Introduction

Story and challenge time!!!

So with the release of Pokemon Go and me attending an anime convention as well, I have a lot to talk about :P I won't have many "walls" this time, I'll just label the stories so that you can choose which ones interest you. Or you could just read them all! You never know, I might have some really interesting things to say ;)

This is going to be looooooooooong!!!

The Convention In General

I did have a lot of fun at this convention, probably a lot more than previous years, but ironically the con itself wasn't as good. The stores were crap and attendance was way down, making the halls surprisingly easy to get through. Quite simply it didn't seem as lively as usual.

However, I will have to say that the most likely perpetrator to this is probably Pokemon Go, since half of the con were probably out playing the game at any given time XD Let's talk about that!

Pokemon Go And Perfect Timing

#TeamMystic

Ok, now I've gotten that out of the way.

So the timing for Pokemon Go's release was pretty much perfect for this con. Actually, the first day of the con, I even saw the 50-60 year old host (who is awesome btw) playing the game outside and almost asked for a picture with him and a pokemon. The next day he actually opened up ceremonies with "welcome to the Pokemon Go convention!!!" Yes, there were that many of us playing, and it was ridiculous. There were certain pokespots that were lured almost 24/7 because they were accessible from within the building. Also competition was intense for the few gyms in the area. They often wouldn't stand for more than an hour or two if you were lucky, though one was staked down pretty well by a CP 1467 Lapras. That one isn't falling for a few more days I would imagine.

Also, with the loads and loads of people playing the game around the clock, I have never felt safer walking around town at midnight. Even well over a mile away from the convention spot you would always have another group of players visibly nearby. Hundreds. And hundreds. Of players. Everywhere. I simply can't explain the pure awesomeness that is the feel of this.

The poor police though. I wonder how long it took for them to realise what had happened to their cities XD I was actually at my local park at one in the morning with my friend because there was a gym there and a policeman confronted us. He asked us what we were doing, and we said "playing a game."

"Pokemon Go?"

"Yep."

He then told us that we couldn't go any further into the park than the parking lot so we called it a day after that lol.

So I'm sure all of you avid players have been draining your batteries dry time and time again. My friends and I have found the absolute beauty in a thing called external batteries. You can get them at Walmart for just $10 and essentially double your battery life, often even more than double. Pretty much the cycle is almost drain your phone's battery, plug in your external battery, play until you're tired and stop at an outlet, charge both the external battery and your phone at the same time, repeat. Also battery saving mode is awesome! For those who don't know, if you turn it on you can tilt your phone at the ground and your screen will become dark, saving a whole ton of battery.

My friends and I have been playing for hours upon hours. Yesterday it got so bad that one of my friends left the convention early because of a sunburn and didn't come back today. That's right, us pasty white nerds are outside so long that we turn into lobsters XD

At the time of this writing, I am level 12, team mystic, and have my highest cp at around 600. However, in just a few more candies I will be able to evolve my Eevee and a super epic Pidgeotto, which will far surpass that limit I imagine. Seriously though, Eevees are so great in this game. They have an absolutely massive power spike after they evolve, and I expect my 320 Eevee will probably get close to 800 CP. Sadly, all my friends have waaaay better luck at finding Eevees so they all have evolved forms (which for some reason are mostly Vaporeons), but I'm always either driving them around, having my app malfunction, or am doing something else most of the time when one shows up ;w;

Lastly, I would just like to say a quote of myself that my friends found incredibly hilarious but strikingly true, at least for us:

"I have more team spirit for my team in this game than I do for any of the schools I've attended" - Kyle, 7/10/2016

...I fear for my free time and writing schedule...

Writing Panels

So I went to two panels on writing while at the convention, and listened to the opinions of four different published authors. They were very fascinating.

The first one was about "indie publishing." Pretty much how to get your book in physical print and on the internet, namely via Amazon's Createspace program. Apparently real cover artists are insanely expensive to hire, as well as editors. Editors scare me though. Not the actual people who are editors of course, but the act. I put a lot of thought into engineering my sentences in particular ways, using very particular word choice, and slipping in subtle and sneaky details into my stories. The idea that someone can just go in and mess with all of that frankly terrifies me. Like, if it's just fixing grammar and punctuation then fine, but nothing else!

