the more you know!

Story Premise:
YouCon is a new (and fictional) convention that's being held for the first time in New York during July 2020. Characters will be college students living in LA and attending this event for all three days, probably also to treat themselves after finishing another semester / quarter of college. Characters can be YouTubers, part of a YouTuber's staff, and / or a fan who bought the gold package.

For various reasons, including the fact that ticket prices are sky-high with the event (and just airfare in general), our poor college students have decided to extend their New York trip so that they arrive a few days early and leave a few days after. Unfortunately, the flight that our characters chose was relatively empty, so when the flight is heavily delayed, there's no rush from the airport to get them a replacement.

Cue waiting and various (wild) personalities colliding.

YouCon2020 Front and Center:
The convention is three days long and runs from 9AM - 5PM. Panels happen every hour and a half whereas workshops only occur during the last three hours. Each panel is an hour long with half an hour in between for the next one, and panels run three at a time. Workshops are an hour and fifteen minutes long and run two at a time.

Tickets come in three packages - copper, silver, and gold. The difference (besides price) is how many days you can attend the convention and what passes come with them. For a copper package, you can attend one day and get one panel pass and one workshop pass. For a silver package, you can attend two days and get three panel passes and two workshop passes. For the gold package, you can attend all three days and get five panel passes and two workshop passes.

Both panel and workshop passes can be bought separately, but which panel and workshop you get the pass for - whether buying separately or in the package - is random. One backstage (group) pass for each YouTuber is spread out amongst the many ticket packages at random, which allows the backstage pass holder (and any friends) to hang out with the YouTuber (and their staff) backstage for their panel and then grab dinner together.

Each YouTuber is holding their own panel on one of the three days, which is basically a half-hour-long show just for their fans. They can do whatever it is they want so long as it makes sense for their channel and pleases their fans. (Ex / Inspiration: The Perfect PokéRap by Brian David Gilbert at Polygon.) Another half-hour is reserved for taking pictures with and possibly signing stuff for the audience that has a maximum size of 50.

Workshops are cross-genre Youtuber interactions where fans vote for who attends what workshop. Workshop leaders (YouTubers who own that niche) are informed ahead of time and prepare something for the attendees to do within said leader's genre for an hour. Attendees (the voted in YouTubers - max three per workshop) do whatever it is the leader prepares for that hour. Fifteen minutes is reserved for interviews of the YouTubers and / or any clean up involved. An example of a workshop would be a horror gaming leader who has his make-up, science, and cute-gaming attendees play a super creepy horror game. Workshops have max audience sizes of 200, and each YouTuber can attend max two workshops (aka they can't be voted into every workshop).

On twitter and instagram, fans are selling, buying, and trading passes they receive from these packages to see the YouTubers that they want. If an event - panel or workshop - is starting but there's still seats left, it'll be first-come, first-serve to who fills it up.

Within the convention, there will also be booths by sponsoring companies and booths selling fan merchandise. Sponsored booths will generally be advertising the company somehow whereas fan booths will be both official and not. Official merchandise will be run by workers of the company the YouTubers use (aka when YouTubers have their own branded clothing and such) whereas non-official merchandise booths will be run by the merchandise creator. (Think etsy-style fanartists that sell everything from art to clothes to posters to anything really. It can be across YouTube channels aka ships or just for a single YouTuber. No fees or passes are necessary to run a non-official booth. They just need to sign up and mention how many days they are going to sell things there; there is no guarantee that they'll get as many days as they want though.)

Side note: YouCon is based in part off of my understanding and from stories of my sister's experiences of KCON (Convention, not Concert). It is not exact and will have leeway, because I think allowing people time to breathe, eat, and use the restroom should be a given not something they need to scramble for time for. I have never been to a convention, so please ignore any in accuracies.

YouCon2020 Backstage:
Each YouTuber gets a dressing room to themselves and their staff on the day of their panel and / or workshop. They are allowed to bring up to two staff members (or give the staff pass to their friends if they have no staff). They essentially get an automatic gold ticket as they'll be allowed back into YouCon on days they aren't working but will have to buy any passes they want separately.

Backstage passes allow a fan (and friends) to join the group for one day before a panel to hang out and also see what goes into making a panel. These fan(s) then join the YouTuber and staff for dinner at a restaurant reservation paid for by YouCon. These backstage passes cannot be used for workshops. What YouTubers (and staff) do during their free time, outside of their panel and workshop, is to their discretion.

The Chill Pills:
The Chill Pills (or just Pills) are three friends - Will, Ava, and Aaron - who are surprisingly famous via Will's YouTube channel - willhas2chill. Aaron has his own channel - letschill - but it's for his music - covers, remixes, mash-ups, and original songs. Will and Ava are childhood friends who grew up together while Aaron joined their friend group towards the end of elementary school.

