Chaos' Kumoricon Escapades 2010

Delnoir

A Relic of a Bygone Era
Original poster
LURKER MEMBER
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Chaos' Kumoricon Escapades.

Day Zero: September 3rd.

While not technically a convention day it lets people who preregistered go pick up their badges so they don't have to stand in line the next day in case you ordered your badge too late to have it mailed to you. I try to convince my best friend David to go so I can get my badge and lanyard to get it done. He's too busy with his World of Warcraft dailies to care. For about the millionth time I regret ever letting him try the game and secretly conspire to kill him. He assures me the line won't be so bad. I've been going for five years now. I know how it will go. He insists I won't be right.

Day One: September 4th.

I was right.

Two and a half hours. Two and a half fucking hours of standing in line in a parking garage that went outside, turned the building corner twice, and into the main lobby where a staff member (Or Yojimbo) ushers groups of 10 or 12 up the escalator to another small line where the staff bumbles around with the fact that they ended up jumbling the badges out of alphabetical order by last name the previous night. After waiting in line for an hour, halfway through the parking garage and maybe a fifth of the way up the line overall my friend texts me telling me he's already gotten in and out of the Unregistered line telling me that he knew he was right and it wouldn't be so bad. I scream in a blind fury that makes people look at me then forget it ever happened 30 seconds later.

I finally get out of the line about 1 pm and meet my friend in the main lobby a promptly kick him in the shin. When he asks what that was for I told him it was for being a colossal asshole for caring about WoW too much to listen to me when this is my fifth year of the convention to his second (And I mean the kind of WoW players you only hear stories about). I show him pictures I took of the pre-registered line I took shortly after the message that said he was done. And by pictures I mean I had a Naruto cosplayer hold my spot, went to the end of the line, and took pictures all the way up to the front. My friend is dumbstruck with silence. Revenge is sweet as he lets me slap him upside the back of the head. The convention finally begins for me.

For the first hour or so I prowl around the convention, prop knife in hand, as I go about acting out my role as the Spy from Team Fortress 2 to the letter. I located four other Team Fortress 2 cosplayers and promptly backstab them. None of them ever saw me coming. One even played along and fell down for me. Things were finally starting to pick up. I decided to head to the gaming room to play some Blazblue. I arrive and am quickly disappointed. Unlike last year, Blazblue was nowhere to be found. I ask for a copy for the 360 so I can get something worthwhile going. They state they don't have it for the 360 and only the PS3. I look over at the measly two Playstation 3 stations and am quickly angered by the fact I'm seeing nothing but Street Fighter 4. I resolve to bring my copy of Blazblue to the convention tomorrow to give the 360 a little love on the fighting game scene. The rest of the day the 360s are dominated by the Halo 3 tournament and even after its done all they do is play Halo 3. I briefly ponder why it is the new Halo games always tend to come out a week after the convention as this was the difference between playing Halo: Reach over Halo 3, Reach being a game I actually care about at the moment. I backstab three more Team Fortress 2 cosplayers and move to the vendor's hall.

Last year the vendor's hall was abysmal in comparison to previous years. I pray its better this year. It is...barely. However unlike last year I walk around and find some things that actually catch my eye. I took one look at the Gurren Lagann figure and snatched up one of the last two. Once I saw a Giga Drill Breaker attachment I couldn't resist the figure. The last one sold 15 seconds later. I was later offered double what I payed for it for mine. The person's friend told them to not bother, as Gurren Lagann fans will not give up their shit so easily. And he was right I held on to my figure.

After rummaging around through the sword and t-shirt booth Bowen Dragon, a t-shirt catches my eye it reads...

It's True.
I'm an evil, twisted, sadistic genius with delusions of
grandeur, bent on the total humiliation of all those
around me. I kill without reason or warning. I set
impossible goals, and then I raise impenetrable barriers
to the advancement of any who dare challenge my
supreme authority. I change the rules to suit my every
whim. The only thing I can be relied upon to do is ensure
that no one has a fair chance. I am no mere tin-played
dictator; even the laws of Physics cannot deter me. My
godlike powers are without limit, and I use them freely
and capriciously. Your abject surrender and worshipful
adulation will not save you from my wrath... forever. It is
futile to appeal to my better nature , for I have none. I will
not keep your secrets, I will not soften the blows of
misfortune, and I will never fail to heap insult upon injury.
Your doom is sealed:
I am your Game Master.

I pause and seem to recall Asmodeus and others on Iwaku liking Dungeons and Dragons and imagine what they would think of this. I turn the the dealer and buy the shirt on the spot. I leave the vendor's hall thinking I've done all my spending for this year's convention unaware of how wrong I was...

I return to the gaming room to catch a little casual play for Blazblue before the Tournament starts. I watch everyone practice. I accept the fact that I wouldn't even be a speed bump. More of a reflector on the road. I bow down and back out. I sit around watching for a couple of hours and with the rest of the crowd I cry out in disbelief and excitement as I see the final attack of the Tournament: It was Iron Tager's Astral Finish. I backstab another three Team Fortress 2 cosplayers shortly after. My kill count is up to 10 individual Team Fortress cosplayers now. The rest of the night is spent in gaming with little other excitement. I play Warcraft 3 and absolutely suck at it. I look over at the 360s and glare angrily as Halo 3 is still playing on all 4 of them. I make one final vow to uproot Halo 3 tomorrow one last time and my friend and I go home for the night...