This author was also somewhat similar to me. Less descriptive writing that leaves the brain to fill in certain details as opposed to saying the exact location a bullet hits someone and how much damage it causes. She described it as more "cinematic writing," which I would agree with, though I'm not 100% sure that this is a good way to describe my writing. She also blatently said that she hates reading, which I also do. Ironic, isn't it? We still read for various reasons of course, but we don't do it as often as my lovely readers do ;)

She also said that the most important thing a writer can do is build a "writer's platform." Essentially, as many connections as possible within the industry with cover artists, editors, publishers, and even cover models. This of course makes a whole lot of sense, but how far can a teenager like myself go? I asked her this and she thought that we can do it just as well as older folk, but gathering those first few connections I would imagine to be very difficult for teenagers. Also she says that you need to get really out there on the internet. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, the whole shabang. Wattpad is the only social media I have, so this seems like quite the task, and I'm not sure that even if I got serious about writing and building a name for myself if that would accomplish much. I don't know. I guess a good question would be would you follow a nerdy writer like myself on Twitter as I spout random things that happen to me and writing related things? :P

The other writing panel was about world building, also called "worldcraft." Essentially coming up with very in depth worlds and settings for your stories to take place in. Most of the information in this panel wasn't particularly interesting to me and didn't stick, but there were a few things that stuck out. Things like your world should be almost completely figured out before you come up with your characters. The panel very much got me to thinking about how well I've been building worlds, namely for stories like Insomnia Wake, and has made me realise that I can do much better. I don't think I'm bad at it at all, but I think a little change in mindset will make the world of IW come way more alive. I don't want it to merely feel like a setting, I want it to feel like a place you could actually visit like Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry or Middle Earth, and I intend to do so :D

Pitching Shows

So I went to a panel on pitching shows to production companies on a whim, and man am I glad that I did. I never thought it would be possible for a completely normal person to have their idea turned into a show, but thanks to the leader of the panel I learned that it indeed is very possible, although immensely difficult. This lady is apparently having one of her ideas being turned into a legit anime right now, and I think they said it should come out in a year and a half. This lady was also super awesome and has been everything from a 2D animator for Disney, to a voice actor, and now a show idea pitcher and judger. She's also half Japanese so she speaks both languages fluently and thus has access to both markets. Talk about credentials O_o

So this is apparently how you pitch show ideas. You show up with maybe up to three show ideas at the company, and give two minute tiny pitches on each of them. We're talking a sentence or two hook, then a few more sentences explaining the plot or characters, then you answering any questions.

The hook itself if quite interesting. You'd think that it'd be something like "Insomnia Wake: it's not a dream anymore," but no, it's more like "my story is like a cross between Scooby Doo and Harry Potter." Yes, the most effective hooks apparently relate your original work to things that already exist. She asked for a volunteer to pitch an idea so I did. Big mistake apparently XD She complained that my hook compared the story idea to One Piece, which if you didn't know is pretty much the biggest anime as far as popularity in Japan and is the most sold manga, but she apparently didn't know about it @_@ Yeah, she works in the industry and didn't know about One Piece. She lost a lot of credibility with me at that :P I didn't even get to explain anything about my story idea because she just started talking about other things from there, like how you need to keep in mind who you're pitching to, and say, reference western works in America and eastern works in Japan. I used One Piece precisely because you work in anime and because it's the kind of thing that I would pitch to Eastern markets -_-

Anyways, she went on to talk about differences between markets and stuff like that. For instance, almost all ideas about a strong female hero get shot down in Hollywood, but do perfectly fine in Canada and Japan. After that she let people pitch their own ideas, and let I think five people do it. Guess who didn't get a chance to actually finish my pitch? *raises hand* I'm a little salty about that...