Will is the impulsive, crazy one. Ava is the source of sanity and self-preservation. Aaron is long-suffering but ends up joining Will on his crazy ideas every time. All three of them are shipped in various ways, but none of them are actually romantically involved at the moment. More information can be found on the Pills can be found here.

book your ticket!

Left Side
✈ Change [ First "Common" Last ] to your character's [ First name "Name author will call them in the story" Surname ]. (Ex: William goes by "Will" and I will use Will to refer to him within the story, so it'd be [ William "Will" Kwon ].) It will extend but max three lines. Only put "Common" if it's different from First.
✈ Replace the image with your faceclaim. Width 160px or height 250px. Some coding magic has been done so as long as the picture is not over 500px (width or height), it will hide any part of the image that's too big.
✈ Scroll to the side on the image to fill out basic information
✈ Characters should be 18 - 23 (because I'd prefer everyone to be legal) and in college. For those who are questioning why a larger-than-4-year range when college is expected to be 4 years long, it's for gap years and taking an extra year in college, because there's no shame in taking your time.
✈ The password is to change the YouTube video on the left with your character's theme song. Details on how to do so are here.

Take Your Photo
✈ Faceclaims can be of any ethnicity as long as they are legal and have enough pictures.
✈ Please avoid racebending. If someone famous of that ethnicity doesn't exist, for example, like a Japanese-Korean female, then I will accept either a full Japanese or Korean faceclaim instead.
✈ Appearance can be anything different from the faceclaim like piercings and / or tattoos.
✈ Closet would be the character's style and general attire. You may also include if they dress in specific things to the Con - like fan merch or any cosplaying they'll do.

Background Check
✈ History is the character's background. No minimum or maximum as long as all the big events in their life are covered. If bullet points make it more comfortable for you, that's fine too.
✈ Education will be your character's current educational state - that is, their major in college and how they're doing in classes. Majors don't have to be declared until junior year, so if they haven't declared yet, can instead say what majors they're considering or have ruled out. Can be as short or as long as your character actually knows.
✈ Expectation is your character's plans for the future or general ideas they have if they're still debating. Doesn't have to be long either.

Pack Your Bags
✈ Personality can be bullet points, paragraphs, or whatever you'd like to let me get a feel for your character. I only ask that you give them flaws, because people have flaws. (If you want to add any of the little helper sorters like I did (like Hogwarts houses), feel free. Resources on the same page as information on the Chill Pills.)
✈ I love trivia. Please include habits so that your character doesn't stand there doing nothing when I write.
✈ Suitcase is what your character is going to be packing for the trip. You can leave out common things like toothbrush or clothes, unless they're bringing special basic things like a certain shirt they're going to try to get a YouTuber to sign. It's mostly a way for characters to bring things like cameras and such that I won't think of.

Flying With Who
✈ As many as you like in whatever format you like. Just include people you think should come out in the story. (Ex: if your parents are in another state, then they probably won't appear.)

Ticket Please
✈ Role is if the character is a YouTuber, staff, and / or a fan.
✈ Details will be details of your role. If they're a YouTuber, what is the channel for? Who are the fans generally? How many subscribers? Things of that nature. If they're a staff member, what's their role in videos? Are they ever on camera? Do fans know about them? Anything along those lines. If they're a fan, who are they the biggest fans of? What other YouTube channels do they watch? Do they have ships? Whatever you think is necessary. (Anyone running a non-official booth will also be considered a fan.) For this portion, feel free to include as many details as you like. The more you put, the better it is for me.
✈ Preparations include what led you to go to YouCon as well as any passes you have. Don't forget that they are all going to have to be present all three days, so be sure to mention if they saved up, had someone gift it to them, won it in a raffle, etc. because college students have student loans to worry about or are rich enough to not worry about it. For the passes, you can include if they got certain passes originally, bought it separately, and / or traded for the passes they currently have - panel and workshop. You can also mention if they have passes that they currently aren't planning on going to / want to trade something else with / want to sell, etc. (For non-official booth-runners, are they going to go to use their passes at all, or have they sold the ones that came with the package? How many days did they ask for?)
✈ Plans are what your character plans for the three days. That can include: when they're holding panels / workshops (if YouTubers / staff), what panels / workshops they absolutely have to go to, any lines they plan on standing in (in the hopes that not all the people come so there's extra space), if they're just running their merchandise booth all day every day, etc. As there isn't an official schedule that I've made for YouCon, you can plan it in broad terms or make up the specifics yourself. (I'll adjust any specifics you come up with once the story actually begins.)

