder what I'll be like in my 30s and that's only a few years off. I don't want to be 30. I don't want to be 28. I want to be 18 or something like that. That's how I see myself, still as a teenager.

Which is interesting because my teen years were a total mixed bag. On the one hand I had Mike, I had Rhi (well, I still have Rhi as you see above), I had beginning into fandoms, I had FFVI when it was still FF3 and I had B:TAS when it was still airing new episodes, I had music and research and mice. But on the other hand I had still not knowing what the hell was up with me, I had groundings, I had school people yelling at me, I had finals for classes I hadn't taken in four years, I had moving away from everything I'd ever known...so you can see my confusion about wanting to return to that time.

And Mike said he'll be moving far away from South Bend. So there goes any last reason to visit there. It seems too sentimental to go back just to see things, doesn't it? Like needlessly so. But I still want to, even if just to convince myself that it was really bad there. And I know it was, I know it was horrible and cramped and oppressive, but it was still everything I grew up on.

Well anyway. To round up this post...I'll be playing my DS quite a bit at Otafest, both there and on the trips there and back. So tell me, which Pokémon should I train? There's a bunch I haven't touched yet, so tell me what hidden gems I should know about.

Well damn, two of the videos I linked to last entry were taken down, the Lucky Star one and the one of the anime I'd never heard of. Shiiiit.

I've been on an FFVI kick lately, but I'll get to that later. First off, I've been recording some stuff! Most of it's my fics, but the first thing I did was record the "Slowpoke monologue" from the Ono comics. Here it is if you want to hear my Giovanni impression. Then I did a Jiri fic that I'm not sure if I ever posted it anywhere, it's called Frustration. And finally, my favorite fic to read aloud, Poke, featuring two characters (Bokomon and Neemon) *and* a narrator (yours truly). So yeah, that's what I sound like...um...in the last one anyway. For most of it.

Anyway! Yesterday was an awesome day! It was Rhiannon's birthday--she's 30! Everyone wish her happy birthday and I'll pass it along to her! So I went downtown to meet her at the library. Only the library was closed for staff training, so I went to the toy store across the street until I saw her. And then we got pictures of posing on the steps, and some guy got pictures on our cameras of us. And then we went to Dragonfish for lunch and it was awesome. We discussed FF8 a lot, working out comical scenarios for different things ("Squall! I'm your father!" "...nice try, Selphie.") ("Squall, I was trying to tell you for ages--I'm your father!" "...You're that idiot from Esthar, aren't you? This is the stupidest one of all." "No seriously! I hooked up with your mother and...wait, I hooked up with HER mother! Um...you kids have fun, I'm gonna go...um...over here." "Rinoa, what the hell was he talking about?" "Um...I...damn, he *does* look like me...")
Then we were going to go to the Japanese Gardens/Rose Garden but that didn't pan out, because by the time we finally found the bus stop that would get us there, we would have been waiting for about 45 minutes for the bus to show up. So we went to 23rd Street instead and did some shopping. I got some prizes for Otafest, and we went for bubble tea. She's hooked on mango bubble tea, while I had banana (with strawberry jellies!).
And then she said she wanted to get her hair cut, so we went to Lloyd Center. First off we stopped in to see ketsuban at work. She was quite surprised to see us ("What are YOU GUYS doing here?" she exclaimed), but she'd already taken her break so couldn't hang out with us.
We went to the styling place and Rhi got a trim, having straightened her hair earlier in the day. Now it's not so poofy, and still nice and wavy. Very classy.
And then we went to dinner at Stanford's, which is right outside the mall. She treated since I only had a traveler's check left and they didn't take those (and why not dammit?), and we had a long conversation about our love lives (well, my part didn't take very long, although I *did* tell her about the guy who asked me out and never showed up...) and growing up in Indiana.
By the time we were finished, the mall was closed and we couldn't get back in to see Ketsuban, but hey. So we went to the trains and headed back to our places, and that was Rhiannon's Birthday and it was awesome!

When I got back home and got online, I saw the fallout from Sakura Con. I'm not going to delve into details, but there was one giant gemstone in all the crap being slung around. Sam, the girl who I met last year who went as 02 Mimi, was so taken with the Creation Station that she put on Bedtime Stories. And apparently she was taken with *me* as well, because she's making a Hiroki costume to go with my Oikawa costume! So we're trying to hammer out some way to perform something with the both of them. I'm thinking either post-series where they both get reborn in the Digital World, or some sort of guardian angel scenario.

It's a nice feeling, you know?

Well, we're finally hunkering down and doing Otafest stuff too. The main problem I have right now isn't so much with the con itself, it's with how I'm going to get to and from Seattle for the flights.

And as a reminder, buy my stuff!

It occurs to me that my birthday is in a little over two months and I have no idea what I want to do for it.

Oh yes! This month, genechildmewtwo is coming down for the weekend. So that should be fun.

...ok, I started this entry talking about FFVI, so I might as well follow up on that. Anyway! I resumed playing not long ago, and finally, after so long, I beat...

...the World of Balance. That's right, I've had the game since last Feb and I never beat the first part. Dammit but I'm slow. Anyway, I finally set the world asunder, and damn it takes a long-ass time to save Cid in this version. I know it's always been hard (heck, most of my strat guides don't even seem to be aware that you *can* save him), but this took HOURS.
I got Sabin as I usually do, and I think if they remade this game for the DS like they did for 3 and 4, they need to give Sabin actual *dialogue* once you encounter "Gerad".
Anyway, the first character I got after getting the airship was Mog. I was going to get Gau since he's easiest, but I had four people and apparently you can't change your party until you have five people in the ship. And you need to have a party of 3 to get Gau.
Now I'm trying to get Relm. And YES Relm's useful! Sure she's a weak warrior, but she has insane magic power and Sketch is a thing of awesome (dammit, you can use it against FINAL FORM KEFKA. Admit it, you want to see that).

I want to write another 6 fic but I'm not sure what it would be about. Maybe I could write something for ffvi100 which has NEVER BEEN POSTED IN aside from the prompt list. Come on, I know I have FFFreaks on my list, do something for the poor neglected comm about the poor neglected game.


Oh yeah, to close out the entry, the thing from last entry that I didn't do during the past year (or indeed, at all) was come into posession of a misprint Ancient Mew card. Congrats, knivesandkeys!

...and what's with me and millionare obsessive loner airship pilots with long coats, purple eyes, and the propensity to take world-shaking risks?