9/03/2024, 3:03 PM
well hey everyone, Mot here! yesterday i did something ive never really done before,* i went to a convention! notice the asterisk. technically ive been to a few conventions before. one of them was a LEGO themed convention my parents took me to when i was around 6 or 7. i was real into LEGO as a kid, and so this was something that piqed my interest. i brought my favorite lego piece at the time with me, the lego die piece that was made of rubber and let you change out the sides. it came with the lego board games they used to do a lot, which i liked a ton as a kid. i remember losing that piece at this convention, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. the next con i'd attend was Dreamhack 2019. i was invited by the folks over at No Reset to perform a speedrun at the showcase they were having at Dreamhack that year. i was super excited about this, but the only game i ran at the time that satisfied all of their criteria was... Parappa the Rapper 2. not really the most exciting of speedruns. but as a blossoming high schooler, lil' ol' Mot had to take the shot she was given. and so she did. i went and did my run live, and it was surprisingly not the most obscenely boring thing in the entire world. i was lucky to have two people on the couch who were really nice and helped me to keep my thoughts and commentary straight, which was really nice. (shoutouts to Laurie and Cykette!) but because i was a special guest and was there just to do the run, i didn't really get to experience the event to its fullest.
all of that is to say, ive never really gotten the chance to have a full, complete con experience. not only was DragonCon the first con i went to with no strings attached, it was also the first con i'd ever driven to and attended without my parents. (my roommate did come with me and she was very good company) well, i say with no strings attached, but there is kind of an important detail i left out. because DragonCon tickets are really expensive, i got a ticket just for one day. not only that, i got my ticket for the last day of the event. so... it still wasn't entirely without caveats. and not only that, but DragonCon functions a little differently from most other cons. instead of being hosted in just one event hall, DragonCon is typically spread out among several different buildings in downtown Atlanta. and DragonCon is BIG. i mean, REALLY big. one of the biggest and most popular conventions in america type of big. so there were a ton of people, even considering the fact that it was the last day. so i understandably felt very overwhelmed and out of place. not only that, but a lot of the special events and activities were already done earlier during the con's runtime, so i was getting mere tablescraps. i saw a lot of people with little ribbons and tags on their namebadges, and it felt like i had totally missed out. it's like when you're put into a new class halfway through the school year, and everyone already knows each other, so you just feel super isolated and out of place. and that's pretty much how i'd describe my experience at DragonCon. out of place. i felt really stupid and like i didn't know what i was doing 90% of the time, and it didn't really help that a lot of the fandoms and topics the event covered (superheroes, comic books, anime, dungeons and dragons) are either somesthing im not interested in or are really big blind spots for me. again, i felt very out of place.
another main reason i wanted to attend DragonCon specifically was because someone i'm a really big fan of was supposed to be there, that being chuggaaconroy. i've been a huge fan of his work for a very, very large majority of my life, and he's the main reason i got into making videos over on youtube. he's attended DragonCon nearly every year for as long as i can remember, and i always saw him post about it in his videos and the like. but i'd never been able to attend... until today! the future is now, and i have a car! and a licence! and money! so as soon as i heard he was gonna be attending this year i immediately bought a ticket with my main goal to at least get to see the guy with my own two eyes. but on the day of arrival, it took me a while to find out that he'd planned to be there... just about every day until the day i attended, September 2nd. i had missed him by ONE DAY. i had just bought the final day tickets since they were the cheapest available, and i figured he'd have been there for the whole event, but alas. i was (and still kind of am) pretty bummed about this. i also got misgendered a few times by several different people which stung a lot. and one of the main things i was excited for when it came to the Vendor's Hall (or Artist's Alley, as its called) was anywhere that sold any retro games. retro game stores are an extremely rare breed in my neck of the woods, the closest one to my house is about 45 minutes away when the traffic is good, so any time i get the opportunity to sift through some old games i TAKE it. out of all four floors of vendors, there were two stalls that sold old videogames, and both of them had absolutely terrible prices. for reference, they were charging 50 bucks for the Greatest Hits version of Final Fantasy VII on PS1. on ebay (at the time of writing) it's common to find that exact same game for around 20-30 bucks. and none of their other prices were any better. "ok, sure," you say, clueless. "well that's one of the most critically acclaimed JRPGs of all time. of course they're gonna hike up the price, and you're buying it in person, shouldn't that be worth the extra money?" well alright wise guy, then tell me why they're selling Brain Age: Concentration Training for 30 bucks, loose. that game is 12 at gamestop, loose OR in box! at the very least, i got to see a real copy of Rule of Rose for PS2 with my own two eyes. being one of two videogames ever made by developers Punchline, it's a game i've always been interested in. add on the fact that it's a surreal survival horror game and contains a story centered around lesbians and you've got my full attention. unfortunately for me, and every other human being on planet earth, Rule of Rose is also the most expensive and rarest PS2 game there is, and the only people who can ever afford to buy it are collectors with fuckoff amounts of money who are just gonna let it sit on a shelf and rot and never play it because "oh wahhh, it'll depreciate the value! boo hoo!" ugh. hate that kind of shit. it's the same story for an english copy of Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest for Gamecube and it just pisses me off. sorry for the little tangent, just had to get that out of my system.
