Yuricon report: Friday
Jul. 23rd, 2003 12:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osarabaFriday morning I woke up around 8:30-9, I think. Whichever, it took me an hour to get ready, mostly because I was being distracted because Yoshi was watching that Austin Powers movie that came out last summer. It was surprisingly funny. I’m not sure why I thought this one was going to be bad, but it was actually pretty good! We all went downstairs, and I went over to my station next to the registration table.
There were four women who took shifts in pairs to man the registration table. I sat next to them at the “volunteers and entertainment” table. I got there at 10, and at first there was no one to do the entertainment portion of the table. Angelica sat with me; Laura and Yoshi (who would become our errand-boy for the entire weekend) went to get us Taco Bell food for breakfast. As you might imagine, the volunteer table was really not that busy. I stayed there from 10 to just about 5pm with almost no breaks. I think it was around 12 or 1pm that Angelica left for about 2 hours to go to a yuri Trivia game. Then she came back just before she went on-shift in one of the video rooms.
How to describe my experience at the volunteer table? It was boring, and yet not. For the first while, I really didn’t do anything. Chatted with the people next to me, but not much. I don’t remember when it was – but it was pretty early – that the Entertainment Chair came over and introduced herself (cheebs!) and her friend, Nate, who was part of her staff. Basically, Nate would be sitting at the table with me, taking registration for the cosplay and drag shows. The drag show was to be cancelled later that night because there weren’t enough entries, but I believe the people who had signed up for it were transferred to the cosplay event.
Nate was a nightmare. I admit I didn’t like cheebs! very much either, but at least she was tolerable. And I don’t think it was any one thing in particular that she did, but her basic manner just grated on my nerves… rubbed me the wrong way, or something. But Nate. What an asshole! I don’t know what possessed any person with common sense (notice, I did not say that cheebs! had any) to pick him to man a table where you’d actually have to talk with people. I mean, he defined the word “jerk.” He didn’t come across as being quite clean, first of all. Second, he’s a massive chain smoker, and while I don’t have anything against smokers, it was irritating for him to have to go out every ½ hour to have a smoke when what he was supposed to be doing was manning the cosplay registration. Fortunately(?), there weren’t many people signing up for the cosplay event. I ended up covering for him whenever he was away from the table, which was fine because (1) there weren’t that many people signing up on Friday (the one time I got someone to sign up, he came back and not-so-subtly took over, and (2) there weren’t very many people interested in volunteering. There were 2 people who didn’t mind volunteering because they were trying to kill some time just then and eventually I had them doing something for a little while, but that was it.
Most of my volunteers were very nice. Of 8 volunteers, 2 were my friends (Angelica and Maryann), and one (Deb) was someone Erica knew was reliable. Of the remaining 5, Faith and Laura were very reliable, very nice people. Laura was one of my roommates (as was Deb). They really were where they needed to be, and did not mind volunteering for more than their share. Of the 3 left, Rich was a sort of unknown. He was a last-minute addition to the video volunteer staff, and had volunteered for specific times which I was glad to have him take. However, on Friday night/Saturday morning, he ended up bailing out on us. His reason was because he couldn’t afford to stay. That, I understand. But his excuse was that he didn’t know there wasn’t going to be free crash space, etc. But that’s just a bunch of bullshit ‘cause I told him at least a week before the con that there wasn’t any to be had. I’d have give him some room on our floor, but with 6 people we were already pretty crowded.
