It's been a long time since I've done a blog, but now I have a lot on my mind that's worthy of being expressed in such a format. And what a better time to write a blog than after a great weekend in a tournament major? But this was no ordinary tournament experience for me, much less a bad experience. No. This Final Round tournament in this year has taught me a lesson that I couldn't accept for the longest time...
But first, I wanna talk about the pre-tourney preparations. This was probably one of the most complicated preparations I ever made for attending a tourney, as I had to somehow break even with the hotel fees while still having enough to cover other financial priorities this month. As a result, I began reserving for the Hilton. However, I had forgotten I had reserved for the La Quinta Inn resort several months prior at a cheaper price. Be that as it may, I spent the last several months making offers to people interested in lodging, with Bruce L (aka Nujin / Sho'nuff) as the initial definite, since he had no transportation of his own. Close to the week before the tourney, I canceled that reservation for the La Quinta Inn and went for the Hilton for the sake of everyone's convenience.
However, the previous fall after Anime Weekend Atlanta, my car got into an accident, and my hood and windshield were damaged. Since I was unable to pay out of pocket for repairs for a while and I was having trouble settling in someplace else to move in January, things were looking very grim. Despite this, I eventually got help and ultimately moved in with a friend of a co-worker, though the car repairs would have to wait. But this wouldn't deter me from trying to make things happen with Final Round 19, even if my car was in no shape for long travel.
Originally, my plan to get to FR19 was to have the current landlord drive to Gwinett County, pick up Bruce, then drop us over to the Hilton while the others meet us there. The landlord would then pick us up Sunday evening at 6PM, and everything would be golden. Unfortunately, due to an unforeseen personal conflict that had nothing to do with me, he was unable to do so, and I had no choice but to pick up Bruce in my damaged car, much to my disappointment. What's worse, I had to drive on a donut due to one of my tires being slashed apart, avoiding the freeway entirely.
Thankfully, my car was able to endure the ride to Bruce's house that Thursday night. Unfortunately, there was some miscommunication on Bruce's part, and I ended up having to camp someplace else until he was ready sometime after 6AM. Using the phone's GPS, we ventured on to the Hilton avoiding the freeway. Little did we know we ended up in another area entirely, and the phone was dead. So we camped at Burger King to charge the phone for the time being, while I killed time playing Final Fantasy IV on the PSP. Ultimately we were 2 hours behind schedule, and I was afraid Bruce would never get a chance to register as a spectator (though I personally wish he had actually competed this time).
We arrived sometime after 9:30 AM at last. However, our room was not ready yet. At the time, the following patrons were confirmed to be rooming with us for the event - Gregar6, Keyonno, Terrin, and BlackJDragon, DrowninMan was also planning to hang out at our room that day, but not to stay as he was taking the bus back and forth. While Bruce got his registration out of the way, I went to McDonalds as a means of temporary internet access in the hopes of finding out about the status of other people attending. Unfortunately, the connection was too slow, so I went back to the venue after loss of patience.
Around 11PM, Gregar, Keyonno, RiptheJacker, and DrowninMan arrived, along with Blackmoonrisingx and Onsen, who already had their room prepared for casuals. Seeing as Bruce's phone did not work because it was only able to via MagicJack, I had to physically look for him in order to keep him in the know on what was going on. After we all settled in our room, the gang went over to Blackmoonrisingx's room to play DOA casuals, while I waited for Bruce to arrive. During that time I had a conversation with RiptheJacker, keeping up with a lot of things that happened since the previous Final Round event. I would later meed JDE, BlankOctober, and DesjahRae for the first time in person, who would later dine with us Saturday evening.
Terrin would soon text me, telling me he was within the hotel. So I went to look for him as well as Bruce, who had yet to show at the time. I gave him the information on the room, and all that was left was BlackJDragon's arrival to the Hilton. I decided to tell Bruce the room numbers of where we might be at, and went on ahead to Blackmoonrisingx's room to play a few casuals, meeting BlizzagaDragon and Nykko in the process. Sometime later, BlackJDragon would text me to inform that he'd be arriving to the Hilton shortly, and with all the patrons accounted for I finally went to the Delta Credit Union further down the street to deposit the money collected. The hotel fees were finally behind me, and I could enjoy the rest of the weekend.
It wouldn't be long until everyone would want to get something to eat for the evening... so after about an hour or two of making up our minds, we went separate ways as far as eating is concerned. Bruce, Terrin, Bertell, Gregar and I decided to go to the Irish Bred Pub along with BlankOctober and his friends, and this is where things got interesting. We talked about all kinds of silly stuff spanning from Street Fighter 5's potential to be a better game than its current state, older fighting games, and even spun old insurance company mottos into fighting game lingo (Saving 15% or more on meter management, anyone?).
By the time we got back to our room, Keyonno was out like a light, and we played some more casuals before watching Project A-Ko, then Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. While we were talking about random stuff like Boku no Pico, Bruce then decided to grandstand and have his own little Eddie Murphy moment talking about a hilarious incident with a former friend of his who was showing off the anime. Needless to say, everyone was laughing their asses off, myself included. Be that as it may, we needed to get sufficient rest for the tourney Saturday morning.
