Why would someone like me go to DragonCon? I’m a shy person. The words that I write often feel foreign to me when I speak them. Last week I emerged from my cave. I came to DragonCon with the intention of putting myself way out of my comfort zone. I wanted to be in the thick of it. I didn’t want to view it from afar. I wanted to live it, breathe it, gag on it, and know it. Every congoer has their own little story to tell. Here's how it all happened from my perspective, the way that I remember it.
For four days, vampires, cops, futuristic soldiers, pirates, mermaids, naughty schoolgirls, hackers, punks, Goths, and people in geeky T-shirts have surrounded me. People sprawled on the floor. People passed out in chairs, people going on nothing but adrenaline. At all hours of the night, there was screaming and laughing, moaning, and sometimes, I couldn’t tell the difference. Ah, but enough about the suite that I was sleeping in. Let me tell you about the world’s largest Science Fiction and Fantasy convention.
Good Morning, Atlanta.
Friday still felt like Thursday. I had been awake since one-thirty that morning. I had been mentally preparing myself for the things that I was about to see. As the subway barreled through the tunnel, I reminded myself to keep an open mind. Tired, and sweating beneath my “proper girl” oxford and sweater cardigan ensemble, I was just another miserable human packed in a car like livestock. Someone asked me if I was vacationing in Atlanta. I told them that I was there for DragonCon. They did a double-take on me and asked what I was most interested in. "Computer Gaming, mainly online." I replied. I grasped my suitcase tightly with one hand, and held onto the safety bar.
Someone yelled, “So are we!” and that’s when I saw her. She was my first sight of DragonCon, she had big milky thighs spilling out of a miniskirt. Her long black hair was in pigtails. She wore a “Bad Kitty” backpack, and was lugging two large suitcases and something that resembled giant wings. As the train slammed to a halt, her platform heels slid from beneath her. Within a second, she was a Bad Kitty hairy-panties and luggage whirlwind, as she crashed into a guy in a sweaty gray T-shirt whose only luggage as a half-eaten can of Pringles lodged beneath one of his armpits. She looked embarrassed and slightly indignant. He looked happy. A street person jumped on and stood up in the middle of the train as he hollered, “Good morning Atlanta!”
Moments later when I emerged from the underground labyrinth of the Atlanta public rail system, I stood for a moment and took in my surroundings. I used my cell phone to call my old EverQuest gaming buddy Kevin, who had convinced me to come down here. I had been standing around for about ten minutes and was starting to feel self-conscious. I called Kevin again. I heard a cell phone ring behind me, and someone said “Hello!” and at the same time, someone with the exact same voice said, “Hello” behind me. I spun around. My first sight of Kevin was that of a tall bear of a guy with a beard. He played a dwarf in EverQuest, but the guys standing next to him looked like dwarves in comparison. He got a big hug from me.
On the way up to the room, we didn’t speak much. Kevin said he was tired and apologized for his lack of chitter-chatter. I explained that this was fine. When we got to the room, I met a few people who would be staying there. I was told that Voltaire’s assistant would be staying there too, and the room had been filled with his merchandise the night before. Voltaire. Wasn’t he like, a dead writer from centuries past? No, Voltaire, as in the singer and the author of, Oh My Goth! What is Goth? and other books which touch on the Goth culture with a bit of satire and parody. I tried to take a nap but I was too excited; people were coming and going. It wasn't my usual type of environment. My eyes wandered over to the bar.
So did my feet.
On the main convention floor, the scent of cloves, body paint, sweat, and patchouli invaded my senses. The sound thousands of people talking all at once. Everyone wanders, and mills about. There were the few who strode through the crowd with a gait of purpose, expertly stepping around the wanderers and millers.
There are several types of people who go to DragonCon.
- Celebrities
- Authors
- Merchants who sell stuff we don’t need, but want anyway.
- The Cosplayers.
- The Emo, Victorian, and Punk Goths
- The comic book nerds.
- The T.V. show nerds.
- People who sit on the floor in the hallways.
- The people like me who have come to gawk, and suddenly realize how much fun they are having by just wandering around and talking to strange people that they have never met before.