The last two, Brian and Michelle (Brian’s girlfriend), are in a class by themselves. Erica had known them from previous cons, and just recently Brian had offered to man the Yuricon table at Anime Boston with Michelle. At the staff meeting on Thursday night, Erica told me not to give Michelle a volunteer t-shirt at all because she was such a flake, and a bitch. Not in those words, because even when Erica curses, she uses words so distinctly, so… I don’t know the word to describe it, that you can tell she’s serious. (If you couldn’t already tell, I have a mild case of hero-worship here.) It’s funny, because I’ve never had a case of hero-worship before (aside from Heero-worship), and from stories and things, I sort of got the feeling that it involved a crush, but I can tell you, that isn’t the situation. I just admire her for going after what she wants, and especially how she handles people in general, and herself in particular. She just comes across as being so competent, which is a high compliment in my book, not many people are just competent overall. So I guess that I'd say, I want to be like her when I grow up. If only I could do that 10th grade essay over again (about someone you “admire”) where I wrote about my mom ‘cause I couldn’t really think of anyone I really and truly admired, and I do admire my mom to some degree, but I wouldn’t want to be like her. I think it’s especially funny and ironic that Erica would probably gag to hear that she’s the object of someone’s admiration, much less hero-worship. I probably would too. Maybe. Good thing this is just LJ and she’s way too busy to read someone’s random LJ entry.
Right, so getting back to Brian and Michelle. I’d met Brian before, about a year and a half ago, at the Book-Off near GCS. We just sort of started talking and he ended up giving me a flyer to an anime club viewing. A few months later, I saw him at Shoujocon and realized that “OMG! He’s the one who always cosplays female anime characters in really revealing costumes?!” Imagine my surprise. When he’s dressed normally, he looks totally different! If you’d seen him as a girl, I don’t think most would recognize him as a guy, but when you see him as a guy, it’s easier to recognize him as a girl. And then I confirmed it a few weeks later at Otakon; I got a close look and yes, it was definitely him. In any case, he’s a very odd guy. Not just plain nuts, but probably has some sort of mental ailment, like manic-depression/mood swings sort of thing, something that makes people neurotic… childhood trauma? Of course, this doesn’t excuse his just plain bad attitude and asshole-ness. The mind simply boggles when trying to figure out what sort of mental relationship he and Michelle have together. And yet if there were ever two people about whom you’d say something like, “Let them have each other and keep them far away from me,” it would be them. So. I guess there’s a place for everyone.
Okay, I just gagged myself.
And I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.
Maryann called me around 3? maybe 4pm, to find out the directions to get from Manhattan to the hotel. She was coming by herself, after school that day (her last day of high school!). I gave her directions, and eagerly awaited her arrival. Many rounds of Idiot’s Delight (a solitaire card game) later, she showed up and after settling into the room, I basically commandeered her to man the volunteer table while I went to watch the first four episodes of Devilman Lady, which was good, but didn’t really get me into it. Of course, I found out from someone else that it’s the fifth or sixth episode when the show gets really good. It figures.
Hm, I know there was a point where the Dealers Room (which we were instructed to call the Vendors Room just in case anybody came in off the street and thought that it might refer to drug dealers, which apparently had happened before) was getting ready to open (much later than scheduled), and some of the staff let the other staff know (via the radios) that the DR would be open to volunteers and staff to take a quick look (no buying ‘cause the dealers were still setting up). I ran up there to take a look and saw some cute stuff. Later I went back to pick up two Final Fantasy X plushies (a cactuar and one of Lulu’s mog-thingies called a “pu pu,” although I haven’t seen that one yet – it’s blue with a little yellow ball springing off the top of it’s head), and I picked up a chocobo-plushie for Angelica.
For the life of me, I cannot remember what happened between then (which was around 6 or 7) and midnight. I know that I had something to eat, but I can’t remember what. I know that I did something, possibly watched something, but I cannot remember that either. When it comes back to me, I’ll fill it in. Maybe it wasn’t that exciting?
Later, I think I went upstairs to try and get a little nap before having to do my midnight-4am shift, but I don’t think I really got any sleep. Maybe about 5 minutes of actual closed-eye sleep. The rest of it, was closed-eye listening-to-whatever-was-going-on-around-me-laying-down. Anyway, at midnight I went downstairs again to man the live-action video room. I ended up watching the end of a Hong Kong movie called Who’s the Woman? Who’s the Man? (or maybe it was the other way around). But anyway, it seemed really funny. When it finished, the 2 people that had been in the room left, and I put in the one that was supposed to have been put in before it (as in, they showed the sequel first by misake), called He’s a Woman, She’s a Man (or something like that). It was really hysterical, and I have to say I really enjoyed watching it, even if I was in a bitterly freezing cold video room all by myself. Two hours later when that finished, I put on a live-action movie called Bishounen. As you might guess, it was YAOI! Yay! The main character, a young Japanesewhore slut guy, was bishounen in the true sense of the word. The guy he’s interested in is maybe a few years older, but he was what I’d call biseinen. Definitely drool-worthy. It was a complicated, soap opera-ish movie, which was a little slow to watch, but good enough. Until you got to the end. ‘Cause then I was like, huh? That’s it? Oh.
