Nick's Otakon '99 Diary.

This may get a little convoluted at times; the weekend was pretty
convoluted in and of itself.

Anyway, Friday afternoon, I flew in to Washington Dulles Airport.  Silly
me had thought when buying tickets that the con was near DC, as it had
been in recent years.  On the other hand, it did give me a good chance
for a nice drive to Baltimore.  Murphy's Law kicked in once I got there,
though.  I rented a car to drive up there; I never expected someone to
back into me *while still in the rental place's parking lot*.  After
some hysterics, I got the situation taken care of, the reports filed,
etc., and went on my way.

I'd never been anywhere near the East Coast before, so the drive was a
very good thing.  BEAUTIFUL country, if you ever go up there; I didn't
know they made trees that big or in that abundance.  ^_^  It rained some
during the drive, slowing me down; however, it was still a great
experience.  I managed to find my way to the convention center without
getting lost, and went in to register.

By this time, it was around 8:00 PM.  Dealer's Room had already closed,
as had the Art Room.  After checking to see if Zen, my roomie for this
con, was in the hotel, I wandered around for awhile, trying to see what
was there.  Ran into Dan Root and Lara Bartram and talked with them for
awhile.  We watched some weird anime (forget what it was offhand) and
made somewhat MSTing comments through it.  Also met Jeff Hosmer and
White Wolf; only got a chance to say 'hi' before going on my way.

Finally got a hold of Zen, after he returned to the hotel room.  Got
into the hotel, then rested.  Had some problems with my laptop; couldn't
get the bloody thing to run, because the cable from the outlet to the AC
adapter was loose (unfortunately, I hadn't realized this yet, and made a
fool of myself wondering why the bloody thing didn't work).

Saturday

We had some lock problems with the door; it seemed reluctant to
recognize the keys.  Maintenance guy came up and replaced the battery
inside, at which point the lock started to smoke.  Fortunately, it was
only a problem with the battery; once a different one was put in, it
worked fine.

The panel was at 10:30 AM; horrible time for a panel, as most of us
struggle to awaken.  Got there a little early, and ran into Sean Gaffney
and Alan Harnum.  Something apparently happened between the two last
night, causing Alan to have some nightmares.  Others started to trickle
in: Hosmer, White Wolf, etc.  In a sense, the panel started early;
comments were flying between the people there.  As some of it was
politically incorrect (and as I was also writing Sailor Moon stuff
during this), I didn't post much of the comments here.

The panel shows up, and it officially begins.  Panelists were (by
seating order) Sean Gaffney, Andrew Huang, Alan Harnum, Lara Bartram,
Neil (forget last name), Jeff Hosmer, and Stefan Gagne.  It wasn't the
best panel I'd ever seen (ACen of this year holds that distinction), but
it was still a solid panel.

First thing that was discussed was what makes a good fanfic.  Stefan
(besdies the more flippant answer of sex) said length; apparently he
doesn't like the shortfics out there.  Jeff piped in with the idea that
characters had to be written believably.  Andrew (not surprisingly) said
humor; Sean mentioned taking pride in your work.

Ideas were thrown out after that, both from the audience and the
panelists: originality, putting passion (your own emotions) into the
work, reading other works before embarking.  Description was discussed;
Alan mentioned (several times, as the topic came up repeatedly)
describing what is relevant to the story, and no more.  Sean also
mentioned setting the mood.

The Columbine fanfics were mentioned, along with the question of whether
or not their should be limits.  An interesting answer came up: AS long
as the work is good, there should be no limits.  Even with Columbine, a
good work could be made by focusing on the alienation that caused the
tragedy, and chronicling that.

Also, the subject of audience was mentioned, as well as who the writer
should write for: to please the readers, or themselves?  General
concensus was that there was no specific audience for fanfic, due to the
nature of the internet.  There was disagreement among who the writer
should write for; Stefan mentioned writing for the readers, while Lara
talked about writing what you like.  Other subjects came up
one-at-a-time: what you need to understand a work, prereaders, making
characters deeper.

"Why write fanfic?" came up at one point, and almost everyone had an
answer.  Neil talked about going beyond the main story, Stefan mentioned
the established community of fans ready to read it, while Jeff, Sean,
and Andrew mentioned (in various ways) the fact that they had ideas to
write, so they wrote.

Of course, the concept of OOC came up.  Alan effectively said that most
OOC accusations aren't so much statements of 'This is out-of character'
as they are 'This does not fit my concept of the character'.  Neil
offered an opposite view, that if Takahashi (or other original author)
turns left and you turn right, it's OOC.  In the end, the concensus was
that possible OOC needed to be justified somehow and that, regardless of
how good or bad the justification, flames would need to be prepared for.

The last major discussion occurred concerning fight scenes, and how to
make them work.  Essentially, blow-by-blow is bad, and that it needed to
be a story within itself.  John Biles, speaking from the peanut gallery,
also mentioned the idea of giving the fight a weird setting, to give it
some flavor.

Overall, I found the panel interesting, because several of the authors
(notably Gagne) had styles radically different from my own.  At several
points I was actually angry because they were missing elements that were
critical to the topic at hand while concentrating on elements that I
considered trivial by comparison.  Definitely shows that people often
come by similar results in very different ways.

