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Drew Linky

As¹ I grow to love traveling, I grow yet more hateful of travel difficulties. I was set to fly out to Washington DC on the 30th of July, a Tuesday, and arrive at Reagan airport about 8:30 PM. Instead my flight was outright canceled (a harrowing reminder of difficulties I experienced last year) and I had to rebook something fucking janky that got me to land in Baltimore after midnight on Wednesday instead. Realistically this was only a difference of four hours, and yet I could not help feeling robbed. A sufficient number of people had already gathered, and they took the one real group photo we have of the trip:

Bless them, though, three of them came up to grab me at the Baltimore airport: Misha, a friend I met at last year’s meetup named Tuck, with Mint driving, all came swingin’. I felt immensely guilty inconveniencing them with a difference of nearly an hour’s driving, but they insisted that it was an enjoyable time. I have to admit it was a feverish whiplash of the day’s travel disappointments, to suddenly be graced with friends who were consistently talking about different things all at the same time or would settle on something insane or hilarious or both (I’m not sure how many times Tuck said the word “cum” or some variation thereof on this trip, but it was more than I care to try and count).

I was forcibly exposed to Tuck’s pokemon team in some romhack, we listened to horrific music (later in the trip I would be exposed to someone singing all of the Shrek 2 soundtrack in the voice of Toad from the Mario games). We chatted about many sorts of wonderful bullshit all the way back to the airbnb, which was located in Fort Washington, Maryland.

As far as the so-called Otahouse is concerned, third time’s the charm. Two floors, two nice bathrooms, four bedrooms or so, and a couple good couches made ample room for sleeping and taking care of ourselves. The house was in generally great condition and had modern appliances including a crockpot, which was frustratingly missing from the first two meetups. Too bad this was the one year I didn’t bother to use it. There was also a magnetic dart board, a pool table, and an ACTUAL pool, all of which were pretty decent.

There was some weirdness with the temperature where it’d get too hot if everyone was upstairs and the basement was always frigid, but other than that it was a fine set up with really big TVs both upstairs and downstairs. We made liberal use of pretty much everything except for an exercise bike whose seat wouldn’t fix in place. We are pleased to report that there was no poop camper either, thank goodness.

People filtered in gradually throughout the week, with some people arriving as late as Thursday and Friday. The guest list was truly extraordinary this time around: Momocon had a little over a dozen people, Otacon last year had a few more, but this year we had in excess of 20 people show up. This is exciting but it definitely led to a more difficult time for anyone who bothered to try organizing things–the phrase “like herding cats” comes to mind–and anyone with a vehicle definitely did errands at one or several points.

I’ll talk more about that later. For now I will list visitors I had the chance to personally meet with on the trip. In no particular order, repeat guests include: myself, Mint, Misha, Bips, Tuck, Delux, Tay, Caledfwltch, HarpyHour, Latchky, Faeby, Nut, Ifnar, Kreuz, Wheals, and Livina (new name for an attendee from last year). Newcomers include: terminalTermagant, lupoCani, anankeAverted and her girlfriend, Dan, Reti, Lime. If I’m doing my math right this is a total of 23 people, and there were a few people like B3es that I did not get to meet again for various reasons, especially that he was helping to take care of his and Fae's baby.

I will describe people who were newcomers to the meetup in some small detail: I had the pleasure of meeting Lime in Texas early in 2023, though she was unable to come to the meetup that year. Something of a party animal, she ended up offering liberal use of her weed pen for various people to enjoy and would get rather animated whenever large gatherings occurred at Otahouse.

lupoCani comes to us from Scandinavia, with a very light and airy way of speaking, kind of proper (terminalTermagant: “My preferred description is "like an old-timey depiction of a distinguished professor". It's fitting.”). For the briefest second I mistook him as having a British accent of some sort (I am not very good at placing accents), and on Discord he is one of the rare examples of people speaking with proper grammar at all times. I admit with full shame that I thought he was another Scandinavian user from the HSD who I've seen pictures of. The user in question has a much darker complexion so I was fucking shocked when lupo arrived, to be frank.

terminalTermagant is also characterized as being Scandinavian even though this is a complete lie, as she is from California. This mixup might be due in part to the fact that she and lupo were practically attached at the hip during the meetup, and she also speaks with grammatical perfection. Very sardonic and is attached to the imagery of Rose Lalonde from Homestuck.

anankeAverted is another party person like Lime, although she was much more chill about the experience and hung out in the basement playing pool for much of the time she was around Otahouse. She and I will often cheer some event or another by timing a drink together on Discord, which makes it a shame that we weren’t really able to share one in real life aside from a single bit of soju at karaoke, but she had a 30 minute drive away from the Airbnb every night, so drinking was not really in the cards. A problem we will rectify in the future, if we’re lucky.

Dan was a totally unexpected visitor for me, but he proved to be very fun to be around. I only got to hang with him for one night but there was a fastness there I couldn’t have predicted given how little I know about him. Excitable and funny, I felt bad that I had no scarf prepared for him in advance. I’ll have to make it and send it to him at a later time.

Reti is a Canadian. Spit upon him. In seriousness I’ve known the guy for years and it was surreal getting to meet him in real life, I associate Reti with having an effortless sense of humor and on the few occasions I actually got to chat with him it was very nice. I kind of thought he would look like a twink to be honest. I think I told him that to his face when I was drunk, too, but I believe he took it in good humor. Didn't get to spend nearly enough time with him because he was on a fucking PLAYSTATION THE WHOLE TIME.

Proceeding then with my recollections of the meetup: Wednesday was a designated “chill” day without much to do–not even a badge pickup for the con, so not much reason to go to DC. I’ll let people describe their own individual experiences on each day and will be brief with my own. Mint and Misha brought a bunch of us out to Korean BBQ which I missed last year, and they were kind enough to treat me for my birthday (we were going to do this on Tuesday night until everything got fucked up).

We ended up getting multiple helpings of spicy beef bulgogi and I honestly could have kept going for fucking hours, it was delicious. Mint also got us all some mango bingsu, a shaved ice milk dessert, to share from a nearby bakery called Tous Les Jours.

