It was alright.
I kid. It was so much more than that.
My weekend started with a visit to my parents in
Berkhamsted, which is about half an hour from London on the Euston line. I hadn't seen them in almost exactly a year so it was nice to spend some time with them, albeit briefly. My dad picked me up from the airport on Thursday and we had a nice day together on Friday before I headed down to the London Pub to see some friends of mine.
I've gotta say, I felt almost no nerves on my way there. I've never had a problem meeting people, but more than that, I knew everyone would be cool.
I suppose I was treating it more like a reunion than a first-time meeting, though I have to admit to being a bit starstruck in the same way Lex described earlier. I felt like I'd known everyone for ages but it was still surreal to be sitting around a table over some beers. Hopefully I didn't gawk too much.
I had a lot of fun keeping my "special guest" - Monster - a secret until everyone had shown up. Nobody managed to guess it, though Octo came closest when she suggested it might be a guy in a Cookie Monster outfit.
Bringing Mon to the event went exactly how I had hoped it would - he spent all of Friday and Saturday with us as we took turns carrying him around, posing with him, dancing with him, making him do some fairly inappropriate things, etc.
And of course, at the end of the evening celebration on Saturday, we presented him to Red (turns out that saying "RedFFWolf" as one syllable just comes out as "Red", who knew
) as a token of our appreciation, the TLS equivalent of a knighthood.
After a beer or five in the London Pub we popped to the next-door burger joint for some grub. Everyone else was raving about it but I thought it was just alright. Perhaps they were hungrier or drunker than I was. Though I was fairly drunk.
I skedaddled back to Euston and Berkhamsted after that, chatting to about half a dozen people on the train, off course, though not about Kupocon or TLS.
It would have been nice to stay out later but I needed a decent night's sleep ahead of the main event and I didn't want my parents to feel like I was just using their place as a hotel.
Most of us met up at again at about half past nine the following morning, though some people were already inside and Mage, bless her, wasn't feeling up to it. I picked up my wristbands and my loot bag and got my book signed by Mo before entering the Orphans Cradle, the main conference hall. As some of us had Anima tickets and some had Cactuars, we ended up sitting separately for the opening ceremony, which felt a bit silly but did give me a chance to call the Cactuar-holders plebs for the rest of the day.
At the ceremony, Alex, the event's lead organiser, said that we should expect it to feel like a huge birthday party, and it really did. I haven't been to many cons - only a couple of Beatles events in the UK and Finland - but I can't imagine that they're usually quite as
bonkers as this one was. Those of you who went to the Big Pom had some of the same events, but for everyone else, there were basically a bunch of games in the Event Square room that could have been taken straight out of a book of children's party ideas, except with a Final Fantasy twist to each one of them.
!
!
The other parts of the programme were a bit more sedate: panel discussions, interviews, and so on. I tried to catch as much of it as possible but I did miss the "Who's your daddy?" event with Ray Chase and Jon Campling because we went out to eat. We went to a surprisingly decent eatery in the middle of the Russell Square park, which I think was Kev's idea.
My personal highlights of the daytime event were the Cosplay Catwalk and the cosplay awards at the closing ceremony. It was just incredible seeing the effort that so many people had put in, and I'm glad we had at least one person in their ranks - good job, Joe.
I've never cosplayed in my life but I'd be totally down for coordinating Final Fantasy VII costumes with other TLSers next time around - and there's definitely going to be a next time.
On the theme of effort, this really felt like an event where the more you put in, the more you got out of it. I also had more fun than I reasonably should have doing a crappy Chocobo drawing and finding such redoubtable words as DOG and NAB in a Final Fantasy X-themed wordsearch with Joe, Kev and Lex.
I also really got into collecting the Tri-Pom cards and while the trading element was fun, it was my habit of talking to anyone and everyone that really paid off as at least two different people handed me a stack of cards and said "take whatever you want". I eventually passed on the favour once I had completed my collection. Everyone I spoke to there was positively lovely (and one or two of them were, again, bonkers) and you just know I plugged our website whenever possible. Lex also did a super job repping us at the evening event so let's hope we managed to persuade a couple of people to follow us on Twitter/Facebook/whatever, or better yet, to sign up here.
Speaking of the evening event, it was
insanely fun. After our pit-stop at a Greek restaurant across the street from the hotel (which, again, I enjoyed - we lucked into some really nice places without ever having to walk more than a few hundred metres), we headed back inside and the drinks began to flow. We started off with the quiz, which we won, because OF COURSE WE DID. Only by half a point out of 40 but still.
I don't buy into the "we won it because of X" stuff either; loads of people contributed. I'd love to see the full set of questions, answers and scores if they're available somewhere.
Then, uh, I did ballroom dancing with Joe. I feel like I have to repeat that: I did ballroom dancing with Joe and
I never, ever dance.
It was partly the alcohol but it was mostly just because I felt super comfortable around everyone and not worried in the slightest about making a fool of myself. I took on the traditionally female role (follow) with quite some enthuasiasm, according to Joe - I don't really remember - and I ended up having to teach him most of the moves as well, which probably explains why we were so crap. But who cares? It was hilarious. I also learnt how to the Manderville and that pretty much means I have to play XIV now.
