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Okay. Fanime report time!

Fanime was fun, as always. For the past few years, I've been somewhat disappointed by the lack of really great guests of honor, but they sure made it up this year. A lot of Gainax staff attended the convention and held several panels. The convention itself suffered from the normal convention confusion (i.e. people not knowing where things are, changes in the printed schedule, etc), but they weren't any greater than in any other convention. The Gainax stuff was all on a separate card and mostly in the same room, so at least that was consistent.

So I went home on Wednesday, since I didn't want to rush out of class on Thursday to make it home in time to work at the Con. Fanime has typically opened registration on Thursday to let people who preregistered get their badges a little early. Even so, the line on Thursday is always absurdly long. Such was the case when I got to the convention center. However, since I was working staff (thanks again Keys! heart ), I went to a separate line. That line wasn't nearly as long, but I was short on time and had to get to the Swap Meet, so I went ahead without my badge to help out. I get there, meet Keys, and start helping out however I can with organizing the people at the swap meet, which mostly meant making sure that they didn't go right to a spot, but stopped to pay the fee before being directed onwards. Once the people who were there on Thursday were set up, I was set to wandering around and making sure that nobody was selling bootlegs or selling porn to people under 18. This meant that, fundamentally, I just had to walk around the swap meet and keep an eye on what was being sold. I didn't actually catch anyone doing something they ought not to be doing.

I was a little disappointed, though. One guy there had the full series of Black Heaven he was going to sell for $20. I asked him to hold it for me until I could grab some cash (after everyone had finished setting up), but by the time I got back, one of his helpers had accidentally sold it. Such a pity.

Friday, I got to the convention at a little after noon and spent some time wandering around until the dealer's room opened. Artist's Alley had a couple webcomic people there, like VG Cats and SNAFU. When the Dealer's Room opened, it was...exactly the same as every year XD. A lot of the regular attendees were in the same places they were last year. I browsed around there for a while before meeting up with Keys for the first of the Gainax panels, which was mostly Q&A. The Gainax staff got a lot of the usual questions, mostly about Gurren Lagann and the new Eva movies as well as a few on how they generally work. I particularly liked a lot of the procedural stuff, since I didn't know a lot of it. They confirmed that there will be two Gurren Lagann movies, which excited pretty much everyone in the crowd (and thanks to Keys and FFG, ended up on ANN a couple minutes after they said it. XD). We had to cut out of that a little early to get things organized for the swap meet that day. As this was the day where the convention was officially open, it was much more crowded, both in terms of people selling things and people buying things. Organization was thus a little more complicated. So, naturally, this is exactly when Zero and Rae were scheduled to get in and I had to take off to go meet with them. Setting aside the fact that I got directed to the wrong place by the hotel employee I asked for directions from, I eventually found Zero and Rae and we all went back to the convention center. I had more work to do in the swap meet (I'd accidentally taken the extra registration forms with me when I went out to find them.) and registration was closed for the day, which meant that Zero and Rae couldn't get into the swap meet. So they called down Rosa and Seraphim Call to hang out with. They went back to Rosa's room at the hotel until I was done, at which point, Zero, Rae, and WJ came to meet me. I talked to WJ for a little while, then Zero, Rae, and I caught the lightrail to leave for the day.

So, on Saturday, we all got there early to get Zero and Rae's badges. Their line, as preregistered people, was really short. After that, we found ourselves a Hila to talk to for a little while. Hila went to help out a friend in Artist's Alley while the rest of us went to get Rosa. Once we got Rosa, we wandered the convention for a while, eventually finding the Crowd of Mods and Admins (TM) (and Hila), including WJ, Noraboo, Desna (not in any of the pictures to be linked later), and a couple others. Zero and Rae snuck off at one point to buy gifts for Joker. They got him a couple Gundam models and gave them to him. They're going to mail them to him, so he can't really refuse them.

At this point, it was close to the Gaia panel, so we went over in that direction. At some point before this, I'd caught the showing of Gurren Lagann with the official subs. Looked pretty good to me, though I do wish they'd have had a sample of the dub to show. When I got out of that, I'd seen that the line for the Gaia panel was already forming. So, anyways, we head over there with the big group and who should be watching the door but Phoe, who promptly tries to send me to the back of the line when the rest of the group catches up. Phoe knew most of the people there and that they were supposed to be in there and starts to let the group in when two other staff members come over and start raising a fuss about why a group is going in early. They quiet down when they see that some of the people have panelist badges. That's around when a fourth staff person from the line comes over to see why we're getting in early. Also, for most of the second half of this, the front of the line has been screaming at us for cutting in line, as they saw it.