Day Two: September 5th.

I march into the Gaming Hall and promptly loan the convention my 360 copy of Blazblue: Continuum Shift, check out a controller after waiting 15 minutes for a Halo station to empty so there are actually some controllers available, march over to a Halo 3 station, and get a primal satisfaction as I practically tear the disc out. Some people coming over thinking I was playing Halo give off dejected cries of

"Awwwww..." and "Dammit..."

I put in Blazblue and fire it up. The people who were disappointed replaced their discontent with "Ooooooh...Blazblue..." and proceeded to check out another controller. I sit out for awhile watching people play. I can tell they're not very good. One Ragna player spams 6D the entire match. When people start turning on Beginner Mode, things start getting kinda interesting. Before I know it my station has more people than the three Halo stations combined...that's including spectators AND players mind you. Finally someone demands that I play seeing as I brought the game in and it doesn't feel right. I finally oblige them, tone down my play style, pick Ragna the Bloodedge, and proceed to play.

It goes mostly how I thought it would. I'm winning, throwing around here and there. Finally someone with a decent amount of skill comes along to play me with no Beginner Mode. I continue to keep myself in check, and I get destroyed. People clap after finally seeing me go down. We're on a Winner Stays In rotation with best two full matches out of three. They only need to beat me twice now. I chuckle as I get beaten. Some don't see the significance. Others eyes widen as they realize right then and there what that meant.

"What?" asks my opponent. I decide to be a bit of a smart ass.

"Now why did you have to go and do that?" I ask.

"What do you mean?"

"Now I have to stop playing nice."

.....The entire station freezes.....

The next round is a maelstrom of Hell's Fang, throws into Gauntlet Hades into Inferno Divider, and air combos ending with Ragna's new Belial Edge air finisher. As Ragna's Astral Finish goes off and the announcer yells "Perfect!" one of the people who had been trying to get me to play from the beginning goes "Wow, now I'm glad I didn't play you first." I decided to leave the newer players to their own games at this point. It wouldn't be fair for them to keep throwing themselves to me a the Winner stays in rotation and I wanted a real challenge. Satisfied with the fact that I've given Halo 3 a little competition I move over to the PS3 players and accept the fact they're gonna turn my ass into dust. And they do. I take solace in the fact that the tournament level players tell me that I have an excellent grasp of the basics and more than once I managed to surprises them (And in even once case myself) with combos they didn't see coming. They reassure me that its just practice and learning the other fighters from here and tell me about a place called Epic Gaming that's opening five minutes from where I live later this month. They tell me its will be a game store with consoles available for use and one of the goals of it is to create a real fighting game community in Gladstone and Milwaukee. I savor the thought for a few minutes before I decide to hit the dealers hall again.

This time I walk away with a Tohsaka Rin figure and a small scale replica of Saber's Excalibur. The Fate/Stay Night dork in me rejoices. I promise myself that when I take Rin out of the box later on I'd just look up the skirt, live with my shame for 15 seconds, then get over it and put her up on the shelf. I return to gaming to see an unscheduled tournament beginning: Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch. I come to learn this is quite possibly the most epic Doom 2 mod I have ever laid eyes on. Then I learned that its still just a demo and in reality there's not a drop of Doom anywhere in the game with the exception of the coding. I smile having found something to keep an eye on after Kumoricon ends. I go look over at the Speed Dating line. I find the ratio of guys to girls to be 5 to 1. I decide to go have an affair with the game room again. I later learn that Speed Dating ended up working in a system of 4 girls to a table and 4 guys to a table while the guys would swap out with another four. I take a grim solace in the fact that I was probably right to not go after all.

Day Three: September 6th.

With no ride and the convention only lasting until 5, I make the hard decision to not go to Day 3 for the first time ever. Instead I come here to tell you about the two days of 2010 where I don't feel like a social reject in the real world. I admit, my tastes are kinda dull and next year I vow to go to more panels. Hopefully next year's summary is more eventful.
 
He didn't give any footnotes, so he obviously plagarized it.
 
Professor, what's your opinion on this student's thesis?
 
Gee wiz, Chaos, it almost sounds like YOU DIDN'T HAVE ANY FUN AT ALL. Either that or you were trying to look down on humanity for a bit there which you shouldn't be doing SINCE YOU WERE ATTENDING A CON AHUEH HUEH HUEH HUEH
 
Never in my life will I go to an anime or game con. As a comic nerd, I will (ONE DAY) attend Comicon to submit my work at Marvel, DC, and Image/Top Cow, but that is for the future. And not for sheer nerdery, but more for... well sheer nerdery.
 
I think this student's paper lacks references and factual basis.
 
He also needs to build up on the body of the subject.

All we're hearing is hearsay and opinion.
 
He also needs to bring up other points of view. So far, it's only his.
 
Agreed. It also is not set up properly. He should know that it has to be 12 pt font Times New Roman and double spaced.
 
Where is his title page?

Where is his name?

Clearly it lacks preparation.
 
I'm tempted to give him a "F" because he's a slacker...But he did do some effort, so a D Negative works for me.