They did the further kindness of getting me a cake from Costco and everyone sang happy birthday (also too late to do it the previous night when I arrived). I don’t really celebrate my birthday that much so it was very nice to get a reception like that. I carried around my little plushie of the Wayward Vagabond from Homestuck that I remembered to bring this time.

We also pushed ahead our cooking schedule so that Lime cooked some delicious enchiladas instead of doing it the next morning. The rest of the night was spent chatting amicably with people or playing pool, along with a hefty amount of drinking, which was enabled by a truly preposterous amount of all manner of liquors including TWO fifths of Wild Turkey 101. Mint decided to label everyone’s cups in order to avoid losing them or cross-contamination, and drew a little picture of their choice under their name. Here are a couple pictures of what we could find at the end of the trip:

There were so many of them that Mint had to take two panorama pictures of the full array. I don’t know what happened to mine, but I was at a loss for what to ask her to draw and I think at someone else’s goading I asked for Goku and Vegeta yaoi. Not sure what that says about me. The other cups are either inscrutable or pretty obvious, like Reti’s Snufkin avatar third from the right. My favorite was Misha’s, which was the “Uh oh, stinky!” orangutan meme from some years ago.

On this note I readily admit I made a mistake and got carried away. I enjoy drinking plenty, we had a notable amount of alcohol in the house for general use, and I get excited when I’m with a group of friends. If it had been just the vodka I think things would have been fine, but Livina also brought some elderflower liqueur which was surprisingly tasty. I never do actual shots but Lime–the horrific influence on me that she was–convinced me to do like two or three shots of this stuff. The rest of the night was a blur, around 11 or so we started watching the Nic Cage movie Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans but everything after the half hour mark is heavily warped in my memory. I think I regained proper cognizance around roughly 2 AM and promptly went to bed while Lime was playing random Homestuck AMVs and everyone else had already gone to sleep. I stumbled my way into bed in the chilly basement and was gone to the world.

Despite remembering to drink plenty of water, upon waking Thursday morning I had the absolute worst hangover I’ve had in years. Regrettably, this meant I had to skip out on going to the zoo like I had planned in favor of nursing my aching head. It was a surprisingly transient problem, a little ibuprofen and more water cleared it up within a few hours. After that I had to start cooking for the evening: I decided to make a shit ton of tomato basil chicken, almost six pounds worth of the stuff. I didn’t have enough soup and had to ask Misha to grab some more on their way back. At one point I thought I was going far over a reasonable amount of food but as people returned to Otahouse for the evening and I finished preparing dinner, almost everything was gone within 20 minutes. I’ll take this as a sign that people enjoyed the food.

Shortly after that we all took off for karaoke. Last year was the first time I’ve experienced such a thing and it was an incredible time, somehow Mint managed to book the exact same room we had last year. I didn’t describe the place itself back then, but the business is divided up so that there’s a lobby with fridges that you can freely purchase water, soju, and beer from (they are tacked directly onto the room charge). There is a hallway bedecked in random art of certain Marvel characters, such as Captain America in the men’s restroom, and a bunch of other bullshit I can’t recall now. This hallway forms a square connected at one corner to the lobby, with rooms all along the perimeter and the inside of the square. I would say in all there’s about 8 or 9 rooms of various sizes, and we got one of the biggest available.

Karaoke started off a bit slow, we brought along the maximum allowed 20 people which included anankeAverted and her partner, terminalTermagant, and lupoCani, but they left early in order to spend their first meeting talking rather than singing. As they opted for the airbnb, Faeby appeared for the first time to sit alongside Nut and Ifnar, and as incredible offerings of soju appeared on the karaoke table we started to get rowdier. I did Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond, which if I’m not mistaken I did last year as well, and by this point I was yelling full belt into the microphone. We finished off with Bohemian Rhapsody, ever-rousing, and then headed back to Otahouse to hang out some more. At this point the evening separated into two halves: people chatted and played video games upstairs, and people downstairs played pool. Much of what we did at Otahouse involved pool, both the billiards and swimming varieties.

Friday at the con was a whole thing, I will allow whoever wants to describe it and include pictures they like. While most people were out, I decided to just relax at the Airbnb and clean up a bit from the fracas the previous night, which helped me to feel more productive. After a bit of lunch, Nut and Ifnar came over to get in the pool, so Lime and I joined. After trying and failing to entice others like Bips to get in the pool, I got out after like an hour to chill in the house. Looots of chilling in the house, although at one point we managed to get a game of Yahtzee going with Nut’s set, a fond callback to last year when the power was out and we were sweating like Satan at church. People gradually filtered back from the con and more pool and other games were held.

The rotating groups consisted mostly of terminalTermagant, lupoCani, anankeAverted and her girlfriend, Tay, and a couple others. I remember at some point I taught everybody how to play a less common game for pool tables called Cutthroat, which is intended to be played with three players instead of two. I’ve tried to show this game to people a few times before and it never catches on for some reason, so after playing the first game I rotated out and hustled upstairs for some refreshments, expecting it to be abandoned in favor of regular ol’ billiards. Imagine my surprise when I came back downstairs like three hours later³ and they were still playing fucking Cutthroat. Oddly delightful for such a grim sounding game.

The next day being Saturday, most people went to bed at a more reasonable time so they would have plenty of energy. It was a sour note for me, because I was leaving later that day. This is the busiest time by far for the con so most people were there, and I didn’t get to offer a proper goodbye to hardly anyone. Nut and Ifnar were nice enough to take me to the zoo with them, and after a bit of actually getting out and walking, seeing all the animals, I actually felt a lot better and was resigned to my fate. The mood turned a bit sad again once they took me to the airport and I was fairly despondent getting through security and waiting for my flight. As the appointed time came, however, it would seem that the Travel Demon which has affixed itself to my back decided to have a laugh.

My flight back home was canceled, an event that I had the foresight to predict somehow. This was singlehandedly the closest to apoplexy I’ve come in years: even with getting in line before most other people, the wait took an hour and a half. I was next in position to see a customer service agent and it was dragging on forever, fifteen or twenty minutes probably. At one point a baby began to cry–not just that casual whining you hear when they’re hungry. This thing was angry and began to emit ear piercing shrieks that carried through the whole of the terminal. A second took to screaming as well, and somehow I think this broke my ability to filter noise because suddenly everything in the airport was as loud as everything else. People talking, a garbled announcement on the PA, on top of the children screeching. The earth itself beneath me began to tilt and I approached stark madness.

