Rooster Teeth announced today that Monty Oum, creator of RWBY and the most nerd-chic person I’ve ever seen, has passed away.
I can’t say that the death of celebrities has ever strongly impacted me, but I’m heartbroken. Maybe it’s because Monty wasn’t a celebrity – he was beloved to the Rooster Teeth fan base, but likely rarely asked for a picture outside of a convention. Maybe it’s because he was only 33 and so clearly thrilled and amazed to be bringing the story he’d been thinking about for so long to life with Rooster Teeth. He seems like a real person.
Part of the reason my husband and I went to RTX for our honeymoon was because of how much we loved RWBY. We waited in line longer than I want to admit to go to the RWBY panel to see Monty and the premiere episode of season two. When we went through our pictures later and realized I had inadvertently caught Monty in what I thought was a boring pictures of props, we were thrilled.
In the post by Matt, the CEO at Rooster Teeth, he asked the following:
As for honoring Monty, we will do that in our own way. In lieu of flowers or gifts, we ask that you simply do something creative. Use your imagination to make the world a better place in any way that you can. If you know Monty like we do, then you know he would certainly be doing that if he were able to.
What a beautiful thing to ask. I thought on this for awhile and kept wondering why I’d never thought of this when I’d experienced personal loss. My normal reaction would be to write something, but I felt like this was an opportunity to do something different. I went to the store thinking about making jewelry, a hobby my mom has been enjoying for years. When I got to the store, though, I didn’t see anything that struck me. After wandering the aisles I came across a box that was advertised as a “card box.” I have a ton of handwritten cards and letters that I’ve stored in various places around the house and I’ve been thinking about making a personalize box to store them. I grabbed it as well as a few other things I thought were pretty, then went home and assembled random items I liked from past Loot Crates and the box of “stuff” in my office.
I’ll still write something, but I’m also going to make something physical. It’s not anything that benefits anyone but me for the moment. I wish I had the talent and thought to come up with that sort of thing right now, and maybe it’ll come. Maybe it’ll be what I write.
I thank Rooster Teeth for this idea. I hope it’s something I can remember the next time I experience sadness in my life. I’m going to start my project tonight while I watch Rooster Teeth videos. Then I’m going to keep trying to think of ways to make the world a better place.
Rest in Peace Monty. Thank you for RWBY and other project to which you contributed. Thanks for being so freaking cool.
You know the worst part about having a degree in the social sciences?
Well, other than the general impracticality of the degree…
It’s the knowledge of all of the social experiments that have been conducted and published. Those papers are fascinating and thought provoking, but they left me constantly questioning normal situations. One recently happened at work.
I work in a building with several floors. As I headed to the stairs, I noticed that the door had been shut. Here’s the order of my thoughts that day:
“We have doors to the stairwells?”
“Maybe they’re doing maintenance.”
“No, they put up barriers when there’s maintenance.”
“Maybe someone shut the door to screw with people.”
…
“Is there anyone around with a good view of the door taking notes on how people react to a sudden change in a stable environment?”
I figure this says two things about me:
1. I kind of miss college if I’m trying to see something in a shut door
2. I need to work on my paranoia
So yes, I over think. I also find these sorts of experiments interesting, and like to think about how I would handle a situation. That’s why I was so excited when Rooster Teeth started a new show, Social Disorder. The first episode consists of two guys taking turns carrying a body bag (containing the other) through Austin, Texas, to see if they can get people to help them on their quest to take the bag to a nearby river. It’s hilarious more than anything, but you can’t help thinking: How would I react if I saw that?
Oh, and in case you were wondering, I took the stairs. I guess that means that the third thing I learned was that I get in my own head too much.
And so it ends. Our trip to Austin was fantastic. We did an absurd amount of walking, met some interesting (and some very interesting) people, and got to attend panels hosted by some of our favorite internet personalities.