Fashion Tip: If you ever want to dress up for DragonCon but don't want to build an elaborate or expensive costume, just wear a plaid skirt and a white shirt with a black bra underneath it. No, you don’t have to be a woman. Naughty schoolgirls and pirates ruled the weekend.
That night, I met people that I had gamed with over the years. It’s nice to put a real face with a name. Eventually the day had caught up with me, and I grew tired. I found a bed, and went to sleep.
Let me rephrase that. I found a bed, and I tried to sleep. I’d start to drift off, and there would be a knock at the door. Then I’d get up and answer it. They people in the hallway would apologize for waking me up, and then they would come in to drink and socialize. I’d drift off to sleep, and the door knocking would commence again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Eventually I didn’t even really notice. I’d see these black-cloaked shadows moving about the room silently and began to dream that I was in a Vincent Price movie. I had to get used to this. I was going to have three more days. Some of these lovely people party hard, and they don’t sleep until the sun comes up. If we have one thing in common, it’s the fact that we all had really pasty skin.
Fifty Fake Redheads, and a Robot.
The next day, I went down to the hotel restaurant and had breakfast with Kevin before his panel on World of Warcraft. The panel was packed, and they had to turn about 100 or so people away. I had a front row seat. People were bitching about the reduction of raids from 40 people down to 25 and how guilds would soon break up, and how the sky was falling.
After the panel, it turned out that they needed more panelists for a gaming panel the next day. Kevin volunteered me. On one hand, I’m shy, and the thought of talking in front of a hundred people twice, scared me. On the other hand, it’s about online games. How bad can it be?
Back up in the room, some of my roommates were suiting up. Barrien is from
Nightmare Armor Studios, and he said it took about six months to make this costume (seen left) and they look pretty sweet. One of my very fun and generous roommates offered the use of her costumes to me, should I wish to partake in the act of cosplaying. It sure sounded like an adventure, so I decided to take a look at her inventory. Outside of wandering into Fredericks Of Hollywood, I never saw so many leather corsets and waist cinches in my life. This as a fun girl to know, and the fact that she was offering to share her awesome clothes with me, made me feel pretty welcome.
I learned that many cosplayers have not just one costume, but several. With such an opportunity as this, I tried on a black vinyl dress that some holes cut out in the chest area. It exposed the bottom halves of my breasts. After almost expressing my concern to her that I might have wrecked her costume, I learned that this was on purpose. I told her that it was lovely, but I was self conscious, so I passed.
|  |
| "Stupid, stupid, stupid..." |
That night, it was more drinking, more partying. The Dawn Look-Alike contest was held. Dawn is a comic book character who is a creation of Joseph Michael Lisner. Someone had to explain this to me.
This is what Dawn looks like, and sometimes this is what a
Dawn Contestant looks like. There were over 50 Dawn look-alikes wandering around the convention that weekend, but it’s hard to notice them when it’s intermingled with storm troopers and furries. Now was their chance to shine and walk across the stage as Anthony Daniels (the guy who played C3PO in Star Wars) announced the details of their costumes. My favorite contestants were the transvestites, and the very large woman who ran out in the hospital gown with the open back and jumped up and down exposing her… vast quantities of assets. After having seen this, nothing fazed me.
We wandered over to the World of Warcraft gathering, which was actually more like a panel. I peered inside. It was a lot of, “Who plays on Emerald Dream?” or “Who plays a rogue?” The room was small. The mood was tame. I hung outside with some pals and we convinced a guy in Argent Dawn to run down the isle in yelling, “Leeeeeerroooy MmmmJenkinnnnssss!” which elicited some cheers. A few of us held a mini-discussion in a little corner outside of the room.
We met a cool guy at the gathering, and we brought him back to our suite. I mixed everyone some drinks from our bar, and we talked some more about gaming and about the DragonCon. Mom, if you're reading this and are worried that I spent a weekend with a bunch of strange people in a hotel suite, don't worry... everything is fine.
They're from the internet!