But then I got my flight rebooked for the next day, and I exited before murder could be committed. After some scrambling around on the metro and a ride back to Otahouse with Delux, I was incensed. I’ve never known anyone else to even have a canceled flight, and between this and last year I’ve had three, all due to weather problems. I decided to cool off with a shower and reflected that I was immensely grateful for the fact that Otahouse was still there. I decided to revel in the fact that I got a bit more time to spend with friends. Everyone home at that point, tired as they might be after the con, was gracious enough to let me choose a shitty movie to watch. I have developed a fascination with really awful movies, so I put on a fucking piece of crap Brazilian knock-off of Ratatoille called Ratatoing. It achieved the exact result of bafflingly, hilariously awful that I wanted, and we ended the night on a happy note.

I thought we would be done at that point so I went to my room, but after chatting in #general on the Homestuck Discord a bit more, people enticed me to come back upstairs. Wheals, Lime, Delux, HarpyHour, terminalTermagant, Latchky and I were all sat around the table and just chatting for like two and a half hours. tT had to go to the airport around 3:30 AM for an early morning flight, so Delux was taking her. They were both pounding coffee and the rest of us–already mostly late sleepers anyway–were doing a No Sleep Challenge until they left to help keep them motivated.

In the process, we had some of the most simple but earnest fun of the entire trip. We chatted about people we know collectively in the HSD, and at one point Harpy tried to get another user Zuup on a call, which just did not work somehow. Zuup could hear us, but their voice wouldn’t come through, so we took the opportunity to lightly mock them for being bad at technology. It was all good, earnest fun accentuated by that derangement which arrives with the witching hour.

Others may talk about this in their own sections but there seems to be a widening division between people who come to these gatherings for the con, versus those who come to hang out with friends. In the process of just sitting at a fucking table and talking with each other about stuff that was happening in real time in the HSD, there was a totally new dimension added to these interactions than if we had just been sending text messages to each other through the channel itself.

I think I may have talked about this in a previous meetup’s article, but I feel like this hearkens back to why most of us like Homestuck in the first place: it’s about friends trying to see each other and do stuff together in real life. These meetups are that idea manifested, at least for a few precious days.

But of course, it all ends after a while. Sunday rolled around, and with the precious little extra time afforded to me, Delux drove us to a grocery store nearby so we could grill up burgers and hot dogs. I haven’t done this in years myself but I feel like they turned out okay.

Again I figured we were making too much food, with something like a dozen hamburgers and hot dogs each, but it was all gone within five minutes of the main group returning home, a testament to the logistical difficulty of cooking for such a large group of people. We watched a few episodes of King of the Hill to commemorate the successful barbeque, and then it was time for me to get going. I was pleased to be able to secure a more proper goodbye with everybody at the airbnb, that factor by itself made the entire process feel so much more cathartic.

As with last year, Mint and Misha brought me to the airport (for the second time this visit). We exchanged some words on the nature of the meetup and how complex it was: I think the general consensus is that there were way too many people this time. Mint had already felt somewhat stressed out organizing last year, and there were far more people this time around, making it harder for both of them to enjoy themselves instead of doing logistics and ferrying people or things around. Misha and I differ on the con’s importance itself: he feels that it provides structure to the visit and gives it a purpose beyond simply hanging out, which he says would probably grow old quickly. I can understand his point, although I think that it’s ultimately an untested situation and would probably depend on the exact circumstances, such as the duration of the visit, how many people are involved, the variety of activities at our disposal, and so on.

I’ll let both of them explain their positions more if they so desire, but for my part I would be interested to see what happens if there was a meetup that was entirely HSD centric. That being said, the number of attendees is definitely an issue to be worked out. Above a certain number of people it stops being a meetup and becomes a convention in its own right, and that is a scary thought to consider. HSD Con is an idea that’s been floated before entirely as a joke, but each year it feels we’ve gotten closer to that idea. Honestly, I feel a little bad because the HSD members kind of overtook this meetup and has changed its nature from what it used to be before, which was more oriented around Mint’s friends. Perhaps a breakaway from that would be helpful if for no other reason than to simmer things down and make them more manageable. Orchestrating a gathering like this is not easy in the slightest.

In short, there is a lot of thinking and work to do about future meetups. I think the main thing people agree on is that what we got to do was fun, and it is still a fond regret of mine that we just do not have the spatial proximity or time that we need for this kind of thing. Perhaps we would grow bored of it, but for now I remain hungry for more.

HarpyHour

Putting faces to names is a truly surreal experience, and an absolute blast.

Thanks for the good times, the good drinks, the bad drinks, and the great company.

Miku count: 35

terminalTermagant

I suppose it would be fitting to first produce a general recollection that fills what gaps occur to me in Drew’s accounting, so I’ll start there.

lupoCani and I stayed at hotels for the duration, as was the default for the prodigious number of non-Otahouse attendees. We arrived late Monday at a cramped little hotel at the center of DC, shortly thereafter realized the logistical inconvenience when the Otahouse was not only outside the city proper but at the edge of reasonable public transportation range, and midway through with DeLux’s assistance switched to a hotel near the one in which he and Chasca were staying. The four of us saw some museums and had some meals over the first couple days, though this trailed off once the logistics grew tighter, especially around the convention. DeLux ended up being our default ride for more or less the whole meetup due to the proximity, which was very much appreciated. DC has mediocre public transit (decent metro, but buses seemed to more often than not simply fail to appear at all, much less run on time), and it is hardly pedestrian-friendly even without the overbearing heat.

The Otahouse was a good time even though I had limited interest in most of the endless parade of movies of varyingly legendary shittiness. Fortunately, while the upper level was the primary space containing the primary TV and accompanying couches as well as the kitchen and dining table, the lower level had only a pool table of interest, which quite effectively anchored the number of people present near the number of players. Because of that I tended toward spending time there, likely assisted by the relatively higher incidence of people I know better than most present. Cutthroat was a welcome suggestion that was instantly adopted as the default because four generally wasn’t quite enough for the number of people that wanted to be there and play pool, which suited me just fine because six was still well below too many. Various people cycled in and out, with lupoCani remaining with me consistently, Emily and Judy staying while they were there, and others varying in presence: Harpy frequently; Lime, Tay, and Drew present intermittently; and DeLux, Misha, and Livina at least once. The jokes about hitting and/or removing each other’s balls were continuous.