I realized that I never gave much of an explanation of RTX in my early posts for those who are unfamiliar. RTX is a convention hosted by Rooster Teeth, the makers of Red vs. Blue. My husband has been a fan for years, and introduced me to their work. The convention is primarily focused on their content, though there were other guests as well. We went to a panel hosted by 343 regarding The Master Chief Collection, for example, and got to see Bungie reps playing an early edition of Destiny with fans.
My favorite part of the trip, however, was the first panel we attended:
The RWBY Panel
RWBY was Rooster Teeth’s first anime, and I have to admit, I was a little hesitant at first. I really wanted to like it. It took a couple of episodes, but I got my wish. I’m a sucker for anything fairy tale based, and RWBY draws a lot tales and folk lore. If you like anime, give it a shot. If you don’t like anime, pretend it’s a cartoon made for adults (because it is). The link to the first episode is below. The animation begins a little weak, but it improves as the season continues.
We were lucky to get decent seats at the panel, where they showed the first episode of season 2. I couldn’t have been happier with it. It flowed like a normal TV show, smoothly following the stories of various characters. We were also promised that season two would have 12+ minute episodes, which is an improvement. They varied quite a bit in season 1, and it made it disappointing to stumble on the short ones.
My favorite part was watching the writers and actresses interact, though I’m disappointed to say our pictures weren’t great. I did snap this one later though:
This is a picture I took in the Rooster Teeth “Museum,” where they displayed several items from their shows. We went there right after the RWBY panel and saw them putting the gear the actresses had worn (as they cosplayed their own characters) back on display. Still on a RWBY high, I took a picture, thinking to myself that I’d probably regret taking a picture of stuff later, because pictures of stuff are never as good an idea as they seem in the moment.
Until I realized that I’d actually taken a picture of Monty Oum, the creator of RWBY, standing behind the table.
The Slow Mo Guys Panel
Besides the 343 panel (which is much more my husband’s area than mine), the other big panel we attended was Slow Mo Guys, which closed the convention on Sunday. If you haven’t heard of these two, their videos are addictive and hilarious. Gavin runs a slow motion camera, and they capture everything from the beautiful to the painful and hilarious, with Dan taking the abuse. I put a link to one of their pretty videos below.
We went to this panel impulsively, and it was the perfect way to close the convention. The panel was far more enjoyable than we expected. Dan was hilarious, walking on stage with a soccer ball taped to his head, “cosplaying himself” from one of their videos. They also showed some videos that they aren’t planning on publishing due to the content – blood, swearing etc. I appreciated that they gave us something new to watch after sitting waiting in line/sitting on ground/in a crowded hall for three hours to see them.
StreetPass
I’d never used StreetPass before this trip, which made watching my map its own entertainment. StreetPass is a Nintendo 3DS feature that allows you to see and play with the “Mii” characters of people you pass who are also using StreetPass. One part of StreetPass tracks where your exchanged Miis originated, filling a map. Since I’d never used it before, I knew that every highlighted location on the map belonged to someone I passed at the convention, and who was also using the system.
(I was too lazy to go through the process of getting a screen shot from the DS, so please forgive the quality of the pictures.)
I passed people from 37 different states, plus people from the UK and Canada. That helped put the 30k attendees into a new perspective for me, especially these are just the people I happened to pass who happened to be carrying around a DS using StreetPass.
Everything Else
I already shared all of the shopping we did, but there was far more to the convention than that. Another big thing was meeting Patrick from Quick Draw the day after we’d attended his panel. I was repeatedly impressed by the gracious behavior of this crowd. They had 30,000 people there going nuts over their work, and I never once saw anything but a polite, if not joyous, response from any of them. We didn’t wait for autographs because we prioritized going to events over signatures, but we were amazed at how many impromptu lines appeared. Some of them would show up on a hall with some guardians and allow lines of fans who wanted selfies and autographs to develop.
