As many of you may know, I've been running the Fanfiction Panel at Anime Central since around 2007? 2008? I took over from the late, great Jeanne Hedge, who had taken it over from Ryan Matthews. It was kind of cool being sort of a torchbearer for them.

The only years that I couldn't do the panel were the pandemic years. In 2022 and 2023, we had a pretty strong showing. In fact, in 2023, we were placed at 9 AM on Saturday and we still filled the room.

And then, in 2023, with new staff learning the ropes...my panel was rejected. There wasn't anything wrong with my application, they just went with other writing-related stuff like 18+ bad fanfiction panels, Writing Character Archetypes (a 2 hour slog of a panel where the presenter was basically reading off their Powerpoint) and...that was pretty much it.

OK, running the panel about 14 times is a good long run. But I figured, hey, as long as people are interested, we'll keep running it. And I tried to think of 2024 as a year off so that I could actually do the Con Thing (tm) without worrying about my panelists, etc.

I have applied for this year. I am currently listed as an alternate on a waitlist. It's the Schroedinger's Cat of "approved/rejected" for my panel. This is kind of more stressful than a clear yes or now answer.

So, on a whim, I asked the Live Events head this question on the Acen Discord:

Me: Quick question: How many writing-related panels have been approved?

Them: Looks like 0 but there weren't many applicants that submitted those types of panels.

Me: So, there aren't any things like the "bad fanfiction reading" types of panels, re-enactments of "My Immortal," or the 2 hour "Writing Character Archetypes" panels on the schedule?

Them: No there are not <.> There are two Gotta Go Cringe panels talking about Sonic Fanfics but that's about it

.....I am not terribly happy about this turn of events. I mean, yeah, if something constructive about fanfiction had been picked, then I think I would have been all right with it. But to have some guys go "hurr hurr this Sonic fic bad" in two instances when I just wanted one hour?

*sigh*

Rumor had it that there was a huge staff purge because of the way Anime Central had handled the mask mandate in 2022--and at the last minute. In past years, I wouldn't have had any trouble getting accepted.

I don't know. Has the time of the fanfiction panel passed? Should I start hosting "true facts from an ancient anime fan" panels?

--Doc