Anyway, went to eat in the food court afterwards.  Had a nice talk about
various works with one of the panel attendees.

After this, I went to the Dealer's Room.  Didn't find much; a friend of
mine had asked me to pick up the BGC Ep. 4 soundtrack for him if I found
it, so I did that.  Also found a LoGH soundtrack set, and picked that
up.  Overall, I wasn't that impressed by the dealer's wares; I had been
hoping for a much wider import DVD selection, and they didn't have much
of those there.  Later trips yielded the "Perfect Blue" LD and the Saber
Marionette J set.

Met up with Sean, Lara, Richard, and Matt Lewis later.  Matt talked
about his "Man's man" story idea, while some crazy songfic ideas came
up: "The Pandas Must Die" for Genma, "Electric Lunchladyland" for Ukyou,
and (really bad, for those who know) "Crosstown Traffic", for Minky
Momo.  The subject of men in skirts also came up; I just wish they'd
shave their legs if they want to do that.  We eventually separated, as
other things were going on.

The afternoon was... well... boring.  I couldn't get into the hotel room
because I didn't have a key, I couldn't get into the car because the
keys were in the hotel room, and the bag I was carrying with me seemed
to weigh a ton by now.  So... I wrote.  Will be sending what I wrote to
prereaders tonight.

Eventually re-found Richard; he let me into his room, where I found out
where everyone else was hiding.  Went to dine with Alan and Sean and
Wolf and Dan.  Wasn't quite ready for supper yet, but I was very hot and
thirsty and wanted something other than water to drink.  So, I ordered a
Diet Coke... big mistake.  Mind you, I hadn't had caffeine in months.

After that, we went to watch "Kareshi to Kanojo no Jishou", and found
out the one limit to good fanfiction.  Good fanfiction must, by its very
nature, live up to the original somehow - or surpass it in some way.  I
don't think that's possible with KtKnJ, it's that good.  A Gainax
creation, it defies description; about the closest I can get is to take
Eva, make it a shoujo series, take away the sci-fi, and add a bit of
Kodomo no Omocha for flavor.  Any commercial company which gets the
American distro rights is going to make a bloody killing on this thing.
If you're into fansubs, get it, and get it now.  I can't say enough good
things about it.

Anyway, after watching that, the combination of caffeine and good anime
made me *very* hyper.  I was shaking uncontrollably.  A group of us
bounced over (in my case, literally) to the food court.  I'd heard that
crab cakes were a specialty here that I needed to try while there, so I
ordered some.  Wasn't that impressed by them.  The conversation, though,
was good; we all got to listen to White Wolf's dirty little secrets
about the FFML.

Afterwards, Sean mentioned a live-action work called 'God of Cookery', a
Stephen Chow work.  Very funny.  To make, put "Kung Fu", "West Side
Story", and "The Frugal Gourmet" into a blender, and hit puree.

Ran into JD Farber after the film.  Hung out with him and Matt Lewis
afterwards.  We discussed everything from Revenge Wars to Matt's new
project.

Ended the night with the Nadesico movie.  It was, perhaps, a fitting end
to a day noted for its strangeness.  Like just about everything else I
saw at the con, it was very good; it was just a bit surprising, is all.
The movie, to me, seemed a fanfic brought to screen, mainly because a
studio normally wouldn't have the cojones to do a work like that.

Sunday

Not much really happened on Sunday, for the most part; nothing eventful,
anyway.  Most of the day was spent with Richard, Sean, and Lara, talking
about various things.  As a lot of it is private, it will not be
discussed here, save that it was the conversation of friends.

The goodbyes were slow and awkward.  I guess when you know you won't be
seeing someone you know for at least eight months, it tends to make
things a little weird.  Sean looked through his Utena cards, Lara talked
about life in general, Zen went off to the Art Auction, and Richard went
to the video game room.  I said my goodbyes quickly and left.

The drive to Baltimore was noteworthy for me not getting lost.  There
was no respite for me this time.  I got truly and royally lost in
Baltimore on the way out, and drove through just about every
neighborhood there.  It was as though I had wanted to get to the con,
but didn't want to leave once I was done.  When I saw the "Detour to
IH95" sign, I clung to it like a man drowning, and hurriedly made my
waay back to Dulles.  I had planned for two hours of lead time on the
flight; I got there about ten minutes before boarding.

Such is life, I guess.

In summary, this was probably the best con I've ever been to.  About the
only disappointment was the Dealers' Room, and that was the fault of the
dealers rather than the con itself.  The interactions of the writers
involved was largely sopntaneous; there were few real 'plans' made, save
at that moment.

Otakon did something very interesting; truth to tell, it was probably
the only way they could continue to grow.  Essentially, the con was held
in the Baltimore Convention Center, with the hotels nearby covering
living space.  Smart idea, as apparently it had grown too big for one
hotel.  At any rate, it worked wonderfully; the Inner Harbor district
was set up perfectly for large conventions such as this, with food and
shopping within walking distance.  Other conventions suffering from
overcrowding would do well to consider such a style in the future.

To put it simply, I had an absolute blast this year, and hope I can
arrange to make it for next year's show.

-- Nick Leifker, July 5, 1999