At one point, about 10 minutes before the end of Bishounen, I paused it (seeing as how I was still the only one watching) to go over to the two other video rooms. A security guard had closed up video room one, so I peeked into video room two. It took me a second, but I recognized what was playing on the screen – YAOI! I looked around the room, and there were about 5 guys sitting there, watching YAOI of all things. ::snicker:: It was great. So I said, “Are you guys watching YAOI?!” They said, “Yeah!” And started making jokes about the invisible dicks and stuff. It was really great. I noticed that one of the people in the room was Jim, from the staff meeting the night before. One of the other guys said something about it being really hysterical, and something about phantom dicks, and Jim corrected him. Apparently, it was Jim’s joke… something about Phantom Men-ass. (I immediately thought of how fans of Star Wars slash and YAOI alike would get a kick out of the pun… that I’m not even sure Jim realizes was one.)
Someone asked me what I was watching and I said a live-action YAOI movie. Two guys got up to go over to my video room to see and asked, are there phantom dicks in that one too? They looked so disappointed when I told them that no, what I was watching was far less graphic than what they were. Which, if you think about it, is pretty sad.
Anyway, I went to go finish the movie, which is when Angelica came down. I’m pretty sure that was around 3:45am. When the movie ended, we went over to the other video room where they were still watching YAOI. One of the guys had left, so there were now Jim and one other guy, and me and Angelica. The other guy left after about 15 minutes, and then it was just me, Angelica and Jim. OMG, did we have so much fun! We started cracking up about the “phantom men-ass” and other slashy jokes, not to mention discussing the stupidity of many YAOI anime, and the “censorship” (little black bars/circles, or the aforementioned “invisible” penises). We had one long, continuous laugh, for like 25 minutes there. It was hysterical. After a while, though, it toned down, and we started getting tired. I’d been up since like 8 without even a nap and so I was the first one to give in and lay down across a row of seats. A few minutes later, I think Jim succumbed to temptation and did the same. Then Angelica gave in; but she turned two rows of seats to face each other, to make a sort of bed. When I saw what she’d done, I hopped up to go lay down with her (you have to remember, I was still fucking freezing cold here, and Angelica is always warmer than normal). So I settled in, and without realizing it, fell asleep. I’m pretty sure Jim was out also, in the row next to us, and it’s possible Angelica was going to fall asleep soon, too.
The next thing I knew, someone had crouched down near my head to tell me that he was going to bail. It was Rich, the cute blond-spiked Asian boy, who said he couldn’t really afford to stay at the con any more ‘cause he didn’t have any crash space, and he was spending too much on parking or some such bullshit. On the one hand, I understand the money difficulty. But he knew at least a week before the convention (probably closer to two) that there was not going to be any crash space provided for free, because I told him myself over email. So he was leaving; the next day of course, I would have to find someone to cover his shifts, or cover them myself. But at that point, I couldn’t have cared less if he jumped into a river; I was fucking tired and he could just get the hell out of my (sleepy) face. In fact, I think it struck me as funny, in that sort of, “I knew this would happen” sort of way. I giggled as I lay there on the row of seats next to Angelica.