So, once we're in, we get front row seats (thanks to being with staff) and everyone else starts filtering in. A few others try to sit in the front row until they're told that it's for Gaia staff only. We also get this one girl sitting in front of Hila and I who was cosplayed as her avatar. That's not so unusual, until you consider the fact that her avatar had on the Winter Rose in the pose where it's a giant flower that the avatar's standing in.She ended up sitting or kneeling (couldn't tell as it was hidden beneath the flower-dress. The convention staff left her alone, even though she wasn't staff. I think it had a little something to do with not being able to sit anywhere else without being a fire hazard. XD Lots of people ended up taking pictures of her, which got some of our group in the background of most of them (depending on the angle).

The Gaia panel was a pretty standard Gaia panel. Info on the elemental wings and the eyes from this month as well as saying there'll be another set of eyes just from what didn't make it in this month. Some of the alternate designs of the wings looked cooler, in my opinion, but meh. In the powerpoint presentation, ever other (or it felt like every other) slide, they had a pink box pop up, which meant DJ Hellsing grabbed some Gaia merchandise and went around throwing it into the crowd. It started to get tiring after around the fourth time, but still ended in laughs, when the entire crowd stood up and started shouting for free stuff. Flower-girl managed to snag a t-shirt that was dropped and kicked to her and a Water Meat. Zero and Rae also managed to get a water meat by basically just asking. XD

Info on battle system was kinda same as always, that they're working on it, a few more pieces about making new sets of clothes for avatars with it, and some sample areas. Other than that, it went into the Q&A. Now, as with any Gaia Q&A, the questions were the same for the most part. Here's a few highlights:

- Lots of people complaining about bots and whining about...pretty much everything like that.
- One Gaia staff member proposed to his girlfriend in front of the audience, which she accepted. When he got up there, he said something along the lines of "I know it's unusual for one staff member to ask a question of another staff member, but I have a question for (I don't remember the username), my girlfriend of six years." It was around this point when everyone in the audience knew what was coming and the mumbling started. So, when he proposed, the crowd cheered enthusiastically. I found that I had to agree with DJ Hellsing on that one. "How do you ask a question after that?"
- As usual, the admins got "proposals" from the various members in line. The odd one was that Lanzer got a "divorce" from someone because she had a real boyfriend. XD
- A couple people who went up to ask questions were just absolute morons. One person said something along the lines of, "Hi. I'm ________, some of you may know me because I flame a lot." And that same person only got better. "So, I got a three day ban just for posting someone else's image!"
Someone at the table: "I'm sorry, but do you want the three days back?"
- Another person was incensed that the Admins took her idea without crediting her. What was the idea? Kitty slippers. Yes, I can totally see that they must have taken it from a single person. Not like that's something commonly suggested. And it's not like Gaia already has cat mascots or animal slippers. Had to be from this one little girl.
- Another young girl didn't quite understand the flood controls to keep people from overposting. She seemed to think that when it said to slow down, it meant how fast she was typing. She made hand motions to try and express to the admins how she types like this (one finger down poking slowly) instead of like this (waves fingers wildly). My major thought is that if she is typing that slowly, how little must she be saying to trigger the flood warning.
- One guy got up to the mic and started singing the Rickroll song to the panel, which was funny until it went on for too long.

Oh, and a bunch of Anonymi tried to raid the Gaia panel. They came in wearing their masks carrying a boombox (also playing the Rickroll song, to which the panel responed, "You're too late, someone beat you too it") and walked up dancing to the front of the room. The panel answered a few questions more while some staff people in the front rows got up to dance with them. This was about when you could see some of them start looking confused. They only got more confused when the Admins put the next question on hold while they played music over the big speakers for everyone to dance to. This only lasted a few seconds, then the music stopped and they went back to questions. You could see a few of the 4chan people look back and forth as if saying, "This is boring. They're playing along and not trying to run us out. Let's go." And they left. XD

After the Gaia Panel, the non-mod AGers tagged along with the mods and admins to get food. It was good food and good conversations. Hila got to have a nice little chat with Lanzer about the AG's name and the guild, which amused him, I think. Our waitress turned out to be on Gaia as well, and was very excited to have the Gaia staff there and to be waiting on them. A few of us have been joking about how she probably went back to Gaia and posted something like, "I got to serve food to Lanzer!" to try and make people jealous. And it's sad that I think people might actually have been jealous.

After that, I tried to catch up with some friends at the Cosplay competition, but couldn't find them. Then, I met up with everyone a little while afterwords in Rosa's room. Just a little while behind me came Joker and Noraboo with alcohol. What ensued was pure comedy gold, especially since they got onto the mod IRC channel to all talk to people. Zero, Rae, and I had to take off early to catch the last lightrail back to my car.