As far as Austin goes… It seems like a nice place. I can’t say we did too much exploring, but the part of the city we were in didn’t feel any different from being home. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t expect to see cowboy hats everywhere or any of that other cliche Texas stuff, but I expected some noticeable cultural differences. I can say that every bar we passed was blasting music mid-day, which certainly isn’t the case here. I’d like to go back and see more of Texas (and Austin) at some point.
Here’s some more of what we saw:
Quick Draw!
Quick Draw. These two were hilarious
Jack and Gavin from Achievement Hunter playing “Trials.” Jack had great stage presence, which was fantastic, except that our camera couldn’t handle all of the moving.
Ryan from Achievement Hunter playing Destiny with fans.
Lego Master Chief. This was made by a Lego artist, who was pretty near the Mega Bloks…
343 Panel. Had a great time hearing from the original designer of the Halo 2 multiplayer maps and his excitement for the upcoming Master Chief Collection.
Preview of the RWBY video game
The crowd waiting for the RWBY game. They’re standing next to a wall of fan art
Gus with his Destiny team
Monty jumped on stage for the Iron Galaxy exhibit, playing fans
I promise a real post about our adventures at RTX once I’m home and can write on something other than my phone. For tonight, let’s look at one of the fun parts of conventions: The shopping.
Keep in mind that this is our honeymoon. We’re both moderately cheap people, but we made sure to set aside some money so we could go crazy this one time.
First is one of the RTX exclusive Halo posters that we got at the 343 panel. It was a fun bonus getting a free item for showing up to hear about a game that makes my husband so happy.
SuperFight! I told you that the card in our goody bag was a good ad. The game is a lot of fun, and we look forward to playing it at home with friends. The orange pack is a geek expansion. We laughed so much flipping through the cards that I can’t imagine not enjoying them in game play.
RWBY! If you haven’t watched RWBY, go do it. Husband never enjoyed an anime until this one, which comes in short, easy to digest episodes. Here’s how this pile happened:
I wanted a Blake figure (black hair/clothes). Husband was sad that they hadn’t released the Yang figure (the blonde girl), so he decided to get Ruby (the big box). The next day, he concluded that he’d want the Yang figure once it was released, so we should probably get the Weiss (angry looking one) figure too because it would be weird to have 75% of the set.
The same sort of thing happened with the plushies. We also bought season one of the show, and some buttons (which we then forgot to put on our lanyards. Oops).
Two shirts each. Husband got the official RTX shirt and the super cute Toothless shirt (second down). I got a Rooster Teeth shirt (Jeff’s Farm and Mercantile) and the Avatar: The Last Airbender shirt. The picture was free with the two non-RT shirts.
The buttons are gifts for our siblings. We could have gotten them items with Austin references, but nahhhh.
On the gift topic, Loot Crate was there selling last month’s crate. Since it had already been released, we knew its contents. This Transformers themed box will be my bother’s upcoming birthday gift. I won’t open it since that’s his job, but believe me that it has a pretty awesome shirt in it, along with some other goodies.
And our final Rooster Teeth items. We both bought hats since we weren’t smart enough to bring one, plus we got some Achievement Hunter (part of Rooster Teeth) playing cards. Why did we buy the cards? I have no idea. Probably because we had lost our minds and $5 seemed inconsequential surrounded by all of the more expensive items. Yet we still refused to pay $2 for a bottled drink. At least we retained some of our frugality.
Overall, it was a lot of fun looking at all of the great booths and crazy things for sale. I know we won’t be able to indulge like this on most vacations, and I have to admit that being materialistic about this market for a couple of days was a ton of fun. Thank goodness we can’t keep that up.
Looks like our next project at home will be redecorating our nerd room -er- I mean office. Right. That. This trip may have made us outgrow the space.
For the longest time, I found “unboxings” to be odd. Now I’m obsessed. Should have seen that coming. I’m not going to do a full dramatic equivalent, but I wanted to share the goodies we got when we pre-registered today.