My Ship Has A Canon
✈ This is the love interest section. It is optional. That being said, more detail is better than less if you want a good love story. All of the Chill Pills are available for love interests. Both hetero or homoual couples are allowed. That being said, I will also try to write other types of couples if any are brought up but make no promises on its accuracy simply because I haven't been exposed to any other kinds of relationships.

Let's Fly
✈ The color used in the app besides black and white is #b2c8cc.
✈ Don't be afraid to ask questions, as I tried to leave a lot of it open to interpretation. Now onto everyone's favorite part: soul's stars (aka brownie points)
✈ fun, unique characters with flaws and a lot of potential for chaos
✈ developed relationships whether with friends, love interests, and / or family - amusing things filled with unspoken understandings or inside jokes or other things of that nature
✈ collabs whether with other apps or any of the Chill Pills that are just fun or unusual or hilarious

taken!

Male Faceclaims
✈ Lee Seokmin aka DK (Seventeen)
✈ Chwe Hansol aka Vernon (Seventeen)

Female Faceclaims
✈ Kim Yewon aka Umji (GFriend)

idea bank!

YouTuber
✈ low-key YouTuber who does things that doesn't need their face like an animator or musician or even a fandom-specific one (like an anime) so people don't realize they're famous
✈ a not-famous-yet YouTuber who became a YouTuber out of loving other YouTubers and gets to attend their workshop aka both a fan and YouTuber who gets to meet them and spend time with them
✈ gaming YouTuber who gets to watch chaos happen during their workshop because they happened to pick a really scary game and all of their attendees are wimps
✈ someone who started their YouTube channel to help pay for their college tuition but needs to build some connections to get more money
✈ a YouTuber whose videos are all about his woes in college and is struggling to come up with a panel idea until the very end because are they supposed to just rant for 30 minutes???

YouTube / Event Staff
✈ super good video editor who has YouTubers fight their boss to hire them (aka "Stop trying to poach my editor!" vs "I'll pay you double what he pays!")
✈ technically isn't staff but said YouTuber friend has no staff, so they're there to have fun and watch their friend be in their element (and, wow, their friend is amazing)
✈ has their own fanbase and are shipped with YouTuber and faces some sort of relationship thing over the course of the convention whether someone confessing between the two of them or someone new coming into the picture
✈ video-camera person (and possibly actual photographer for the YouTuber's social media accounts) who is going to have to keep their feelings for the YouTuber hidden from scarily sharp fans who can see their face instead of hiding behind the lens
✈ thinks their YouTuber boss is a loser and is the biggest fan of said boss's rival channel

Fan
✈ has no interest in any YouTubers but is here for support for their rich friend who paid for their gold package and may or may not have met a YouTuber who they become a fan of through this trip
✈ is only the fan of one super-niche no-one-knows-them YouTuber but ends up befriending someone who turns out to be the top YouTuber of another genre
✈ a bigger fan of a YouTuber's staff than the actual YouTuber who will fight anyone who says anything bad about their king / queen
✈ fanartist who's running one of those non-official booths and either has an OTP they're dying to see or just is capitalizing on the fact that a YouTuber is popular to make money to pay for college
✈ fan photographer who got a backstage pass and is 200% going to just take photos all day to share with the fandom

q&a!

If a rich friend is buying the character's ticket, does there need to be a separate app for the friend?
✈ If you want the rich friend to play a big role in the story (like spend all of YouCon and time after the Con in LA), yes. If you just need the rich friend to get your character to the Con, then no.

What specifically do YouTubers who work at YouCon get? You said they essentially have a gold package?
✈ Sorry about that. To clarify, YouTubers can attend YouCon all three days only. They do not have any passes and must purchase them separately. This applies for their staff as well.

How exactly do the pass purchases work? Are they random, or can you purchase the pass you want?
✈ As stated above, passes are entirely random. You can choose the kind of pass - aka panel or workshop - but you can't pick whose you'll get. Backstage passes cannot be bought at all as they're randomly distributed amongst the packages (and only the packages).
As for new information, you buy the pass purchases online, and you'll get a confirmation email that tells you who the pass ended up for. When you go to YouCon, there's a booth where you can go and show the email in exchange for the pass (which is a wristband).

When did Will and Aaron make their channels?
✈ Will made his first. Aaron made it some time thereafter. They both made it during high school. I haven't decided on anything more concrete than that. Feel free to add specifics to your apps though.

Can we apply as staff to YouCon itself?
✈ Yes, but make sure there's a reason as to why your character is either being hired from out-of-state or is in LA at the moment and will be in LA after the week is up with YouCon.

If my character wants to play an instrument at YouCon, do they have to bring it specifically?
✈ YouCon will provide bigger instruments for YouTubers who are using it for their panel as long as they fill out a specific form (so that YouCon knows to provide it and where). If your character plans to go, say, busking or something outside of YouCon, they will have to bring their own.

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