So he left, and I was awake again. There was no one else in the video room but Angelica and Jim. So I suggested to Angelica that we just get Security to lock up the doors and go back to bed. I woke Jim up and told him that we were going back to bed, and that on the way out we’d get the front desk to get Security to lock up the rooms. I asked if he’d be okay, and he said yes, so we said goodnight and left. When we passed by the front desk, we let them know that the rooms needed to be locked up, and that there was a guy down there waiting for them to come and lock up the rooms. We went up to bed, kicked Maryann off the bed, and went to sleep. I had a thought about hoping that Jim would be okay, but I was just way to tired to stay up any longer. I’m pretty sure that it was just about 5am.
There were four women who took shifts in pairs to man the registration table. I sat next to them at the “volunteers and entertainment” table. I got there at 10, and at first there was no one to do the entertainment portion of the table. Angelica sat with me; Laura and Yoshi (who would become our errand-boy for the entire weekend) went to get us Taco Bell food for breakfast. As you might imagine, the volunteer table was really not that busy. I stayed there from 10 to just about 5pm with almost no breaks. I think it was around 12 or 1pm that Angelica left for about 2 hours to go to a yuri Trivia game. Then she came back just before she went on-shift in one of the video rooms.
How to describe my experience at the volunteer table? It was boring, and yet not. For the first while, I really didn’t do anything. Chatted with the people next to me, but not much. I don’t remember when it was – but it was pretty early – that the Entertainment Chair came over and introduced herself (cheebs!) and her friend, Nate, who was part of her staff. Basically, Nate would be sitting at the table with me, taking registration for the cosplay and drag shows. The drag show was to be cancelled later that night because there weren’t enough entries, but I believe the people who had signed up for it were transferred to the cosplay event.
Nate was a nightmare. I admit I didn’t like cheebs! very much either, but at least she was tolerable. And I don’t think it was any one thing in particular that she did, but her basic manner just grated on my nerves… rubbed me the wrong way, or something. But Nate. What an asshole! I don’t know what possessed any person with common sense (notice, I did not say that cheebs! had any) to pick him to man a table where you’d actually have to talk with people. I mean, he defined the word “jerk.” He didn’t come across as being quite clean, first of all. Second, he’s a massive chain smoker, and while I don’t have anything against smokers, it was irritating for him to have to go out every ½ hour to have a smoke when what he was supposed to be doing was manning the cosplay registration. Fortunately(?), there weren’t many people signing up for the cosplay event. I ended up covering for him whenever he was away from the table, which was fine because (1) there weren’t that many people signing up on Friday (the one time I got someone to sign up, he came back and not-so-subtly took over, and (2) there weren’t very many people interested in volunteering. There were 2 people who didn’t mind volunteering because they were trying to kill some time just then and eventually I had them doing something for a little while, but that was it.
Most of my volunteers were very nice. Of 8 volunteers, 2 were my friends (Angelica and Maryann), and one (Deb) was someone Erica knew was reliable. Of the remaining 5, Faith and Laura were very reliable, very nice people. Laura was one of my roommates (as was Deb). They really were where they needed to be, and did not mind volunteering for more than their share. Of the 3 left, Rich was a sort of unknown. He was a last-minute addition to the video volunteer staff, and had volunteered for specific times which I was glad to have him take. However, on Friday night/Saturday morning, he ended up bailing out on us. His reason was because he couldn’t afford to stay. That, I understand. But his excuse was that he didn’t know there wasn’t going to be free crash space, etc. But that’s just a bunch of bullshit ‘cause I told him at least a week before the con that there wasn’t any to be had. I’d have give him some room on our floor, but with 6 people we were already pretty crowded.