Prepared for the tourney, we headed to the lobby together, only to find out it was being delayed due to the unforeseen hot mess of SF5 brackets consisting of nearly 1,000 players that was still going on since 4AM. Instead of 10AM as planned, the DOA tourney would start at 12PM. Despite SF5 being a hot mess full of unwarranted disqualifications, our tourney went smoothly enough. I was in the next-to-last pool, did my best, and unfortunately didn't break top 16, losing to both Kwiggle and HollowIchigo. But even though I was disappointed about how I did for a while, something hit me... I wasn't dwelling on it nearly as hard as I did the last few years.
After underperforming in tournaments I've attended, I've constantly beaten myself up over it, even going so far as to believe that the only way to have fun in a tournament is if you win or place respectably high. My friends would often tell me "go for the experience", but the fact that I was met with much negative backlash online and losing some friends over how I performed didn't help matters much, and I was led to believe that as long as I didn't do well, it will always be a bad experience for me. This year, I was proven wrong. I somehow still had fun, and there were plenty of people still willing to accept my company.
During the tourney I would meet HajinShinobi and BboyDragon again (the latter I haven't seen for two years in person, mind you), but for the first time ever, I would meet L0rdXavier, the Hitomi player I apparently introduced to the DOA community through a match or two in DOA Dimensions 5 years ago. I would also meet SkatanMilla, an international fighting game player who I haven't talked to since the DOA4 days that was involved with the now-defunct CGS and has since been focused on Street Fighter. I had planned to invite him to have dinner with my folks, but due to the stressful and lengthy nature of the SF5 brackets, it was nearly impossible to schedule without him missing his own bracket matches. Later after the tourney, I would formally meet DM Recluse in person, whereas in the past we only met online.
Originally, we had planned to go to Spondivits to get our evening grub on, but since it was a lengthy wait and we would most likely not be able to sit together as a group, we detoured to the Ruby Tuesday across the street. Here, we would congratulate and celebrate a toast to DrowninMan (our local GA player), Nykko, and HajinShinobi for making top 8 before the discussion turned into talking about ratchets (and clanks)... which is an inside joke you had to be there for to comprehend.
Afterward, we headed back to Blackmoonrisingx's room for more casuals, where I worked a little on some videos containing my archived music/BGM loops of the past. As far as casuals go, I ended up playing Onsen and DM Recluse for the most part, then I decided to head for the lobby area and see what was going on in the retro gaming area. Having already missed out on playing a retro-gaming tournament scheduled for 4PM, the least I could do was play Burnout 3 and WWF No Mercy, which thankfully was available. Sometime later, I decided to accompany Jyakotu and watch the remainder of the top 16 matches for TTT2 before ultimately heading back to my room to play more casuals with Gregar, Bertell, and Bruce, which pretty much wrapped up Saturday night.
That morning, we had to wrap things up and clean house for checkout, heading over to McDonald's shortly afterward and then taking a group picture of ourselves at the event. DrowninMan met up with L0rdXavier for warm-up casuals before top 8 matches started at 2PM, Keyonno and Gregar6 were leaving at noon, and Bruce and I killed time playing the arcade boards for Vampire Savior and Soul Calibur 2, respectively. During the top 8 matches, I tried to support DrowninMan in the hopes he could overcome Nykko's Leifang, but to no avail. Be that as it may, what he did was an accomplishment nonetheless. In the midst of the top 8 brackets, I found out my phone was dead again, and I had to step outside the room to charge it, 'cause it was the only way I could navigate Bruce safely back home. Therefore, I missed the rest of the top 8 matches, but was aware that HajinShinobi made top 3 at least.
The entirety of the DOA community congregated at the Finish Line Diner in the lower lobby, where Bruce would talk extensively with BlackmoonrisingX, Jyakotu, and myself later on with words of encouragement, as well as his plans for the future as far as the FGC is concerned.There was just one loose end before leaving the venue, and that was ensuring that Terrin and Bertell could get out of the hotel without paying a parking fee. Overall, I genuinely had fun this past weekend.
It took me four years to actually believe it, but after this past weekend, I finally convinced myself that going to a tournament is not about placing high nor winning just to feel "permitted" to have fun or to contribute and give back to the community I support. The experience I should've been going for had nothing to do with that, and the sooner I figured it out, the easier it was for me to open up to people and be myself. Granted, I wasn't able to talk to everyone, but I sure as hell was making much better progress than I was the last four years.
While the tournament I attended itself was the main event at hand, I wasn't nearly as stressed out about how I did compared to the last few I've been to. Yes, the disappointment was still there, but the other things that were going on outweighed the importance of the tourney.
I've known Bruce and Bertell for as long as I can remember, but the new faces I met and lodged with were great company to be around. Keyonno was calm and reserved, Terrin was a kindred spirit with an affinity for retro anime as much as I do, and Gregar was truly like the little brother I never had. I didn't believe he looked up to me as much as he does, much less inspire him, but it's true.
I have these guys to thank for letting my tourney experience be a fun one despite my own way of thinking. We talked a lot, played a lot, and laughed a lot. It's because of you guys that I can still go on playing DOA competitively and making it easier for me to ignore the toxic online drama I've unwittingly walked myself into. This is why I believe this Final Round was more than just another tournament for me. This is the tournament where I truly understand it's more about the experience than it is the social status gained through doing well in one. That being said, I don't feel obligated to prove myself to anyone anymore. I don't feel like I have to impress anyone anymore. There are plenty within the community that are just happy with me being myself. Now it's just a matter of me accepting that and moving on.
