Back from KupoCon

With EuroFurence being now permanently out of my reach (I simply don't sell well enough) and ArenaNet skipping out on Gamescom, I only had the chance to visit a single convention this year: tenth Kupocon, Pomex, taking place in London.

I'm really a pretty terrible Final Fantasy fan. I fell in love with X two decades ago (I could only play it when the HD remaster came out more than a dozen years later), I really like the universally-hated Spirits Within movie (which I did not preface with an FF title for a reason...) but all the other games in the series are something I generally steer clear from under the "It's just not for me" clause. But nearly two years ago, my personal patron king and one of my closest friends, Kreittis, kinda abducted me to shareplay his copy of Final Fantasy XV with me and... uh... things happened. Very looooong and tangled story short, here I am now, attending a Final Fantasy-specific convention with an undiluted love for XV, nostalgia and love for X and some warmth towards XIV's sprawling world.

And it was, without a doubt, the best weekend I've had this year.

I got myself quite an embarassing amount of loot:

... and two XIV class keychains that I consistently forget to add to photos.

Specifically of note are the XV fanbook by Alassa, my protegé who's now also so deep in XV that I wouldn't find her with a canary and spelunking equipment (and who made the best damn fanbook in this fandom, biased as I admittedly am), and the 15-month calendar made specifically for KupoCon by my favorite FF artist, which will now spend roughly 3 years convincing people passing through my room that it's March 2021 for quite obvious reasons.

Speaking of said favorite artist: I expanded my ever-growing hoard of artwork by CrimsonSun, whom I finally met in person.

Crim's art has been one of the key things that cemented me into the XV fandom over a year ago. The style and the execution are something I constantly marvel at, be it in loose, emotion-driven sketches or polished and perfected full illustrations. And now, I also know that lurking behind the pretty art is an astonishingly kind, open and friendly person who's so much fun to chat and trade weird and brilliant headcanons with. Honestly, if you can spare a coin and like what you see here, go support them, I guarantee you won't regret it.

While Crim attending as a community guest was the one major thing that pushed me into getting tickets for Pomex, I was damn lucky with the celebrity guests as well. Being an XV person, getting 5 out of 9 guest names to be related to that particular game was a treat and it gave me an excuse to finally attend some guest panels, which I didn't do at cons for quite a few years. AND I got my personal fave from XIV, Rhauban, as a bonus on top.

I'm generally not a signature collector. I only ever got myself two in my entire convention-going career – one from Chris Claremont, because I grew up reading and loving his X-Men books, and another one from Emily Rose (Elena Fischer from Uncharted), so I thought I wasn't going to use the tokens and I originally went just after Adrien Bouchet, because Drautos is still the best first impression I've had in the game (and second favorite character after Ardyn), but... well...

... things snowballed a bit. (I swear I hadn't had to spell out my name this many times since I signed up for a drama club when I was like twelve or something.)

Mostly because literally all of the guests were incredibly kind people who were just fun to talk to. I admitted to Nick Boulton I left his Hawke in the Fade (once!) and we had a good chat about Dragon Age (still can't believe his table was empty, but he's a damn cool guy I'd love to hang out with some more), I shared kind words with Adam Croasdell who's still as much an Ignis as he was when the game was still in production, we had some laughs with Ray Chase & his fiancé Julia McIlvane over Ray signing his own corpse ("Why did Adam write 'Godspeed' like this is a good thing!?") and I've finally met the three legendary Glaives (Adrian Bouchet, Will Bowden and Liam Mulvey) who ran around in full costume. They all later went on to the afterparty to dance and fool around with the community and hopefully were having at least half the fun they were able to pass onto the people around them. (Even though I'm now armed with the information that the Glaive captain Drautos can't play the kazoo to save his life and I'm frankly not sure what to do with it.)

But it's not all just about meeting the celebrities. I also met a couple cosplaying an absolutely amazing Luna & Nyx, who made my day, week and probably the entire month, I (accidentally) bumped into the fattest chocobo I've ever seen who went on to secure a(n entirely justified) record victory in the cosplay contest, I had the world's most civil free-for-all over a stash of TriPom cards and generally had the time of my life. I'm used to chill atmosphere from furry conventions, but the amount of child-like glee and wonder at having 1000 people who share your one hobby and are incredibly civil about it regardless of whether you like the same niche in it as they do was truly something to behold.

In short, some 20 months after I got dragged back into this universe, I've met absolutely amazing people through it, and I've been able to take part in stories that inspired, moved and influenced me. While Final Fantasy XV got me through some shitty times in my life, KupoCon proved it's not just a one-time fluke and that I'll certainly want to dive back into Eos, Spira and Eorzea when I'll can.

So buckle up, guys, it's gonna be a ride.