The last two, Brian and Michelle (Brian’s girlfriend), are in a class by themselves. Erica had known them from previous cons, and just recently Brian had offered to man the Yuricon table at Anime Boston with Michelle. At the staff meeting on Thursday night, Erica told me not to give Michelle a volunteer t-shirt at all because she was such a flake, and a bitch. Not in those words, because even when Erica curses, she uses words so distinctly, so… I don’t know the word to describe it, that you can tell she’s serious. (If you couldn’t already tell, I have a mild case of hero-worship here.) It’s funny, because I’ve never had a case of hero-worship before (aside from Heero-worship), and from stories and things, I sort of got the feeling that it involved a crush, but I can tell you, that isn’t the situation. I just admire her for going after what she wants, and especially how she handles people in general, and herself in particular. She just comes across as being so competent, which is a high compliment in my book, not many people are just competent overall. So I guess that I'd say, I want to be like her when I grow up. If only I could do that 10th grade essay over again (about someone you “admire”) where I wrote about my mom ‘cause I couldn’t really think of anyone I really and truly admired, and I do admire my mom to some degree, but I wouldn’t want to be like her. I think it’s especially funny and ironic that Erica would probably gag to hear that she’s the object of someone’s admiration, much less hero-worship. I probably would too. Maybe. Good thing this is just LJ and she’s way too busy to read someone’s random LJ entry.
Right, so getting back to Brian and Michelle. I’d met Brian before, about a year and a half ago, at the Book-Off near GCS. We just sort of started talking and he ended up giving me a flyer to an anime club viewing. A few months later, I saw him at Shoujocon and realized that “OMG! He’s the one who always cosplays female anime characters in really revealing costumes?!” Imagine my surprise. When he’s dressed normally, he looks totally different! If you’d seen him as a girl, I don’t think most would recognize him as a guy, but when you see him as a guy, it’s easier to recognize him as a girl. And then I confirmed it a few weeks later at Otakon; I got a close look and yes, it was definitely him. In any case, he’s a very odd guy. Not just plain nuts, but probably has some sort of mental ailment, like manic-depression/mood swings sort of thing, something that makes people neurotic… childhood trauma? Of course, this doesn’t excuse his just plain bad attitude and asshole-ness. The mind simply boggles when trying to figure out what sort of mental relationship he and Michelle have together. And yet if there were ever two people about whom you’d say something like, “Let them have each other and keep them far away from me,” it would be them. So. I guess there’s a place for everyone.
Okay, I just gagged myself.
And I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.
Maryann called me around 3? maybe 4pm, to find out the directions to get from Manhattan to the hotel. She was coming by herself, after school that day (her last day of high school!). I gave her directions, and eagerly awaited her arrival. Many rounds of Idiot’s Delight (a solitaire card game) later, she showed up and after settling into the room, I basically commandeered her to man the volunteer table while I went to watch the first four episodes of Devilman Lady, which was good, but didn’t really get me into it. Of course, I found out from someone else that it’s the fifth or sixth episode when the show gets really good. It figures.
Hm, I know there was a point where the Dealers Room (which we were instructed to call the Vendors Room just in case anybody came in off the street and thought that it might refer to drug dealers, which apparently had happened before) was getting ready to open (much later than scheduled), and some of the staff let the other staff know (via the radios) that the DR would be open to volunteers and staff to take a quick look (no buying ‘cause the dealers were still setting up). I ran up there to take a look and saw some cute stuff. Later I went back to pick up two Final Fantasy X plushies (a cactuar and one of Lulu’s mog-thingies called a “pu pu,” although I haven’t seen that one yet – it’s blue with a little yellow ball springing off the top of it’s head), and I picked up a chocobo-plushie for Angelica.
For the life of me, I cannot remember what happened between then (which was around 6 or 7) and midnight. I know that I had something to eat, but I can’t remember what. I know that I did something, possibly watched something, but I cannot remember that either. When it comes back to me, I’ll fill it in. Maybe it wasn’t that exciting?