The RTX Goody Bag and Badge:
I like the lanyard, but the clip is pretty weak and doesn’t fit the badge as well as I’d like. I’ll be using the one I brought with me.
Now the STUFF:
Love the card. We haven’t played this game, but this is brilliant advertising. I’m in.
Sunglasses. Sure. Nerds are afraid of the sun, right? Best to hide from it as much as possible. Right? Okay, I’d be disappointed if goodies were a necessary thing, but I’m happy to get anything with my badge.
Munchkin bookmark. Definitely fun.
And the paper. They have an order form to speed checkout if you’re buying popular items from their store. I like the idea, though I can’t imagine NOT thoroughly shopping the store of the company I flew halfway across the country to celebrate. Good for those who won’t though.
RTX SideQuest:
SideQuest isn’t directly related to Rooster Teeth, but it is related to the community. They’re putting on several charity events this weekend. Here’s what we got with the badge:
I love the Challenge Coin bottle opener. Husband loves anything Halo. It’s all a win.
We’re off to one of the charity events. Overall, it’s been a great day getting ready for the con tomorrow!
Today is the day! We’re heading to RTX for our Geekmoon (honeymoon).The husband keeps saying he doesn’t know what his dream trip will be after this, he’s wanted to go to RTX so long. We’ve been slowly prepping for months now, planning our evenings away from the convention, setting our budget, figuring our which panels we’d like to visit. The last couple of days have been the craziest.
1.) We cleaned. I already wrote about this, but suffice it to say, I’m nice and worn out from yesterday. The husband too. Don’t think I didn’t put him to work.
2.) We packed. We packed again.
Obviously a lot is missing from this starter pile. You’ll notice the nice groupings of t-shirts. Husband has enough Rooster Teeth shirts for every day of the convention, though I’ve promised we can buy more while we’re there. I only have one, the RWBY shirt in the middle. I packed two other geeky shirts, and was sad to realize that my nerd attire is entirely black or dark blue. We’re going to Texas. It’s going to be hot. Hence the stack of tank tops. We’ve even got some fancy clothes in there.
I thought about packing my “Bow Ties are Cool” shirt, but then I remembered that Ashley Jenkins wears the same shirt in a lot of her RT videos. Ashley Jenkins is a hot blonde who looks about 800x better than me. No need to have all of her fans immediately compare us. I opted for a weeping angel shirt instead.
Other essentials (pictured and not pictured): Lanyards (we bought new ones. Mine vanished when we moved last year). Reading material. A DS, loaded with Pokemon X. My Audible App, with one and a half un-read (listened to) Dresden File books. Geeky necklaces. Comfy shoes. Plenty of SPF.
3.) Leave a note for the house-sitters. I can’t believe how much of a challenge this was. Mostly it made me incredibly aware of how much we spoil our cats. It included lines like “don’t let Kitty #2 in the bedroom alone because she crawls under the fitted sheet and eats the bed topper,” and “don’t let Kitty #1 in the office because she steals Husband’s Halo toys and it makes him sad.”
4.) Setup blog posts to publish automatically. BOOM. If you’re reading this, then step number 4 worked. If not, oh well. I’ll be having too good a time to care much. Once we’re back I’m going to do an incredible amount of reading to catch up on all the blogs I follow. It’s a little scary, but kind of exciting as well.
5.) Stash a new notebook in my purse. It’s still Camp NaNoWriMo, friends. My Day 2 word count was 4826, and that’s what the website will reflect until next week. I’ll be writing by hand while we’re away, which is my preferred method anyway. I only ever type my NaNo stories because it’s easier to track the word count that way.
Have a great weekend, everyone! I’ll be on during down time and while I’m waiting in lines, but mostly I’ll be enjoying my honeymoon. I look forward to catching up with you all next week.
Hi there fellow NaNo-ers (all non-NaNo-ers). I feel like I’ve had a successful day, and there’s still plenty of day left.