Gaming Panels
Sunday, I woke up and helped a girl named Ariel glue seashells onto her breasts. It’s not everyday that I can start out a paragraph like that. Erm, but about those gaming panels... I ended up speaking at two of them. I bombarded Kevin with questions beforehand. "What is a panel for? What is my job as a panelist?" And so on. I learned that a panel is to hold a discussion. Panelists should not dominate a conversation; rather reflect what the people in the audience are saying and provide some information, perhaps answer questions. But the bottom line is that it’s not about us. It’s about the gamers sitting below the dais. My fellow panelists were Kevin, Trevor Legg, an avid MMO gamer, Brian Green who runs Meridian 59, and
Mark Crump who is a contributing writer to many publications, including PC Gamer Magazine.
The panels were, ”Is EverQuest Dead?” and “Casual Gaming” and I enjoyed doing both of them, but I had a hard time getting into the groove of “Is EverQuest Dead?” at first. Every panelist had his or her own style. Kevin liked to keep the talk flowing and pretty much was the traffic director for the discussion. Brian Green liked to start out each answer with, “Well in my game, Meridian 59...” and for a while there, I’d start thinking I was in a Meridian 59 panel. Things would slow things down. Kevin would pick up the ball again and call on another person to speak. Mark Crump offered insight into the gaming industry’s views on these subjects, as well as from the standpoint of being a gamer himself.
Is it really dead?
In the Is EverQuest Dead? Panel, Kevin asked the audience how many people played EverQuest. A few hands went up. He asked how many people used to play EverQuest. A ton of hands went up. How many people would play EQ1 again they went in and completely redid the graphics and questing system to be on par with World of Warcraft and other games today? A ton of hands went up again. It might have been an interesting thing for a Sony representative to see. However, there were no representatives from Sony, nor Blizzard in attendance.
What is a casual gamer?
Before the casual gaming panel, I never truly realized how many definitions of “casual gamer” that people have. My view is a lot different from the view that the gaming industry has. It's a lot different than what many of my fellow gamers have. To the industry, and many gamers, casual gaming is defined by the amount of time spent playing the game. If you're below a certain amount of hours per week, you are a casual gamer. To me, it's defined by the way you spend your time while in the game and what's important to you. I have seen a lot of self-proclaimed casual gamers bitch about DKP systems and loot upgrades. To me, that's like picturing Rebecca from the Sunnybrook farm walking into a saloon and demanding a whiskey on the rocks. Oh well.
As nervous as I was, there is something kind of cool about being in a room filled with people who play the same games as you, or play different ones and can give you an idea of what their PvP and PvE is like.
After the last panel was completed, a few of us strolled the vendor rooms. The walk of fame has got to be the most humiliating thing for a has-been celebrity. You sit behind a table and people walk past and stare at you like you’re in a zoo. Sometimes, they come up and ask for a photo or an autograph. Other times, they stare at you from afar. If you’re Anthony Daniels, you have a winding line that goes out of the room, chock filled with people just waiting to get their photo taken with you. This area of the convention is very packed in and humid with people breathing, people talking, and people sweating.
Sunday night after dinner, we caught some of the NeverWinter Nights 2 demo, but I did not stay for the entire thing. Later on, I realized that this was my last night in Atlanta and my last night with my friends. Instead of going to the pirate party, I hung out in the room with my roommates. We drank. We laughed. John made some really strong drinks that were awesome, but had the room spinning. I don't remember much except for this
short film that I took. Eventually, people started to drift off to their sleeping places. I didn’t sleep, but I put my head down and reflected on my weekend. In a few hours, I’d be flying back. My alarm went off.
It was time to go.
Exodus.
It was now Monday morning. My hands were shaking, and my eyes were twitching. My throat was scratchy. I hadn’t slept (much) since Thursday. I’d been living on apple vodka and Pomegranate juice, and energy drinks. The time had come to say goodbye. “Thanks for putting up with me” I said as I hugged Kevin.
“Are you kidding me? It’s been a pleasure.”
I descended into the subway system escalator. I was alone in my thoughts until I heard a voice shout, “Hey, I enjoyed your panel!”
I looked at a guy in a red fedora that was going up the opposite way. I remembered him. He had thought that all servers should run on Linux. “Thanks for coming to it!” I yelled back.
“You leaving already?”
“I've got to get back to Minneapolis.”
“Have a safe trip!” his voice faded off.
And there we have it. I did it. I lived through it. I learned about people. I learned about myself, and some of the things that I thought were my limits, it turns out that they weren’t. Thank you, to everyone who was a part of my first DragonCon experience.
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