Later, I think I went upstairs to try and get a little nap before having to do my midnight-4am shift, but I don’t think I really got any sleep. Maybe about 5 minutes of actual closed-eye sleep. The rest of it, was closed-eye listening-to-whatever-was-going-on-around-me-laying-down. Anyway, at midnight I went downstairs again to man the live-action video room. I ended up watching the end of a Hong Kong movie called Who’s the Woman? Who’s the Man? (or maybe it was the other way around). But anyway, it seemed really funny. When it finished, the 2 people that had been in the room left, and I put in the one that was supposed to have been put in before it (as in, they showed the sequel first by misake), called He’s a Woman, She’s a Man (or something like that). It was really hysterical, and I have to say I really enjoyed watching it, even if I was in a bitterly freezing cold video room all by myself. Two hours later when that finished, I put on a live-action movie called Bishounen. As you might guess, it was YAOI! Yay! The main character, a young Japanese
At one point, about 10 minutes before the end of Bishounen, I paused it (seeing as how I was still the only one watching) to go over to the two other video rooms. A security guard had closed up video room one, so I peeked into video room two. It took me a second, but I recognized what was playing on the screen – YAOI! I looked around the room, and there were about 5 guys sitting there, watching YAOI of all things. ::snicker:: It was great. So I said, “Are you guys watching YAOI?!” They said, “Yeah!” And started making jokes about the invisible dicks and stuff. It was really great. I noticed that one of the people in the room was Jim, from the staff meeting the night before. One of the other guys said something about it being really hysterical, and something about phantom dicks, and Jim corrected him. Apparently, it was Jim’s joke… something about Phantom Men-ass. (I immediately thought of how fans of Star Wars slash and YAOI alike would get a kick out of the pun… that I’m not even sure Jim realizes was one.)
Someone asked me what I was watching and I said a live-action YAOI movie. Two guys got up to go over to my video room to see and asked, are there phantom dicks in that one too? They looked so disappointed when I told them that no, what I was watching was far less graphic than what they were. Which, if you think about it, is pretty sad.
Anyway, I went to go finish the movie, which is when Angelica came down. I’m pretty sure that was around 3:45am. When the movie ended, we went over to the other video room where they were still watching YAOI. One of the guys had left, so there were now Jim and one other guy, and me and Angelica. The other guy left after about 15 minutes, and then it was just me, Angelica and Jim. OMG, did we have so much fun! We started cracking up about the “phantom men-ass” and other slashy jokes, not to mention discussing the stupidity of many YAOI anime, and the “censorship” (little black bars/circles, or the aforementioned “invisible” penises). We had one long, continuous laugh, for like 25 minutes there. It was hysterical. After a while, though, it toned down, and we started getting tired. I’d been up since like 8 without even a nap and so I was the first one to give in and lay down across a row of seats. A few minutes later, I think Jim succumbed to temptation and did the same. Then Angelica gave in; but she turned two rows of seats to face each other, to make a sort of bed. When I saw what she’d done, I hopped up to go lay down with her (you have to remember, I was still fucking freezing cold here, and Angelica is always warmer than normal). So I settled in, and without realizing it, fell asleep. I’m pretty sure Jim was out also, in the row next to us, and it’s possible Angelica was going to fall asleep soon, too.
The next thing I knew, someone had crouched down near my head to tell me that he was going to bail. It was Rich, the cute blond-spiked Asian boy, who said he couldn’t really afford to stay at the con any more ‘cause he didn’t have any crash space, and he was spending too much on parking or some such bullshit. On the one hand, I understand the money difficulty. But he knew at least a week before the convention (probably closer to two) that there was not going to be any crash space provided for free, because I told him myself over email. So he was leaving; the next day of course, I would have to find someone to cover his shifts, or cover them myself. But at that point, I couldn’t have cared less if he jumped into a river; I was fucking tired and he could just get the hell out of my (sleepy) face. In fact, I think it struck me as funny, in that sort of, “I knew this would happen” sort of way. I giggled as I lay there on the row of seats next to Angelica.
So he left, and I was awake again. There was no one else in the video room but Angelica and Jim. So I suggested to Angelica that we just get Security to lock up the doors and go back to bed. I woke Jim up and told him that we were going back to bed, and that on the way out we’d get the front desk to get Security to lock up the rooms. I asked if he’d be okay, and he said yes, so we said goodnight and left. When we passed by the front desk, we let them know that the rooms needed to be locked up, and that there was a guy down there waiting for them to come and lock up the rooms. We went up to bed, kicked Maryann off the bed, and went to sleep. I had a thought about hoping that Jim would be okay, but I was just way to tired to stay up any longer. I’m pretty sure that it was just about 5am.