And there was a conga line.
Multiple conga lines. We literally found an extra TLS member at the other side of the room (CrashOuch) and invited her over to sit with us. We snacked on Finnish, Norwegian and British sweets and chocolates, plus some cupcakes Red brought over (which is why we were Team Diabetes in the quiz). We presented him with Monster. Ray Chase photobombed our massive group shot. I'd go on but it all started to become a blur around that point...
What I do remember is some painful departures when all was said and done. Lic and Crash already had to leave us before we headed to the "after-party" in the hotel bar. Enrique said something about having to check up on Maisie and left around that time as well. Mage was sadly not feeling up to it but at least we got to see her the next day, and I think Mo left us at around that point as well (see: previous paragraph, last sentence). Everyone else carried on for at least an hour though. I literally couldn't even when Octo and then Fangu said their goodbyes. "Tired and emotional" is a phrase that comes to mind; I shed more than a few tears. Yop then went up to see Mage but the last few of us - Lex, Kev, Joe and I - went up to Red's room
for the orgy just for the craic. (See? I know Irish slang even if I can't understand a North Dublin accent!) I had said I wanted to stay up all night but by four AM I was on the verge of passing out so we called it a night after saying some heartfelt and probably very long-winded "thank you"s to Red and giving Lex a hug strong enough to prove Flex is canon... though I think Joe might want a word about that now.
Five hours later I was dragging myself out of bed for breakfast. I almost skipped it but I'm glad I didn't, because the concierge just happened to sit me down next to Jon Campling. Perhaps it was a coincidence or perhaps he saw my Kupocon t-shirt.
Five minutes later Ray Chase and Julia McIlvane showed up to join us and I couldn't quite believe my luck. I haven't even played XV or seen Kingsglaive but they were all just very nice people to chat with and I was delighted that Jon and Ray both said they'd visited our website on occasion. Yop, Mage and Ami joined us too. Yop said I was a bit shy around the "stars" but I don't think that was true; I just didn't want to bug them too much when they had their own actor-things to talk about and were presumably recovering, as we all were, from an exhausing day and night. They were, however, kind enough to give us an impromptu group photo before we headed back up to our hotel rooms and checked out.
After saying goodbye to Ami, I joined Yop and Mage at Café Nero for
a moment's rest. We were chatting but we were all very tired and there was about a two-minute period before Joe showed up when we all just stayed quiet, leant back in our seats and stared out the window. It was another beautiful day in London and we quickly headed back to Russell Square to take in the sunshine. After Kev joined us we went back to the café-cum-restaurant from the previous day and attempted to eat and drink off our hangovers (with little success in my case). Then we took Mage to Euston, where she and Joe bought mother's day chocolates before Mage hopped on a train back to Brum. The final/fab four had a couple of last beers, then Kev went back to his hostel and the other three of us headed for Victoria line and Victoria station itself, where we finally parted ways on the platform after Yop chatted to us about upgrading the forum software XD. I didn't cry then but I'm getting a bit misty-eyed thinking about it now.
My journey back to Finland was long but also rewarding. I made a friend at Heathrow after overhearing a woman sitting opposite me speak Finnish. Our seats were at opposite ends of the plane, however, so I had to chat to the people sitting around me instead. On my left were a couple of people who had been to the Kingdom Hearts concert - I think there were more of them sitting elsewhere on the plane as well. As I said in my earlier post, they hadn't heard of Kupocon so I gave them my commemorative ticket and told them to come visit our website. On my right was someone I recognised from my outbound flight who just happened to be taking the same bus home as me to the same bus stop as me. I got her number.
I was exhausted when I got back in but I couldn't sleep as long as people were still chatting about the event here, on Facebook, Twitter or Discord. It had just left me with such a wonderful feeling which I couldn't bring myself to let go of even for a few hours. Well, more than a few, because I slept like a baby last night.
Today, however, I am very much
the boy with the wrecked voice.
What an unbelievable, unforgettable experience. The organisers and volunteers of Kupocon deserve an enormous amount of credit and praise, and rest assured, I'll be sending a lot of it their way in the next day or two. But it was ultimately the attendees that made it so special. We have a great community - The Lifestream, of course, but also our extended community, all those "Friends of TLS" that we made, and pretty much everyone who likes Final Fantasy. As it turns out, if you like video games and stories of friendship, compassion and the triumph of good over evil, you're probably an Alright Person. My next post in this thread will be dedicated to some of those Alright People.
It's totally my bad for not finding any of y'all sooner, which is proper stupid of me cos I just made myself miss out on hugs. Would've been awesome to have spent more time with everyone AND definitely to have met you, Mage 
) No but we had great fun, it was what twats call 'great banter' but we're not twats so.... 
Oh and thanks for keeping me well fed, I think I ate 90% of the Daim eggs and forfty percent of the Kettle Chips 
and 
.
