>>78367872I forgot about lines, my con generally only has them before a panel starts and you can pretty much get into anywhere. I always would hit up artist alley and the vendor room because back then I didn't know how to import things from Japan myself. Con-adjacent blogpost below:
I'm a certified hikkineet that leaves my house maybe six times a year these days, but back then living on a diet of ramune, bawls now-discontinued tentacle grape flavor, kasugai gummies and gourmet pocky, you enter a liminal state of perpetual zoomies where anything is possible and also, permitted. Surrounded by a bunch of other socially awkward literal autists and actual friendly nerd-extroverts, it all sort of meshes together to create an atmosphere of unbridled glee where anything is possible, permitted, and encouraged.
I had a room, but often, I'd wind up spending the night with strangers turned friends I met at the con, or invite them back to my room if they didn't have a place, which was common (it wasn't a sex thing, I was also chaperoning my younger cousins half the time.) Once, we dropped in the nearby US Cellular and asked to buy a demo phone or something nonfunctional, and ultimately they gave us one for free. Swung back to the con plaza and in front of a cheering crowd my friend, cosplaying Izaya, reenacted the scene from Durarara where he stomps a cellphone while cackling to intimidate some troublemakers. We didn't plan this... it just came up organically while we were on the loose -- we saw the store and we knew what had to be done. Was it cringe in hindsight? Maybe! But in the moment, it was euphoric. Cringe rarely manifests in the third dimension... people are more accommodating in real life than they ever are online, I promise.
I don't know if it's still like that. I stopped being able to attend, due to life reasons, right around the time the Death Note and Black Butler cosplayers were supplanted by Homestucks. This was before the Neo-Puritans and tenderqueers really took root in fandom spaces to try and silence creative expression and any hint of sexuality. I imagine adults and minors hanging out in a shared space is now frowned upon even though it's normal and developmentally healthy for people to have these intergenerational friendships. In all my time at cons I only had a guy try to groom people once -- 30s guy and his friend were giving out sake to the under-18s and trying to invite people back to their room for a private drinking party -- and pretty much everyone immediately clocked what was up there. I think I'd get worn out trying to scurry around the city like I used to, I'm old now...
But having said all that, I still think it's worth it to go at least once, anons. Enjoy every moment with all you got. The world ends with you. If you want to enjoy life, expand your world. You gotta push your horizons out as far as they'll go. 