{"id":45348,"date":"2017-09-07T22:24:11","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T02:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=45348"},"modified":"2020-08-03T22:24:21","modified_gmt":"2020-08-04T02:24:21","slug":"the-dragoncon-post-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=45348","title":{"rendered":"The Dragon*Con post, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"As some might recall, I skipped Dragon*Con in 2016, citing that I felt like I needed a break from the event as a whole, cold turkey full stop.\u00a0 Mythical gf and I deliberately scheduled an out-of-country cruise vacation on that very same period of time so that we could eliminate all doubts and remove all temptations to participate in anything, and I have zero regrets for doing what we did then.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, I would be lying to myself if I didn\u2019t feel a little bit melancholy about the notion of deviating from what was something of a yearly tradition, where large chunks of my friends gather, and it\u2019s a pretty comprehensive experience of catching up with people, taking a ton of pictures and imbibing in a whole lot of alcohol.\u00a0 As much as I relished in the opportunity to take a break, I kind of knew that I would be back the following year; I accomplished my goal of wanting to feel like I missed out, which renewed my sense of wanting to go back.<\/span><\/p>\n

Life works in interesting ways sometimes, and we don\u2019t always get to have a say in what happens when.\u00a0 And as much as I was actually back to looking forward to Dragon*Con again this year, some things I\u2019m not going to get into happened at a fairly conflicting time, and really derailed the experience as a whole.\u00a0 Needless to say, not only was Dragon*Con something that got pushed into the backseat, I\u2019ll admit that it was something that was practically impossible for me to enjoy throughout the weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll often say that writing is an efficient form of therapy for me, and sometimes it takes seeing thoughts formed into words and slapped onto a word processor for me to gain some clarity, but such is very true as far as my overall feelings of the con itself.\u00a0 I\u2019m trying my best to remain as objective as possible without letting my personal life overlap with anything else, but the reality is that everything is relative, and life doesn\u2019t take a backseat just because something is planned, and life doesn\u2019t stop when it comes to day-to-day living them out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve hesitated writing anything about Dragon*Con for longer than I normally would, but I\u2019ve been trying to get all my thoughts in order and trying my best to make clear separations between how much life happenings and convention experience overlap.\u00a0 For the matter, this could be a year where the whole convention could very well just have an asterisk next to it, as if to indicate that it\u2019s an anomaly that almost shouldn\u2019t count in the cumulative good times of all conventions past, because of outside variables.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the bottom line is that as far as 2017 is concerned, there is no getting around the fact that I walked away from the con with an overall feeling of simply not being impressed.\u00a0 Obviously, a tremendous amount of it likely stems from simply not being in the right state of mind or not being remotely mentally prepared for an activity avalanche such as D*C, but at the same time, there are also a lot of frustrations, concerns and gripes of years past, that clearly a year away hasn\u2019t resolved, especially with the continuously record-breaking growth the con boasts about year after progressive year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Estimated to have drawn<\/a> a record-breaking 80,000 attendees now, D*C is bigger than it was a year prior and the years before that, and it definitely felt every bit of it.\u00a0 I\u2019ll admit that my droll mindset wasn\u2019t the best equipped to deal with large crowds and roll with the punches, but there\u2019s no denying that there were plenty of times in which it certainly felt like the world was overpopulated, and the excesses of population were all gathered at D*C.\u00a0 Never mind the elevators and entry points where everyone already knows would be a logjam of humanity, but it\u2019s just, everywhere<\/em> this year where it would just be impossible to move anywhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never felt anxiety in crowds before, but I was definitely beginning to feel anxious, crammed into everywhere I tried to stand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although nothing has really changed about D*C being where people want bust out the biggest, baddest and most impressive costumes and props, this year it really, really<\/em> began to grate on me, just how much space all these people were taking up, probably in light of the 80,000 attendees that were crammed into the already-crowded hallways, atriums and lobbies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like, I know I already sound like a cranky old man when I say shit like this, but I found it extra fucking infuriating this year every single time I got snagged in human traffic because of someone in costume with a prop bigger than them, in an encumbering outfit that made them wider and more space-consuming than a person, or the 50 people that insist on showing up year after year with remote control R2D2s or Daleks or whatever other glorified toy that just ate up space and made movement very difficult for actual people.<\/span><\/p>\n

I nearly went postal at one point, when I was walking from the Hyatt to the Marriott, and to no surprise, there was a snag in the hamster tunnel between the two hotels.\u00a0 This is never really a surprise, because it\u2019s usually a person in a wheelchair, someone on crutches, or someone with a physical handicap, which nobody can really get upset with.\u00a0 However, because this particular tunnel winds and turns, it\u2019s entirely possible to see what exactly is the cause of the holdup, and in this particular case, it was some fucking asshole in a Where the Wild Things Are<\/em> suit or an Elcor<\/a> from Mass Effect <\/em>that was incapable of moving at normal walking speeds, quite literally clogging up the tunnel with their girth and immobility.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was truly a genuine point where I regretted the choices in my life.\u00a0 After clearing the tunnel, I went straight to my hotel room where I pounded no less than two Schofferhofers<\/a> to try and cool off, and my mood to actually socialize and be amongst people was completely shot dead, buried, dug out of the grave by Kane, tombstoned and re-buried.<\/span><\/p>\n