3137 words so far! As you can see, my first drafts aren’t always the highest quality writing, but hell, I’m not a professional writer. My final drafts aren’t either.
Normally I’d like to have more of a cushion the first day, but we have a pretty crazy week already. I’m working on a final checklist of everything we need to pack tomorrow for RTX. I’m also trying to get together a couple of blog posts to schedule to go up later this week while I’m out of town because I won’t have my laptop in Austin and *gasp* I don’t own a tablet.
On that topic, I will be checking the blog via the app while I’m at RTX (geekmoon!) and I’ll put up some small, con-related posts while I’m there. It’s not in the plan to go to any of the autograph signings, so I doubt I’ll have any fun selfies with any of the guests, but there’s always something to photograph at a convention. Be prepared, friends. I’ll keep up on your posts while I’m gone too, but my commenting might be down a little.
NaNo is still on the schedule for tonight. I figure I’ll start again once it’s an acceptable hour to have a glass of wine while I write.
How is NaNo going for everyone else? Stay strong! In my experience, the beginning seems to be either very stressful, or incredibly easy. Hope you’re all experiencing the latter.
I’ve written about both my plans to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo and my Honeymoon Prep. These two events will be colliding later this week. As promised, here’s my most recent business card idea for the convention:
I’ve already promised myself that I won’t stress about writing while we’re in Austin, but I guarantee you I’ll be thinking about my word count during the slow points in the day. What better way to spend long periods of time in line? Playing Pokemon?
Actually, that sounds like a good idea too. Someone remind me to pack my DS. After all, I am…
BOOM. Used a graphic twice. I feel so accomplished.
Good luck to everyone prepping their novels! And to those who will be at RTX, I can’t wait to see you there!
As I’ve discussed, I’m prepping for my honeymoon at RTX (translation: geek convention – or – AWESOME). I’ve had a great time watching videos and planning our other ventures for RTX weekend. What I’ve started thinking about next is what we’ll pack. I guarantee you the husband will go a little crazy when he sees all of the Rooster Teeth goodies available (no shipping! woohoo!), so we’ll have to make sure to have room. It got me thinking about something one of my relatives recommended taking: business cards.
My first thought was “No, no, no, this isn’t a work convention. It’s a nerdfest!” Then I realized she knows that. She goes to every nerd convention in driving distance. When I asked, she said she brings her cards because it’s a good way to make sure she can exchange information with anyone she meets and wants to contact again.
Sure, sure, I thought. That makes sense. I guess. The problem is, this is how I envision anyone looking at my business card:
Right? I don’t want to know what you do for a living unless you make awesome videos on YouTube with things that explode, especially in that crowd. It got me thinking about my alternatives. Who am I?
Just imagine someone handing you a business card with “Pokemon Master” as their title, and a straight look on their face.
Are they joking?
Wait, do they have a DS in their pocket?
Crap, I MADE EYE CONTACT WITH THEM. Do I have to battle them?
The problem is, there probably are people out there with those business cards. That crowd is serious. I’ve played some Pokemon, but I think I should avoid titles people might actually use for themselves…
Okay, okay. How about something a bit more in my geek expertise?
Oh, wow. Maybe… maybe I don’t want to share that. How about….
Hmmm. Two problems here: My Pottermore account says I’m a Gryffindor, and I suppose I can’t argue with JK. Second problem is that I can’t really get past the fact that I just put that whole “had a Harry Potter fan site” thing out there. I was a kid. It was a terrible looking site. Please, please forgive me.
How about another obvious fact about me?
Again, maybe it’s bad enough that this is true and on my blog. Fine. Fine. I give up. Here were some of my other ideas:
What you should really be getting out of this is that I’m pretty awesome. Some part of me really wants to print one of each of these just to hand out randomly and see the look on people’s faces. I’m guessing those people would not sit near me when we bumped into each other at the bar later.
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