so at this point you'd (understandably) assume that i didn't really enjoy my time at DragonCon at all. and while yes, it was more bad than good, there were still a small handful of highlights. i got a few really cool nicknacks from the vendor hall, including a few Pikmin and Animal Crossing pins, some stickers, and a really beautiful watercolor art print of the Onett map from Earthbound. there was also a really awesome arcade setup in one of the buildings, and i had a ton of fun playing the games that they had. my favorite rhythm game of all time, Pop'n Music, is best experienced on a real Pop'n cabinet due to the control layout, and the only arcade in my whole state that had a Pop'n cab unfortunately closed down a few years ago. (R.I.P. Stonecrest Mall Round1, you will forever live on in our hearts) sure, i have a makeshift USB Pop'n controller made out of a cardboard box by one of my buddies, but you really only get the full experience in the arcades. so when i saw that the arcade setup at DragonCon not only had a Pop'n cab, but had a Pop'n cab with the latest and most up to date version of Pop'n with all the songs included, i was in heaven. admittedly, it'd been a few years since i'd last played Pop'n, and even longer since i'd played on a real cab, so i was... extremely rusty, to say the least. but i still had a fantastic time with it, and it makes me want to return to the game and start playing it seriously again. there were a lot of other rhythm arcade games that i recognized, but one of them stood out to me the most, and that's Guitar Freaks. you know Guitar Hero, right? of course you do, you have skin and a brain. well Guitar Freaks is like that, but made by Konami, only has three buttons instead of five, has a track list less focused on the most famous of famous american rock songs and more focused on Japanese rock (as well as songs from other Konami rhythm games of the time) and it was made about six years earlier. Guitar Freaks is a ton of fun, and i had a great time playing it. at least for me, it's a whole lot easier to keep track of the notes when there's only three buttons to focus on, and not on the weird, angled track that Guitar Hero usually does. i didn't just play rhythm games though, because they had a ton of fighting games setup as well! no Third Strike unfortunately, since that's my forte, but there was a ton of variety and more unique games to be had. from what i recall, there was Marvel vs Capcom 2, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R, Tekken Tag Tournament (i think that's what it was? i didn't look super close since Tekken isn't really my deal) Street Fighter 4 (an actual original cabinet of SF4!) and Skullgirls. there were actually two more cabinets, but i can't remember for the life of me what they were. i think they may have been a King of Fighters game and a Melty Blood game, but i can't be certain. the one i ended up having the patience to wait for an opening on was Marvel vs Capcom 2, and it was while a guy was sitting by himself playing arcade mode. it was pretty cool getting to have that experience of walking over to someone just playing by themselves in the arcade and hopping on to challenge them, just like it was originally intended in arcades. the guy who was sitting there had a friend, and when i sat down she was like "ooooh, you got a new challenger!" and that was such a fun little moment. now, i don't play MvC2 very much, and i tend to get very stressed out when playing against someone who's just absolutely beating me into the ground. but believe me when i say, playing against this guy was the most fun ive ever had while playing a fighting game, and he was totally kicking my ass. my go-to team in MvC2 whenever i have to play is Anakaris, Shuma-Gorath, and Amingo (because i just really like how they all look) and they're all pretty low on the tier list. i think the guy saw this and knew not to take it super seriously, because his team consisted of Guile, Juggernaut, and Servbot. and yes, he still beat me in every round, but it was SO much damn fun. maybe it was the arcade environment, maybe it was the shitty CRT in this old ass (original edition) MvC2 cabinet, maybe it was this guy's friend cheering for me, but i was just having a total blast. so shoutouts to Jimmy and his friend for making my day in that moment, you two rock.
alright, here's my final verdict on DragonCon. i think i way overhyped it in my head, and it would have never lived up to the astronomical expectations i had built up for it over the last ten years of hearing people talk about it. i probably should have done more research into the dates chuggaaconroy was gonna be there or how the con functioned so i could have planned accordingly. and i got misgendered an upsetting amount of times just because what, my outfit wasn't "feminine" enough for these people? what, girls cant wear baggy jeans and a captain's hat without getting labled as masculine anymore? Artist's Alley, while being full of many amazing creations by some really great artists, just didn't have a whole lot of options that appealed to my personal tastes, and had prices a bit too high for my barely-above-minimum-wage payrate. it was exhausting, and on the drive home i couldn't help but feel like i'd wasted my day and money. but after giving myself an extra day to think things over and give myself some time to reflect, i'm still glad that i went. it wasn't perfect and it wasn't going to be, it was my first time going to a big convention like this and it was bound to have some hiccups. but imagine if, instead of buying the cheapest last day tickets and having a bad time because i didn't entirely know what was going on, i had blown 120 bucks on one of the other days and STILL had that experience of "i don't know what's going on, im lost and confused." it was good that i spent less money on a "test run" day, because now i know how the con functions and i'll be able to plan a lot better for next year. this was what my mom told me when i was talking to her about my disappointment with the event yesterday, and it helped me look at things with a new perspective, which made me feel a lot better. and it's not like it was all bad, i still got some pretty cool things and had a ton of fun in the arcade. so yeah, i'm glad i went to DragonCon this year. i'm just hoping that future experiences with the event will be better.