I’ll take this moment to note that I don’t play much pool, and may or may not have flubbed the somewhat difficult shot depicted in the photo. Appearances, however, are key. Under specific conditions, looking outrageously cool (including Hollywood-esque aiming pose and obliging camera-wielding-and-Dave-shades-and-jacket-yielding teammate) is a sufficient substitute for skill. As far as everyone is concerned -- especially people who happen to have a name that rhymes with “Lew Drinky”, who should not under any circumstance edit the relevant part of their article if they so happen to have the ability -- I was by far the sharpest bitch in the ‘house that night and absolutely sharked everyone at that table using actual geometry and shit.

The convention was reasonably fun, as conventions tend to be. We (the various permutations of con-goers that I was with, at least) spent most of our time wandering about, commenting on cosplayers and booths. lupoCani and I went to the Homestuck cosplay coordination on Saturday, which was sadly run much less efficiently and professionally than our point of reference, the Calibornia-organized one at SacAnime Winter (which to be fair seemed near-optimal for photoshoots). In the process we found one artist selling Homestuck keychains and prints, whereupon everyone converged to take their haul. I, being a paragon of moderation, acquired a single keychain.

Looking back, there are two parts of the meetup that stand out self-evidently as head and shoulders above the rest. Relevant factors and potential methods of organic generation for future meetups are less clear, but some commonalities might be drawn.

The first was after leaving karaoke and arriving at the Otahouse, with no particular activity set. The six of us present settled around the coffee table, and at my urging lupoCani deployed his bag of candy -- handpicked and personally couriered from an authentic generic Swedish grocery store, no less. Unfortunately, the joke about the candy having a disproportionate number of rats fell flat. The atmosphere was quite relaxed, and conversation flowed nicely. Part of it was that I knew these people (lupoCani, Harpy, Emily, DeLux, Judy) much better than the meetup average, and part of it was the general… space, for lack of a better term, that seemed to facilitate everything else. As should be clear, dissecting the specific reasons behind such an evasive quality is very difficult. This comfortable state of affairs evaporated the instant the main group walked into the front door and flooded the upper floor with noise.

The second, of course, was the long period of staying up until 3:30 on my last night, with DeLux, Harpy, Drew after he figured out he wasn’t going to sleep, and later a full host of people returning from clubbing. Drew summarizes it pretty well. We kicked off the evening proper with myself, Harpy, and DeLux standing out on the porch and musing about logistics while gazing idly upon the red-blooded American glory of the suburban driveway and adjacent curb all packed to capacity with cars. I’d presumed that I’d cover the distance to the airport in one way or another -- a rideshare, if nothing else -- and proceeded to put exactly no thought towards it until that moment, which I was starting to regret. The default option was DeLux driving me, but Harpy and I had hoped to spare him the additional driving after all he’d done for everyone that week, especially since Lat had planned to return with him to his hotel and presumably would return from clubbing at some point. Tragically, Harpy’s pickup truck was mired fully in the depths of the carport, courtesy of his arrival when everyone was at karaoke combined with the one-car width of the driveway, and most of the car owners needed to dig it out had gone to sleep fifteen minutes ago. Scheme in tatters, I withdrew to the kitchen for oversized coffee.

We sat around the dinner table, and the next few hours were mostly a blur fueled by that altered sense of humor one gets at that hour, most distinct with the various forms of deranged horseshit both in-person and on HSD. You’ve likely read about at least some of the highlights, like Zuup attempting to join us virtually and in a tragic display of anti-zoomer bigotry being outed as a technological illiterate and set upon like an antelope among hyenas. I’m reasonably certain that at one point I read aloud the flame-ass dick copypasta in full, though the details of why escape me. Then DeLux took me to the airport and it was all over.

I suppose that while I’m at it I should mention the Faygo tasting, held earlier Saturday evening. Nut had acquired a solid dozen or so flavors for the meetup, all practically untouched except for one that had been spiked with soju (eventually claimed by Lat, without contest), and so several of us decided that this opportunity could not go to waste. We methodically worked our way through all the flavors from Redpop (concentrated Red 40) to Creme Soda (faintly of cake, but mostly nothingness), and afterwards Mint attempted to record our opinions. The broad consensus was that perhaps one or two were unobjectionable or even decent soda, and the rest were varying levels of terrible.

The lesson to be taken here is that, while various smaller occasions may have a certain je ne sais quoi of tranquility, the most consistent way to make good memories with other people is to organize events which involve shared forms of entirely needless and self-inflicted suffering.

I’ll now proceed to talk about logistics and the future. Why include this section in a contribution to an article about the meetup itself? Because there will likely be a next year, or at least attempts at planning one, and these questions must be asked and answered before arrangements for it begin. With memories fresh, there’s no better time for everyone to start considering the issues that arise and how they might respond.

On the other hand this may be boring, from an inferior perspective. Those possessed of one such may take their leave.

The logistics were a constant hassle, especially around the convention. Cars were effectively necessary with insufficient public transportation and the constant heat and also in relatively short supply. This was relatively manageable in complexity while people were in specific groups going to specific activities together, but the potentially all-day nature of the convention meant that people tended to hitch a ride to arrive without setting a departure time, resulting in a scramble to arrange rides out through the latter half of the day as people lost interest at varying rates.

I’ve heard some talk about comparatively marginalizing the convention in part due to this issue, but it should be relatively simple to solve by annoying people into entering approximate intended arrival and departure times on a spreadsheet and working out who goes with whom at what time (and meeting up where) in advance. The group lunch, for example, would have been far more efficient if we’d considered the issue of a meal in advance and decided upon a time and place for all interested to convene, instead of waiting around for some number of other people to hopefully arrive. Similarly, general better planning (more clearly delineating in advance places to stay, activities and groups, etc.) should at least decrease the logistical burden. I must admit, though, that this is from the perspective of someone partial to the convention as both a broader anchor point in scheduling and an ironclad excuse to spend virtually the entire weekend in cosplay.

