I haven't been posting much. My work hours were increased and I've been too depressed and low energy to draw or piddle around on most websites. Anyway: I was at Sonic Expo yesterday, it was fun while it lasted, but was kind of weird compared to the other two cons this year.

• I only got a day pass for Saturday. Three day tickets were expensive, I figured Saturday was the busiest so I was okay with paying more, but that didn't go as planned... (read more)
• The pro is that the convention center is nearby, the con is it's a lot smaller compared to hotels in Dallas. Sheraton and Hyatt could easily fit 7-8k+ people, but there were "only" 2k people who arrived at noon Saturday. But a lot of things were delayed because of the crowd's size. The line for the vendor's hall was so long everyone had to form OUTSIDE the building. And the catering was in the vendor's hall, so I had to suck that up if I wanted lunch...
• Speaking of catering, um, I'm glad I brought my credit card because it was TFF/TFS all over again! Strange overpriced fast food, a slice of pizza was $8 but at least it was big... The Hyatt at least had food trucks outside.
• It was a lot less social compared to the other cons. There were a lot of cosplayers and whatnot, but outside a few exchanges I had in the game room, most people were occupied with their own group. Especially in the game room and lobby...
• Slime Garden was a demo I played in the game room. It's open access right now and a Chao garden-alike with a fishing mini game and island exploration to get items. Very clever, it doesn't deny it's "Chao garden as its own game" but still has its own ideas. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3332460/My_Slime_Garden/
• Dono's Tale was also there and I completely fell in love with it. It's such a lovely and brilliant homage to various platform games, I can't wait for the Switch port. My short description doesn't do it justice, I had no caffiene today. If you like Yoshi's Island, Kirby, Megaman, etc. DOWNLOAD THIS DEMO NOW!!!! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1812250/Donos_Tale/
• The "big" crowd and small building led to a lot of panels getting delayed or rearranged.
• Case in point, a panel about Sonic and neurodivergence was postponed an hour later, and the crowd was so long it was delayed by 15 minutes LMFAO. The panel was what I expected, but the Q&A near the end brought up a good conversation about both parenting autistic children and the pros and cons of self-diagnosis. The nuance of the latter is why I've walked back on online communication and prefer IRL stuff, I can imagine a panel where two people say "self-dx is valid" but two others say "as a professional, can be dangerous due to overlapping symptoms and can lead to misdiagnosing yourself" would lead to a screaming and name calling online lol.
• Another panel was said to be at 8PM on the schedule was moved up an hour. It appeared to a Discord server's movie stream but live lol? We mainly watched random Sonic cartoon episodes and that iconic McDonalds commercial from Pakistan with the horrible 3D models. I forgot how legitimately funny AOSTH is, we were watching that one episode where the Amazon woman tries to marry Robotnik and Mama Robotnik crashes it. Sonic Boom also seems.... interesting? It looks weird but the short episode with the stalker tapir was almost equally funny in a modern way. (It's over a decade old... you know what I mean....)
• Vendor's hall truly did not disappoint, and there was some merch for other popular series there. But I ran into an issue that a lot of artists are still on Twitter... I started using Bsky after TFF to have my foot in a semi-mainstream space, but the Sonic Expo hashtag on there was really quiet. I really don't want to remake Twitter even if it's for following/reposting/DM only, I don't have the energy to maintain so many accounts at once. (See: The fact I'm x-posting this to 3 other sites...)
• I did commission ChibiJenHen, I will post it.... When I have the energy to....
• My biggest complaint is the concert and actual tickets are separate. I get a smaller venue needs their money, so I'm fine with VIPs and donators getting priority and one day passes. My issue is everything shuts down when the concert started at 8PM, and if you didn't buy separate tickets, you're fucked. I figured I could play in the game room while it's going, but I was told it opens back up from 10PM-1AM... basically nothing to do for a few hours. Most people in the lobby were hanging out among themselves, so it got awkward and I left by then. Normally I get depressed the day or week after a con, but it happened an hour later... Not sure if I'll return next year unless this set up changes.
• I ran out of photo data before I left. I really need to bring offline entertainment like a Switch lol. Also I need to have a badge by Harmonycon in Februrary.