And not to single any one particular guy out, but the dude who shows up every year in the Resident Evil executioner costume<\/a> but has to be on stilts and whose balance is completely dependent on constant movement, in spite of being in a slam-packed place where movement is a luxury few can actually indulge in; is the gold standard of costumes that I think are extremely inconsiderate and obnoxiously big.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know this person, and they could very well be a good guy underneath the costume.\u00a0 But come on, Resident Evil 5<\/em> is almost 10 years old now, and he\u2019s basically my personal standard in describing all con-goers who insist on wearing stilts or costumes that manage to inconvenience every person in their surrounding vicinity.<\/span><\/p>\n

And let\u2019s not get started on the thousands of people with cameras and\/or cameras on their phones who want to take pictures of everything in site, but unlike me are completely spatially blind and unaware of their surroundings before taking a shot.\u00a0 Sure, it sounds like me calling the kettle black, but I actually make a habit of asking if people would be willing to stand aside, or direct them to an area where they\u2019re not in the middle of walkways or one of us is forced to bump into others.<\/span><\/p>\n

To no surprise, like I seem to do at every convention, I was getting salty over photography in general, questioned why I do this, and decided to really scale back on taking many pictures.\u00a0 The good news is that because I didn\u2019t do so much photography, I didn\u2019t get big-leagued by any snotty costumers, but on the flipside, my overall output of photos isn\u2019t that large.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also didn\u2019t really have much objective throughout the weekend.\u00a0 And that led to me being by myself a lot of time, and this was not the D*C where I should have been spending a lot of time by myself.\u00a0 But I did anyway, and it didn\u2019t particularly lead to a whole lot of constructive time outside of my own head.\u00a0 But going back to the original point, with no objectives, it led to a whole lot of aimless existence, and dissatisfaction when I realized just how out-of-touch I am with all my recognized friends and acquaintances whom when I did see them, didn\u2019t really have a whole lot to say, or they had their own actual objectives and things to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

I think someone like me needs to have at least one or two goals or objectives throughout a D*C weekend in order to feel like I wasn\u2019t just wasting all my time and money there.\u00a0 Actually, I did have two goals during the weekend (meeting Stan Lee and Xavier Woods), which I accomplished, so I guess I should say I should have one or two continuous goals throughout the weekend, or actually plan to have some semblance of an agenda.\u00a0 Or maybe I should become really good at photography, so I can pack my weekend full of shoots and actually have some tangible evidence of time well spent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless, I found myself feeling like I was being too much of a curmudgeon throughout the weekend, and I actually minimized my own presence at those times.\u00a0 Not that expect anyone but a few friends noticed, but despite having a full reservation throughout the whole weekend, I opted to not come in Thursday night, and I actually went home on Saturday night.\u00a0 I felt really over the convention numerous times throughout the weekend, and it\u2019s not fair to others who might actually be having a good time, for me to try and bring them down with my bad attitude.<\/span><\/p>\n

I certainly hope and am happy for anyone who did have good weekends at D*C, but holy shit was this not a good weekend for me.\u00a0 This is where I\u2019d say, \u201cmaybe next year!\u201d but frankly, I\u2019m not certain if that\u2019s going to be a reality just yet.\u00a0 I might be getting too old, or my priorities in life just might be in different places, but god damn I can only hope that the timing of everything will be better.\u00a0 I like to think that if D*C were two weeks earlier or two weeks later, it would have been a completely different narrative.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bottom line is that I did not enjoy Dragon*Con much, at all, this year, and I already don\u2019t feel like I want to go next year, again.\u00a0 I\u2019m 99% sure that most of these feelings are on account of my own baggage and mental unpreparedness, but there\u2019s also the part of me that does believe that every year doesn\u2019t have to be D*C, and that there are many other fun, rewarding and likely less costly activities that can be done on a Labor Day weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As some might recall, I skipped Dragon*Con in 2016, citing that I felt like I needed a break from the event as a whole, cold turkey full stop.\u00a0 Mythical gf and I deliberately scheduled an out-of-country cruise vacation on that very same period of time so that we could eliminate all doubts and remove all … Continue reading The Dragon*Con post, 2017<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,140,108,107,45,133,52,105,54],"class_list":["post-45348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-angst","tag-comics","tag-cosplay","tag-dragoncon","tag-fail","tag-old-man","tag-owned","tag-rage","tag-wrestling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45350,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45348\/revisions\/45350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}