The other pertinent issue, so far as I’ve seen, is the focus of the meetup itself shifting from a specific convention-going friend group largely but not entirely on HSD to a broader set of HSD regulars, as well as growing too large for one Airbnb to be the effectively-sole gathering place. I personally noticed the former to some degree, in how I had a specific group I knew and preferred to talk with (though this did not mean I was solely interested in spending time with them, as opposed to others), while there were at least a few people I had hardly exchanged words with or knew beyond their name. Beyond that, though, it seems likely to be a fairly troublesome issue, because with no guarantee that interest in attending so much as levels off, we must either substantially gate attendance or fundamentally change the concept of the event.

The simple solution that many people have suggested is to have more meetups on smaller scales, which by virtue of saturation would reduce interest in the Otakon event and thereby remove the crowding issue. However, my intuition is that the network effect would weaken this; unless active efforts are made to split off different events with substantial distinct advantages, the default of saving effort to go to Otakon and meeting everyone would often be stronger than committing to a smaller group that various preferred people may not be interested in or able to go to.

The solution I conceived was to decentralize the event and focus on organization in ways that encourage crowding prevention. For example, instead of one large, often-overcrowded Airbnb with a number of smaller outlying places used almost entirely for sleeping and caching personal items, we use multiple large Airbnbs with fixed numbers of seats for meals at each, ensuring that all see a substantial amount of regular traffic and preventing any from easily becoming the one primary house everyone defaults to piling into while still allowing concurrent activities, moving between them, etc. It seems fairly complicated to organize, but I think the resultant self-sorting with practical intermixture is roughly the intent of these events if scaled up, and it keeps the general character of a house party (if a set of concurrent ones).

The other self-evident alternative is to rent a sufficiently large space, split into the possibilities of with or without beds. The former is more of an up-scaling, while the latter seems more in the direction of almost a small convention, which has been said once or twice but not seriously examined as a direction as far as I’m aware. I couldn’t possibly drag it out to a full paragraph on each, not without a lot more research and polling to understand the possibility spaces involved, but my impression is that the former is plausible despite having fewer rental options and more logistical tangles, while the latter may create more intractable issues around focus shift and social ties.

In hindsight, I would have been well served by liberal application of some form of text compression to summarize (dis)tributary trains of thought in a way that doesn’t leave my paragraphs riddled with chained clauses and parentheticals. However, the effective result would be footnotes of one variety or another, and those would be a pain to rewrite around and organize, and likely a comparably-sized pain for Drew to format into his page instead of just pasting in my ramble. I’m somewhat rhetorically advantaged, though, in that almost anyone still reading at this point has already digested a full serving of my insufferable horseshit, and is not allowed to retroactively take issue.

I’m sure I’ve neglected to cover at least some topics here (off the top of my head, the zoo was too much walking around in the sun to be worth it, and the relevant public transit was a nightmare), but the convenient part about only writing accompanying material is that I’m not the one in charge of ensuring the resulting collection produces a full and accurate account of the 2024 Otakon meetup.

lupoCani

By my count, this is my third time in the US in two years, my second appearance in SPAT (try to spot the first) and my first time attending the HSD meetup proper. As with everyone else I enjoyed meeting all the scores of not-quite-new people, but unlike everyone else a detailed account of my (our) travels has already been largely provided on my behalf, so I’ll recap only briefly.

My trip was relatively short, at five nights in DC, two of which were spent in the very centre and three at the periphery, vaguely in the direction of the Otahouse proper, where we spent the last three evenings and a half. The switch was improvised but retrospectively probably close to optimal. In the days leading up to the con, we were able to attend most of the standard city sights easily, while during the con itself we were close enough to hitch rides with the people whose kindness we depended upon to avoid the two-hour one-way public transit time.

One unfortunate development was that, of the people who had travelled to DC for this, there turned out to be a small subset wherein not everyone was on speaking terms with everyone else, as of after plane tickets were already booked and plans locked in. For those of us not stationed at the Otahouse and making an effort to hang out with everyone regardless, scheduling around this was undignified in principle but workable in practice, thanks in large part to that recurring kindness of our drivers, particularly deLux.

The con itself was to specification, a massive complex of concrete halls full of cosplayers squeezed in between stalls of vendors. Catching another homestuck and exchanging compliments — and, when I’m in the right outfit, cards — remains the highlight of the experience, though we weren’t able to find any panels that stood out as especially amusing, especially not compared to SacAnime, my only current frame of reference.

There was a “formal ball”, though travel times did not permit our attendance in spite of the sharpness of our outfits. Since a lot of the other con staples don’t especially catch my attention — I still haven’t bought from an artist’s stall — the halls grow dreary after a while, and missing the third day of the con for travel home was no great loss.

Other than this, the experience was great overall. I particularly enjoyed putting faces and names to the #homestuck regulars forming the loose lower-floor pool group, late as many of them were to arrive in the week. (I even got to tell Tay I appreciate their work in person.) Where there’s HSD branding it’s important to maintain a basic level of representation of active webcomic cosplayers.

Insofar as this SPAT entry and its personal codicils have a theme, it appears to be reflection on the future possibilities of the meetups, both with regards to size and focus. I’m personally feeling quite mercenary — the more people I get to meet per transatlantic trip, the better — and I’m definitely hoping there’s a workable way to scale the venture up rather than down.

Of course, some of the limits the meetups are fighting against were evident this year already, with lots of people in hotels away from the limited beds of the Otahouse itself, and long transit times when cars were not properly pooled. These might not actually be surmountable at greater meetup sizes, though I’m very curious as to what’s possible if a meetup were planned around transit availability from the beginning. As it was, buses only rarely showed up at all, but the metro was robust if you could get to it — which was easier said than done when the Otahouse was a 20-minute drive from the station. There’s also talk of doing meetups elsewhere in the US (but then, the DC metro is supposedly one the of the better ones) and of at least one on the old continent (unlikely to reach US-side attendance levels in any event) which I’m following with interest.

As for focus — the meetups before now have been led by a group of HSD regulars, but otherwise overlapping only partially with the server, branding in SPAT aside. Them being not particularly about the HSD (much less Homestuck generally) is consequently a feature more than a bug. This too is reflected in the location, picked for relative centrality — DC had a perfunctory HS photoshoot and individually wonderful cosplays, but nothing like the lasting organisational efforts of the Calibornians for Sacramento, to say nothing of the new, true Homestuck Mecca of the Requiem Cafe -04-13 party (assuming there are more of those).

