#magic con 2023

[seidenbros]

Kit Young looking for you and sending love, once you've signed the petition

[tough-n-dumb]

question asker: "what is your character's go-to karaoke song?"

freddy: "total eclipse of the heart"

kit: "you always have an answer to this question like that ... how often do you think about it?"

freddy: "it's my roman empire"

[nichyevosobachka]

🖤🖤🖤

[sashasactivities]

hello fellow tabletop gamers. ive made a magic quiz!

quiz made: november 2023

[overleftdown]

saltburn and lo real maravilloso

bare with me.

lo real maravilloso, in its direct translation, means "the marvelous real." in english language, this is more commonly said as "magical reality." magical reality is (arguably) a genre of fiction.

lo real maravilloso is a genre which defies definition. it is the inexplicable, the absurd, the ironic, the whimsical, the manifestation of dream and abstraction. lo real maravilloso is also the mundane. if this is confusing, that's entirely understandable. let me quote alberto rios; "first things first. nothing so important and nothing at all unimportant." this is the essence of magical realism. the absurd and unbelievable in a constant dance with the mundane, creating nothing so important and nothing at all unimportant.

to quote un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes (a very old man with enormous wings) by gabriel garcía márquez, "his huge buzzard wings, dirty and half-plucked, were forever entangled in the mud. they looked at him so long and so closely that pelayo and elisenda very soon overcame their surprise and in the end found him familiar." in the story about un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes, the absurd and unbelievable (a winged man crashing to the earth) becomes the mundane (the winged man is flightless, and those that found him are quickly annoyed by his pathetic presence). a winged man becomes nothing so important, and the drag of every-day life is nothing at all unimportant.

now, saltburn. i'm fascinated by emerald fennell's choice of using the aristocratic english as her metaphor for the untouchable. in a lot of ways, i'm grateful this is what she chose. while the ultimate inspiration for saltburn was less the materialistic class commentary that it came to be, the aristocracy becomes so many things throughout the movie. what i wanted to talk about is how the aristocracy, the cattons, are lo real maravilloso. the essay i quoted before by alberto rios is spectacular, because it delves into not just the ironic nature of magical realism, but the rhetoric, as well; what it means to think we understand something, how language deludes us into believing we know something, how our own reality is mistaken for reality itself. saltburn and the cattons live in their own reality, which to the outsider, is absurdity. when watching the film, what we find ourselves thinking throughout it is essential to understanding the rhetoric of the movie.

when we see the grandeur and wealth and think how impractical, how unreal, how hilarious. the humor that saltburn taps into is near-identical to the core of magical realistic irony. "to use classical terminology, tone so often derives from the delivery of the narrative as litotes—understatement—in the middle of hyperbole-- overstatement. If it is not humor, then it comes off as flatness of treatment, non-reactivity, deadpan almost, which is the great comedian’s trick..." (rios). think back to the casualty of the cattons' absurdity. the sincerity in which elspeth delivers the most appalling, unreal anecdotes and additions. magical realism places culture, sincerity, normativity uncomfortably close to what we could hardly fathom. a winged man falling from the sky, kept in the chicken coup because it is quickly understood that he is hideous. finding your winged son dead in the middle of an elaborate maze, sprawled out beneath a minotaur statue, and the knowledge that lunch is about to begin.

the longer we experience the world emerald has created, the more we understand the reality in which the cattons live, the more we find it familiar. the absurdity is forgotten, until it's once again realized, until it's once again forgotten. this is the act of interacting realities; ours, and then another, and then back to ours. what's so fun about exploring wealth is this clashing of reality. believing that it's so absurd to be so rich, then succumbing to the normativity of richness, then once again finding yourself laughing at the idea of it. "what do you mean it's almost lunch? how could you say that? your son is dead. and beyond that, he's dead in the middle of a maze. he's dead in the middle of your estate maze, with your estate statues and your 179 bedrooms, one of them being the king's." and when lunch begins, we're dragged back into foreign reality. we feel the grief that pollutes the air, pulls at each of the cattons. we understand that our reality is not reality, nor is their reality. we're submerged in the tone of the film, the tone of the writing. a well-written character is a character who has their own reality; not that they're right or wrong, but that they are.

there is also the clashing of culture. the aristocracy is more familiar to the english. the emotional repression visualized throughout the movie is more familiar to the english. the culture of british boarding school is more familiar to the english. the longer we experience, the longer we stare at the unreasonable, the more familiar it becomes. our reality is not reality. we stand amidst billions of others, who have millions of preconceived notions, derived from millions of alternate cultures, experienced through thousands of languages, interacting with another billion people. what this all boils down to is how little we understand.

how does oliver interact with this foreign reality? how does farleigh? how are felix and venetia interacting with each other, as well as this life that so little experience? how do we understand it? how do we react to it? how do we react to the sex throughout the movie, which exist in its own absurdly real world? at what point in watching saltburn did you forget how stupid it was? at what point did you forget that having a maze in your backyard is ridiculous? having gargoyles? having footmen? having 200-person parties in your own house? at what point did you lose yourself in this foreign reality, and when did you remember that it's all ridiculous? have you remembered? have you realized that the sex was absurd? have you realized that felix catton is absurd? have you realized that oliver is blind to the absurdity as well? hm. hmmm.