So, Sunday. We get to the convention around 10 or so, poke around the dealer's room, then go to the AMV competition. Much better videos than last year, and a good, enthusiastic crowd (and a better place to show them in) made it so much better than the disappointing year before. I'll be giving links later for the better videos, but just remember that you all need to watch the Gurren Lagann one. Trust me.

After that, we kinda wander for a while. The AG would theoretically be meeting up at 7 or so to hang out. In the meantime, we ended up in Rosa's room (now the unofficial base camp) to plan out what to do. While channel surfing, we found out that most of the group hadn't actually seen Iron Man. So, the AG plan shifts to getting food, then catching the movie. The AG turns out to be just as fun to hang out with offline as it is online. XD The movie was good (like always), and afterwords we went to hang out with Joker (who hadn't been there for most of the day).

Monday, Rosa had to go to the airport early in the day, so we dropped her off there. After that, we came back to catch the last day of the dealer's room and the deals that go along with that. We met up with Hila and FFG to see the winners of the AMV competition, then browse the dealer's room for a little while. After that, the con was pretty much over, so Zero, Rae, Phoe, FFG, and I went to a friend of mine's place to play some Twilight Imperium before FFG and I went back to school.

That's pretty much the end of the convention. This

And now, here’s some amusing things overheard/said at Fanime:

RANDOM GUY 1 (after following me and my friends for a little while): Hey, wait. You’re not my friends! *walks off*

RANDOM GUY 2 (overheard as I was walking around in the dealer’s room): An otaku is more sophisticated than your average Japanese because- (didn’t hear the rest)

Joker (after Zero bought him some presents, saying that Zero ought to hold onto them): I’ll let you mail them to me.
Zero: Do I trust him?
Rae/Rosa: No!

Rosa (when we all sat down to dinner): Oh! I have a knife! I can stab…
Noraboo: Who gave Rosa a knife?

Phoe (talking on the phone to someone): So you’re re-enacting bestiality with Gaia plushies?
Me: …I’m sorry, what?

Rosa: Zero is actually nastier than WJ! (1)

RANDOM GUY 3: On the 22nd day of every month, he’s naked.

Zero (on the phone with Joasis): Why do you have a cat in your pocket? I can hear it meow.

Zero (on the phone with Rosa after she went into the airport): ‘Check my bag’? Okay…YOU’RE DEAD! (2)

Zero: How the hell are you awake?
Me: I’m used to working on little sleep. I’m in college.

RANDOM PERSON 4: America stole everything, you know.
RANDOM PERSON 5 (no trace of sarcasm): No kidding.

(1) There actually is a context of this sentence. However, it’s infinitely more amusing without it.

(2) This one requires a little explanation. Those of us at the convention were witness to a real life donation war, with Zero giving gifts to most everyone without being asked (and often with being told not to). He’d given Rosa some gifts throughout the weekend and had refused any sort of compensation or other gifts for himself. So, when we took Rosa to the airport on Monday, she swore revenge on him for his evil, evil kindness. When we’re driving away, Zero gets a call from Rosa. She tells him to look inside the bag of stuff she was holding onto for him (that he had forgotten the previous day) He pulls out a sketch someone made for him in Artist’s Alley and finds money stuffed down the back, both Canadian and US.

SKIZZ, was it you that mentioned some other avi site you go to? Which was it? Was it IMVU? That's something I joined recently..it'd be rather interesting to get AG people on there to chat.

Wow, nice type-up of Fanime, Zely xd

It was fun. Zero and I are safely back in LA, wooooo~ And going to watch Mulan, dammit, because he's never seen it mad

[/can't find Haruhi AMV anywhere]

Mmmhmm. All three of those are good ones. I didn't post the Trigun one because I was trying to stick to Youtube links for those who don't want to download. Montage and Ouran, I just forgot. XD

The Trigun one won both judge's and fan's choice for comedy.

And I got a Euphemia figure from Seraphim for $5. I left most of my stuff that I got at home, which means that I can't post pictures of them, which is a little sad. I got three very nice Haruhi figures for about $20 each. I also got almost a complete set of One Piece figures (Ash, I'm going to let you know which one I'm looking for. XD), three Geass figures (Lelouch, Karen, and the aforementioned Euphie), and a Fate/Stay Night figure. Aside from figures, I grabbed Silent Hill 3 for $20 in the Swap Meet. I also grabbed a VG Cats poster, a Katamari shirt, the box and first DVD of School Rumble (unopened) from the swap meet for $15, Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid for $52, and two wallscrolls, one of Jigoku Shoujo, and the other of School Rumble.

whee !!!