Contemplating the idea of a real HSD Con, it’s tempting to also imagine holding it in a place that puts Homestuck front and centre — however infeasible it might be. For now, though, I’m happy to have attended one of the meetups as it was. Time, and the efforts of those organising, will tell what they might become.

thebadnut

Each year, these meetups seem to get more comfortable. I'm unsure whether this is a result of us having a little bit more time spent in person, or growing a little bit older and wiser, or both. Either way, each year has been better than the last. It feels more like meeting up with old friends that you've known for a while, even if some of those 'old friends' are brand new. A lot of this is, in my opinion, thanks to Mint and Misha, who have been the shepherds of the trip for the last couple years. After reading Linky's drafted recount of the trip, I have to agree that it feels like HSD-friend-meetup has possibly overtaken Mint and Misha being able to enjoy cons. My hope is that the group can step up and keep making these trips happen, without putting our shepherds up to so much trouble.

I think I spent the most time in the pool out of anyone on this trip, which is a shame because 1) I didn't pay for the main house and 2) it was a really nice pool lol. In the future, I demand chicken fights. I will drag the group away from the damn PlayStation if I have to.

Everyone who took an airplane for this trip had some combination of delays and/or cancellations. Meanwhile, those in motor vehicles arrived precisely on time and left when they meant to. In conclusion, for the next HSD Meetup, my passenger princess 👁️ and I will be roadtripping from [redacted] to [wherever it be held]. This route will necessitate either a trip up through Scandinavia, into the Arctic Circle, and down through Canada, or else a discovery of the Bering Strait Crossing. Let's get crackin' on the latter; maybe its massive scientific importance can earn us a reward that can fund next year.

Tay

Another year, another meetup. I didn’t come by for the full week this time, but meeting up with everyone again was really nice, as was seeing the new faces. I got to participate in Karaoke, do the Faygo taste test (the white one ended up the least revolting), and go to the full length of Otacon. Maybe I’ll do cosplay next year, who knows…

I spent a lot of time in the Gaming Hall at the con this year. It’s pretty great, they had a lot of classic arcade booths and games around, all set to free play. I’m not here to talk about the good games though.

This was the year where I finally got into fighting games. And while I wasn’t really expecting it, Otakon ended up being a great opportunity to play a lot of them that I really wouldn’t have tried otherwise. I also learned why I haven’t heard of them.

This wouldn’t be news to anyone familiar to the genre, but there are a lot of old fighting games which are just designed like ass. Unbalanced and broken characters. Bizarre hitboxes, simply weird mechanics, etcetera. Modern fighting games are generally more balanced. Anyway, I got to peer into a different era there… one that will forever change me…

STREET FIGHTER 6

Wait, this isn't dogshit.

Street Fighter 6 is what made me appreciate the genre, really for the first time. I picked it up closer to its release, but I only started regularly playing around the end of last year or so. There’s something about Zangief that just instantly clicked with me when I tried him. There’s a deeply satisfying quality to snapping people’s spine, perhaps.

Anyway, this was the first game I tried at Otakon, and I went 3 sets before someone took two rounds off me. Not too bad for a first showing, I think.

DOGSHIT RATING: it’s just a good game dude

BLAZBLUE: CALAMITY TRIGGER

Haha this one was so fucking stupid.

This one’s the first game in the series, and from what I hear, usually considered the worst? All I know is, I got a 15 hit combo by holding forward and mashing the circle button. This shit’s entertaining as hell. Playing this made me want to try the rest of the series, and honestly maybe my favorite game I tried at the con.

The catgirl and the inhuman blob were the most fun characters I tried here. Both of them are extremely fucking gimmicky. This might not be a coincidence.

DOGSHIT RATING: PEAK DOGSHIT.

NARUTO: ULTIMATE NINJA 2

They only had the Japanese copy of this game. I’ll be real, I was not able to follow what was going on at all.

It’s a pretty smash-bros-y kinda game, although it still has a health bar and a super meter. Lots of jumping around, lots of item usage, you get the idea. As someone who has absolutely no familiarity whatsoever with Naruto as a franchise, this was immensely chaotic. Shame I couldn’t figure out the controls until we were almost done with the game!

I would not be able to tell you the characters I enjoyed playing most. I have no idea what character is named what in Naruto, and well, the game is in Japanese. Every character has a command throw which is nice though. Is it still a command throw if it’s universal?

DOGSHIT RATING: MAYBE DOGSHIT

PLAYSTATION ALL-STARS BATTLE ROYALE

So, in 2012, Sony published this game as an answer to Smash Bros. A platform fighter that contains all of the iconic playstation characters (I recognized maybe half of them), what’s not to love?

Most of it. This game is fucking terrible.

See, at some point during development, the decision was apparently made so that the only moves that would let you score knockouts are supers which you have to build meter for. This might be the worst design decision I’ve seen in any fighting game, maybe ever. With this one change, suddenly almost the entirety of ANY character’s moveset is useless for anything except for building meter. Not even items are useful! All you care about is building meter! Now every character wholly relies on only 3 moves to actually win games.

This sucks and it’s only fun to play when you’re shitting on it. Would not try this again. The skeleton has a fun design though.

DOGSHIT RATING: EXTREMELY DOGSHIT

PERSONA 4 ARENA ULTIMAX

For some reason, they had this setup at like 240p. About halfway through the time we were trying it out a guy in a maid outfit stopped by and kicked everyone’s ass. Good experience on the whole.

This game has a system (that I later learned was wholesale ripped off from the one 2d JoJo fighting game) where you could summon personas as part of your kit. That didn’t come into play that often because I played as the big stuffed teddy bear and it doesn’t have a stand. Lots of cartoon attacks though.

This is fine, but I tried the aforementioned JoJo game a bit after the con and frankly that’s just plain better? This one feels a bit sloppy in comparison.

DOGSHIT RATING: KINDA DOGSHIT?

SOULCALIBUR V

They put Ezio in this! He’s complete ass. Pick a different character if you play this.

