It has been a tense year. So I am sure many people wanting the vacation like escape from Dragon-con that they has been waiting all year for, found themselves unable to detach from the real world around them and submerse themselves back into the fantasy of their escape. Some reached further back into child like places to to his as there were more costumes that paid homage to things from child hood, like Scooby Doo, Strawberry Shortcake, Sesame Street and Disney. Wonder Woman who is celebrating her 75th anniversary, beat out Harley Quinn this year, when if comes to female costumes. Even the Danger Woman panel had some tension where she would not acknowledge the death of Bill Paxton in her homage to the recently deceased called "Victim of a Lie , Victim of Goodbye", she did give Glen Campbell props when it thought of him but , when asked said Bill Pxton was a stranger. Dragon-con ca be a cruising spot for nerds, that as not even in as full effect as past years. The drinking did not have as celebratory a tone and since I don't drink and was looking at that fishbowl from the outside, it appeared more like self medication.
Perhaps geek culture has been given less to celebrate.Game of Thrones is the only thing to celebrate at the moment. Hollywood churns out abysmal dreck like the "Dark Tower" which bombed as it should have and the escape that we want is now relegated to Netflix, who allows Marvel to push their political agenda through the lack luster Defenders show. I never over the course of the weekend heard a single person sing the praises of that show. All of this tensions and depression was notice when I arrived at the Westin on Friday and heard someone talking to an someone I know who works at the hotel about a incident involving someone getting violent when trying to cram into an elevator . So people showed up with high tensions. After that I went to panel on the Skeptics Track about Science vs Religion. The panel revolved around some comments Bill O Riley had made, so we could not escape the outside world. We then hit a filking panel that we could not take more than about twenty minutes of. Then the rest of the day was spent watching costumes in the Hyatt, we posted up by the escalators where I ran into the bulk of my friends that I saw at the Con this weekend. Talked to a girl who was Wednesday Addams Ash mash up called Ash Wednesday and then hit my A.A meeting in the basement of the Hyatt. The next night was met with a more serious tone as people began to notice the kind of drinking going on was less playful than years before.
After noting most of the cosplays were taking on a androgynous flip with gender bending bringing almost as many men playing Wonder Woman as women, why were they not Simon Williams, if they wanted to be Wonder man? So we went to a panel on fashion in comics, which was better than I expected. My days are already beginning to blur This was followed by a panel about making bad guys in comics. Another panel where the terrible flop that is the Dark Tower was ignored. Instead we designed a villain for a wild west comic.This was more fun than not.We then encountered more drunks at the bar this time it was earlier around 5 or so. Side not restaurants had raised prices more and made only partial menus. Danger woman offered needed laughs and the Marriot that night proved to be a unpleasant place to be, Some guy in a back pack who was intentionally running into people, made a mistake of running into me and just bounced off me, I didn't really notice what happened til my friend pointed it out.
By Sunday it felt like Con-drop had already hit, I spent the first half of the day by myself. I went to paranormal panels this day with the "Malevolent Entities" panel being the most enjoyable. Wandered the hotels a bit ended up at a meeting. Went to one each night if the con. There did seem to be less people. One friend did not return after Saturday. From Saturday on I tried spending most of my time in the Westin and Sheraton. The crowds that were there seemed to be clustered in the same places, the Hilton made the outside deck a party spot which was somewhat fun as it allowed the organized cosplay at platform. Monday I it more comics panels and even the retailers admitted Marvel fucked themselves which was the affirmation I needed. Overall I can say I found Frolicon to be a much better time than Dragon-con this year. I think the programming was lacking and over all mood tense and guarded, perhaps this is just a reflection of what happens when you put pople who only interact through social media together and we are just not seeing the long term side effects, whatever the case it was unwelcome and generally a downer.
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