[someawesomeamvs]

Warning: Potential spoilers, flashing lights

Title: From the Grave to the Stage

Editor: Winterblade AMVs

Song: Lifetime Achievement Award

Artist: Lemon Demon

Anime: Zombieland Saga

Category: Comedy

Awards: Naka Kon 2023 - Best Comedy Nebraskon 2023 - Spirit Award Sakura Con 2023 - Fun and Play Finalist ACEN 2023 - Freestyle Finalist Tokyo in Tulsa 2023 - Special Category (Magical Girls vs Zombies)

[solemnpancake]

Okay, Wonka being a musical and damn good are surprises in of itself, don’t get me wrong.

But the real surprise is that it’s also a gentleman thief/heist movie.

[fuckyeahelijahwoodfan]

Wooden wisdom played Bilbo song at magic con Barcelona party so happily 😊

Credits to the owners

[squeemcsquee]

Anime Magic 2023: Sunday

So I never got around to writing up Sunday. Pregnancy has a way of making you forget things, and then being a new parent...anyway, it's been actual months. But let's see what I can remember, shall we?

Sunday started with breakfast, packing, and cleaning the room. Spoiler: we did not win. We did a walk around the gaming and exhibit areas again, for those last-minute cosplay photos, seeing if any of the machines had Magical Drop (I can't remember), and of course, last-minute impulse buys. Then it was time to find the panel room that held all of our Sunday panels - the Special Guest Room. Which just felt sort of tucked out-of-the-way in a hallway not far from the Main Events stage, but not super populated or trafficked.

Our first panel of the day was "That Doesn't Work How You Think It Does: Cosplay Supply (Mis)use with Pros & Cons Cosplay"

I remember being very entertained during this panel and finding it highly informative. But since I'm doing this Sunday August 2023 writeup in May of 2024, I can't add more than that. Really, I'm doing this in part to ward off the "missing ACen" blues, as unless there's a last-minute lottery win or something, we won't be attending even a single day of ACen 2024. Being a parent is a big responsibility and has been an incredible joy, but it also means tightening the belt a bit and so it may be some time before @lechevaliermalfet and I do big cons again. We're probably sticking closer to home with the smaller stuff for at least the next 6 months, likely longer.

We followed up this panel with Oriana's Sailor Moon panel. In which Sailor Moon was lovingly roasted. And I do mean lovingly - none of this was done from spite. It was just fans acknowledging the quirks of their chosen thing.

I'm pretty sure there were some technical difficulties during all the panels in this room, whether they were screen issues, mic issues, or whatever. But I could be just inserting that into my memory because of the fact Anime Magic has been known to have tech issues. I'm too lazy to try to search my posts in the ACen discord to verify (the AM one didn't exist yet during the 2023 con, so lots of us were posting about it in the ACen "Other Events" channel in their discord).

And finally, we wrapped with Cosplay Horror Stories, again with Pros & Cons Cosplay.

I do remember sharing the story of accidentally ruining @shbumi ' s cosplay during our first ACen in this panel. I also don't remember if it was this panel or their first panel on Sunday in which my experience as a Security guard came to play, because I can't remember the story that prompted me to share the knowledge that using spray paint indoors can set off a building's fire alarms. But yes, folks, that can happen. Not totally ready to say goodbye as yet - and I'm going to guess because I knew that this was probably going to be my last big con for a while - it seems we wandered a bit more, as I have photos of that empty Sunday feel. It really is a lonesome feeling as a con empties out, especially in this space, when I've seen it so packed before, for so many other cons.

But there is my far too overdue post to wrap up Anime Magic 2023.

All Anime Magic 2023 coverage

Anime Magic 2023 cosplay

Anime Magic 2023: Friday

Anime Magic 2023: Saturday

Anime Magic 2023: Sunday (current post)

[noraqrosa]

JOIN US AT FLAME CON 2023!!

@izukuleeyoung, @kirlian-light and I (as well as a friend of ours) are here selling in the Artist Alley at Flame Con, izu & I for the second year in a row🥰

We're at Table PR12, located adjacent to rows C and D along the perimeter. To easily find us, enter the Artist Alley (second floor) through the doors behind the info desk (toward the right side of it) amd walk gayly forward as far as possible and you'll see us toward the right against the wall!

Stop by, say hi, maybe buy?

[t-5secondsart]

Linktober Day 26: Overgrown

Shadow has never cut his hair in their life. And it grows... a little faster than your average person's.

[thelusciousdevil]

[rainbowdelicsunshine]

2 More Days until I go to ComiCon that's going to be taking place locally (where I live)!

Hopefully there will be pictures and details to be told after the event!!

[thenewgraymare]

Time to sort and price some new items for TrotCon! Pangur thinks she's helping.

[ranefea]

At Anime Magic! artist alley table 16!