This was actually pretty fun, I haven’t had any experience with 3d fighting games before, but this was a nice introduction. All the moves in this feel extremely slow and weighty, which gives it an interesting contrast with the other games I’ve tried here.

Big fan of the lizard!

DOGSHIT RATING: NOT DOGSHIT

STREET FIGHTER 2

Look, I had to try this, it basically invented the genre.

It was interesting playing this, a lot of the additional systems and moves in later games are fully stripped back here down to the essentials. I know he’s by far considered the worst character in the game, but Zangief is still fun here and that’s all I cared about.

DOGSHIT RATING: I think if I called this dogshit I would be shot

VIRTUA FIGHTER 3

Yeah. I have no idea how to play this at all. I lost every round. Cool vibe though! Really fluid animations for the era.

DOGSHIT RATING: SKILL ISSUE

X-MEN: THE ARCADE GAME

Yeah I don’t know shit about beat-em ups. Does this count as a fighting game? I played as Colossus and kept blowing everyone up, it was very silly.

I would probably have to play more games in the genre to properly rate this but I’ll note that the others seemed to be fairly disappointed in the game. I thought it was ok…

DOGSHIT RATING: IDK

Misha: "We also played Jojo at the beach, peak dogshit⁴"

Livina

I don't get many opportunities to spend a long weekend getting trashed with a bunch of nerds, so I was very excited to come back to another Otakon meetup. And from the moment I walked in to see Drew wearing the shirt I gave him last year and getting made fun of for thinking Term was me, it didn't disappoint. I'd say overall we were a much more fragmented group than last year, between way more people sleeping elsewhere from Otahouse and lots of small groups going off on their own even outside the con, but in the end it worked out well enough for me to hang out with a good variety of people, including returnees from last year and a solid amount of newcomers.

Highlights include, once again, drunk karaoke (hardly anything in this world makes me feel as alive as when I get to headbang my ass off to The Rumbling and fully commit to it, though I maintain that karaoke is better suited later in the trip like it was last year because it fucked up my throat for a couple days), surpringly enough Here To Slay (HOW'S THAT FOR A MINUS ONE YOU FUCK), and discovering the generational masterwork that is Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (What a great groupwatch even if it doesn't seem like it at first-- I've never eaten my words so hard and so quickly after complaining about Nic Cage seeming tamer than usual at the beginning of the movie. *My* soul's still dancing). And the power even stayed on the whole time!

That being said I have to mention that the basement I slept in, making up about half the house's useable space, was fucking freezing. Genuinely an enormous temperature difference between the upstairs and downstairs, and we only noticed a thermostat on the ground floor. Nobody bothered trying anything more than that to fix it, myself included. And since I'd packed for August weather in a city built on a swamp, I actually had a harder time sleeping my first night there than I did in the A/C-less sweatbox of last year.

Hey, still much better than if I'd ended up in the poop camper. Eventually I figured out the trick to make it tolerable; grabbing like three or four fitted sheets from the laundry room and throwing them on top of my blanket. That being said, nearly everyone else seemed less bothered by the cold down there than me-- there was a pool table right next to my mattress which ended up being quite the popular hangout spot, and I know I missed out on some things just because sometimes I couldn't stand being down there for long periods of time. Definitely would've brought a jacket if I'd known it'd be like that. I still managed to put up with it occasionally; I'd never played Cutthroat before but I was pretty decent at it.

But at the end of the day I just like to complain. I'll deal with whatever temperature-related issues I need to to hang out with you guys. I rate Otahouse 2024 a full eight out of eight crazy nights, and though things look more up in the air for next year's meetup I really hope I get to see as many of you as I can in the future. Even if I'm still mad that nobody at the con said anything about my Hayasaka cosplay.

Caledfwlch

Another con in the books! I had an absolutely killer time this year, and am so, SO happy I decided to make the trek up from Florida. Thanks, Amtrak.

The last big meetup I was able to make was Momo in '22 where I was more of a guest appearance, mostly just getting in a quick hi to the handful of folks I saw and not much else. Given the far greater effort it took to make it to DC rather than Atlanta, I had the goal of making the most of the trip and getting to hang out with everyone as much as possible.

I'm extremely happy to say that this time around I was able to do just that, getting to spend time and shoot the shit with everyone to some degree. It was great getting to put more faces to names of friends I've known for years as well as getting to say "long time no see!" to everyone I met at Momo way back when. The added bonus of some new friends made combined with the absolute best con experience I've had in a while, travel jank and all, was really what solidified for me that these meetups are gonna be something I'll be trying to make yearly from here on out. All the goofy one-off moments from the zoo misadventures to whatever the hell the pimpy-son-opp-looking ratatouille knock-off was to all the various drives in and out of DC with everyone talking about whatevs, are all absolutely stellar memories for me.

Obligatory thanks again to everyone for the warm welcome backs, having me along for the ride, and being rad company for a couple days. Even bigger thanks as well as those who helped plan this whole deal, shuttled folks around, and helped/humored me stumbling around in my cosplay armor (lol). Already lookin' forward to the next one!

lime

drew linky knows how to party

anankeAverted

The convention was my first foray into a hsd meetup, or conventions in general. As such, I was quite excited for an opportunity to try out some cosplay. I arrived late thursday night and immediately unpacked and went over to the karaoke spot, it wasn't very much to mine or my Judys taste. So we, along with Rose and Lupo headed back to otahouse to hang out with Harpy. Term spent some time eating her rats, after some time people began to return and it was hectic once again. We retreated to the basement where we would proceed to play pool for the rest of the night, Doomed having found a new found fascination with batting at balls. The first night of the convention was rather fun, I went with Beyond Canon Roxy and Judy was godtier Jade. We spent most of the first day going through artist ally, after that we headed back to our place for a shower and an outfit change before meeting everyone at the otahouse for more pool. Saturday, was the final day we went to the convention. We wanted to see a bit of the attractions so we made sure to head to the zoo prior to that, seeing all the animals was very fun. Especially, the large variety of cats.

Judy stayed as godtier Jade and I dressed up as pesterquest Roxy. We spent most of Saturday doing the dealer hall, finished with that we went back exhausted and just slept it off. Finally, sunday we decided to go to the air and space museum which was largely closed for renovations. Still worth seeing, even if I didn't get to visit the gift shop.

