Rose City Comic Con Day 1

Goodies so far:



I also got my copies of What Moves The Dead by T Kingfisher and Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston signed, but I already owned the books.

The place was packed, more that it's typically been in my experience.

I went to the Plot and Pacing Panel:



N. E. Davenport, Isa Agajanian, Casey McQuiston, Charlie Jane Anders, John Scalzi and Ryka Aoki. Amazing line up, but that many authors and that broad a topic, it was mostly just going to be some random chatter. During the Q&A session some guy asked if fanfiction was an acceptable form of writing practice or does it hurt your own voice too much. Then John Scalzi went 'Fanfiction writing is writing' and the audience cheered.

Weirdly, it was the tag end of the panel before that was more interesting about writing. They were having writers submit 'back of book blurbs' for their projects for critique and actually, the people running the panel gave interesting feedback.

Next was Sidekicks and Side Quests:



T Kingfisher, Terry Brooks, Gabriella Buba, Rachel Gillig, Aiden Thomas

This panel was more unfocused. Before the panel started Terry Brooks was walking around thanking people for showing up to his panel, but I had no idea who he was. I actually thought he was just a guy making jokes and not an actual panelist. Between Terry just giving advice that may or may not have anything to do with the topic, people being excited to be on a panel with Terry and T Kingfisher answering a question on research by explaining in depth the purpose of caterpillar inflators while Aiden looked like he was about to tap out... yeah, amazing line up... but if you wanted to go to learn about writing in general or these topics in particular, lol no

I roamed the exhibit hall a bunch. It was amazingly crowded.

Rose City Comic Con Day 2

When I was in the line to get in there was a group of teenagers behind me. They kept smacking into me like I wasn't there or trying to sneak part of the group in front of me when the line went around corners. I don't like people pulling that shit on me because I am at the event solo and it happens a lot. Then I decided, yanno, I am going to have people bumping into me and being annoying all day because they are hyper, oblivious, entitled, actually need to for some reason, etc. I don't want to start the day out like this. So I stopped and was all 'go ahead, sick of this, go in front of me since you want to so bad' and they didn't even pretend like to be shocked or innocent. They just enjoyed cutting one (1) whole person and didn't bother the people in front of them because it was another group.

Oh No, I've Made a Huge Mistake:



Casey McQuiston, Aiden Thomas, Isa Agajanian, T Kingfisher, John Scalzi, Ryka Aoki

This was actually kinda sort a writing panel. It was more about RL events derailing book projects, or saving them, but yeah. Anyway, it was fun.

The Leyfarer's Chronicle: The Dreams of Dragons



And then there's these weirdos. They are all full time DMs at TPK Brewing, where I play D&D. The pub, drinks, etc are all these for their custom world setting and ongoing storyline with 150 players. I am one of the 150 Leyfarers doing the ongoing story. This was a lore heavy actual play... real play... live D&D thing. (I know the term is 'actual play' for these 'watch D&D played live' thingies but that term is still weird to me, so I assume it's confusing to other people as well). The guy on the far right is my group's DM.

Then I wandered a bit more and came home. I still need to pick what to do tomorrow because almost everything I want to do overlaps time-wise. There's another writing panel, the Flanaverse panel and some people talking about the ghosts of Portland.

Other cons tabling at RCCC

* I was surprised to see the Orycon booth, as sad as it was. Oregon's 45 year old sci fi and fantasy con is ending this year, next month actually. I was going to avoid the booth, but instead I talked to them and asked why. They said they are getting smaller each year and rather than hang on, they want to end on a high note and make room for something new. Also, they said they intend to attend whatever new con pops up. Maybe that is the just the stock PR answer, but the guy I spoke to seemed sincere. I am kinda impressed. Then he rambled and said that the aging leadership wasn't attracting the younger crowd and I kept my mouth shut. I did mention that I was on OFSCI for a while, but he doesn't know who I am or my history with Orycon/OFSCI.

I asked about the endowments the con has for writing scholarships, bringing in a filk guest each year, etc. He didn't know what I was talking about. But, a planned ending as opposed to a collapse hopefully means it's all being handled properly.

* Andrew was at the Kumoricon booth? With what looked like an undercut? Not going to get into why I Have Questions about this. Those questions I will never get answers to (and it might be for the best that I don't), but I am glad I talked to the Orycon people even if... actually, especially since they were not the Orycon people I used to work with.

* Last year the SPEW people were grabbing people and pulling them into their little HP area. Last year a lady grabbed me like she knew me and something was urgent and pulled me in. I was so off balance I went with her and then quickly noped out. I had decided if they did that cute RP that involved a) touching people and b) assuming people are thrilled to suddenly be in an HP photo booth I was going to be significantly less chill about it this time. Fortunately, they were not doing their RP bullshit this year. Honestly, not sure how they got away with doing that all weekend last year.