It was an amazing panel, don't get me wrong, but I do have my complaints. Perhaps the thing that was the biggest "are you kidding me?" moment was the story idea that got the most support and attention, and even got the panelist to say "you should get a kickstarter to fund that idea." Yep, it was an idea for a hentai, or in other words, anime porn. *facepalms* Everyone got excited for the "plot" ideas in it and I'm just sitting there in the corner wondering what the world has come to if that's the kind of thing that has all the interest. *sighs* My rant is complete now :3

Let's just say that I may or may not have a bucket list with a single item on it now.

Do I Know My Anime?

My friends and I went to a fun panel where we guessed anime and anime characters for food prizes. There were two separate sessions, and in the first one my friends and I rekt those scrubs. I'm very proud of my almost instant solving to which the answer was the somewhat obscure anime "Phi Brain." I love that show XD (It's about puzzles btw so it's a very niche show) Our corner of the room was pointed out to be the part that had an unusually high concentration of anime knowledge. I particularly like the one where we would play the theme songs of shows and the first one to get it right wins. I'm good at that :3

The second one was a different story though :P Even though it said "old and new shows will be included," they were almost all old shows, so I completely failed XD I know about obscure new shows but not obscure old shows in the slightest! It was all good fun though.

Cosplay

Cosplay this year was kind of disappointing. Only a few people (like 3) recognized my character so I didn't even find it worth it to wear the costume the last day, and didn't see anyone else with a costume from the show. Like, Gintama has 5 out of the top 10 slots on the top rated anime list on MyAnimeList.net (which is a huge community), and yet you don't know about it?!?! Kansans must just have a sucky taste in anime XD

What there was not an absence in however was Homestuck and Undertale cosplays. There were tons of those. I'm talking maybe 35% of all cosplayers fell into these groups, maybe more. At this point I'm used to non-anime costumes at anime conventions, so that didn't bother me, but those fandoms really took over. I like Undertale and all, but really people?! XD

Challenge Wall

I put this down here so that Meme_Knightwalker would have to scroll all the way through my other stuff to see my answers ;) Yes, a question answering challenge! Let's go!

1. If you were in the purge, what would you do first?

Try to not die, and make preparations to not die.

2. What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Who cares?! They're both edible!

3. Coffee or chocolate milk?

Considering how I don't like coffee, chocolate milk. I don't particularly like chocolate milk though.

4. Who's your favorite person on Wattpad?

Not answering that :P

5. What are your opinions on cats?

Good cats are fun, but evil cats are not. Dogs are better.

6. Did you know that coffee cake doesn't have any coffee in it? :3

Yes actually. If I am not mistaken, it gets its name from being a compliment to coffee. Also what's up with all the coffee questions? ;)

7. Why is six afraid of seven?

Because seven has a higher power level. Duh.

8. What are the three steps to success?

Perseverance, out of the box thinking, and being a good person (some people like Trump and Clinton escape this last part for some reason)

9. Would you survive the purge?

Another purge question? You must have it stuck in your head because of all the coffee you're drinking :P

Depends on many things, mainly where I am when it starts. I'm a pretty smart guy so I think that I would be able to find a good hiding place and fashion some weapons. Also fencing gives me sword experience :3

10. Do you believe in aliens?

Maybe bacterial life forms, but nothing more than that.

11. On a scale from 1-10, how hot are you? ;)

Idk honestly. I don't consider myself particularly attractive or unattractive so like 5.4???

12. What are some of your favorite TV shows (non-anime)?

That last condition though :O Lol. Let's see: Big Bang Theory, Ben 10, Sherlock, and Code Lyoko.

13. Do you know what you want to do when you're an adult?

I'll have you know that I just turned 19 (ha, escaped Wattpad birthday spam) so I am a legal adult :P But I want to be a software engineer. I like programming, but mainly the problem solving aspect of it, so I want to push off the brunt load of actual coding to other people :P

It's almost midnight here and I need to go to bed because I have work in the morning so I'll issue challenges next week :) I'll put a little bit of a spin on them too >:D

Conclusion

So as you can see I had a lot to say this week XD