MishaTarkus

Always a good time seeing everybody, meeting new faces and catching up with the old. Most of it was in good fun, and I had no bad experiences with anyone. The house was spacious and the pool was fantastic. Both types of pool. I am the King of Pool.

Highlight goes to karaoke and the con again, and this time we didn’t spend all the time making and correcting cosplay, so that was a much better time despite not feeling great health wise mid meetup a few times. Luckily turned out to be nothing serious (or contagious--I didn’t start the fire). Cosplay turned out excellent both days, and we had a great time as both Harry Dubois and Laios from Dungeon Meshi.

There was some chaos this year, like every year, even if I largely disagree with the reasons given by others - you simply cannot realistically plan for this amount of people with free agency. Meal and outing plans previously made would fly out the window because people would change their mind on the spot, and several others had what I can only describe as a general inertia to being moved unless pushed. Which isn’t really their fault - not everyone feels comfortable going at it on their own in the lackluster public transport of an American city - but reinforced my decision that meetups just need to be smaller and more focused.

Overall, while I enjoy meeting everyone for these events, there’s also a simple truth of people’s style and demeanor. I found myself more than once frustrated at being gawked at with an expectant solution to a problem I neither caused nor instigated because we were “the organizers”, and I can’t help but feel some might enjoy a more scripted, single-group event. Having escaped the purview of a “small friend meetup for a con”, I feel there’s enough space and agents in the community we formed to carry all types of expected events.

There’s a lot of people I’d like to thank. My wife Mint first and foremost, for sure. Tuck, Bips, Drew, Tay and Reti for being great friends as usual, making the entire event a blast to walk around. Caled for general cosplay company and being a great guy. Grace for everything - she always comes through and helps a lot on these events. Lime for helping with some of the cooking and being good company. Delux for driving literally everyone at some point and being a great lad. Lupo and Rose for being good sports about pool.

(if you aren’t on the above list I still appreciated you in a general way, probably.)

I also got to meet Ben, Fae, Beees and little faebeebaby for the first time! All were fantastic and one of the trip’s highlights for sure. Generally I find myself astounded by the quality this community has maintained and nurtured over the years and will always consider myself lucky for a chance to meet any of you. Whatever form the next meetup takes, I hope to see you there!

Mint

Pulling up to the AirBnB this year filled me with apprehension. Memories of last year’s consecutive disasters flashed in my head: the power outage, the death stairs, and the dreaded Poo Camper⁵ that had thankfully become more of a punchline than a bitter memory. Thankfully, however, we found the property to be free of any debris and grandmothers who really wanted to buy some plants from the front yard.

I learned my lesson from last year. Cosplays were prepared ahead of time, necessities were bought by the plenty before most people arrived, and drink cups were marked to save time washing dishes and prevent confusion. Even in the face of flight delays and cancellations, I found myself with a sense of calm that I hadn’t felt in a few months. Life had taken a severe downturn at the start of the new year with the loss of a very close loved one and some concerning health-related matters. I finally felt like myself again after spending time with everyone.

I couldn’t have imagined what began as a group of five friends meeting for the first time would have expanded to. Each year it seemed like we gathered more and more people, shifting from one friend group of mine to housing a large number of #general regulars in one space. Let your imagination take you where you want to with that one. Last year almost all of us stayed in the Torture House together with some people opting to stay in a hotel. This year, we were spread over several hotels and AirBnBs, and even the two-storey house we booked couldn’t seem to contain all of us.

There were a lot of logistical mishaps as are inevitable with meetups of this scale, with many challenges I didn’t foresee as one of the self-proclaimed organizers of the event. Transportation became an issue around the con, since Bips and I both had our own vehicles and planned to stay for a majority of the day there. There were differing priorities between all of us, with a minority of people planning to stay at the con longer than those who wanted to rest at the AirBnB. Rose offered detailed feedback regarding this, so I won’t rehash what she already communicated.

The con itself was a blast, as in it blasted a hole in my bank account that I have thankfully recovered from since. Without having to worry about our cosplays exploding for the most part, Misha and I were able to thoroughly enjoy myself. Misha became quite the popular figure to take pictures of because of his Harry DuBois cosplay, even more so after we found a prop revolver that he could shoot himself with in classic Harry fashion. We even had a few cosplayers from different fandoms approach us and give us adorable handmade items like Korok leaf keychains and clay Pokeball charms.

A few weeks after returning from Otakon and a meetup right after with WoC and a few other friends (including our beloved Canadian, Reti,) I spoke with Drew about how he thought of the convention. Groups this large face an inevitable split of interests. It seemed like the list of what could have been done better extended past what worked well. In the end, I decided to step down from organizing events of this scale, even though I still desire to attend conventions and spend time with everyone in one space, stuffy and uncomfortable as they may be.

Mopey self-reflection aside, here’s a list of notable memories I made this year:

• Listening to almost the entirety of the Epic musical Tuck had forced us to listen to on the way to pick up Drew from his delayed flight. The only song I remember from it sounds like the entrance theme of a WWE wrestler while POSEIDON keeps being chanted in the background.
• Trying, and failing, to shill a Pokemon visual novel that I’ve been playing lately. Rest in peace Drew Linky and White Baby the Pikachu.
• Screaming “BEHIND!” while helping Lime cook enchiladas. I really like The Bear.
• Witnessing the horror that is Crazy Eight Nights and Ratatoing. I don’t think I’ve laughed my ass off while sober that much in a hot minute.
• Watching a deer shit right in front of us in the Smithsonian Zoo in an abandoned exhibit. I don’t know why it was so funny, but we stayed near it for a solid three minutes while nature played out in front of us.
• Teaching B3es and Faeby’s baby about Sonadow on complete accident. Yes, she also learned how to say their names.
• Adding “You can’t say that, white baby,” as a bit.
• Karaoke, as always. Thankfully we brought earplugs this time! Like Livy said, it’s best to save it towards the end of the meet up.

1 lime: Add footer
DrewLinky: a footer of what
Makin: Add footer
terminalTermagant: a footer of what

Makin

2 in this picture drew and bips look like a fighter and his dark version in a fighting game character select screen

3 note that it's implied drew ate refreshements for three hours

4 fuck you hftf is great

5 elden ring intro

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